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Canto-pop star Jacky Cheung Hok-yau,  nicknamed 'the terminator' by domestic helpers, has been banned from hiring any more maids from the Philippines.
Cheung and his wife, former actress May Lo Mei-mei,  were placed on a blacklist of substandard employers maintained by the Philippine consulate after hiring and firing 21 helpers in three years.
Joel Blas, an assistant national officer at the consulate, said the consul general had met Ms Lo last week to explain that the couple would not be allowed to hire any helpers from the Philippines for  one year.
They will not be permitted to renew the contracts of the four helpers they currently employ.
Mr Blas denied the blacklisting was a form of retribution for the prosecution of Preslyn-saga Catacutan, one of the couple's former helpers, who was jailed for stealing photographs and a letter from the star.
There were plenty of other people on the list as well, Mr Blas said. In fact, the consulate had recently blacklisted a local lawyer who had hired and fired nine helpers in two years.
'We had reports that [the lawyer] was not feeding them very well and verbally abused them as well,' he said. The consulate had also dealt with at least one case of a helper being raped by her employer in the past 12 months.
Based on his own experience, Mr Blas said that while the great majority of people looked after their helpers, he believed the level of abuse of Filipino maids was getting worse.
But Joseph Law, chairman of the Hong Kong Employers of Domestic Helpers Association,  said: 'There are many more reasonable employers than there are harsh or abusive employers.' He said education campaigns and a greater awareness of employers' responsibilities had led to a gradual improvement in the lot of domestic helpers.
Calls to change the employment conditions of helpers were premature, he said. If anything, Mr Law said the scales were tilted in favour of helpers. It had been his experience that some, not all, claims of abuse or wrongdoing against employers were part of a ruse to allow the helper to remain in Hong Kong as long as possible after the termination of their contract.
Immigration regulations state that someone on a foreign domestic helper visa has to leave Hong Kong within 14 days of their employment being terminated.
Senior Immigration Officer Anthony Lo Man-hong said there were only a few circumstances in which a maid would be permitted to stay on and change employers, including cases of abuse.
Mr Law agreed there were poor employers in Hong Kong, but he disagreed with the keeping of a blacklist.
'Who gives the consulate the authority to do that? They do not have any jurisdiction in Hong Kong. If they want to do this sort of thing, then let's sit down first and give the employer a chance to state their case.
'Otherwise, at the end of the day, the blacklisting of people might only end up doing their compatriots a disservice,' Mr Law said.
Attempts to contact Cheung yesterday were unsuccessful.
On August 8 in the Court of First Instance, Mrs Justice Verina Bokhary  rejected Catacutan's appeal to set aside her conviction last year, but reduced the sentence from six months to three. Catacutan had spent seven weeks in prison when she was released on January 29 pending appeal.
Strength in numbers
Number of Filipino domestic helpers in Hong Kong: 122,610



Filipino maids tell 'terminator' Jacky: We won't be back