People vs Buemio : 114011 : December 16, 1996 : J. Kapunan : First D... http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/1996/dec1996/114011.htm enumerated under Article 34 of this Code, to be undertaken by non-licensees or non-holders of authority shall be deemed illegal and punishable under Article 39 of this Code. The Ministry (now Department) of Labor and Employment or any law enforcement officer may initiate complaints under this Article. (b) Illegal recruitment when committed by a syndicate or in large scale shall be considered an offense involving economic sabotage and shall be penalized in accordance with Article 39 hereof. Illegal recruitment is deemed committed by a syndicate if carried out by a group of three (3) or more persons conspiring and/or confederating with one another in carrying out any unlawful or illegal transaction, enterprise or scheme defined under the first paragraph hereof. Illegal recruitment is deemed committed in large scale if committed against three (3) or more persons individually or as a group. xxxxxxxxx ART. 39. Penalties. (a) The penalty of life imprisonment and a fine of One Hundred Thousand Pesos (P100,000.00) shall be imposed if illegal recruitment constitutes economic sabotage as defined herein: xxx (Underscoring supplied.) Recruitment for overseas employment is not in itself necessarily immoral or unlawful. It is the lack of the necessary license or permit that renders such recruitment activities unlawful or criminal. When three or more persons are victimized, the offense becomes illegal recruitment in [33] large scale, an offense constitute of economic sabotage. In other words, the crime of illegal recruitment in large scale is committed when a person (a) undertakes any recruitment activity defined under Art. 13(b) or any prohibited practice enumerated under Art. 34 of the Labor Code; (b) does not have a license or authority to lawfully engage in the recruitment and placement of [34] workers; and (c) commits the same against three or more persons, individually or as a group. The last two requisites are present in this case. By appellants own admission, she was a field officer of a travel agency who merely assisted prospective travellers procure the necessary travel papers. Her admission is proof that she was not a license recruiter per the records of the POEA. Although some of the complainants desisted from pursuing their cases against appellant, it is undeniable that more than three persons raised claims that they had been victimized by appellants recruitment activities. What remains to be determined thereof is whether or not the acts committed by appellant constituted illegal recruitment as defined by the Labor Code. The prosecutions theory that appellant promised employment abroad to the complainants has been proven beyond reasonable doubt not only by the testimonies of prosecution witnesses but also by the aforequoted receipts signed by appellant indicating that she received placement fees. The term placement is defined in the same way as recruitment under Art. 13(b) of the Labor Code. Obviously, to deflect the import of the use of the phrase placement fees in the receipts when she signed them feigning tiredness and pointing to the late hour of the night when she signed one of them. But her claim crumbles in the face of her own admissions that as a field officer of a travel agency, she was well aware of the importance of documents and that it was not her practice to sign papers without reading them. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that she had read them before affixing her signature, but she did not object to the use of placement fees in the receipts. That appellants was prevaricating as regards the nature of the amounts she received from the complainants is manifested by the fact that while she testified that she demanded and accepted the amount of P10,000 to solve the travel tax problems of some of he complainants, 7 of 10 1/20/2016 5:32 PM