3 minors rescued from P’panga manpower firm

MABALACAT, Pampanga — A combined team of local policemen, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents, social workers, and officials of San Jose, Tarlac rescued three girls aged 14 to 15 from an apartment of a manpower company here Monday afternoon.

The fate of the girls became known after four other girls, also from San Jose town, escaped from the apartment of the P&P Manpower Services in Barangay Lakandula where they were allegedly held against their will, police said.

Superintendent Renato Soria, Mabalacat police chief, said five more girls, also from a remote mountainous village in San Jose, have remained missing.

The manpower company reportedly recruited the girls to work as housemaids.

Despite the absence of any search or arrest warrant, Soria, together with the NBI agents, social workers, San Jose Vice Mayor Rodney Paniza and the girls’ parents, went to the apartment of the P&P Manpower Services at about 4:30 p.m. Monday and demanded that they be allowed inside.

After three hours of failed negotiations with Ryan Padillo, 24, and Jerwin Madrid, 20, the police forcibly entered the apartment after they saw the two pull the hair of one of the girls who attempted to open the door.

Soria said San Jose municipal social welfare officer Lapurisima Gomez and Tarlac provincial social welfare officer Maria Elena Jalos were the first ones to enter the apartment.

He cited Republic Act 7610 or the Special Protection of Children Against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act, which empowers them to take custody of minors from the hands of alleged child traffickers.

The social workers found the three girls crying and holding on to each other in one of the rooms.

Padillo and Madrid were arrested and charged with trafficking of minors and obstruction of justice.

Soria said investigators have invited one Pyra Lucas, who reportedly owns the manpower agency and whom the girls said had recruited them to work as housemaids.

He said Lucas, who remains at large, was also charged with trafficking of minors and illegal recruitment.

Her lawyer went to the Mabalacat police station the other day and questioned the absence of a search or arrest warrant, but Soria said social workers justified the entry into the apartment and the arrest of Padillo and Madrid as "continuing operations" on complaints based on the testimonies of the four girls who earlier escaped from the apartment.

Authorities located the apartment after the four girls aged from 15 to 16 escaped last Friday and reported their ordeal to the Angeles City social welfare office, which, in turn, alerted the Tarlac social welfare office.

"Whether the girls agreed to be recruited or not is out of the question. They were all minors and were later kept in the apartment while the recruiters negotiated jobs for them," Soria said.