PREDA NEW YEAR NEWSLETTER January 2002 
Dear Friends and Supporters,
When you receive this it will be well into the New Year 2002 but it is never
too late to wish you all a very happy New Year from all the children and the
PREDA
staff. It has been a busy, active
and progressive year for the work of
PREDA. Here is a summary of the major events of 2001.
The new children’s center at PREDA, a project of our partner Kindernothilfe,
was opened and occupied by the children in more spacious and comfortable
amenities. A new outreach therapeutic service to abused children unable to
reside at PREDA was begun so we are helping many more children. A successful
European tour by the PREDA –Akbay Theater Group covered 28 towns and cities.
I was busy on many speaking engagements advocating Human Rights from New
York to Germany, Italy, Belgium, England and Ireland. In Italy, we received
the Human Rights Award of the City of Ferrara. The Nobel Peace Prize
nomination for PREDA brought huge public awareness for the plight of abused
children and the Weimar City Award likewise.
The Guardian Angel campaign against sex tourism reached a high point in
Germany in partnership with Missio. At the Dusseldorf airport, the unveiling
of the Guardian Angel monument by our partner Missio brought huge publicity.
In the UK, the campaign was launched by Jubilee. I was a guest speaker with
them on a two-week information campaign and saw the launch of the new human
rights magazine called Just Right by Jubilee where I write a regular
feature. You can e-mail
Mark@jubilee.co.uk to subscribe.
In Belgium, Oxfam Fair Trade took up the campaign advocating children’s
rights with a special launching of dried mangos and the Angel Annie logo.
Thousands have benefited from the successful expansion of the PREDA Fair
Trading and livelihood projects during the past year.
Hundreds of people attended workshops and seminars at the PREDA training
center in Olongapo and the education department reached thousands in the
schools and colleges by presenting interactive workshops.
There were many presentations of the famous musical drama of the second
PREDA–Akbay theater group. The PREDA Information and Advocacy team launched
the Guardian Angel campaign in the Philippines by organizing a rock concert
and setting up a mobile phone text and information wap service where young
people can report abuse and get help.
We have rescued many children and received them into the therapeutic
community; many more have recovered and have been reintegrated to a safe
family environment. We have continued our court actions against the
suspected child abusers and won a spectacular case against an abusive
government official.
There was also a sad experience for my family and myself. Last 12 November
my dear mother passed to God at 93 years of age.
I was very privileged to be able to be here with her before she had an
urgent operation. This was successful and we were full of hope and gratitude
but after a few days, complications set in that brought about kidney failure
and Mam could not recover. It was a great loss and a time of deep sadness.
As I sat at her bedside and we held hands her spirit slipped away. I grieved and wept at her passing.
She was a great mother and planted in us, her children and grandchildren, the seeds of goodness and like the sower in the Gospel story, who went out to sow the seed of God’s Word, much of it fell on good ground in our hearts that she and our father had well prepared. The seed was not all choked by the thorns and hard stones of selfishness of the world. She had a remarkable intellect and was a fine bridge player winning the local cup twice in a row. Her mind was clear and focused to the last.
My mother has been an important part of the PREDA apostolate over the years.
Her prayers and encouragement and those of her friends and many others like
yourselves sustained us during our trials and harassment and still do.
Knowing that so many of you prayed, cared, wrote letters, sent e-mails,
made statements of support for us as we fought the international sex Mafia
in the Philippines during the past years, has been a source of strength and
encouragement. My Mam came to PREDA twice and her heart was all out for the
children as is yours. I wrote a
short poem - “A
Mother’s Love” to recall her gifts.
A Mother's Love
A blossom blooms and sheds its many
seeds of life,
And a garden grows, tended by the
hands that planted
In our hearts and minds the fruit of
honest deeds.
A mother and a friend, a grandmother
good and great.
She gave us life and friendship
and her love,
more than we deserve.
She stood by us through our troubles
and our trials,
Faithful to the end, and held our hands
in hers,
She gave her blessings and her love -
To you these gifts I send.
With unshaken Faith in God to help
and save,
And in the Holy Spirit to take her
from the grave,
She lived as she believed, and fed the poor,
And prayed for peace,
and did what is truly right.
Her spirit will endure the passing
in the night,
To live forevermore.
