4/16/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Convinced of the prospect of immediate employment abroad, Mortera, Balanon, Jr., Oidi and Merante submitted application forms, bio-data, medical examination, NBI clearance, and paid the placement fee. On February 21, 1994, Joan Merante paid twenty thousand (P20,000.00) pesos to accused Anita Forneas in Baguio City.[11] On April 13, 1994, Joan Merante paid seventeen thousand (P17,000.00) pesos to accused Cabais for her placement fee and three thousand (P3,000) pesos for her passport.[12] Nancy Oidi paid twenty one thousand (P21,000.00) pesos to accused Anita Forneas in Baguio City.[13] Imelda Mortera likewise paid twenty thousand (P20,000.00) pesos to accused Forneas as placement fee.[14] Florentino Balanon paid eight thousand (P8,000.00) pesos to accused Cabais and accused Forneas in Baguio City,[15] and an additional amount of three thousand (P3,000.00) pesos to accused Cabais in Manila, for placement fee, and five hundred (P500.00) pesos for his passport. All payments were duly receipted. After complying with all the requirements, complainants were told to wait for their deployment. They waited and repeatedly inquired about the status of their applications. However, several months passed and they were not deployed as promised. When they could wait no longer, complainants checked with the office of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) in Baguio and learned that Harm Yong Ho, Nellie Cabais and Anita Forneas were not licensed to recruit in Baguio or in any part of the Cordillera Administrative Region.[16] The three accused likewise did not possess the required provincial authority. Thus, complainants demanded the return of the money given. However, they never saw Anita Forneas and Harm Yong Ho again. The money paid was not returned to complainants. On June 27, 1995, Mortera, Balanon, Jr., Oidi and Merante filed their affidavitcomplaints with the City Prosecutor's Office of Baguio against the three accused. For her part, accused Cabais denied all the charges against her.[17] She alleged that right after she arrived from Korea in 1993 where she worked as a baby-sitter, she immediately looked for another agency that could provide her with work abroad. Thus, she filed with RSEA an application for job placement overseas. While waiting for RSEA to process her papers, accused Cabais was hired as an employee to augment her insufficient payment of the placement fee. As such employee, her duties included processing other applications for job placement, entertaining applicants, accompanying accused Anita Forneas and doing errands for the latter. Accused Cabais denied involvement in the recruitment of complainants, claiming that it was her boss who was doing recruitment activities. She admitted, though, that she received payments from complainants, but alleged that she was merely acting upon the instruction of Forneas and that she turned over all the payments to her employer. On February 6, 1997, the trial court rendered a decision convicting accused Nellie Cabais of the crimes charged. The dispositive portion of the decision reads: https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/50735 4/10