“At P340,000 per driver, Paramount Insurance’s exposure was at least P46.58 million.”
by Ducky Paredes
137 bus drivers, victims of a recruitment agency which lured them to Dubai for jobs that were non-existent have struck back. Cases have been filed individually.
Since there have been attempts to help them find jobs in Dubai and nearby countries by government agencies and the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, a non-government organization that assists distressed overseas workers, some of those who have been given other jobs have not bothered to do so. But, perhaps, they should.
Those who have filed are asking the courts to condone their loans with a bank and financial institutions that were for funds that went directly to the recruiter. They are also suing for P300,000 in compensatory moral and exemplary damages for being stranded in Dubai, some for up to three months.
The Blas F. Ople Policy Center also filed a class suit against CYM International Services and Placement Agency and RJJ Lacaba financing company for committing illegal recruitment practices that led to the swindling of 137 bus drivers in Dubai.
The suit alleges that the drivers paid as much as P150,000 to CYM in exchange for the jobs. CYM asked each of the recruits to take out a P150,000 (11,418 dirhams) loan from a lending agency in Dubai (recommended by CYM) and made them sign undated checks worth P405,000 (about 40,000 dirhams) addressed to a bank and the lending agency, payable in 15 months.
Some of the drivers quit their local jobs despite years of service and have been waiting for the promised jobs since January. The 137 stranded OFWs were forced to live in a camp near the Ajman city dump.
Apart from the recruiter — CYM International Services and Placement Agency and its allied financing company RJJ Lacaba financing company — other companies that the bus drivers cite in their suits as respondents are Asia United Bank, HQR Technical Insurance Services and Paramount Life and General Insurance Corporation.
Paramount Insurance, a legitimate operation pleads that its only participation in this case was to extend, all in good faith, the kind of financial assistance that has always been part of its legitimate business operations. This assistance came in the form of guarantee payment bonds that the drivers needed to be able to obtain the loans they applied for. This is a “must” requirement of any bank.
“We are not in the business of manpower recruitment so we had absolutely no part in securing the job placements, conducting liaison with the employers, working for their passports or visas, arranging their flights or securing their plane tickets. Neither are we a part-owner or even a shareholder in any of the other companies involved in the deployment of the workers, and neither are we a lending company as wrongly reported,” a Paramount official said.
Paramount said the bonds were in the amount of P340,000 for each of the 136 (not 137 as reported in the papers). These were issued to the banks and financial institutions that granted the loan to the applicant drivers. According to the drivers, the recruiter promised that they would be paid 5,200 dirhams or the equivalent of about P65,000 a month.
Paramount issued the guarantee bonds in several batches over a period of almost four months from October 31, 2008 to February 19, 2009. At P340,000 per driver, Paramount Insurance’s exposure was at least P46.58 million. For taking that big risk, Paramount vice president Roseller Sitangco said the only collateral they asked of the drivers were post-dated checks in favor of Paramount.
A usual practice among banks and other financial institutions in such cases, is to require the loan borrowers to present co-makers who would assume the responsibility for the loan, should the borrowers default in the payment. Paramount said it also employed this condition, so that both the loan borrowers and the co-makers had to issue post-dated checks in the amount of P340,000 each.
But, why is it that, according to the news reports, each driver’s total debt was actually P1.9 million! “How can that be?” Paramount president, George Tiu, asks. He reiterated that the guarantee bonds Paramount issued only amounted to P340,000 each and once this is paid in full by either the borrower or his co-makers, the other parties to the loan are freed from any further financial obligation!
How, indeed, did the loan balloon to P1.9 million? Did the drivers incur other loans not known to Paramount? The loan was supposed to cover the drivers’ placement fee, processing fee and other incidental expenses that possibly included the charges for their medical and physical examinations and any required laboratory tests. Most probably, the drivers gave part of the loan proceeds to the families they left behind. They also brought with them some funds to cover some of their needs while waiting to be formally employed in the Emirate.
Scams and swindling operations like these has been going on since we started exporting manpower as OFWs, hailed since the time of the Marcos regime as the country’s “modern-day heroes” who save the Philippines during difficult economic times in the region and in the world. They are so important to our economy; yet, our government seems helpless in saving our OFWs from exploitation, even in our own country.
Can these scams happen without the complicity of certain people in such government offices as the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the airport authorities, among other agencies.
The drivers verified with the POEA the legitimacy of CYM International Services as a duly licensed manpower placement agency. This also explains why other companies operating legitimate businesses extended their services to CYM and the drivers.
In the case of Paramount, if it could be faulted at all, perhaps this lies in its being easy to approach, as embodied in its corporate slogan of “Madaling Kausap” which is appended to all its advertising and promotional materials. But as has been proven in over and over again, good faith is no match against the wicked scheme of some evil-doers.
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hvp 05.27.09)
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