Death penalty for illegal recruitment and trafficking
If only to send tremors of fears to blatant traffickers and illegal recruiters, the Philippine government should now revive the death penalty to save the nation from these heinous and incorrigible criminals. These scoundrels should be executed by musketry along with drug lords, gambling lords, rapists, and murderers of innocent children. Even God imposed the death penalty on all the sinners in Sodom and Gomorrah.
The maximum penalty today for illegal recruitment by a syndicate, or those victimizing large-scale, is life imprisonment and a fine of ?5 million for every count. The original penalty under Articles 34 and 38 of the Labor Code, in relation to Article 13, paragraph b of the 1974-vintaged Labor Code was a maximum of six years in jail. It was increased under Republic Act 8042, the Migrant Workers Law of 1995 (after the Flor Contemplacion imbroglio). The penalty was even raised higher to the current level under RA 10022 after more atrocities were found. This should be further increased to the death penalty.
The Anti-Trafficking in Person Law, RA 9208, as amended by RA 10364 penalizes qualified illegal trafficking with life imprisonment and a fine between ?2 million and ?5 million. I also believe this should be increased to the death penalty. Illegal recruiters and illegal traffickers are worse than gambling lords and drug lords. They commit heinous social and economic crimes against the poor who are quick to borrow money just to pay outrageous placement fees.
Our senators and congressmen should focus on their job. They are mandated under Article XIII of the Constitution "to give highest priority to the enactment of measures that protect and enhance the right of all the people to human dignity, reduce social, economic and political inequalities." What have they done? Under Article II, section 4 of our fundamental law, the prime duty of the government is to serve and protect the people, not to coddle and unwittingly give aid and comfort to illegal recruiters. Evil triumphs in this country because good people in high positions are blind, deaf, and mute to all the social and economic maladies.
Jullebee Ranara was murdered in Kuwait by the son of her master who was rumored to have impregnated her. Her body was burned and buried in the desert. Many maids have been raped and murdered and Kuwait. By the grace of God, and by our focused and pro-active intervention, no one was subjected to such atrocities when I was the Labor attaché in Kuwait. But today's government is so indecisive and hesitant to put a stop, even temporarily, to the multi-million dollar modern slave trade in the Middle East. During the time of Secretary Silvestre Bello III, he ordered a ban on deploying maids to Kuwait. Today, there is too much delay and refusal to act with a sense of urgency and decisiveness.
We need leaders who are not afraid of the recruiters, leaders who, in the words in the lines of the song “The Impossible Dream” are "willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause." Congress should pass a Resolution of Outrage and Denunciation and pass a law reviving the death penalty for illegal recruiters and traffickers. And the DMW should issue immediately a ban to all Kuwait deployments, no ifs and buts, and no further delay. The more they delay the more chances for vultures to earn millions at the expense of the poor. This is a matter of life and death. We cannot solve this problem with press conferences and belated post-incident investigations which are bound to produce no concrete results. For once, let us all act with an amazing sense of boldness and indignant anger for our people. If we don't, then let's allow others to do the job.