Drug Corporations Rule the World- Almost

People sick from Covid-19 in the Europe, Africa, the Philippines and the rest of Asia gasping and struggling to recover in a hospital bed will have to struggle harder to survive. This is because the only drug known to help patients recover quicker, Remdesivir, is unavailable. The United States has bought up the entire available supply of this drug and it is only available to Americans suffering from Covid-19. Donald Trump, in order to cover up his criminal neglect to stop the spread of the pandemic and boost his re-election bid, is depriving others of a fair share of the available drug manufactured by the American company, Gilead Sciences of California.

This manipulation and fast grabbing of the drug for a selfish monopoly over vital medicines has severe, deadly consequences for the future when a vaccine becomes available. The United States will attempt to buy all available vaccines for Americans and deprive other nations of a fair share.

In May this year, the French vaccine company Sanofi said the US would get the first supply if ever it makes a successful vaccine since the US took the risk and invested in the company. This infuriated the French government and Sanofi said it will share the vaccine if it succeeds to make it.

The entire supply of Remdesivir, half a million doses, has been cornered by Trump. That is the entire production of Gilead until September 2020. It is an innovator drug under patent by Gilead so no other company can make it no matter how many people will have to suffer longer to recover form Covid-19. To recover, a patient needs six doses of Remdesivir and that cost US $3,200. So Gilead profits from the human suffering and the majority without expensive health insurance could not afford it anyway. It’s a medicine for the rich only. All this is happening while the pandemic is rocketing out of control. 130,000 have died in the US and more than 2.5 million are infected.

Trump has benefited yet again his close friends in the pharmaceutical industry. Retired executives have big jobs in his administration. They helped to get him elected by donating huge sums of money from the Big Pharm corporations to his political campaigns. Another successful drug found to help patients is the steroid dexamethasone. Trump can’t grab the world supply because it is 60 years old and manufactured as a generic drug and is low cost everywhere. Remdesivir is also made by drug companies in India and Bangladesh as they do not recognize the twenty-year patent rights of Gilead Sciences. However, reports say, stocks are very low and it is only available on the black market at hugely inflated prices. So it is in developing countries where brand named patented medicines are challenged by generic drugs. Yet not all medicines have low cost generic counterparts.

In a World Health Organization(WHO)-funded research project in the Philippines, an Ateneo group found that the prices of medications are so expensive a government worker could not afford them. That's enough to cause depression. The Ateneo study said, “Some standard treatments are very unaffordable to the lowest paid government worker. In the private sector, a month's treatment of depression with innovator brand Fluoxetine costs the lowest paid government worker 49 days wages! The treatment of a peptic ulcer costs 8.5 days wages when innovator brands are prescribed or dispensed, and still costs 3 days' wages if generics are used.” Since that study, costs of medicines have greatly increased.

In a shocking finding, the study said the price gouging profit mark-up was massive. “Wholesale and retail mark-ups can reach 65 percent and 50 percent respectively. Using these maximum figures, if mark-ups were removed, the cumulative mark-up would decrease from 273 percent to 51 percent. If wholesale and retail mark-ups were halved, the cumulative mark-up would decrease to 150 percent. Similarly, if medicines were exempt from import tariffs (3.84 percent), national corporate taxes (5.7 percent) and VAT (12 percent), the maximum cumulative mark-up would decrease by 69 percent, from 273 percent to 204 percent. Tax exemptions for medicines and the regulation of mark-ups should therefore be examined as possible policy options for reducing medicine prices,” the study said in conclusion.

Many of these drugs are imported from the United States and the costs are beyond the reach of the poor. When they need to take a seven to ten-day treatment with antibiotics, they can’t afford it and stop after about three days which allows the bacteria to develop immunity to the antibiotic. Many die as a result.

The multinational pharmaceutical corporations are truly like dangerous monsters in that they prey on the sickness and weakness of many people. In fact, they have been shown to have created addictions to sell billions of dollars’ worth of opiate drugs and recruited unethical doctors to prescribe them. Last October 2019, four US pharmaceutical companies were to stand trial in Ohio for causing a opioid drug epidemic with their narcotic painkillers by claiming the drugs were safe. They faced allegations of conspiracy to multiply the number of patients addicted to prescribed drugs. At the last minute, they capitulated, admitted responsibility and paid out US $260 million in the first round of compensation payments for causing addiction, suffering and death of 400,000 people in the past twenty years in parts of Ohio. As much as fifty billion dollars is being claimed for wanton conspiracy. Other drug companies are facing similar claims. Also the Walgreens pharmacy, Walmart and CVS, and other pharmacy chains did not agree to a settlement and will face a separate trial.

The multinational drug companies have to be controlled by strict laws everywhere to save life, protect the people and nurture health and destroy it.Taxes on life saving medications must be removed and government should bring in Universal Health Care and fund it and strictly control the bidding and purchase of drugs. The duty of government is to preserve the life and well-being of the people, not allow corrupt corporations and politicians to subvert it.

