In Cordova, Cebu: Reward awaits tipsters of cybersex operations

CEBU, Philippines — In an effort to crack down on cybersex dens that victimize minors, the Municipality of Cordova will give monetary reward to those who can give information about online sexual exploitation activities in the town.

The town has furnished to the Provincial Board a copy of Ordinance No. 2019-39 it passed in June called the Online Sexual Exploitation of Children (OSEC) Informants Incentive Ordinance.

The ordinance gives financial incentive of P20,000 to "any person who shall provide information on OSEC within the municipality if Cordova, Cebu which after validation results in the apprehension and arrest of perpetrator/s."

The ordinance also assures that the names of the informant, suspects, and victims will be made confidential.

Children, as defined in the ordinance, may be minors below 18 years old or a "mentally challenged person."

The ordinance was passed a month after the arrest of a 25-year-old mother who was sentenced to jail for 26 years after she admitted abusing her two daughters sexually online in exchange for money.

Many more cases of child pornography and sex trafficking have been reported in Cordova over the past years. Authorities started discovering the presence of cyberpornography dens in the town as far back as 2011.

Parents and relatives, motivated by extreme poverty, have resorted to the sexual exploitation of children of their own family.

In a 2018 operation that rescued three girls, the suspect, a 22-year-old woman, allegedly did not only let the victims pose naked to her foreigner customers, but promised the patrons to do what they want, including a “do it all,” in exchange of P3,000.

Lawyer John Tanagho of the International Justice Mission (IJM), the group that worked with the Anti-Cybercrime Group (ACG) - 7, said what they discovered in Cordova “refutes the myth that online sexual exploitation is supposedly a ‘harmless crime.’”

“Stripping children naked for online pedophiles is traumatizing enough. But online sexual exploitation is so much more,” Tanagho has said. (FREEMAN)