Corruption And Spread Of Covid-19

There are many global threats facing the world today. The most serious in everybody’s mind is the coronavirus pandemic with 200,000 dead in the USA alone and spreading. It is a cause of shock and realization that we humans for all our economic, military and medical power is very weak and vulnerable to the invisible virus that has invaded our world, our communities, families and our bodies. Some nations have had success in controlling it; others have failed through incompetence and corruption.

Martha has a cheerful, happy-go-lucky personality, a healthy mother of four. On a recent Saturday evening, she forgot herself and went to a house party with friends to celebrate a birthday. She ignored precautions as did others and wrongly believed it wouldn’t touch her. But it did. By Friday, she was having strong coughing and fever symptoms and reactions and was rushed to the overcrowded hospital. There in painful convulsions, Martha struggled and gasped for breath, isolated from family, only the nurse, dressed in blue plastic, went to help her. It was no use, Martha quickly fell silent and died. It was her weak lungs, they said. Some underlying health condition, said another. No one really knows why she died so quickly. There was no time for an autopsy, not even a proper funeral. She was brought straight to the crematorium, leaving behind a weeping crying, traumatized family.

There are hundreds of thousands of people like Martha and more of them every day. A mistake took away her precious, beautiful, happy life and that of her family. But it is also the many mistakes of the politicians that have failed to act decisively in time to lead and instruct the people that Covid-19 is a dangerous deadly virus with the power to kill and maim. They fail to insist that everyone must wear masks, avoid contact with others, disinfect, wash their hands frequently since anyone may have the deadly killer virus. It is spreading because many people ignore these precautions and corrupt, inadept and stupid failed leaders do not order and impose protective measures to save the vulnerable people and issue strong, consistent health warnings. They have failed to implement and insist on a national response to test and trace the infected people and isolate them. How else can this vicious virus that spreads like venom be contained? Those strong, respected leaders who did response to the attack of Covid-19 in a wiser, more scientific and disciplined and educated manner saved hundreds of thousands of their citizens, which is their sworn duty.

In the nations with the highest death rates, it seems they have restricted the showing of videos of mass burials, lines of waiting coffins, full crematoriums, overcrowded hospitals, dying people and sick doctors and nurses. It is too shocking. Is it for some an effort to deny and cover up the real extent of their incompetence, criminal behaviour and lack of moral conscience all for the sake of retaining political power? Covid-19 is spreading and causing more sickness and death because of some selfish, pleasure-seeking and irresponsible people who flout precautions and care for no one other than themselves. In their ignorance, they demonstrate against the safety precautions no less.

It is our fervent hope and belief that the majority of humans are good, law-abiding people that care for others, protect them from Covid-19 and care for the public health and environment. They choose the good over evil. They act in a responsible way saving their own lives, their families and neighbours. The people who do believe and choose to do the good and practice the values of love of the stranger, of neighbour and work for justice, have a responsibility to share those values so that equality, peace and harmony can be a reality in society. We should actively persuade and convince the others to do likewise. Inactivity in the face of wrong is to allow it to grow and prosper.

It may seem like mission impossible to persuade the virus deniers and the climate sceptics of the truth of a pandemic and global warming. We have to challenge and call out the oppressors, corrupt leaders and politicians to do justice, respect the rights of all, to care and protect the public health and to serve humbly. To convince these people who live in darkness that it is a better life to be in the light and to bring happiness to people, not terror, oppression, pain, suffering, rights violations and death. It is a mission to persuade the ordinary people to always choose the good over evil. It is a challenge for all to teach by good example, taking action for justice and accepting and living the truth that justice and goodness is the path to happiness for all. It is a great shining ideal, but will it ever come to be?

This is the goal we must work for. There is so much evil in the world that allows the virus to spread uncontrolled in many countries, mostly among the poor. We see much irresponsible selfish behaviour by some national leaders, bankers, industrialists, military, police and criminals. We know that abuse and evil persist because they with the power choose the evil and reject the good as they exercise their free will corruptly. The evil comes from making the wrong choice to crush and hurt others to retain political and economic power and to plunder the nation. For them, the health and well-being of others is just a matter of lip-service, words without meaning, action without purpose, hypocrisy and skulduggery for selfish personal gain. The great hope is that a society, a nation, will evolve with the beautiful values, principles, and compassion that motivate overwhelming good that is the paramount driving force that brings happiness to all.

Overcoming Poverty

There is extreme poverty in the world, 1% of rich people have more money and wealth than the combined wealth of 4.6 billion people who have almost nothing. Worldwide there are about 735 million people in extreme poverty. In the Philippine there are an estimated 6 million people in extreme poverty. Why is there so much inequality in the world?

Can the power goodness bring social justice and overcome the devastating harm done by powerful greedy, selfish people? They must be challenged, opposed and resisted by those dedicated and committed to doing well. Humanity develops when there is sharing, cooperation, justice, freedom and equality among people. When these values pervade daily life, they bring peace, harmony and well-being. The people have to change peacefully the political and economic forces that allow them such a life.

Each of us can help our neighbor and find ways to open the cage of poverty and let them fly free. Everyone needs a job and a just wage to support their family. The following is a true story, one that is repeated many times over.

Lusito was a boy from a hungry homeless family. They lived in poverty under sacks at the edge of a beach. His father was a simple fisherman but when international fishing companies were given commercial fishing permits in Philippine waters by corrupt officials, the fish disappeared. Thousands of Filipinos were thrown into the pit of poverty. Lusito then 15, the eldest, collected junk, plastic bottles, anything he could sell for a few handfuls of rice. That’s all they had; it wasn’t enough. Sickness took his father.

