The shame of the CNN report

THE WORLD image of Filipinos suffered its worst beating on August 9 when CNN aired a special report on the "horrific" conditions of Filipino children in Philippine prisons. The report, prepared by British ITV, featured stomach-turning footage of 9-year old boys incarcerated in filthy cells crammed with adults, some of whom are pedophiles.

How could any civilized nation inflict this barbarity on its children?

Though CNN reported that there are about a million children held in adult prisons in some 192 countries, it is the searing images of some of the 20,000 child prisoners in the Philippines that will be forever seared in the minds of CNN viewers.

The CNN report exposed the debasing poverty of the Philippines with shots of children foraging over garbage fields to scavenge for anything that could be sold or used. The image of young Filipino children sniffing glue under a bridge to numb the pain of their hunger will not soon be forgotten.

Below is the news summary of the CNN report found in the British ITV website entitled "Horrific Philippine prison conditions":

"ITV News has revealed that children as young as nine years old are languishing in filthy jails in the Philippines.

"In a special report, ITV News presenter Chris Rogers, traveled to Manila and witnessed shocking scenes of young children, accused of petty crimes like theft, packed into overcrowded cells in filthy conditions.

"The children are forced to share crammed cells with adults, some of them pedophiles, in a desperately unhygienic environment.

"There are too few social workers available to help or rehabilitate the children and they often learn more extreme criminal behavior from their adult cellmates as a result.

"One 13 year old called Edwin has spent four months in an horrific prison in the country's capital, Manila. He is locked up with murderers and pedophiles and yet he is accused of stealing a necklace. He is still awaiting trial."

After the CNN report was aired, the official Philippine government portal (www.gov.ph) was immediately flooded with emails from outraged people all over the world who watched the CNN report. One foreign viewer (whose comments were surprisingly placed in the opening page of the portal) wrote:

"I always knew the Philippines was a country where the government was corrupt but to let this atrocity happen to your own children is the greatest sin I have ever seen in my entire life and I hope everyone connected with the practice of putting children in jail with the scum that I just saw on CNN will rot in hell forever with no pity and no forgiveness. I always thought the Philippine people cared about their poor and their children, but I see with my own eyes that some of the Philippine people are monsters!"

But not all Filipinos are monsters as many have joined groups like the PREDA (People's Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance) Foundation, founded by Fr. Shay Cullen from Olongapo City, which has been in the forefront of the non-governmental organization (NGO) efforts to protect Filipino children. Photos of the children in Philippine prisons can be viewed in www.preda.org.

Stung by criticism of her government after the CNN report was aired, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo immediately ordered her justice department to review the cases of thousands of child offenders held in adult jails. She directed Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales "to look into the cases of minors in prison that have come out in international television."

President Arroyo told an anti-crime organization in Malacanang on August 12 that young offenders should be kept in special welfare homes for children rather than be jailed with "hardened adult criminals" in ordinary prisons.

The problem, however, is that the children cannot be assigned to the welfare homes until after the courts have rendered judgment on their cases, a process which can take weeks or even months to complete. Because the city jails do not often have separate facilities for them, the child defendants are housed with adults until they are sent to welfare homes.

One solution in the right direction is the Consolidated Juvenile Justice Bill, pending in the Philippine Congress, which would explicitly prohibit the detention of children with adults and would redirect juvenile offenders of petty, or victimless crimes from the courts to diversion programs.

Because President Arroyo is preoccupied with her survival and the political opposition is obsessed with her removal, the problem of Filipino child prisoners is low on the totem pole of national priorities. Everything in the Philippines now revolves around President Arroyo's survival or removal.

When a militant group, Migrante, told ABS-CBN News a few days after the CNN report appeared that "50 Filipino children are currently languishing in Saudi Arabian jails," the group's spokesman did not ask the government for immediate help on the issue.

Instead, he called for a "congressional inquiry" on how Philippine embassies and consulates under President Arroyo are not doing their job to protect Filipinos abroad.

Filipinos in the US can learn more about this issue by logging on to www.preda.org and can help the children by contributing financially to Fr. Cullen's foundation.

Some can emulate Elsa Bayani from Arkansas who has personally raised funds to bail out individual children brought to her attention. (Elsa, who will be leaving for the Philippines next month to meet with Philippine groups on this issue, can be reached at elsabayani2003@yahoo.com.)

The National Federation of Filipino American Associations and other Filipino community organizations and publications should make the issue of child prisoners in the Philippines a top priority.

This is our shame too. But beyond the shame, it is the right thing to do. Free the Filipino children from the adult prisons.



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