POINT: The word "trashing" means to vandalize, garbage or disparage. So Filipinos destroy their grain prior to taking it to market? The correct term used in the Philippines is “threshing”. Perhaps Shay Cullen changed the word for his Irish readers, but shouldn’t he have at least explained the term better?

Page 19: These quaint bamboo cottages were the homes of the cane cutters, the lowest paid humans on earth, and they didn’t own them. I learned later that they paid rent that was deducted from their earnings, which were so little that slavery would have been a better alternative. At least they would be fed and given medical treatment being a valuable piece of property. The sacadas I saw were throwaway people.

POINT: Shay Cullen is describing Filipinos as preying on each other, and even points to facts he claims to know, such as how much they were paid, and that amount was less than anywhere else in the world. Shay Cullen's description of the Filipino land owner as a heartless, cruel individual with no regard for the rights of others, and even claims that the land owner were little LESS than slaves.

Page 24: One late afternoon before sunset, I left the rectory dressed in casuals and took a short ‘jeepney’ ride into the heart of ‘Sin City’, the center being right outside the gate of the U.S. Navy Base. The nightclub strip called Magsaysay Drive was blazing with neon lights.

POINT: Shay characterizes a whole Filipino city as having no morals. This is libel.

Page 31: There are the few unscrupulous doctors who have fallen into the temptation to make deals with the pharmaceutical companies to scribble their prescriptions so the generic name is garbled and only the branded medicine stands out. They get a big discount if they buy for their private clinics or gifts for prescribing a monthly quota.

The practice is to over prescribe and even prescribe medicine that is unnecessary. Pharmacies owned by a relative or friend normally don’t prescribe the generic named medicine unless specifically asked by the family of the patient who doesn’t even know what a generic drug is and never ask for it. Many a good doctor told me about these anomalies in the profession that is subject to greed and avarice like every other.

POINT: This would give the reader a feeling that the doctors could not be trusted in the Philippines. Again libel

Page 47: Marcos was already growing rich, powerful and autocratic. The poor were left on the road to economic hell and Marcos and his wife Imelda couldn’t care less. He was accumulating gold and she was collecting diamonds – and shoes. She had not sensitivity to the contradiction of being photographed kneeling in prayer holding a dangling rosary made of priceless diamonds, while outside the walls thousands dangled between life and death.

POINT: Senator Imelda Marcos is alive and well and could conceivably filed charges herself for libel on the above statement, as it portrays her to be heartless and money-hungry.

Page 48: The few emaciated bodies of so-called rebels that I had seen in front of the town hall that morning were later said to be tenant farmers driven off their land and had surrendered with their antiquated guns but were executed almost immediately. Death squads were nothing new to the Philippines. The armed goons of a greedy landlord had driven them off the land so he could sell it for corporate farming.

POINT: Shay Cullen portrays land owners as greedy and violent, and calls Filipinos "goons" as well as claiming that death squads were commonplace. Such disparaging terms are libelous.

Pages 108-109: I soon had reservations and serious doubts about the treatment given to the teenagers when we brought them to the basement of a government hospital, in Quezon City, which had been given over to DARE by Imelda Marcos – Imelda of the three thousand pairs of shoes.

POINT: By italicizing the final words to give it emphasis in Shay Cullen's book, could Senator Imelda Marcos take offense?

Page 134: The military high command called them ‘Lost Commands’ and refused to take responsibility for what they did. They were supposed to be disbanded and arrested but, in fact, it was obvious they had lots of emunitions and access to weapons and supplies. They were terror troops turned loose to subdue the population. They were for hire too when rich business and plantation owners wanted areas cleared of tenants or poor communities or to put down a strike at a sugar mill.

POINT: Shay Cullen clearly says that the Philippine military were supporting terrorists who were hired by Filipino land owners to terrorize tenants or poor communities.

Page 138: The poor did not have their own fishing boats or nets but they rented them at a very high cost from the wealthy boat owners further up the river.

POINT: Shay Cullen implies without qualification that fishermen were routinely overcharged by boat owners. Filipino disparagement without facts to back up the statements?

Page 139: In the eyes of the elite and the military, the poor were pests, they were sub-human who had nothing to contribute to economic growth and had nothing that could be exploited.

POINT: Shay Cullen knows what the elite and military think, and so state it for consumption by world opinion?

Page 149: A young staff trainee Conrado Villarez came rushing into the centre one morning during that hot draught plagued June of 1980. He breathlessly announced that a bloodied body had been found along the roadside near our driveway. We hurried down to learn who it could be but the personnel of the Fernandez Funeral Home had removed the body. It was another unknown victim of the death squad, a shadowy group of armed men that had recently appeared picking up suspects, many of them young men. Some disappeared, others were found mutilated and dead. A reign of fear descended on the city. This was a new cruel face of Martial Law. Until then there was little evidence of the heavy hand of the Marcos regime in the city. Perhaps out of deference to the sensibilities of the American personnel at the US Navy Base the killing squads had spared the population. Perhaps the former city administration had been reluctant to allow it. But now there was a so-called crackdown on crime.

