The Great and the Good, Saving Children

It was the Preda hotline for reporting sexual abuse that saved the four children from sexual and physical abuse. The message came in from an anonymous reporter saying that Geraldine, 13 years old, was being sexually abused by her grandfather. The Preda Foundation social worker contacted her counterpart in the local government and she, trained by Preda, knew exactly what to do. She went to find the child in her school and had a heart to heart chat in a private room.

The 13-year-old child had someone she could trust and revealed all that happened to her and confirmed the sexual abuse by the grandfather and her uncle who was still a teenager. She said her elder sister was also abused. The cruel grandfather had continually beaten her younger sister and brother. Their mother knew of the abuse but did nothing. She had separated from the father, who disappeared, and she left them with the grandfather. She was too poor to support them. This was the cost of a broken home and the abandonment of children by their parents.

The municipal social worker immediately took the four children into her custody as allowed by law and entrusted them to the Preda Home for Girls. The mother was found and she signed a custody agreement to leave the children in the care of the Preda Home. The girls were taken to the clinic for a legal-medical examination and the wounds revealed sexual abuse of two of the girls.

A case of rape and abusive acts were filed against the grandfather and teenage uncle. Last 17 July the court issued an arrest warrant and it was served by the police with the help of the Preda senior staff.  The grandfather was jailed to await trial. The teenager has been ordered by the court to be sent for rehabilitation.

The rescue and the recovery and pursuit of justice for the three girls and their small brother is just one more successful service to help abused children. What if there was no such intervention? The children would continue to be victims and not survivors. 

There are as many as 40 children presently in the Preda Home for Girls, happily freed from the power of their abusers and are having therapy and education and a childhood so long denied them. The early reporting of child abuse is very important. The child in care and with proper therapy, counseling and a caring community will recover quickly then justice will be done when the child is empowered and supported to testify.

Otherwise they just grow up holding on to the buried pain of the terrible fearful memories of what they cruelly experienced. I wrote about that last week and the therapy that releases them from the pain and empowers the children to testify. Getting justice is the final closure for the survivor of child sexual abuse.

We can see that there is a culture of concealment, denial, cover-up. Even society tries to deny the survivors justice by statutes of limitation. This denies the victim or survivor the right to get justice. In Germany recently, hundreds of former members of a famous boys choir have come forward after many years of silence to voice their complaints of physical and sexual abuse. But according to German law, it is too late to bring legal complaints.

Children have been abused by individuals, institutions and by the culture of silence in society that forbades such complaints to be aired in public. People in positions of power, influence, and authority were not to be accused, challenged and confronted. They enjoyed impunity and they made the laws. It is the same in all countries. Only now there is the encouragement and support for victims to complain and a shameful history of abuse is being exposed to a horrified public.  

German law allows for criminal prosecution only within 10 years of the alleged victim turning 18. The statute of limitations for pursuing financial compensation through a civil suit is only three years. After that period there is no recourse. There is a move in Germany to extend the time from when one can take legal action against alleged abusers. Bamberg Archbishop Ludwig Schick, claims that he is for a limit of 30 years where in a victim could bring a legal action.   Bavarian Justice Minister Beate Merk has also called for change. "If it were up to me, Germany wouldn't have any statute of limitations at all, like in Switzerland." 

Having no statute of limitation is a deterrent too for abusers when they know they could be charged at anytime. They should live with that possibility. In the Philippines a complaint of sexual abuse can be made up to twenty years after the abuse happened.  

But prevention is the greatest and most important action we can take. Child abusers will always be lurking, preying and waiting. Human nature is corrupt and twisted. Child sexual abuse is mostly done by relatives, in the home, and then by neighbors and people in authority. We have to teach children to run and tell someone they trust and to overcome fear and get help. We need more hotlines and community education on the rights of the child and the need for adults to report and protect children. Dial or text to the Preda hotline 09175324453.

The Values of a True Democracy

Democratic societies are increasingly feeling the challenge of a rising wave of civil discontent with many traditional politicians. They are turning to populist upstart politicians who promise an anti-establishment agenda to bring about a disciplined crime free or immigration free new society.

