Man charged for illegally recruiting SPED teachers

After having defrauded several Special Education teachers, an alleged illegal recruiter was charged before the Cebu City Prosecutor's Office with estafa and large scale illegal recruitment.

The National Bureau of Investigation charged Samuel Mavida, Jr. after three of his alleged victims accused him of collecting more than P70,000 each with the promise that they will be employed abroad with a high compensation package.

Annabelle Grijaldo of barangay Mabolo, Lynlie Agujar of barangay Tisa and Cheryl Yap of barangay Talamban alleged that Mavida recruited them December of last year to work as special education teachers in San Francisco, USA and promised them of salaries ranging from $62,500 to $65,000 a year.

The complainants said that Mavida, whose last known address was at San Jose Extension, Cebu City, collected from them $1,000 to $4,000 as placement fees. According to the victims, there were actually more than 50 of them who gave in to the fraudulent scheme of Mavida.

In fact, some of them resigned from their respective work believing that the promised job abroad would materialize. The victims were lured to apply for the job offered by Mavida believing that it was "really true because the suspect showed them e-mails of their supposed employers abroad."

However, the victims said they later found out that Mavida was not authorized to engage in the recruitment of workers for overseas.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration certified that Mavida is not a licensed recruiter prompting the complainants to demand their payment back. However, Mavida allegedly refused to return the money.

On top of this case, the same case was previously filed by the NBI against Mavida also at the prosecutor's office. The NBI is expected to file additional cases against him as soon as the other victims show up and file a complaint. - Fred P. Languido