World Mission Magazine February 2010
Empowering the Weakest
For this issue, World Mission chose two vivid examples of faith in
action. One comes from far away Brazil, and tells us of a Church’s
mental health project which intends to heal the psychological
damages induced by extreme poverty. The other is in the Philippines
itself, where a world’s renowned foundation, PREDA, has been working
for decades to free endangered children and to empower the weakest
wherever they may be. Its founder and president, Fr. Shay Cullen,
explains: “Mission is spreading the good news that we have God-given
rights, we are God’s family, and that everyone is precious, no
matter how poor or needy.” An option that we all must adopt and
share.
SAVING CHILDREN
For 36 years, Fr. Shay Cullen and his PREDA Foundation have been rescuing and freeing children from the slavery of drugs, sexual exploitation and petty crime which brought many young boys to jail. His passion to free young people is inspired by the Gospel where Jesus says that He has come to save the oppressed and captives.
by FR. JOSÉ REBELO
Comboni Mission
“Once I was just walking on a street. A guy came up, thinking that I was a tourist – I was wearing casual clothes – and said: ‘Hi, Joe! Do you wanna a girl? Do you wanna girl, Joe?’ ‘No, no.’ ‘Wow! How about little girls? I have two of them here.’ There were two little 12-year olds in the doorway looking miserable. It was so shocking! I threatened the guy that I would call the police. He started laughing as if he was one. Policemen were standing on the road also laughing. They were making business selling girls to thousands of US sailors. I felt so frustrated but I could do nothing.” This iconic episode that occurred in the first years of his priestly ministry was a wake up call for Fr. Shay Cullen. The Irish Columban missionary, who after his ordination in 1969 had been assigned to the Philippines, was working as assistant priest in the Parish of St. Joseph in Olongapo, a city almost 200 kilometers northwest of Manila.
There were many schools in the Parish and he started giving attention to the young people. Many had drug abuse problems and formed gangs to find emotional support and security. He realized that many of them hailed from broken families. One of the reasons was the city’s thriving sex industry. There were hundreds of sex bars and clubs that catered to American servicemen. Thousands of young women and children were being commercially sexually abused and exploited.
Meanwhile, visiting the jail, the intrepid missionary was surprised to find so many young kids as young as 9/10 years old behind bars. He was asking himself what those emaciated, starving and ragged kids were doing in jail. “I felt like I wanted to get out of the Rectory, of the church compound and meet these young people. Eventually that’s what mission became for me – helping people who were in very bad circumstances,” confesses the missionary who asserts to have always been inspired by Jesus’ declaration of his mission in the Synagogue of Nazareth. Using a text from Isaiah, Jesus says that He had come to preach the Good News – to free the captives. Fr. Shay explains: “Of course, there are all sorts of captives, not only to be freed from evil, but also from oppression, poverty, humiliation, human suffering of all kinds... Even physically getting kids out of prison was a mission I took.”
Such experiences became the turning point of his brief pastoral work. Because of his passion to help the youth, especially the drug addicts, he was persuaded to leave the traditional Church work. First, he joined an existing program – called DARE – to rescue victims of drug abuse and get some training; then, he founded the PREDA Social Development Foundation. He looked for a place and assistance. Alex Corpus Hermoso, a 17-year old sociology student from San Marcelino, Zambales, who had just started college in Manila was invited by Fr. Shay to join PREDA. He transferred from Manila to the Columban College in Olongapo. Fr. Shay found another helper in Merly Ramirez (deceased), a management graduate, who later became Hermoso’s wife. The good Olongapo Mayor Geronimo Nipumano assigned to them a five-hectare property in Upper Kalaklan, on the way to Zambales, immediately after the public cemetery. There, they started building a home for the youth using metal sheets from dismantled structures of the US Naval Base. The place, perched on a hill with a superb view over Subic Bay, has been PREDA’s headquarters up to now.
Healing center
PREDA – an acronym for People’s Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance – opened its doors on February 22, 1974. It started receiving children from the streets, from the jails and with family problems. Fr. Shay could count on the help of three experienced social workers. Some former drug users who had recovered joined them later on as peer group counselors. They developed a whole rehabilitation program with no guards, no gates, trusting the young people and offering them a new life with happiness, dignity and respect. Kid’s emotional and legal problems were dealt with. It was a therapeutic home to rescue and empower children in the spirit of the Gospel.
Martial Law, which had been declared two years before, was very strict on drug-addicted kids and teenagers. Those found roaming around the streets and suspected of being rebels, were just picked up by the police, shot or imprisoned almost without trial, recalls Fr. Shay. PREDA started rescuing them. It became “a refuge, a sanctuary, a place where the children could be sent,” stresses Fr. Shay. His concern for street children kept unchanged over the years: “Even today, part of our mission is to help street kids. They are being shot in Davao, General Santos, Cebu, Metro Manila… There’s a hit squad inside the police, we know it, and they just go out and kill anyone, especially teenagers, whom they consider criminals.”
