Migration Jurisprudence from the South › Philippines

Philippine Association of Service Exporters v. Drilon

Supreme Court of the Philippines · Philippines · 1988-06-30 · National court

Citation: G.R. No. 81958
Type of case: Constitutional and human rights
Outcome: Decided against the migrant side

Question

May the government ban the deployment of women domestic workers abroad to protect them?

What the court decided

Yes. The deployment ban was a valid exercise of police power and did not breach equal protection.

In plain language

The Philippines stopped sending women abroad as domestic workers because of abuse. Recruitment agencies challenged the ban. The Supreme Court upheld it.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Filipina menghentikan pengiriman perempuan sebagai pekerja rumah tangga karena banyak kekerasan. Agen perekrut menggugat larangan itu. MA mempertahankannya.

Pertanyaan: Bolehkah pemerintah melarang pengiriman perempuan pekerja rumah tangga ke luar negeri untuk melindungi mereka?

What happened afterwards

1988-06-30: Ban upheld.

Sources

Lawphil

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-pasei-1988/. 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.

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