Php 70.00 Vol. 47 No. 07 • July 2013 - IMPACT Magazine Online!

ARTICLES
When authority is
perverse, abuse is rife
By Fr. Shay Cullen
It’s all about power and fear.
Several impoverished, abused,
cheated and beaten Filipino
female workers taking shelter in
Middle Eastern Philippine embassies
have been allegedly sexually
assaulted and prostituted by some
corrupt and depraved embassy officials
of the Department of Foreign
Affairs, according to Walden Bello,
the sociologist turned Congressman
in a press conference in Manila
recently. He named two of the officials
and gave the nickname of
a third. Yet many more have been
involved in this despicable and
criminal activity and dozens of
young women have been violated.
They are vulnerable, lonely,
isolated in a foreign country and
victims of physical and sexual
abuse by their foreign employers.
They escaped and ran for help and
shelter to the Philippine embassies
in Jordan, Syria and Kuwait. These
young women, overseas Filipino
workers (OFWs), are totally dependent
on the Embassy officials
when they take them into the embassy
shelter with promises that
the Philippine Government would
protect and repatriate them.
Instead of being helped, many
of them were subjected to humiliating
and shameful sexual exploitation
by corrupt and depraved
officials themselves. Not only were
they forced to perform sexual acts
with some officials, but they were
sold into sexual slavery in the city
from which the embassy officials
earned a lot of money.
Representative Walden Bello
told a news conference that his
source is a high official of the Department
of Foreign affairs and he
named names. The young victims
were too scared and helpless to
resist the power of the government
officials. Just imagine what most
likely went on in the embassy
shelters to coerce and threaten them
into submission and docility. They
likely received threats of dire punishment
if they told anyone about it.
Imagine it might have happened
like this to a fictional young
woman named Rosa.
Embassy Official in a closed
embassy room: “Rosa, I will help
you get home to the Philippines,
you can earn some money, just let’s
have a little fun first.”
Rosa tries to resist: “No, no,
please don’t touch me, leave me
alone; that’s what the evil employer
did to me; he raped me, don’t,
don’t.”
Official, putting an angry stern
face: “You are here under my power,
if you don’t do as I say, I will send
you back to your employer and the
authorities, you will be on the street
without documents or passport,
do you understand? You will be
arrested and jailed.”
Rosa: “Please sir, don’t do that,
I want to go home I have not seen
my family for years, I have nothing,
no money, no job, no food. I have
been cheated, robbed and raped,
please don’t cancel my air ticket.”
She was by now crying and
howling, tears streaming down her
face but the official seemed to be
aroused by her distress and moved
to sexually exploit her.
Most of the Embassy employees
had to know about it, but
remained silent or worse, may have
been involved too. Why did they
not blow the whistle and come to
the rescue of the women? Their
silence can only be understood as
approval, or they were silenced by
threats and fear. A culture of fear of
higher authority can overpower the
moral values of even a strongest and
most spiritual person. Courage and
belief in human dignity and rights
and know how to get help is what
is needed.
The young women are silent
also, fear has a paralyzing
power to subjugate and render
people unable to resist or
speak against the exploiter
or abuser. Some government
authority figures have an arrogant
sense of superiority; they
tend to trivialize sexual crimes.
The worst part of all this is
that the suffering victims are
treated as if they are an enemy, a
hostile ungrateful beneficiary
out to hurt the man. We can
imagine an arrogant rapist
official scolding his abused
victim.
“You are an ungrateful
brat, no better than a prostitute,
you should feel
honored that I, an important
official and your
superior, would lower myself to
have sex with the likes of you,
an impoverished non-person.
You should be grateful for
the help we have for you
here instead of protesting and
complaining.”
Such depravity and
criminality leaves the normal
person breathless, angry
and bewildered. But for those
in positions of power and ascendency
whether it be government,
church or in the family, the
abuse of power by threats of
dire punishment against the
weak and helpless creates
deeply held fear.
The poor know the rich
and powerful can murder
and rape with impunity.
For the powerful, it seems
an entitlement, a privilege of
power. The senior Philippine
embassy officials in Jordan,
Syria and Kuwait have been
recalled to answer the complaints.
Not before their
time. I
Pinky Barrientos, FSP
10 IMPACT • July 2013