4/30/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly On the civil aspect, the accused Mercy Logan is ordered to pay the private complainants by way of restitution, the following sums: 1. To Rodrigo Acorda - P60,000.00[21] 2. To Florante Casia - P100,000.00 3. To Orlando Velasco - P115,000.00 No moral damages is awarded. The complainants checked with POEA only after the accused was not able to sent (sic) them to Japan. This Court believes that legislation is needed so as not to make as estafa or illegal recruitment complaints of persons who do not first verify with POEA whether an alleged recruiter is duly licensed; or, at the very least, such prior verification should be made an element of these penal laws. These activities proliferate because people provide a market for them ignoring all government efforts and expenses just to warn people not to deal with persons who are not duly licensed by POEA; and then, when they do not land any job abroad, they go to the government to help solve matters, in the process overloading the already overloaded court system. Some kind of penalty or disincentive should be imposed on people who ignore government's efforts to deter unauthorized recruitment for foreign placement from proliferating. After all, POEA operations are now computerized and it is so easy for plain citizens to reach it. Congress, the Court hazarding its humble opinion without meaning to be presumptuous, can gradually build the confidence of its citizens towards government by gently enacting statutes that would encourage citizens not to ignore our laws and placing some negative results when citizens do not, or they fail to give government due attention. Let a copy of this decision be furnished POEA. SO ORDERED. In her appeal,[22] appellant Mercy Logan essentially claims that she did not represent herself as a job recruiter to the private complainants. According to her, the private complainants were the ones who went to her office in Cubao, Quezon City and pleaded with her to help them find jobs abroad. While she admitted having received money from the private complainants, the appellant turned the same over to Gloria de Leon who actually recruited them for overseas employment; and that Gloria de Leon reneged on her promise to the private complainants. Hence, they implicated her in these cases inasmuch as their transactions with Gloria de Leon took place in her office. The appeal is not impressed with merit. The essential elements of the crime of illegal recruitment in large scale which is punishable with life imprisonment and a fine of One Hundred Thousand Pesos (P100,000.00) under Article 39(a) of the Labor Code, as amended, are as follows: 1) the accused engages in the recruitment and placement of workers, as defined under https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/52399 5/12