These opportunistic politicians around the world are using the genuine anger of those left behind economically and politically as a surfing wave to autocratic rule. They make outlandish promises, bully their way to prominence, grab media attention with outrageous comments and threats. They can persuade, with bombastic rhetoric a large portion of the electorate to trust and elect them. They claim to be the Messiah who will wipe away all the tears and hardships of the disadvantaged and the marginalized in society.

They have a valid list of people’s complaints with which to challenge the traditional elite and established governments of the rich. The social inequality, the ever-widening gap between the few rich and the many poor is fertile ground to make them populist.

Democracy is losing the trust and support of populations as economic disparities and injustices grow and remain unaddressed. Increasingly bureaucratic corruption makes their lives a burden and miserable. They welcome and support any false messiah.

In the United States the rise of Donald Trump is an indication of this distrust of the establishment by millions of Americans. They despair that a true independent democratic government can be elected without the funding of the billionaires of the business class. They want a government that brings prosperity with fairness. They are desperate and blinded by a false hope and support an uncouth bullying billionaire businessman.

There are other democratically elected leaders who promised a paradise and rule with increasingly autocratic authoritarian rule intolerant of any criticism and opposition. In Hungary, Poland and Turkey, the elected leaders of these countries rule by repressing and controlling the media, judiciary and the civil society that stand for the rule of law and human rights.

More political parties are rising in Austria and Germany that are extreme in their policies, are anti-immigration, nationalist and tend to deny the fundamental freedoms of a democracy based on the freedoms and values that are the bedrock of any true democracy.

We can say they are pseudo-democracies led by false messiahs where they exclude minorities, refuse to recognize the freedom of religion and equality and dignity of the human person. They get elected by the voter’s anxiety, troubles, isolation from the political dialogue, being voiceless and disparaged. The established governments have to answer for.

The electorate rally behind the demagogy of a rising politician based on ignorance of his or her true character, intentions and secret agendas once in power. Like all politicians their promises of change and a corrupt free new society are the stepping-stones to power. They may grip the imaginations and ignite hope in the voters but the promises are soon ignored when they take over the power of the president or prime minister.

When they abuse power and the educated and disillusioned population awaken to the reality it is sometimes too late to get them out of power. In Africa many rulers defy or manipulate the democratic process to stay in power for up to thirty or more years.

The election of a left of center reformist government with a social justice and equality agenda, can indeed partially succeed in bringing success in reducing poverty and creating a stronger economy but for how long? Eventually corruption and mismanagement of the economy, as happened in Brazil, opens the door for the entry to power of the corrupt elite business billionaires.

They are perhaps the most dangerous to democracy since they legislate to deregulate the banking sector, promote liberal capitalism, unfettered free trade. They create monopolies and buy out the media so as to shape the news and establish their political power. These ruling elite allow exploitation and multinational companies to maximize profits without social sharing.

The growth of secular values where society is increasingly a selfish and self-centered society and is becoming addicted to the pleasure principle the role of the church as teacher of values and morals principle has been disregarded.

Perhaps this is due to the authoritarian and dominating interference that church leaders had in imposing unnecessary burdens and restrictions on the believers. They too were autocratic which is now rejected and secular interests dominate.

Church leaders are failing to promote and live out in a relevant way the values of religion that are based on human dignity, compassion, and justice, equality and universal human rights. So we have a society striving for a true democracy but they get a pseudo-democracy, which has few of these basic values.By invigorating and committing themselves to these values a honest capable leader could emerge with a following that can bring a more equal society.

There is hope for a real vigorous model of democracy in the world where everyone’s voice is listened to and heard. Where openness and trust is based on reflection, reason and knowledge. With these values at the heart of their movement a society committed to fearless non-violence, social justice and genuine participation could indeed come about.

Welcome the Refugees

The bombs keep falling and the barrels fall from the sky and burst with a massive boom and searing, burning flames consume the men, women and children.  The chlorine chemical poison spreads among the ruins of Allepo.

