Relatives of Filipina DH who died in Shenzhen allowed to give video testimony

By The SUN

 

The truth about Lorain Asuncion's death 5 years ago may soon be found 

More than five years since Lorain E. Asuncion was found dead after falling from the apartment building in Shenzhen where her employer’s father lived, a case filed by her sister seeking employees' compensation over the death is about to be heard.

In a decision handed down on Friday, Oct. 14, District Court Judge KC Chan granted an application by Jenevieve Asuncion Javier to allow her and two other relatives to give testimony in the case via video link, despite the opposition by Lorain’s employer, Gu Huai Yu.

But in allowing the application, Judge Chan directed Javier to take care of arranging the video links for her and her two witnesses, and that a video clip of each of the facilities that they will use be provided before the pre-trial review to ensure they provide an atmosphere of solemnity to the occasion.

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He also ruled that Gu, within reasonable bounds, may ask the witnesses to move the camera around to show the surroundings to ensure that there are no persons or “undesirable matters present” which may affect the fairness of the trial.

Apart from Javier, who lives in the Philippines, the two other witnesses are her two aunts, Susan Dichosa Escorial and Justina Yap Escorial, who both moved to Alberta, Canada after working as domestic helpers in Hong Kong.

All three cited the great cost it would entail if they were to fly to Hong Kong to give evidence, especially amid the current travel restrictions due to the pandemic.

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In his ruling, Judge Chan said the main issues at the trial would be (a) whether the incident occurred in the course of employment, and (b) whether Lorain fell down accidentally or committed suicide.

Lorain was found dead on July 24, 2017, having fallen from a multi-storey residential building in Shenzhen. She was then 28 years old. 

Javier, as applicant, claims that Lorain had told her and their two aunts that she was taken occasionally by her employer to work in the Mainland, and that the deceased was not inclined to commit suicide.

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Gu maintains Lorain occasionally went to the Mainland as a “travel companion of his family” and that just before her death, had asked to be taken across the border to be such a “travel companion.”

The insurer, Blue Cross (Asia-Pacific) Insurance Limited was named as second respondent, but denies liability on the ground, among others, that the incident occurred outside the territorial coverage of the insurance. The proceedings against the insurer has been stayed for the time being.

Based on her witness statement submitted to the court, Javier, who is 34, is expected to give evidence on Lorain’s personal background, employment history and state of mental health. She will also speak about conversations she had with Lorain, particularly those just before she died.

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Susan, who is 53, was the one who communicated with Lorain the most. She had included in her witness statement 27 pages of screen captures of messages she had with the deceased from mid-October 2016 to July 18, 2017, or six days before Lorain was found dead.

Justina, who is 39, wrote about meetings she had with Lorain in April, May and June of 2017 - and particularly the one they had on July 22, 2017, which was the day before the deceased went to Shenzhen and two days prior to the discovery of her death.

All said they could not afford to travel to Hong Kong to give evidence during the trial.

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Javier, who lives in the Philippines, is a full-time mother taking care of her children. Her husband is a farmer earning about Php30,000 a month (about HK$4,300). The cheapest estimate for her trip, including air ticket and hotel accommodation for seven days, would cost about HK$,800 which her family cannot afford.

Susan and Justina now both live in Alberta, Canada. Susan is a live-in caregiver while Justina works as a meat-packer and looks after two teen-age children who are attending school. Both say they cannot get off work, and pay the estimated $15,800 needed for flights and hotel accommodation in Hong Kong.

Judge Chan found these grounds reasonable, especially since Legal Aid would not cover the costs of their travel to and from Hong Kong.

“I consider the costs estimated by the 3 witnesses are very modest (if not under-estimates) and without any exaggerations,” said the judge. 

“Their personal circumstances deposed to in the Affidavit are detail.  Moreover, from what they say in their witness statements it seems to me that they enjoyed a close relationship with the Deceased, such that I am inclined to accept what is said in the Affidavit that the 3 witnesses all wish very much to attend trial to seek justice and remedy for the death of the Deceased.”

Refusing leave would stifle the applicant’s claim, added the judge.

Further, he said the court has already had many opportunities of receiving evidence and observing witnesses by video-link and has become experienced and apt in assessing witnesses through this medium.

The judge ordered Gu to pay the costs of the proceedings, saying he should not have contested the application in the first place.

Evelyn Tsao, of Patricia Ho & Associates, on directions by Legal Aid, acted for the applicant while Toni Y T Chan, instructed by Francis Kong & Co, Solicitors, appeared for Gu.

