DUMAGUETE CITY — Some 278 fishermen from Negros Oriental have been waiting for nearly two-and-a-half years for P13.424 million in back compensation from a fishing company that was found by the National Labor Relations Commission in 2011 to have violated Labor Wage Standards.
The fishermen served as crew in a paaling fishing expedition in 2008 for Pesca Maharlika Marine Resources Inc., a Navotas-based fishing company.
The NLRC, in a decision released on Oct. 12, 2011, awarded P13,424,437 to the fish workers who were deducted 20 percent of their contracted rate during their 10-month fishing expedition in Palawan.
Sandra Delfin, the Department of Labor & Employment’s representative to the Negros Oriental Provincial Inter-Agency Council against Trafficking (PIACAT), said the NLRC decision on the labor aspect of the case entitles each fisher about P40,000 to P50,000, whether or not they filed a case against the fishing company.
The action was brought about by a complaint filed by 38 fishermen against Andrew Labao/Crispulo S. Pangilinan/Andreo Labao, saying they were not paid the right amount of compensation and benefits after a 10-month paaling expedition in Palawan.
Paaling is a deep-sea compressor fishing method where fishers, using crude equipment, pound on coral reefs to scare and drive the fish into a net laid out on the ocean floor.
The NLRC decision ordering Pesca Maharlika to pay the workers some P13.424 million is now on appeal with the DOLE Bureau of Working Conditions, which means the fishermen will have to wait some more.
In addition to the labor case, eight criminal cases of human trafficking were also filed by the fishermen against Andrew S. Labao on Feb. 27, 2012 at the Regional Trial Court Branch 45 in Bais City in Negros Oriental. These, however, did not prosper, and were eventually dismissed on May 22, 2012 for lack of probable cause.
The complaints pointed to the general provisions of RA 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, and specific provisions namely Sec. 6c, which describes trafficking as a crime committed by a syndicate and in large scale, and Sec. 4a, which says that recruitment for the purpose of forced labor, involuntary servitude, or debt bondage is an act of trafficking.
The complainants alleged that sometime in June 2008, the accused Labao recruited 250 of them to work as fishers for 10 months in Palawan. They were given cash advances of between P3,000 and 4,000, and were made to board a vessel, the FV Unity Galaxy, to Busuanga. After 10 months, they returned to their homes in Ayungon town in Negros Oriental, where some complained that they did not get paid for their work.
An amended Complaint filed by the Negros Oriental Philippine National Police and Ayungon PNP included the operator of Pesca Maharlika Marine Resources Inc., owner of the vessel FV Unity Galaxy.
Court records obtained by Vera Files quoted Labao as saying that he is only an employee of Pesca Maharlika, engaged in fishing operations approved by the DOLE, the Bureau of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources, and the Philippine Coast Guard. He had said that the fishing expedition to Palawan had gone through government processes and inspections from DOLE and the Department of Agriculture.
In his decision, Presiding Judge Candelario Gonzalez of the RTC Branch 45 said the information gathered and affidavits submitted do not show that the cash advances received by the complainant-fish workers belonged to Labao, the accused, and that it could not be established that there was an employer-employee relationship between Labao and the fish workers.
In that particular fishing expedition to Palawan, Labao was the master fisherman, locally referred to as the maestro.
Before the decision was handed down, Regional State Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane in Cebu hinted to labor officials that the eight criminal cases might be dismissed, as the courts cannot establish an employer-employee working relationship between the 250 fish workers and Pesca Maharlika that hired them.
To labor and anti-human trafficking officials here, that reason is just “puzzling”. (Irma Faith Pal, VERA Files)
(This story was produced under VERA Files’ Trafficking Casewatch, a project supported by the Embassy of the United States, and the Embassy of Canada. VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)
