POVERTY and corruption continued to grow under President Joseph Estrada and later under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Thousands of abandoned “throwaway children” lived on the streets. They were arrested, jailed with adults, and beaten and sexually abused in their cells.
The Preda team and other nongovernment organizations (NGOs) campaigned to stop it. We were ignored.
Then a ray of light fell upon us. Independent Television (ITV) produced a documentary film, “Kids Behind Bars”, highlighting the plight of children in jail cells with adults. CNN showed it in the United States.
I showed the film to a human rights committee hearing in the US Congress headed by Chris Smith of New Jersey, a Catholic. He and others wrote to President Arroyo. She ordered the children to be separated from adult prisoners but they were jailed instead in separate cage-like cells.
The Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 raised the age of criminal liability from nine years old to 15 and mandated proper care homes for “children at risk and children in conflict with the law”. However, local governments continue to jail children and Preda works with judges to enable their release. At present, there are 53 boys in its care.
President Rodrigo Duterte vowed in 2016 to lower the minimum age of criminal liability from 15 years old to 12. The Preda team showed senators photos of small kids behind bars and it was decided not to make any changes. A small victory, we could say.
Child trafficking for sexual abuse is another story. It continued in Olongapo in the 1980s.
In June 1983, I discovered 12 children suffering from venereal diseases hidden by the mayor in a city hospital room. The youngest was nine years of age. The mayor ordered a news blackout and made
no investigation.
I interviewed the children and submitted my story and photographs to WE Forum, the independent newspaper founded by Jose Burgos Jr. during the years of martial law under Marcos. The story made international headlines.
WE Forum was later closed down by Marcos, and Jose’s son was abducted by the military years later. His body was never found.
The children told me that US servicemen and foreign sex tourists had sexually abused them for a few dollars. One child took a T-shirt from the apartment where she had been raped to stem the bleeding; it had the laundry tag of Daniel J. Dougherty, a US Navy chief petty officer.
He was put on trial in Guam for multiple child rape crimes, but only received a light punishment. The story became international news and I was declared persona non grata in Olongapo City by the mayor and others, and put on trial in the immigration court in Manila.
I fought back and won my case against deportation but there were death threats and the harassment went on for years. (To be continued)/PN