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Fight for Lorain

One can only imagine what was going through the mind of Lorain Asuncion on that sad night in Longgang, Shenzhen, 19 months ago. Her sister says Lorain was unhappy that she was left there by her employers while they went off somewhere.

She was in a strange place, working for the female employer’s father she could hardly communicate with, so she was understandably sad, even resentful. But, says her sister, not lonely enough to have jumped off the old man’s 22nd floor flat.

That part we may never be able to verify, for three autopsies conducted on her remains did not indicate foul play. In short, it was likely she took her own life.

Her family was forced to accept that verdict after a long and agonizing wait. It took all of four months for the three post mortems to be completed that her body had to be put in a sealed coffin before it was shipped off for burial in the Philippines.

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Sad as that was, the family had to bear more setbacks in the months that followed.

First, they received word that Lorain’s employers were released from police bail without charges being filed. That meant that after 10 months of investigation, the police in Hong Kong had determined that there was no basis to charge the employers with conspiracy to make Lorain work illegally in China.

This was despite records showing that Lorain was brought across the border four times during the nine months that she was in the couple’s employ. That, and the incontrovertible fact that she was working for somebody who was not her employer at the time she died.



But more heartache was to come. Recently, Lorain’s sister learned from the solicitor they chose through legal aid to represent them, that their claim for compensation could not proceed because the Labor Department decided not to investigate the case at all. The reason given was that Lorain’s death happened outside Hong Kong.

That reasoning makes one wonder whether the controversial case is being deliberately shoved under the carpet so it does not again stir up questions as to why Immigration seems to look the other way when migrant workers are routinely sent or brought across the border by their employers.

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One can only imagine how prevalent this practice has become, when a chat with a longtime community leader revealed she had been crossing over to the other side nearly every other month, but has never received so much as a reminder that this practice could be in breach of the law.

And yet, Immigration has reportedly started warning absentee migrant workers – those who are away more often than they are in Hong Kong – that they must stay put for at least six months each year, or risk not having their work contracts renewed.

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But, as union leader Eman Villanueva says, Labor’s inaction has more far-reaching implications than this.

By refusing to look into the events that led to Lorain falling to her death in Shenzhen, Labour is sending the signal that employers are freed of any liability as soon as they take their helper with them abroad, or across the border.



By not providing relief to Lorain’s family members, the authorities effectively abet, rather than curtail, this widespread flouting of the laws by employers.

Ultimately, the inaction could lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign domestic workers being exposed to innumerable risks, not least of which is falling into depression, or harm.

There is only one way to stop all these, and that is, to conduct a thorough and impartial inquiry into the events that preceded Lorain’s death. That’s what justice is all about.

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Justice elusive for family of Filipina who fell to death in Shenzhen

By Vir B. Lumicao 

Lorain's death renewed calls to stop employers bringing their helpers across the border

Nearly four years after Filipina domestic helper Lorain Asuncion fell to her death in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, her family’s search for justice has gone nowhere, as her employers cannot be found.

Only a little money may be in store for her relatives, after an insurance company from which the employers had taken cover for the 28-year-old worker agreed on mediation to settle claims filed as a result of her death.

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This was disclosed today, Mar 26, by a lawyer representing the family of Asuncion, whose badly injured body was found in a flower bed outside a building at the Vanke No.5 Garden residential estate in Shenzhen on July 24, 2017.

Three autopsies conducted on her remains concluded that there was no foul play involved, indicating suicide.

Evelyn Tsao, a partner at Patricia Ho & Associates law office in Wanchai, said Asuncion’s Chinese male employer Gu Huaiyi is no longer at his contractual address at 10B, One Silversea, Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon and at his known addresses on the mainland.

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Tsao was assigned by human rights lawyer Patricia Ho as the solicitor in charge of the civil claims filed on behalf of Asuncion’s family at the District Court.

Tsao says an insurer has agreed to mediation to settle the claim

Tsao said Blue Cross Insurance HK, the insurer, is agreeable to mediation. She said the law firm had plans to seek compensation from the Employees Compensation Assistance Fund Board but before they could go to the Fund Board, the insurer said it would defend the proceedings. Just very recently Blue Cross suggested mediation because they are inclined to settle the case, Taso said.

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This was the same reason given by the Hong Kong Labour Department when it declined to investigate Asuncion's death.

Tsao said she could not say yet how much how the settlement would amount to, as the parties have yet to agree on a date for mediation.

Earlier, Ho said that the case was moving towards mediation, with a still undetermined amount to be paid to Asuncion’s beneficiaries to settle the claim.

She said the money would likely come from the Employees Compensation Assistance Fund, which covers payments relating to work-related injuries or death which a court may rule as payable by employers, as well as legal costs.