 

The people are dead, others are suffering in agony, the children are screaming. The White Helmet Rescuers rush to dig out the bodies of the dead and the wounded. The paramedics rush to wash them down, give them oxygen masks to breath, if they have any. Others half-buried in the collapsed ruins of their houses, far from help, choke to death, scarred or maimed.

 

They are starved, surrounded, killed one by one by the Assad snipers. The UN relief convoy of desperately needed food is bombed and burnt to ashes, seven more died. They flee the horror of violent death and hunger as the mayhem rained down on them. They are the Syrian refugees of war, and they flee the violence and indescribable cruelty. Who will give them welcome?  

 

In other parts of Syria, the towns and villages are reduced to ruins as Isis moves closer to take over the villages and towns and impose their cruel regime of torture. Soon the chopping off of hands, arms and heads, the summary execution will begin. The rape and abuse of children, boys and girls, men and women follows. The sex slavery of thousands of people of this Isis regime is well known and the people flee. They are the refugees begging for help, asking for a place of refuge and safety, non-violence and peace.

 

They drive anything to escape, when all vehicles are gone, they leave everything they owned, they run and exhausted they walk through deserts, over mountains and hills in a desperate effort to escape the vicious retaliation to come. 

 

They, once respectable, educated professional people are now the desperate refugees. They are the victims of the curse of Isis. They are the victims of Assad, of rebels, of jihadists, of soldiers of every nationality, color and creed and victims of apathy and indifference, selfishness and xenophobia.

 

They are the victims of rival nations fighting for influence and power. Can the nations so disunited meeting in New York pretending to be United Nations solve the greatest displacement of people since World War II?

 

There are 65 million people displaced in the world today. Eleven million people in Syria have been killed or forced to flee and where have they fled to and found welcome? Believe it or not, the truth is that the Middle-Eastern countries have sheltered most refugees. There are 4.7 million refugees in the countries neighboring Syria. Turkey has taken in almost 2.7 million. The tiny nation of Lebanon has welcomed more than one million. Europe has taken in 1.3 million and they call it a crisis and the refugees, according to the extremist right, must be stopped and deported. No welcome there.  

 

The children have suffered the most. Eleven thousand children lose their homes, schools and playgrounds every day. Half of all refugees are children under 18. They face the blasts and bullets, rockets and mortars and all consuming fires. They suffer burns all over their bodies from the napalm-like brimstone that is rained upon them from the gasoline-fueled barrel bombs. The black-hearted regime has unleashed a violence that is a horrific war crime. It is a regime of unfettered power and oppression that has, with its allies, poured out hatred and the fury of all-out war, suffering and death on thousands of children.

 

Many have fled to the European countries and found only a little welcome but more and more rejection and exclusion. The extremists on the political right are there to block and deny them help and relief, rest and peace.

 

The caring, welcoming and valiant people who make up the thousands of volunteers who have welcomed and reached out to help the refugees are the voice of justice and hope. But they are not winning the political ground. The far right groups are growing in political clout and are stirring up hatred against the refugees and asylum seekers. Some more extreme are burning down their shelters.

 

Is there really a refugee crisis in Europe? In fact, 86 percent of the world's refugees are being sheltered in low and middle income countries. In all of Europe only 1.8 million refugees made it across the borders. Most were accepted in Germany but the far right wants them excluded.

 

The numbers seeking asylum as per population tell the story. In every 100,000 Hungarians, only 1,800 refugees claimed asylum in 2015. Sweden followed close behind with 1,667 asylum applications per 100,000 Swedes.

 

The figure for Germany was 587 per 100,000 population and for the UK it was 60 applications only. They have a tightly closed door. The EU average was 260 asylum seekers in every 100,000  of the population. The population of Europe is 743.1 million people. The number of refugees seeking asylum are but a few drops in the ocean.

 

In the United States, 10,000 refugees have been admitted and President Obama plans to admit another 10,000 refugees. Canada has accepted 30,000 and will take in more. 

 

It is the rich materialistic secular Europe that is growing more racist. It is a small but growing part of society living more in the lowest selfish strata of human existence. They cannot look and see the other and have dialogue and reach out and share their bounty with the needy refugees.  Unlike those in Europe with a welcome and that we need more of. 

