The United States had to pressure Philippine justice officials before the country could secure its first court conviction in November 2005.

Acting Chief State Prosecutor Federico Gana, chief of the Department of Justices’ anti-trafficking in persons task force told Newsbreak that a US embassy political officer paid a visit to him in Aug. that year to express the US government’s dissatisfaction that no one has been convicted yet for human trafficking.

At that time, RA 9208 was already two years old and the first case filed was still pending before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.

Gana said the US embassy official warned that the US would withhold economic as well as military aid if it failed to make significant effort in combating trafficking. 

The official pointed out that the Philippines would be downgraded to the Tier 3 Watchlist of countries for failing to stop trafficking.
Countries in Tier 3 would be imposed with economic sanctions.

The official told Gana that “the US Congress is very much concerned about trafficking in person” and the Philippines “should get at least one conviction” to avoid being put in Tier 3.

“So I had to call all over the country. I found one case in Zamboanga, and in four months we go a conviction. That took us out of Tier 3 and now we are in Tier 2,” Gana said.

Before the first court conviction however, two individuals in separate cases have pleaded guilty to the crime and were sentenced to six months in prison and fined P50,000. But the US government was firm that a court conviction should be secured to test how effective the law is.

Law in progress

With 12 convictions so far, the five-year old Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, or RA 9208, is basically still a law in progress. It can be argued that many in the law enforcement agencies, including lawyers and judges are still unfamiliar with its intricacies that sometimes result to the dismissal of cases.

Gana said the anti-trafficking measure is a complicated law and prosecutors learn “new things” for each conviction.

“You have to prove all the elements or else the accused could be acquitted,” Gana said.

The International Justice Mission, which assists in the prosecution of cases, is keeping track of court convictions. And in each case, there were lessons learned to help secure conviction.

Consent of victim immaterial

One fallacy surrounding human trafficking is that no crime exists when there is consent of the victim. How can there be exploitation for purposes of prostitution, forced labor or slavery when the alleged victim knowingly agreed to such scheme?

But the first court conviction quickly brushed aside this defense precisely on the ground that perpetrators “prey on the vulnerability and gullibility of the weak and the underprivileged.”

In the Zamboanga court case, the defense tried to establish that the victim was aware she would enter Malaysia as an illegal alien supposedly to work there in a restaurant. Instead, she ended up in a prostitution den.

But the court said “the knowledge or consent of a trafficked person to the intended exploitation is irrelevant and not a material fact that can be raised in a criminal prosecution. It will not exempt or mitigate the offender’s criminal liability.”

That consent is immaterial is again established by a Batangas court in sentencing a human trafficker to life in prison and fined P2 million.

In this case, involving three minors, the victims agreed to work as guest relations officers (GROs), which would involve going out with customers for sex in return for huge amount of money. During the trial, the victims admitted they were made aware of the circumstances of their work.

Despite the lack of deception or coercion to the victims, the court nevertheless convicted the trafficker since she took advantage of the victims’ vulnerability.
The court said even if there was consent, it does not deviate from the fact that the accused was guilty of trafficking.

Sexual intercourse need not be present to prove trafficking

Another misleading notion is that qualified trafficking, which carries a harsher penalty of life in prison, may be harder to establish in court. The law states seven provisions for a crime to be considered as qualified trafficking among them: if the trafficked person is a child; when the crime is committed by a syndicate; when the offender is a person of authority; when the offender is a member of the military or law enforcement agencies and when the victim dies, become insane, suffers mutilation or contracts Human Immunodeficiency Virus or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

But in one case in Cebu, the court found two perpetrators guilty of qualified trafficking, even if only one of the provisions was present. The prosecution established that one of the victims is a minor, which elevated the case to qualified trafficking. “There was no need to prove that all of the victims were minors,” the IJM noted.

In the same case, a transaction for sex is enough to prove that the crime has been committed, without necessarily showing proof of the actual intercourse.

Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation arrested the perpetrators shortly after payment of marked money was made  The procedure is in stark contrast to most police or NBI raids where women are ‘rescued’ naked or clad in scanty clothes. The Court said the exploitative act is consummated by a “mere transaction, scheme or design” indicating there is no need to show actual intercourse.

Irregularities in case build up procedure do not necessarily weaken a trafficking case

For the rogues in uniform, the ruling of a Quezon City court should serve as a reminder that irregularities in the operation do not necessarily led to dismissal of a case.

In this second court conviction, an accused couple raised among their defense that NBI agents merely entrapped them after they rejected an extortion attempt by the agents.

But the court said that regardless whether there were irregularities in the way the NBI agents performed their duty, it does not deviate from the fact that there were victims who were sold for sex.

Irregularities in police or NBI operations do not disprove the crime, the IJM noted. An illegal act has been committed and the actions of few rouge agents could not turn a crime into a non-crime.

This article was made possible with the generous support of the American people through the United States Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat trafficking in Persons and The Asia Foundation. The contents are the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Department of State of
the United States or The Asia Foundation.