One day Luisito, who was emaciated with hunger, was seen by the owner of a basket weaving shop and invited to learn basket weaving. He was a person of conscience and he saw, judged the right thing to do and did it. Lusito was amazed when he was paid, in advance, a generous trainee’s allowance. Immediately he bought rice and fish for the family, the first that they had in weeks. He was totally determined to succeed and joined several workers in the small factory. Quickly he became a skilled worker and was paid a higher just wage and given shelter in the workshop. The cage was open.

Lusito saw a way to overcome poverty. He went to evening classes and graduated high school and with the help of the basket shop owner, he eventually graduated from college and found a managerial job. He saved his family and his own children. They became college graduates and they have good jobs today. That was and is the exception rather than the common reality.

That was thirty years ago. The Philippine population is now 110 million and while poverty has lessened, there are 23.1 million Filipinos going hungry every day down from 28.8, the figure in 2016 according to the World Bank survey. That is still 23 million too many. Yet many more millions of Filipinos while not grievously hungry are still living in poverty.

The world has moved on to new economic challenges and new skills and education are needed help to make a just economy where the youth of today will find good pay in high-tech jobs with dignity and equality. The nation needs to produce more high values products in a sustainable way that protects the environment and heals the damaged planet. To help bring this about Pope Francis will launch a new initiative the “Economy of Francis” at a world meeting of economists and business people with conscience. It is to be held in Assisi, in Italy, March this year 2020.

Global action is urgently needed. Millions of people around the world demand change and refuse to be submissive and docile or live in fear of the rich. They now protest inequality, low wages, poverty, unemployment, environmental destruction. They raise their voices in rallies, marches and demonstrations or quietly advocate and create public awareness of social injustice. Equality will have to come by the action of just governments that will tax the rich and compel them by law to pay higher wages and government must provide social development, health, housing and employment with just wages. Government is supposed to be service of the people, for the people, by the people to overcome poverty.

It is the rich that control the Congress, they rule by family dynasty and will very seldom legislate against their own interests and only under intense public pressure. What is to be done to overcome poverty? One is to defeat and remove the corrupt officials. Politicians promise to do this in order to get elected and have power, but most are corrupt themselves. As the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported in January 2020: “The Philippines slipped 14 notches from its previous ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), a rating of global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International has shown. In the group’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2019, the Philippines scored 34 to land in the 113th spot – a decline of 14 places from its previous rank at 99 in 2018.

Despite that vexing and painful truth there has been change to the good. There are millions of children and youth getting a better education nowadays thanks to many Filipino people of compassion, with social conscience, who don’t tolerate injustice and poverty and lobby and pressure government officials to act justly. It is a slow and frustrating incremental progress.

The restless youth and workers can’t wait; they are demanding jobs and higher wages and benefits, a life free from hunger and want. The rich oppose this, they grow rich from low wages, restrictive labor laws and short-term contract workers and exploitation and plundering the natural resources and paying low or no taxes. The labor movement is frozen.

The educated workers are frustrated and migrate with their brain power, skills, and knowledge. The Philippines can lower the rate of poverty if the government will invest in advanced technology training and encourage business to create higher value employment and make high value products. This will give more spending power to the people. That in turn, spurs greater economic growth. Breaking the cycle of poverty will only happen when many more millions develop a conscience, have compassion and give equal opportunities to the poor by sharing their wealth. Together we can help the poor to rise out of poverty and open the door of the cage so they can fly free.

The Curse of Sex Tourism Part 2

Hundreds of thousands of young girls and boys are lured, forced or trafficked into the sex industry every day worldwide.  Human traffickers are the curse of the nation but they operate with relative impunity and sell the youth into the sex bars and clubs that are given government permits and operating licences. This makes the State part of the corrupt industry where drugs and sex dominate and young people are sold as commodities in a slave market for the wealthy sex tourists.

The behind-the-scenes reality of sex clubs is devastating. Provided with a bed in a crowded dormitory, usually at the back of the sex bar or club or hotel, as many as forty girls can be living in inhumane conditions. They have to pay for their accommodation and for their daily food. It is all marked up against their expenses and billed to them at a high price. Despite the vaunted war-on-drugs in the Philippines, the illegal drugs are everywhere in the sex tourist industry. The young girls are addicted or dependent and owe the pusher and can never escape, unless they take the risk of being arrested and charged with prostitution and drug use.

In sex tourism, young women are paid a basic wage for dancing. If a customer wants to have them for sex, the sex bar gets paid for that. It’s called a “bar fine.” The customer has to pay but the bar owner keeps most of the money. It is a lucrative business.

The freedom and impunity of the sex industry in the tourist belt is a very bad precedent. Some local men are influenced by it and abuse their own children. The children run to the streets and end up in sex bars. It’s a vicious circle of abuse and exploitation. 

Money is king. The tourism industry is one of the biggest money earners in most developing economies but the fact is that it is seldom reported upon, investigated or exposed by the media. The church too is silent about the corrupt industry. Though some think sex tourism is confined to red light districts, it is there in beach resorts and fancy tourist hotels.

  

I was sitting in the lobby of a posh hotel in Manila waiting for some journalists.  A waiter approached me. “Sir, can I get you a drink?” he asked politely. “Just coffee, thanks,” I replied. He continued, “You are alone and it is getting to evening. Do you want anything else sir?” I thought he was referring to me having a meal. “You seem to be alone, would you like me to arrange a companion for you?” I was immediately alert. What was this offer in a four-star tourist hotel? I decided to play along and find out. “Oh, really, can you arrange that?” I asked. “How young would you like?” he asked. “How young can you provide?” I asked him. “Well, sir, it depends on how much you are willing to pay. A twelve-year-old will cost six thousand pesos.”

I was really shocked at this: a twelve-year-old child was offered to a foreign-looking tourist right in the hotel lobby! I realized I should have recorded it on my cell phone. I answered, “No, no, not now. If I want anything more, I will contact you.” When I tried to have him arrested for human trafficking and pimping minors, he had disappeared. The hotel staff tipped him off most likely.  However, it was strong evidence that this sex tourism pervades hotels and resorts.

