Volume 1, Issue No. 17
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
Our latest as of Saturday, December 14, 2019
~ The dropping by Crown prosecutors of all charges against a Filipino businesswoman and an industry colleague is a victory for truth, a complete vindication for the persons involved. Just as important, it exposes a concerted effort by invidious interest groups to put down success. That it also shines a light on incompetent but willing enablers in media makes it all the more significant. The judicial process was in progress but halfway through, the prosecutors crumbled, weighed down by the utter lies concocted to destroy a business entity.
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PROSECUTORS DROP CHARGES OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Vindication for a Filipino Businesswoman
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“The vindication we ask is less vengeance than validation: to forgive those who sin against us is first to have acknowledged their sin.” ― Kim Coleman Healy
TORONTO - The vindication was bound to happen, and when it formally came this week, hopefully, to restore soiled reputations, it overshadowed whatever monetary gains that might be had from this sad episode about the Filipino businesswoman and her company.
Resentment and overarching self-interest appear to be the driving force in pulling down a successful venture by Liwayway Miranda, otherwise known in her industry as Lily Hammer, owner of A&L Hammer Workforce Management, the recruitment firm named after her and her husband. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QprwiFQiLjs).
In Apil 2018, it was putting up an agricultural training center to prepare applicants for work in mushroom farms in Ontario. The move was actually a timely response to the phenomenal growth of the one-billion-dollar industry.
Two members of the Philippine House of Representatives - Roy Loyola and Maximo Rodriguez Jr. - commended the A&L Hammer Workforce Management during their visit to Toronto in April 2018 to inaugurate the facility. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WONotKxTTWw).
"The development of this attractive market for OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) as A&L Hammer is doing is commendable and deserves the full support of the Filipino community and of the Philippine government," says Congressman Loyola.
Congressman Rodriguez: "May I congratulate Lily and Allan Hammer for launching this Agricultural Training Center. In doing this, you not only ensure and guarantee good agricultural products but assures us of better terms of employment of our workers, especially Filipinos. Our government is committed to assist this training center through its various programs . . . "
But before the center could be fully operational, the envious prying eyes crept in, among them Filipinos desperate to move out of the homeland at any cost for the proverbial greener pastures, the ambitious company driver who secretly collected information for his use later, the wannabe writer enabled by his publisher to report dubious articles, the resentful media person unsettled by the rise of the woman CEO, and several others whose crab mentality was overpowering.
As a result, the company closed down before it could realize its full potential, and with it, the consequent layoff of 14 employees in its Toronto office and 200 farmworkers. Every measure to expand its facilities had been put on hold, if not totally scrapped.
The Crown's decision announced at an Ontario Superior Court on Wednesday, December 11, 2019, to withdraw the cases against Ms. Hammer and the farm owner she had supplied with workers is a victory for truth. It only affirms their assertion that the ones lying were not them but the accusatory individuals who instigated the downfall.
An article in May 2019 bylined by a certain Edwin Mercurio in Balita, the Toronto Filipino community's largest photo album-like tabloid, stated, and I quote: "The continuing saga of abuse, exploitation and deceit perpetuated (sic) against against migrant workers by Lily Miranda, et al continues to unfold".
So sweeping was this declaration that the writer forgot - and his supposed editor probably did not ask - to offer proof to justify his claim that Lily Miranda was committing large-scale wrongdoing against a whole bunch of migrant workers through deceit. I believe lawyers would be happy to point out the potential defamation.
I had warned against this sloppy reporting and the article could have been edited, but the publisher and editor refused to heed it. I had critiqued the story as an "associate editor" of the paper although I knew I was powerless to exercise the functions such title conveyed in a real newspaper.
Mercurio was as confused as his article. To me, it highlighted his disarray in an attempt to blow up a simple story out of proportion and make it big. He achieved success in muddling the story even more.
