Lapasaran vs People

Facts:
In September 2001, private complainant Menardo Villarin (Menardo) and his sister Vilma Villarin
(Vilma) met petitioner Arlene N. Lapasaran, who worked at Silver Jet Travel Tours Agency
(Silver Jet) at SIMCAS Building, Makati. For a fee of P85,000.00, petitioner undertook the
processing of the papers necessary for the deployment (under a tourist visa) and employment of
Menardo in South Korea. Petitioner informed Menardo that he would be employed as factory
worker, which was, subsequently, changed to bakery worker. Thereafter, Menardo paid the
said fee in installments, the first in September 2001 in the amount of P10,000.00, which was
received by a certain Pastor Paulino Cajucom; the second installment was P35,000.00; while
the third and last payment was P40,000.00; the last two installments were delivered to the
petitioner.
After two postponements in his flight schedule, Menardo finally left for South Korea on
November 25, 2001. Unfortunately, he was incarcerated by South Korean immigration
authorities and was immediately deported to the Philippines because the travel documents
issued to him by the petitioner were fake. He immediately contacted petitioner and informed her
of what happened. Thereupon, petitioner promised to send him back to South Korea, but the
promise was never fulfilled. Consequently, Menardo and his sister Vilma demanded the return
of the money they paid, but petitioner refused and even said, Magkorte na lang tayo. It was
later found out that petitioner was no longer connected with Silver Jet.
Hence, the separate charges for illegal recruitment and estafa against petitioner before
the RTC of Manila. When arraigned, she pleaded not guilty to both charges.
In her defense, petitioner testified that she owned a travel agency named A&B Travel and
Tours General Services, engaged in the business of visa assistance and ticketing. She averred
that it was Vilma who solicited her assistance to secure a tourist visa for Menardo. She
admitted transacting with the Villarins, but committed only to securing a tourist visa and a twoway airplane ticket for Menardo, for which she received P70,000.00 as payment. She denied
having recruited Menardo Villarin; she likewise denied having promised him employment
in South Korea. On February 15, 2005, the RTC rendered a Decision finding petitioner guilty
beyond reasonable doubt of illegal recruitment and estafa. CA affirmed with modifications..

Issue: WHETHER OR NOT THE LAWS ON ILLEGAL RECRUITMENT AND ESTAFA ARE
APPLICABLE IN THESE CASES
Held:
Affirmative on both accounts. In the first case, petitioner was charged with illegal
recruitment, defined and penalized by the Labor Code as amended R.A. No. 8042.[14] Illegal
recruitment is committed when it is shown that petitioner gave the complainant the distinct
impression that she had the power or ability to send the complainant abroad for work, such that
the latter was convinced to part with his money in order to be employed. Petitioners
misrepresentations concerning her purported power and authority to recruit for overseas
employment, and the collection from Menardo of various amounts, clearly indicate acts
constitutive of illegal recruitment. In the second case, petitioner was charged with violation of
Article 315(2)(a) of the Revised Penal Code which punishes estafa. The elements of the crime
are: (a) the accused defrauded another by abuse of confidence or by means of deceit; and (b)
damage or prejudice capable of pecuniary estimation is caused to the offended party. Here, it
has been sufficiently proven that petitioner represented herself to Menardo as capable of
sending him to South Korea for employment, even if she did not have the authority or license for
the purpose. Undoubtedly, it was this misrepresentation that induced Menardo to part with his
hard-earned money in exchange for what he thought was a promising future abroad. The act of
petitioner clearly constitutes estafa under the above-quoted provision. It is well established in
jurisprudence that a person may be convicted of both illegal recruitment and estafa. The
reason, therefore, is not hard to discern: illegal recruitment is malum prohibitum, while estafa
is malum in se. In the first, the criminal intent of the accused is not necessary for conviction. In
the second, such an intent is imperative. Petition denied. CA decision affirmed.