The Three Great Catastrophes Facing Mankind

There are three deadly catastrophic events engulfing the world as you read this. None of us can ignore these realities without suffering the dire consequences. Should we do so, we will be less human, less responsible and become more self-centered and even devoid of the great virtues and values that make good people better. The first is the pandemic coronavirus (Covid-19). The second is global warming and the dangerous climate change it is bringing to the planet and each one of us. The third is the age-old human evil of child slavery and child sexual abuse. For all three, we need to respond with a vigorous determination and global unity. Each is an evil, a disaster, a catastrophe that is happening now.

 

The coronavirus is attacking the children in jail where they are cramped, squeezed, and forced to live in tiny government cells, in grave danger of the virus where they are likely waiting to die.  We appeal to the Philippine public, judges, the Public Attorney’s Office, Office and mayors to act to save the children. I previously exposed the truth of children in jails and the heinous crimes of sexual, physical and psychological abuse against the smaller children by the older inmates. View this on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_96Du7MWaE 

 

The coronavirus has locked-down families and some have continued sexually exploiting their own children or the children of others on the internet using cellphones and tablets. They are screening their naked children and some abusing them in front of the camera for foreign customers who pay them by money transfer. Only a tiny fraction of the abuse is discovered by international police forces and Interpol. The streaming of child sexual abuse is banned by law in the Philippines. The National Telecommunications Commission is mandated under RA 9775 (section 9) to enforce the law that mandates all Internet Server Providers to install software to block and filter child pornography and live streaming. But they don’t enforce the law and thousands of children are being sexually abused online and many more in danger of online cyber-sex abuse.

 

The latest victims of this gross government neglect were rescued from cyber-sex abuse and were admitted to the Preda home for sexually abused girls last week. Two of them, Jane, 14 and Charmie, 11, and six-year old Patricia (not real names) had been used by their own stepmother in online sexual abuse and were in the process of contacting another customer from Australia when they were rescued by operatives of the National Bureau of Investigation’s Anti-Human Trafficking Division (NBI-AHTRAD) and the Philippine National Police Women and Children Protection Center (PNP-WCPC) from a 34-year old female suspect. She was forcing the children to perform sexual acts live on webcam for paying customers. She has been arrested.

 

When admitted to the Preda home they were given care, comfort, encouragement and affirmation. They were warmly welcomed and reassured they are good children, innocent and had done no wrong. They were assured that they will find safety and new friends at the Preda home. They were given tasty meals, new clothes, toys and a special apartment and Preda caregivers. The next day they were smiling and talking to the Preda social workers and telling openly what they had endured.

 

Just in case they were exposed to Covid-19, the Preda staff called in medical personnel to administer a rapid diagnostic test for Covid-19. They happily proved negative but will stay in the special apartment for 14 days to be sure. Then, they can join the community of fifty children that are healing and recovering from child rape and human slavery and trafficking.

 

They endured much abuse. The eldest, Jane, 14, told Preda social workers that she was nine years old when she was first brought to the Wild Orchid Hotel by her mother together with her sister, Rose 16 years old. Jane was allegedly sexually abused by two Australian men, one named Daniel and another William Allen Corley in Clarkton Hotel in Angeles City. The men allegedly videotaped and photographed the sex abuse of the children. William Corley, 63, from West Ryde in Sydney was arrested recently in Australia and released on bail in April this year. He is charged with crimes related to sending payments to the Philippines to pay for online child sex abuse and being in possession of child pornography.

 

The Australian Federal Police can now charge him for allegedly sexually abusing and endangering Jane, Charmie and and Patricia. The children will soon be healing, recovering and empowered to testify against Corley and his friend Daniel. The Australian police will soon identify him. The pictures of the three children are likely to be in Corley’s collection of child porn seized by Australian police. They can contact us at shaycullen@gmail.com or +63 9228768621.

 

The most recent episode of abuse was in their small house in Angeles City. The stepmother pimp was in contact with another Australian man that lives in Melbourne and he has been identified by the children and the pimp. He was waiting for the sex abuse to begin when the police arrived and rescued the children and arrested the pimp.

 

Charmie, now 11- years old, was abandoned by her mother and her father’s new live-in partner brought her to hotels all around Angeles City when she was ten. Child sex abuse, child pornography and cyber-sex is allegedly a common business in the hotels and hopefully not totally ignored by local police and politicians.

 

Charmie was forced to participate in live internet cyber-sex shows. After each show, they gave her money. Six-year old Princess was also brought to the hotels and she has not yet spoken about what abuse was done to her on camera or by the pedophiles.

 

This is just one of thousands of acts of child sex abuse in the Philippines and millions more in every country on the world. It is a global disaster for our children and a catastrophe for the world. Humans are the only species who do this to their offspring. The majority of the perpetrators of child abuse are the biological fathers and live-in partners followed by pedophiles helped by women pimps. Most of it is covered up and hidden and children hide it all their lives.

 

To choose to remain silent, hide away and do nothing is allowing child abuse to spread like another pandemic. Preda Foundation saves hundreds of children and wins as many as twenty convictions against child rapists every year. Help the work with advocacy and support. Stand up and speak out for the child victims.

Without a Mother’s Love

In many places, people are enjoying the freedom of release from lock-down and so they should in safety and with great care so that they do not infect anyone else if they are asymptomatic. Our lives are changed and our lifestyle has to adapt, adjust and all in the name of staying healthy and virus-free and they need to survive. With the number of infections going down in some places and going up in others, we can never be too careful as we all want to survive.

