2 Samsung execs barred from leaving RP

The Justice department has issued a hold-departure order against three Korean nationals who have been charged with syndicated and large-scale illegal recruitment, an act that is tantamount to economic sabotage.

Signed by Chief State Counsel Ricardo V. Paras III by authority of Secretary Leila de Lima, the order covers Kyung Chull Park, Boem Hee Kee, and Hae Lyong Kim. The first two are officers of Samsung Electronics Philippines Corp. with offices at the Hanjin building in Taguig City. The hold orders on Park, Kee and Kim are enforceable for five years or until after the resolution of the charges filed against them by Temps and Staffers, Inc., a Filipino manpower agency based in Quezon City.

At the same time, the Justice department issued watch-list orders against 13 Filipinos who are either officers or employees of Samsung Electronics Philippines Corp.  The WLOs are enforceable for six months unless sooner terminated.

The order dated Dec. 6 identified those under the watchlist as Glen Martin Glinoga, lawyer Gabriel Sto. Domingo Matriano, Mary Anne Porto Felipe, Benjamin Jimenez, Sherilyn Tan, Nelson Louie Solero Listom, Teresa Angela Salvallon, Gerald Randolf Duremdes, Ricky de Guzman, Noel Dajao, Elaine Ubalde Matito, Jerick Paloma, and Maybelle Doloran. Hae Lyong Kim and Doloran are officers of SD Humantech, a manpower agency managed by Koreans.

In its complaint, Temps and Staffers Inc. accused the Samsung Philippines executives of unlawfully pirating 700 of its employees who were deployed in all Samsung dealers across the country.

The local manpower provider through lawyer Bertrand Baterina stressed that under the Philippine Labor Code, any recruitment activity done by a person or a company not duly licensed to engage in such activity is deemed illegal and punishable.

“And when done through a syndicate, or on a large scale, as in this case, it falls under economic sabotage,” the lawyer said.

Baterina pointed out that based on Samsung’s contract with TSI, Samsung “acknowledges his client as an independent contractor whose existence was totally separate and independent from its (Samsung) own.”

As part of TSI’s corporate policy to protect its human resources pool, which it considers its main asset, all its employees deployed to its client-companies are required to sign a contract with a “non-compete clause which prohibits them to transfer to competing agencies or clients while working for TSI and six months thereafter,” Baterina explained.

The lawyer added that TSI turned down repeated requests by Samsung to handover TSI’s employees, specifically its promoters. This is in line with TSI’s policy to preserve and protect the manpower pool that it worked hard to train.

Samsung told TSI last May that it was no longer renewing its contracts with the human resources firm because the Seoul firm’s regional headquarters ordered Samsung Philippines to use the services of SD Human Tech, a manpower agency owned and managed by Korean nationals.

“As a result of SEPCO’s illegal act of inducing the personnel to leave TSI and transfer their employment to other agencies and/or SEPCO, TSI suffered incalculable damage, the reason being that its most valuable resource i. e. the personnel that it had spent much time and money to source, train and develop, was taken from it,” the TSI complaint stated. –Rey Requejo, Manila Standard Today