THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. FERNANDO MANUNGAS, JR. Y GO @ “PERCY”, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

This is an appeal by accused-appellant Fernando Manungas, Jr. alias
“Percy” from the decision^[1] dated
October 31, 1989 of the Regional Trial Court of Lingayen, Pangasinan, Branch 38
in Criminal Cases Nos. L-3993, L-3994, L-3996 and L-4000 finding him guilty
beyond reasonable doubt of the crimes of ESTAFA and ILLEGAL RECRUITMENT, the
dispositive portion of which reads:

“In the light of what has been stated and discussed above, the
court finds and holds the accused Fernando Manungas y Go alias
“Percy” guilty beyond peradventure of doubt of the crimes filed
against him and conformable thereto, hereby pronounces judgment as follows:

“In Criminal Case No. L-3993, the court declares accused,
Fernando Manungas y Go alias “Percy” guilty of estafa for the sum of
P16,800.00 as alleged in the information filed against him and there being no
aggravating nor mitigating circumstance, and applying the Indeterminate
Sentence Law in his favor, said accused is hereby sentenced to suffer the
prison term from two (2) years, eleven (11) months and ten (10) days as minimum to five (5) years, five (5)
months and eleven (11) days of prision correccional as maximum and to
pay the costs of the proceedings.

“The court further orders the accused to reimburse the
offended party, Wilfrey Mabalot, the sum of sixteen thousand eight hundred
(P16,800.00) pesos which is the amount of money paid and delivered to him by
said complaining witness without subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency.

“In Criminal Case No. L-3994, the court likewise declares the
accused, Fernando Manungas y Go alias “Percy” guilty of estafa for
the sum of P17,550.00 as charged in the information. And there being no aggravating nor mitigating circumstance
present, and applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law in his favor, the accused
is hereby sentenced to suffer an indeterminate prison term from two (2) years,
eleven (11) months and ten (10) days as minimum to five (5) years, five
(5) months and eleven (11) days of prision correccional as maximum and
to pay the costs.

“The court further directs the accused to reimburse the
offended party, Danilo Ramirez the sum of seventeen thousand five hundred fifty
(P17,550.00) pesos which the accused took from the complainant without
subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency.

“In Criminal Case No. L-3996, the court also declares the
accused, Fernando Manungas y Go alias “Percy” guilty of estafa for
eighteen thousand six hundred (P18,600.00) pesos as charged in the information
filed against him. There being no
aggravating nor mitigating circumstance present, and applying the Indeterminate
Law in his favor, said accused is hereby sentenced to suffer an indeterminate
prison term from two (2) years, eleven (11) months and ten (10) days as minimum
to five (5) years, five (5) months and eleven (11) days of prision correccional
as maximum and to pay the costs of the proceedings.

“The court also directs the accused to reimburse the offended
party the sum of eighteen thousand six hundred (P18,600.00) pesos which is the
amount paid and delivered by the offended party to him without subsidiary
imprisonment in case of insolvency.

“In Criminal Case No. L-4000, the court likewise holds the
accused, Fernando Manungas y Go alias “Percy” guilty of the crime of
Illegal Recruitment on Large Scale as charged in the information filed against
him, defined and penalized under the provisions of Article 39, par. (a) of
Presidential Decree No. 2018 amending Articles 38 and 39 of P.D. No. 442,
otherwise known as the Labor Code of the Philippines, and conformable thereto,
hereby sentences the said accused to suffer the penalty of Life Imprisonment
and to pay a fine of One Hundred Thousand (P100,000.00) pesos without
subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency pursuant to law.

“The accused shall serve the penalties herein imposed against
him successively or one after the other according to their severity.”^[2]

Based on the evidence adduced before the trial court, the facts
of the case are as follows:

Sometime in April of 1987, accused-appellant Fernando Manungas,
Jr. went to Barangay Legaspi, Tayug, Pangasinan where he stayed in the house of
Arturo and Lilia de Vera to recruit workers for employment abroad. During his stay, accused-appellant was able
to convince complainants Wilfrey Mabalot, Danilo Ramirez, Leonardo Estanoco and
Crisanto Collado to apply as janitors in Saudi Arabia. He told them to bring all the necessary
documents for the processing of their applications to his office in Manila.