  

On Mother’s Day, we celebrated the love of our good loving mothers.  But some children forget the love their mother had for them and I share with you a poem below. The audio of  it can be found on www.preda.org by this link: https://www.preda.org/2020/the-prayer-of-the-prodigal/

The Prayer of the Prodigal

She bore me in her womb, a mother as good as gold

She nurtured me with mother’s milk as I grew so big and strong 

And then the years were passing and she was growing weak and old,

I forgot her love and care and I know I was truly wrong

I lost my way and traveled far and still I see her hair

Once a shiny brown that had slowly turned to gray,

I saw her wrinkled features and there was nothing I could say

But to mourn her sudden passing and wish I had been there.

Mother, listen to me cry, my voice is in this song

The corona came and took you and we knew it was so wrong

They didn’t have the things you need, and you were lost to me and all.

The medics tried to save you and risked their very lives

The corona got them too and still the virus spreads and thrives.    

I felt so helpless and so alone and wished there was more I could have done,

but all I had was pain and there was nowhere I could run.

Now I see the value of living, good and true,  

I promise now to change my ways and take your good advice

Lord, hear me too and forgive me not only once but thrice.

The days have passed me by and peace I now have found.

I kneel and pray and kiss your grave and bless the Holy ground.

Together we will overcome the suffering and the fear

May life return to normal and may your presence be close and near.

Such is the great value of life and yet through neglect and wanton incompetence so many good beautiful people have died because of Coronavirus. They could indeed have been saved  but government officials were to slow to respond and react to order immediate lock-downs and provide testing kits and protective gear for the medics. Their first duty is to protect the people. Hundreds of doctors and nurses have given their lives to help and protect the sick and heal them but fell victims of the deadly virus.

Many families have lost their loving parents and to be young and alone without parents is a traumatic experience. The thousands or so children locked inside the Philippines’ children’s jails and youth detention centers, called Bahay Pagasa (House of Hope) have no hope for freedom or a better life. They are arrested and jailed without evidence, trial or hearing for no crime but for breaking curfew or taking food because they were hungry. They suffer imprisonment and physical and sexual abuse in filthy disease-ridden cells behind bars. Now the threat of Coronavirus is waiting on the doorstep and there will be no escape from it. These are the children that we are campaigning for to be released to the parents if they have any alive or to the  NGOs that care for such abandoned children. 

Added to this long-term, hopeless lock-down is the misery of not seeing their parents.  Without a mother’s love children are distraught, lonely and damaged for life. These children long for their mother’s care, support and embrace. Some are as young as 10 to 15 and are victims of abuse inside the jail cells.

Recently, we were able to coordinate with Fresh Start Media in the UK in the making of a FYI report for Skynews children’s channel on the situation of the Filipino children in jails. The impact of the report is that it is presented by children for children. The TV report will surely awaken and release all the more the goodness and compassion that we believe lies buried in the hearts of the Philippine politicians responsible for the children. They will see the truth and reality for the first time when they view this story. We can all help to bring this truth to their attention by sending the link to the Mayors of Metro Manila: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_96Du7MWaE 

And you can send this video message to the Mayors also https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vjHr1lrOAUpxPDUi1GYzVoKT0I3KUQU0.

People ask what can I do to help? Here is a draft letter of appeal that any reader can copy and reword and send in an email to the officials. 

“Dear. . .  There are hundreds of children in jail cells behind bars in overcrowded Bahay Pagasa and Youth Detention Centres suffering hardship and deprivation and in danger of the Coronavirus. We appeal to you to instruct your local social worker to release those children 15 years and younger to the custody of their parents or competent NGOs that will care for them in safety. Please view the video report at this link that shows the situation in some government facilities. Urgent action is needed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_96Du7MWaE 

Send your letter to any of the good active mayors:

Caloocan City Mayor Oscar Malapitan, sectothemayor.caloocancity@yahoo.com

Paranaque City Mayor Edwin Olivarez, elo_official@yahoo.com

Marikina City Mayor Marcelino Teodoro, mayorsofficemarikina@yahoo.com

Pasig City Mayor Victor Ma. Reghis Sotto, vicosotto@outlook.com and ewinabeto@gmail.com

They are surely good people and strong leaders willing and able to help the children. They need your support and concern to do good. You can do your share to help the children by joining the campaign “Free the Children Now.”

We All Want to Live

What do we recall these holy days but the life-giving love and compassion of one person who changed the world by teaching mankind that  justice is more powerful than revenge, that compassion is greater than condemnation, that  believing in goodness and truth to overcome evil is a power that can change the world. That person is Jesus of Nazareth, truly a revolutionary who worked to convert the nation and corrupt leaders by calling for justice, loving the poor, respecting their dignity and rights. He stood with the downtrodden and for him, the children were the most important of all and women had equal rights. He was rejected by the leaders, despised, falsely accused, charged as a rebel and given the death penalty.

 

Yet those values he introduced are alive today but are rejected by corrupt leadership. Jesus of Nazareth had a deep conviction in the power of goodness and truth. He taught that people who had conviction and was one in goodness would live a fuller life of happiness and this would change the world. Everybody wants to live, be secure, healthy and happy and avoid death. These dreams and desires are supposed to be made reality by a just government of integrity.

