Banning Travel of Pedophiles Saves Children from Abuse

It was a normal day in the life of 13-year old Jeremiah as he was leaving the school yard in Angeles City. He saw his classmates running to get candies and chocolates being handed out by a very overweight, cheerful balding Caucasian man. He sat outside his house, which was close to the schoolyard, and was throwing around candies as if feeding chickens and the children flocked to get them. He invited some of the boys to come into his house and upstairs, where he invited them, to have more candies and watch television. He quickly made friends with them.

In the following days, he did the same again until the boys were groomed and comfortable in his house. Then he showed them videos of men and boys having sex. Jeremiah was embarrassed but Douglas Slade took him on to his lap and the abuse happened. It was just one of several incidents of sexual abuse and he became different, morose and depressed and was psychologically damaged by the sexual abuse.

Jeremiah then told his parents. They immediately filed charges against Douglas Slade and then the others boys came forward to say Slade had done similar acts of abuse to them. They filed charges.  

Over several years, none of the court cases against the wealthy Slade prospered. There were rumors of corruption and bribery at all levels in the prosecution and the judiciary but inexplicably, despite the direct testimony of the victims and other witness, the lady judge dismissed the cases. In an interview with ITV, an undercover camera taped Slade admitting that his lawyer was able to make payments to have the cases dismissed.

There is a thriving dark business in courtrooms to allow foreign child sex abusers or wealthy Filipinos to go free for a price to abuse more children. That’s what Slade did: he felt protected and abused children again. What is also just as shocking is the level of corruption and absence of moral values among these duty bearers who are being paid to protect children and bring their abusers to justice.

To be abused by people you trust is a terrible life long experience and the vast majority of sexual abuse of children happens in the family- parents and relatives and neighbors. Thousands of children are sexually abused everywhere every day, one in over three girls have been abused and one in every six boys. That is a terrible statistic and a condemnation of human society. Only a fraction of the victims can ever tell the abuse has happened.

   

Slade had been accused of child sexual abuse in the UK years previously. He travelled to the Philippines where he set up a business and a house of sexual abuse of children and he got away with it due to corrupt officials. As a serious suspect in child sexual abuse case in the UK, he should have been banned from leaving the UK. But no court order was handed down to stop him fleeing. 

Eventually after years of lobbying by Preda Foundation and good police work in the UK, Slade was extradited from the Philippines back to the UK and was put on trial for the historical child abuse he committed in the UK. He was convicted to 24 years in jail. The many boys he abused in the Philippines received no justice and no recompense. Preda with a pro bono lawyer is suing Slade in the UK for compensation for the injuries they have suffered. That case is ongoing in London.

Those pedophiles like Slade and many thousands of others from Australia convicted of child abuse will be banned from traveling abroad as soon as the new law is activated. Now, the United States is considering new legislation to ban citizens from traveling to North Korea. Also, many nations have passed laws that ban suspected neophyte jihadists from travelling to Syria to join a jihad.

They are only suspected, not convicted of any crime, so it is right and good to have a law to ban convicted pedophiles and sex offenders from travelling beyond the reach of police monitoring and surveillance service in their own countries.

Prevention is so much better than cure. There was a time in the Philippines whereby a child had to be abused first before any crime was committed and action taken. So if a child sex abuser took a child to their hotel room, the police would not go to rescue the child because there was no evidence of abuse. They would need an arrest warrant.

Then we lobbied for many years and had the child protection law, known as Republic Act 7610, passed. Under Section 6 of the law, it is a blatant crime for a non-relative of a child to be alone with him or her in a secluded area. That gives the police and social workers the right to move in to the hotel room or any secluded place and rescue the child and make an arrest.

Lobbying and campaigning to your community and political leaders for a cancellation of the passports of pedophiles is just one great campaign that will save thousands of children from abuse in the days and years to come. Let’s get to work and do it!

LIGHTING A CANDLE IN THE DARKNESS

By Fr. Shay Cullen

The good news is that hundreds, if not thousands of children will be protected from abuse and molestation by some of the 660 British subjects arrested for accessing unlawful images of children on the internet by a coordinated police action throughout the United Kingdom a few weeks ago. Many more suspects have been identified as accessing these horrific images of children being abused and could be arrested soon. The depressing news is that many of the images are of very young Filipino children and some could have been made by a British subject or her male associates.

