ACCORDING to UNICEF, the Philippines surprisingly emerged as a center of child sex abuse materials production in the world, with 80% of Filipino children at risk from online sexual violence, which in some cases, have been facilitated by their parents.
Relative to this claim, a 2021 study entitled “Disrupting Harm in the Philippines” revealed that 20% of internet-using Filipino children aged 12 to 17 were victims of grave instances of online sexual exploitation. This included being blackmailed to engage in sexual activities, sharing their sexual images, or being coerced to engage in sexual activities through promises of money or gifts.
Additional data from the Department of Justice (DOJ)-Office of Cybercrime showed that there was a rising trend of cyber tip reports of child sexual abuse and exploitation materials — 400,000 in 2019, 1.2 million in 2020, and 2.8 million in 2021.
In the city of gentle people
I can still remember several years back when I was still City Administrator and Ground Commander of Task Force SAGARR, we were able to – in collaboration with police authorities, with the CSWD, with a few child’s rights advocates — break into a “gang ring” that sells very young children (mostly to male foreigners) using the internet. By ‘selling’ here, I mean, children are made to perform lewd acts in exchange for money. Our team did the raid and the children were ‘recovered’ but the real perpetrator/owner of that business have not been apprehended.
It is very sad though upon learning that the parents are the ones pushing their children to do these things in order for their families to survive. What makes me sadder is the fact that these children have become desensitized, doing these things for a few hundred pesos and don’t even feel an iota of shame or remorse. It seems to them that doing these acts were the most common things that humans can do. They made it look so easy, as easy as breathing.
Not just children
Mid-2020, at the height of the pandemic, a dating platform became very popular in the Philippines. Named Sugarbook, it prides itself of matching young females or males with potential partners who are willing to support their companions financially. It is a dating website for “sugar babies” and “sugar daddies.” Founded in 2017, the platform has been quietly growing its reach across Southeast Asia, after taking off from its headquarters in Malaysia. It’s one of several tech startups that enjoyed a boost thanks to the extended periods of quarantine that led to joblessness and underemployment.
Sugar dating or sugaring is an arrangement wherein a wealthy man (usually older), supports or spends excessively on a woman (usually younger). The man is known as the sugar daddy while the one being supported is of course the sugar baby.
What is making sugar dating practice a novelty is the fact that both parties involved in the transaction do not conceal their real intentions. The sugar baby tells potential daddy that she needs the money while the daddy tells the baby that he needs her body. As simple as that. Unlike before when the men tell the women that they are looking for love and companionship while the Filipinas tell these men they are looking for emotional security (which actually meant, they needed the contents of these men’s pockets). There was too much euphemisms and so much acting before. Today, men and women just confide their needs and presto, the deal is done.
Practical but unethical
I understand that people have to find ways to make both ends meet. I understand when people want to exert effort to side-hustle just to have something to eat. And I understand that sometimes, because we are in desperate times, we do desperate things. But I don’t think we are that desperate that we are willing to forget who we are. We are human beings. We are not animals. We should love and protect our children and our women and not peddle them to the highest bidder just so we can have one plateful of rice. We are not Esau in the Bible who relinquished his right and privilege as a first son and heir for one measly plate of food.
We are already suffering from the Covid-19 pandemic and we don’t know until when we have to endure its painful effects. But we will survive this because we are the children of God and He will never forsake us. Let us not buckle down due to some material need or lack of food. We have already lost so much to this health crisis, therefore, let us not allow ourselves to succumb and lead a value-less life and engage in sinful acts for money. Laying to rest our morality in exchange for comfort and money is the real crisis. It is the silent pandemic!
