Olongapo Subic Volunteers

Monday, August 29, 2005

Santiago warns against cybersex operations

 


LEGAZPI CITY:  NPC Rep. Joseph Santiago of Catan-duanes has urged local governments nationwide to reinforce their supervision of Internet and computer shops to put in check establishments that could possibly be fronting for illicit cybersex operations.

“Local governments have direct and immediate oversight of all business establishments within their jurisdiction.  So the burden is on them, to see to it that shops in their areas are not violating laws against obscenity, pornography and child abuse,” Santiago said.

Santiago earlier bared that over 200,000 Filipinos—women, men and possibly even children—have been lured by cybersex operators based on the registry of one popular website peddling sexual activities via the Internet.

Local government surveillance should cover not just Internet joints but also other shops that offer computer-related services, the sale of computers and peripherals as well as the repair of computers, said Santiago, former chief of the National Telecommunications Commission.

“There could possibly be computer shops out there, not necessarily Internet joints, that are engaged in cybersex activities.  All that is needed to engage in the nefarious trade is a computer, a web camera and an Internet connection,” he pointed out.

“So a shop supposedly selling computers by day could possibly be secretly into cybersex operations at night,” he added.

In cybersex, or virtual sex, sexual acts are performed by men and women, and even children, before remotely connected web cameras that stream images directly to the computers of paying Internet users.

In Angeles City, which the National Police has classified as a cybersex hotspot, at least 10 dens have been busted this year.

Just last week, the police raided another den in the city’s Barangay Balibago, where six women employed as cybersex models were rescued.

Nabbed in the August 22 raid was an American national, 66-year-old James Paul Kelly, the alleged maintainer of the den.  Kelly’s alleged accomplice, a Canadian named Dave Fischer, evaded arrest

 

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