People vs Panis

Facts:
Four informations were filed on January 9, 1981, in the Court of First Instance of Zambales and
Olongapo City alleging that Serapio Abug, private respondent herein, "without first securing a
license from the Ministry of Labor as a holder of authority to operate a fee-charging employment
agency, did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and criminally operate a private fee charging
employment agency by charging fees and expenses (from) and promising employment in Saudi
Arabia" to four separate individuals named therein, in violation of Article 16 in relation to Article
39 of the Labor Code. 1
Abug filed a motion to quash on the ground that the informations did not charge an offense
because he was accused of illegally recruiting only one person in each of the four informations.
Under the proviso in Article 13(b), he claimed, there would be illegal recruitment only "whenever
two or more persons are in any manner promised or offered any employment for a fee. " .
Denied at first, the motion was reconsidered and finally granted in the Orders of the trial court dated
June 24 and September 17, 1981. The prosecution is now before us on certiorari.
Issue:
Whether or not the act should involve two or more persons to constitute recruitment and placement
Held:
Negative. The proviso was intended neither to impose a condition on the basic rule nor to
provide an exception thereto but merely to create a presumption. The presumption is that the
individual or entity is engaged in recruitment and placement whenever he or it is dealing with
two or more persons to whom, in consideration of a fee, an offer or promise of employment is
made in the course of the "canvassing, enlisting, contracting, transporting, utilizing, hiring or
procuring (of) workers. "The number of persons dealt with is not an essential ingredient of the
act of recruitment and placement of workers. Any of the acts mentioned in the basic rule in
Article 13(b) win constitute recruitment and placement even if only one prospective worker is
involved. The proviso merely lays down a rule of evidence that where a fee is collected in
consideration of a promise or offer of employment to two or more prospective workers, the
individual or entity dealing with them shall be deemed to be engaged in the act of recruitment
and placement. The words "shall be deemed" create that presumption. The four informations
are reinstated.

Insular Life Assurance vs NLRC and Basiao

Facts:
Since 1968, respondent Basiao has been an agent for petitioner company, and is authorized to
solicit within the Philippines applications for insurance policies and annuities in accordance with
the existing rules and regulations of the company. In return, he would receive compensation, in
the form of commissions.
Some four years later, in April 1972, the parties entered into another contract an Agency
Manager's Contract and to implement his end of it Basiao organized an agency or office to
which he gave the name M. Basiao and Associates, while concurrently fulfilling his commitments
under the first contract with the Company. In May, 1979, the Company terminated the Agency
Manager's Contract. After vainly seeking a reconsideration, Basiao sued the Company in a civil
action and this, he was later to claim, prompted the latter to terminate also his engagement
under the first contract and to stop payment of his commissions starting April 1, 1980.
Basiao thereafter filed with the then Ministry of Labor a complaint against the Company and its
president. The complaint sought to recover commissions allegedly unpaid thereunder, plus
attorney's fees. The respondents disputed the Ministry's jurisdiction over Basiao's claim,
asserting that he was not the Company's employee, but an independent contractor.
Issue: Whether there exists an employer-employee relationship.

Held:
Not every form of control that the hiring party reserves to himself over the conduct of the party
hired in relation to the services rendered may be accorded the effect of establishing an
employer-employee relationship between them in the legal or technical sense of the term. A line
must be drawn somewhere, if the recognized distinction between an employee and an individual
contractor is not to vanish altogether.
Logically, the line should be drawn between rules that merely serve as guidelines towards the
achievement of the mutually desired result without dictating the means or methods to be
employed in attaining it, and those that control or fix the methodology and bind or restrict the
party hired to the use of such means. The first, which aim only to promote the result, create no
employer-employee relationship unlike the second, which address both the result and the
means used to achieve it. The distinction acquires particular relevance in the case of an
enterprise affected with public interest, as is the business of insurance, and is on that account
subject to regulation by the State with respect, not only to the relations between insurer and
insured but also to the internal affairs of the insurance company. Rules and regulations

governing the conduct of the business are provided for in the Insurance Code and enforced by
the Insurance Commissioner. It is, therefore, usual and expected for an insurance company to
promulgate a set of rules to guide its commission agents in selling its policies that they may not
run afoul of the law and what it requires or prohibits. Of such a character are the rules which
prescribe the qualifications of persons who may be insured, subject insurance applications to
processing and approval by the Company, and also reserve to the Company the determination
of the premiums to be paid and the schedules of payment. None of these really invades the
agent's contractual prerogative to adopt his own selling methods or to sell insurance at his own
time and convenience, hence cannot justifiably be said to establish an employer-employee
relationship between him and the company.
The respondents limit themselves to pointing out that Basiao's contract with the Company
bound him to observe and conform to such rules and regulations as the latter might from time to
time prescribe. No showing has been made that any such rules or regulations were in fact
promulgated, much less that any rules existed or were issued which effectively controlled or
restricted his choice of methods or the methods themselves of selling insurance. Absent
such showing, the Court will not speculate that any exceptions or qualifications were imposed
on the express provision of the contract leaving Basiao "..free to exercise his own judgment as
to the time, place and means of soliciting insurance." The Court, therefore, rules that under the
contract invoked by him, Basiao was not an employee of the petitioner, but a commission agent,
an independent contractor whose claim for unpaid commissions should have been litigated in an
ordinary civil action. NLRC Decision set aside.