  

Sex tourism is here to stay but we should never condone, tolerate and stop opposing it and helping the victims. It seems to be government-supported or at least tolerated as a normal part of human life. Though many condemn the human exploitation of women and minors, the trade in sex tourism flourishes. Non-government organizations continue to campaign to curb the abuse of children that are in the sex tourism industry.

The PREDA Foundation, for example, has in recent months received more than twenty rescued victims aged between 14 and 17 years, all of them lured and coerced into brothel hotels and tourist resorts. It gives shelter and therapy to as many as 63 children at times.  After the rescue, they told of their harrowing experiences of being sexually abused and exploited. They are recovering with the help of Emotional Release Therapy at the PREDA Home for Girls at present.

   

But thousands more remain in the sex tourist industry and are at grave risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and being subjected to brutality and rape. The PREDA Foundation has prosecuted several foreigners and local tourists and abusers on behalf of the victims in past years. Some foreign child sex abusers retaliate and harass the Preda advocates and social workers with baseless complaints. But they stand their ground and defeat the sex abusers.

  

Preda supports legal action for the child victims so justice will be done. There is success with eight convictions being won on average per year. In 2018, sixteen child abusers were found guilty and received life sentences for child sexual abuse. By May 2019, Preda legal action saw eight more child sex abusers convicted. More are expected. So there is hope that justice can be done for many more victims.

The foreign sex tourists that abuse youngsters in developing countries will become dependent upon and addicted to underage sex. They will return to their own countries with a strong appetite for it and will abuse many more children there. That is another curse of the sex tourism business.

Governments need to provide alternatives for young people. All operating permits and licenses must be cancelled. More educational opportunities and support for the very poor - especially girls - and dignified work for adults must be provided to end the cruel, dehumanizing sex tourist industry.  Taking a principled stand for the victims of sex tourism and challenging a society to accept and live out the spiritual and human values of the Christian gospel - especially by respecting the rights of all to a life of freedom from poverty, oppression, and injustice - must be a priority for all the faithful.  

The Curse of Sex Tourism Part 1

 

The depravity of human nature reveals itself in the most shocking way as sex tourism. This phenomenon has become a government-supported and encouraged form of personal and national income generation in many countries that exploits and abuses millions of people around the world.

 

Currently, almost half a million people in the Philippines specifically, and many more in other nations, work in the huge sex tourist industry that annually generates several billion US dollars. Yet, the human suffering experienced is incalculable. Millions of lives are broken, damaged, and destroyed.

 

The sex tourist industry is a highly organized money-making business. Behind its growth is the demand of middle-aged and older men who cannot find sexual satisfaction in their own countries and travel abroad seeking gratification with young, vulnerable and impoverished girls. These men tend to be divorced, widowed or unmarried, or isolated from their wives or partners. Many of them have no regard for the dignity of women and young girls, seeing them as objects to be bought and used for their personal pleasure. There is no apparent concern for the victims of sex tourism.

 

Thousands of the exploited young women are uneducated and unwanted by their penniless families. Unless they can earn by being commercially sexually exploited, they have no value. Indeed, their sexual commoditization is their only value. Their human dignity, importance, and rights are totally disregarded.

 

The worth of these women is lessened by the vast sums of money generated by sex tourism for politicians and tycoons. The police are in on the game, too. The sole motive is the satisfaction of their greed, selfishness and depravity. Many also have their own young, underage mistresses and sex slaves.

 

The human cost is enormous. The dignity of the victims is violated, their rights to a decent life, to education and a career, are all denied them. A nation that sells its young people to tourists, domestic and international, is despicable. It is a tarnished, corrupt society that allows the domination of the lives of millions of vulnerable young people worldwide.

 

Sex tourism is not really tourism. It is really a form of modern sex slavery as the perpetrators and wrong-doers exploit the young. The abusive encounters between sex tourists and young women are truthfully more about power, control, and domination, manifesting a sadistic desire to own and abuse the lives of another. Such ascendency by a sex tourist over a weaker person may be compensation for his or her own inner character weakness. Perhaps, it makes up for feelings of being rejected in their own families or communities. Whatever its source, the abuse is criminal behavior and everyone who abuses a woman or a minor ought to be brought to justice.

 

The extreme poverty of the families out of which these young women come is undoubtedly the reason  for their involvement in the sex tourism industry. Without resources, access to education is slim and so, these rural or slum-dwelling women are compelled to do anything to earn money for food. It is about survival, it is about staying alive. Like hunter-gatherers, from dawn to dusk, they scavenge for money, or anyway else they can lay their hands on, to get enough to buy a cup of rice and some vegetables or eat pagpag, the re-cooked scrapings from the plates of restaurants.

 

Minors in the sex tourist industry are oftentimes victims of sexual abuse in their own home: abused by relatives, neighbors or even their own biological fathers. These young girls have no alternative but to run away for their own survival. Their available choices are to be on the streets or to go with a "recruiter." Once under the power of the sex tourism recruiter—who provides money, food and accommodation—they are sold to brothels, sex bars or clubs in the neon-lit sex strips of cities from Johannesburg to London to Manila. There is no end to their exploitation.

 

Not only are the Philippines, South Africa or the mega-brothels of Europe notorious for sex tourism and the human destruction it brings with it, these governments and societies must be held responsible for the pain and hardship that afflict the lives of the youth, many of them underage children. Sex tourism has created a wonderland of child sex, aided and abetted by the societies that are supposed to protect and nurture these children.

 

Sex tourism destroys the purpose and fabric of society. The dignity of women, youth and children is downgraded by the people who operate and allow the sex tourist industry to thrive and grow. They see the young as bodies for sale. They do not treat them as individual persons with hearts and souls, feelings, ambitions and hopes for a brighter, happier future.