The discovery of 5 children between the ages of 5 and 7 years old and a 6 month old baby in the house of a British born woman in Subic, Philippines has shocked readers. Some of the children bear signs of having been sexually abused and tell horrifying experiences. A boy, 7 years old, tells of being sexually molested and being photographed naked by a male visitor to the house where he was confined. A six year old girl was found tied to a chair in a filthy room strewn with empty liquor bottles. 

The suspect, now in the custody of the Philippine police, is a female British subject from Scotland, Lilian May Thomson Zimmer, 65, with a US passport. The images of these abused children are likely to be shared with paedophiles in the UK and elsewhere. Perhaps some of the 660 suspects arrested a few weeks ago around England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have viewed them already.

Zimmer is charged with direct assault on persons in authority, serious illegal detention and child cruelty. More charges may follow. The children were rescued after a month-long campaign by the Preda Foundation to persuade the authorities to save the children. Finally, the children are now safe in a government child care home and recovering from their ordeal and talking about it. 

There is a growing number of arrests in the Philippines of suspects making illegal images of children and using children for live cyber sex shows beamed over the internet whose customers are from the UK and other countries. They satisfy their depraved desires and earn huge sums of money. They get away with it because of lax law enforcement, bribery, and the non-compliance of the Internet Service Providers(ISPs) with the law.
The 2009 law, Republic Act No. 9775, states that filters and blocking software must be installed on the servers of the ISPs but it has not been done, that is five years of non-compliance and blazon flouting of the law. 

The telecommunication corporations and the National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) are in some kind of collaboration; that must be investigated by President Aquino. The NTC regulators have perhaps been embraced, captured, and who knows, even money may have changed hands. If so, it is a criminal conspiracy to subvert the law. 

This law, if implemented by the specially created Senate and House Committee headed by the respective Chairs of the Senate Committee on Youth, Women and Family relations and the House of Representatives Committee on Justice would give at least 85% protection and thousands of children could be saved. But the committee has failed to act, and has failed the Filipino children; a worse crime perhaps than the politicians who are accused and jailed for allegedly stealing billions of pesos from the people.

Republic Act 9775, under Section 9, says: “The duties of Internet Service Providers (ISP) are to monitor the content passing through their servers, notify the police of illegal content and provide the authorities the particulars of users who gained or attempted to gain access to an internet address which contains any form of child pornography. All ISPs shall install available technology, program or software to ensure access to or transmittal of any form of child pornography will be blocked or filtered”. (complete law on www.preda.org) 

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is supposed to oversee the implementation of the law. The law says that the ISP failing to implement and comply with the law should pay a fine and have its license to operate revoked for non-compliance. But the law is clearly ignored, flouted and disobeyed.  It is a grave injustice to the Filipino people and children worldwide.

It is a stark reminder just how the rich corporations can manipulate the government commission and officials so they can continue to earn huge profits from the transmission of these illegal images of children to be sexually assaulted, raped and abused. They claim they are innocent and not responsible for the images passing through their servers. But the law says they must prevent the transmission. What greater evil is there for such images to circulate among child abusers instigating them to commit abuse?

This evil trade and the complicity of government agencies and corporations in not stopping it is a gross violation of children's rights and an insult to the Filipino people. Such neglect and dereliction of duty that allows the images of thousands of children being sexually abused broadcast around the world to pedophiles is a crime in itself.

Clearly, President Aquino, the anti-corruption President, does not know this is happening but for him to act now would be a great service to the children and will inspire the nation. We can all help by writing to the President at Malacañang Palace, Manila, Philippines. Lighting a candle in the darkness will enlighten the minds and hearts of those that live there. [shaycullen@preda.org ; www.preda.org]

(Fr. Shay’s columns are published in The Manila Times, in publications in Ireland, the UK, Hong Kong, and on-line.)

Eyewitness Account of the Aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda

I flew into Cebu City, an hour's flight from Manila and drove with two Preda staff starting 3 am to visit the northern towns of Cebu Island on Tuesday, 19 November. The goal was to reach Daanbantayan, Bogo,and Bantayan Island  to assess the storm damage, visit their communities and understand the situation so as to know what the needs are and to deliver aid donations directly  to the people in need. The other equally important goal is to spread awareness about the need to protect orphaned children from would-be abductors and traffickers posing as relatives.

After two hours driving, we entered the disaster zone and the glimmer of lights in the houses disappeared and we drove in total darkness brought on by the typhoon Haiyan. It is a total blackout and power lines are down everywhere.  The moon gave an eerie sense of isolation. The remains of houses stood silhouetted and gave the appearance of a war-torn, bombed-out battle field. These were once home to over a thousand families and are now a scene of desolation and ruin. As the dawn light touched the horizon, the specter of devastation became all the more apparent and I began to realize that I was witnessing storm destruction and personal loss to millions of people. Recovery will take many years.

