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669 Phil. 448
SECOND DIVISION
[ G.R. No. 181919, July 20, 2011 ]
JONES INTERNATIONAL MANPOWER SERVICES, INC.,
REPRESENTED BY ITS PRESIDENT, EDWARD G. CUE, PETITIONER,
VS. BELLA AGCAOILI-BARIT, RESPONDENT.
DECISION
BRION, J.:
We pass upon the present petition for review on certiorari [1] seeking the reversal of
the January 23, 2008 Decision [2] and the February 27, 2008 Resolution [3] of the Court
of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. SP No. 101069. [4]
The Antecedents
Summarized below are the relevant facts on record.
On November 21, 2003, respondent Bella Agcaoili-Barit filed a complaint [5] for nonpayment of salaries and refund of transportation fare against the petitioner Jones
International Manpower Services, Inc. (agency), owned and managed by Edward G.
Cue.
Barit alleged that she entered into a two-year employment contract (July 23, 1999 to
July 23, 2001) with the agency, for its foreign principal in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Mohamad Hameed Al-Naimi (Hameed), as a domestic helper with a salary of
US$200.00 a month. She did her job diligently and with dedication, but was paid only
US$100.00 a month and, starting January 2001, was not paid any salary at all. She
extended her employment for another 10 months upon Hameed's request as her
replacement had not yet been deployed by the agency. Hameed refused to pay her
salaries even during the extension.
Fed up with her situation, she left Hameed on May 29, 2002 and had a live-in
relationship with another Filipino overseas worker, Thomas Ambrosio, allegedly her
boyfriend. As the law of Saudi Arabia prohibits such a relationship, she was arrested
and imprisoned for more than a year. She claimed that she embraced the Islam religion
and was exonerated of the charges against her. She was released from prison on
October 14, 2003 and immediately left for home, arriving in the Philippines on October
15, 2003. She demanded payment of her salaries for one year and four months,
payment of wage differentials from July 1999 to December 2000, and the refund of her
airfare to the Philippines.
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