 

The traffickers are human traders who broker lives and sell them to whoever is willing to pay a large sum to rape and abuse a child in a hotel room, without fear of retribution or responsibility to the law or human dignity.

 

Impunity is the attraction. Prostitution is illegal in the Philippines and in other countries, yet it thrives. The sex bars and clubs are protected by police and politicians, many of whom are club owners themselves.

 

Once, I went to rescue some children trapped in debt bondage in a tourist hotel frequented by foreign sex tourists. Posing as a customer, I asked the manager in a quiet undertone, nodding towards a small stage where six teenagers each clad in a tiny bikini were gyrating in a languid manner on a pole: "Is it safe here to have one of those young girls?" "Oh sir," the manager answered, "you don't have to worry, here you are completely safe and protected". "Oh really? "Why is that so?" I answered. "But this place is owned by a police officer," he said. The system is corrupt in its exploitation of young women.

 

People tend to blame the young girls for being lured into the dirty business of exploitation and abuse but it is the apathy and indifference of the public that is past of the exploitation. There is no church or public outcry against it. It is tolerated and thousands of young people suffer, lives destroyed and a once proud nation is prostituted.

Corruption is the Scourge of the Nation

The apparent triumph of evil is what troubles so many in the world today. Reports of crime, bribery, wrongdoing, exploitation and frame-ups appear on almost every news bulletin. Evil reigns supreme when people in power abuse their position for their personal or family gain. In business, in politics, in the judiciary they defraud and steal, smuggle, peddle drugs and hide behind a mask of innocence. This is what we call corruption. Sadly, the Philippines in 2016 ranked low, 101 out of 176 countries, on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Scandinavian countries ranked in the top five.

It is a brutal and painful reality that we live in a corrupt society. That may be pessimistic perhaps but also very true. Politicians are considered the most corrupt of all. Even senators are on trial in the Philippines for looting the public coffers. They allegedly set up false charities and foundations to hide the public money given to them for development and community projects and then channeled the billions into their private accounts. One was able to get a Supreme Court decision to post bail for a crime for which there is no bail allowed. The decision was a miracle of compassion, some said. The accused have every opportunity to present evidence and a strong defense and benefit by the rule of law, due process and plead innocent until proven guilty. Not so the suspected drug users that are killed daily on the spot with no evidence needed.

The judiciary is open to corrupt practices. A recent case in the Philippines is that of a female US national who kept five Filipino children in her house illegally and severely neglected them and when rescued and they were medically examined and it was found that they had been sexually abused and used in making pornography. Despite strong evidence of guilt, the judge dismissed the case on the slim and questionable grounds the rescue of the children by government social workers and police was illegal. Massive bribery was suspected to have been involved.  

Now the suspect is hiding in the USA and attacking online the child defenders who exposed her crimes against the children. She will likely be charged under the US Federal law that provides “extraterritorial jurisdiction” over certain sex offenses against children. According to the US Justice Department, “extraterritorial jurisdiction is the legal authority of the United States to prosecute criminal conduct that took place outside its borders. Section 2423(c) of Title 18, United States Code, prohibits United States citizens or legal permanent residents from traveling from the United States to a foreign country, and while there, raping or sexually molesting a child or paying a child for sex.”  

The good people who would never pay a bribe or act in a corrupt manner are disadvantaged as they are inhibited and prevented by their good conscience from doing wrong, taking advantage of others, committing an injustice, stealing, lying or cheating. They are the silent majority of good Filipinos but they must not remain silent. They are Filipinos of integrity and honesty. They are the moral people with a conscience built on knowledge of right and wrong. When temptation presents itself, they resist. But when threatened, they fear for themselves and their families.

The corrupt person has no conscience and is continually looking out for a way to exploit others, advance his ambitious goals of greed and dominance. In any situation where the official has power to give or withhold anything to which the member of the public has a right to receive- a driving license, a business permit or a police clearance- the official will be thinking, ”Aha, what’s in this for me?”

We are challenged and called upon to speak out and expose corruption wherever we suspect it is happening. Pope Francis is calling on us to say “No” to corrupt practices and to take a stand for integrity, honesty, human dignity, justice, good governance and human rights. Exposing corruption is dangerous as the powerful will silence the whistle-blowers and the human rights advocates who take a stand against corruption. In the Philippines the president has said he will order the police to shoot human rights advocates.

However, corruption in developing countries is on a different level. It permeates all levels and all branches of government. Child abuse is widespread as government officials look the other way and issue permits to the sex bars where teenagers are trafficked and exploited by the local and foreign sex tourists. Every one makes money and the children and young women, victims of human trafficking, are sexually exploited and held in slavery by debts, which they can never pay off. Corruption is so widespread that even police and officials frequent the sex bars and protect them from investigation for crimes against women and children.

Saying “No” to corruption can cost you your life. Over a hundred journalists and human right workers have been killed for exposing the corruption and injustice in the Philippines.  Yet the people of conscience and integrity need to take the risk and stand up and say “No More Corruption” and act to expose and oppose all such evil practices.

When the Rule of Law Fails

It was by doing the right thing and alerting the police that a person with knowledge and commitment to defending children’s rights saved a 13-year-old child from possible rape and sexual abuse. The concerned person saw a 69-year-old foreign male bring a small child into a motel in Cagayan De Oro City last week.

The child, it was learned, had run away from home in Bukidnon and was living rough on the streets of Cagayan De Oro. If the social workers of the Department of Social Welfare and Development interview the child victim, they will surely learn why she ran away. It could well be that she was abused in her own home by a relative or even by her own father. Seventy percent of the children rescued by social workers, based on our experience, are sexually abused in the home and they cannot endure it and run away to escape from the abuse. So the social workers may find a case to be made against the possible abuser in Bukidnon.

