Surveillance cameras for internet cafés?

The American economy, after almost four years under Pres. Barrack Obama, has not really recovered or bounced back and has even slid down to dangerous levels. Even an American residing here in Lapu-Lapu City tried to take his life and almost succeeded in jumping off the Marcelo Fernan Bridge. Thankfully, the fellow lost his nerves and surrendered to the police.

To think this fellow is a retired US Navy serviceman, which means he should have a hefty pension from the US government that when it is converted into pesos, he’d live a comfortable life in this country. But then, this man probably lost his faith in God somewhere and when we lose God, we truly lose everything because without God we really are nothing!

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While others try to kill themselves because their situation seem hopeless, however there are many people and a lot of them non-government organizations (NGO) that are doing their best to help those who need help the most. I saw that last week when the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) presented last Thursday their five finalists for the Ramon Aboitiz Award for Exemplary Individual and another five finalists for the Eduardo Aboitiz Award for the Exemplary Institution. In short if you think that the situation is hopeless… there is still hope if they looked for these institutions that could help you move forward in your life or get you out of the rut you are in.

But more often than not, there are people who find themselves in a situation that they can no longer control due to their poverty. Many of them, especially women get trapped into that vicious cycle of poverty that forces them to do things that they would not do. This is what is called Modern Day Slavery, something that was recently adopted by the Cable Network News (CNN) called the Freedom Project where they have vowed to magnify those areas where the new type of slaves, which is called human trafficking are suffering. Fighting this scourge entails everyone’s support as it transcends all sectors of society and it breeds on the corruption of our government agencies. 

A week ago, in Zamboanga City, the Zamboanga Sea-Based Anti-Trafficking Task Force (ZSBATTF) was able to rescue 54 victims as reported by Senior Supt. Mario Rariza. Those victims were about to leave Zamboanga City in a private wharf bound for Taganak Island near the Turtle Island Group which is very close to Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia in Borneo. God knows what would have happened to those Filipino girls if they were brought into Malaysia and eventually to the slave markets of the Middle East.

I understand that these victims are now under the custody of the Visayan Forum Foundation (VFF) that non-stock, non-profit, non-government organization that has been in the forefront in the fight against Human Trafficking. Most of the victims came from areas in Luzon, Mindoro and Sultan Kudarat. Obviously, they were “lured” by the human traffickers to jobs in Brunei, Singapore and other destinations. It always starts with lucrative job offers, but more often than not, the women end up as hospitality girls in nightclubs of foreign countries, which then pushes them into a life of prostitution or even worse live a life of a real slave in a Mideast country.

Thankfully in the year 2003 the Philippines enacted Republic Act No. 9208 also known as the “Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003 and in the Province of Cebu we now have the Regional Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Trafficking (RIACAT) Task Force headed by Gov. Gwen F. Garcia, whose point person is now her Vice-Governor Agnes Magpale. But this war against trafficking isn’t easy to contain simply because many poor mothers or fathers are the very people who sell their children to traffickers in the hope for a better life. This is the fruit of irresponsible parenthood.

Another tool that Human Traffickers use is the internet cafés and I’m glad that the Cebu City Council has now asked for the random inspection of all Internet Cafes in order to monitor them and possibly crackdown on these cybersex activities. Whenever I’m out on a big bike trip and do not bring my laptop, I almost always land in an internet café and I have only noticed two types of activities going inside - either the young kids are playing internet games or the girls are chatting with their “pen pals” from many foreign countries. No doubt this is difficult to prevent, but what we should clearly look into are those underage girls who might be lured by pedophiles.

At this point, I would like to suggest to the Cebu City Council to use technology to fight the evils of this modern technology. Perhaps we should enact a law for all internet cafes to install a surveillance video camera inside their premises in order not just to monitor the activities inside, but keep a record of any incident that could happen inside an internet café.

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