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“But there would be no justice for Lorain as her employers cannot be found to take responsibility for her death,” she lamented.

Ho laments that justice won't be served Lorain until her employers are found

Asuncion’s sister Jenevieve A. Javier echoed Ho’s sentiment. She said in a message to The SUN that the employer should have at least appeared in court to show good faith, instead of fleeing from his responsibility.

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On July 23 last year, the third anniversary of Asuncion’s death, the District Court issued summons to Gu in his last known address at One Silversea, after he ignored several notices for hearings. But he never responded.

Gu, then 47 years old, was arrested by the police shortly after Asuncion’s death in 2017, along with his  32-year-old wife surnamed Liu. But they were later released, with the police citing “lack of evidence” to support a charge against them.

(For more insight into this case, please read: https://www.sunwebhk.com/search?q=lorain

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Filipina DH who died in China flown home after 3rd autopsy

By Vir B. Lumicao 

Lorain Asuncion, the 28-year-old Filipina domestic helper who fell to her death in Shenzhen in late July, made her final voyage home on Nov 15 in a coffin.

Her remains were first brought to Hong Kong where authorities conducted a standard autopsy, the third to be carried out on the body.

Danny Baldon of the Philippine Consulate's assistance to nationals section said forensic experts who examined Asuncion's remains had indicated their findings matched those of the first two autopsies done in Shenzhen.

The two autopsies, conducted separately by Shenzhen police and a private forensics expert, both ruled out foul play.

The outcome of the latest autopsy are not likely to be known for a few days.

Lorain's belongings.

Asuncion reportedly plunged to her death from the 22nd floor flat of her female employer’s father in Longgang District, Shenzhen on July 23 or 24.

The Philippine Consulate in Guangzhou paid for an independent autopsy after the maid's family expressed doubts about the initial findings on her death.

Asuncion had been reportedly taken four times previously to the Shenzhen flat of Liu Heping, father of her female employer, to do house chores there.

On July 23, the elder Liu called police at 9:30am to report that the maid had gone missing but her belongings were in the flat.

At around the same time the next day, he called again and reported finding the maid’s body on the garden below the block.    Asuncion's remains were in a plywood and metal casket that was moved from the Universal Funeral Parlor in Hunghom to Chek Lap Kok airport on the eve of the two-hour flight to Manila on board Philippine Airlines Flight 301.

The casket was to be loaded to a connecting PAL flight to Tuguegarao City in Cagayan on Nov 16, and from there, transported overland to Baggao, Asuncion’s hometown.

There was no more formal public viewing for the deceased maid. Baldon said he was surprised by the abrupt decision to send the body home, but added the coroner’s office may have been concerned about its condition.

The Consulate representative watched as funeral home workers opened Asuncion’s sealed coffin, placed her blue backpack and a plastic bag containing a pair of sport shoes beside her feet, then resealed it.

Lorain's body for shipment home.

The brown enameled coffin was then put in the marked wooden casket in preparation for its shipment to the Philippines..

Meanwhile, Asuncion's employers, the couple Gu Huaiyu and Ms Liu, are under investigation by the Hong Kong police in connection with frequent trips they made to Shenzhen with the maid.

Gu and Liu are due to report back to the police headquarters by the end of December, a police spokesman told The SUN on Nov 9.

HK police drop case vs employers of Pinay who fell to her death in Shenzhen

By Vir B. Lumicao

Lorain Asuncion’s death: “... there was 

insufficient evidence to charge any person. “

Hong Kong police have released the former employers of Lorain Asuncion, the Filipina domestic worker who fell to her death on July 24 last year while in Shenzhen for a supposed holiday with the couple and their children.

A spokesman of the Police Public Relations Branch said in a message to The SUN that there was a lack of evidence to charge the couple, Gu Huaiyu and Ms Liu.

“After enquiry and investigation, police had sought legal advice and it was concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge any person. The arrested 47-year-old man and the 32-year-old woman were released,” the PPRB spokesman said.
But the spokesman said that “police are still investigating the case.”

When contacted online on May 11, Asuncion’s sister Jenevieve Javier expressed surprise at how soon the police managed to close their investigation of the employers.

“Bakit ganun naman yata kabilis nilang tinapos. Lilinawin ko ulit sa kanila,” she said.

The police statement confirmed information from Javier, who came to Hong Kong for a four-day visit on May 7. She said an investigator called her up on the same day telling her the case against Gu and Liu was being dropped.

Javier said the officer told her Hong Kong police would now turn their attention to the circumstances of her sister’s death in Shenzhen.