The foreign suspect, a US national by the name Anthony Bruce Mallet, was arrested and is held in the Cagyan de Oro Police Station. He had to have help to find and recruit the child, to persuade her to go with him allegedly to be sexually abused. A street child is normally frightened of strangers especially foreigners. His live-in partner ought to be a suspect too and questioned also. Mallet, despite the very strong evidence against him, is still presumed innocent until proven guilty. We will trust in the honesty of the prosecutor and the judge to determine guilt.

For 80 percent of the Filipino children who are victimized by foreign pedophiles, there is a pimp involved who lures and persuades and grooms the child to do sex acts with a foreigner. Peter Scully, the Australian, an alleged notorious pedophile who sexually abused, tortured and killed a child on video and sold it abroad had a few young women pimps working for him. In televised interviews he did not deny the charges.

Mallet, if he was arrested inside a room with the child, is in direct violation of the child protection law otherwise known as Republic Act 7610. It is forbidden to be in any secluded place with a minor who is not a blood relative. It does not have to be that a sexual act occurred or even proven that the child was sexually assaulted. Before RA 7610, many police, prosecutors and judges claimed that there was no crime if the abusive act did not occur.

That meant that the police had to wait outside the door of the room until the child was raped, abused and traumatized for life before rescuing him or her and arresting the suspect. The attempted sexual abuse, like attempted robbery, or attempted homicide or murder is sufficient to charge the suspect with a crime.

In the case of Lilian May Thomson (Zimmer), another US national with an outstanding Philippine arrest warrant, the evidence showed that the children were held in a secluded place for some time and the medical evidence and the statements of the children showed the children had been sexually abused. How they were abused and by whom has yet to be answered by Thomson. She denied all charges and the case was strangely dismissed on a technicality.

  

The root cause of human trafficking and recruitment of children into the sex industry is the utter failure of law enforcement to recognize the law, and believe in it and implement it. However many police and local politicians issue permits to sex bars and brothels and allow it to thrive. They do not see it as a serious issue or as a “real” crime even though the law says it is.  The law in the Philippines is usually what the authorities choose it to be.

The police action in the war-on-drugs is to put aside the rule of law and shoot suspects without evidence or to get or allow vigilantes to do it for payment. They do not have the moral values or commitment to the meaning of law and its enforcement. They interpret the law as they see fit. And according to them, underage sex is not a serious crime it, appears. Some police are known to operate brothels with underage children also.

The murder of a Korean businessman by a policeman within a hundred meters of the office of the chief of police in Camp Crame in Metro Manila is another example when the rule of law is violated by those sworn and paid to uphold it.

The more recent discovery of the group of innocent civilians held by police in Tondo, Manila hidden in a secret cell in the police station behind a cupboard is equally shocking. They were illegally held and would be released on payment of large sums of money, according to them. The officials of the Commission on Human Rights rescued them.  

People in general give little value to children that are not their own. The street children are seen as petty criminals and expendable. The minors are not considered victims by the police if found in sex bars but are considered guilty of a crime. The corrupt police then exploit the young girls. They are threatened with criminal charges to make them do what the corrupt police want, such as giving sexual favors in some cases. The sex bar owners will have to pay a big sum of money to get them back. The authorities tend to blame the children and minors for the crimes of adults.

We have to work for a return to sanity, cleansing of the corrupt police and a return to strict honest rule of law. We are descending into uncivilized barbarity.

The Injustice of It All

What is the state of justice in the Philippines? Has corruption eroded the once noble profession, is justice really for sale? There are just and honest judges, lawyers and prosecutors but many more are corrupt bribe takers. A Judge in Olongapo City was suspended recently for allegedly taking bribes and dismissing cases against child rapists. The Supreme Court administrators have acted against many more corrupt judges.

Justice for the poor is rare. Last 22 May the horrific story of the alleged murder, sexual abuse, torture with electric shock and sever physical beating of a 11 year old girl and her companion Miriam was reported here. (Children of the garbage Pit, www.preda.org and Preda Facebook)

It was last April 5, Holy Week, when Chastity Mirabilis, the 11-year-old street child and her friend, 11 year old (call her Miriam) were kicked awake on the pavement where they were sleeping.

They, the throwaway children of Cebu, were thrown in a police car and brought to the police station.  There allegedly they suffered sexual abuse, torture and brutality to amuse and gratify the sexual urges of the police at the Fuente police station.

The next day Chastity and Miriam were thrown out of the police station and soon after Chastity died for her wounds and the brutal beatings and electric shock given to her. Miriam survived but is traumatized, yet was able to give graphic testimony as to what had happened. It is a chilling tale of police corruption and barbarity. Is there any justice for them? The good cops must clean up their ranks. 

Many more street children are being abused and put in cells with male adult prisoners and abused. It's all illegal but the police put themselves above the law and can accuse and frame up anybody.

Which brings to mind the case where a unfortunate Irishman, Eanna Coughlin, visiting Laoag, Ilocos Norte, where his wife is from, is the long suffering victim of an alleged cruel frame up in July 2013. He was suddenly detained, searched (without just cause) at the Laoag airport and lo and behold after quick search two cigarettes of marijuana were allegedly “found”.  He was charged with criminal case no.15585-13 at the regional trial court Br.13 Laoag .His passport was taken illegally some say.

  

The unfortunate Eanna Coughlin, traveler and tourist claims the so-called evidence was planted.  It could happen to anyone, it’s so common. So tourists beware, you have been warned! Even the sex bars have undercover police waiting to pounce.(Youtube ,The Raid ABC NY and Children of the Sex Trade).

The two Laoag policemen threatened Eanna constantly with 25 years in prison while waiting for a big payoff that never came. So they were peeved, the prosecutor was peeved and warned Mr. Coughlin of grave consequence unless.

He was unjustly jailed and went on hunger strike, a man willing to die for his belief in justice. So he had to borrow another 250,000 pesos when they quickly granted bail so he would not die behind bars and create an international outrage. 

