Article II. Declaration of Principles and State Policies
Section 18.
The State affirms labor as a primary social economic force. It shall protect the rights of workers and promote their welfare.
Article III. Bill of Rights
Section 1.
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the laws.
Section 6.
The liberty of abode and of changing the same within the limits prescribed by law shall not be impaired except upon lawful order of the court. Neither shall the right to travel be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.
Article XIII. Social Justice and Human Rights Labor
Section 3.
The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all. It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organizations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law. The State shall promote the principle of shared responsibility between workers and employers and the preferential use of voluntary modes in settling disputes, including conciliation, and shall enforce their mutual compliance therewith to foster industrial peace. The State shall regulate the relations between workers and employers, recognizing the right of labor to its just share in the fruits of production and the right of enterprises to reasonable returns on investments, and to expansion and growth.Philippines Constitution
Art. 267. Kidnapping and serious illegal detention.
Any private individual who shall kidnap or detain another, or in any other manner deprive him of his liberty, shall suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetual to death:
1. If the kidnapping or detention shall have lasted more than five days.
2. If it shall have been committed simulating public authority.
3. If any serious physical injuries shall have been inflicted upon the person kidnapped or detained; or if threats to kill him shall have been made.
4. If the person kidnapped or detained shall be a minor, female or a public officer.
The penalty shall be death where the kidnapping or detention was committed for the purpose of extorting ransom from the victim or any other person, even if none of the circumstances above-mentioned were present in the commission of the offense.
Art. 272. Slavery.
The penalty of prison mayor and a fine of not exceeding 10,000 pesos shall be imposed upon anyone who shall purchase, sell, kidnap or detain a human being for the purpose of enslaving him. If the crime be committed for the purpose of assigning the offended party to some immoral traffic, the penalty shall be imposed in its maximum period.
Art. 274. Services rendered under compulsion in payment of debt.
The penalty of arrest mayor in its maximum period to prison correctional in its minimum period shall be imposed upon any person who, in order to require or enforce the payment of a debt, shall compel the debtor to work for him, against his will, as household servant or farm laborer.
Art. 289. Formation, maintenance and prohibition of combination of capital or labor through violence or threats.
The penalty of arresto mayor and a fine not exceeding 300 pesos shall be imposed upon any person who, for the purpose of organizing, maintaining or preventing coalitions or capital or labor, strike of laborers or lock-out of employees, shall employ violence or threats in such a degree as to compel or force the laborers or employers in the free and legal exercise of their industry or work, if the act shall not constitute a more serious offense in accordance with the provisions of this Code.
Art. 341. White slave trade.
The penalty of prision mayor in its medium and maximum period shall be imposed upon any person who, in any manner, or under any pretext, shall engage in the business or shall profit by prostitution or shall enlist the services of any other for the purpose of prostitution (As amended by Batas Pambansa Blg. 186.) Philippines Penal Code
Section 3. Definition of Terms.
As used in this Act:
(a) Trafficking in Persons - refers to the recruitment, transportation, transfer or harboring, or receipt of persons with or without the victim's consent or knowledge, within or across national borders by means of threat or use of force, or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of position, taking advantage of the vulnerability of the person, or, the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation which includes at a minimum, the exploitation or the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery, servitude or the removal or sale of organs. The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall also be considered as "trafficking in persons" even if it does not involve any of the means set forth in the preceding paragraph.
(d) Forced Labor and Slavery - refer to the extraction of work or services from any person by means of enticement, violence, intimidation or threat, use of force or coercion, including deprivation of freedom, abuse of authority or moral ascendancy, debt-bondage or deception.
(f) Sexual Exploitation - refers to participation by a person in prostitution or the production of pornographic materials as a result of being subjected to a threat, deception, coercion, abduction, force, abuse of authority, debt bondage, fraud or through abuse of a victim's vulnerability.
(g) Debt Bondage - refers to the pledging by the debtor of his/her personal services or labor or those of a person under his/her control as security or payment for a debt, when the length and nature of services is not clearly defined or when the value of the services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt.