She also said the police asked Asuncion’s family to submit documents pertaining to her beneficiaries. Javier said the documents required were copies of the very same documents that she had attached to the application for employee compensation that she had submitted to the Labour Department.

Danilo Baldon of the Philippine Consulate’s assistance to nationals section, who had been liaising with the police about the Asuncion case, also confirmed the dropping of the case against the employers.

Asuncion was 28 years old when she reportedly plunged to her death from the 22nd floor flat of Liu’s father in Longgang District, Shenzhen on July 23 or 24 last year.

Three autopsies were conducted on her remains but the findings were all the same – that there was nothing suspicious in her death.

Forensic experts from the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau and from a local university who examined Asuncion’s remains separately shortly after the tragedy had both ruled out foul play. A third autopsy by Hong Kong police on Nov 14 made the same findings.

The remains were brought to Hong Kong on Nov 14 for the standard autopsy before the deceased OFW made her final voyage home in a coffin the next day.

Pinay’s body still in China

Lorain Asuncion

The repatriation of the remains of Lorain Asuncion, a Hong Kong-based domestic helper who fell to her death on July 24 in Shenzhen while joining her employers on a trip to China, remains uncertain more than two weeks after the tragedy.

According to the victim’s sister, Shenzhen police were expected to conduct an autopsy on the remains on Aug 11 or Aug 14.

This was after their parents sent a special power of attorney to the assistance to nationals section of the Philippine Consulate in Guangzhou authorizing it to request an autopsy by the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau.

Asuncion’s employer met with ATN officers of the Consulate, but details of the talks are being kept confidential.

Asuncion’s sister Jenevieve A. Javier, who flew into Hong Kong on July 30 and went to see the victim’s body in Shenzhen the next day, told The SUN that the employer had refused to meet her.

“He does not want to talk to me face to face, saying he was also a victim of the incident and that this is not the right time for us to meet up,” Javier said.

“Ayaw nila talagang makipag-usap, ewan ko kung bakit. Di man lang sila gumawa ng effort para makipag-usap. Kami pa ang nag-i-insist na makipagkita,” she added.

Relatives of Asuncion have been asking for an autopsy to find out the real cause of the OFW’s death.

“We just want to know the truth so that my sister will get justice,” Javier said. She was hoping to accompany her sister’s body home, unaware that the release process in China would take some time. She was due to return home without accomplishing her mission so she could report back to work.

Meanwhile, Labor Attaché Jalilo dela Torre said the Philippine Overseas Labor Office had blacklisted Asuncion’s employers, a move that would prevent them from hiring any domestic worker from the Philippines in future. - VBL

Second autopsy rules out foul play in Pinay’s fatal fall in Shenzhen

Lorain Asuncion

By Vir B. Lumicao

A forensics report on the comprehensive second autopsy on the remains of a Filipina maid who died in a fall from a residential tower in Shenzhen in July suggested no foul play, supporting a similar finding by the police on the mainland.

Relatives of the deceased expressed hope the findings would not adversely affect Hong Kong police investigation of the maid’s employers in connection with the tragedy.

The autopsy findings by the Center of Forensic Science Guangdong Medical University indicated the deceased, Lorain Escorial Asuncion, 28 and single, died from multiple organ injury and massive blood loss.

The findings appeared to support an earlier conclusion by the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau that the Filipina died from falling.

The English translation of the five-page forensic report was handed by the Department of Foreign Affairs to Jenevieve A. Javier, the elder sibling of Asuncion, on Oct 13. 

Javier said a DFA officer who turned over the findings said Asuncion’s remains might be released and repatriated before the end of October.

“Sana lumabas ang katotohanan…ang sa amin lang, magbigay sila ng ebidensiya na ginawa talaga niya yung sinasabi ng amo na nag-commit siya ng suicide,” Javier told The SUN in an online message.

The report said that while Asuncion’s face was intact with no deformity of the skull and face, her chest had collapsed and was deformed with several broken ribs that pierced her left lung, causing it to rupture and bleed. Her upper left arm also broke and her right foot was deformed, possibly on impact.

The report also said that no foreign matter was found in her uterine cavity, indicating no sexual assault.

An initial Shenzhen police autopsy of the victim’s body in August also ruled out foul play and classified Asuncion’s case as “death by falling”.

But her relatives doubted the initial report because Asuncion’s face was intact, which they thought was inconsistent with her having fallen from the 22^nd storey flat of her female employer’s father in Longgang District.

The Filipina had traveled to Shenzhen on July 22 this year on her employers’ instructions to join them in their summer vacation there. But when she got there, her employers Gu Huaiyi, his wife Ms Liu their children had gone to other parts of China and the helper was forced to stay in the house Liu Heping, her employer’s father.

