By SHAY CULLEN
WHEN AUTHORITIES planned to close the Preda Foundation home, I told a journalist: “You know, it would be better to close down the US military base, end the sex trade and convert the base facilities into an economic zone and provide jobs with dignity.”
The interview made national and international news. Finally, I had found a possible way to end the sexual exploitation and debt bondage of women and minors in the sex bars. The only way to freedom was to close them all down.
I wrote a series in my weekly column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I called it “Life after the Bases”. The city administration of Olongapo denied all the child abuse allegations and dismissed the suggestion to close and convert the US bases.
Mr. Conrad Tiu, a brave local businessman, supported me and added the brilliant idea of a freeport. The campaign began to catch on.
Finally, after 10 years of campaigning, on September 16, 1991 the Philippine Senate voted on whether to retain or reject the bases. Each senator gave a speech before declaring their vote. There was high drama. Then the count. Eleven for keeping the bases; 12 against. I turned off the radio and played Tchaikovsky’s 1812.
On November 21, 1992, the last US marine ship left Subic Bay. Every sex bar and brothel closed, all bondage debts were cancelled, and thousands of trapped women and children walked free.
The conversion plan I had suggested and campaigned for was implemented. Today, the Subic Bay Freeport Zone provides 145,230 jobs with dignity and fair wages.
Despite the shocking revelations in 1983 of child sex trafficking of nine-year-old children to US sailors, in spite of our efforts there was still no law specifically forbidding child sexual abuse in the Philippines. We campaigned with congressional women with greater success. The Anti-Child Abuse Law was passed in 1992. The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Law was passed in 2003 and made even stronger with amendments in 2012.
The Preda Foundation successfully lobbied for the Anti-Child Pornography Law, passed in 2009. The age of sexual consent is now 16 years.
In 1996, the Preda Foundation opened a home for sexually trafficked and abused children. Since then, about 1,680 girls have been rescued, protected, healed and empowered. The team is almost overwhelmed with nearly 60 girls, aged from six to 18, being cared for. There are no Philippine donors and no government support; the work relies on international partners.
Unless they are given protection and therapy it is not safe or easy for girls to testify with self-confidence against their human trafficker or abuser. Yet every year we see around 20 courageous girls a year testify in court and win convictions that put their abusers and traffickers in prison./PN
