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The Throwaway Children Of The U.S. Seventh Fleet
First Published: TBA Publication Date: 21st March 1992 Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC During the past twenty two years I came to know many U.S. navy families stationed at Subic and Cubi Naval stations. All were kind, generous and most of them tried hard to understand Filipino culture and customs. They were invariably shocked at the disparity of wealth between the rich minority and the poor majority in this country and were amazed at the gentle, docile and hard-working Filipinos who did so much work for so little pay. Many told me how embarrassed they were because of their own high standard of living and that of the poor who worked for them as gardeners and house maids. Few overcame their poverty on what they earned in such menial jobs. Nor did the thousands of contact labourers prosper either. But it was a job, even if temporary. If the Filipino authorities act quickly, appoint people of integrity and common sense they can create more and better paying jobs through healthy economic conversion of Subic and Cubi. Some of the American families I knew were by and large sympathetic and supportive of Filipino aspirations to overcome poverty and injustice and build a new nation based on peace and a fair distribution of land and wealth. The educated and the enlightened Navy people shed few tears for the love-sick sailors as the carrier force of the 7th fleet sailed away from Subic last week. They knew it was long over-due. Nor did I shed any tears. My tears are reserved for those left behind, the abandoned Filipino-American children who will grow up wondering why their fathers left them without support or love. I shed tears for all women and children sexually abused over the years by the sailors, tourists and local paedophiles who will be traumatized for the rest of their lives. Like the toxic wastes left behind, buried nobody knows where, they are the throwaway children of the departing 7th Fleet. The U.S. navy authorities cannot plead ignorance of the abuse. Their own Naval Investigative Service discovered for themselves the child prostitution rings that flourished and entrapped the lives of the innocents without any direct action either by the Filipino Government, authorities of Olongapo or the U.S. Navy. It still goes on. I walked the streets of Olongapo the night of the last big party and found a child being offered to sailors by a pimp outside Hot City. A cigarette vendor (No 14) intervened to protect the pimp when I called a Barangay police. Now we know how the rings flourish. The police came and told the pimp to take the child home. Later they were back selling the child again. This child had been victimized by an American whose case is still pending in the Olongapo prosecutors office for over a year. No action there either to save the children. Now the victims are all forgotten. Left behind in the wake of the USS Independence as it steamed away for the last time. There are no accurate statistics of how many throwaway children live on in the shacks and shanties of Olongapo slums. It must be thousands who have been rejected and disowned by their American fathers. When the U.S. forces were defeated by the Vietnamese pyjamas - clad army the U.S. organized round the clock flights of Jumbo jets to ferry home to the US thousands of children fathered by American troops. A few years ago the U.S. congress passed legislation making it easy for the children of U.S. Troops in Korea to be repatriated to the United States. But no such treatment for the Filipinos . Are not the Filipino children equally deserving to be recognized and supported and repatriated by their American fathers and the US government who stationed the sailors here who fathered them? The US government gets hypocritically strident about the violation of human rights in China, Iraq, and Burma etc. but it is a concern that is selective and self-serving. But the human rights of those killed in the Philippines through joint Philippine army and Jusmag operations that slaughter and torture innocents ? Not a protest, not even a word of concern no matter what Amnesty International says. Just a deadly silence of consent. Likewise for the Throwaway Children, the flotsam of military waste and abuse. Many U.S. Navy personnel have expressed their disgust at what is happening but they dare not speak out for fear of possible damage to their careers and promotion chances. There are those that care but there are many who don't and refuse to accept even the slightest degree of social or moral responsibility for any abuse especially sex child abuse. One pathologically guilty U.S. Navy captain in Subic told me defensively the other week that child sex abuse by US sailors, if it did happen, was no worse than in the Philippines. "It happens in every town and village" he said. But admitted he had no evidence to back-up his statement. Such racist and irresponsible attitudes help us to focus on the impact of of the U.S. military presence in this country for the past 50 years has yet to be accessed. It can only make us focus all the more on the cultural, social and moral damage that has been left behind by the U.S. Navy and their "human waste" of broken lives and abandoned children. Perhaps the worst and most deadly of all the social evils that have come here is the disease AIDS. Or will they try to put a spin on this and say the Filipina bar women introduced it to them? Now they want a basing agreement for the continued use of Cubi Naval Air Station under the Mutual Defense Agreement. It's time that Filipino people and the authorities take a stand for their own dignity and country and overcome their drug-like addiction to serving US interests and JUST SAY NO !
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