Net cafes, DVD shops in CDO checked in anti-porn drive
MindaNews photo by Froilan Gallardo” src=”https://mindanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/28cyberporn6.jpg” width=”620″ height=”412″ /> ANTI-PORN DRIVE. Supt. Danildo Tumanda of the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office checks a shop for pornographic DVDs in Cogon Market in Cagayan de Oro City on Tuesday Jan. 28. The police and the local government have launched an anti-cyberporn campaign after Cagayan de Oro was tagged as among the top four providers of cyberporn materials to the international market. MindaNews photo by Froilan Gallardo
The anti-cyber porn campaign came after the Manila-based Philippine National Police Anti-transnational and Cyber Crime Division pointed to Cagayan de Oro along with three other places in the country as top providers of porn materials involving children in the international market.
The other places that were identified as top transmittal areas for online photography for online pornography were Angeles City, Cebu City and Metro Manila.
Police and members of the Regulatory and Complaints Board (RCB) found children as young as six years old playing computer games in dark and shoddy internet cafes in Cogon public market.
They also found many retail shops along Divisoria and in Cogon public market selling DVDs with pornographic content.
But they found no production sites of pornographic materials involving children that are popular in international adult sites.
Councilor Teodolfo Lao, RCB chief said this is obvious because many of these production sites are reportedly in private homes and posh subdivisions in the city, away from the prying public eyes.
Still, Lao said they warned the internet cafes and DVD retail shops that they were violating local ordinances no. 1890-1985 and 10536-2007 which prohibit the sale of lewd DVD materials and ban children in internet shops during school hours.
“Those in the private houses are harder to monitor,” he said.
Supt. Danildo Tumanda, deputy operations chief of the city police office said the role of Cagayan de Oro in the international porn market was traced through the internet services providers (ISP).[]
“The ISPs were all traced here in Cagayan de Oro. Somewhere here, there is somebody providing the international market with huge volume of pornographic materials,” Tumanda said.
Cagayan de Oro is no stranger to cyber porn activities in the past. Police raided a house in a middle-class subdivision in Barangay Kauswagan in April 2009 and found 17 women including two minors, naked while chatting with foreign clients.
The Regional Trial Court in Cagayan de Oro sentenced to life imprisonment Swedish nationals Bo Stefan Sederholm, 31, and Emil Andreas Solemo, 35, after it found them guilty beyond reasonable doubt as the operators of the cybersex operations.
Tumanda said it is possible that that a syndicate has taken over the cyber operations left by the two suspects.
Teddy Sabugaa, chief of the Cagayan de Oro Social Welfare and Development, proposed involving barangay officials in the campaign to rid Cagayan de Oro of kiddie porn.
“The officials are supposed to know each of their residents. If they can monitor who are staying in their barangays, we already solve 80 percent of the problem,” Sabugaa said. (Froilan Gallardo/MindaNews)