  

The most immediate solution is to make peace in the Middle East and end the war. In the meantime, the refugees need  a home and have a right to a temporary place to stay and find peace and a welcome.  

A Home for the Refugees

BERLIN, GERMANY. I met Alamid here in Germany and he told me he was a refugee from Syria. Their house was partly destroyed by the barrel bombs of Assad, the tyrannical Syrian dictator who is being supported by Russian forces and warplanes.

Alamid is one of the hundreds of non-combatant families bombed out and who lost all their possessions. They are surviving the bombs by hiding in building and basements . He was with his whole family including cousins and uncles.

His male cousin Jambal, 25 years old, volunteered to go out into the danger zone and get food and water but he was caught by the Isis or Dash killers. Alamid later learned that he was taken to a camp and forced to wear a suicide vest and blow himself up at an army checkpoint. Otherwise his entire family would be killed. This is a regular tactic used by the detested Isis.

The Isis fighters were grabbing any one they could catch in the ruins of the town where Alamid lives. They took away any women and girls they caught to another town and sold them into sex slavery to other fighters of the Isis.

The young girls are commodities sold in exchange for money, guns or ammunition.

When Jamal did not return, Alamid and his family feared the worst and they hid for weeks surviving on the meager supplies that they had stored up. After the counterattack by rebel forces, the Isis withdrew and Alamid and his family survived.

Alamid told his story to the generous and kind Germany family that had given him a welcome in their house and he was given a room and was learning to speak and write German. He was treated like a member of their family. There are many thousands of German families doing just that. Communities are taking in refugees from this horrific war and without media attention or fanfare they share and protect them. This is largely unknown to the world.

This is going on all over Germany. It puts to shame those few who drive out the refugees. A German lady working with Caritas Germany told me, “The German people will prevail over the neo-Nazis.” An anti-refugee and anti-migrant party won a considerable number of seats in a recent regional election.

Alamid explained the terrible fears and suffering the people in Syria endure. Some other families feared they would be captured by Isis so they as a family had made a suicide pack. They had surrounded themselves with explosives ready to blow themselves up and die together rather than suffer rape and murder. The Isis fighters rape mothers and girls in front of their husbands, fathers or brothers and then they would be shot. For some families, mass suicide is the only solution.

A German woman, 90 years old, said during a parish meeting, “We were all refugees after the war, with nothing to eat and nowhere to go. Our houses were all destroyed. We know what it feels like to be like them.”

The love, care and compassion that is being shown is exemplary. Filipinos living here have expressed their support of the refugees and they shared the happy experience about the welcome into Germany they got as migrant workers. Many are settled, well-employed and married.

A charity worker told me that she doesn’t believe that the so-called Cologne New Year’s night sexual assaults were as widespread as reported or even happened. It is now emerging, according to some, that it was a right-wing neo-Nazi plot to disparage the refugees and turn public opinion against them. If it was such a plot, then it worked.

The hard-hearted politicians and anti-migrant groups are the dark side of human nature, the side that wants to keep their place of the planet entirely for themselves. Many of these right-wing anti-migrants are living in the false fear spread by racists who whip up mobs to attack the buildings housing refugees.

They do not know what hardship and suffering the refugees have to endure. Families send the young boys and youth on the migrant trail to save them from being forced to join Isis as warriors .Video has been seen showing as many as fifty children, some as young a ten, being brainwashed so as they would become killers. The Isis is a force for evil and exploitation. It has nothing to do with true Islam.

What is needed in this situation above all is compassion, understanding and knowledge. We need to respect the dignity of the people, reach out and help end the terrible suffering of the refugees caught on the Greek border and not add to their hardship but give them freedom and a chance for a better life.

Fair Trade and German Generosity

 

 

Stuttgart,Germany. Here in Stuttgart the Annual Fair Trade Exhibition is underway and Philippine products are gaining a high profile with growing sales. This brings jobs and prosperity with fair payment to thousands of Filipinos. I have been invited as a guest speaker to the opening of the fair. It is holiday time in Germany and many thousands of visitors will come to this massive four-day exhibition to buy and promote Fair Trade and organic products.