As the sun rose, I saw a bleak landscape of toppled power poles, once proud towering Acacia trees stripped naked of branches and leaves shamefully naked in dark outline against the dawn sky. Hundreds of tough coconut trees snapped off mid section, a rare sight of these typhoon hardened trees yet cut in half by a wind that reached unprecedented gusts of 240 kilometers an hour. Mango trees were toppled, their roots upturned to the sky, totally vanquished the remaining leaves dead. I was appalled at the extent of the destruction; only the strongest houses of the rich were left standing. I felt awe that all this could be done in the space of two to three hours as the ferocious wind and rain storm swept over the land alike a scythe in a field of barley cutting down all before it.

I have been through ferocious typhoons during my 44 years in the Philippines but have never seen or experienced anything like this for the sheer savagery of this destructive force of nature. The gigantic force of the wind churned and turned everything it could to flying debris, smashing and tearing at everything, ripping roofs apart and carrying the metal sheets, rafters and roofs into the sky with such force that even cinder block walls collapsed before the onslaught.

Then we arrived at Daanbantayan and were surrounded by wreckage. We met people, listened to the survivors with compassion and were awed as they recounted their terrible ordeal fearing it was the end of the world and were in the jaws of a devouring monster.

The survivors told me that the coconuts were ripped from the palm tops and fired like cannon balls smashing into roofs and walls. Their children were frightened and cried as the wind screamed and howled about them and the noise of debris smashing into the trees and roofs was terrifying there; food supplies were destroyed, and the water wells contaminated.

We then drove to the ferry and took a one hour sea crossing to Bantayan island. There, we landed at Santa Fe, and witnessed more damage and destruction of homes and businesses. The churches had roof damage, yet the greatest damage was in the main town of Bantayan and the coastal area. We took a tricycle and went there. Along the way, we could see more damaged homes and buildings. The poultry industry was wiped out. 

We met the Mayor and were impressed with the fast clean up, order and discipline in the town. "We saved many lives", he said, “we ordered a forced evacuation of the fishing villages, the fisher folk were unwilling at first but then they agreed and were saved”. We have had only 16 dead but many were injured, they lost their fishing boats".

The following day back in Cebu, we witnessed the resilience, courage and bravery of the many Filipinos that are rising above the tragedy. We met Anna and Jose in an evacuation center in Cebu. Jose is positive, hopeful and holding his new born baby that arrived during the evacuation flight. But Anna was sad and forlorn thinking of her missing father lost in Tacloban and likely dead. They put on a brave smile but underneath there was deep sadness. We discussed with officials the need to seek out unattached or orphaned children and document and register all especially orphaned children. We will send Preda social workers there to continue this work in all the evacuation centers.

The relief work goes on.  Preda has donated rice and other goods to the victims and is working with the University of San Carlos, Cebu to deliver relief aid to the many victims. We thank the donors who are contributing to this work. Preda is also building awareness to protect orphaned children at risk. Every help is welcome.

The Shame of Secret Jails for Child Prisoners

A few weeks ago, I visited yet again several child detention centers and police holding cells around Metro Manila with the Preda Foundation social workers. We found two small girls, 13 and 14 years of age behind bars looking out tearfully; and next to their cell was an adult male prisoner reaching through the steel bars beside them. They were terrified. The cell of the children had no beds, curtains, toilet, just a bucket in the corner and no privacy. It was terrible. One had been charged with stealing food, the other for kidnapping a child. An adult told her to bring a baby to another place. She was arrested. Immediately we began legal action to have them released to the Preda Girl's Home.

In another child detention center on the other side of Metro Manila, we found three small girls, from 6 to 12 years of age, locked in a room with male teenage boys. The place was bare and empty: no beds, chairs, showers, just a single toilet in the corner. It was a depressingly empty detention room.

Preda began negotiations with the Center Head to have the girls taken out of that detention holding room. It was no easy task. They were oblivious of the danger of sexual molestation to the small children. The Mayor received US$58,500,00 from the national government's Department  of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to build a home for the children but as yet, only another room in the same building is being renovated.