   

The tragedy of the human species is that so many of the leaders succeed by nefarious ways to get and remain in positions of political and economic power. The bad ones are people of low moral values, devoid of principles and integrity. They despise the weak, exploit them and steal from the public purse to enrich themselves. They silence the speakers of truth; they kill the doers of good.  These world leaders are the greatest threat to the well-being of the people and the planet. They lack commitment and concern for climate change. They are devoid of wise and learned action for the common good and bring the people and planet closer to the brink of disaster.  So it was in the time of Jesus who called for change before it was too late.

 

This disastrous failure of leadership today has allowed the latest catastrophic spread of the Coronavirus to every nation, community and parish. It was foreseen, predicted, and a stupefied immoral leadership failed to act. Some leaders and their rich cronies and supporters, in order to preserve their economic wealth and prevent the stock market from crashing, resisted a lock-down.  It was a policy of fatalism. “There is nothing we can do,” they said. Let the weak die and create “herd immunity” for the strong. Fatalism is a form of spiritual and mental paralysis, it denies  the truth, undervalues people’s lives and freezes decision-making that would have saved many. As a result, death is all around us. Friends, relatives, parents are dying because of the failure of leaders to act in time against the deadly pandemic Coronavirus.    

 

I saw shocking video clips from Indonesia of people in public places convulsing and choking to death with Covid-19 and no one would dare to help them.  One brave woman rushed to help a dying  woman. She acted on an impulse of compassion and empathy to try and help the stranger. She risked her own life. Who or what motivated her and others to act in a self-sacrificial manner?  Patients have willingly given up their life-saving ventilators to others younger and choose to die so that others could live. What motivates health workers to report for work where they could be fatally infected themselves and die?

 

It is the power that comes from the unshakeable conviction, the belief that goodness and truth will overcome evil. It is called faith. That kind of faith is a true and good conviction that every person is of value, has dignity and right to life. Such faith and belief motivates and empowers people. They are the few who leave their comfort zone and choose to help others. They help others out of kindness, integrity and goodness. They love the poor and work for justice. People stuck in fatalism and despair cannot act in this way.

 

Their conviction that goodness and truth will triumph over evil is an inner experience that flows out into action for justice for the poor. It is the unseen immeasurable power of a spiritual experience. It is akin to hope, for hope too is a conviction that goodness will triumph over evil. The world urgently needs such conviction to challenge with courage the despots and tyrants, the money moguls and corrupt captains of industry that oppress and exploit the downtrodden making them refugees, homeless and hungry. The leaders that Jesus wanted were to be believers in goodness and truth that protect, serve and help the poor, the oppressed, the deprived, the abused children.  

 

The world community is facing a catastrophic situation right now like no other in history. Not only is the Coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world but even more damaging are the deadly effects of climate change. The indifference and apathy of many world leaders and their business partners accelerates deadly climate change that is threatening the human race and bringing the natural world close to collapse. To return to doing the good and taking right action based on faith in the goodness and dignity of every human with the right to a sustainable life is what the world needs. This will bring justice and peace to all.  Without such values, evil will triumph and we will face the consequence of a faithless society, devoid of spiritual values, one that is based on selfishness, greed, exploitation, and power.  

 

Yet if enough people unite believing in the force of goodness, the power of loving each other, respecting the rights of all and making it a movement, there will be change. There will be a halt to the pandemic, to climate change, to global collapse of the world economy. We can change the world for the better. We need to believe that we can and that our faith will save us. That is the powerful reason Jesus gave to those who were healed.  No one did it. They healed themselves. “Your faith has made you whole,” he said. For doing good and wanting a just and equal society, they killed him, nailed on a cross, a cruel death for an innocent man. He left a meal of friendship. "Do this in memory of me", he said, and we remember his powerful message how to change the world. Many good innocent people are killed today for doing justice and believing in goodness.

What is the Meaning of Life?

What a challenging world we live in. Half the people on the planet are cowering inside their homes and shelters. Many are in fear of Coronavirus, too nervous to go out. The poor are hungry, millions are unemployed, the economy is in free fall and people are worried and asking when it will all end. That no one knows. The challenge is for us to embrace the power of goodness, to build up our strength, to be resilient, compassionate, just, caring, sharing and helping each other and strangers.

The threat to shoot to kill the protesting hungry people in Tondo, Manila is totally unjust and would be seen as a crime against humanity. Their need is for food and help to live, not bullets and death. There has been more than 200 billion pesos (US $4 billion) set aside for the alleviation of hunger. It must be shared.

Children and adults are locked in overcrowded sub-human prisons around the world all in danger of mass death from the virus. In the Philippines, hundreds of children 13 years and older suffer abuse and torture in jails. They must be released. Many adult prisoners should be released, too, before the guards have to carry out thousands of infected corpses including some of their own.

Brave doctors and health workers are risking their lives every hour to help save others. Many doctors and nurses have died. They have limited protective garb and know the danger yet they courageously worked on, heroes all for the sake of humanity.

Many died because the government health systems around the world are unprepared. Some leaders are too dumb, ignorant or corrupt to see and understand the danger and prepare a stockpile of protective gear. The simple truth is that this virus cannot be easily stopped, there is no cure and it kills.

