65-year old Masahiro Shinoda is facing trial for allegedly sleeping with a minor. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
A Japanese tourist is facing trial for allegedly sleeping with a 15-year-old Cebuana and trying to take her to Bohol.
The girl’s 45-year-old mother who arranged for them to meet and accompanied her daughter to two hotels in Cebu City was charged along with 65-year-old Masahiro Shinoda.
Both adults were indicted for attempted trafficking in person and violating the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act.
They were brought for inquest proceedings yesterday at the e Cebu City Prosecutors’ Office but waived a preliminary investigation.
The case was filed by port police officers of the Cebu Port Authority after the teenage girl was spotted in the company of the Japanese senior citizen about to board a ship for Bohol.
Shimoda and the mother remain detained at the Waterfront police station jail.
School fees
“The two charges filed against my client are bailable. So we might as well post bail,” said lawyer Wendell Quiban, the mother’s counsel.
The mother told reporters that her daughter met the Japanese on the Internet and that he paid for her school fees.
The mother, a resident of Talisay City, insisted that her daughter did not have sex with Shinoda.
In her affidavit, the girl mentioned sleeping alone with the Japanese man, several times.
She said her mother registered her in an Internet dating site in January or February this year, misrepresenting her as being 19 years old, and introduced her to Shinoda.
Shinoda, a resident of Fushimi, Kyoto in Japan described himself in his profile account as a 78 year-old widow looking for a tour guide in the Philippines because he had a stroke 12 years ago.
Tour guide
“In our online conversation with Masahiro, it was my mother who served as our bridge and interpreter since she knows English and a little of Nippongo while Masahiro doesn’t understand and speak English,” said the girl, who executed her affidavit before Edna Reguro, a social worker of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Sponsor
She said Shinoda mentioned to her mother that he traveled a lot to Cebu and Davao because he pays for the school fees and expenses of poor families and children through a foundation he works with.
They first met on June 2014 when Shimoda visited Cebu and stayed at the Marco Polo Plaza. The girl recounted in her affidavit that she slept with him alone there.
Last July 23, she said, Shinoda came back to Cebu and checked in at Mandarin Plaza Hotel.
She said she again slept with him in the hotel room.
Shinoda later brought her and her siblings to Ayala Center and brought them clothes, shoes, and cellular phones.
Two days later, Ana said Shinoda told her that they were going to Bohol.
Together with her mother, they went to Pier 1 in Cebu City for their trip to Bohol.
The ship tickets bought by Shinoda were just for the girl and the Japanese.
Detained
While waiting for their trip, a representative of the Department of Justice’s Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) spotted Shimoda and the Cebuana teenager.
Ana said she told the DOJ representative that she’s 16 years old and that Shinoda was her uncle.
But Shinoda and the girl were brought to the port police. Her mother and Shinoda were arrested by the port police.
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