The President and Cybersex

February 2, 2005

The President has weighed in on the cybersex trade by ordering a crackdown. Interestingly enough,  while the President seems adamant in putting a stop to this, the law enforcement officers have found that the law is inqdequate given the recent dismissal of the case filed agains the accused in a raid in Pampanga.

I’m told that the accused in the recent Las Pinas raid was charged with a violation of the recently passed Anti-Trafficking of Persons Act — the same one used in the Pampanga case. The charge is improper because the law is clearly inapplicable. It seeks to punish the trafficking of persons and pre-supposes that the victims are held against their will.  That’s not true in the case of cybersex dens where the women voluntarily ply their trade and earn upwards of 2 million pesos a year in the process.  Without any victim to speak of, I wonder how the PNP hopes to build its case. (more…)

What “Technical Questions” Mean

I must say that Erwin Oliva’s coverage of the dotPH issues has been, at times, one-sided. Many of the stories he writes quote only from Ver Pena with whom it seems he has unprecedented access. Oftentimes, he doesn’t even attempt to contact dotPH for their side. I’ve given up trying to figure out why. So, I was pleasantly surprised at his recent story (that saw print) where he quotes liberally from my brother’s blog.

I am mentioned in the article as follows:
Peña asked Disini in a meeting with his brother Jesus (a lawyer) and dotPH spokesperson Emil Avanceña two weeks ago, to submit a formal letter enumerating the concerns they had about the CICT guidelines.

Disini has argued that the government guidelines do not provide enough information to allow dotPH to make a decision.

“So I told them to document [the] questions that they have about our guidelines,” Peña said.

Most of the concerns of the dotPH were “technical” in nature, but generally they wanted some assurances from government that they would not be short-changed, he added. While the above encapsulates some of the points raised during that meeting, I believe Erwin has missed out on the most pertinent point in the discussion: that neither the CICT, NTC, or AdBoard had any idea how to proceed with implementing the Guidelines. Maybe for them, these are mere “technical questions” but for me, it’s a question of governance. (more…)