MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Justice (DoJ) has asked a Quezon City judge to issue arrest warrants for a professional basketball coach and five other people believed to be involved in an illegal recruitment scam.

In a three-page urgent motion dated June 17, State Prosecutor Ramon Chito Mendoza directed Judge Jose Paneda of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 220 to immediately order the arrest of Kenneth Duremdes and company as he pointed out that it has been more than a month since the case against them was filed in court.

Duremdes, who coaches the Coca-Cola Tigers in the Philippine Basketball Association, was charged with large scale illegal recruitment and estafa along with Emerflor Manginsay Jr., Corazon Panganiban, Voicel Gutierrez, Alfredo Briones and Librado Anacay last month.

“The prosecution strongly believes that in deference to the procedurally sound court practices and mindful of the need to place all the accused into the immediate custody of the law so as not to frustrate the ends of justice, the urgency of the issuance of warrant of arrest is in order,” Mendoza said in his motion.

He added, “More than 30 days have elapsed from the time of the filing of criminal information against the accused for syndicated/large scale illegal recruitment and estafa, and yet, to date, no warrant of arrest has been issued against the said accused.”

Mendoza also said that records of the complaint have been forwarded to the court for evaluation, and that a warrant was in order.

The charges against the six were based on a complaint filed by four of their alleged victims with the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

Arnold Bau, Lene Grace Talatag, Rosemarie Manalo, and Hannah June Nalcot claimed that between December 2006 and 2007, the respondents promised them jobs as caregivers in the United States and Canada with a monthly salary of $1,000.

In exchange, the victims said they each paid between P75,000 and P113,800 in placement and processing fees although nothing came out of their job applications.

Earlier this year, Mendoza approved the filing of the charges against Duremdes and company after finding probable cause against them.

“There is no question that the six respondents, acting in conspiracy with each other, have committed acts of recruitment and placement against the victims for having given the impression that they had the power to send the complainants to America and Canada for employment,” he said.

Duremdes and Manginsay, however, asked the state prosecutor to reverse his recommendation, saying they were not able to participate in the preliminary investigation of the case filed against them.

On June 4, the DoJ junked their motion for reconsideration.