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| Ester Ylagan, with her company's pledge |
Two Filipinas who had been promised jobs in Canada and Britain which were apparently non-existent got a full refund of the up to $15,000 they had paid the owner of Emry’s Employment Agency after one of them threatened to report to the Hong Kong authorities.
But Fatima Toquero and Joy Ensenado were made by agency owner Ester Ylagan to sign a quitclaim on June 26 in which they promised not to pursue any case against Emry’s after receiving their refund.
At least 10 other applicants who had also obtained a refund from Ylagan, eight of them with help from Labor Attache Jalilo de la Torre.
Four other applicants who went with Toquero and Ensenado to Emry’s were refused a refund, so they said they went to the Consulate to complain.
Toquero, a nurse who was promised a job at a hospital in Canada, got back the $15,000 she paid Ylagan. Ensenado recovered the $5,500 she paid Emry’s on March 24 for an unspecified job in London.
The “Affidavit of Desistance, Waiver, Release and Quitclaim” that Ylagan asked Toquero and Ensenado to sign before she paid them back was made in the name of Mike’s Secretarial Services, which Ylagan allegedly explained to applicants as a “baby” of Emry’s.
The document stated Mike’s address as Shop 356, 3/F, World-Wide Plaza, 19 Des Voeux Road Central. In Toquero’s case, it also stated that the money paid was for securing a “Foreign Immigrant Clearance Certificate” and Foreign Employment Clearance Certificate. For Ensenado, the lesser amount was supposed to pay only for the FICC clearance.
But in both affidavits, the applicants were made to declare that they were waiving the right to file “any legal suit, proceeding or desist from further pursuing or prosecuting any legal action” against Mike’s Secretarial Service, Emry’s and Ylagan in Hong Kong and the Philippines.
According to Toquero, they were promised that after the two clearances were obtained, they could already be given a job order. The said “JO” was originally meant to be released in June, but this was later moved to October.
In the meantime, Ylagan reportedly told the applicants to entice more people to apply.
The jobs offered were in hotels, restaurants, hospitals and schools, domestic helper, and others that were based on the applicant’s work experience.
“Huwag na huwag daw po namin kalilimutang ilagay ang domestic helper, kasi iyon daw po ang karamihan ng work doon sa UK, kahit tagapulot lang ng plastic sa street,” Toquero said.
The applicants were made to fill up pro forma resumes where they stated the work they were applying for, and to rank them according to the order of preference.
Toquero said she had threatened to take Ylagan to the police and Hong Kong’s Labour Department if her money was not returned. This was after Ylagan had reportedly told the applicants that she would no longer give refunds as the money had already been sent to her partner in London.
“She said we should not treat her like a criminal because she had helped a lot of people for 30 years,” Toquero said.
Emry’s, the biggest recruiter of Filipino domestic workers to Hong Kong, has been in business for three decades.
Ensenado said Ylagan had told her sharply that God would punish her for insisting on a refund. “She also told me not to recruit people to demand a refund,” she said.
One of the applicants who failed to get her money back said in a Facebook group chat that when they got to Mike’s, Ylagan told them to write down their reason why they needed to withdraw their money. “She said many other applicants are positive about the job prospects and have decided to wait until October,” she said.
Ylagan reportedly told them to wait for her call if they wanted a refund.
