THE Supreme Court has upheld the life imprisonment sentence meted by a court in Angeles City, Pampanga on a South Korean pastor who was involved in qualified trafficking of persons, particularly the recruitment of minors that resulted in forced labor.
In a decision promulgated on June 5, 2024 but made public only yesterday, the SC’s Third Division through Associate Justice Samuel Gaerlan affirmed the life sentence on pastor Si Young Oh alias Steve Oh and ordered him to pay each of the three minor victims P500,000 as moral damages and P100,000 as exemplary damages, with an interest rate of 6 percent per annum until fully complied with.
Court records showed that Si Young Oh, a pastor affiliated with the Korean Christian Presbyterian General Assembly based in Seoul, South Korea, moved to the Philippines in 2008. He became the head of a theology school in Pampanga, but later admitted to operating the school without government permits.
He then recruited minors identified only in court proceedings as AAA, BBB, and CCC, all 17 years old, to study theology and become pastors or missionaries, free of charge.
However, he took advantage of them by forcing them to perform hard labor on church construction projects for little to no compensation.
On April 15, 2013, a joint operation by the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the National Bureau of Investigation led to the rescue of the minors and the arrest of the Korean pastor.
In his defense, the pastor said the minors did the construction work voluntarily as part of their religious training.
In 2017, he was convicted by Branch 61 of the Angeles City Regional Trial Court and sentenced to life imprisonment, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeals in 2021. This prompted the pastor to elevate the case to the SC but it was dismissed.
In dismissing his appeal, the High Court said it found all the elements of trafficking under Republic Act 9208 were clearly met, namely when individuals are recruited, transported, or transferred — regardless of consent or knowledge — under threat, coercion, deception, or abuse of power, for exploitative purposes such as prostitution, forced labor, slavery, or removal or sale of organs.
“The prosecution was able to establish all the elements of the crime of trafficking in persons under Republic Act 9208.The evidence adduced by the prosecution show that Si Young Oh committed the act of recruiting AAA, BBB and CCC to become students and transported them within national borders by means of fraud and deception, as well as taking advantage of AAA, BBB, and CCC, and for the purpose of exploiting them through forced labor and servitude,” the SC said in junking the pastor’s appeal.
*”Si Young Oh employed fraud and deceit when, under false pretenses, AAA, BBB, and CCC were enticed to leave their respective homes to become students of a school that had no license to operate, and to pursue a Bachelor of Theology degree that did not possess any permission from CHED to be granted. Worse, apart from the occasional Bible study sessions which were held outdoors, no formal classes were held. There was literally no classroom to speak of. Si Young Oh took advantage of the vulnerability of AAA, BBB, and CCC not only as minors, but also as believers in their chosen faith,” the SC added.
The High Court also said that even if AAA, BBB, and CCC may have been driven by their religious convictions to agree to do construction work, a minor’s consent, even without the use of coercive or deceptive means, is not given out of their own free will.
“Clearly, such acts constitutes exploitation and weaponization of the victim’s religious beliefs, and consequently, cement the exploitative purpose under which they were trafficked,” the SC added.
Concurring with the ruling is Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and Associate Justices Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, Henri Jean Paul Inting and Mario Lopez.
