Backyard cottage industry

For those exposed to the underbelly of prostitution, Wednesday’s raid in Cordova town where an entire family was found engaged in cyber pornography was still a shock.

Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale, who chairs the Provincial Women’s Commission, couldn’t finish watching a sample video of their performance.

The raid confirmed that the parents, including a pregnant wife, were directing their children to pose nude and perform sexual acts for foreign customers watching for a fee through the Internet.

They weren’t alone.

The couple admitted that many neighbors in barangay Ibabao were doing the same thing, and had introduced them to this sideline three years ago.

That this was not an isolated enterprise was confirmed by anti-child abuse advocates, who have identified Cordova town as a “hotspot” for home-based cyberporn.

Last March, for the celebration of International Women’s Day, a forum on online child pornography was held in Cordova town, precisely to reach out to families to warn them of this danger.

In 2006, Cebu Daily News reported complaints from the community that as many as 21 houses in barangay Ibabao were adopting cyberporn like a cottage industry.

Parish-based leaders complained to the mayor.

What happened since then?

Not a lot, if Wednesday’s family raid is any gauge. No significant arrests were reported before then.

We’d have to ask the current mayor, Adelino Sitoy, and his son Arleigh Sitoy, who was the Cordova mayor in 2006 and was the one to whom the San Roque parish pastoral council sent a resolution demanding action.

Arleigh Sitoy now represents the district in the Cebu Provincial Board.

As fathers of the town, what did they do?

Can we expect better insights from Sitoy now as a legislator, since local government action fell woefully short of denting a perverted livelihood in this third-class, fishing-based municipality?

We can easily blame the parents for exploiting their children.

But taking the wider view, the poison that threatens families was already there in the community.

The May 15, 2006 resolution of the San Roque Parish saw chapel leaders reporting that “girls of minor age and women of questionable character, and even wives with the consent of their husbands pose nude or make indecent acts in front of the video camera in exchange for a certain amount of money.”

If law enforcers want to shut down cyberpornography that preys on kids, they will have to investigate why and how it took root in this small town of Cordova.