DoJ dismisses nurses’ complaint vs Sentosa
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:14:00 02/25/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- The Department of Justice has dismissed the illegal recruitment complaint of 13 Filipino nurses in the United States against Sentosa Recruitment Agency in the Philippines and Sentosa Care LLC of New York for insufficiency of evidence.
In a seven-page decision, Senior State Prosecutor Doris S. Alejo, said they found no substantive alterations in the employment contracts signed by the nurses to sustain their charges.
Sentosa Recruitment Agency’s lawyer, Ibaro B. Relamida Jr., in a statement Monday, said this was the third successive loss of the New York nurses since the case was filed in June 2006. The nurses also lost their cases filed with the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) and the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC).
The lawyer for the nurses, Felix Vinluan, had accused Sentosa officials Bent Philipson, Francris Luyun and Oliva M. Serduar of publishing false notices in relation to the recruitment or employment of nurses in the United States. They also accused Sentosa of substituting or altering employment contracts.
The DoJ ruling said that what happened “may warrant an action which is civil in nature, but definitely not a criminal action.”
Philipson was quoted in the statement as saying the nurses were apparently “ill-advised and misled by some unscrupulous persons.”
In January 24, the NLRC also dismissed the cases filed by the nurses against Sentosa and its foreign principals for alleged illegal dismissal, nonpayment of and underpayment of salaries and other money claims.
In September last year, POEA dismissed their charges of alleged violation of recruitment rules and regulations on the issue of contract substitution. The nurses, according to the agency, were merely transferred to other affiliated nursing facilities under the Sentosa Care Group with the same terms and conditions of employment, the POEA said.
The POEA also said the information published on flyers or advertised websites would not constitute misrepresentation.
In the United States, 10 of the Sentosa nurses and their lawyer were indicted by the district attorney of Suffolk County, New York, for abandoning their jobs at the Avalon Gardens Nursing Home on Long Island and endangering the welfare of a child and a disabled person.
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