One conviction for trafficking

Lucid Interval
First posted 06:03am (Mla time) Dec 06, 2005
By Rowena Guanzon
INQ7.net

FINALLY after two years, we have a conviction for violation of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003 (Republic Act No. 9208) in the Regional Trial Court of Zamboanga City. There were previous convictions in Batangas province and Butuan City but these were for the crime of white slavery that had a lesser penalty than in RA 9208. The problem with many prosecutors is that they agree to plea bargaining by the accused for a lesser offense, hence the poor record of conviction for violation of RA 9208. The Department of Justice, which heads the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT), should issue a memorandum to its prosecutors that plea bargaining is not allowed when the charge is for violation of RA 9208.

The accused, Ronnie Aringoy and Hadja Jarma Lalli were arraigned on Sept. 9, 2005 and convicted after only 50 days, last Nov. 29. It probably helped that in September there was a roadshow education campaign in Zamboanga under the Filipino Initiatives Against Trafficking project conducted by the IACAT, with nongovernmental organizations Visayan Forum, ECPAT and Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific.

We should congratulate city prosecutor Ricardo Cabaron and commend the police personnel who arrested and gathered the evidence for the case, Captain Jesus Belarga and Senior Police Officer-1 Federico Lindo, Jr. as well as city social worker Kit Barredo, but our applause and highest respect goes to the trafficked survivor, Rosario (not her real name).

Rosario was lured and deceived into taking the boat from the Zamboanga pier to Sandakan in Malaysia, and then to Kota Kinabalu, because she badly needed a job. The recruiters promised her a job in a restaurant. Instead of landing a decent job in a restaurant, Rosario was raped and prostituted in Kota Kinabalu from June 14 to July 18, 2004. Her Malaysian bother-in-law rescued her after she contacted her sister by mobile phone. Other women would have hid in shame and not file a complaint, but Rosario looked for her recruiters and traffickers and filed a complaint for violation of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.

Traffickers and their international syndicates, which make tons of money, have a heyday in the Philippines because of our weak law enforcement, corruption in government, and the vulnerability of women and girls due to poverty. In this case, the policemen and policewomen of Zamboanga City are an exception. When Rosario went to the police to complain, they immediately believed her story and devised an entrapment. They told Rosario to call Aringoy, and she told him about the two beautiful women whom Aringoy could bring to Malaysia. When Aringoy arrived, the policemen arrested him. The speed with which the police and the prosecutor responded to Rosario’s complaint was extraordinary.
Judge Jesus Carbon, Jr.’s decision should be a good entry to the 2nd Gender Justice Awards. He wrote: “ The accused tried to show that Rosario was a guest relations officer (GRO) who has four children sired by four different men. No sufficient evidence was adduced to prove this allegation. Even if indeed she was a GRO with four children fathered by four different men, such circumstance would have rendered her even more vulnerable to sexual exploitation.” Judge Carbon, Jr. shows a firm grasp of RA No. 9208 when he ruled that “consent of a trafficked person the intended exploitation is irrelevant and not a material fact that can be raised in a criminal prosecution. It will not exempt or mitigate the offender’s criminal liability (Sec. 3(a) and Section 17, RA No. 9208) Traffickers in human beings and illegal recruiters prey on the vulnerability and gullibility of the weak and the underprivileged, “of poor laborers, seamen, domestics and other workers who use employment abroad as the only way out of their grinding poverty.”

But what of the employees and officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in the Zamboanga port? Rosario testified that she used the passport of her sister, and her recruiters and traffickers told her that they had a contact in the DFA in Zamboanga, who will put the picture of Rosario on her sister’s passport and no one would know the difference. There had to be a deal more than just the passport, and one that involved the immigration officer in the port to look away.
Trafficking in persons (mostly women and girls, but boys are also victimized) for prostitution in Malaysia has been going on for many years. It is a lucrative business for corrupt government officials of the DFA and corrupt police officers, and escaped public scrutiny until lately, when RA No. 9208 was passed. If the DFA Secretary is serious about trafficking, how come his people in Zamboanga have not yet been fired? How come the government of Malaysia is not doing anything about trafficking either? Governments must cut both the supply and the demand and institute programs and policies to alleviate the poverty of their people.

All the mayors of Zamboanga in the past knew of this illegal trade. Even if very few filed complaints, the stories of rape and prostitution could not have escaped the local government officials there. Yet, in the past no one lifted a finger to make sure that no trafficking could succeed through their port, probably because they viewed it not as a problem at all, but as a solution to the poverty of their people. But if they see the recruitment of their women and girls as a way out of poverty, the officials and the community will mostly likely look the other way when they complain of having been raped and prostituted in Malaysia.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 at 8:21 pm and is filed under INQ7 Columns, Children's Rights, Women's Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.