Eanna Coughlin is a man of courage and is a highly trained well-respected psychiatric nurse who believes in honesty, his innocence and that justice would be done. He paid off no one but borrowed 200,000 pesos to pay his lawyers with the prestigious name Agbayani Agustine Leonador & Vallestero. They charged 1000 pesos every time they appeared in the courtroom took the 200,000 Pesos  as fees and expenses and no pay off was made.

So with mercy and compassion put aside, Justice Philip G. Salvador, Branch 13, Regional Trial Court of Laoag, burning with passion for the law and zealously protecting the public from the evils of two sticks of marijuana slapped the full force of the draconian law on the hapless Eanna.

He gave a full 12-year prison sentence in a stinking filthy Philippine jail for two sticks of marijuana, which had miraculously appeared in the hands of the searching cops that day of infamy in July 2013. That sentence is international news and is rocking the tourist world. Let it be known that many a police officer and most teenagers smoke grass daily all over the Philippines. Even the children of the wealthy  elites and the elites themselves perhaps use it.

I know it as I managed a drug rehabilitation center for 18 years in the Philippines and helped youth in conflict with the unjust and harsh law. Even today 8 years old are jailed without any trial even thought is illegal to jail a child they still do it. 

Such is the sickness of the Philippine justice system that there is no balance, no sense in the judgment, i'ts cruel harsh and one wonders why? Is someone somewhere still waiting for something?  Twelve years in prison for what is a misdemeanor in most courts in the civilized world and possession and sale now legal in many US States.

It’s long past the time for the Philippines to clean up its justice system and catch up with reality. The congress needs to change that draconian law that makes the Filipinos look ridiculous, cruel and uncaring. It is a law that has been used to condemn many young people, destroys their lives, burden them with a criminal record for life an now the law used in this way destroys the reputation and good name of an innocent man. 

The judiciary do not think of that terrible consequence for life of two joints that were more than likely planted in the first place. Twelve years is a near death sentence since Philippine prisons are death cells of disease for prisoners.

It's time for the Irish Government and international community to take a stand for justice for abused children and innocent tourists. We all pray that the Court of Appeals will follow the light of true justice and exonerate Eanna Coughlin a   just man, a victim of an unjust system.

False Freedom and Insatiable Greed

Just before Independence Day last week, a group of newly enrolled children from a shelter excitedly set out on the first day to walk to school at Gala, Sacatihan, Pamatawan, Subic town, Zambales. The road up the hill would give them an easy walk to freedom through education - the great liberator. But then, as they crested the hill, to their dismay the asphalt abruptly ended. The rains had turned the rest of the way into a muddy quagmire that had the children squelching their way through ankle-deep sticky mud, symbolic of the political corruption, waste and abuse that mires almost one-third of the Filipinos in pitiless, grinding poverty from which there is no freedom.

Like thousands of others, the road is a fake or ghost project that had never been fully built. Even urgent requests to the governor to throw gravel from the exposed river bed on to the muddy road are so far unheeded. The children suffer and it became so bad in the past week that 26 children transferred to another school.

This mess and the plunder and looting of public funds at the highest level of the Congress as the headlines announce daily is just one, very small indicator of a greater harm done to the people by some depraved and greedy politicians. How many more fake and fraudulent infrastructure projects are there like the one in Gala, Subic? There is no freedom from greed, it seems.

Besides these small, allegedly corruption-ridden projects, the extremely wealthy ruling elite in the Philippine Congress have allegedly plundered and looted billions of pesos from the treasury. Three prominent Senators have been charged, arrest warrants are imminent and many Congress people will join them in jail. Their "jails" are posh, luxurious tiled, well, appointed bungalows built for ranking officers.

They are incomparable to the stinking jail cells where the hungry street children are incarcerated, abused, beaten and raped for taking a banana in the market. The indictments by the Aquino administration are a glimmer of hope that change is possible but with billions of bribes at hand, justice is likely to be thwarted and they will never answer for these alleged crimes. These funds came from the taxes imposed on the people especially the 17 to 20 percent VAT that were supposed to be used for rural development to alleviate poverty and build barangay roads to bring the children to school.

Independence Day last June 12 was to celebrate the political freedom of a nation from colonial domination and exploitation. It's a tortured history. First, the impoverished oppressed Filipinos struggled for liberation from the Spanish and almost succeeded. On the eve of independence, the North Americans declared war on the Spanish, landed troops in Manila in 1898 and took over, then sent home the defeated Spanish. The Filipinos fought back but after a few years of bitter war marked by atrocities, the American forces conquered them. They subdued and tamed most of the Filipinos, then the Japanese invaded and ousted the Americans in World War II. The people suffered greatly and the Japanese were eventually defeated and again the Filipinos struggled for independence from the United States of America and in 1947, they got it with string attached. But was it real freedom?

They got political independence and a lot of unfair and exploitative trading arrangements and unequal treaties that enabled American corporations to exploit the country at will until the present. They were swamped with Americanization. So it was not true independence, a great dependency has been skillfully arranged. The democracy was a sham, in reality, the rich Spanish-Filipino families in close cooperation with the American corporations ruled without much opposition.

The vast majority of Filipinos remained bitterly poor peasants and isolated tribal people. Philippine natural resources were ruthlessly exploited, enabled by unequal treaties, the riches of the nation flowed across the Pacific to America. The people were exported also. Filipino overseas workers flowed to the pineapple plantations of Hawaii to work in slave-like conditions.

Little has changed. Eleven million Filipinos still go abroad to find economic freedom. The majority live with 25% unemployment and the freedom from poverty for the majority of Filipinos is still a dream. The economic news may boast of 7% economic growth but that is only for the oligarchy who have 70 percent of the wealth in their pockets.

