5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly only one of the joint and several debtors are impleaded in an action. Hence, in the case of overseas employment, either the local agency or the foreign employer may be sued for all claims arising from the foreign employer’s labor law violations. This way, the overseas workers are assured that someone — the foreign employer’s local agent — may be made to answer for violations that the foreign employer may have committed. The Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 ensures that overseas workers have recourse in law despite the circumstances of their employment. By providing that the liability of the foreign employer may be “enforced to the full extent”[139] against the local agent, the overseas worker is assured of immediate and sufficient payment of what is due them.[140] Corollary to the assurance of immediate recourse in law, the provision on joint and several liability in the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 shifts the burden of going after the foreign employer from the overseas worker to the local employment agency. However, it must be emphasized that the local agency that is held to answer for the overseas worker’s money claims is not left without remedy. The law does not preclude it from going after the foreign employer for reimbursement of whatever payment it has made to the employee to answer for the money claims against the foreign employer. A further implication of making local agencies jointly and severally liable with the foreign employer is that an additional layer of protection is afforded to overseas workers. Local agencies, which are businesses by nature, are inoculated with interest in being always on the lookout against foreign employers that tend to violate labor law. Lest they risk their reputation or finances, local agencies must already have mechanisms for guarding against unscrupulous foreign employers even at the level prior to overseas employment applications. With the present state of the pleadings, it is not possible to determine whether there was indeed a transfer of obligations from petitioner to Pacific. This should not be an obstacle for the respondent overseas worker to proceed with the enforcement of this judgment. Petitioner is possessed with the resources to determine the proper legal remedies to enforce its rights against Pacific, if any. V Many times, this court has spoken on what Filipinos may encounter as they travel into the farthest and most difficult reaches of our planet to provide for their families. In Prieto v. NLRC:[141] The Court is not unaware of the many abuses suffered by our overseas workers in the foreign land where they have ventured, usually with heavy hearts, in pursuit of a more fulfilling future. Breach of contract, maltreatment, rape, insufficient nourishment, sub-human lodgings, insults and other forms of debasement, are only a few of the inhumane acts to which they are subjected by their foreign employers, who probably feel they elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/57319 21/39