Special attention was given to the youth’s spiritual formation. Fr. Shay states: “It was important for them to know that they were loved by God, they were cared for, they had dignity and they were not useless. We built up their hope. The community we created was a spiritual community. They learned skills, got education and were helped to deal with their traumas. It was very important, because many of those children were victims of abuse. They had been abandoned, hurt, neglected; and they felt unloved, unwanted, rejected. So we made them feel affirmed, regain hope, and we helped them to have a good future.”
Vicious trade
As the Vietnam War spread, the US military bases in the Philippines expanded. The US Seventh Fleet disgorged there more than three million military personnel a year, fueling the sex industry. Olongapo was dubbed the “Sodom and Gomorrah of South-east Asia.” The country, advertised for its cheap labor even in Newsweek with the slogan “A dollar a day, we pay,” became a tourist destination. Fr. Shay was convinced that such a boom of the sex industry was rotting society and weakening the Christian values and vision of life.
With his team, he found out that many street kids were being sexually abused. Poverty on an epic scale tossed thousands of children into the arms of pedophiles and traffickers. There were some disturbing cases that challenged him to go and save the street children who were being exploited in sex clubs and taken by pimps to the streets and sold overnight to customers.
A horrendous case came to the limelight on July 5, 1982. The mother of nine-year-old Filipino-American Jenny went to St. Joseph’s Community Center to get help for her daughter who was having a genital infection. They were referred to Pope John XXIII Clinic, a Church-run clinic for the poor. Jenny was found to have herpes, an incurable form of venereal disease. Three days later, another child, 14-year-old Annabel, was brought to the clinic with gonorrhea. The girl told social workers that there were 18 in their group all infected by Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) such as gonorrhea, syphilis and herpes that were common among prostitutes.
The social workers went to look for them and were able to find 12 of the girls and bring them to the clinic. Sister Maria reported the case to the mayor who ordered that they be locked away in a small room in the TB section of the general hospital. Sister was imposed, under great threats by city officials, not to publicize anything about those victims. Scared, she went to tell Fr. Shay her worries three weeks later.
Deportation and death threats
The following day, on July 12, he and Alex Hermoso, the Center’s program director, armed with tape recorders and cameras, went to see what was going on, find the truth and document it. They got inside the hospital through a back door. But they found only seven children. The other five had managed to escape previously through a window. The children shared their horrifying stories of street prostitution especially with US servicemen. They agreed to be taped and photographed. The mayor and the base commander came to know of their undesirable visit to the children in the hospital and tried hard to contain the unraveling scandal. But one week after, the exposé came out in the front page of the only independent paper, published by Jose Burgos, that had survived the media crackdown by Marcos. Fr. Shay concludes: “It became a sensation in Manila. It was the first time anyone had ever spoken about sex abuse of children or even women in the media because Imelda Marcos had banned publicity of the bad news.”
Those denunciations were used to have Fr. Shay deported for “having abused the hospitality of the people of Olongapo!” It was a gesture of retaliation for exposing the child prostitution ring. For years, he faced an uncertain future as did PREDA. Fr. Shay recalls: “It was a very difficult time. Those sending us death threats were saying: ‘You’d better get out of town if you don’t want to be dead tomorrow!’” PREDA’s success in rehabilitating drug-dependent youth was weighing in his favor before the authorities of the Bureau of Immigration.
Another horrific case, discovered in May 1986, was that of Rosario Baluyot, a 12-year-old street child. Rosario had been picked up, probably, by a sex tourist, harshly abused and then abandoned on the street. She was found in agony with a severe infection in her vagina and brought to the Olongapo City General Hospital. She had to be operated on, but no parents or family could be found. Sister Eva Palencia, a religious nun of the Daughters of Charity, in charge of the St. Joseph’s Community Centre, guaranteed that she would get donations to pay the expense of the operation. The surgeon operated on Rosario and removed the head of a sexual vibrator from her vaginal canal – an object of about two-and-one-half inches long, rounded and as thick as a medium-size banana. The damage was profound, the infection had spread beyond control. It was too late to save her. Rosario died in terrible pain on May 20, 1987.
The case exposed the viciousness of the child prostitution business, a social evil long denied by the corrupt local administration. The fearless missionary and his team took action. They publicized it and protested strongly against the local government that was failing to protect street children. Worse, it was giving permits and licenses for sex bars to operate, creating an environment where exploitation of children and women was made possible. Fr. Shay notes: “We had a hard time because the politicians wanted to shut us up. But we had to be prophetic. That is what mission is all about – just do what Jesus did. He confronted the powers of His time when they appeared to be oppressing the poor people. He said that His mission was to free the people and create a new world, to bring a kingdom of truth and justice. We felt that we could not cover up any abuse. We had to speak out.”
