People v. Lapis

Facts:

Complainants are husband and wife, residents of Baguio City, selling fish and vegetables in a rented stall in said City. They closed shop for reasons of attending to the demands of the promised jobs for them in Japan. Both categorically identified Jane Am-amlao (or Jean Am-amlaw), their co-vendor in Baguio City Market, as the person who approached them and assured them that she knew a legal recruiter, an ex-POEA employee, who had the capacity to send them both abroad. Jane Am-amlaw (or Am-amlaw for brevity) recruited complainants and personally accompanied them on March 24, 1998 to meet the person she earlier referred to, or Aida de Leon (or Alma de Leon), in the latters apartment at No. 7280 J. Victor St., Pio del Pilar, Makati.

Angel Mateo was introduced as their contact person for Japan-bound workers. In said meeting, Mateo represented himself as having the capacity to send people abroad and showed complainants various documents to convince them of his legitimate recruitment operations. Complainants handed Mateo P15,000.00 which Mateo required them to pay for their processing fees.

Complainants were able to positively identify Mateo in court as the contact person of de Leon and who collected from them, from March 24, 1998 to June 23, 1998, sums of money for the alleged necessary expenses relative to the promised jobs awaiting them in Japan in the total amount of P158,600.00.Complainants likewise categorically identified Mateo as the same person whose authorization was needed for the recovery of P40,000.00 of the P45,000.00 they gave Mateo who in turn deposited it to Sampaguita Travel Agency under his own name.

Complainants likewise positively identified appellant Vicenta Vicky Lapis (Lapis for brevity) in Court as the person introduced to them by Mateo as his wife on April 29, 1998 at Maxs Restaurant in Makati when Lapis required complainants to pay P49,240.00 for their plane tickets and travel taxes. Lapis is, in fact, only the live-in partner of Mateo. Lapis told complainants that she was helping to speed up the process[ing] of their papers relative to the promised jobs awaiting them in Japan. Complainants met again Lapis, who was with Mateo on May 2, 1998 at the Makati Restaurant, annex of Maxs Restaurant, when Lapis assured them that Mateo could really send them abroad and even wrote in a piece of paper appellants address at Phase I, Lot 14, Blk 13 Mary Cris Subd., Imus, Cavite. On May 17, 1998, complainants once more met Lapis who was with Mateo, de Leon and de Leons husband in Baguio City at the house of Priscilla Marreos daughter. Both appellants updated complainant as to the status of their paper and reiterated their promise that complainants would soon be leaving for Japan, then collected from complainants unreceipted amount of P20,000.00. Complainants met again with Lapis, who was again with Mateo, on May 19, 1998 at the Sampaguita Travel Agency. Mateo extracted P45,000.00 from complainants and deposited it under his name. On that occasion, Perpetua wanted to ask from the Sampaguita Travel Agencys employees where to pay the P45,000.00 but failed to do so because Lapis took her attention away from asking while Mateo asked Melchor to hand over to him said sum.

Priscilla Marreo is the sister of Melchor who loaned complainants part of the P158,000.00 which appellants extracted from complainant[s]. Thus, she made herself present in most of the meetings between complainants and appellants together with the two other accused where she witnessed the assurances and promises made by appellants relative to complainants immediate departure for Japan and their corresponding demands of sums of money. The testimony of Priscilla underscored the testimony of complainants showing that Am-amlaw, de Leon, Lapis and Mateo indeed corroborated and confederated in the commission of illegal recruitment.

The trial court held that the evidence for the prosecution sufficiently established the criminal liability of appellants for the crimes charged.

Issues:

I The court a quo gravely erred in finding accused-appellants guilty beyond reasonable doubt of violations of Republic Act No. 8042 (Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995) committed by a syndicate and Article 315 paragraph 2(a) of the Revised Penal Code.

II The court a quo gravely erred in finding accused-appellant Vicenta Medina Lapis guilty beyond reasonable doubt of illegal recruitment and estafa.

III The court a quo gravely erred in finding accused-appellants guilty beyond reasonable doubt of illegal recruitment committed by a syndicate.

IV The court a quo gravely erred in finding accused-appellants guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of estafa defined and penalized under Article 315 par. 2(a) of the Revised Penal Code as amended.

Held:

First Issue: Illegal recruitment is committed when these two elements concur: (1) the offenders have no valid license or authority required by law to enable them to lawfully engage in the recruitment and placement of workers, and (2) the offenders undertake any activity within the meaning of recruitment and placement defined in Article 13(b) or any prohibited practices enumerated in Article 34 of the Labor Code.

Under Article 13(b), recruitment and placement refers to any act of canvassing, enlisting, contracting, transporting, utilizing, hiring or procuring workers[;] and includes referrals, contract services, promising or advertising for employment, locally or abroad, whether for profit or not. In the simplest terms, illegal recruitment is committed by persons who, without authority from the government, give the impression that they have the power to send workers abroad for employment purposes.

The case records reveal that appellants did in fact engage in recruitment and placement activities by promising complainants employment in Japan. Undisputed is the fact that the former did not have any valid authority or license to engage in recruitment and placement activities. Moreover, the pieces of testimonial and documentary evidence presented by the prosecution clearly show that, in consideration of their promise of foreign employment, they indeed received various amounts of money from complainants totalling P158,600.

