BY SHAY CULLEN
IT IS NOW 55 years since I landed in the stifling heat of Manila, Philippines. I was 26 years of age. I had been sent to join a community of Columban fathers running a parish in Olongapo, 80 miles north of Manila. It was known as “Sin City” and I soon found out why.
I took up the peaceful parish routine: daily Mass, hearing confessions, visiting the sick. I began to wonder, was this to be my life? I taught teenagers in the parish school. I spoke about gospel values and social justice. They taught me about the reality of broken homes, dysfunctional families, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, child abuse, sex trafficking and gang violence. Despite three Masses a day and six on Sunday, in Olongapo, vice, it seemed, had conquered virtue.
Hundreds of sex bars and brothels with city permits were licensed to supply girls (many of them minors) for the sexual gratification of the US servicemen of the Seventh Fleet at nearby Subic Bay. In the 1970s Olongapo had become fantasy land for the sex-starved, warweary marines serving in the Vietnam War. Estimates of up to three million Vietnamese were killed by United States armed forces in that war, much of it fought from nearby Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base. The US lost 58,220 young men, mostly conscripted. The angry, guilt-ridden survivors landed in Subic to party and forget.
One evening, walking home to St. Columban’s College and parish house, I passed the sex bars with their flashing neon lights and blasting rock music. Dozens of American marines caroused and some were carrying small girls into brothels. Some wore T-shirts sporting an image of a mushroom nuclear detonation. “Nuke them till they glow,” they triumphantly declared.
Young girls tried to lure me into the bars. Child sex traffickers stood in shady doorways. “Hi Joe, you want a kid, only 12, will do anything you want.”
Having sex with a child who was 12 years old was legal so long as the child consented (the law was not changed until 2022). The city’s business was sex for sale. The Church turned a blind eye. The dollars flowed in by the millions.
When I arrived back at the ornate parish church, I was feeling angry and powerless. The contradictions were enormous and inescapable. Extreme poverty among plenty. I prayed. What kind of faith would move this mountain of evil? The Church’s silence and inaction had made a graveyard of true Christianity. As the Apostle said, “Faith without action is dead” (James 2:17). I needed faith with action, and it came soon enough.
In 1972 President Ferdinand Marcos Sr declared martial law. It was brutally enforced by his hit squads. Some of our students who had joined protest marches were targeted and shot. Others were jailed on suspicion of illegal drug use.
In 1974 I set up the People’s Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance (Preda) Foundation as a sanctuary to protect them and others at risk. We built a shelter overlooking Subic Bay, the Preda “New Dawn” Center.
Our dedicated team got teenagers out of prison and gave them protection. We began Emotional Release therapy, and gave education and legal help. Juanito was one of many. He was rescued, had therapy and overcame drug dependency and became a caregiver in a home for disabled elderly people. Several years later, he wrote: “Many thanks for all I learned at Preda. I love this work helping others, it is my life.” (To be continued)/PN