The next morning, the elder Liu called the police to report that the Filipina had gone missing but her belongings were in his flat. A day later, Liu again called the police to say he had found Asuncion’s body in the garden below his flat.

The maid’s employers were arrested by Hong Kong police in August and were being investigated allegedly for violation of immigration rules in connection with taking their helper to work across the border.

They were released on police bail but were due to report to the police headquarters any day now for further investigation. 

Sources at the Consulate told The SUN Hong Kong investigators were also awaiting the result of the second autopsy.  

Migrants to protest Labour’s inaction in dead OFW’s case

Lorain Asuncion

By The SUN

A migrant workers’ union is set to protest the failure of the Hong Kong Labour Department to investigate the events that led to an overseas Filipino worker being sent by her employer to Shenzhen, where she apparently took her own life more than a year ago.

The response by the Filipino Migrant Workers Union came in the wake of reports that the family of domestic worker Lorain Asuncion was left facing another blank wall in its quest to gain a semblance of justice over her death because of Labour’s inaction.

According to the deceased’s sister, Jenevieve A. Javier, the Labour Department had not investigated the case reportedly because Asuncion died outside Hong Kong.



Lawyer Teddy Lam, a partner at solicitors’ firm Boase, Cohen and Collins, relayed the news about Labour’s lack of action in a private message to Javier earlier this week.

“I have written to the Labour Department to see whether they had done any investigation. The reply is that they did not investigate as the accident happened outside Hong Kong,” Lam said.

He said he is willing to assist the Asuncion family’s quest for compensation if the latter has evidence to prove its case.



“I have to advise you that the legal burden of proof rest(s) on our shoulders. You have to understand that we lawyers have to rely on evidence, in particular, that legal aid is funding this case,” Lam said.

Earlier, Asuncion’s employers who had been out on police bail, were ordered released with no charges being filed against them.

The authorities’ inaction sparked an angry reaction from Eman Villanueva, chairperson of FMWU.



“This sets a dangerous precedent,” Villanueva said. “It sends the message that once a foreign domestic worker is sent out of Hong Kong to work elsewhere, the employer is no longer accountable to her.”

In fact, said Villanueva, the worker should be better protected by both Hong Kong’s laws and those of the foreign place where she is sent to work.

In many countries in Europe and in the United States, for example, he said the rule is that the worker who is brought there should be paid the prevailing salary, and protected by their own labor laws.



He said his group will consider staging a protest action outside the Labor Department’s offices to protest its inaction.

FMWU's Eman Villanueva

They will also seek help from Labour legislator Fernando Cheung on whether he could initiate a legislative inquiry into the case.

Villanueva said the fact that legal aid had already been granted to Asuncion’s family’s quest for compensation indicates there is probable ground their claim is justified.

Asuncion, 28, plunged to her death from the 22nd floor flat of her female employer’s father in Longgang District, Shenzhen, either on July 23 or 24, 2017.

Three autopsies conducted on her remains all reached the same conlusion – that there was nothing suspicious in her death.

However, the question of how she ended up working in the house of her employer’s father, and why she ended up becoming despondent enough to commit suicide, has not been resolved.

Javier, who has been granted a special power of attorney by her elderly parents to pursue their search for justice for Asuncion’s death, is at a loss over what to do now.

An investigation by Labour could confirm what to her was apparent - that her sister was ordered by her employers Gu Haiyu and his wife, Ms Liu, to cross the border and perform work for another person.

If that could be proven, then the employers should at the very least be held accountable for violating their employment contract that said Asuncion should only work at the address provided there, said Villanueva.

“The offence could be worse, because this has all the signs of human trafficking,” said Villanueva.

But since Hong Kong has unfortunately no law against human trafficking, he said Labour and Immigration should at the very least look into why Asuncion ended up working illegally across the border.

News about the department’s inaction came 10 months after the Hong Kong police released Asuncion’s former employers from criminal liability for the Filipina’s death due to insufficient evidence.

The couple were arrested but allowed to post bail a couple of months after Asuncion’s fatal fall. They were cleared after several months of investigation.

“After enquiry and investigation, police had sought legal advice and it was concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge any person,” a police spokesman said in response to an enquiry on May 11 last year.

“The arrested 47-year-old man and the 32-year-old woman were released,” he said, adding that investigation continued on the Shenzhen side. However, there has been no word either if the Chinese side has completed its investigation, and what its findings are.

Forensic experts from the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau and from a local university who examined Asuncion’s remains separately shortly after the tragedy had both ruled out foul play. A third autopsy by Hong Kong police on Nov 14 made the same findings.