Where appellants made misrepresentations concerning their purported power and authority to recruit for overseas employment, and in the process, collected from complainants various amounts in the guise of placement fees, the former clearly committed acts constitutive of illegal recruitment.  In fact, this Court held that illegal recruiters need not even expressly represent themselves to the victims as persons who have the ability to send workers abroad. It is enough that these recruiters give the impression that they have the ability to enlist workers for job placement abroad in order to induce the latter to tender payment of fees.

Section 6 of RA 8042, otherwise known as the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, provides that illegal recruitment shall be considered an offense involving economic sabotage when it is committed by a syndicate or carried out by a group of three or more persons conspiring and confederating with one another.

In several cases, illegal recruitment has been deemed committed by a syndicate if carried out by a group of three or more persons conspiring and/or confederating with each other in carrying out any unlawful or illegal transaction, enterprise or scheme defined under Article 38(b) of the Labor Code.

In this case, it cannot be denied that all four (4) accused -- Jane Am-amlaw, Aida de Leon, Angel Mateo and Vicenta Medina Lapis participated in a network of deception. Verily, the active involvement of each in the various phases of the recruitment scam formed part of a series of machinations. Their scheme was to lure complainants to Manila and to divest them of their hard-earned money on the pretext of guaranteed employment abroad. The prosecution evidence shows that complainants were convinced by Jane Am-amlaw to go to Manila to meet someone who could find employment for them abroad. Upon reaching the city, they were introduced to Aida de Leon and Angel Mateo; Mateo claimed to have the contacts, the resources and the capacity to employ them overseas. After that initial meeting, complainants made several payments to him, supposedly for the processing requirements of their deployment to Japan. Later on, they met Vicenta Medina Lapis who volunteered her assistance in the processing of their employment papers and assured them that Mateo could easily send them abroad.

The individual actuations of all four (4) accused were directed at a singular criminal purpose -- to delude complainants into believing that they would be employed abroad. The nature and the extent of the formers interactions among themselves as well as with the latter clearly show unity of action towards a common undertaking. Certainly, complainants would not have gone to Manila to meet Aida de Leon and Angel Mateo without the prodding of Am-amlaw. They would not have made various payments for their travel and employment papers without the fraudulent representations of Mateo De Leon. Moreover, they would not have complied with further instructions and demands of Mateo without the repeated assurances made by Lapis.

Even assuming that the individual acts of the accused were not necessarily indispensable to the commission of the offense, conspiracy would have still been present. Their actions, when viewed in relation to one another, showed a unity of purpose towards a common criminal enterprise and a concurrence in their resolve to commit it.

In People v. Gamboa, the Court had occasion to discuss the nature of conspiracy in the context of illegal recruitment as follows:

Conspiracy to defraud aspiring overseas contract workers was evident from the acts of the malefactors whose conduct before, during and after the commission of the crime clearly indicated that they were one in purpose and united in execution. Direct proof of previous agreement to commit a crime is not necessary as it may be deduced from the mode and manner in which the offense was perpetrated or inferred from the acts of the accused pointing to a joint purpose and design, concerted action and community of interest. As such, all the accused, including accused-appellant, are equally guilty of the crime of illegal recruitment since in a conspiracy the act of one is the act of all. (Emphasis supplied)

To establish conspiracy, it is not essential that there be actual proof that all the conspirators took a direct part in every act. It is sufficient that they acted in concert pursuant to the same objective.

Conspiracy is present when one concurs with the criminal design of another, indicated by the performance of an overt act leading to the crime committed.

In a number of cases, this Court has affirmed the trial courts finding that victims of illegal recruitment are entitled to legal interest on the amount to be recovered as indemnity, from the time of the filing of the information until fully paid.

Second Issue: Estafa is committed by any person who defrauds another by using a fictitious name; or by falsely pretending to possess power, influence, qualifications, property, credit, agency, business; by imaginary transactions or similar forms of deceit executed prior to or simultaneous with the fraud. Moreover, these false pretenses should have been the very reason that motivated complainants to deliver property or pay money to the perpetrators of the fraud. While appellants insist that these constitutive elements of the crime were not sufficiently shown by the prosecution, the records of the case prove otherwise.

During almost all of their meetings, complainants paid various amounts of money to appellants only after hearing the feigned assurances proffered by the latter regarding the formers employment prospects in Japan. Even as early as their first meeting in the house of Aida de Leon, the payment by complainants of the initial amount of P15,000 was immediately preceded by an onslaught of promises. These enticing, albeit empty, promises were made by Angel Mateo, who even showed them documents purportedly evincing his connections with various foreign companies. Equally important, they relied on such misrepresentations, which convinced them to pay the initial amount as processing fees. 

False statements that convinced complainants of the authenticity of the transaction were made prior to their payment of the various fees. Indubitably, the requirement that the fraudulent statements should have been made prior to or simultaneous with the actual payment was satisfied.

Verily, by their acts of falsely representing themselves as persons who had the power and the capacity to recruit workers for abroad, appellants induced complainants to pay the required fees. There is estafa if, through insidious words and machinations, appellants deluded complainants into believing that, for a fee, the latter would be provided overseas jobs.

Third Issue: Liability as Co-conspirator

Lapis not only knew of the conspiracy, but she also offered her assistance in the processing of the employment requirements of complainants. Contrary to her claim that she was merely an unknowing spectator in the underhanded transactions, she deliberately inveigled them into pursuing the promise of foreign employment.