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Friday, June 30, 2006
Probe bureau 'misled' on cyber sex raid
CEBU CITY -- Law enforcers are trying to wipe out cybersex and online pornography, with agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 raiding a mall-based software development firm Thursday.
They may have ended up with nothing.
The agents confiscated 10 computer sets from the Ex Web Applications System at the ground floor of a mall, but when a randomly selected unit was made to run in the presence of agents, the firm's lawyers and some employees, only sexy photos apparently downloaded from an Internet site could be found.
Ex Web officials believe the NBI got fooled into making the raid through bad information fed by former colleagues.
Charito Amores, officer-in-charge of Ex Web, said three colleagues are under investigation upon orders of Ex Web's Japanese financier for "making a cash cow" out of the company.
The firm's marketed service is merely to make business software for client-companies in Japan.
'Just begun'
"The investigation has just begun. We have already interviewed one of the officials involved," Amores said, adding that the first person called was Ex Web's manager.
The finance comptroller and an incorporator would have been next, she said. However, since the officials were under NBI custody, the firm decided to tap the bureau to do the probe.
NBI 7 Director Medardo de Lemos clarified that nobody was arrested and that no charges have been filed against any of the employees "invited for questioning" after the raid-Amores, Jose Barte, Renante Entera, Liza Camposano, Francis Tuñacao, Amalia Tate, Bal Fernandez, Harold Kim Cantil and Desiree Ababon.
He said the raid was lawfully done, with agents securing a warrant and taking only those that were specified in the document.
"Our specialists from Manila have yet to inspect (the seized computers) so we don't know for certain what is inside," said de Lemos.
Speaking before the Cebu Provincial Board (PB), de Lemos earlier admitted that the local NBI office does not have the capability to handle computer and Internet-related crimes beyond conventional evidence-gathering.
Call to mayors
PB Member Juan Bolo is calling on mayor's of Cebu's 47 towns and five component cities to lead the drive against cyber pornography.
In a resolution he submitted Thursday to the Provincial Secretary's Office, Bolo said the local chief executives must be vigilant of residents who may be engaged in pornography using the Internet and must initiate action against violators.
Bolo cited reports that private homes are now being used as places not only for cyber pornography, but also for prostitution.
"The sanctity and privacy of our homes must not be made as a convenient excuse for us to engage in highly illegal and immoral acts violating the dignity of our women and justifying the lowly image of our women abroad," read the draft resolution that Bolo filed.
First hour
The NBI raid was carried out around 10:30 a.m. Thursday, shortly after the mall opened for business.
Agents served on Ex Web employees a search warrant, signed by Regional Trial Court Branch 13 Judge Meinrado Paredes.
The warrant accused the company and its people of being "engaged in the advertisement and distribution, through the use of information technology and the Internet (data) that promotes trafficking in persons."
The warrant said the acts are "in flagrant violation of the (anti-trafficking of women and children) law."
It authorized the NBI raiding team to seize 12 computers, four laptops, two printers, two fax machines, telephone sets, office furniture, including "tables and chairs and booth," brochures, foreign and domestic currency and documents "used as means in committing the offense."
The raiding team only took the computers, though.
With the way the warrant was phrased, it was expected that the NBI would find software used in uploading large volumes of digital photos, website maintenance tools and databases containing photographs of women available for "clients" and contact information that the "clients" would pay for to obtain.
Instead, there were only photos of naked women downloaded from a website.
"That does not prove that the computer was used in cybersex or online pornography. Anybody who has access to a computer can visit a site and save a posted picture into his own hard disk," Amores said.
Amores believes former Ex Web officials were behind the raid, pointing out that she has been OIC for less than a month but, in the search warrant, her name appeared as the principal.
Insiders
"Only well-connected insiders could have known such a fact," she said.
Sun.Star Cebu is withholding the names of the former officials until a case is filed against them.
Ex Web, Amores said, opened in November last year. Its incorporation papers identify Filipino incorporators but the money to run it came from Japan.
In the course of her employment, she said, the Japanese financier asked her to check out some things that he found suspicious about how the company's money was being spent by the Filipino in charge. (With JPM/Sun.Star Cebu)
(June 30, 2006 issue)
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