In other jails, we found many more young minors behind bars without proper recreation, education, exercise, food, sanitation and legal assistance. This is the secret shame of the Philippines, hidden away from the media and the public. Hundreds if not thousands of children suffer the humiliation and deprivation of sub-human jail conditions every year. More must be done to change the system that locks up children without care and education and respect for their human and child rights. It is similar in many developing countries.

Philippine government, NGOs, churches, and international aid agencies and charities are giving too little funds and advocacy to challenge and stop the gross violation of children's rights in the jails around the Philippines where thousands of children suffer time behind bars in dehumanizing conditions not fit for animals.

It is much the same in other developing countries and much more has to be done by Unicef and the World Health Organization to pressure governments to change and transform the whole system of recovery and stop jailing children.

I can write from experience on this because of the success of the Preda social workers getting the children out of jails and transferring the custody to their parents and relatives or to the Preda Home for Boys in Castillejos, Zambales and to the Preda Home for Girls. As many as 138 teenage youth were transferred to Preda coming from jails in Metro Manila in 2012 alone. Several small girls were rescued and helped to recover and find a new home safe from the abusers.

The boys or girls are released by court order and transferred to the Preda centers. This takes much time and expense. The more preferable way to release the child is before charges are filed against them by the recommendation of the municipal social worker using the diversion provision in the law. They are released from the fetid life threatening conditions of prisons and given a new start in life.

The Preda Home for Boys and Home for Girls are far from each other, but they are in a place of natural beauty, open countryside, where they can recover in dignity, where they are respected and cared for. Their faith in themselves and their self-worth is restored. Their trust in adults is healed.
 
The reason why there are so many children treated like criminals and jailed with them is because the public and the authorities have a very wrong attitude and perception of children in conflict with the law (CICL). The public have been misled by sensationalized tabloid media and the baseless statements of the police.

I have challenged police generals at a Senate hearing to go after the gang leaders of criminal gangs that abuse and force children to commit crimes. It’s so easy to arrest a child but are the police scared to go against the real criminals? Surely not, they are brave and courageous, they’re not into thinking that the street children are all thieves, robbers and even murderers or members of adult crime syndicates and deserve punishment and life behind bars. A nation is judged civilized, developed and moral not by the number of malls it has but by the way it treats children and women. We have a long journey ahead.

Can We Believe and Achieve the Resurrection?

Christians have celebrated the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, we have recalled the dramatic events in that life of one who brought into the world the unconditional, self- sacrificing love that makes us so human and so divine. When we love others like the Good Samaritan, generous, self-giving to a stranger, to a victim, the way Jesus himself did, risking all for the dignity and the rights of others, we can hope for eternal life.
Perhaps we don’t have to risk all as he did confronting the corruption and the hypocrisy of the elite and the religious authorities, who executed him, but by living a life for others and not ourselves as he taught. If we can, then perhaps we can evolve to a higher spiritual level and experience our own resurrection.

We may reach that level of goodness and spiritual maturity that will enable us to cross successfully to the life of eternal goodness beyond the grave and as Jesus did and we could overcome death and live forever. That is the dream of all people of faith; to unite with the God of eternal love and gain eternity. Death that ends in nothingness is difficult to accept and contemplate but the faith and belief in life hereafter and in the Resurrection is what gives us hope and the strength to live an unselfish life.

But let’s not make seeking eternity the reason for doing good, we can become selfish, seeking our own personal happiness in eternity when we ought to help others without seeking any reward. What will be will be. If we thought about it getting eternity for our selves too much, it can be self-defeating.

It’s not such a great leap of faith to believe in the resurrection, millions do. Believing is one thing but achieving it is another. Therein is the real challenge to live a worthy and noble life of virtue and service for others. Jesus set a high standard and we got to share and bear to achieve that standard. Many true Christians quietly follow the example of Jesus and share humbly their worldly goods without seeking reward and praise and glorification. They are in solidarity with the poor, and promote justice and love in the world and quietly help others. They are on the road to eternal life.

In this world there are "resurrections" too. I have seen them. When the abused and brutalized children find safety and protection, love, care, inspiration, and affirmation, they can rise from the depths of despair and hopelessness and live again. I witness this daily as the victims of sexual abuse, brutality and neglect, those long suffering unjust incarceration in filthy rat infested jails are freed and given support and respect, they rise from the dead as it were. Spiritual death is the result of the deprivation of love and friendship.

Jessica was 14, a beautiful looking child, although disabled, she was trying her best to make a place for herself in this world. She went to school and did her best to endure the teases and jeers.

