Japanese nationals to be charged Monday

CALL CENTER RAID

Arrested Japanese call center employees are processed by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation following their arrest on Friday. (CDN PHOTO/CHRISTIAN MANINGO)

CHARGES will be filed tomorrow against the Japanese nationals who were arrested on Friday for allegedly working without an employment permit for non-resident aliens.

Lawyer Augusto Isidoro, assistant director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI-7) in Central Visayas, said the suspects will be facing a case for violating Presidential Decree 442 or the Labor Code of the Philippines before the Cebu City Prosecutors’ Office.

He said the NBI is  also studying the possibility of filing anti-graft charges against  Bureau of Immigration officials who issued Provisional Working Permits to the Japanese nationals despite the lack of requirements.

Last Friday, the NBI raided the Japan Intertrade Call Center Corporation which has been operating for five years at the TGU Tower in  I.T. Park, Lahug, Cebu City.

More than 100 Japanese nationals work in the company but only 68 were around when the NBI agents served the search warrant issued by Executive Judge Monalilia Tecson of the Metropolitan Trial Court in Cities.

Under the Labor Code, “any alien seeking admission to the Philippines for employment purposes and any domestic or foreign employer who desires to engage an alien for employment in the Philippines shall obtain an employment permit from the Department of Labor.”

Isidoro said the arrested Japanese nationals are being held in the  NBI-7 office in Cebu City.

“They can’t all be accommodated in  our stockade so we decided to put them at our office,” he said.