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Philippines – When notorious Australian pedophile Peter Scully and his coaccused Carmie Ann Alvarez pleaded not guilty to harboring two minors, chaining and detaining them for sexual exploitation, their victims could not understand why.

‘The two minors were crying, asking: ‘Why did they say not guilty? It’s the two of them who did it,” recalled Cagayan de Oro City prosecutor Charisse Galarrita-Bitoon, who handled that case.

She remembered telling them: ‘Langa, as I have explained before, they will always say not guilty.’

‘But they cannot understand that. The children were hurt,’ Galarrita-Bitoon told journalists on Sept. 12 during a seminar on human trafficking organized by the US Embassy.

The case dates back to 2014, when Alvarez befriended the girls at a mall, bought them hot dogs, and persuaded them to go with her, promising to provide for their needs, before taking them to Scully’s house.

There, the girls were fed, bathed, and given biscuits and alcoholic drinks that left them drunk. They were then sexually abused, with one of them even ordered to dig a hole in the ground while both were still naked with chains around their necks.

Days later, when Scully and Alvarez left the house, the girls managed to escape by climbing over the fence.

More than a decade has passed since that harrowing experience. The two survivors are now in college, pursuing nursing and psychology, slowly rebuilding their lives. In 2024, the Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of Scully and Alvarez.

Scully’s case, Galarrita-Bitoon said, became the driving force behind the establishment of a justice zone in Cagayan de Oro City last year.

It also highlighted the grueling process of prosecuting trafficking cases involving children, where state lawyers deal with defense dilatory tactics and the retraumatization of child witnesses during trial, among other challenges.

Part of the struggle, she added, is securing cooperation from internet companies and financial institutions in providing information related to sex trafficking crimes-echoing similar concerns raised by Department of Justice (DOJ) officials and groups like the International Justice Mission (IJM).

The Philippines is one of the world’s largest known sources of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC), where traffickers livestream the sexual abuse of minors in exchange for payments wired from abroad, often from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other European countries.

IJM’s Rebelander Basilan explained how OSAEC works: there are two perpetrators-locals who have access to children and offenders from abroad who would pay to ‘direct the kind of sexual abuse to be inflicted on the child.’

The abuse is livestreamed with payments sent via money transfer services.

‘We have a very well established money transfer system and that’s also being taken advantage of by these offenders to exchange money for the abuse of a child, a Filipino child,’ Basilan said. He also noted that online payments have minimal safeguards.

IJM’s 2022 study estimated that nearly half a million Filipino children were trafficked to produce new sexual exploitation material.

Basilan said it is ‘relatively very easy’ to livestream abuse, requiring only internet access and a device like a smartphone.

For 10 straight years, the Philippines has maintained its Tier 1 status in the US Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report, meaning the government meets the minimum standards to combat trafficking.

The latest report, released last week, noted that Philippine law enforcement had made numerous subpoenas and financial transaction requests under the amended antitrafficking law of 2022, which also imposed additional obligations on internet companies to provide information to authorities.

But DOJ spokesperson Jose Dominic Clavano IV said the law is not being fully enforced. ‘The problem is, these are international companies, and there’s a lot of internal bureaucracy and red tape that allow them to continue their practices even with government pushback,’ he said. Justice Undersecretary Nicholas Ty said President Marcos has expressed openness to banning platforms that enable such crimes.

But Ty cautioned that his would need careful study. For now, he said, the government is focusing on requesting takedowns of explicit materials, increasing capacity awareness, and forging more partnerships in the international community.

The Department of Health (DOH) has actually been investigating the 400 ‘idle’ health centers under the agency’s Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP), DOH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa claimed on Sunday.

‘Actually, the DOH has been investigating these anomalies way before media picked it up,’ Herbosa said, without specifying any of the findings of the supposed investigations.

During a congressional budget hearing earlier this year, Herbosa said the health centers under the HFEP could be considered the DOH version of the flood control projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

The HFEP, launched in 2008, is the DOH’s banner program that aims to ensure that poor and marginalized communities have access to health-care services.

‘Several actions have been taken already, and we continue to do case buildup,’ Herbosa added, again without providing details.

Herbosa made the remarks to expound on the replies of Health Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Albert Domingo during an online interview.

When asked what actions have been taken in relation to the investigation, Domingo said, ‘They are actions meant for mandated investigative bodies and the formal courts of law.’ Findings still under wraps

‘The DOH will disclose them at the appropriate time and before the appropriate legal forum,’ Domingo told reporters in a Viber group chat.

But Herbosa also suggested that the DOH has been ‘looking for options to operationalize nonfunctioning completed health facilities.’

Akbayan Rep. Chel Diokno initially questioned why only 200 out of 600 health centers under the HFEP are functional despite being allocated over P170 billion in the past decade.

However, budget sponsor and Bataan Rep. Albert Garcia clarified that while the HFEP has no ‘ghost hospitals,’ the lack of personnel and health-care professionals to run the facilities made them nonfunctioning.

Garcia also said that the DOH entered into a memorandum of agreement with local governments in ‘good faith,’ as it expected them to provide personnel.

But further discussion of the health facilities was overtaken by other controversies confronting the DOH.

Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin, a former health secretary, particularly questioned Herbosa’s other programs, like the P1-billion proposed budget for the beautification of DOH offices, the P458-million research fund for the DOH, and its planned P7.5-million donation to the World Health Organization (WHO) over three years to other programs.

Garin took special notice of the DOH beautification projects and the WHO donation, saying the funds for these should instead be used for patient care and subsidies for the universal health-care program or to hire more doctors and nurses. ‘The President wants zero-balance billing, while hospitals are asking for bigger funds. But how did [this] pass through the Department of Budget and Management-that there is about P1 billion intended not for hospitals and rural hospitals, but for ‘beautifying’ DOH offices?’ Garin asked.

Despite the strong public clamor to jail all those involved in the flood control scam, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. cautioned against a rushed and haphazard investigation into the scandal to ensure that cases filed are backed by concrete evidence.

Mere accusations and testimonies, even those made in congressional hearings, would not lead to convictions if they do not come with proof, Marcos said.

‘We know many of these people are not innocent. But if you’re going to bring them to court, you must have a very strong case,’ the President told Philip Cu-Unjieng of the Manila Bulletin in an interview to be shown on his ‘BBM Podcast,’ scheduled to begin Monday. A teaser of the latest episode of the podcast was released by the Presidential Communications Office on Sunday.

‘Look, this is what can happen. We rush the investigation. Our evidence is not complete. Our evidence is muddled. But we still go ahead with the filing of the case. The result: We lose the cases. Can you imagine that?’ the President said. ‘I think that would be much, much, much worse.’

The President created the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) last month to investigate all anomalous government infrastructure works, particularly ‘ghost’ and substandard flood-control projects in the past 10 years. Almost a month after the fact-finding body’s three members were appointed, the ICI has conducted numerous closed-door hearings and summoned various officials and contractors linked to the scam. The commission will recommend the filing of charges based on its findings.

In a previous episode of his podcast, the President vowed to go after the ‘big fishes’ in the corruption scandal once the ICI investigation is completed. /cb