 

These fairly-traded products are made in Germany and products imported from around the world like the Preda Fair Trade dried mangos and mango organic puree. The dedication of the Germans to buying Fair Trade products is a reflection of the German people’s devotion and commitment to fairness and justice, honesty and transparency. Their equal insistence on buying organic food is legendary.

I have the privilege of introducing to the Fair Trade world market the first organically certified Philippine mango puree to meet European Union standards. This was achieved in 2015 by the cooperation and work of the Aeta indigenous people of Zambales and Bataan with the agriculturists of Preda Fair Trade. The project is officially named Profairtrade Development Enterprise.

Fair Trade and bio practice on the local and national level is a high value for the German people. They look for the EU-approved organic certification on the products they buy especially on foods that are also fair trade. They prefer to buy products from small farmers and indigenous people that are involved in the planting and growing of the food.

Almost a thousand World Shops sell the products across Germany, Austria and other European countries. Many German municipal governments buy fairly traded products to be served in their employee canteens.

This commitment to fairness and doing the right and just thing is seen in the great welcome and support of most German people for refugees and in the generous humanitarian shelter and aid given to them.

Germany welcomed over a million refugees and migrants in the past 18 months. Several other Eastern European countries have turned away the refugees fleeing persecution and torture and have closed their borders and their hearts and sewed up their pockets.

The living conditions of the people camping on the Greek border with many traumatized children and are unable to travel north is a violation of their human rights. The latest agreement in the EU will order the return of refugees who arrive by boat to Turkey. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has said her government will accept more from the camps in Turkey.

Pope Francis referred to this: “The Easter message of the risen Christ . . . invites us not to forget those men and women seeking a better future, an ever more numerous throng of migrants and refugees . . . fleeing from war, hunger, poverty and social injustice. All too often, these brothers and sisters of ours meet along the way with death or, in any event, rejection by those who could offer them welcome and assistance,” Pope Francis said.

The German people including the youth of this generation post-World War II have a strong awareness, sensitivity and commitment to respecting human rights and supporting the downtrodden of the world. The past generation suffered greatly from the lack of strong sustained opposition to the vile anti-Semitism and racism of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.

They created fear and hatred among the German people of Jews and non-Germans and anyone they deemed inferior. The genocide and violent aggression of Hitler gave rise to World War II. In defeat the lesson was learned that all people must stand up for moral beliefs and principles and never allow a dictator or gangster politician to take them away.

It happened in the Philippines when President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972. When the Nazis lost the war, Germany became a nation of refugees and today cannot close its doors to the suffering Syrian refugees for the nation knows the value of a welcome.

Except for a small minority of racist nationalists, there is a warm welcome. Germany has become the shining light in the world for acting on its commitment to moral values and defending human dignity. This concern and sensitivity is seen it the support of the German people for the poor around the world. They send thousands of youth volunteers to help and serve in developing countries and have reduced trade barriers to help them export to Germany and the EU.

Members of the German Parliament Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development have come to the Philippines to visit projects for the poor and abused and jailed children in 2013. In the following year, they invited the president of the Philippines-based Preda Foundation to speak before the committee in the parliament on the needs of Philippine children unlawfully imprisoned in Metro Manila.

The Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid, Mr. Christoph Strässer, came in September 2015 with the German Ambassador to the Philippines Mr. Homas Ossowski to visit the Preda Foundation’s children’s homes helping victims of human trafficking and abuse. The support for human rights and children has been a priority of the German Government and the Embassy’s commitment to help the Philippine people.

The German Ambassador’s Cup Golf Tournament was promoted by Ambassador Ossowski to help the Preda children’s homes and many more players joined than previously. They donated generously. The Embassy also funded a section of the new Preda’s children’s activity center and last week the Ambassador came to Olongapo and Subic personally to meet the children and view the project.

All these projects and the open door policy for suffering refugees is that rare and valuable virtue of a nation putting into action the proclaimed principles it stands for. Fair Trade is a fair and responsible practice of business and it is growing. Today it is world-wide billion Euro business and still growing and with it justice and dignity for producers, farmers and their families.