Oh! How well they protect the child abusers?
December 2, 2012 · By Fr. Shay Cullen
email: [email protected]
(Fr. Shay’s columns are published in The Manila Times,in publications in Ireland, the UK, Hong Kong, and on-line.)
Perhaps the greatest social problem facing the administration of Philippine President Noynoy Aquino is the spreading corrupting influance of the violence and sex soaked media. Almost every comic, TV show, concert, and tabloid and even broad-sheet newspapers has alluring sex content. The movies and internet are ghastly provocative with unrelenting violence and sexual abuse of women and children.The non-implementation of the child protection internet law is another factor in the spread of child abuse as millions of people have access to illegal and shocking images of children being sexually abused on their smart phones and pads. Three Filipinos entering Australia recently were detained when such images were found on their laptops.
When Mykie Pardo, a small pretty 7 year girl was alone in the house of a relative Mr.Bernard Cahilig in Buruanga, Aklan Province she was set upon by her alleged suspected rapist and murderer, Dennis Eustagio Gonzales the son of Cahilig’s live-partner. Mykie was brutally assaulted left for dead by the suspect who is still at large but seen in the area. There is an arrest warrant out for him but he seems to enjoy impunity and protection from a leading local official who went on two occasions with his retinue to the grass roofed hut of the parents of Mykie and advised them to withdraw the case. Although dirt poor they adamantly refused, they want justice for their little child. The campaign “Justice for Mykie” asks people to write to the Secretary of Justice, Leila De Lima, Department of Justice Padre Faura, Manila.
The Philippine Center for Women’s Resources has published in The Manila Times a study that covers a decade and reports that 76.5 percent of rape victims are children. Every hour, it says, a woman or her child is beaten. Every two hours a woman or a child is raped. Every five hours a woman or child is sexually harassed. There are many thousands of rape victims and most go unreported out of shame, fear intimidation and impunity afforded to the rapist by an influential protector. Most rape crimes are committed by persons in authority and have ascendency over their victims. As such they are seldom charged, and rarely convicted. They can’t report it for shame, fear of retaliation or they will not be believed.
Local and foreign sex tourists looking for under-age sex and local abusers have the benefit of a machismo culture that perpetuates the myth that men have a “right” to sexually exploit the so-called “weaker ,and therefore inferior sex”, however wrong, preposterous and offensive this is to women it prevails in the Philippines. It’s a “might is right” attitude that must be done away with. In the 1970’s and 80’s it widely prevailed and institutional figures gave little or no respect to victims of such widespread abuse and looked the other way. Machismo males most likely suffer inadequate prowess and an inability to love .They fear strong intelligent women.
This makes the Philippines attractive for those sex tourists that cannot relate to women and so they seek out children or docile young girls in the government approved licensed sex bars and clubs. Here hundreds of thousands of poor girls are victims of human trafficking and are abused and sexually enslaved. There are 37 Philippine laws that supposedly protect women and children but they are mostly ignored as the macho culture predominates. Corrupt prosecutors, judges male and female, also contribute to the abuse, suffering and violence against women and children by taking bribes and routinely dismissing criminal cases despite overwhelming evidence. In Olongapo and Angeles and elsewhere for sure, child abuse and human trafficking cases are milking cows ending in the inevitable dismissal of the case when the cow is dry. Some cases are settled amazingly fast.
Last October New Zealander and British citizen David William Wakefield, 50, was arrested and charged with non-bailable child trafficking sexual abuse and statutory rape of two small girls aged 12 and 13 from Kidapawan City, Davao. He was able to go free after a meeting was arranged by Mayor Rodolfo Gantuangco between his lawyer and the victims and their parents despite the alleged crime being un-bailable.
Three women pimps are accused of recruiting the children in Kidapawan City and bringing them to Wakefield where he allegedly raped them in a Davao city hotel on 22 October. Thanks to the fast action of Justice Secretary Leila De Lima an “Lookout Bulletin”, was issued and he was arrested at a Manila airport trying to escape. Will he ever be convicted?
Report child abuse from anywhere to the Preda Child Protection Hotline +639175324453.
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