This Does Not Look Good At All......

[Bruce]

I rode the bike to Calbayog today (75 k each way) for lunch at the hotel. The one and only 'modern' hotel. 4 story high, modern looking and has a nice looking restaurant in the lobby area.

 

All for show though... I was one of two (2) customers in the restaurant. I ordered a pitcher of ice tea, salt & pepper shrimp and special wonton soup. 20 minutes later the ice tea shows up. Then 10 minutes later my shrimp showed up. I asked if the soup had gotten lost and was met with a simple stare. I then asked what happed to the soup and was told they were making it. I told them to cancel the soup as soup for desert was not allowed in my religion. More stares. OK, just cancel the soup. I stopped before the standard lecture of forks on the left, knife and spoon on the right and soup / salad before the main course. After all this is Samar and I am in the only modern hotel in the entire city, so I shan't ask for too much. It is not the fault of the waitress that she was planting rice or cleaning fish in her last job. She is doing the best she can. Which is why I think the sign in the picture is frightening.  

 

Anyway, I was confronted with a sign hanging on the outside of the hotel that is an omen of bad things to come. Teaching the names of the parts of an engine do not a good mechanic make! It is a start, but I have found in my teen years that there are a few guys who learn 'heads, valves, 4.11 rear' and the like and suddenly they think they are mechanics....

 

See the sign. Be afraid. Teaching new words to a person who may have been planting rice or cleaning fish as their last job (out here on Samar) and is now an investigator, is an omen of bad things to come.

 

I already have had multiple corrective conversations with some locals working for the government that a person (over 18) in a relationship with a teenager is not a 'pedophile' by definition. But they had been to classes (see the sign again) that taught them if a girl was 17 years old and tomorrow was her 18th birthday, that 'today' her boyfriend, if older than 18, is a 'pedophile'. But! (hang onto your seats now) when she has her birthday tomorrow, he is no longer a pedophile! Thank you have a nice day.

 

All emotions and lebels set aside, the legal definition and the medical definition of a pedophile is a sexual attraction to PREpubescent kids. (teenagers are mostly post pubescent) I am not saying anything about right or wrong. Just the definition and without that STANDARDIZED definition, we are all on different pages and that will never work.

 

I walked around and saw no class being given. I wished I did so I could have listened a bit to see how accurate the information was they were being given, but no luck.

 

As a point of interest...... on Samar...... the locals know that it is Borongan that has the girls and the bars and the tourist dollars (nice beaches I have been told) But that is in Eastern Samar and I and Catbalogan / Calbayog are in Western Samar. Very fish and agricultural oriented. Some karoke / beer bars but no bikini bars, no outright night life here. I have seen some kids in the beer bars and those were the kids of the bar girls. Not one actual underage 'working girl' have I seen in 4 years of coming here.  

 

It is very sad to me that Peter Sellers is dead. If 'sex trafficking' had been the hot crime as we are told it is today, back in the 1960's, I am positive the Pink Panther movies would have been very funny!

Edited April 29, 2013 by Bruce

[i am bob]

You are using your "American" standards for words.   Many words have different meanings in the Philippines.

 

I know...  I know...  They shouldn't use these words because they are being used half as intended and the other half of the meaning is what ever they say it is.  Still, you can't change a whole country that is raised to believe something different, can you?

[earthdome]

That misunderstanding of the word pedophile is common in the USA also. There are many cases in the USA where relationships are considered criminal that not that many decades ago would have been considered normal. For example the 19 year old male with a 15 year old woman. There are too many cases where that 19 year old was not liked by the parents and convicted of statutory rape then later married that same young woman. But can't go to their children's school because he is considered a sex offender for life.

[Bruce]

You are using your "American" standards for words.   Many words have different meanings in the Philippines.

 

I know...  I know...  They shouldn't use these words because they are being used half as intended and the other half of the meaning is what ever they say it is.  Still, you can't change a whole country that is raised to believe something different, can you?