The discovery of multiple sex abuse cases by sailors, made Fr. Shay campaign against the American military presence even though the cause was unpopular. He was convinced there would be life after the American withdrawal and proposed conversion plans for Subic and Clark bases in 1983. They closed on November 24, 1992. He comments on such an achievement: “I am sure the Good Lord intervened greatly because those bases closed exactly 10 years after we had started looking into this issue.” Since then, the plans have all been implemented, giving dignified jobs to 60,000/70,000 people. The sex industry struggled for a while but then local pimps teamed up with foreign sex traffickers so it expanded in Olongapo, known as “Sin City.” It was revived in Angeles City, Manila and has spread everywhere.
Trafficking of girls
In 1996, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) asked PREDA to focus on rehabilitating sexually abused girls. Since then, they have been providing therapeutic intervention and legal assistance to them. They set up a home for girls sexually abused in their own families (there are 41 girls in the therapeutic home, the youngest is a 4-year-old who suffers from STD) and another home for victims of trafficking and commercially sexually exploited children, (it has 20 girls). They do not mix them. The reason, Fr. Shay explains, is that the girls, all minors sexually abused at home and by neighborhood pedophiles, are deeply hurt and psychologically disturbed and angry with their abusers; they want to put them in jail. The girls coming from sex bars and clubs are brainwashed into believing they are worthless, hopeless, and that this is the only life they can live. They cannot leave because they have debts and are convinced that the sex club ‘family’ is their only source of support, hope and future. The owner is big Daddy, then there’s the “mama-san” (floor manager), Ate (Big Sister, the main adult prostitute who trains them) and the rest are called sisters. Fr. Shay asserts: “They abuse the need of the Filipino child for family bonding and use all that as a way to coerce and make them feel loyal and support the club by going with customers. The girls become very dependent and they can’t see any other future. For them this is life.”
Most girls are trafficked in the sense that they come from poor families in other provinces, Samar, Leyte, Batangas. There are scouts and recruiters who go to the villages and towns offering jobs as domestic servants or hotel waitresses. They give some little money to the mother to allow them to go. The girls are taken away to sex clubs and bars and locked inside. They are told that they cannot leave because their parents have been paid in advance and they have to settle their debts if they don’t want to be arrested. They are trapped: They are charged by the club owner for board and lodging, the purchase of clothes and for a list of endless debts. It is a way of keeping them controlled. After sometime, the girls are sold to another bar.
According to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, there are about 60,000 to 70,000 children serving as prostitutes or being used in the commercial sex industry in the Philippines. But the estimates of PREDA are much higher: “We can say at least 120,000 girls under the age of 17 are being used in the sex industry and even more. We don’t know exactly, because it’s all illegal, it’s a secret.”
Fr. Shay claims that it is easy to get children. He adduces a recent shocking experience: “I was in Manila last week (first week of December 2009 – Editor’s note). I went around Malate Park and talked to a lady. She offered me young girls, virgins… ‘How old are they?’ I enquired. ‘Fourteen years old, fifteen…’ ‘How much do they cost? ‘Three thousand pesos,’ was the answer. ‘OK! Bring them here!’ The pimp left and while I was waiting I got my companion in a parked van to give me a radio mike and to video tape the scene from the shadows in case she did return.” Soon the pimp showed up with two young girls. Fr. Shay was not expecting that, because the government says they had cleaned up that area. Within a quarter of an hour, surveying the situation, he had two minors being offered to him on the street. Previously in similar cases, with the women police headed by PNP General Yolanda Tanigue, the pimps were arrested and the children saved.
There are laws protecting children, forbidding prostitution and trafficking, but they are patchily enforced. There’s a problem with their implementation. “While some NGOs are working to stop society’s rampant evils, many, not all, of the government officials are more interested in politicking, abusing power, plundering the country’s resources and living extravagantly.” Harsh is Fr. Shay’s judgment: “The government, with some exceptions, is not committed to implementing the child protection laws. One might say that the Philippines, with regard to bringing about a civilized developing society based on the rule of law, is a failed state. It does not do it.”
Justice for children
PREDA’s biggest challenge is trying to bring the children’s predators to justice – bar owners, pimps, traffickers or home abusers. Fr. Shay says: “The mission of justice for children is one of our main activities.” But he admits that they basically fail in the sense that they have very few convictions. In December 2009, after 8 long years of legal battle, the case filed against a local pedophile finally ended in a conviction and a sentence of life imprisonment for abusing two children, 5 and 7 years old. Fr. Shay comments: “The problem is that prosecutors do not believe that sex with children is really a bad crime. We have to wait one year for the prosecutor to even look at the folder or examine the case! Perhaps they are bribed by the accused to delay the case which can carry a life sentence.”
