Mother, women ‘coached’ kids in Cordova residence

A mother and two other women were arrested when police raided a suspected cybersex den in barangay Cogon, Cordova town, past noon yesterday.

A neighbor’s house was used as a private studio, said police who found two sisters aged 8 and 9 and a 15-year-old female cousin performing naked in front of a web camera.

The mother, an ice candy vendor, was calmly watching her two daughters act out lewd gestures when police raiders entered.

Social workers took custody of the girls, shielding their faces and upper bodies with a cotton sheet to protect their identities, as they were led out of the house.

The raid was the second one in the coastal town of Cordova in Macatan Island since the June 1 arrest of two parents, who allegedly directed their five minor children for a similar online pornographic operation based at home.

A search warrant issued by Judge Simeon Dumdum Jr. of the Regional Trial Court supported yesterday’s raid by Cordova town police and the Provincial Intelligence and Investigation Branch (PIIB).

The Children’s Legal Bureau also took part in the rescue operation.

The house owner was not around. The computer operator was able to slip out the back door, said Insp. Jonas Tajanlangit, deputy chief of the Cordova police.

The girls’ mother was reportedly a relative of the one operating the webcam and computer. The house had a wireless Internet connection and they would pay the owner P300 per show.

Cordova, a fishing village, has been identified as a hot spot for secret cybersex operations since the trend was noticed five years ago by parish and barangay officials.

It was only last month that serious law enforcement action was taken when six children were rescued from a household in a raid by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) acting on a request by the Provincial Women’s Commission.

In yesterday’s raid, police arrested a mother in her late 30s and another woman in her 20s, who was coaching the girls on how to pose in front of the camera.

A third young woman about 18 or 19 was also arrested in the house.

Police seized computers and other paraphernalia from the house.

The women were brought to the PIIB headquarters. Charges of qualified trafficking in persons are being readied against them, siad Tajanlangit.

Two months of surveillance preceded the raid following a tip from PIIB chief Supt. Rodolfo Albotra.

It was difficult to see what was going on inside the house, said Tajanlangit, but police were able to peep through a defective jealousy window blade and observe the obscene acts of the children and the women who were arrested yesterday.