Shay Cullen
On November 15th her friends and admirers and all our relatives
packed St. Joseph’s Church, Glasthule, the parish where Mam seldom missed
daily Mass. I grew up in Glasthule and was an altar boy since I was eight,
from there I joined the Missionary Society of St. Columban. There were
several Columban sisters present and seventeen priests concelebrated the
Mass most of them my Columban brothers led by Fr. Brendan O’Sullivan, the
Superior General. My cousin Father Patrick McEvoy was there. He had just
arrived back from Lebanon where he served as chaplain to the Irish UN
contingent. The parish priest Fr. Brian O’Sullivan and assistants Fr. Dennis
Kennedy, Fr. Des O’Grady and Fr. Foley concelebrated and many others who had
traveled a long way to be there.
To all I send heartfelt thanks. Special thanks to our superior General
Father Brendan O’Sullivan and his council and the Columban regional director
of Ireland Fr. Peter O’Neill who have led the support for this difficult
PREDA apostolate defending children from abuse over the years.
The success of the work at PREDA for youth and children is due to all of you, your support and encouragement has kept us striving to open the eyes of world to the suffering of young people especially abused children who are helpless, vulnerable and the first victims of poverty and neglect in a world of plenty and selfishness.
We can only hope that our small contribution over the past 28 years has
prevented abuse and reduced the exploitation and trading in young women and
children for the sexual gratification of local and international clientele
and raised public awareness of this terrible crime.
The abduction and sexual abuse of children is a growing menace in many
countries. The wide availability of child pornography over the Internet is
surely contributing to this terrible problem. We have been trying to combat
this too, as well as the sex trade but with limited success I regret to say.
But we will continue doing all we can.
Future plans and events -TV
documentary
I plan to contribute to the raising of public awareness in Ireland in the coming year. I spent a lot of time on this work in Europe last year. The forthcoming RTE television documentary on the work of PREDA this February “True Lives” series will be a good beginning. This was magnificently directed by Annette Kinnie, of ANDEC communications and sensitively filmed and recorded by Nick O’Neill and Joe Dolan who came to the Philippines and joined me on my other campaign work.
They captured the plight of the children on the streets and
joined an undercover operation during which we rescued two children and had
the trafficker arrested. They filmed too those children rescued and
recovering at the PREDA Children’s Home.
The Suffering of Children
Last November, PREDA sent a delegate to the Yokohama World Congress on the
Sexual Exploitation of Children. The exploitation and abuse of children is
increasing despite all the efforts to stop it. Other experts say we are just
uncovering year by year the secret sin of the world and discovering the
shocking extent of this crime. Unicef says that there are over one million
children prostituted around the world.
It is rampant in every country and every society and culture. Children are
powerless and silent and terrified to speak out unless they are helped and
protected. That’s our work. In the developing world they are especially
vulnerable, they are the throwaway and forgotten children of the world.
You will see them looking out with sad fly-infested eyes and from the
television screens, magazines, brochures and newspapers. The neglect and
abuse of children grows worse as the global division between the rich and
the poor continues to widen.
Fighting a
Global Goliath
The King Herods of this world are murdering the Holy Innocents in a
multitude of ways with bombs and bullets, with economic and financial power
that keep half of the world in the chains of foreign debt and homegrown
corruption. The pursuit of personal pleasure and leisure by individuals
wasting money while children starve, the passion for wealth, oil and global
power that absorbs the ruling elite’s around the world leaves millions of
women and children dying from starvation, abuse and AIDS.
The indifference of the rich is the greatest crime in a thousand years.
Millions are dying needlessly at a time when the northern nations were never
wealthier and such suffering could be prevented.
The great sin in the Gospel story of the rich man, Dives, who feasted
everyday and refused to give the crumbs that fell from his table to the
starving man Lazarus at his gates was not that he was rich but that he was
indifferent to the suffering of Lazarus. The dogs had more pity and
compassion and they licked the wounds of Lazarus before he died of hunger.
Our small efforts seem ineffectual in the face of this Goliath, but like
David we have to search for the right stone and sling it effectively to make
a difference so that our short existence in this world will count for
something and may we be neither Dives or a Lazarus but capable of using
resources to benefit the poor and the exploited in such a way that they can
be empowered to help themselves.
The progress of
the work in 2001
Rescuing and providing protection, therapy and legal assistance to abused
children is one important project of PREDA. We have 20 staff and employees
caring for the children both in the residential center who need special
protection and those in less dangerous circumstances to whom we help as
outpatients. There are twenty professional social workers, public educators,
youth organizers, information officers, computer IT’s, paralegal and
administration staff at the PREDA Center in Olongapo City.