When PREDA rescues children, the abusers may come after them and file countercharges. But PREDA is used to facing such hurdles. “We have only one real bad thorn, a crazy American guy.” And adverts: “You cannot use his name, otherwise, you’ll be sued the next morning. Whenever my name appears, people will get a letter from him expressing his hatred against us, because we nailed him. We have public documents on our website legal page and he cannot sue us over those. He has been convicted here in Olongapo for malicious prosecution.”
According to Robert Garcia, head of the PREDA paralegal team, the guy has filed 32 cases against PREDA staff – for libel, slander, perjury, obstruction of justice, kidnapping, rape and all other crimes he can think of. Any news coming out on their web page pertaining an old case is an occasion for him to file new charges. So far, the latest filed was in 2007 based on a letter of 2002 to an NGO explaining the situation regarding him. But all the cases have been dismissed, except one, a libel case. Robert explains: “This man was involved with the 12-year-old daughter of a nanny (housemaid). In order to prevent us from going after him, he filed charges against us. Every time there are court hearings, eight staff of PREDA have to leave the office to attend the session.”
Rehabilitation based on trust
Helping exploited girls is not PREDA’s only challenge. The organization has been systematically rescuing and rehabilitating many more boys in conflict with the law since 2004. Around 500 children have been released from jails and detention centers by compassionate judges and admitted to the Center and helped to resolve their legal cases and to reconstruct their lives. It came about out of a great demand. Alister Oca, one of the psychotherapists, explains the context: A survey made in 2000 found out that there were 20,000 children incarcerated, mostly placed with adults in rancid prisons. In one prison cell, one could see around 10 children with 40/50 adults who would abuse them physically and sexually. Children are defenseless against abuse and, in overcrowded jail cells, punching or bullying of the minors was common. The incarceration of minors in prison is a violation of children’s rights and there wasn’t a rehabilitation program for them.
First, PREDA social workers started conducting jail visits, providing legal assistance, contacting the children’s parents and the government social workers to work for the transfer of the children from the jails to the PREDA home for children in conflict with the law. It worked eventually; several family court workers, judges cooperated. Many of the children were on the streets involved with petty crime because their parents were unable or unqualified to care for them or parents continued to maltreat them or the family was experiencing misery and starvation. The PREDA Center was opened so that the boys could have educational assistance (three of the facilitators are qualified teachers), skills training, character formation, psychological therapy, values formation and they could be assisted in their legal cases, if possible to reach an amicable settlement with concerned parties or have their charges dismissed.
At present, 52 boys are there. And a new home, with greater capacity, has just been inaugurated in Nagbayan, Castillejos, in an organic farm surrounded by fields and bordered by a stream and hills. The country’s so-called youth rehabilitation centers are overcrowded. The numbers of kids needing rehabilitation are increasing and the centers cannot handle them, says Fina Marabe-Marañon. In the Manila Youth Reception Centre alone, there are more than 220 children in primitive grim conditions. She was trying to facilitate the release of some of them and their transfer to PREDA’s custody. After many efforts, she did manage, with the help of PREDA’s rescue and legal team, to get out 10 children last November. It was considered a great breakthrough that opens good perspectives for the future.
In the Bukang Liwayway (New Dawn) Social and Human Development Center, there are no guards, no gates, no punishment, but affirmation, respect, dignity, genuine care and education. Fr. Shay comments: “There’s no need to put these children in jail anymore if they only have this kind of enlightened, respectful and transforming aid. It is evident that the Gospel values work; they really enlighten lives and people to a new plan of existence. This is so inspiring that it keeps me and my staff working as a team.”
Releasing therapy
The heart of all PREDA rehabilitation programs is the Emotional Release Therapy. It is based on the Primal Scream Therapy developed by Dr. Arthur Janov, notes psychotherapist Alister Oca. Fr. Shay claims: “It is unique to PREDA. It is very helpful to the children to release all their pain, anger and the suffering they have endured. Otherwise, I don’t think we could have succeeded. There’s too much anger inside these kids. They bring with them all their troubles, all their childhood pains, hatred, sufferings… and, here, we let them release all these negative feelings and give them positive affirmation.”
The therapy is administered in a special room, a padded room, where they can relieve the experiences of repressed anger and cry out all their troubles, shout, and scream and bring out all their sufferings and traumas. After unburdening themselves, they tell the monitors their real life story. Their thoughts and judgments are clearer; attitudes and relationships with other residents improve. Fr. Shay observes: “This is a big liberation, this is freedom from oppression. Anger, hatred of the world, of society evaporates. Then they can focus on positive things and find a future.”
Sense of achievement
PREDA has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as for other international awards, for its courageous defense of the most vulnerable. Its founder and president, Fr. Shay, has just been nominated for the “Transparency International Integrity Award” by the Berlin-based prestigious organization Transparency International. Such recognitions, notes Fr. Shay, “create publicity and they establish in the mind of people that this is important. They certify that what is done is good work and protecting the rights of children is an important mission.”
