The Supreme Court has affirmed the life imprisonment sentence of South Korean pastor Si Young Oh, a.k.a. “Steve Oh” (Si Young Oh), for qualified trafficking involving the recruitment of minors to his church under false pretenses, resulting in their forced labor.
In a Decision written by Associate Justice Samuel H. Gaerlan, the Supreme Court’s Third Division found Si Young Oh guilty of qualified trafficking in persons under Republic Act No. (RA) 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003.
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 the necessary government permits.
Si Young Oh recruited minors 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 Si Young Oh.
In his defense, the pastor argued that the minors did the construction work voluntarily as part of their religious training.
The Regional Trial Court of Angeles City, Pampanga convicted Si Young Oh of qualified trafficking in 2017, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeals in 2021.
In dismissing his appeal, the Supreme Court found that all the elements of trafficking under RA 9208 were clearly met.
The Court highlighted that trafficking occurs when individuals are recruited, transported, or transferred – regardless of consent or knowledge – under threats, coercion, deception, or abuse of power, for exploitative purposes such as prostitution, forced labor, slavery, or removal or sale of organs.
The crime is classified as qualified trafficking, which carries a life sentence when involving minors or three or more victims.
The Court found that the prosecution proved that Si Young Oh, personally or through an assistant, recruited and transported AAA, BBB, and CCC to become students in his church in Pampanga. He did this with fraud and deception, taking advantage of the minors’ vulnerability and exploiting their religious beliefs. Finally, instead of offering them theology classes as he promised, he forced them to do manual labor, practically for free.
The Court stressed 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.
Si Young Oh was also fined PHP 2 million and ordered to pay the victims PHP 1.8 million in damages.| via Supreme Court Public Information Office