All are dedicated skilled professional Filipinos who are trained to deliver
effective and worthwhile services to the children, their families and the
community in a transparent and cost-effective way. An absolute minimum of
waste and lost opportunities. Life is too short for mediocrity in living the
truth and working for justice.
There are also intern Filipino students and those from other countries that
study and help at PREDA for three to six months. Most are doing post
graduate studies. It is a learning experience for them and an exposure to
life.
Legal success against perverts & protectors
Taking legal action against the children’s abusers, suspected sex Mafia
figures and their political supporters has brought down the wrath and
revenge of those perverts and their protectors on us during the past few
years. We cannot allow these harassment to frighten or intimidate us into
submission and avoidance. They in fact encourage us and are evidence that we
are hurting their evil business causing huge financial loss to their bars,
clubs and brothels and preventing much abuse of women and children.
Last November, a local government official charged by PREDA for child abuse
was found guilty and sentenced to four years in Jail. This official was the
local protector and supporter of the sex Mafia in the red light district of
Olongapo.
She also appointed a German bar operator to an official position in the
community to give him influence and authority. This official has been
hostile to the work of PREDA.
The conviction has sent a strong message to all child abusers that the
courts will not be lenient and tolerant of any psychological, physical or
sexual abuse of children.
Last September, a former victim of child rape who recovered at PREDA and was
successfully reintegrated into the community some years ago recently married
and have a child. She hurried to PREDA one day with her older sister and
reported that her stepfather who had sexually abused her and her older
sister had come out of hiding and was making advances on her younger 10-year
old sister. The PREDA social workers and para-legal officer immediately put
him under surveillance, alerted the authorities, and had the police serve an
arrest warrant. After years being a fugitive he has finally been brought to
justice.
In Manila, we uncovered and documented more evidence of trafficking in
children. With the help of the police several pimps were identified and one
trafficker who offered us two 10-year old children escaped but another
offering two 14-year old was arrested on the spot.
He was put on trial and the two children rescued. (See this incident on
Irish TV - RTE “True Lives” in February or March 2002). There were five TV
documentaries made on this work in 2001 by European TV stations. They were
shown in France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Germany.
Raising public
awareness and action
The public awareness raising campaign spread to several countries. There
were several conferences and seminars where I was invited to speak from
Fordham University in New York in January 2001 to the civic reception in
Weimar to celebrate the Human Rights Award given to PREDA. In Italy, the
City of Ferrara awarded PREDA the Human Rights Award also and in Rome,
Vatican Radio did a special interview and broadcast.
Our participation in the Inter-religious International Conference in Tokyo
on children’s rights developed stronger connections with many religious
networks of all faiths. The German National Lutheran Church congress in
Frankfurt football stadium invited us to speak to the 70,000 participants.
They welcomed our message with cheers and waving white scarves.
Missio, the German church development agency expanded its Guardian Angel
campaign and we joined them on a children's rights advocacy tour and press
conference at Dusseldorf airport where the PREDA-Akbay Theater group
performed part of their musical drama before the TV cameras.
The PREDA-Akbay theatre groups are two youth drama groups trained and
directed by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA). They are
advocates of youth and children’s rights and toured Germany for a second
successful year making 47 performances in theaters, colleges, schools,
airports and other public places telling the story of the fight against the
trafficking in women and children in song, story and dance. In the
Philippines, a second group performs in many venues around Manila and
Central Luzon. They hope to visit Spain and Ireland next August and
September.
Last September, I had a meeting with the Human Rights committee of the
German Parliament and they are dedicated to support the rights of Defenders
of Human Rights and promised that the committee will make a formal country
visit to the Philippines in 2002 on a fact finding mission to look into the
death squads that have continued once again in Davao City and are again
targeting street kids. In 1999, PREDA launched an international protest
against it and the mayor sued us in court. The killing of kids stopped. He
withdrew his libel case but lost the election. Now, more people are being
executed by shadowy gangs’ street youth among them. We have to oppose this
again.
So, the work of PREDA goes on and we will bring you more news of all that is
happening and we hope that you have a very peaceful and blessed 2002.
Every
Best Wish,
Fr. Shay,
The Staff and Children at PREDA