There’s a sense of achievement shared by the staff for some won battles, but they do not bask on triumphs. They have been rescuing street children, boys behind bars and drug addicts, combating child prostitution and saving victims, helping them to have a future, creating awareness about the international sex business, appealing to governments abroad to investigate their own pedophiles, child abusers and traffickers and challenging the local government to pass new laws to protect children. They have lobbied for the anti-trafficking law and helped to write part of the anti-child pornography law. Now, we can hardly find kids under 15 inside jails, according to Fr. Shay. That means “the new Juvenile Justice Bill (RA 9344) is being implemented – maybe 40-50% – and such a success in implementing a law is a big step forward in the Philippines.”
When he feels sad over corruption and the injustices done to the poor, he looks at the lives of the children they have saved – how they have been liberated, evangelized, and found a new purpose in life. The social teaching of the Church says that the justice of Jesus’ kingdom is to help the poor and the oppressed and lift them up. To care for neglected and abused children is a difficult mission. But it shouldn’t be considered unusual or extraordinary, says Fr. Shay. “Jesus identifies Himself with them, the poor, the oppressed… That action is the criterion for us to qualify for eternal life. Did we really serve the poor? This is the binding criterion in the whole Gospel.”
Missionary force
PREDA is an open institution. Any professional can visit it, live there, talk to the children and know what is going on. They have researchers and trainees from different countries. There are no restrictions, no secrets, unlike in other institutions where one can’t get inside the front door. Fr. Shay says: “There’s nothing like transparency, openness and sharing the life of the community. This is our protection against any abuse or allegations. Visitors give independent authentication to our liberating work.”
The day starts with a staff meeting to recall the programmed schedules, make updates on ongoing issues, distribute some tasks that need to be performed, present guests who may be visiting, read and reflect on a passage from the Bible as an inspiration for action in their mission of saving lives.
PREDA has 88 professionals (all Filipinos) who implement the projects. The dynamic 67-year-old missionary is proud of his team and refers to them as lay missionaries. Such is the esteem he has for them: “I am employing lay missionaries at PREDA. They are qualified, trained and dedicated. They have a strong spirituality and they give their life everyday. They do better work than I ever did as an ordained missionary priest – saving children, entering prison cells, going to the slums, working with the poor, giving workshops and seminars about human rights… They are my own missionary group. I’m here only as an adviser. I will be gone one day. They will continue as a team, as a missionary force.”
A Great Inspiration
Father Shay Cullen was born in Dublin, Ireland, on March 27, 1943. After his secondary education, he joined the Missionary Society of St. Columban, because he wanted “to go out into the world and do something with my life that would benefit other people.” He was ordained to the priesthood in April 1969. Soon after, he was assigned to the Philippines and worked in Olongapo City (St. Joseph Parish) and Zambales (St. Marcelino Parish).
In 1974, he established the PREDA Foundation in Olongapo to promote human rights, justice and peace. Believing that poverty, violence and child abuse are barriers to peace and give rise to unhappy people and even criminals, he has been striving to eliminate child abuse and promote respect for children's rights. He works for peace and a better society by trying his best to change unjust economic, political and social structures.
Over the years, Fr. Shay’s lobbying for new and better laws to protect women and children, helped in their passing into law, in part through his involvement with the media. He has a weekly column in papers and magazines where the passion for his liberating work is reflected in every line he writes. Three years ago, he published a thrilling 500-page thick autobiography (Passion and Power) which has been translated in German. PREDA’s website is regularly updated (see: www.preda.org). His writings, lectures, talks and statements are always based on the solid evidence of his own personal experiences.
Considering the vast work done by PREDA and the daring challenges they face in combating the exploitation of minors, one can sense the powerful leadership exercised by Fr. Shay – of presence, example, persistence, knowledge and competence – that his staff members have learned to trust. Executive director and co-founder of PREDA, Alex Hermoso, underlines Fr. Shay’s persistence and authority in decision-making: “Fr. Shay is not a distant colleague or boss. He is the hands-on kind of person. He wants to know everything and be involved in everything. He is not confined to his office with the nitty-gritty of the running of the operations of all programs and projects. He practically knows everything. He is not just the chairman of the board where you see him once in a while during meetings and the work is brought forward by the executive director and the implementing officers. He is part of all the processes and systems and accepts changes in his decisions when he sees the wisdom of such. This is the reason we stick well together. The older staff members feel confident of his leadership – a leadership by example.”
“Fr. Shay is a great inspiration to me,” says the documentation officer, Fina Marabe-Marañon, who shares with him the vision-mission of PREDA as an instrument to help children, women and indigenous people. The work is difficult and requires great courage. Fr. Shay conveys a sense of urgency. “I must be honest. He is a difficult boss, in the sense that when there’s a child to be rescued from great peril, it must be done immediately. A child cannot wait. When he gives instructions, I know their intensity. If we let time pass by, we may be endangering the life of a person.”
