60 workers rescued from plantation recruiters

BACOLOD CITY—At least 60 workers, seven of them minors, were rescued from alleged illegal recruiters who were to bring them to a sugar plantation in Batangas.

Authorities stopped the transport of the workers at the Banago Wharf here last Friday.

They were rescued in a joint operation by the Department of Labor and Employment and police, according to Crispin Dannug Jr., acting regional director of Dole.

Dannug identified the alleged illegal recruiters as Alicia Deocampo, 55, of Batangas City; Teotimo Apolo, 54, and Rolando Somibig, both of Escalante City, Negros Occidental.

The three had been detained at a police station here after failing to present licenses to recruit workers. Authorities launched the rescue operation following a tip from a concerned resident of Escalante City.

Investigators said the workers were to be deployed to a sugar plantation owned by a certain Narciso Equia in Calaca, Batangas.

The suspects, however, denied the allegations and said they recruited only 37, not 60, workers. Three were minors, the suspects admitted.

Deocampo said the workers weren’t forced to accept employment in the plantation and her task was just to pick them up. She said she was unaware of the need for a recruitment permit from Dole.

Somibig, who served as Deocampo’s contact in Negros, said he had worked for Eguia for three years.

He said the workers, most of them his neighbors, wanted to go with him to Batangas because it could give them a stable source of income like him.

Dannug said the recruitment violated a Dole rule on employing migratory workers. Dole, he said, mandates recruiters to first secure a permit from Dole before recruiting migratory workers so authorities could monitor the movement of the workers from their hometowns to their work sites and back.

Police are preparing to file illegal recruitment charges against the three suspects.