There are too few available life-saving respirators and doctors have to make the agonizing heart-breaking decisions whom to save. Will it be the 85-year old or the 23-year old younger patient? One older Catholic priest in Italy willingly gave his respirator to a younger person and the priest died. It was a heroic act of self-sacrifice, may his spirit live on.

This is a virus that is a monster from hell and all the ingenuity and science of humankind is almost defeated. Everyone must stay as isolated as possible to defeat Coronavirus. Although it is not a living organism but a protein, it needs a human host to replicate itself.

The experts tell us that the virus needs to attach itself to our cells and use the RNA there to pass information about itself to the new round of viruses that are being cloned and multiplying in the human body. The virus is evolving as if it were alive, and likely causes the infected person to cough or sneeze so it can transfer itself to another person. It is clever for a non-living, non-thinking protein. It seems to be similar but smarter than some non-thinking billionaire politicians whom we hope will not replicate themselves.

There is no known reason or purpose why it exists. Why does anything or anybody exist in the first place? Is there any purpose to it or life itself or none at all? Some say there is no purpose, we just are. Yet we and all life exist on a tiny speck of a planet in a vast universe among millions of galaxies. The universe, scientists tell us, came into existence from a big bang, an explosion of energy apparently from nothing but at that infinitesimal millionth of a second all material matter came into existence. That’s some amazing true story. And we came from that. The universe of which we are an intimate part of (although insignificant) is vast, endless, existing for no known reason. Does there have to be a reason at all and can something come from nothing is the question.

What is human reason anyway, did it evolve as the ability of the human species to be self-ware, to think and to then know that we exist? As the philosopher Rene Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” But what if we don’t think, don’t converse with ourselves, what then is the purpose of existing?

In a less philosophical frame of mind, we may recall Coronavirus came from some people eating wild animals, like bats, and other exotic wild creatures in a market in Wuhan. Well, the Chinese government has to stop all that illegal trade in animal parts that is destroying the animal kingdom and human lives. Some authorities there are accused of trafficking in human body parts, too. They execute prisoners without just trials to harvest their body parts for medical operations.

Coronavirus is a non-living protein yet a seemingly almighty invisible force that has brought every nation to its knees, making millions sick and causing death. Is there no positive virus or protein that can lift up the human species and improve its value of life with strong moral values and principles?

Some believe that there is a spiritual power that can motivate people to choose the good, live a moral life, love truth, honesty and justice and to care for strangers in need and treat them as friends. It is the gift of belief in a supreme intelligent being that is the ultimate cause of the universe and the big bang and humans. To be in close union with this Supreme Being, the universal force of goodness and love is happiness. That gives purpose of all life, especially human life.

In these days of great challenge and dramatic life changing events, we can survive the Coronavirus and be happier if that universal force of goodness and love is with us and we are with the force. That will be enough for anyone of us to self-sacrifice and give our respirator to someone younger than us.

Challenges of the Coronavirus

 

We are facing an immense challenge around the world. Everyone has to realize the danger and stay at home and practice strict hygiene. Thousands are dying- friends, relatives and many die alone. We are people with rational intelligence. Everyone is important and equal in dignity and rights and we have to respect all and give help and support so more will be saved.

 

During lock-down, together with family members, we can do practical tasks, forming bonds and showing others we care for them and love them. We can call our parents and tell them that we love them and thank them for giving us life and education and support so we can live a healthy meaningful life. Parents should call their children to say that they love them, too. In these challenging times, we all need to come closer in spirit with each other when we must practice social distancing.

 

There is economic damage and loss and many jobs are gone. Government can provide help. Let us consider ourselves more fortunate than the abandoned, unemployed, migrant workers, Filipinos among them, on the streets of Dubai and Doha or locked down in the industrial area of Doha. There, the COVID-19 infection is spreading out of control among the thousands of workers locked in and guarded by the military in their confined, overcrowded quarters. There is no hospital there. There will be a high death toll, and no one will know how many. The World Cup will be played over the bodies of the dead. For those too in other Middle Eastern countries, the Philippine Government must reach out through the Embassy and rescue them. They are in dire straits, a journalist told me over the phone.

 

Everyone in stay-at-home quarantine faces challenges. There will be stress and tension of close confinement, arguments will erupt and there may be violence and broken homes as a result. But the happy side for those who have lived isolated lives and are separated from family is that they will hopefully come together to talk and listen to each other and have a new family experience by sharing life stories and experiences and be united.

 

The other challenge of the lock-down is having the children at home all day with their parents if the parents are not in essential jobs. It is a great chance to spend quality time with the children and parents can get to know and understand and interact with them. They can do many things together: lessons, games, singing, chatting, playing music, cooking, watching movies or television together.

 

If isolated alone, read books. I recommend two of my own, Passion and Power, the story of my life in the Philippines, doing human rights work and fighting the sex mafia and their political backers for 46 years. A work that is still providing healing for the victims of child abuse through the Preda Foundation. If that is too heavy, try the reflective, thought-provoking novel, Ricky and Julie, an adventure story based on real events. Both are available on Amazon.com or I can send you a free copy as a gift, just send me an email.