 

I am not trying to change the Philippines, but instead to counter act that change which started with G. W. Bush. Prior to his 'shock' that the Philippines allows girls / families to set (mostly) their own rules for what is acceptable for dating and marriage. If it weren't for the US sending a zillion dollars to the Philippines to enforce G.W.'s will on the Philippine people, there would be no need for fake raids and set ups and extortion all that have come about in chasing the $$$.

 

Remember 30+ days ago Noynoy signed a NEW IMPROVED and EXPANDED child trafficking law into effect. Why???? Because there were not enough victims and criminals to arrest under the old laws and that did not satisfy the US minders.  If you LOWER the speed limit, you always catch more speeders! Of course, they were not speeders under the higher speed limit.... :th_unfair:

 

I am all for spending resources to catch actual kiddie porn makers and users and exploiters. But really, who am I to say to some 16+ kid in the Philippines or her family that she can't have a boy friend who is older than 18. I believe a poster from the UK posted not too long ago that in the UK, the age of consent is 15. That kind of law, coupled with a ban on any bar employing anyone under 18 should cover most all non kiddie porn issues!

 

Spend the money where it is needed and not making laws to create crimes that are not really a crime from a biological standpoint. It is rapidly becoming a situation where the 'task force' members are simply related to the head of the office and are all being paid by  US grant money and then that means they HAVE to produce something to justify their jobs. Catch 22 all over.

 

Much more could be accomplished with a banner ad program at all bus and van services stations warning girls that there are no 'helper' jobs in Cebu or Manila or out of the country and they are really being taken away for prostitution jobs. Along with a 099999999 style of easy to remember number for help.  

[Markham]

I am not trying to change the Philippines, but instead to counter act that change which started with G. W. Bush. Prior to his 'shock' that the Philippines allows girls / families to set (mostly) their own rules for what is acceptable for dating and marriage. If it weren't for the US sending a zillion dollars to the Philippines to enforce G.W.'s will on the Philippine people, there would be no need for fake raids and set ups and extortion all that have come about in chasing the $$$.

 

Remember 30+ days ago Noynoy signed a NEW IMPROVED and EXPANDED child trafficking law into effect. Why???? Because there were not enough victims and criminals to arrest under the old laws and that did not satisfy the US minders.  If you LOWER the speed limit, you always catch more speeders! Of course, they were not speeders under the higher speed limit.... :th_unfair:

 

I am all for spending resources to catch actual kiddie porn makers and users and exploiters. But really, who am I to say to some 16+ kid in the Philippines or her family that she can't have a boy friend who is older than 18. I believe a poster from the UK posted not too long ago that in the UK, the age of consent is 15. That kind of law, coupled with a ban on any bar employing anyone under 18 should cover most all non kiddie porn issues!

 

Spend the money where it is needed and not making laws to create crimes that are not really a crime from a biological standpoint. It is rapidly becoming a situation where the 'task force' members are simply related to the head of the office and are all being paid by  US grant money and then that means they HAVE to produce something to justify their jobs. Catch 22 all over.

 

Much more could be accomplished with a banner ad program at all bus and van services stations warning girls that there are no 'helper' jobs in Cebu or Manila or out of the country and they are really being taken away for prostitution jobs. Along with a 099999999 style of easy to remember number for help.

Yep, Bush declared war on paedophilia, pornography and human-trafficking and the Philippines does very nicely thank-you out of the arrangement. Throughout the country - and certainly in every major city - there is a specialist PNP team dedicated to tackling these sordid crimes. Attached to those teams, however, are operatives from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who are there not simply as trainers and advisers but also as active investigators. Those teams are only interested in following-up crimes committed by foreigners, regardless of nationality; they don't and won't investigate Filipinos who engage in these crimes. Those captured don't face any legal proceedings in the Philippines but are deported quickly and quietly within days of arrest to the US. Once there, non-US offenders are prosecuted if there is an American connection - such as in the case of "Dream Board" (a US-based child pornography site) - otherwise they're sent to their home countries for prosecution under reciprocal agreements.