On April 29, 1987, complainants went to accused-appellant’s
office located at Room 611, L & S Bldg., 1414 Roxas Blvd., Ermita, Manila
and paid accused?appellant P250.00 each for their medical
examination. Thereafter, accused?appellant
required the complainants to pay, on various occasions, placement fees and
other expenses incurred in the processing of their papers and issued corresponding
receipts for said amounts. The total
amount paid by the complainants to accused-appellant are the following: Wilfrey Mabalot – P16,800.00; Danilo Ramirez
– P17,550.00; Leonardo Estanoco – 18,600.00; and Crisanto Collado – 13,300.00.

When complainants failed to leave for Saudi Arabia, they
requested Luis “Jing” Ramirez, a brother of complainant Danilo
Ramirez, to verify with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration
(POEA) whether accused-appellant was licensed to recruit workers for abroad. They subsequently learned that he was not as
shown by the Certification issued by the POEA.^[3]

Thereafter, complainants filed against accused-appellant
complaints for Estafa defined under par. 2(a), Article 315 of the Revised Penal
Code and Illegal Recruitment on a Large Scale. In due course, informations for three (3) counts of Estafa (Criminal
Cases Nos. L-3993, L-3994 & L-3996) and Illegal Recruitment on a Large
Scale (Criminal Case No. L-4000) were filed against accused-appellant before
the Regional Trial Court of Lingayen, Pangasinan.

On the other hand, accused-appellant maintained that he was the
operations manager of the ZG Recruitment and Placement Agency, a duly licensed
recruitment agency. Sometime in April
1987, he went to Barangay Legaspi, Tayug, Pangasinan and recruited complainants
to work in Saudi Arabia as janitors. Unfortunately, the job order for the janitorial services was awarded to
Express Placement Agency instead of ZG Recruitment & Placement agency. Thereafter, accused-appellant transferred
complainants’ application for overseas employment to Nora Cunanan of Express
Placement Agency. Accused-appellant
also turned over the fees paid by the complainants to Nora Cunanan as evidenced
by the receipts^[4]
issued by the latter. When Nora Cunanan
absconded with the money of the complainants, accused-appellant filed an estafa
case against Nora Cunanan after securing a Special Power of Attorney from the
complainants to prosecute and collect their money. However, he was not able to attend the hearing as he was arrested
in connection with these cases.

Accused-appellant maintains that he did not make false
representations to the complainants when he recruited the latter for employment
abroad as he had told complainants that he is only an employee of a licensed
recruitment agency in Manila. He
further claims that he was not motivated by any deceitful intentions and had
not caused any damage to the complainants because the amounts of money given to
him by the latter were actually spent for their medical tests and other
documents necessary for their overseas employment.

Article 13 (b) of the Labor Code defines “Recruitment and
Placement” as:

“Any act of canvassing, enlisting, contracting, transporting,
utilizing, hiring or procuring workers, and includes referrals, contract
services, promising or advertising for employment, locally or abroad, whether
for profit or not: Provided, That any
person or entity which, in any manner, offers or promises for a fee employment
to two or more persons shall be deemed engaged in recruitment and
placement.”

In the instant case, accused-appellant told complainants to
submit to him their pictures, birth certificates, NBI clearances and other
necessary documents for the processing of their employment in Saudi
Arabia. Thereafter, accused-appellant
collected from each of the complainants payment for their respective passport,
training fee, placement fee, medical tests and other sundry expenses which
unquestionably constitutes acts of recruitment within the meaning of the
law. Besides, there is illegal
recruitment when one gives the impression of his ability to send a worker
abroad^[5]
and there is evidence that accused-appellant had represented to the
complainants that he could send them abroad as janitors in Saudi Arabia. And because of his representation,
complainants gave their hard-earned money to accused-appellant in consideration
of the same representation. As pointed
out by the Solicitor General in his brief:

“It may be that at the time appellant recruited private complainants,
he was then the operations manager of the ZGR Placement Agency, a duly licensed
recruitment agency. But, as amply
established by the evidence, the recruitment of private complainants was
appellant’s own personal undertaking. He did not do it for the agency. This is clearly shown by the sequence of events that led to the
consum[m]ation of the transaction in question. Thus: it was appellant who
talked private complainants into applying for employment abroad; when private
complainants signified their interest, he alone was the one who informed them
of the documents that they have to secure; he too was the one who demanded and
received from them the fees for medical examination, passport, authentication,
training, placement and psycho and AIDS test; also, he was the one who assured
them of employment abroad and of the return of their money in the event of
their non-deployment; moreover, it was he who undertook to inform private
complainants of their departure.

