US to help investigate Cebu child cyber sex case

More than a month after a Cebuano couple was arrested for engaging six children in cyber sex for money, United States Justice Attaché Robert Courtney personally visited the province to pledge support for the investigation. According to a report from the Cebu Daily News, the six children aged 4, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 were rescued during a June raid in Cordova town in Mactan. Five of the children are the couples’ own, while the other one is their niece. Their couple was allegedly making the six minors strip and perform sex acts in front of a web camera at a rate of $25 per view. The children have since undergone a two-week stress debriefing under the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Central Visayas. “The United States is attempting to provide whatever assistance that we can," said Courtney after a closed-door meeting with Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia. The US will also be helping in the “autopsy" of the CPU confiscated during the raid in order to trace the clients, who are mostly from the United States. The couples’ pre-trial for the cyber sex crime started Tuesday. Child pornography in PHL The Optical Media Board (OMB) in 2008 said that child pornography was already “out of control" in the country. Of the pirated CDs and DVDs confiscated by the OMB at the time, 25 to 30 percent were pornographic, with up to 40 percent of those involving children. Early June, Philippine lawmakers urged the creation of common laws on child abuse and child pornography during the 3rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Inter-Parliamentary Assembly. — TJD, GMA News