The proliferation of child abuse in the Philippines

By Fr. Shay Cullen

Andrea was an 8-year-old girl in a town in Zambales when her parents separated, after which her mother moved in with Christopher, who became her stepfather. In January 2024, when she was 11, Christopher sexually abused her. She was afraid to tell anyone, lest he would hurt her and her mother. During a counseling session with her teacher, Andrea disclosed the abuse. She was referred to the municipal social worker of Castillejos, Zambales, who brought her to the Preda Foundation’s home for abused and trafficked children.

There, she was welcomed, affirmed and empowered by undergoing Preda’s Emotional Release Therapy and found the courage to testify in court. Christopher denied the charges, but the judge believed Andrea’s testimony. As a result, Christopher was found guilty of two counts of lascivious conduct and sentenced to a maximum of 15 years and six months in jail. There, he cannot abuse Andrea or any other children and can repent for his crime.

There are thousands of child victims of sexual, physical, verbal and psychological abuse in the Philippines and beyond. At the Preda home, there are 60 child abuse victims/survivors — from 6 to 17 years old — on average at any given time. There, they become healed and empowered, and are testifying against their abusers. They also become self-confident and determined to get justice and be free of their abusers for the rest of their lives. The children win an average of 20 convictions every year. In 2024, they won 27 convictions, sending a strong message to society that child abuse is a heinous crime and will not be tolerated. Over the years, hundreds of child abuse victims have had their abusers convicted after Preda had healed and empowered them.

Meanwhile, there is a raging war of words in the United States against child sexual abuse committed by powerful businessmen and politicians with the release of files and emails from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He was convicted of child sexual abuse and human trafficking on his private island home in Florida. These files show he was in close contact with high-ranking politicians and businessmen — including, allegedly, two presidents and a now-former prince — and invited them to his home. What those documents contain could deeply embarrass some powerful people.

The US public is calling for zero tolerance of child abuse, which is prevalent in all societies. Humans are the only creatures on the planet that sexually exploit their own offspring. A number of them give in to their perverse desire for sexual gratification with children, even their own. Many are driven by child sexual abuse material available on the internet to anyone with a mobile phone, enabled by internet service providers and telecommunications companies (telcos).

They, spectacularly, are part of crimes against children and operate without moral values or conscience when they fail to block such harmful material and stop the livestreaming of child sexual abuse, as our laws demand. Internet algorithms direct and incite users to view more child-abuse images and videos that can motivate them to actually find and sexually abuse children. These are the hi-tech, modern-day criminals that commit their offenses with impunity and are seemingly protected from prosecution in the Philippines.

Zero tolerance

Since his election on May 8, Pope Leo XIV has condemned clerical child sexual abuse and called for zero tolerance. But for now, he is stymied, like his predecessor Francis was, by clerics in the Vatican bureaucracy who protect child-abusing pedophile priests. Leo voiced his condemnation in a statement read on June 20 on the occasion of the staging of a play on child abuse in Lima, Peru, where he was a missionary for two decades. That play was written by Peruvian investigative journalist Paola Ugaz Cruz, who exposed the Peru-based Catholic movement Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, where it was alleged that child sexual abuse was prevalent.

Pope Leo thanked Cruz and others for their perseverance, “even when they were ignored, discredited or even persecuted judicially.” Such is frequently the fate of journalists that expose child sexual abuse, as Cruz found out.

The pope also defended independent journalists who fight for human rights. “Wherever a journalist is silenced, the democratic soul of a nation is weakened,” he said. He has called press freedom an “inalienable common good,” saying the moral fight for justice by victims and journalists “is also the struggle of the Church.”

“It is urgent to root the whole Church in a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse — neither of power or authority nor abuse of conscience, spiritual or sexual abuse,” Pope Leo said.

“This culture will only be authentic if it is born of active vigilance, of transparent processes and sincere listening to those who have been hurt. For this, we need journalists,” he added.

In the Philippines, many journalists have been harassed, jailed and even killed. Reporters Without Borders has said the country had 107 journalists killed between 2003 and 2022; the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded 159 Filipino media workers killed from 1992 to 2024; and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines reported that about 199 journalists have been killed since 1986. When people in power want to stifle and distort the truth, they go after journalists and try to discredit them with false allegations.

The anniversary of the closure of the American base in Olongapo City on Nov. 24 celebrates, in part, a media campaign against child abuse that Preda began. After exposing the widespread child sexual abuse in Olongapo by local and United States Navy personnel in the 1980s that was tolerated by the local government, this writer was falsely accused of defaming the city and put on trial to be deported, but fought and won that case. Preda then started a campaign to end female and child abuse by calling for the closure and conversion of the US bases that was opposed by city authorities.

United Nations Children’s Fund research in the Philippines in 2015 indicated widespread incidents of violence and abuse against children as young as 3 years old. About three in five respondents suffered different kinds of physical and verbal abuse during childhood, mostly in their home. The research found that 22.4 percent of all respondents aged 13 to 24 experienced some form of sexual abuse; among those aged 13 to 17, the figure was 17.1 percent. Surprisingly, more boys (22.1 percent) than girls (15.9 percent) said they had suffered sexual violence.

The Philippines has also become the global hub of online child sex abuse, where pedophiles, mostly foreigners, pay to view live shows where children are being raped. Some of these foreigners come to the Philippines and rape children. These heinous crimes on the internet are facilitated by the children’s parents and relatives in exchange for money. The telcos do not block such criminal content, as if they are above the law. Artificial intelligence-powered filters would slow their internet connections and they stand to lose money. Evidence of this is the convictions of foreign pedophiles in Europe and the US for online sexual abuse in the Philippines. The thousands of sexually abused and trafficked children suffer lifelong trauma and receive little or no help, and few ever find justice.