She is a child that suffered from polio and had a disability with walking and speech and was vulnerable and defenseless when she was set upon by the rapists and abusers. As a polio victim for which there was no help whatsoever, she was neglected, and left as a freak by her family and could not go to school for fear of being jeered by the other children. She had a normal intelligence but was unable to grow and develop. When she was first abused by a gang of rapists, she became like a living dead. She was unable to speak, to look at anyone, and she hardly ate. She was a living skeleton, malnourished and had no will to live. She was dead, one could say.

When she was found by Preda social workers she asked for help and was given refuge and shelter at the Preda Girls' Home. The gang rape was the most traumatic thing in her life and her parents ignored it. They feared retaliation from the families of the boys who were rich and powerful.

Jessica recounted all to the therapists and found the love and attention and care she longed for in the family of the Girls' home and began to awake from the dead. Soon she was smiling, joining the play and going to school. She was strong enough to file criminal charges against her abusers and never looked back. Today she is a healthy, happy child resurrected and living again.

How We Help End Hunger

Hiking through the Zambales hills visiting the villages of the Aeta indigenous people is an exhilarating and yet saddening experience. I have been thinking about my recent visits to the villages of the aboriginal people that first settled the Philippine islands and survived for thousands of years as hunters and gatherers in the abundant rain forests. Today, their future is uncertain and fraught with danger.


There, they developed a simple but beautiful culture that was at one with nature. They never over-hunted; their numbers were well-balanced for survival and healthy living. They had a well developed herbal medical practice that helped them survive thousands of years like the natives of the Amazon forests without modern medicine or much contact with the western world.

They protected the natural habitat and the native birds and animals thrived. Their cultural dances imitate the creatures of the forest such as their respect for nature. Today, all that has changed, the forests and animals are long gone and a greatly diminished environment is all that remains.

When the American-Spanish war broke out in 1898 and soon became the American-Filipino war, 90 percent or more of the rainforests were intact. Today, there is hardly three percent left, all have been logged out and mostly shipped abroad. After the World War II, the logging hardly ever stopped still today it continues. In Pangasinan on Western Luzon Island, a fifty kilometer road has been cut there the last remaining rainforest.

Loggers are still at it and either the government agencies are in cahoots or totally inept to stop it. In the village of Hukay, Calatagan Batangas, huge swaths of mangrove have been cut to shreds damaging the land, causing erosion and the ocean to invade the rice fields and causing a huge loss to the agriculture in the area. Food loss is the result, hunger soon follows.

Their survival depends on mixed farming and the bonus of the mango harvest. They too are facing food crises as prices of rice and other essential commodities increase and the prices that they get for their root crops, bananas, wild honey and mangos have been getting lower. Traders exploit them without compassion. It is only the Preda Fair Trade that buys from them at just and fair prices and delivers some social benefits to enhance their lives and help some of their children go to school. Government services and help hardly ever reach them.

They are part of the 4.5 million Filipinos who say they go hungry from time to time and part of the one billion people seriously hungry all the time worldwide. When drought hits, the result of climate change due to industrial pollution, famine can overwhelm them in a few months. That's when the rains fail and the soil turns to dust blown in the wind. That's when you see the skeletons of dead cattle and emaciated skeletal babies dying in their mother's arms.

As I said in a previous column, 300 children die every hour every day worldwide for the lack of food. Malnutrition is with us and the millennium goal to eliminate or greatly reduce this hunger will not be reached by 2015.

The poor people in the developing world are facing a growing food crises that is getting more serious. Most of them do not have fertile land or the means to plant and nurture it. The best lands are owned and protected and unused by rich and wealthy families. It is investment in property for them not land to use for growing food.

Besides, even unused public land is not distributed with the means to help poor families grow their own food, they are turning the land into housing projects for the rich or they are leasing the land to foreign companies for food production to be shipped back to foreign lands.

There will be an additional 2.5 billion people in the world by 2050, how can they survive? If we act now and get involved with the agencies fighting the world hunger through Fair Trade and social justice, we can help halt the destruction of the environment and end chronic hunger. This we cannot ignore, we cannot turn away, we have to stand up for them and help them overcome the food crises.

Recycled Sandals - Walking to a Life of Dignity

Jun is now a happy man because "God has answered my prayers", he says, "He sent me honest work". Like millions of jobless people around the world he was unemployed and homeless and wandered the streets of Olongapo City looking for any job he could find to get scraps of food for his family. They cowered from the lashing rain and typhoon winds in a hovel on the city dump. When the storm had passed they continue picking up bits of plastic and junk that they could sell. There are no free social services, like medical aid and unemployment payments for the poor. Jun and his family were on the edge.

