Institute for Migrant Rights
Railway line at Cianjur station, c. 1890 · KITLV, CC BY 4.0

Migration Jurisprudence from the South › Philippines

Datuman v. First Cosmopolitan Manpower

Supreme Court of the Philippines · Philippines · 2008-11-14 · National court

Citation: G.R. No. 156029
Type of case: Private
Outcome: Decided for the migrant side

Question

Is the Philippine agency liable when the worker is made to sign a worse contract on arrival abroad?

What the court decided

Yes. Contract substitution is prohibited and the agency is jointly liable for the difference.

In plain language

A Filipina sent to Saudi Arabia was made to sign a new contract with worse pay and work. The Supreme Court said the agency in the Philippines must pay what she lost.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Seorang perempuan Filipina yang dikirim ke Arab Saudi dipaksa menandatangani kontrak baru dengan upah dan pekerjaan lebih buruk. MA menyatakan agen di Filipina wajib membayar kerugiannya.

Pertanyaan: Apakah agen Filipina bertanggung jawab jika pekerja dipaksa menandatangani kontrak yang lebih buruk setibanya di luar negeri?

What happened afterwards

  • 2008-11-14: Judgment.

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/ph-datuman-2008/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

For researchers

This collection of decisions is built for empirical legal scholarship and socio-legal research on migration and the rights of migrant workers, as well as for advocacy.

The coded variables support statistical analysis in law: cross-national comparison, regression and event-history designs, and law and economics questions such as how recruitment fees, wage protection and limits on changing employer affect migrant workers. The data can be downloaded for replication.

Keywords: case law; jurisprudence; judicial decisions; comparative constitutional law; courts and migration; judicial behavior; litigation outcomes; refugee law; non-refoulement; citizenship and nationality; empirical legal studies; empirical legal scholarship; quantitative legal research; statistical analysis in law; law and economics; law and economics of migration; comparative law; socio-legal studies; legal pluralism; migration law; labor migration; migrant workers’ rights; human rights law; access to justice; Global South; Asia; Africa; Middle East; Latin America; Indonesia; open data; replication data.