Filipino nurses targeted for exposing abuses

The criminally charged nurses within the Sentosa 27 stood firm and united during their last criminal court appearance Dec. 17 at a state supreme courthouse in Suffolk County on Long Island, N.Y., when the assistant district attorney advised that they take on separate legal counsels.

The Avalon 10 and their lawyer, Felix Vinluan, have been leading a popular campaign to appeal to New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer to appoint a special prosecutor independent of the Suffolk County district attorney’s office on Long Island.

Photo: anakbayan-ny.blogspot.com

The Sentosa 27 nurses, with the assistance of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns or NAFCON, have been waging a justice campaign since 2006, in a clear case of human trafficking, illegal recruiting and indentured servitude at the hands of SentosaCare LLC. Sentosa is a major health-care management agency managing over 12 nursing homes in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Sentosa is owned and managed by Bent Philipson, a major political contributor to Sen. Charles Schumer as well as former Philippine Executive Secretary Mike Defensor. The nurses claim political interference on Sentosa’s part has been a major obstruction to justice in their campaign thus far, and has enabled the fraudulent Sentosa Recruitment Agency in Manila to continue to operate.

“We are very concerned that anyone affiliated with District Attorney Thomas Spota will not afford us a fair and objective trial,” said Vinluan. “This has been an uphill battle wherein all signs point to the reality that the Sentosa camp is working in collusion with Sen. Charles Schumer and other local government officials. These political ties yield power and influence to the multi-million-dollar Sentosa camp and disenfranchise us of our rights as immigrants.”

The nurses say that a Spota trial would establish a strong anti-immigrant and pro-Sentosa bias was further substantiated by the fact that before the indictment, Spota had a series of private meetings with the principals of Avalon Gardens, the Riverhead nursing home owned and managed by SentosaCare LLC.

Despite standing firm that all nurses were satisfied being represented by one legal counsel for the course of their criminal trial, attorney James Druker, it was evident that Judge Robert Doyle felt compelled to advise them to seek more than one attorney for the case.

“These are divide-and-rule tactics,” stated Rico Foz, executive vice president of the NAFCON. “It is not beyond the Sentosa camp and the Suffolk district attorney to seek to weaken the unity of the Avalon 10 by dividing them up by legal counsels and giving them uneven advise. We admire the example of the nurses’ unity at this critical time.”

Vinluan had advised that the nurses had the right to resign after working for more than a year under violated employment contracts and after suffering intolerable work place abuse. SentosaCare LLC owner Bent Philipson retaliated by filing criminal charges against the 10 nurses for patient endangerment, while Vinluan was charged with tortuous interference.

“This is not just about the rights of immigrant nurses, but the rights of lawyers to offer their clients sound legal advice are also being called to question,” Vinluan defended.

The Avalon 10 maintain that none of their patients faced endangerment and that they fully resigned only after completing their shifts and making sure the incoming nurses were already in. Since then, the Sentosa 27, along with NAFCON, have launched an international campaign for justice and to shut down the fraudulent and illegal operations of SentosaCare LLC and the Sentosa Recruitment Agency in Manila.

The nurses and Vinluan maintain that the immediate battlefront at this point, before the Jan. 28 start date of the criminal trial, is to convince Spitzer to appoint a special prosecutor before then. A letter-writing campaign to Spitzer has already been launched by NAFCON, the New York Nurses Association, the American Nurses Association, the Philippine Nurses Association, Region 1 of the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations, as well as the California Nurses Association.

Community members are encouraged to also send letters to Spitzer, by faxing at 518-474-1513, or email at www.ny.gov.

“Justice will be challenged if Sentosa has already bought off the Suffolk County Court System before the criminal trial even starts,” Foz emphasized.

For more information, please contact National Alliance for Filipino Concerns at [email protected] or email [email protected].

Bernadette Ellorin is Secretary-General of BAYAN-USA.