To quote from an Editorial in a national broad-sheet of March of last year: "The increase in the wealth of the 40 richest families in the Philippines that made it to the 2012 Forbes list of the world's billionaires accounted for 76 percent of the growth of the gross domestic product (GDP). It's one of the biggest rich-poor gaps in the free world and", Habito observed, "the highest in Asia". That is what they call "independence".

The Corporate Irresponsibility of the ISPs

Child protection police working with Interpol and Europol have arrested hundreds of paedophiles in many countries: the UK, other EU countries, Australia, Canada and the USA, for ordering, paying, and viewing Philippine children forced to strip naked and do sexual acts live in front of video cameras connected to computers. These horrific and heinous crimes are generally ignored by the Philippine police, telecommunication companies and the government agencies that are mandated to protect the children. The children are victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation and the telecommunications corporations, who are the Internet Service Providers (ISP) that allow it must be held responsible.

The recent revelations by Interpol and police raids on cyber sex dens in Cebu, Manila and Quezon city by the National Bureau of Investigation.(NBI) showed that these crimes are widespread and common practice in the Philippines. In Cordova, Cebu, the village of Ibabao has internet connections and several cyber-sex dens. Parents even sold their children to the cyber sex operators. Such is the level of economic and moral poverty there.

In Manila and Quezon city, fake "call centers" were raided by the NBI and fifteen workers were arrested and charged with sending out child pornography over the internet through the Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Every child porn image is evidence of a crime against children. Every time it is sent out and viewed by the paedophiles, that child's dignity and rights are violated. A recent report made by Pornhub says that more Filipinos are accessing pornography on mobile phones and tablets than ever before, all enabled by the ISPs. (view www.preda.org)

Thousands of young children, some from kindergarten, have been and are being sexually and psychologically abused as a result of the illegal and immoral corporate irresponsibility of the ISPs.

These companies are making vast profits from the child porn peddlers and must be held morally and legally responsible for allowing and enabling these live child sex acts to be viewed live over the internet. The abuse is only possible through connections provided by their corporations. The Philippine Internet Service Provider (ISPs) leaders are: Philippine Long Distance Telephone company (PLDT), Globe, Smart, Sun cellular, and Banyantel. The members of Philippine Internet Services Organization (PISO) are accountable too and must answer to the Filipino people for allowing the crimes against children and the non-implementation of the law. The Council for the Welfare of Children ought to act and speak out and demand the law be obeyed.

The telecommunications companies and PISO seem to have an arrangement not to implement the clear provisions of the law. They have apparently "captured" the regulators and can act with impunity.

Republic Act 9775, under Section 9 says: “The duties of Internet Service Providers (ISP) 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 at www.preda.org) Software companies that offer solutions such as Netclean Inc. have been rebuffed.

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. If so it is a grave injustice to the Filipino people and children worldwide.

If PISO and the telecommunications companies are implementing the anti-child pornography law, Republic Act 9775, and install the filters and blocking software, there would be little or no cyber-sex or child pornography. But it is widely easily available now, that is where young Filipinos are introduced to sexuality, they are groomed and lured into abusive and damaging situations. Some are video recorded involved in sex acts and are later blackmailed over the internet that can drive them to suicide.

However, the obvious solution to the problem of child pornography is the implementation of the law. The ISPs have put themselves above it and government law enforcers and regulators go along with them. Such is the ISPs' power and influence that government and even the media are afraid, docile and subservient to them. Few writers, reporters, if any, expose the non-compliance of the ISPs and telecommunication companies.

Corruption driven by greed to make money even at the peddling of child pornography over the internet kills conscience and moral values. The corporate bosses of the ISPs who enable the transmission of child pornography are perhaps as guilty as the paedophiles who order it on line. We must act now and challenge them to comply and end impunity. 

The Capture of the Children and the Nation

The story of the rescue of Rosemary is heartening and encouraging. When we read about such stories of young children like that of Rosemary being helped and rescued from the clutches of depraved people who are arrested, we rejoice. But we may not know that hundreds of thousands are not rescued, they suffer abuse like Rosemary who was trafficked and sold at 14 years old into sex slavery and bondage. She was rescued, sheltered and healed while many others are not. A charity like Preda Foundation with limited funds can do only so much.

When children are saved by government social workers, police and charity workers, we applaud and approve and our admiration of good organized government services increases. Government is elected by the people, given public trust and paid through taxes on everything to serve the common good. In developing countries like the Philippines, government agencies, one by one have been captured by the rich to serve them rather than the poor. That's why human trafficking and exploitation is on the increase.

It’s been going on for the past many years. President Aquino says he is trying to root it out.  Hundreds of thousands are barely surviving dire poverty and hunger; the children are the most at risk. They totter on the edge of abject poverty. This is now seen in all its shame by the fury of typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan). It bared the sprawling slums and stripped away the fragile fabric of the hovels of the teeming poor. Dire poverty was laid embarrassingly naked.

Such poverty and social injustice causes unrest, malnutrition, disease and illness. Economists say the Philippines has a strongly growing economy, creating wealth, but for whom? Little of it is reaching the poor. A cheap hungry labor force benefits the rich.

The Social Weather Station (SWS) survey showed that 21 percent of the population, that's 4.3 million people, went hungry at least once in the second half of 2013. In Metro Manila, there was a 10 point increase in hunger up to 26%, that's 738,000 people who went hungry. The poverty rate has not gone down and it is higher since 2005. Meaning the poor still have nothing much in the world and live from meal to meal.

As little as one percent of the population are super rich and own as much as 70% to 90% of the national wealth. They use their wealth as bribes and infiltrate the bureaucracy, police, military and congress and "capture" government agencies and bend them all to support their own interests. Government appears to serve the interests of the rich more than those of the people. Corruption is epidemic. President Aquino, considered clean of corruption himself, has made its elimination the goal of his presidency.