Section 4. Acts of Trafficking in Persons.
It shall be unlawful for any person, natural or juridical, to commit any of the following acts:
(a) To recruit, transport, transfer; harbor, provide, or receive a person by any means, including those done under the pretext of domestic or overseas employment or training or apprenticeship, for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage;
(b) To introduce or match for money, profit, or material, economic or other consideration, any person or, as provided for under Republic Act No. 6955, any Filipino woman to a foreign national, for marriage for the purpose of acquiring, buying, offering, selling or trading him/her to engage in prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage;
(c) To offer or contract marriage, real or simulated, for the purpose of acquiring, buying, offering, selling, or trading them to engage in prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor or slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage;
(d) To undertake or organize tours and travel plans consisting of tourism packages or activities for the purpose of utilizing and offering persons for prostitution, pornography or sexual exploitation;
(e) To maintain or hire a person to engage in prostitution or pornography;
(f) To adopt or facilitate the adoption of persons for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage;
(g) To recruit, hire, adopt, transport or abduct a person, by means of threat or use of force, fraud, deceit, violence, coercion, or intimidation for the purpose of removal or sale of organs of said person; and
(h) To recruit, transport or adopt a child to engage in armed activities in the Philippines or abroad.
Section 5. Acts that Promote Trafficking in Persons.
The following acts which promote or facilitate trafficking in persons, shall be unlawful:
(a) To knowingly lease or sublease, use or allow to be used any house, building or establishment for the purpose of promoting trafficking in persons;
(b) To produce, print and issue or distribute unissued, tampered or fake counseling certificates, registration stickers and certificates of any government agency which issues these certificates and stickers as proof of compliance with government regulatory and pre-departure requirements for the purpose of promoting trafficking in persons;
(c) To advertise, publish, print, broadcast or distribute, or cause the advertisement, publication, printing, broadcasting or distribution by any means, including the use of information technology and the internet, of any brochure, flyer, or any propaganda material that promotes trafficking in persons;
(d) To assist in the conduct of misrepresentation or fraud for purposes of facilitating the acquisition of clearances and necessary exit documents from government agencies that are mandated to provide pre-departure registration and services for departing persons for the purpose of promoting trafficking in persons;
(e) To facilitate, assist or help in the exit and entry of persons from/to the country at international and local airports, territorial boundaries and seaports who are in possession of unissued, tampered or fraudulent travel documents for the purpose of promoting trafficking in persons;
(f) To confiscate, conceal, or destroy the passport, travel documents, or personal documents or belongings of trafficked persons in furtherance of trafficking or to prevent them from leaving the country or seeking redress from the government or appropriate agencies; and
(g) To knowingly benefit from, financial or otherwise, or make use of, the labor or services of a person held to a condition of involuntary servitude, forced labor, or slavery.
Section 6. Qualified Trafficking in Persons.
The following are considered as qualified trafficking:
(a) When the trafficked person is a child;
(b) When the adoption is effected through Republic Act No. 8043, otherwise known as the "Inter-Country Adoption Act of 1995" and said adoption is for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage;
(c) When the crime is committed by a syndicate, or in large scale. Trafficking is deemed committed by a syndicate if carried out by a group of three (3) or more persons conspiring or confederating with one another. It is deemed committed in large scale if committed against three (3) or more persons, individually or as a group;
(d) When the offender is an ascendant, parent, sibling, guardian or a person who exercises authority over the trafficked person or when the offense is committed by a public officer or employee;
(e) When the trafficked person is recruited to engage in prostitution with any member of the military or law enforcement agencies;
(f) When the offender is a member of the military or law enforcement agencies; and
(g) When by reason or on occasion of the act of trafficking in persons, the offended party dies, becomes insane, suffers mutilation or is afflicted with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
Section 11. Use of Trafficked Persons.
