Cyberporn menace

Cordova Mayor Adelino Sitoy’s appeal to his constituents not to use poverty as an excuse to resort to cyberpornography sounds well and good, but the message rings hollow when faced with the cold reality that many families struggle to find their next meal.

As the mayor and several agencies involved in the campaign against cyberporn attest, Cordova is a small, low-income fishing community vulnerable to this illegal cottage industry.

For five to 10 US dollars, online predators can feast their eyes on children doing all sorts of perverse sexual acts coached by their parents. The latest mom-purveyor, Maricel Ayad, was arrested this week in Cordova through a multi-sectoral effort aided by the US Department of Homeland Security.

She was the second pregnant mother to be arrested in Cordova for this crime. Eight months pregnant, she said she returned to her old ways of looking for money — sex chats (and worse) online.

For starters, how could she and her partner afford an Internet connection and a personal computer with a video camera?

The lure of easy money earned in the privacy of one’s home remains a dangerous temptation in any setting, particularly in a secluded town like Cordova.

The town’s predicament was aggravated by the oil spill menace after the Aug. 16 collision of two ships off Talisay City in south Cebu. Leaking oil ruined over 300 hectares of mangroves. At least five barangays that depended on fishing were reduced to being recipients of cash and food aid from a shipping company.

So what are the opportunities for employment and livelihood available in this small, landlocked town?

Tourism is confined to its bigtime neighbors in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu.

The economic development of Cordova and the moral leadership is something that Mayor Adelino Sitoy and his son Provincial Board Member Arleigh Sitoy, himself a former mayor, have to answer for.

We’d also like to know what Rep. Gabriel “Luigi” Quisumbing, who is on his second term, has been doing to develop Cordova and reach out to those suffering from the oil spill.

The warning bell was rung in June 2011 when the first major raid of a family home in Cordova yielded parents who were using their children to perform sex acts in front of a web camera.

Since then, did the neighborhood change their ways? Not much based on the series of raids since then.

This remains a major challenge for Cordova, one of 13 local governments in the Mega Cebu cluster that have banded together behind a common vision of trans-boundary growth.

The Davide administration in the Capitol is also called upon to help stamp out child exploitation of the worst kind in this seaside town. Enforce the law and give Cordova residents a better chance to earn a living not next year but in the next few months.