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I can never forget the sick, malnourished and dead
babies that I found in the slums of Manila, Olongapo City and
elsewhere in the Philippines in recent months since the global
financial crisis began. The wicked of Wall Street have caused untold
suffering in the developing world where there is no social welfare,
benefits or relief of any kind for the most vulnerable. The bankers
are getting the big bonuses and government handouts, the poor have
to suffer and die. Hunger is growing as prices of food soar and jobs
disappear overnight. The greedy gangsters of the money markets are
stealing off into the night having wrought havoc on the world
economy. It’s a Titanic that has not yet reached the bottom but
they have made it away in the last of the lifeboats.
Most of the children suffer and
died of malnutrition and dehydration from diarrhea, easily
preventable. Here there is no one going to the slums to teach the
parents how to save their children and practice basic hygiene and
good feeding. Much to my annoyance and that of volunteer health
workers many of the illiterate mothers were bottle-feeding the
children with dirty water and diluted milk formula. The formula is
practically useless and much of it contaminated before it leaves the
factory. They had been persuaded by irresponsible poorly trained
midwives that bottle is best when we all know it is a death sentence
for many a child that needs its mother’s milk.
Thousands of children die because
of the want of basic health education of mothers who can’t give
enough food these days and most survive on one scanty meal of rice
and a piece of fish if they are lucky.
Many of the poor are single
parents and victims of abuse in childhood. This is the result of
lack of moral education and the uncontrolled spread of the sex
industry and its terrible damage on family life. It is allowed by
government and this undermines the moral life of the nation.
Maria Santos was only 15 when she
was raped by her uncle and became pregnant. As is common here, the
man was believed when he claimed that she had tempted and seduced
him. Maria was ashamed; felt unwanted, disgraced and blamed for her
plight she ran away to the streets. There before her first month she
was picked up by traffickers and sold to a sex club in Olongapo
City. When she was found to be pregnant she was thrown out of the
sex club and that’s when we found her, desperate, suicidal and
abandoned on the streets.
She is just one of thousands of
young girls that have no education, social assistance, or any job
prospects what-so-ever. The sex industry is an open door for young
people with no prospects of a good, healthy fulfilled life. Good we
found her and now she is living a decent life. But our efforts to
prosecute the uncle who raped her were dismissed by an erring
prosecutor who ignored the strong evidence.
Thousands are still trapped in
the cycle of poverty and end up in the sex trade. While the good
officials are trapped and helpless to challenge the system for
within many government officials are looking the other way and sign
permits and licenses for the sex bars when they should be
legislating to ban such fronts for prostitution. Someway they have
vested interests in this sordid trade, which is the merciless
manifestation of the global man-made poverty.
Most of the Philippines, outside
of the southern provinces where there is unrest is a fantastic place
for a holiday and the people are friendly cheerful, intelligent and
articulate in English. So why then is it that the exploitation of
women and children is allowed in the sleazy sex industry?
Filipinos have to rise up in
indignation and protest and say “stop, no more” to this trade in
persons. It is blight on the dignity of millions of good living
Filipinos and together we must fight for that dignity or loose it to
the corrupt politicians and international and local sex traffickers.
Silence and doing nothing is no option. There is endless hope where
there is dignity and courage.
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