Monday, October 16, 2006 Speak Out: Child exploitation By Faith Sta. Paz of Talamban, Cebu City
A FIVE-YEAR-OLD was able to swim across the Mactan Channel, and was hailed a hero. Amid the jubilation, did anyone see the exhaustion on the child’s face when he was fished out of the water? He looked so tired that he couldn’t even stand, and had to be carried.
Whose idea was it to make the kid swim? Did he, out of the goodness of his heart and his desire to help his fellow Filipinos, come up with it? Or was it the desire of his parents who wish to grab media limelight to make an extra buck? Just wondering.
Hard times call for ingenious solutions. Pimping your child to tourists is illegal, but making them swim long distance is not. Or is the country so desperate for accolade that it is willing to ignore the fact that kids are being used to achieve this.
So what’s the difference between your run-of-the-mill child exploitation and the Mactan Channel swim? Nothing really, except perhaps the latter sounds more sosyal.