Rosemary was a child of poverty. When her mother died of tuberculosis, Rosemary was taken by a pimp and trafficker who later became a manager of a sex bar frequented by international and local sex tourists. Rosemary was brought up as a sex worker, one of many thousands in the brothels and sex bars of the Philippines into which they are trafficked as human slaves trapped by debt.

This is one of the greatest and most shameful failures of local and national government. The mayor and officials are seemingly "captured" by favors and services, perhaps of the industry and they allow sex industry to thrive. The collusion is sickening. HIV/Aids is spreading again as a result. There is no media or public outcry; there is national collusion it seems to allow sex tourism.

In this beautiful country, the resilient, kind, patient and friendly people are exploited and most don't know it. They are manipulated and conditioned into believing the rich deserve everything they have got and sexual exploitation of even minors is acceptable. 60 years old folk singers can co-habitate with 16 year-old girls and it is judged okay. Mass media re-enforces this. Social media exults in it. Some justify it since they make money. They don't see the forced abortions and the daily abuse and human rights violations. The victims seldom earn money, as most trafficked victims are "captured", by personal debt to the bar owners and cannot escape.

Much like the nation itself, the Philippines is imprisoned by foreign debt on loans that benefit the rich and the poor are paying the interest on that national debt.

The huge increase in electricity charges in Metro Manila last December illustrates the capture of government by the rich elite. The electric power producers took over the national industry through privatization and sweetheart deals with friends in government. Most public utilities are now privatized and owned by the profit-driven wealthy elite. The electricity producers, Aboitiz, Malampaya and a few others with Meralco, mostly using filthy coal plants also approved by their friends in government, allegedly form a monopoly, a price fixing cartel and allegedly colluded to create a false electrical shortage to justify the price increase and thus maximize their obscene profits. They deny all wrong doing.

Besides that, corruption knows no end. Every day, new revelations emerge of one huge scam by government officials in cahoots with the barons of business. Rights advocates are taking a stand and opposing it. Media has the courage and freedom to reveal the truth but many journalists are assassinated as a result.  The dark forces strike back.

Silence is approval in the face of evil. We must oppose all human trafficking, child abuse and price fixing especially that which hurts the poor. We must speak out, protest and declare what is true and right, come what may.

Saving the Victims of Human Trafficking

She was only 14 years old when brought from a distant town, and she was lured into a relationship with a middle-aged American and became his live-in sex partner. He called her "Chocolate", a racist term. 

In a conversation with reporters from ABC Television New York using a hidden camera, he told them how he got his 14 year-old "Chocolate" so he can "do it" anytime he wants and if she doesn't like it he can throw her out and get another. He set up a sex bar named "Crow Bar" in Calapandayan, Subic Town, and there he had other underage girls trapped as sex slaves controlled by Lulu, the “Mamasan” (manager) and recruiter. 

The trafficked young girls are given advance payments, loans, and threatened with arrest for not paying their debts so they can't leave the sex bar. They are sold to foreigners of every nationality and sexually abused. The Preda Foundation social workers and undercover paralegal professionals investigated the Crow Bar and verified the facts that there were underage children there and called in the authorities to arrest him and the Mamasan. With the NBI and the US ICE agents, a raid was carried out to rescue the children and arrest the suspects.  The video report is on www.preda.org video gallery named “The Raid”. 

Many more trafficked children and youth could be saved from sex slavery and more bars closed if the Philippine government was serious in stopping the trafficking of the young girls and close down the sex trade by canceling operating permits and licenses given to these foreigner sex bar operators. Huge bribes are allegedly paid to get an operating permit. 

It's the worst kind of living death to be a victim of sex slavery. Now cyber-sex is expanding. Small rooms with internet connections and cameras can show small children forced to strip naked and act out sexual fantasies ordered over the internet by pedophiles and paid for by credit cards. 

A recent research project in the Netherlands showed a computer generated image of a 10 year-old Filipina child available for contact in an internet chat room. As many as 10,000 men from 65 countries tried to get her to perform sex on camera that they could watch. Full report on www.preda.org, courtesy of Jubilee Campaign UK. 

These images of naked children on the internet chat rooms arouse their sexual desires to abuse real children in their own countries. It’s a warm up for sexual assault on children even their own children. As a result, incest is spreading too. Preda social workers rescued a 3 year-old girl raped and infected with gonorrhea by a relative.

The local and international pedophile demand of cyber sex shows it is a grave danger to children in the Philippines and everywhere. The pedophiles pleasure themselves while watching before going child hunting.  When the Preda child protection and rescue team applied for funding to church and government agencies it was met with silence or excuses. No funding for that. The rescue and campaign work is funded by the sale of dried mangos. We thank our Preda fair trade partners and supporters. 

In the Philippines, the internet service providers and government regulating agencies are supposed to implement the law blocking such images but they have spectacularly failed to implement the law. It's corruption of the worst kind. It’s likely most of these officials go to church every Sunday posing as pious parishioners. 

It's an evil that caters to the depraved men and plagues societies everywhere. The trafficking and sale of children for sexual exploitation and slavery is a worldwide crime and practice. It's an estimated $32 billion business every year. 2.3 million children are abducted, lured and forced into brothels, sex bars and cyber-sex dens and child porn studios annually.

It's rampant in the Philippines due to the widespread poverty, corrupt practices by police and prosecution.  Many Philippine government officials are mired in corruption and no interest to help except set up well paid committees with huge budgets staffed by cronies. The President who has positive successes is honest but appears helpless against such entrenched apathy. 

This modern slave-trade will go on indefinitely unless we can persuade government to have good moral governance, respect and protect children and women's rights and dignity and the Mayors are not giving permits and licenses to sex bars and clubs .The citizens of the sending countries must know that these sex tourists get in an addiction to underage sex and return to their country addicted and will abuse more children there. It's not a problem far away but right in every country in the world.