An Ignored Element of “Illegal Recruitment” Under the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 : People of the Philippines V. Ang, G.R. No. 181245, (S.C. Aug. 6, 2008)

To protect overseas Philippine workers, the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 (“MWOFA”) was enacted in 1995. The MWOFA provided not only a basis of how different governmental agencies could work together, but also imposed criminal liability on illegal recruiters. In this essay, the introduction of the MWOFA is presented, and one case, People of the Philippines v. Ang, G.R. No. 181245, (S.C. Aug. 6, 2008), from the Supreme Court of the Philippines regarding illegal recruitment under the MWOFA is analyzed to show how the Supreme Court interpreted a disputed statute and what power is granted to the Supreme Court so that it could revise the amount of the fine decided by the lower court. It is found that the Supreme Court can ignore one element in a criminal clause as long as the ignorance makes sense for purposes of enforcing the criminal clause and that the Supreme Court can impose a new penalty that is more severe than what the lower court ruled