Fr. Shay is hardworking and the staff is well-motivated and imbued by the same spirit of commitment. Fina stresses: “My nine years here have been well spent. At the end of the day, even if I am tired, I see that I have accomplished something. Even in little things, we are shaping positive changes. We do “little things with great love,” as St. Teresa of the Child Jesus said. When we rescue a child, it is not only a number; we are rescuing a precious life in the image and likeness of God.” And she concludes: “If I were not enjoying what I am doing, I wouldn’t be here for so long. The work is not just a profession. It is more a vocation and a passion to help other people.”
FIGHTING SEX SLAVERY
PREDA has been rescuing hundreds of sexually-abused children from the grip of traffickers, pimps, nightclub operators and home harassers and giving them a new life. More difficult, though, is to pursue justice on behalf of the victims and bring the perpetrators to pay for their crimes.
Marilyn C. was repeatedly raped by her stepfather when she was only 12. After months of abuse and threats to keep silent, Marilyn disclosed it to her mother who refused to believe her. She felt abandoned and unwanted and left her home in Mindoro, an Island south of Manila. She found a job peddling cosmetics door to door and was brought to Boracay where there are many night clubs and bars. There, she was commercially sexually exploited at 13.
She was approached by an employee of one of the bars who introduced her to Bernard, a French bar operator. He gave her a job, but a few days later, he raped her. Then she was given to his friends, other foreigners, and told that it was the only way to get ahead in life. She felt trapped: “I was helpless and had no resistance left. I was like a powerless slave to them. Outside, I showed submission, but inside I was full of anger and hated. I couldn't escape from the island and I endured such life. I could see no other alternative for myself. I had lost my dignity and self-respect and felt I was worthless and had nothing to lose because no one respected me and I had nowhere to go.”
One day, a sex tourist liked her, hired her out and brought her to Manila. After a few days, he got tired of her. Like a child, he became frustrated and angry. Marilyn was so scared that he would hurt her, but instead he went out and bought another street girl. Marilyn was on her own. She met another pimp, a Filipino woman, who offered her a job to escort tourists. She had with her a younger girl, 9-year-old Pia. Marilyn was introduced to a Dutch man, Lennard Van E. Pia was brought to Room 406 where a German, Thomas B., got in and abused her. The two girls stayed together with the two sex tourists in Manila and the abuse continued, watched over by the pimp nicknamed Lani, who was getting the money.
At the beginning of 1997, the two sex tourists brought the girls to Boracay. They rented two cottages near the beach. Thomas set up a video camera and video taped himself sexually abusing Pia with her hands and arms tied. He had a computer business in Iserlohn, Germany, and presumably he was interested in selling or swapping child pornography over the internet.
On the third day, the wife of the local mayor, alerted by the campaign about sex tourism, became suspicious of the two minors with the foreigners and called the police to investigate. They arrested Pia and Marilyn; Thomas and Lennard were allowed to go to their rooms giving them an opportunity to destroy all the incriminating evidence of their crimes by throwing the video tapes into the sea.
On January 11, the National Bureau of Investigation filed charges against Thomas and Lennard and they were jailed. The girls were placed in a children's home in Iloilo run by the Daughters of Charity. The two suspects paid US$1,000 bail each and went free, despite the fact that the abuse of a child under 12 years of age is non-bailable. They got their passports back, too, and fled the country.
The news reached PREDA which filed charges against the suspects in Germany. The girls agreed to cooperate and to be transferred to the PREDA Children's Home. It would have legal custody over them and would help them recover through therapy and counseling.
All the evidence available was sent to Germany. On August 23, Judge Vaupel of the regional court in Iserlohn near Dusseldorf issued an arrest warrant for Thomas. When the two girls had gathered enough self-confidence and emotionally ready, the court trial was set. They went along and testified without hesitation. No postponements were allowed. It was all over in three days. (In the Philippines, such a trial can take two to ten years.) Thomas was pronounced guilty of sexual exploitation of a child while abroad under the little-used extraterritorial law. He received the maximum penalty under the law which was three-and-a half years with probation. Lennard was also found guilty in Holland and sentenced to one year. It was a moral victory for PREDA and especially for all abused children.
Soon after the trial, Marilyn and Pia settled down to rebuild their lives. Both went back to school while in the PREDA Centre and persevered in their studies. They became very outspoken lobbyists of children's rights and made it their mission to use their experience to educate both adults and children about the dangers of the sex tourism business. They traveled to several countries giving talks and making media appearances. Marilyn completed her studies as a social worker, worked with the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Iloilo for almost 2 years and then returned to PREDA where she is helping abused and exploited children. Pia trained as a nursing aide and worked at PREDA for over 2 years. Then she went to Ireland for a one-year training and has since returned to work at PREDA.
