NEW YORK—The US Immigration and Citizenship Services issued a T (for trafficking) visa last year to the Filipino woman who has sued Ambassador Lauro Baja Jr. and three others for trafficking, forced labor, peonage and racketeering.
The immediate family members of the woman, Marichu Suarez Baoanan, were given T visa derivatives.
Because it is an avenue to permanent residency, the T visa is one of the most difficult to obtain. The quota is 5,000 a year, but only 1,000 were issued in its first three years of availability.
The requirements are quite stringent, demanding cooperation with the dreaded Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement Agency (ICE), which is part of Homeland Security and handles labor and sex trafficking cases.
ICE defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.”
For months, snippets of a tale had swirled among Filipino domestic workers in New York about a woman who had fled her employers, the family of a top-ranking Philippine diplomat.
Only after Baoanan’s complaint was docketed at the Southern District of Manhattan did all the snippets click together into a story.
Unprepossessing
As it turned out, I had met Baoanan several times in gatherings overrun by domestic workers. She was quite unprepossessing—black hair drawn back in a stark ponytail, polyester top and pants, slip-ons on her feet.
She’s a few inches over five feet, waist and hips spreading in incipient middle age, and fair-skinned.
The polite po, I recall now, was in her every sentence, the third person kayo (they) replacing the familiar ikaw (you).
She was, in other words, quite typical and could be hidden in plain sight among the 500 members of the Damayan Migrants Association, which hosts events for and of Filipino domestic workers in New York.
It was difficult to reconcile her personality with the malice ascribed to her by her detractors.
But first, a correction: In her complaint, Baoanan said she received only $100 for working in the Baja household from January to April 2007. (Her complaint mentions two $100s, but on closer reading it turned out to be the same amount.) And she worked 18 hours every day for three months plus, according to the document.
Ambassador Baja, who headed the Philippine Mission to the United Nations from 2003 to 2007, and his wife Norma have denied this in Manila.
Apart from the couple, the other defendants are their daughter Elizabeth Baja Facundo and the Baja-owned Labaire International Travel Inc.
Blood sugar
This was how reliable sources told Baoanan’s story:
Baoanan was the only domestic worker in the Bajas’ three-floor residence at 15 East 66th Street during those months.
Her duties started each day at dawn with checking Norma Baja’s blood sugar. It was an unusual task for a house help, but Baoanan was trained as a nurse.
Then she made breakfast for the three adults and one child (Facundo’s) in the household—a different breakfast for each. That done, it was on to straightening out bedrooms, cleaning the public rooms, doing the laundry, and more cooking.
On weekends, the son-in-law came home from work outside the city, bringing his laundry.
Of the two other Filipino women said to have worked at the Baja residence, only one was named in the complaint—a Bernadette Tongson, who has yet to be found.
A person of the same name reportedly signed a petition on the case involving Fely Garcia, a domestic worker said to have killed herself in New York last year.
According to those who know her, Baoanan is from the province of Cavite.
Labaire
In 1997, she set up a store that she had to close when the economy got really bad. That was when she decided to find employment overseas.
Juanita “Babes” Maglalang, identified in court documents as a recruiter, had been a customer at Baoanan’s store. Maglalang allegedly took her to Labaire International Travel in Manila, where she met first the staff and then Norma Baja.
Baoanan reportedly mortgaged her house to pay the P250,000 for the package deal that included transportation to the United States, visa, work authorization and help in finding work as a nurse.
Norma Baja took Baoanan and another Filipino called Dorie to the Department of Foreign Affairs to apply for diplomatic passports, according to Baoanan’s complaint.
Labaire staff members then accompanied them to the US Embassy to obtain their visas. But for some reason, Dorie dropped out and Baoanan flew to the United States as the Bajas’ sole “domestic employee.”
From the airport, Baoanan was taken directly to the East 66th consular residence. She said she had to surrender her “red” passport to Norma Baja.
Labaire was established in 1981 and had purportedly held “a corner” on government travels ever since.
A call to Labaire’s Manhattan number elicited the information that although a different travel agency was using the number, it was “still the same agency”—(“Pareho pa rin naman,” said the Filipino woman who answered)—and that one of the owners of Labaire owned the new agency. At press time, the last could not be verified.)
Parties
According to reliable sources, Baoanan’s work included hand-washing the sequined clothes of the Baja women. But the worse would come whenever the ambassador hosted parties.
Having been to the East 66th residence during the tenure of Ambassador Sedfrey Ordoñez, I was familiar with the dining table there—long, elegant, seating 30 plus.
I was also familiar with the delicate china emblazoned with the seal of the Republic of the Philippines in display cupboards. These were the ones used for formal functions.
Baoanan reportedly had to take these down, help arrange these on the long table, hand-wash after use, dry, and then return to the display cases.
Each course naturally required a different set of dishes and silverware.
Right after the first course, Baoanan would reportedly position herself at the kitchen sink. The procession of used dishes and silverware would keep her busy up to 3 a.m.
A few hours of sleep, and then the blood sugar checkup.
On top of that, she claimed in her complaint, she was made to eat leftovers, and was watched while she ate.
Electronic code
The East 66th residence has electronic security. One may leave the building but returning requires knowing the key code. Norma Baja reportedly made sure that Baoanan never got the code, shielding the keypad with her body whenever they returned from grocery shopping.
And Baoanan in her summer clothes and slip-ons stood out, said an informant.
New York averaged 37-39 degrees Celsius last winter—mild but still cold for New Yorkers, and brutal for those used to tropical heat. A pair of shoes would have made a lot of difference.
So would sanitary napkins, which, I was told, had to be bought and brought to Baoanan by the mission’s chauffeurs.
Phone call
Back in the Philippines, with their main breadwinner gone, Baoanan’s family had to sell the household appliances for food. First to go was the TV set.
Baoanan was reportedly so devastated she thought of killing herself. She was at this near-breaking point when she picked up a ringing phone. (She had been told, allegedly by Norma Baja, never to answer the phone.)
The caller was a friend of the Bajas, who was shocked by the profound weeping at the other end of the line. The friend promised to help, and arranged a signal by which Baoanan would know it was safe to answer the phone.
That this friend was wealthy may have inspired the speculation that Baoanan had left the Bajas for a better paying job.
It took a while to arrange a face-to-face meeting. Before that, the friend went to Damayan, a nonprofit membership institution focusing on helping Filipino domestic workers learn and assert their rights.
The meeting, according to my informant, was at a park on Fifth Avenue (likely the Grand Central Park, which is parallel to the street). There, Baoanan was informed of her rights and her options.
She decided to flee. But first, she went back to retrieve her papers and the remaining $60 of her $100 pay.
Legal help
Finding legal help in New York is not difficult; finding the social space where one can heal is.
An organization of domestic workers like Damayan can provide the latter. As for the former, there is the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), as well as the law firm of Troutman Sanders.
The two had earlier collaborated on a case involving two Filipino women who sued their Bergen, New Jersey, employers for six years of unpaid minimum wages and overtime pay.
Troutman Sanders has around 500 lawyers in its firm; AALDEF has nine staff attorneys.
Ivy O. Suriyopas, who was involved in the Bergen County case, works with AALDEF’s Anti-Trafficking Initiative. She is half-Filipino, half-Thai.
On the Baoanan case, Suriyopas’ comment was wry: “It is disappointing and sad when cases like this happen to anyone, of whatever nationality, race or ethnicity. But it is worse and sadder still when the perpetrator is of the same nationality, ethnicity, race and culture as the survivor.”
(Editor’s Note: Ninotchka Rosca is a Filipino writer living in New York.)
Copyright 2009 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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