For example, he lumped the cases in Superior Court for human trafficking and misrepresentation with the monetary claim in Small Claims Court filed by eight applicants, namely: Abdul Gamal Batua-an; Rommel Chico, KC Lynne Mendoza; Rena Vey Louisa Flores; Ferdinand Bandoquillo; Marian Fatima Torralba; Yhussel Bandoquillo; and Ryan Aporbo. All, except Aporbo who is in Toronto, are already in the Philippines.
Their application for work permit had been denied in 2017 by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), now renamed Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), despite having a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), which serves as proof that no Canadian citizen or permanent resident is ready, willing and able to fill a specific position in Canada, and so the employer is allowed to hire a foreign worker.
On the proddings of a suspended paralegal and a pro-left organization, the rejected applicants filed a lawsuit in Small Claims Court to reclaim the fee they paid to Ms. Miranda.
The case was decided in February 2019 but Mercurio focused his sights on the issue in lieu of the current ones - the escape of six Filipino workers, Ms. Miranda's accusers, from a mushroom farm at the apparent instigation of agents of Canada Border Services Agency. (More on this in another story).
The month before, in April 2019, Balita published an article also bylined by Edwin C. Mercurio about a lawsuit filed by four migrant workers against, according to Mercurio, "the recruitment agency Link4Staff Inc. and Sharon Mushroom Farm".
The record showed that Link4Staff is operated by another person named Jeanette Mosquito. And then, instead of Sharon Mushroom Farm, he should have named Ravine Mushroom Farm as a defendant. These factual mistakes cast suspicion on the motives of Mercurio himself.
He wrote: "The group filed a suit against the recruitment agency and Sharon Mushroom Farm (sic) for the exploitation and injustice they suffered while working with no benefits, unbelievably low wages, housed in in cramped bedrooms littered with garbage, crawling bed bugs and unsanitary living quarters they were forced to live in along with other migrant workers from other countries".
I supposed the group referred to by Mercurio are the migrant workers who spoke at a Migrante Ontario forum, namely, Maila Ceguerra, Lourdes Dela Pena, Jesse Veneranda, and Marisol Bobadilla.
Mercurio did not identify the recruitment agency - which was actually Link4Staff Inc. - and wrongly named Sharon Mushroom Farm again. The puzzlement is beyond belief, I would say. How can this kind of reportage get published? Was he pandering to his friends and to the paper's publisher whose mindset was that Ms. Miranda was guilty?
Unless he went there and saw for himself, which he did not say, Mercurio's description of their situation was baffling. Was it an accurate account or just a figment of his imagination? Did he fall for the wishes of his publisher?
At the recent pre-trial meeting of the cases, CBSA investigators admitted to not have visited nor investigated the workers and their farm quarters. They also did not question either Ms. Miranda or the owner of the farm, according to witnesses' accounts.
The admissions are among the reasons for the Crown's withdrawal, thus leading to the dismissal of the cases, and consequently, the exoneration of Ms. Miranda and her co-accused.
A close examination of the article Mercurio purportedly wrote reveals that it was an exact same copy of a press release issued by Migrante Ontario on April 8, 2019, except for the lede and another paragraph.
Since it carried Mercurio's byline (the line that identifies the writer), the presumption is that he authored it. But no, it's a press release through and through.
In fact, that same Migrante Ontario press release was published in May 2019 in TML Weekly, the newspaper of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Canada based in Ottawa.
Is there a link? Well, among the initial complainants against Lily Miranda were members of Migrante Ontario.
Migrante Ontario claims to be "an organization of Filipino migrant workers that advocates for the rights and welfare of Filipino migrants, as well as advocating for peace based on justice in the Philippines". Its Facebook account says "we are part of Migrante Canada, a chapter of Migrante International".
Ms. Miranda said that two or three members of Migrante Ontario were her clients.
"I helped their relatives to come here in Ontario as mushroom pickers but after 2 to 3 months they ran away also," she explained in an interview.
She clarified, however, that these runaways were not in the group of six workers who had portrayed themselves as victims of human trafficking. "Who knows . . . maybe that was their strategy to mislead us," Ms. Miranda stated. (Copyright 2019. All Rights Reserved).
