MikeLigalig.com

AFP News – Fri, Jan 17, 2014



A computer-generated 10-year-old Filipino girl called Sweetie helped identify over 1,000 paedophiles around the world


The Philippines has rapidly become a key hub of the billion-dollar global child cybersex industry, with operators aided by widespread poverty and legal loopholes that allow them to remain anonymous, police said on Friday.

Paying subscribers anywhere in the world can log in to sites operated from Manila and across the archipelago that stream the abuse of Filipino children on the Internet, Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa said.

"We are the origin, the source," Sosa, head of the Philippine National Police's anti-cybercrime unit, told a news conference, adding the industry spread rapidly across the country last year.

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The victims are mostly younger than 18, he said, recounting how he took part in some police raids in the northern city of Angeles, where boys and girls aged between 10 and 14 performed "lewd acts" in front of cameras.

Some of the suspects arrested are Americans or Europeans, with Filipino "cohorts", he said.

In Manila, he said the streaming is done inside hotel rooms. It is also done in 31 of the Philippines' 81 provinces, with Angeles, the central city of Cebu and the southern city of Cagayan de Oro being the other main sites.

The police official said some of the streaming is done inside shanties in the sprawling slums of the Philippines, a country of 100 million where one in four people live on less than a dollar a day, according to government data.

"The parents themselves facilitate the children's participation," Sosa said, adding their earnings help support the families.

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Opponents objected to provisions that would authorise heavy prison terms for online libel, and give the state the power to shut down websites and monitor online activities.

"Under that law, telcos (telecommunications firms) are required to retain their data or log files within a period of six months. Since there is a temporary restraining order, there is no legal basis for them to comply," Sosa said.

Ronald Aguto, cybercrime division chief of the justice department's National Bureau of Investigation, said Filipino law enforcers are making do with other laws to go after offenders, including one against child pornography.

However, he said these were not enough.

"In these matters, time is of the essence. We need to swiftly get the data from Internet providers," he said in an interview over local DZBB radio.

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