I RECENTLY wrote a letter to the highly respected Benjamin Acorda Jr., the executive director of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC). 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 (RA) 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.”
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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 (ISPs).
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. (To be continued)/PN
