Police Colonel Roderick Mariano
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Report cases of sexual abuse on children.
Police Colonel Roderick Mariano, chief of Cebu Police Provincial Office (CPPO), said that while they have been getting tips on cases of sexual exploitation on children, they are having difficulty in making follow up investigations because of their lack of evidence and witnesses.
Mariano said that in most cases, the victims and even their parents, refuse to cooperate in the police investigations especially if the abuser is moneyed and is capable of paying them off.
He is asking Cebuanos especially the barangay officials to help the police investigate cases on the sexual abuse of children.
The CCPO director issued his comment after John (not his real name) posted on his social media page screengrabs of online conversations involving some members of an expats group who allegedly abuse Filipino children.
In one of the screengrabs, a foreign national named Joseph was talking of how “I would go up to the mountains and in the province where you get the young p—- that’s been untouched that’s the stuff you want to get.”
Joseph said it is always easy to lure young girls. “All you have to do is make them think you have a bottomless pit of cash…”
John, a foreign national who is married to a Filipina, said that he came across these exchanges after he joined an expats group to especially learn about the Filipino culture, among others.
“I swore to myself to never again take personal vigilante justice on this, so I hope we as a community in Cebu can expose this. Protect your children. Please share and force action. We all know how it works here,” he said on his social media post.
Mariano is urging barangay officials from the different towns in Cebu to immediately report to the police cases of sexual abuses on children so these can be investigated and the perpetrators punished.
“Yung ating mga kapulisan noon pa ay dinirect na natin magsagawa ng malawakang operations sa tulong ng ating barangay officials dun,” said Mariano.
(Our policemen have long been directed to conduct massive campaigns [against sexual exploitation on minors] in coordination with the barangay officials.
He said it is also sad to note that in most of the arrests that they have so far made, parents were found to be the ones pimping their children.
Mariano said that locating the victims is also a challenge because negotiations are normally made online or inside the privacy of their homes. / dcb