By Jan Vicente ‘JV’ B. Pekas
The Philippine government moved swiftly in banning the social media platform, Discord, after the recent school shootings in the nation and the possibility of extremist groups radicalizing these kids. The government has also made their intention to developing a framework to protect children from online sexual abuse and exploitation. It has reached out to two social media platforms in Discord and Reddit in this matter.
This sudden urge to protect our children is all but a surprise, most especially at the speed that these officials actually moved. But for how long has the Philippines been labelled as a popular sex tourism nation? Stories are out there of Filipino families so deep in poverty they have resorted to selling their young daughters to foreigners. Foreigners enter this nation and do their way with children and they escape local punishment. Are the communities near the U.S. military bases not prime hotspots for sexual abuses of women and children? And yet, we continue to cooperate with the U.S. and let them build their military outposts in our land as if we are still their colonial subject. Let us not forget the murder of Jennifer Laude by the U.S. Marine Pemberton. Duterte sided with the white killer and pardoned him.
The government does not get to use the protection of minors and their people as justification in banning a social media app when they have been content to let the abuse of women and children go on for so long
All this is happening while the government continues to let these gambling platforms and advertisements ravage the poor and barely surviving Filipinos. The level of acceptance for gambling, a sin mentioned many times in the Bible, in this Catholic nation has reached the point where gambling companies are able to join the parade in the recently held Panagbenga Festival this year.
As citizens of a hypocritical government, let us look beyond the superficial statements of the lackeys and find the actual reasoning. The hidden agenda to suppress government dissent and freedom of expression. The colonial treatment and exploitation of resources from the U.S. The distraction and division of the masses from uniting.
The fancy wordings posted by the government is hardly the real reason for which they have committed to the act. Hence, it falls to us to see through these lies. We must always educate ourselves, whether we are inside or outside the classroom. All that which we learned in school are designed by the upper class. If we remain content to only limit our learning to what they want us to learn, then we will only remain as the exploited by the exploiters.
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