The Criminals Behind the Drug Mafia

 

Maria Rae was just 13 years old when she began to have a conflict with her aunt. She came from a broken home. She was abandoned when her parents split up. This is the great injustice and hardship suffered by the children of couples who come together without lasting love. They are driven more by impulse, have an unwanted child and then part ways and the child is abandoned.

 

So it happened that Maria Rae was left with her aunt who had children of her own and she was not cared for or loved. Maria Rae was a Cinderella kid. She was made to do the household chores but was not accepted by the family. 

 

To find friendship, she wandered around the neighborhood in a town south of Manila looking for friends. She had dropped out of school when her parents separated. She lost the desire to learn and felt her life was already over and pointless. She was lonely and vulnerable. She was befriended by an adult man whom she called “Dada.”

 

He soon gave her money and gifts and she came to think Dada was the only person in the whole world that loved her. It was not love but grooming for abuse. He raped her and she had nowhere to run, no one to talk to and afraid to ask help.

 

He gave her pills, drugs of some kind. He then invited his friends to abuse her also. She was brought to hotels and sold for sex to the customers that Dada had lined up. They were drug users. The pedophiles love to get high on drugs while abusing children.

 

When her auntie learned that Maria Rae was being prostituted, she demanded a share of the payment. Dada refused and the aunt filed criminal charges for human trafficking against him. He was the local drug pusher, too, it seems as the sex industry is run on drugs. These drug dens of iniquity and abuse are fronts for drug trafficking and dealing. They control the young girls by getting them dependent on drugs.

 

When the government social workers heard about the terrible plight of Maria Rae, they realized that she was an emotionally shattered child with no human person to trust or cling to. They referred her to the Preda home for abused and trafficked girls.

 

She was very quiet during the first week or so but soon began to make friends and trust the social workers and therapists.  She was given all her needs, toys, books, dolls and treated with respect and dignity. This was totally new for her and she discovered that she was a cared for person with values and rights.

 

She grew and blossomed over the first months especially with the help of emotional release therapy.

 

In a padded room, she was free to let out all her anger and hurt and release the pain in her heart. She shouted and screamed day after day and pounded the padded cushions as if pounding her abusers. She began to heal and open up to the therapists and her social worker and told her story of abuse.

 

After some months with friendship, trust, care and therapy, she was emotionally strong and resilient and was willing to testify in court against her abusers. But this week, after much build up to the day of her testimony, the hearing was postponed yet again. But Maria Rae is still ready and prepared to fight for her dignity and find justice.

 

The drug mafia is also part of the sex mafia. The sex bar and nightclub owners and pimps make the children dependent on drugs. This is how they control so many young girls and make them docile and submissive. The customers of the sex bars love to get high on drugs while abusing the children. No young person will enter slavery willingly. They are victims of the drug lords and pushers.

 

This is a great challenge for the new president, Rodrigo Duterte. He has promised to eliminate the drug lords, pushers, and the human traffickers who give drugs to the children. Their days are numbered. 

 

He has already said he will immediately implement a nationwide curfew on young people drinking on the streets and in karaoke bars. In the sex districts, you can see foreigners walking around with young girls some as young as 14. Watch  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xRCk8Ni-cs.

 

His promise to end corruption in government is the hope of the nation. He said three hours ought to be enough for a government office to release needed documents. I have waited two months for the vehicle registration office (known as Land Transportation Office or LTO) to release the vehicle registration certificate and there is no hope it will appear soon. Such delays are incompetence or a “delay for pay.” Bribery is common and President Duterte says he will eliminate it.

 

If there is a true crackdown on child traffickers and abusers, children like Maria Rae will be safer from the pimps and traffickers and the drug pushers. We sincerely hope that this clean up can be done without violence and any violation of human rights. The criminals that abuse and addict children must be stopped and the NGO community will continue to do its part.

The Loss of Credibility

The Catholic Church Hierarchy in the Philippines is strongly opposing the introduction of sex education in the public schools. They say it will encourage youth to engage in premarital and promiscuous sex, learn about contraception and lead immoral lives. Sex education, they say, is the duty and responsibility of the parents not the governments. It would violate the Church¹s solemn teachings on human sexuality.

Many disagree. Defenders and promoters of good moral living and child protection want the church to direct efforts to promote healthy and values-based sexuality for youth and actively promote children’s rights. They say the church hierarchy should take a positive stand and promote the “Theology of the Body”, as Pope John Paul II taught in his famous book. It teaches the sacredness of the human body and understanding of genuine human love and sexuality.

The Church leadership must follow the Pope's lead and break the circle of silence about the sexual abuse of children in society by clerics and parents and the failure of church and government authorities to prosecute the abusers.

This seemingly tolerance and cover up must end and the youth and children have little or no trust in the authorities who fail to protect them. They must see that abusers are held accountable, only then can government and church gain credibility. No school program on the mechanics of human sexuality will be effective without active child abuse preventive education for the leaders of society.

