Private prosecutor Arnel Sigue said yesterday that Infanta, Quezon Regional Trial Court Branch 65 Judge Arnelo Mesa on August 24 sentenced Eric Rosas Morilla, Riza Doromal Pingcas and Rona Doromal Pingcas to imprisonment of 17 years and four months as minimum to 20 years as maximum and to pay a fine of P2 million for each accused, for violating Republic Act 9208.

It is believed to be the first anti-trafficking conviction in the CALABARZON, a region composed of the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon, said Sigue, who is from Bacolod City and is president of the Anti-Trafficking Legal Advocates Society.

The accused were also ordered to pay their victims P50,000 each in exemplary damages.

The two Victorias residents, whose names are being withheld, said their womanhood were destroyed as a consequence of the sexual exploitation they suffered in the hands of all of the accused, the judge noted.

Information filed in court said the two women were recruited by the accused on May 15, 2009 under the pretext of employment in a restaurant, but were instead sexually exploited.

The court was told that Rona Doromal Pingcas recruited a neighbor in Victorias City to be a waitress in a videoke bar of her older sister, Riza Doromal Pingcas, and her live-in partner Erick Rosas Morilla in Real, Quezon, at a salary of P3,500 a month.

The recruit then asked her cousin, also of Victorias City, if she wanted to join her as a waitress, the court was told.

On their arrival in Real, Quezon, the two learned that they were not hired to be waitresses but to sit at tables with men and to be sold for sex, Sigue said.

They were told that if they left their work at the videoke bar they would be buried alive along the seashore and something might happen to the father of one of the recruits, he added.

On May 19, 2009, one of the recruits was able to contact her father by cellular phone and he sought the help of the Victorias and Negros Occidental social welfare offices who coordinated with the Real, Quezon social welfare office and the police, which led to the rescue of the two women, Sigue said.

Prosecution of the case was handled by Quezon trial prosecutor Cherry May Avellano and he entered an appearance as private prosecutor at the promulgation up to the time of appeal pro bono, Sigue added.

He said the prosecution of the case is a product of the collaborative work of the social welfare offices of Victorias City, Negros Occidental and Real, Quezon, the police and the non government organization Philippines Against Child Trafficking.

Two other Negrense women had also been recruited by the accused and given the same jobs but they did not file charges, he said.*CPG

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