2 Chinese, Taiwanese in Sual human trafficking case freed

RECRUITMENT MAGNET Sual town in Pangasinan abounds with fish farms like these in Baquien Bay which become magnets for jobless men and boys being recruited to work in the fish cages. WILLIE LOMIBAO

DAGUPAN CITY — Two Chinese men and a Taiwanese national, who were accused of human trafficking and child abuse for employing underage workers at their fish pens in Sual town, have been freed after the prosecutor’s office dismissed the complaints against them.

Taiwanese Tse-Yu Tai, manager of Star Mega Seahorse Corp., which operated several cages in Cabalitian Bay, and couple Chi Chang Ho and Xi Ping Ho, both company supervisors, were arrested after law enforcers rescued 44 workers, including five children, on July 19.

But the three foreigners were released on July 25 by the provincial prosecutor’s office in Lingayen town, which dismissed the complaint.

Left behind

The prosecutor ruled that the operation conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole), was “tantamount to unreasonable search and seizure.”

Mark Genesis Caceres, an NBI agent who took part in the operation, said four more workers were left behind when they made the rescue. He said they had filed a motion for reconsideration, asserting that the DSWD was empowered under the law to conduct rescue operations of “minors in distress.”

He also said the Dole would file separate cases against the company for allegedly violating labor laws.

The operation was conducted after one of the children got hold of a mobile phone in early July and told his mother in Tacloban City that he wanted to go home, according to Caceres.

The child’s mother informed the DSWD Eastern Visayas office, which coordinated with the DSWD in the Ilocos region.

Of the 44 rescued workers, 24 were from Tacloban, seven from Oas town in Albay province, and the rest were from Dagami and Palo towns in Leyte province, said Clarivel Banzuela, chief of the community-based services section of the DSWD Ilocos office.

Struck by lightning

Banzuela said workers had complained about “inhumane” treatment. She said: “They would wake up at 4 a.m. and carry bags of feeds to the boats that would take them to the cages. They were allowed to return to their sleeping quarters in the shore at early evening.”

The workers complained that some cage workers were struck by lightning because they were not allowed to leave the cages even during thunderstorms.

Banzuela said workers also complained that they were not being fed well as their recruiter had promised.

One of the trafficked workers, a minor, said in a previous report that victims were promised P5,000 a month in pay.

But the conditions were hellish in the fish farm they were made to work in, said the minor.

Recruiter

The boy said workers were made to toil from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. without breaks or leaves.

Workers, the boy added, were made to sleep in quarters that looked like pigsties and given foul-smelling food.

One of the workers’ recruiters was identified as Eduard Moreno, who went to Barangay 96 in Tacloban City, to recruit for the fish farm.

The recruits boarded vans bearing the logo of a broadcast network to prevent these from being flagged down by authorities.

When they arrived in Sual, the group realized that they had been deceived, according to the boy.

They were told that they would get only P3,500 a month. At least P200 was also deducted from their pay for each absence.

“We could not afford to get sick because P200 would be
deducted from our already measly compensation,” said Eladio Velasco, 20, one of the recruits.

The Chinese nationals who owned the fish farm knew only rudimentary Filipino and their limited vocabulary included cuss words that they hurled at workers.

Velasco said the Chinese bosses were cruel to the workers and would often curse them for no reason at all.

Food consisted mostly of fish and vegetables that smelled bad.

They could not escape because they were being monitored by men armed with rifles. —Gabriel Cardinoza