“But that is not all. When private complainants failed to receive notice of their departure as
promised them by appellant, they had somebody verify with the POEA if appellant
was a licensed recruiter. This
circumstance shows all the more that indeed appellant represented himself to be
the recruiter, otherwise it would have been the status of the agency with which
he allegedly worked for, that private complainants would have requested to be
verified.”^[6]

As to accused-appellant’s claim that he did not misappropriate
the money given to him by the complainants as he had turned over the latters’
placement fees to Nora Cunanan, who subsequently absconded with the
complainants’ money, the trial court correctly held that:

“The version of the defense has the nature of a cock and bull
story which is difficult and hard to accept. It is something that is fantastic and ridiculous. It is within the realm of fiction and
patently a mere fabrication to exculpate the accused from the consequences of
his nefarious and deceitful activities. If it is really true that the complainants were transferred and
accommodated by the agency of Nora Cunanan, why did not the accused and Mrs.
Lydia Zamora who appear to be both intelligent take the necessary prudence and
caution of putting the supposed agreement to transfer in writing considering
the amounts of funds involved in the alleged transfer. Logic and common sense dictate that under
such a situation, the accused and Mrs. Zamora take ordinary care of their
concerns. To impress the court that
there was really a transfer made, the accused claimed that there was a estafa
case filed against Mrs. Cunanan before the City Fiscal’s Office in Manila. It is however surprizing why Atty. Jose
Torrefranca who was engaged by the accused to file the estafa case did not
present any letter-complaint or any charge sheet filed against Mrs.
Cunanan. He did not even mention the
Fiscal who investigated the case. More
intriguing is the fact that counsel does not know what happened to the alleged
case of estafa after he filed the same. Likewise, when Mrs. Lydia Zamora declared, she claimed that the case
filed against Nora Cunanan was before the Regional Trial Court and not in the
City Fiscal’s Office.

“Defense also made capital of the special power of atty. executed
by the complainants (exhibit 4) and their letters sent to the accused (exhibits
5, 6, 7 and 8) to convince the court that the real culprit in the whole mess is
Nora Cunanan. The complainants made
convincing explanation why they signed the special power of attorney. Wilfrey Mabalot declared that when the
accused asked him to sign the document, he was told that its purpose is to
facilitate their departure and when he signed the letter exhibit ‘6’ he was
just told to sign by the accused and because the latter was in [a] hurry, he
signed without knowing its contents. He
likewise explained that being a mere high school graduate he was not able to
understand the imports of its contents. Danilo Ramirez explained that when he signed the special power of
attorney, he did not read the contents because the accused was in [a] hurry in
returning to Manila and that he sent the three letters to the accused while he
was confined in jail because Manungas asked him to help him (accused) recover
the money given to Mrs. Cunanan. Leonardo Estanoco declared, that he signed exhibit ‘4’ because the
accused told him that the document will be used to facilitate the processing of
their papers. He did not understand its
contents because he only
understands little English.”^[7]

Thus, accused-appellant is guilty of the crimes of Estafa and
Illegal Recruitment. Under Article 38
of the Labor Code, as amended, the crime of illegal recruitment is qualified
when the same is committed against three (3) or more persons.

A person who violates any of the provisions under Article 13(b)
and Article 34 of the Labor Code can be charged and convicted separately of
illegal recruitment and estafa [Revised Penal Code, Article 315, 2(a)] because
illegal recruitment is a malum prohibitum where the criminal
intent of the accused is not necessary for a conviction while estafa is a malum in se where
criminal intent of the accused is necessary for a conviction.

WHEREFORE, finding the accused-appellant guilty of the
crimes of estafa and illegal recruitment in a large scale, the decision of the
trial court is hereby AFFIRMED.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., (Chairman), Padilla, Regalado, and Puno, JJ.,
concur.

^[1]
Penned by Judge Antonio M. Belen.

^[2]
Rollo, pp. 68-69.

^[3]
Folder of Exhibits, Exhibit “H-1”.

^[4]
Id., Exhibits “9”, “10” and “11”.

^[5]
Flores vs. People, 211 SCRA 622 [1992].

^[6]
Rollo, Appellee’s Brief,
pp. 13-15.

^[7]
Id., p. 67.