Sexual violence
In its widely respected National Baseline Study on Violence Against Children (NBS-VAC) report, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) reported that one in five Filipino children have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lifetime.
As of 2026, approximately 7 million children are being sexually and physically abused every year, a huge increase from the 2021 figure.
Children have free access to materials showing child sexual abuse and exploitation on social media through their mobile phones with internet access because telecommunications companies (telcos) and their internet service providers (ISPs) operate without blocking software.
This frequently results in online sexual abuse or leads to children being sexually assaulted, even raped. These telcos — PLDT, Globe Telecom and Dito Telecommunity — are mandated by Republic Act (RA) 11930, or the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act, to install software that would block such materials.
It seems the National Telecommunications Commission, led by Commissioner Ella Blanca Lopez and Jon Paulo V. Salvahan, is clueless about the damage inflicted by these firms and their ISPs on innocent children.
The telcos should be fined a million pesos a week until they install the said software demanded by RA 11930. There are several kinds of state-of-the-art blocking software available. Without them, children would continue to suffer online abuse.
Unicef research bears this out. It indicates that 80 percent of Filipino children are vulnerable to online sexual abuse, largely due to high internet connectivity and English literacy. It says boys are more vulnerable to sexual violence than girls. However, they are more reluctant than girls to report any such violence.
Rights advocates
Meanwhile, hundreds of human rights and environmental advocates have been murdered and justice has not been attained for them. We recall the commitment of an environmental advocate and lawyer who was murdered in her car, in front of her children in 2017.
The suspected mastermind she had opposed in court. He and a shooter were identified but have evaded justice. In the Philippines, a culture of impunity protects wealthy, well-connected child abusers and murderers.
On Jan. 22, 2026, community journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and community worker Marielle Domequil were convicted by a court and sentenced up to 18 years in prison for terror financing and fined P500,000 each. Rights advocates called the decision “absurd” and part of an effort to silence her reporting of human rights abuses.
Human Rights Watch has said drug-related killings in the Philippines continue with impunity, citing anomalies in the judicial system. Rights workers are victims of “red-tagging” — the labeling of individuals as communists or terrorists — that can be followed by harassment and summary executions. To its credit, the Supreme Court has declared that red-tagging constitutes a threat to a person’s right to life, liberty and security.
The Philippines claims to be a nation under the rule of law. But that seems only to serve the rich and powerful, while powerless little children are sexually assaulted or raped, and their abusers or rapists are sometimes acquitted and allowed to go free. Others are at large with unserved arrest warrants and are still most likely abusing children and laughing at the authorities.
This unjust system has to be challenged and changed by all who love the truth and justice, and are willing to speak out and demand judicial reform. Supreme Court justices are hopefully deciding to establish to their lasting legacy a children’s court where justice will be served by continuous hearings to child victims in three weeks, not three years./PN