 

There is a negative tragic side to the lock-down. Children who are victims of child sexual abuse by a parent or relative will be locked in the house or apartment with the abuser and will have little chance to escape and run on the streets and have no one to tell. These will be terrible times for them. Child protection agencies should open telephone hotlines where a child might be able to call for help. Preda Foundation has one: +63 9175324453.

 

Coronavirus challenges us to be compassionate and caring to suffering patients when sickness strikes. There is the physical pain of this dangerous flu, headaches and body pain. There is the emotional stress of not knowing if you or your parents or relatives have it, and if yes, will you or they survive? We need to let others know that love and support is there in abundance. We stand together in the face of this pandemic. It is the great leveller, the rich and the poor can get it. But the rich Filipino politicians have taken unfair privileges getting themselves tested when they had no symptoms and testing kits in short supply.

 

The homeless, are challenged above all. They are without family or friends, adrift on the streets, sleeping in doorways and underbridges. If they are crowded into shelters, the coronavirus will get them too. Many are already doomed. They need all the help the social services department can give.

 

The challenge is for slum dwellers to survive. They are the poorest and the most vulnerable. They are malnourished, have weak immune systems and cannot isolate themselves. In the teeming slums, social distancing is not possible where shacks and shanties, hovels and plastic shelters are crammed together. Many will die unknown, uncounted, until they gain herd immunity if ever. 

 

What a challenge it is for the doctors to stay free of infection. Many have died already because they lacked protective gear. They have to decide who will live and die when there are only a few ventilators in the hospital for too many patients in desperate need of the breathing apparatus. These are heartbreaking decisions to be made. A suffering priest in Italy got a ventilator as a gift from the parishioners but he gave it to a younger patient and the good priest died. That is a self-sacrifice worthy of a saintly person.

 

When there is no life-saving ventilator, for some it is like a death sentence. They die alone, isolated from friends or relatives, no one can come close- such is the contagious nature of this plague because it is an incurable plague that all of modern medical science and knowledge is unable to conquer. A vaccine is far off. Yet, despite the previous similar outbreaks like Avian flu and SARS, the world did not learn, it was not ready.

 

Taiwan and South Korea were prepared and acted quickly to impose lock-down and made millions of testing kits and has been and is testing everyone. They have efficient epidemic control centers since the SARS. They have isolated those positive for the infection and trace all with whom they had been in contact with and quarantined them, too. It worked and has the pandemic under control. They have shown the world how to do it. Will the world take the challenge and learn that prevention is infinitely better than cure? 

The Good and Bad Side-Effects of Coronavirus

The good side-effects we can see during this medical crisis brought about by the coronavirus is the love, concern and care shown by the dedicated caregivers, nurses and medical workers. It is phenomenal. The goodness and love of millions of humans has come shining through. There are neighbourhood help movements growing online. In Canada, an online network is helping the elderly, neighbours are helping neighbours. In Italy, people are singing from balconies to cheer up those in quarantine. People are changing to a healthy diet also.

Preda Fair Trade Dried Mango fruit with loads of Vitamin C and no chemicals are selling fast in the UK and Ireland. People are changing to a healthy diet to strengthen their immune system to fight off and prevent the flu and hopefully coronavirus.

The Preda dried mangos are available online for ordering if you can’t leave home. Go to the www.forestfeast.com online and ask a friend to do it. If you can go shopping to Tescos, Dunnes or Waitrose, you will find the Preda Dried Mangos there under the Forest Feast brand. Buy lots. All earnings from sales go to support the abused children rescued by Preda Foundation and protect them from the Coronavirus. You are doing good for all.

But the greatest good is the dedication of caregivers and medical workers. Eighty-year-old Elizabeth would not survive the coronavirus if not for Margi, her devoted caregiver. Everyday, Margi Gonzalez risks getting infected on her rounds visiting her many patients in the community center. She treats any sores, takes blood pressure and temperature and sees that they are comfortable, fed, and taking her medicine on time. Elizabeth and others are being monitored for the coronavirus after one member of the community tested positive. Thousands of caregivers like Margi are slowing the spread of the deadly contagious infection. She was a migrant from the Philippines to Britain.

There are many good people like Margi on the front line. Many are former migrants or refugees, who fled poverty, oppression, fear and suffering for a new, better life. Now the rich, developed nations benefit from their skills and service. That is a positive result of a sad history of human rights violations and injustice. Margi was marked as a protest leader and fled the death squads employed by a mining firm to quell the protest against the mining corporation taking over their farmland.

That is the paradox, the poor flee as migrants or refugees the hardship caused by the greedy multinational corporations supported by their governments. They exploit the natural resources of poor nations in cahoots with the local corrupt ruling families. These three are the corrupt players behind every conflict. They drive the poor to become migrants and refugees. They in turn become the caregivers of the nation that exploited and harmed them.

Another positive outcome of the disastrous impact of the coronavirus is the lock-down and restricted international travel. The end to cheap flights and the grounding of thousands of planes, strict screening, setting up roadblocks, demanding IDs, all has a positive effect. This helps to curb human trafficking of young girls and boys into Western countries from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. It is the modern slave trade that has hopefully been slowed.

