6/7/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly not having been duly licensed or authorized by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) for that purpose. The accused-appellant's insistence on her very limited participation in the recruitment of the complainants did not advance or help her cause any because the State established her having personally promised foreign employment either as hotel porters or seafarers to the complainants despite her having no license or authority to recruit from the POEA. The records made it clear enough that her participation was anything but limited, for she herself had accompanied them to their respective medical examinations at their own expense. In addition, she herself brought them to GNB Marketing and introduced them to her co-accused. In this regard, the CA pointedly observed: The evidence established that without any license or authority to do so, appellant promised private complainants overseas employment in regard to which she required them to undergo medical examination and training and collected fees or payments from them, while repeatedly assuring that they would be deployed abroad. On appellant's contention that it was Nida Bermudez and Lorenz Langreo who received money from the complainants, even assuming arguendo that appellant never received any payment from the complainants, actual receipt of a fee is not an essential element of the crime of Illegal Recruitment, but is only one of the modes for the commission thereof. Besides, all the private complainants positively identified appellant as the person who recruited them and exacted money from them. Appellant's bare denials and self-serving assertions cannot prevail over the positive testimonies of the complainants who had no ill motive to testify falsely against her.[25] The accused-appellant's denial of her participation in the illegal recruitment activities of Bermudez and Langreo did not gain traction from her charging her co-accused with the sole responsibility for the illegal recruitment of the complainants. Based on the testimonial narration of the complainants regarding their recruitment, she was unqualifiedly depicted as having the primary and instrumental role in recruiting them for overseas placement from the inception. Also, her claim of having been only casually associated with GNB Marketing did not preclude her criminal liability for the crimes charged and proved. Even the mere employee of a company or corporation engaged in illegal recruitment could be held liable, along with the employer, as a principal in illegal recruitment once it was shown that he had actively and consciously participated in illegal recruitment.[26] This is because recruitment and placement include any act of canvassing, enlisting, contracting, transporting, utilizing, hiring or procuring workers, as well as referrals, contract services, promising or advertising for employment, locally or abroad, whether for profit or not. The accused-appellant protests that the RTC and the CA unreasonably disregarded Dahab's recantation; and that the recantation would render her liable only for simple illegal recruitment instead of illegal recruitment committed in large scale. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/61699 7/13