Cruz gave the amount of P2,700.00 as placement fees. He also submitted the requirements like marriage contract, employment certificate and six (6) copies of 2x2 ID pictures (TSN, August 4, 1994, pp. 2-11). Crisanta Vasquez gave the amount of P1,500.00 as processing fee since she already had a passport (TSN, November 29, 1994, p. 6). Evelyn de Dios gave the total amount of P4,400.00 representing P3,000.00 as her and her husbands placement fees and P1,400.00 for their passports (TSN, November 29, 1994, pp. 20-21). Mercy [Magpayo] gave P2,600.00 representing placement fee, passport and others (TSN, November 29, 1994, pp. 29-30). Evangeline Magpayo gave P2,350 (Ibid. p. 37). When appellant failed to send complainants to Taiwan on the promised date, January 15, 1993, complainants, together with appellant, went to the Barangay Hall and in front of the Barangay Captain, appellant signed a document (Exhs. C and 1) and promised to return the money to them. Complainants, on March 29, 1993, signed a Magkakasamang Salaysay (Exhs. B to B-2) and filed a complaint before the Fiscals office (TSN, August 11, 1994, p. 3). In support of their complaint, they submitted a certification from the POEA dated July 21, 1994 (Exh. A) to the effect that appellant, in her personal capacity, was neither licensed nor authorized to recruit workers for overseas employment (TSN, August 4, 1997, pp. 11-12).iii[3] We adopt this summary as our own, as it is fully supported by the transcripts of the stenographic notes of the testimonies of the witnesses for the prosecution. Upon the other hand, the appellant denied having recruited the complainants. She claimed that she had only borrowed money from them. In support of her claim, she presented the Affidavit of Desistanceiv[4] executed by the complainants when she and her sister had paid them her debt. The trial court gave full credit to the version of the prosecution and found unmeritorious appellants defense. It noted that in appellants statement before Barangay Captain Emerlito Calara,v[5] she had promised to return to the complainants the money she had taken from them. There was nothing in said statement that showed that such money was a debt. As to the Affidavit of Desistance, the trial court rejected the same, for it was signed by the complainants after all of them testified in court and were paid by the appellant. The trial court likewise observed that the appellant had failed to refute the statement in the certification issued by the POEA that she was not licensed to recruit workers for overseas employment, and that she had even admitted in open court that she was not licensed to do so. Accordingly, in its decision of 7 February 1996,vi[6] the trial court convicted the appellant of the crime of illegal recruitment in large scale and sentenced her to suffer life imprisonment and to pay a fine of P100,000.