In an overnight decree, governments banned any and all travel of most people, including the travel of sex offenders, pedophiles and sex tourists and paedophiles on child rape holidays. That is another kind of epidemic. There is no specific law against it. There should be. As the multinationals rape the land of its minerals, the rich paedophiles come and rape the children. Preda Foundation is fighting this and rescuing the child victims for healing. Preda Fair Trade helps us in this fight as serious as coronavirus. You can help, too.

The young girls and boys are lured into servitude with false promises of well-paid jobs by mafia-like networks. The victims are held in debt bondage and forced to work in the Philippines or rich countries for little or no pay. They are slaves, threatened with beatings and harm to their families in their home countries if they don’t cooperate and become slaves or sex workers. Preda Foundation rescues and heals many.

Thousands of descendents of Irish migrants are in the medical profession around the world now fighting coronavirus. From 1845 to 1849, starving Irish migrants fled from British colonial exploitation of Ireland and the famine that they caused and allowed. British politicians and families had taken Irish land by force and became rich. The Irish were impoverished. They fled as refugees and migrants to America.

The United States was then a land of freedom, hope and opportunity for the oppressed and the poor. Thousands of Irish fought and died in the civil war against slavery. Now, under Trump, it is a closed fortress ruled by an anti-migrant white supremacist clique incapable of responding strongly and correctly to the coronavirus pandemic and allowing it to spread.

We all are challenged to fight the coronavirus by avoiding all contamination by self-quarantine, hand washing, keeping social distance, and getting tested when protocols require. We must respect, honor and support those who are risking all to help us win.

The Invisible Enemy: An Unseen Virus and Sexual Abuse

Think about it. It is amazing that one tiny, invisible smart virus, a product of evolutionary processes, still mutating and changing its profile, can avoid detection and spread itself far and wide with impunity. It is able to bring the human species to its knees, to overpower nations, halt economies, crash the stock market, stop the flow of products and goods, paralyze communities, empty malls, ground airlines, close schools and all sport gatherings.

It has the power to confine millions of people to their homes, rooms, apartments, and cruise ships. Thousands are in hospitals and many have died. Its power can motivate governments around the globe to take action and stop overnight the once free movements of people. It’s almost more powerful than nuclear war and we can’t even see it. We have to believe that this unseen enemy of the human race is out there, lurking and waiting to infect. It has killed a reported 4,000 people already worldwide. Is its danger overestimated? I will get to that later.

No new complicated laws are needed to control the right and freedom of citizens to travel and enjoy complete freedom of movement. But this once sacred freedom is now curtailed by instant decree. The COVID-19 is king. The innocent suspects of being carriers, without medical proof, are locked up and quarantined and in some countries, they will be fined large sums of money if they do not obey. So now banning convicted pedophiles from traveling to poor countries should be east to do. This is a proposed law I suggested and was filed by Maureen O’Sullivan TD before the Irish Parliament .Two years and yet to be acted upon. Now without a law anyone with coronavirus flu can be stopped from traveling.

It is something to which people everywhere are very sensitive to and acutely aware of this dark and dangerous threat to health that can cause death to the most vulnerable. It is the COVID-19. There is nothing much we can do other than be quarantined, avoid groups of people to curtail its spread, wash our hands frequently, stand back six feet from people that might be infected. It can change human behavior, drastically alter social contact and bring about new attitudes and understanding among people. They face a common threat. Many people are worried. It has struck and is striking fear and anxiety around the world, all are afraid of the single, tiny unseen “enemy,” more powerful than all the armies in the world.

Yet, there is a greater threat and actual evil which has infected the whole world and especially male sexual abusers. Until very recently, people did not care much about child and women abuse until the #MeToo and anti-child abuse movement began. Yet, it touches the tip of a great iceberg of abuse. It is the abuse, violence and oppression of women and children that is highlighted in this recent International Women’s Day. Yet this violence causes more lifelong pain, suffering, sickness and death than the COVID-19 ever will. Soon it will die out. But the lifelong suffering and pain endured by silent, downtrodden victims of sexual violence will not.

In Mexico, a reported murder of ten women a day are killed, hundreds more unreported murders go unnoticed. It has been reported by the Centre for Women’s Resources (CWR) recently that at least one woman or child is abused every 10 minutes in the Philippines. The figures of reported cases are 6,315 women and 6,054 children were reported as victims. Only six percent of victims report the abuse to the authorities. Rape and abuse is like the pandemic world-wide.

The UN Special Rapporteur and expert Maud de Boer-Buquicchio briefed the Special UN Human Rights Council last March 2, declaring that child sexual abuse and prostitution of children is in “every part of the world.” The sexual abuse of children over the internet is perhaps the very worst form of child sexual abuse, she said. “Children continue to be sold and trafficked within their own countries and across borders for the purposes of sexual exploitation.” She also said that “children are coerced into participation in pornographic performances online. Young girls and boys are lured with false promises and coerced into sex trade, domestic servitude, forced labour, begging and forced marriage.” She reported that 28 percent of the child victims were under 10 years of age.

Such violence and the government and public apathy, indifference, lack of concern of society in general, is more destructive and hurtful to human lives than a dose of the corona virus from which most people recover with treatment and go on to lead normal lives. Victims of abuse do not.

