It’s a case of child abuse and human trafficking that has caught much media attention. The case is being heard in the court of Honorable Judge Maria Angelica T. Paras-Quiambao, Regional Trial Court Branch 59, Angeles City, a judge of known integrity. It concerns a United States (US) national, John R., who is accused of sexually abusing two young girls, call them Sybil and Jemma (not their real names). The younger Jemma is 13-years-old and Sybil is 14-years-old. John R.

Twenty young girls, some of them only 14 years of age, were finally rescued from the Victory Hotel that caters to foreign sex tourists in Mabacalat, Pampanga, a few kilometres north of Angeles City by the anti-trafficking police unit in Camp Crame, Quezon City. It was an open fact that child prostitution was the daily routine there.