Duped drivers from Dubai to file class suit

Case readied vs recruitment agency, lending firms

By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
Reporter
INQUIRER.net

Posted date: May 06, 2009

MANILA, Philippines—The Filipino drivers who have returned home from Dubai after being fooled by their recruitment agency are preparing a class suit against the agency and the lending firms responsible for making them incur up to P1.9 million in debt each.

Lawyer Reynaldo Robles, legal counsel of the drivers, said they would file the class suit within the week to ask the court to nullify the agreement of the drivers with the lending firms.

In a phone interview, Robles said that while the original placement fee was only P150,000, the lending firms are now demanding P1.9 million from each driver.

“The court should nullify the checks that the drivers have signed because in the first place they didn’t even know what they were signing,” he said.

The first batch of 40 drivers out of the total 141 who went to Dubai, who are now in the country, will represent the group in the class suit against the recruitment agency CYM International Services and the lending firms now going after the workers, including Asia United Bank (AUB), Paramount Life Insurance and General Insurance Corp., HQR Technical Insurance Agency Inc., and RJJ Lacaba Financing Corp.

At the Ayes and Nays news forum in Quezon City, Representative Jonathan de la Cruz of Abakada party list said officials of the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency should also be suspended for allowing CYM to recruit workers and then duping them.

He said the permit of the CYM should be cancelled so it could no longer operate and victimize more Filipinos going abroad.