The Philippines is a wealthy nation but almost all is held by the elite families, about 200 strong owning or controlling up to 70 percent of the natural wealth and production capacity. Millions of struggling Filipinos live in poverty and millions more have emigrated in search of jobs and fair wages. Jun is devout Christian and he never became bitter or blamed God for his poverty and joblessness. He knew it was because of the unjust system and the politicians that exploited the poor for their own selfish needs. He never lost faith that one day he would be lifted up like one of the poor and oppressed that Jesus said in the "Sermon On The Mount, would inherit The Kingdom."

Then Preda social workers found Jun and his family hungry, shivering on the rubbish dump and invited them to the Preda shelter to recover and then invited them to come to a job training seminar. Preda (People's Recovery Empowerment Development Assistance (Foundation) is a human development organization that sets up micro Fair Trade projects for impoverished families.

Jun is a fast worker and was able to pay off the interest free loan given by Preda for him to own his own sewing machine. His children's malnutrition was gone, they went to school daily with all their needs supplied and Jun and Maria, his wife built a small house on a hillside outside the town. Their lives were transformed. They were trained to save their earnings for the day when orders changed. After a few years the market became saturated as other bag producers that copied the Preda bags and there was a falling off in orders. Jun was facing unemployment as there were now only a few orders.

Preda then suggested that he try making sandals from used rubber tires, he took the new training course and soon he was an expert turning out an excellent quality well finished flip-flop sandals. These sold well locally and abroad for a few years and all was well until recently when the fashion changed again and the whimsical nature of the customers was attracted to other things. But then, most recently, came the request of the Southampton Street Pastors who work with street people for Jun to supply sandals. It was a blessing for him and his family.

It is also a blessing for these unfortunate people in difficult circumstances in Southampton. Some go barefooted from time to time. The distribution of the hard-wearing flip-flop sandals is a gift and a contact point for the pastors who reach out with compassion and understanding to the poor and rejected people some of them homeless.

Jun and Maria, are now doing a hard days work every day to produce up to 200 pair of his sandals daily and supports his wife Maria, and 2 children. Maria helps with the sewing of the straps that make the sandals making a strong wearable and durable sandal ideal for indoor and summer wear.

His livelihood is based on Fair Trade criteria; he receives high prices for his sandals. This has enabled him to build an extension onto his house, buy household appliances, and send his children to school with all their needs supplied. The Southampton justice project has helped his family overcome poverty and has brought them a life of dignity and respect. There is a bright future ahead in the making of FairTrade recycled sandals and hope of spiritual renewal for those who will wear them.

Fair Trade Fights For Justice and Freedom

Before I became a missionary priest I thought about my life during a spiritual retreat and asked how could I best live usefully and worthwhile since human life is so short. Would I reach eternal life? No one can know the answer, we have to die first. So I realized that since I was not a brilliant student I would not be rich in this world but I could be spiritually rich by helping others in this world and that’s when I became a missionary priest.

I was by God's will sent to the Philippines on mission to spread the message of the gospel to the Filipino People. The Philippines was already a Catholic country converted by the Spanish who occupied the Islands for many hundreds of years. So why was it necessary for missionaries to go there and what more needed to be done? Well, as I discovered there was the established Catholic Church and people went to church on Sunday for Mass and participated in the rituals, devotions, pilgrimages and processions but this did not mean that the gospel was being lived out as Jesus Christ preached it. If He came to visit the people there he would not be happy, he would cry out and weep over the cities and he would say again, as he did to his apostles and followers "I have been with you a long time and still you do not understand my message".

And he would tell again the story that we read and heard in the gospel today. How the rich man named, Mr. Richman had good food every day, he dressed in expensive clothes and completely ignored the suffering and starving man, called Lazarus who was begging for the scraps of food that fell to the floor. But even the crumbs, the rich man would not share. The malnutrition cause sickness and sores and there was no one to help, no one had pity, or compassion, but it was only the dogs that came to heal him and have pity.

That was the situation that I found in the Philippines, a vastly rich and wealthy elite, about 200 powerful families owned the land, the food, the factories and all industry. The millions of Filipino people, were mired in poverty, hunger, sickness and were begging for the scraps that fell form the tables of rich who lived in palaces and made billions of money from corruption. They even owned the government. The congress was stacked by the relatives and friends of the rich and government served them and not the poor. But these rich people were very religious, went to Mass, thanked God for their wealth and gave money to the church.

