UNITED STATES/PHILIPPINES
The Dallas Morning News
By Brooks Egerton/Reporter
begerton@dallasnews.com
1:03 pm on September 18, 2012
National Geographic‘s new issue exposes the ivory business, which has been hiding in plain sight since a worldwide trade ban was enacted in 1989. And a major player in the magazine’s story is a priest in the Philippines whom I wrote about in 2005 when investigating another global-trafficking phenomenon — the Catholic Church’s movement of sexual abuse suspects across international borders to escape justice.
The priest, Monsignor Cristobal Garcia, is now quoted as explaining how to smuggle ivory into the United States: “Wrap it in old, stinky underwear and pour ketchup on it.” And if an icon won’t fit in a suitcase? Here’s how National Geographic‘s Bryan Christy summarizes Garcia’s advice: “I might get a certificate from the National Museum of the Philippines declaring my image to be antique, or I could get a carver to issue a paper declaring it to be imitation or alter the carving date to before the ivory ban.”
Garcia also made provocative comments when I interviewed him about why he fled the U.S. in 1985. He admitted having sex with altar boys and supplying them with drugs — but said he did it because they threatened to accuse him of abuse. One boy “not only seduced me, he also raped me,” Garcia told me.
My story was part of a Dallas Morning News series called “Runaway Priests: Hiding in Plain Sight.” Reese Dunklin, Brendan Case and I documented more than 200 cases in which Catholic clergymen had gone abroad and stayed in ministry.
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