6/30/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly not licensed or authorized to recruit workers for overseas employment in their personal capacities, and that nowhere in the certification was it said that the agency, Baler Aurora Travel & Tours, Inc., was similarly without authority or license to recruit.[28] Grounding his argument on the fact that the POEA Certification did not say that the agency itself was not licensed to undertake recruitment, then it followed that accusedappellant Bautista and his co-accused could not also be said to be unauthorized to recruit for overseas employment on the agency's behalf.[29] He further proffered that under the Equipoise Rule, since the inculpatory circumstance of his case admit of two explanations, one of which is consistent with his claim of innocence, the prosecution must be deemed to have failed in hurdling the test of moral certainty, and he should therefore be acquitted.[30] Ruling of the CA In the assailed Decision[31] dated June 27,2014, the CA was unpersuaded by accusedappellant Bautista's contentions, and held instead that the RTC correctly convicted him of the charges of estafa and illegal recruitment, as all the elements of these charges were duly established. In affirming the RTC's conviction,[32] the CA first rejected accused-appellant Bautista's claim that no fraud could be attributed to him, and that his only offense was his failure to make good on the promise of deploying the private complainants for work abroad. On the contrary, the CA found that fraud in the contemplation of the crime of estafa under Article 315 paragraph 2(a) is a generic term which embraces all multifarious deceitful means which are resorted to by an individual in order to secure an advantage over another by false suggestions or suppression of truth.[33] The CA found that the fraudulent means with which accused-appellant Bautista took undue advantage of private complainants were proven, further noting that in all three cases for which accused-appellant Bautista was convicted, the private complainants dealt significantly only with accused-appellant Bautista.[34] The CA dismissed the argument that no conspiracy was proven in this case, ruling that such a finding was irrelevant in light of the fact that accused-appellant Bautista's actions themselves, as shown by evidence mounted against him, showed that he clearly engaged in estafa and illegal recruitment in a large scale.[35] Similarly, accusedappellant Bautista's defense that he was merely an administrative assistant of the agency was also dismissed as immaterial in view of the misrepresentations he made to the private complainants with respect to the scope of his official work. The CA found that accused-appellant Bautista repeatedly recruited people for work overseas, collected and received money from them even though he had no capacity or authority to do so.[36] Hence, the instant appeal. Issue https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/66754 12/20