Children rape children, and telcos allow it

By Fr. Shay Cullen

I recently wrote a letter to the highly respected Benjamin Acorda Jr., the executive director of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission. In that letter, I said:

“President [Ferdinand Marcos Jr.] said in an emotional speech, ‘This administration will do everything — we will spare no effort — to combat these heinous crimes against our children.’ These heinous crimes are carried out with impunity because the Philippine telecommunications corporations (telcos) are failing spectacularly to respect and follow Republic Act 11930, also known as the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act, [which] mandates them to install state-of-the-art blocking software on their servers that can identify, intercept and block child sexual abuse materials online. This strict law also mandates the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), headed by Commissioner Ella Blanca Lopez, to implement RA 11930 and prosecute the [telcos] for violations of the provisions of this law. If they fail and conspire together not to do it, that is organized crime.

“The easy availability of these child sexual abuse materials and the livestreaming of child sex abuse to foreign and local abusers for money make the Philippines a hub of these crimes. The [telcos] and internet service providers must be challenged and made to obey the law.”

Through the letter, Acorda was alerted to the very serious situation of child sexual abuse made freely available on the internet by telcos like PLDT, Globe Telecom, and Dito Telecommunity and their internet service providers. In response, he immediately called for a meeting of representatives of the PAOCC member-agencies, to which Preda Foundation President Francis Bermido Jr. and I were invited as guest speakers.

There was an explanation given on what the heinous crimes against children that President Marcos had said he or his administration would not tolerate. Child sexual abuse materials are evidence of such heinous crimes, and they are easily available to anyone with a low-cost mobile phone and a few pesos. The telcos sell accessibility to the internet, to social media sites, where evil and harm to children lurk, waiting to entrap them. Some countries are passing laws to ban children from these dangerous sites. Under the law, the NTC is supposed to have passed age-verification rules for the telcos.

Through these telcos and their ISPs, children younger than 15 have access to social media platforms and websites that expose them to child sexual abuse materials, including those captured on video. Because of this, they are subjected to coercive persuasion, undue influence, grooming, and inducement to commit crimes against children as young as 6 years old. Some of these children are undergoing therapy and value formation under Preda’s care.

One of them is a smart, 11-year-old boy whom we shall call Ben. He bought a PLDT-powered SIM card and paid a pittance to access social media sites like Facebook. Ben watched a video of a teenage boy raping a younger child. He then raped another child who’s younger than himself.

Another was Alex, 15. He bought a Globe-powered SIM card at a store to “surf” the internet. He watched online a video showing minors sexually assaulting a 9-year-old. This induced him to rape another 9-year-old himself. His online chat group is where his friends share videos of adults and children being sexually abused, mostly Filipino female high school students. Such acts are recorded on video and distributed over the internet provided by the telcos, and posted on various platforms like Telegram and internet chat groups.

Then there’s John, also 15. He said he would buy 100MB of data from PLDT and occasionally from Dito to surf the internet and view illegal content. His online group shares “scandal videos,” which show teenage students being sexually abused. Viewing these tempted him, and he later sexually abused his 9-year-old cousin.

This uncontrolled access to social media and group chats is a commercial product that harms children, and it is sold by the telcos. This product made available to children is causing child rape by inducing adults and minors to abuse children. These telcos are aiding child abusers.

The NTC has to take strong legal action. They could file a criminal case, hold telcos as principals, and have them convicted of inducing a crime under Article 17 of the Revised Penal Code. It would be as if the telcos committed the crime themselves. These firms also abet the transmission of images of criminal acts, allowing these to stay in their servers and pass on to others.

Section 10c of RA 7610 penalizes any person who uses, coerces, forces, or intimidates a child to conduct “any illegal activities.” That’s what the telcos do. Children 15 years old and younger are exempt from criminal liability under RA 9344, or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, but the adults who induced them remain fully responsible. The CEOs of these telcos can be held liable.

The NTC is mandated by law to enforce the provisions of RA 11930 and protect children from heinous sex crimes. The evidence indicates that these provisions are not being effectively enforced. Besides, a PHP 2 million fine is nothing to the telcos; they can earn that amount every hour. A monthly PHP 500 million fine would be better until they install state-of-the-art blocking filtering software, such as Netsweeper, PhotoDNA, VideoDNA, and Shield by Project Arachnid of the Canadian Center for Child Protection.