Any person who buys or engages the services of trafficked persons for prostitution shall be penalized as follows:
(a) First offense - six (6) months of community service as may be determined by the court and a fine of Fifty thousand pesos (P50,000.00); and
(b) Second and subsequent offenses - imprisonment of one (1) year and a fine of One hundred thousand pesos (P100,000.00).Philippines Trafficking in Persons Law
Section 3.
For purposes of this Act, the term:
(h) "Enslavement" means the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children.
Section 6. Other Crimes Against Humanity.
For the purpose of this act, "other crimes against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(c) Enslavement;
Section 4. War Crimes.
For the purpose of this Act, "war crimes" or "crimes against International Human Humanitarian Law" means:
(c) Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely:
(19) Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence also constituting a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions or a serious violation of common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions
Paragraph 381
The Philippine Revised Penal Code provides:
Article 272. Slavery. The penalty of prision mayor and a fine of not exceeding 10,000 pesos shall be imposed upon anyone who shall purchase, sell, kidnap or detain a human being for the purpose of enslaving him.
If the crime be committed for the purpose of assigning the offended party to some immoral traffic, the penalty shall be imposed in it maximum period.
Article 273. Exploitation of child labour. The penalty of prision correctional in its minimum and medium periods and a fine not exceeding 500 pesos shall be imposed upon anyone who, under the pretext of reimbursing himself of a debt incurred by an ascendant, guardian or person entrusted with the custody of a minor, shall, against the latter’s will, retain him in his service.
Article 274. Service rendered under compulsion in payment of debts. The penalty of arresto mayor in its maximum period shall be imposed upon any person who, in order to require or enforce the payment of a debt, shall compel the debtor to work for him, against his will, as household servant or farm labourer.
Paragraph 384
Article 2071, otherwise known as the Anti-Slavery Act enacted on August 7, 1911, as amended by Acts 2300 and 2399 (approved November 28, 1913 and March 27, 1914 respectively) also provides that:
Section 1. whoever, except in pursuance of the judgement of a court of competent jurisdiction or ‘other lawful authority’, shall hold any person in slavery or involuntary servitude, shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than twenty years and by a fine of not less than five hundred pesos and not more than five thousand pesos, in the discretion of the court.
Section 2. Whoever shall compel another person, against his will, to render labor or services in payment of a debt, or whoever accept labor or services for such purpose performed under such compulsion, with knowledge of that fact, shall upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment from not less than six months nor more than five years, or by a fine of not less than one hundred pesos and not more than one thousand pesos, or by both such imprisonment and fine i8n the discretion of the court.
Section 3. Whoever shall sell or barter or cause to be sold or bartered, and whoever shall buy or barter or cause to be bought or bartered, any human being, shall upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than twenty years or by a fine of not less than five hundred pesos and not more than ten thousand pesos, or both in the discretion of the court.
Paragraph 64
Practices arising from traditional forms of involuntary services rendered by tenants to their landlords have been reduced to a minimum by the passage of enlightened legislation governing the relationship between landlords and tenants and the recognition of the rights of labour in agriculture as well as in industry. Among such laws may be mentioned the Rice Share Tenancy Law, Act No. 4054, as amended; Commonwealth Act No. 146, as amended; Commonwealth Act Bo. 103, as amended etc.
Slavery or involuntary servitude has been prohibited in the Philippines since the early part of the twentieth century. This prohibition is embodied in our Constitution, which provides that ‘no involuntary servitude of any form shall exist except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted’. In addition, our laws prohibiting forced labour carry penal provisions.
Paragraph 77
...the freedom guaranteed under the Civil Code of 18 June 1949, if article 18 is fully enforced in the courts, will go far to strengthen the foundations of a free society.
…it is expected that the supposed practices of landlords stated therein will be corrected with the enactment of Republic Act No. 1199, governing the relation between landlords and tenants in agricultural lands.
It may be stated in this connexion that Commonwealth Act No. 303 prohibits employers from forcing, compelling or obliging their labourers to purchase directly or indirectly from them merchandise, commodities or goods of any kind or nature.
