(PHILIPPINES)
Manila Times [Manila, Philippines]
September 20, 2026
By Fr. Shay Cullen, SSC
REFLECTIONS
THE sexual abuse of Filipino children, especially those committed online, continues to spread; so is their exploitation by not only their parents and relatives but also executives, telecommunications companies (telcos) and the clergy. Children’s rights advocate Dr. Murray Heasley — about whom we will discuss later — is challenging clerical abuse. We need to take a cue from him and challenge telcos like PLDT, Globe Telecom and Dito Telecommunity, as well as other corporations, over their abuse. One of them, the Zambales II Electric Cooperative Inc. (Zameco II), is refusing to replace a busted transformer until our Preda children’s home in Nagbayan village, Castillejos town, agrees to pay P125,123 for it, which is illegal. Unless you agree to pay, you get no power, the electric cooperative (EC) seemed to say. That seemed like blackmail.
The EC has been rocked by consumer complaints of overcharging and other issues, as well as by corruption allegations. On July 11, 2026, Zambales 1st District Rep. Jay Khonghun pushed for a congressional inquiry in the House of Representatives into Zameco II’s alleged corruption. EC officials are aware of the suffering they have inflicted on the children, who are left crying and without electricity for days, causing hardship and fear. But these executives refuse to restore power until the children’s home pays them. Preda has written to Zameco II General Manager Romwil F. de Jesus to protest the EC’s alleged abuse, pointing out that cooperative is mandated to provide power and the transformer under Section 23 of Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001. Zameco II must answer in court for causing harm and violating the children’s rights under RA 7610, or the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation, and Discrimination Act of 1992.
Telcos, as institutions, are also enabling child abuse by providing internet connections to child abusers, thus violating RA 9775, or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009, and RA 11930, or the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act of 2022. These firms violate these laws by failing to deploy effective software to block abusive content. The crimes are committed by child abusers with mobile phones connected to cyberspace via internet service providers (ISPs), with which they use to livestream children being abused and record horrific images of it for transmission to pedophiles abroad for their sexual gratification. Also, hundreds — if not thousands — of teenage boys are viewing these images on their mobile phones, with some sexually molesting other children as young as six years old. We can blame the ISPs for those crimes, too. They are spreading like wildfire on the internet, now made more powerful by artificial intelligence, or AI.
The Philippine National Police’s Women and Children Protection Center (WCPC) recently rescued more child victims of online sexual abuse. So far, the WCPC has rescued 45 of them. It has referred five groups of these children — nine to date — to different Preda homes for protection, healing, recovery and therapy.
Cleansing the Church
Meanwhile, the Catholic hierarchy has institutionalized safeguarding efforts, such as holding the First National Safeguarding Conference and conducting training seminars, like the Cebu archdiocesan orientation seminars on safeguarding. At these gatherings, Vatican officials like Archbishop Charles Scicluna have explicitly urged local bishops to cleanse the Church of the child sexual abusers hiding in their dioceses, which they are apparently reluctant to do.
The outspoken archbishop represents the views of Pope Leo XIV. He is the Vatican’s leading clerical sex crimes investigator. He has called on bishops in the Philippines to stop their hand-wringing and expressions of anguish, and instead end the coverup of sex crimes by clergymen. Archbishop Scicluna has called for a strict policy of holding abusive priests accountable to civil law. Many bishops protect pedophile priests from prosecution and accountability and just pray for their victims. Dr. Heasley, co-founder of The Human Dignity Initiative with lawyer Michael Gatchalian in Cebu, recently invited Archbishop Alberto Uy to a dialogue on clerical child abuse.
In his invitation, posted online, Dr. Heasley explained to Archbishop Uy that “the greatest threat to the Catholic Church in my experience as 10 years as an advocate is the sexual abuse of children by clerics and institutional lay members and religious members of the Catholic Church. It has been a monumental scandal all through the world and has and threatens the very existence and credibility of the Catholic Church internationally and here in the Philippines…
“In October of last year, the same month that the National Safeguarding Conference was held in Clark, a group of which I was a part of, ECA, or Ending Clergy Abuse Global, met with Pope Leo, and Pope Leo expressed very clearly his desire for zero tolerance in this horror of sexual abuse by clergy and attacks on children.
“I’m inspired to speak to you directly in a way that we hope will be positive and productive…. My greatest concern, particularly, is the most vulnerable of your flock, those that have been sexually molested by clerics or stakeholders in the Catholic Church. That is, children sexually abused by clerics inside the Catholic Church… the ripple effects of this abuse through the whole of society are so ghastly and so corrosive that the sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church threatens to completely destroy the moral authority of this Catholic Church and destroy the whole institution.
“The Catholic Church in Ireland has undergone massive change from a church that had total moral control to one that has zero in terms the public’s trust of this institution. All of that because of the sexual abuse of children. That’s what destroyed the Catholic Church in Ireland, and this is what threatens the continual survival of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. If it’s not addressed, it can’t be avoided. It has to be dealt with head-on. And it can only be done through the very things espoused at the national conference: openness, transparency, protection of survivors.
“Nothing could be more positive and life-affirming than the church biting the bullet and making sure that sexually abusive priests or any other functionary in the Catholic Church is made to pay for their sins, that are criminal attacks on children, crimes that cannot be accepted. I hope that we will engage as human beings in the near future and hope and look forward to meeting you to help us jointly deal with this horror.”
The talk is available at https://www.youtube.com/@Zerotoleranceabuse.
www.preda.org