Filipina fined for eating employer’s food in HK

INQUIRER.net, April 08, 2017

For eating her employer’s food, a Filipina domestic helper in Hong Kong has been fined an amount eight times the cost of what she had eaten.

Mildred Nilo Ladia, 40, was ordered by the Eastern Court to pay HK$ 800 (P5,130) on Friday after she confessed to consuming HK$100 (P642) worth of meatballs bought for her employer Gekko Lan Suet-ying last year, South China Morning Post reported.

However, Ladia was spared from another charge alleging that she stole two pairs of leather slippers and a designer bag. Prosecutors decided not to push through with this case since the employer is currently hospitalized.

Before she was arrested on May 2 last year, Ladia said that Lan deducted HK $100 from her salary of HK $4,210 (P27,000). According to Ladia’s lawyer Theresa Low, the charges pressed against her client were “devastating,” making Ladia unable to find work in Hong Kong again.

Nadia left the Philippines to support her three children, aged between 7 and 20 years old. Before working for Lan in August 2015, Nadia worked as a helper in Singapore, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

The report added that Ladia first asked for an absolute charge on the case but was turned down by magistrate Jason Wan Siu-ming, who asserted that Ladia’s case is deemed serious because it involves a breach of trust between her and her employer. Gianna Francesca Catolico /ra

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