Transport, hospitality and abuse
Friday’s arrest of an Australian reported to have abused five boys aged 9 to 14 in Stakili Resort in Compostela town shows once more how deficient hospitality establishments are in blowing the whistle on possible child predators.
Police arrested Hilton Reece Munro, 45 and taxi driver Gilbert Andrada, 41 after placing the former under surveillance for several days.
Did the resort make any effort to contact the authorities after they saw Munro with the boys or did they not know any better?
It is high time hotels, dormitories, motels, resorts and other institutions engaged in hospitality coordinate with anti-trafficking operatives and organizations in training their personnel to spot and report cases of abuse.
No trader in his or her right mind would want their business to be mired in the horror of victimizing children.
No amount of good public relations can change the history of a lodging house stained by an episode of abuse.
Munro, according to the Bureau of Immigration sallied several times to Cebu since 2011 for 21-day stays here.
That leaves us speculating how many other children he had victimized.
A clue already exists courtesy of the eldest boy rescued from the Australian’s clutches. This boy was introduced by a friend to the Australian.
Where did this alien stay on those earlier occasions when he was in Cebu? How many establishments have kept quiet about his reported lewdness? How many children now bear the scars of abuse at his hands?
Apart from hospitality businesses, this case has also moved the spotlight to taxi drivers like Andrada.
Cebuano taxi drivers are supposedly held in high regard for their honesty, returning to passengers money and other items they unknowingly leave in the vehicles.
The potential for cabbies to be paid as couriers by child predators, however, somehow makes us skeptical about their virtues.
It would not be excessive if taxi drivers especially those who operate at night, are also subjected by the police to closer inspections at checkpoints; checks at least as meticulous as the ones motorcycle drivers go through.
A driver could be hiding somewhere in the cab a child to be prostituted to their favored foreigner.
