A TASK force of young Davao lawyers has submitted affidavits and pertinent documents of 14 Dabawenyo victims of large-scale illegal recruitment, if not syndicated estafa, involving millions of pesos.
This was bared by Davao City Karlo S. Bello, member of a legal team tasked by Vice President Jejomar Binay to help jobseekers from Mindanao who paid up more than P1 million each to an illegal manpower placement company for non-existent jobs in the United Kingdom.
Binay was earlier approached for assistance by numerous alleged victims in his capacity as concurrent presidential assistant on overseas Filipino workers affairs. The vice president in turn sought the help of his fellow lawyer members of the Alpha Phi Omega Fraternity to assist in the documentation of the complaints.
One of the ranking APO frat members is former justice secretary Silvestre H. Bello III, father of Councilor Kaloy Bello. The elder Bello is part of the national task force investigating the recruitment agency for allegedly defrauding hundreds if not thousands of young jobseekers the past three years.
Councilor Bello also bared that government authorities and the task force are looking into the participation of a number of personalities who are from Davao City and other parts of Mindanao in the illegal job recruitment scheme.
The younger Bello said work of the legal team continues as several more “victims” from Mindanao have approached them and told their stories.
Earlier, former justice secretary Bello said that more than 100 jobseekers in the Davao region have been allegedly swindled by an
“international” placement company whose owner, a British national, has already left the country.
The victimized Dabawenyos were among thousands of applicants who reportedly paid placement fees and incidental expenses of from P150,000 to as high as P1.2 million each for a study-and-work program in the United Kingdom.
The recruitment agency, called the International Student Advisors (ISA) 4U, Inc., is reportedly owned by one Philip Leonard, a Britisher married to a Filipina.
The victims were made to believe by glib-tongued ISA 4U recruiters that the study-and-work program would allow them to get good-paying jobs in Great Britain, only to discover later that the jobs were non-existent.
One victim from Iloilo City, a certain Billy Dogoldogol, said in his affidavit that he paid P500,000 for a student visa, only to be told that his application had been denied. When he asked for a refund, Dogoldogol was given the run-around by officers of the recruitment agency.
Councilor Bello said some local “suspects” helped the syndicate arrange sham seminars on job placements in local hotels and acted as the syndicate’s local conduits.
“I think there are more than 400 victims of this illegal recruiter. Ang gikolekta usually di magbaba og P400,000 and many of the cvictims in Davao have completed the payments but were not deployed to the UK. This month we’ll be meeting with the lawyers assigned to the other areas of the Philippines where there are more complainants.
“There are 14 complainants from Davao who were able to submit their documents. There are more than 30 of them in the Philippines, Sad to say, daghan pa ang wala ka apil sa mga miting. The others are reluctant to file because of different issues. Naay mga financial issues. Others are not willing to undergo the long and tedious legal procedures involved.
Aside from Kaloy Bello, the other lawyers involved in documenting the cases are Cyril Yap, Councilor Leah Librado, and January Fay Resonar.