PREDA has five former sexually-abused or trafficked girls in the staff as counselors. “This is evidence of success, that our rehabilitation program does work in changing lives,” says Fr. Shay Cullen, who has been rescuing hundreds of kids from the grip of traffickers, pimps, nightclub operators and home harassers and giving them a new hope and a new life.
Growing business
The Philippines became a bustling sex destination with an estimated 1.2 million single male tourist arrivals per year. Internet played its part. A site (Balibago.com) announces: “You can enjoy full privileges with one or more attractive young females regardless of your age, weight, physical appearance, interpersonal skills, wealth or social class. Go-go bars start to open at noon and a few keep the music pumping until 5 a.m.. Some small hostess bars are open 24 hours. Prices are extremely low, which means you can carouse at full throttle without wiping out your life savings. English is widely spoken. You don't have to learn a single word of the native language.”
The multi-million dollar fluid underground business is difficult to curb. Most bars, clubs, massage parlors, beer houses and karaoke bars are just fronts for prostitution. And many of them employ minors. Their documents are fake and rarely verified by officials.
Rescue operations do not always succeed for different reasons. The girls who have been brainwashed may not want to change life. The bar owners have managers handling the girls and they allow them to work in a particular bar for 3/4 months and prohibit them from going out during the day. Then they move them to another province. Often, they have good connections and enjoy police protection.
To cite an example: On December 27, 2008, PREDA’s rescue team went to Alaminos City (Pangasinan), some six hours away from Olongapo, to rescue three girls, two of them are sisters, 12 and 13 years old. With them were the mother of the girls, a government social worker and a police from the birthplace of the children (a legal requisite). The girls had been trafficked from Limay, Bataan to Alaminos and have been working as prostitutes in a videoke bar for some weeks.
Arriving at Alaminos, the team went to the police station. They were told to come back at night time. They suspected the police were hiding something, but they complied. Returning, they asked the police to let them go inside the bar first (to prevent the police from creating confusion and alarming the neighboring bars that could be employing minors). But when the PREDA team arrived at the scene, the police had been there and the children were nowhere to be found. Frustrated, the team searched for them in other bars. One hour later, the police called to tell them that they had found the children in the bus station. It was clear to the team that the policemen were friends of the bar owner and were protecting him from being charged.
Sickening reality
A rescue operation needs a lot of undercover surveillance and a lot of coordination with the police (whose report is needed to file a case before the court) and a social worker who has no criminal liability in taking girls out of houses and bars. Unfortunately, sometimes no social worker is available. The Police have the so-called Women and Children’s Desk, but, ironically, it closes at 5 p.m., when most violence against women and children happen at night.
PREDA conducts undercover surveillance in the bars to confirm reports made by anonymous people and to detect if underage girls are being used. Fr. Shay often poses as a customer. He challenges the ‘mama-san’ (the oldest lady in the bar) and/or the floor manager with the question: “Is it safe to have minors here?” The answer often sounds boastful: “Yes, it is safe. Do not worry. There’s no problem here. We have licenses, permits. The owner is a policeman or he is a good friend of Chief or General so and so...” Sometimes, besides aiding or abetting the crime of sexual exploitation of children, policemen own nightclubs and are part of the sex business.
Emmanuel Drewery, PREDA’s communications officer, is one of the staff who conducts undercover operations in red light areas to see if they employ minors. He explains how it is done. They talk to the pimp (on the street) or to the floor manager in the bar and look for young looking faces to invite them to sit at their table and buy them a lady’s drink. That’s the time they are able to interview the child. If they like to document what is going on, they use hidden video cameras. Considering the life of scantily-clad girls gyrating for customers, he sighs: “It’s a very sickening reality!”
They ask the kid’s name, where is she from, how long has she been working there… but do not ask her age because she will lie in order to protect the bar owner. The approach is to befriend her: “We try to make her feel comfortable. We behave as friends, not customers. Slowly, she is going to open up. We try to meet her when she is out of duty and we bring her to a fast food restaurant where we can talk. Only then do we open to her our real purpose and suggest our programs and services to help her come out, start a new life and have a future.”
He adds: “The girls are happy to have a free meal because their wages are normally very low: from 100 to 150 pesos per day, that’s lower than what a factory worker gets. Many are forced into prostitution by life circumstances: poverty or abuse. Many have been abused at home by their fathers, foster fathers, uncles or other male family member. They ran away because they believe that they have no dignity anymore and nobody will accept them. Others wish to find a foreigner boyfriend who can give them a good future.”
Therapeutic intervention
A daily work of the paralegal team is to monitor PREDA’s hotlines through which people can report cases of child abuse. Some are reported through text messages, others by walk-in clients. Not all reports are authentic and all have to be verified. When they receive reports of abuse in homes, schools or somewhere else, a team, formed by a paralegal and a social worker, is dispatched to verify. They interview the child to verify if the report is credible. If the supervision is positive, the child and the parents are invited to come over to PREDA to be interviewed formally and to build a case.
