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Thursday, June 15, 2006
Wenceslao: Cyberporn
By Bong O. Wenceslao
Some of the women involved in Internet pornography are speaking and the public is starting to get the picture. This is no longer just about Cebuanas chatting on the Net with doddering potential foreigner husbands in the hope of eventually escaping from poverty. This is also about earning dollars by baring skin and private parts using web cameras.
In her affidavit attached to the complaint filed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group against American national Mark Woolbright, Cherrybeam Bacus gave us a glimpse of how web porn is transacted in the room of an apartment. Other women told reporters how they make money baring skin and private parts inside Internet cafes.
That means that we are now part of the world’s cyberporn network, an industry so large there should be difficulty preventing its growth in a poverty-stricken environment like ours. Consider this: in the United States alone, studies show that some 15 to 20 million surfers visit cyberspace porn sites each month. That’s already a large market.
Which means that the web porn activities that our authorities have uncovered may either be just a tip of the proverbial iceberg or but preparatory to a deluge. I mean the mix of a corrupt and inept law enforcement, profit motivation and widespread poverty is assurance enough that online pornography will stay and proliferate, if it hasn’t done so.
The operation, like the one alleged in Woolbright’s case, is easy to set up and hide: you get a personal computer, Internet connection, a webcam and a private room and it’s on. For the women, the pay is good. Again in the Woolbright case, the women alleged that they get between P2,000 to P12,000 in 15 days, depending on their “performance.”
An interesting twist to this is that the setup here is most likely be between predator and prey, or between buyer and supplier. Our backward economy ensures that consumers of web porn are foreigners with Cebu and the country providing the supply of human skin and private parts. Imagining that kind of an operation is already disturbing.
I don’t know whether the archdiocese of Cebu has already considered web porn as a problem that needs its action. But there is something in the testimonies of the women that should make religious leaders sit up and notice. I have a problem, for example, with the claim that stripping in front of a webcam is better than engaging in actual prostitution.
E-MAIL. Rex Vecina from Plainfield, Illinois e-mailed to me last month yet (sorry!) his reaction to the feat of three Filipinos reaching Mt. Everest. Like so many Pinoys, Rex said he was “proud of our guys” and “even prouder with their humble attitude” after reaching the summit. Here’s Rex:
“I was touched when Leo Oracion mentioned the word ‘re-unite.’ Wish that our elected officials would rather work together rather than spend their time grappling for the helm of a sinking ship. Every time they do that, the people suffer, and they don't seem to care…It’s sad that I have to compare the majesty of a mountain to our pains.”
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ 0915-9228651/my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 15, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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