I wanted to put into action what Jesus preached and did; he said the poor were the salt for the earth, the most important of all, that innocent children were the models of sanctity that we should imitate so we will be worthy to enter the Kingdom of God.

It was a big challenge and much progress together with many other development agencies implementing the social teaching of the church society began to change. I started a charity called PREDA, an organization that works for justice in all aspects of life. It rescues the children form the jails, save children from the human traffickers and sex slavery in brothels. Today there is training to the youth so they could get jobs and we would try to protect children in every possible way from abusers and traffickers. The goal of the charity is to make justice real, and to work to stop the corruption and wrongdoing and bring freedom to many people.

The charity called PREDA brings Economic freedom and human dignity, self-reliance, to thousands of people through the practice of FAIR TRADE. This aspect of our work at Preda Fair Trade is to help the poor by establishing livelihood opportunities so the poor can learn and to use their skills in the home and farm and produce quality products for the market. Preda fair trade gives interest free loans to the producers. Fair Trade finds buyers that pay a good fair price for the products. There is no cheating or price fixing or corruption and the producers share in the profits.

Fair trade is another word for economic justice and improving the lives of hundreds of thousands by getting buyers for their produce at fair prices, it means that they can live in dignity and economic freedom. Fair Trade is working to give life to the hungry like Lazarus at the gate of the rich man. To save the children from the international criminals that abduct and sell children into slavery. We rescue them and give them a new life. We rescue and save the child workers in brothels and when they are pregnant save them from forced abortions. We take legal action to bring the abusers to justice and jail where they cannot harm and abuse children. All this important work is supported by the earnings that comes from the selling of fair trade products like dried tropical fruit, juice concentrates, and other handicraft products.

Buying fairly traded products is a way to fight for justice and reduce hunger and poverty. Fair trade helps them to help themselves and to stand on their own and survive and prosper in dignity.

Dried Mangoes Could Prevent Cancer - New Medical Discoveries

It's great to get good news about the wonders and benefits of nature for once after all the natural disasters experienced in the past few months around the world. Scientists at the Texas A&M University have discovered cancer retardants in the delicious mango fruit. The extract of mango, a naturally sweet tropical fruit can prevent, if not stop, the growth of cancer cells especially breast and colon cancer. The scientists Dr. Susanne Talcott and husband and co-researcher Dr. Steve Talcott released the scientific data recently saying the mango extracts "demonstrated some cancer-fighting abilities when tested on lung, leukemia and prostrate cancer cells". When tested on breast and colon cancer cells, they had an even more robust anti-cancer effect, they said "In fact, the mango extracts caused the breast cancer and colon cancer cells to undergo apoptosis or programmed cancer cell death", they said. The results of the studies have been posted on the Philippine Cancer Society's web site.

This is a wonderful breakthrough for the Philippine mango which is already a strong export product; however, the real future in the world market is organic dried mango. NGO's, developing agencies, investors would be wise to invest and help farmers to go organic and work for certification. Preda Fair Trade is training farmers how to convert and meet the criteria for certification. Buyers abroad are ready to pay more for the organic mangoes and donate towards the certification costs. But winning farmers from chemical spraying is a massive task. They are dependent on the contract sprayer, they cannot see how better-off they would be by going organic.

Mango is the one Philippine fruit among many that I love and together with indigenous Aeta farmers here in Zambales we are going organic. That's because the fair trade project of Preda has been helping small impoverished farmers for the past 16 years to get higher prices for their mango and offers an added percentage payment if the mangoes are organically produced. There was a time when a price-fixing cartel controlled the industry for years and there was no competition until Preda fair trade teamed up with an emerging company called Profood in Cebu and began to create a shortage as it bought thousands of kilos of mangoes and so the shortage drove up the price and the price-fixing cartel broke up. The Preda-Profood partnership developed and marketed the delicious chemical-free dried mango that is soft, tasty and naturally sweet. It has no preservatives or any artificial additives. Pure goodness and now they are even better with the good news that this humble fruit has healing power.

Of course we all hope and pray that the health and life-giving scientific discoveries are duplicated and authenticated. But no matter what, eating Preda chemical-free dried fruit is good in itself and we all know that a healthy body and life style need lots of fruit. Dried fruit is blessed with life giving minerals and ingredients as just proven. It takes 8 kilos of fresh mango fruit to make one kilo of dried mango fruit, so the benefit is greater when eating dried mangoes. That's what Preda fair trade has made available in many big supermarkets in the UK and Ireland and around Europe. The World Fair Trade shops are famous for selling the Preda dried mangoes and helping save children from abusers, pedophiles and pimps. In the UK and Ireland, they are sold through the Forest Feast brand with the Preda name predominately displayed on the packet.