The ideal is that abused children are admitted for therapeutic intervention because they feel unloved by the family and look down on themselves. A team of social workers and therapists cares for them 24 hours a day. They ensure the girls have formal education, a skill-training program, counseling, primal therapy to release their emotions and other activities to raise their self-esteem and regain self-confidence. They have regular Bible sharing and Mass on Sundays. Parents are invited to come and visit the child at PREDA during Christmas, the child’s birthday and other occasions to start the process of reconciliation and reintegration in the family.
While the children are there, PREDA provides for everything – board and lodging, education, enhancement of skills, therapeutic intervention… Often, they give financial assistance to their families so that they may start their own livelihood projects. Children are helped to experience a new way of life and a different way of looking at themselves. That helps to change their lives.
Legal Via Crucis
Meanwhile, PREDA provides legal assistance in filing court cases. Its paralegal team listens to the children, with the help trained social workers, and makes the reports, submits them to the medico-legal examiner, enrolls the witnesses, prepares the affidavits, escorts the children to the prosecutors’ office, attends the hearing, files motions and manifestations when necessary... In short, they file the charges on behalf of the children and monitor them.
PREDA always goes after the crime perpetrators even if they are the family’s breadwinners. Otherwise, they might harass and sexually abuse other children in the family or find victims outside in the community. But it is hard to pursue justice on behalf of the abused children. Sometimes, they have to deal with uncooperative government officials; other times, children rescued from sex bars believe that that is their life; they become uncooperative victims who would rather abscond, get out of the Center and go back to the street or the bars. If they had been abused at home, they may deny to have been raped.
Robert Garcia, the head of PREDA’s paralegal team since 2000, summarizes what they consider meager prosecution achievements: “In my recollection, we only have 17 cases of conviction against Filipino perpetrators and another 7 against foreigners… from around 300 cases PREDA has handled since 1933. The rest were either archived, dismissed or the accused were acquitted.”
He admits that it is difficult to prosecute the owners of glitzy sex establishments like those in Angeles City, employing hundreds of girls, because some belong to corporations and it is hard to prove ownership or to prove the girls are minors. The only success there is when bars are raided and children are rescued through the instigation of PREDA undercover workers. Bars found with minors may be padlocked for sometime only to open again under a new name and management. The prosecution of breadwinners is difficult as well because the family, starting from the mother, tends to cover up the case.
On the other hand, the judicial system makes it difficult to get justice for the victims. Robert Garcia explains: “In the Philippines, we lack everything – courts, judges, prosecutors… At times, the cases take ages in court before the actual hearing. They can take from three to nine years before a decision is reached. And we are lucky if there’s a conviction.” The wheels of justice are too slow. Victims have to wait a few years for a court decision – if it ever comes. PREDA has to continue to protect and support the child all those years especially when the abuser is out there waiting for the child to come home. Then he can abuse her again or intimidate her to drop her complaint.
PREDA is too dependent on the public prosecutor; it does not have money to engage a private lawyer for the many cases, since he is very expensive. No lawyers offer service pro bono just to help child victims because they are too busy making money. On the other hand, some perpetrators can hire good lawyers to protect themselves and file countercharges against PREDA. When they rescue a child, sometimes they are charged with kidnapping; when they report a case of child abuse, they may be sued for libel.
Other times, the perpetrators go after the witnesses and complainants to silence them because without them there will be no case. To apprehend the suspects, therefore, is important. Even when the victim is able to file a case and it reaches the court, but if the suspect is at large, the case could be archived – until the time the perpetrator is arrested. There is no sufficient police to look after each individual case and, often, they do not care to serve the arrest warrants, says Garcia.
When an abused girl is reintegrated into her home and the suspect is still at large, it sometimes happens that, she, enticed by the family that is more supportive of the incestuous abuser than of her, files an affidavit of desistance dropping the charges. The challenge for PREDA is to help her to finish her testimony as soon as possible so that the case can proceed. After the child has finished her testimony, the case can go ahead because there is a DOJ (Department of Justice) circular that forbids a case being withdrawn due to an affidavit of desistance. However, this is ignored at times if the prosecutor wants to please the accused.
PREDA’s paralegal team is handling 107 legal cases right now. Many are of children who have already been rehabilitated and reintegrated into their families but are still seeking justice. This means the rehabilitation is over but not the legal case. After reintegration, the children still receive assistance for another 18 months. But even after that period, PREDA continues providing transportation allowance to them for court hearings, and monitoring the cases until they are finished.
According to Fr. Shay, “what is needed by all is a commitment to justice, to the dignity of the children and, for those who believe in Christianity, to practice it.”
