THE “POISON SEED” OF THE FORMER US BASES
Fr. Shay Cullen
12 May 2023
Memories of the previous 50 years, when the US Navy occupied the huge Subic Bay naval base and Olongapo City was then a US recreation sex land where women and child sexual exploitation was rampant.
HIV-AIDS, venereal diseases and drug trafficking were commonplace. The sex city, as it was then known, had dozens of city-approved licensed sex bars and clubs and hotels which areoperated by many retired US sailors. Some are even owned by politicians with city government permits, which allows US servicemen to satisfy their sexual impulses and fantasies without anything holding them back. Disturbingly, even foreign pedophiles were accommodated.
Those days are long gone and a new generation of high-minded political leaders strives to establish and maintain high moral standards in Olongapo City. The same efforts are being made in the former naval base, now converted and managed by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). It is headed by the new chairman and administrator, Jonathan Dy, a good leader that will surely never allow brothels or sex hotels inside the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.
Should we forget the evils of the past, they will visit us again. The expose I made in 1982 of 18 children, some as young as nine years old, who were confined in the Olongapo City hospital for contracting venereal disease caused by sexual abuse rightfully caused international revulsion and outcry.
The local authorities were outraged at my media expose in We Forum, under the name of Marcelo B. Soriano. The administrators of the city turned their followers against this writer and charged me for damaging the “good name” of Olongapo City. I was denounced as a persona non grata, and to be deported for exposing the sexual abuse of children.
ofIndeed, 50 years of the US military bases left a deep moral damage on the Filipino people. due to immoral and failed leaders. The approved sex industry instilled a false narrative among the people. The very wrong saying: “What is good for the US serviceman is good for the Filipino” damaged the moral fabric and Christian beliefs of the Filipinos.
As a result, the sex exploitation of young women and even children, domestic sexual abuse, human trafficking, and online sexual abuse of children for money are now widespread. It all stems from the “Poison Seed” of the US bases and the sex industry that was allowed to thrive.
At the start of my campaign against the US bases, I wrote that “life after the bases” would be better and I proposed a six-point conversion plan. All that I proposed then is reality today and a dream come true, I am happy to say. I believed that the good Filipinos could do it and they did. Clark and Subic are thriving economic zones today.
The renewed military partnership between the United States and the Philippines has brought back the US servicemen and women and the memories. We must strive to see that it will not be a rerun of the terrible exploitation of women and children, so widespread during the more than fifty years of the US naval station at Subic Bay and Olongapo City.
The impact of 50 years of US military bases left a deep moral damage on the Filipino people due to immoral and failed leaders. The approved sex industry instilled a false narrative among the people. The very wrong saying: “What is good for the US serviceman is good for the Filipino” damaged the moral fabric and Christian beliefs of the Filipinos.
As a result the sex exploitation of young women and even children, domestic sexual abuse, human trafficking, and online sexual abuse of children for money are now widespread. It all stems from the “Poison Seed” of the US bases and the sex industry that was allowed to thrive.
Yet the work of saving and healing victims of sex abuse and combating sex tourism, human trafficking and online sexual abuse of children is the current work of the Preda Foundation. The work never stopped and the Preda children’s home has grown through the lock downs and expanded its services to 78 children, residential victim/survivors. They win an average of 18 convictions of their abusers every year. May there be many more saved and victories won.