The new scientific breakthrough has added a great new dimension to eating this dried fruit. It's now the wise, smart and medical sound thing to do. It's a healthy welcome gift to give to others. When you read this tell your friends the good news.

Preda FAIR TRADE project pays for the planting of over 1000 mango trees a year to help the indigenous people in the Philippine climb out of poverty. It protects the environment, cut-back CO2 and becomes a living forest habitat for all creatures, great and small. The price of mangoes has risen in recent years bringing a bonus to poor farmers. Sales keep their children in school and in the villages and safe from the traffickers and sex tourists. A percentage of sales also goes to help the victims of trafficking and abuse, while the project rescues hundreds of children and gives them a new start in life. So what greater good can one do than buy the Forest Feast/Preda brand! You never know the scientists might be right and I don't want to miss out on the benefits so please pass me the bag of Forest Feast/Preda dried mangoes. THEY TASTE GREAT!

Taking a Stand for Justice and Truth

The trafficking of children and young women into the commercial sex industry by the hundreds of thousands and the spread of the sex industry fueled by easily available child pornography is the scandal of our beautiful country. “The complicity and connivance of government officials with investments in the sex business are tolerant and encourage it” said by a social worker in Angeles City who asked not to be named out of fear for her safety. Thousands of local and foreign sex tourists flock there to exploit and abuse women and children with impunity.

Hunger and poverty following environmental disasters, environmental destruction, floods and draughts, landslides and soil erosions has driven thousands of children and teenagers into the cities over the past decade to beg for food and they are very vulnerable to trafficking for sexual exploitation. Those rescued by the Preda child rescue team have told of lives of brutality, fear and horrific abuse by sex tourists and pimps.

When some Church leaders fail to speak-out on serious social issues such as these that are bound up in our faith and morals, Christians tend to loose heart and their faith. “If they cannot lead and inspire us to work for justice and peace, dignity and decency, then who can?”, commented Juan Mercado, a community leader lamenting the silence of church leaders in response to the scandal of widespread child abuse and exploitation in the Philippines. These leaders may have overlooked the message of Jesus of Nazareth which is powerfully expressed in the age old social teachings of the Church.

The social teaching of the church is not socialism but the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. He lived, worked and was executed for standing with the poor, telling all that the Kingdom of God was to be a just society of peace and non-violence and it was to be primarily for the poor in this world here and now. The Kingdom he said is living justly with honesty and integrity respecting the rights of all. It was a renewed humanity living in harmony with justice giving freedom to captives, lifting up the oppressed, protecting the rights and dignity of all especially the rejected and abused women and children and opposing evil and injustice.

His own mother is quoted by St. Luke as saying that “the mighty would be put down from their thrones and the poor would be lifted up”, that the rich would be sent away empty and poor would never be hungry. Such revolutionary prayers especially on the lips of a woman were truly earth-shaking. We need to follow such an example. That’s what idealistic youth want to be inspired by -- this world- changing message and life of Jesus and His mother.

We can take heart from those brave Filipino bishops who are taking a strong stand with their people and calling for social justice and the protection of the environment and the people. The churches in Mt. Province and Ifugao, Bontoc and Lagawe have spoken out through the Social Action and Development Center to protest the massive destruction on the slopes of Mt. Sumigar by contractors constructing a road. “We believe that such environmental destruction was allowed to happen because concerned government agencies failed to perform their duties to stop it” the church spokesperson said.

The beautiful island of Catanduanes is another area where environmental destruction looms from the threat of irresponsible mining. The awarding of 7,000 hectares of forest and natural park land to a private company linked to powerful government-connected business tycoon for coal mining has the province in near revolt. In a statement of concern read in all churches on the island on March 1, Bishop Manolo A. de los Santos of the Diocese of Virac called for an end to planned coal mining operations telling government officials that there had been no consultation with the people as required by law.

”The people of Catanduanes have the right to know the disastrous effects mining would bring to the island and its people”, Bishop De los Santos said.

”We don¹t want our island and our people to suffer from such tragedies brought about by irresponsible mining activity,” he said. It’s such an inspiration to have the Bishop and the clergy standing side by side with the defenders of the human rights and dedicated to justice and the defense for the creation.