Supreme Court upholds life terms on 2 human traffickers

The Supreme Court (SC) has affirmed the life terms handed down by a Zamboanga City court on two illegal recruiters who had sent four women, including a minor, to work as prostitutes in Malaysia.

In its Oct. 12 ruling released over the weekend, the high tribunal upheld the Nov. 29, 2005 guilty verdict meted out by the Zamboanga City regional trial court on Hadja Jarma Lalli and Ronie Aringoy, and even increased monetary penalties.

The high court increased the award of damages to the victim from P50,000 to P500,000 for moral damages, and P50,000 to P100,000 for exemplary damages.

It also ordered Lalli and Aringoy to pay a fine of P2 million for human trafficking and another P500,000 for illegal recruitment.

In dismissing the appeal filed by the convicted traffickers, the high tribunal said the petitioners failed to prove that the trial court erred in finding them guilty of “illegal recruitment and trafficking in persons by a syndicate.”

The court did not pass judgement on a third accused, Nestor Relampagos, since he remained at-large.

The magistrates did not give credence to Lalli and Aringoy’s claims that the 23-year-old complainant had worked in a karaoke bar and massage parlor and had sired four children with four different men.

“It does not change the fact that the accused recruited (the victim) to work in Malaysia without the requisite POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration) license, thus constituting the crime of illegal recruitment,” the court said.

“Worse, the accused deceived her by saying that her work in Malaysia would be as a restaurant entertainer, when in fact, she would be working as a prostitute, thus, constituting the crime of trafficking,” it added.

The complainant said that when she and the three other recruits arrived in Sandakan, Malaysia, a “boss” of a club brought them to a prostitution den where over 100 women, most of them Filipinos, were being sold to clients.

Nearly a month later, the complainant was rescued by her sister, who was also working in Malaysia. Upon her return to Zamboanga, the victim filed a case against her recruiters which led to their arrest.