There is no known medication that will cure a person of COVID-19, everything is being tried and a vaccine is in the works. There is talk about the seasonal influenza killing more than the estimated 4,000 victims of COVID-19 dead already world-wide. In the United States alone, as many as 18,000 people have died from seasonal influenza since September last year, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the International Federations of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations, as many as 290,000 to 650,000 die from it yearly worldwide. This is about .14 percent whereas the COVID-19 has a potentially higher fatality rate of approximately 0.2 percent, higher than the seasonal flu.

However, we have to take everything in perspective and do all that can be done to contain the spread of COVID-19 and save lives but so much more has to be done as the world slowly awakes to the horrific prevalence and frequency of the sexual abuse of women and children. The same energy and government action to control COVID-19 should also go to stop and contain child and woman abuse.

The Revenge of Nature- Coronavirus?

 

The coronavirus threatens the health of millions of people around the world if it spreads uncontrollably. Every precaution must be taken to prevent its spread and that means practicing greater personal and public hygiene and avoiding contact with people travelling from an infected area. We must show concern and never discriminate against anyone.  Besides strict containment, strict personal hygiene, washing of hands, and clean surroundings can hold its spread.  Public health officials must be prepared for an outbreak. The flu-like disease does not have a high fatality rate: only two people in every hundred die from it. People can get very sick with severe respiratory problems and yet recover.  Others can have the virus but have no symptoms.

 

Everywhere, including the Philippines, doctors and medical personnel have been briefed and advised on the potential health problem and we are reminded that prevention is better than cure. So there is no need to panic or raise alarm but intelligent planning, preparation and prevention is what is needed. Besides, most people are recovering from it with good medical care.

  

The big hope is that the virus cannot survive in high temperatures so bring on a hot summer everywhere, and with global warming, we can expect that. The highest temperatures ever recorded in Australia and parts of Europe in 2019 are stunning. That is because of man-made climate change. That might kill off this deadly virus and tropical countries like the Philippines might be spared. The good news is the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that the virus may have reached its peak in China as fewer daily infections have been recorded. The coronavirus is also the result of ill-advised and illegal human behavior.

 

We have seen the outbreak of many deadly diseases and viruses in recent decades. More viruses that are affecting humans are crossing over from from other mammals and birds. Remember the avian flu? The human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) is said to have crossed over from monkeys when people ate them as bush meat. Likewise, ebola likely came from eating monkeys, they say. Then, we had the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), said to have originated from bats, and today the 2019 coronavirus that possibly came from bats, too, although it is not yet proven.

   

You might say these diseases are the revenge of nature. The natural world is striking back at the disastrous human exploitation of the rain forests, the oceans and all wildlife by driving them to extinction. There is destruction in almost every habitat in the developing world and in some parts of the developed world, too.  Illegal trade and trafficking in many endangered animal species for huge profit could be the cause of coronavirus.

 

China is a big market for endangered animals and thousands of animals are butchered each year, mostly in Africa, to provide elephant ivory for the China ornament trade, now banned but still thriving. In 2009, there was as many as 109,000 elephants in Tanzania but due to poaching and slaughter, there were only 43,000 left in 2014, a 60 percent loss according to government reports. There is even less today.  In 1970, the number of rhino had decreased to 70,000 and as of today there are only 29,000 left on the planet.

 

They are on the way to extinction like the white rhino by bandits killing them for their valuable horn for Chinese traditional medicine. Scientific research has shown the horn to have no more medicinal value than horses’ hooves.

   

Hundreds of creatures are killed and collected to supply the demand for Chinese traditional medicine, most of which are ineffective, have no medical benefit and are unnecessary considering the huge advances in Chinese health care.

  

The small ant-eating creature called pangolin could be responsible for the jump of the 2019 coronavirus from animal to human. They are the most widely traded and trafficked creature stolen from the wild in Southeast Asia, India and Africa. They are now practically extinct in China since they killed them for food and their scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine. They have been found in the wild food market of Wuhan where the coronavirus first made the cross-over leap from animal to humans.

 

According to an investigative report by The Guardian, one shop was found to have for sale live animals such as “live wolf pups, golden cicadas, scorpions, bamboo rats, squirrels, foxes, civets, hedgehogs (probably porcupines), salamanders, turtles and crocodiles.” All destined for the cooking pot, it seems. Bats are known carriers of many viruses and the forest dwelling pangolin could have picked up the virus from the bats droppings on the forest floor, some speculate. This is a likely cross over for the virus. Or some human ate the bats. They are on sale in wildlife markets.

 

Corrupt governments like that in Brazil allow traders and loggers to attack the last of the rain forests and destroy their natural beauty by cutting trees, driving out and killing their indigenous people and trafficking their wildlife. We can expect more health problems in the future. Nature will rebel just like the mighty storms and heat waves caused by man-made climate change are coming back to hit us.

   

Why can’t we respect nature, preserve the forest, protect the environment and its wildlife?  The answer is easy. It is because of human greed. It is an insatiable, unquenchable drive beyond control. To stop the greed and trafficking of wildlife and the cross-over of animal borne viruses to humans, the authorities world-wide have to go after the traffickers and traders of wild-life. They must identify their bank accounts and confiscate their property, assets and money and jail the big-time traders. It is essential to ban all sale and trading in wildlife.