They must take action to curb the rampant sexual exploitation of children and the tolerance for sex tourism, the sex industry and pornography especially child pornography. We are the shame of the world for allowing such child and woman abuse and yet the leaders don’t seem to acknowledge there is any problem at all.

Children are damaged and led astray by unfaithful parents, celebrities, politicians, clergy, movie and sports stars. The people, especially youth are taught to admire and imitate. Their idols are leading them astray. This immorality is what needs to be addressed by true teaching in words and action.

Pope Benedict himself has pointed out that sin within the church itself. The cover up of abuse and disregard for victims drive youth away from the church and that has to be reversed. The Archbishop of Melbourne, Australia issued a pastoral letter last 5 July that makes similar challenging comments (see www.preda.org).

When young people engage in unhealthy sexual behavior they are only imitating what they see in the adult world around them, on television and the internet. The fact that pornography is so widely available and that it is allowed to proliferate unchallenged by the government or church is what needs to be seriously addressed.

There is a little news that youth will learn in school that they don’t already know from bad experience. They say four in every ten children have experienced sexual molestation.

The failure of the government and church leaders to speak out in unison against rampant sex tourism, trafficking of people into to sex slavery in government licensed sex bars and clubs is a joint failure in moral leadership.

In the Philippines as elsewhere there are bishops, priests, religious and lay people missionaries all taking a stand for justice and fighting for human rights by speaking out and risking their lives. Like Archbishop Oscar Romero, they are the true credible prophets and disciples of Jesus Christ. We can be proud of these thousands of unknown and unsung heroes, but we should learn more, imitate and support them.

The human rights workers at Preda children's home give protection to the abused children, the youngest is 2-year-old. They help hundreds. They handle 35 legal cases of child abuse against abusers and half of them have not been acted upon by prosecutors, the others are stuck in courts. Let’s face the reality. Child abuse in the home and community is rampant where children as young as two years old are raped and abused and there is a stunning silence.

How can the youth believe in a system run by those supposed to protect them allow abuse or ignore their suffering?

A few school lessons or church sermons or letters misses the whole truth of the situation -corruption unrestrained.

The Challenges Facing a New President

The expected victory of leading candidate Benigno Simeon Cojuangco "Noynoy" Aquino III has raised the hopes and expectations of the people of the Philippines. The people judged him to be the most worthy of trust and the best one able to realize their hopes and most likely to fulfill campaign promises to end corruption and work to end widespread poverty. His greatest challenge if proclaimed president will be to resist the power, influence and pressure of the vested interests of the powerful dynastic families and foreign corporations and governments that have dominated Philippine politics and the economy for generations. The people have spoken through the new fairly effective electronic voting system that has minimized cheating and brought a swift result.

Noynoy has the commitment and the heart to change the country but it is not one man or administration that will bring change, it is the support of individual citizens working together to heal the wounds and pain of the nation and make it a just society. However, some of his own relatives are traditional politicians and have been accused in the past of self-enrichment and cronyism in the administration of his mother Corazon Aquino, who herself had an unblemished and exemplary presidency but was unable to control her own relatives. Coming from such distinguished parents, the president-elect has a great legacy to live up to. His father, Ninoy Aquino, opposed the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was jailed and exiled and when he returned to the Philippines, he was murdered allegedly on Marcos' orders.

His mother, affectionally called Cory, was truly loved by the people and seen as the incorruptible selfless leader who lived a simple life that contradicted the pomp, grander and adulation favoured by most politicians who considered themselves a superior and privileged moneyed class.

Considering that the roots of poverty and suffering of millions of Filipinos stem from the plundering greed of these powerful political families and their corporations, it will be a tough battle if Aquino is to fight corruption and actually serve the poor and the best interests of the nation. The vested interests with military connections will not tolerate such reforms and might instigate a coup as they did against his mother. It is time for people power to support the positive efforts for reform.

The surprise success of former President Joseph Estrada, who came in second in the election is an indication that his popularity among the poor as their movie star champion however flawed. His popularity was undiminished by his over throw by street demonstrations and conviction for plunder by his elitist vice-president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, some ten years ago. Her own father was president. Estrada was resented by the elite as the upstart outsider that challenged them. They believed that they alone should rule.

The future has many challenges, Aquino must act to end irresponsible mining that is destroying the environment and the indigenous people. He can implement existing laws that protect human rights. Besides working on strengthening the economy in such a way that will improve the lives of the poor, Aquino has to address the rampant lawlessness and culture of violence and assassination of social reformers and justice and peace activists.

Prison reform has to be a priority to end the misery, inhuman conditions, and rampant violation of human rights of children and adults in prison. His administration will have to act decisively to oppose and reduce greatly the widespread sex industry that promotes the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children.

There are an estimated 60,000 minors in the sex industry. Implementing existing laws will call for an overhaul of Department of Justice where good prosecutors are marginalized and the corrupt take bribes to block and delay prosecution of rapists and child abusers. Even some courts are corrupt and fail to allow the serving of sentences of well connected convicted felons. It will not be easy for the new president and public support will be essential.