POINT: Shay Cullen clearly says that the Philippines uses death squads as a means to fight crime. He gives no off-chance regard that the killing might have been done by criminals not connected with the government. Is that not libel?

Page 149: The following July we woke up to the roaring of a bulldozer and a back-hoe digging away at the bottom of our driveway. We rushed down to learn that Mrs Amelia Gordon, mother of Richard, the new Mayor, had ordered the city engineer to prepare a grave site where a tomb and grotto was to be constructed right on the edge of our driveway. A young man a godchild of the Gordon family, was killed by a snatcher in Manila and was to be buried there. However much we respected the dead and were sympathetic with the family of the boy, our driveway was not the most appropriate place to build a tomb.

I went to Mrs Gordon to discuss it but she would not talk to me. There was nothing we could do, her aides explained. They claimed rights over all property in the city. Our property line was in dispute so we had no cause to complain, they said. Later, because of our objections to the site of the tomb, I was accused with “throwing bodies from the cemetery onto the National Highway”. This ridiculous allegation was to be repeated for years afterwards.

POINT: Shay Cullen, a priest, interrupts Filipino funerals, and then claims that he was the one who was disparaged by the Filipinos in a book that is not for sale in the Philippines. Was there no disparaging in referring to a mother ordering city engineers to dig graves? After all, would she have authority to order such action?

Page 150: A few months later the son of a congressman, a friend of the Mayor, got a permit to hold a fashion show at the Marmont Hotel in Barrio Barretto, a nearby community. In order to get a permit he presented the show as a charity event with PREDA to be the so-called beneficiary. We were never informed about this and it turned out to be a nude show, nothing unusual in Olongapo where it was a common form of entertainment in the many bars and clubs that thrived on this dehumanising parade of young girls as a prelude to prostitution. To our amazement we were accused of conducting a lewd show and that was to be the basis of having our operating license as a rehabilitation revoked. Now we felt that we were being specifically targeted. I had to take a court action against the organiser to clear our name from this frame up. It never made it to court as our complaint was dismissed out of hand without even a preliminary hearing. But we made our point and that was to be important in the years to come.

POINT: The owner of the Marmont Hotel at the time was a political rival of the Gordon Family. Does it make sense that they would support a show at the behest of the Mayor or his friends?

Page 160 On June 5, 1982 the mother of Jenny, a nine-years-old Filipino-American child, went to St. Joseph’s Community Centre to get help for her daughter who was showing signs of genital infection. The mother and child were referred to the Pope John XXIII Clinic, a church run clinic for the poor. The nine-years-old was found to have herpes, an incurable form of venereal disease.

POINT: Despite the fact that it is against the provisions of Republic Act 7610 to give details to the public about child sexual abuse cases, in this book, written in 2006 by Shay Cullen, one of the complainants in the case against me, has violated law in such a manner as to be very specific in sensationalizing cases of Filipino children sexually abused to the world at large, with no attempt to withhold names, places or incidents in violation of basic human rights of privacy. This is not the only instance; there are far too many examples to list them all here. The following quote is from Republic Act 7610:

SEC. 23. CONFIDENTIALITY OF RECORDS. – All records pertaining to cases of sexual abuse shall be strictly confidential and no information relating thereto shall be disclosed except in connection with any court or official proceeding based thereon.

The unauthorized disclosure of the aforementioned records shall be punishable by a fine of not more than two thousand four hundred pesos (P 2,400.00) or by imprisonment of not more than one (1) year or such fine and imprisonment.

Page 160: When the City Health Officer, Dr. Generoso Espinosa, confirmed the condition of the children, Gordon promptly ordered that they be locked away in small room in the TB section of the ramshackle general hospital. They were warned not to talk about what had happened.

POINT: In reference to Mayor Richard Gordon of Olongapo City at the time, the inference that Shay Cullen gives his readers is that a politician interfered in medical decisions. This does not seem to speak highly of Filipino politicians to the world at large, and the now Senator could conceivably file libel for this book.

Page 161: The room was reeking with the smell of the long lingering sickness of half a century. It was dirty and threadbare, rumpled beds with old filthy blood stained navy mattresses were jammed together and the children were jumping up and down on them making a ruckus. They settled down to hungrily devour the cakes and drinks we had brought them.

POINT: Shay Cullen obviously has no qualms about showing to the world the messy, dirty, unclean conditions of a hospital, whether the conditions described were true or not. At any rate, the point that the descriptions casts shame on the Philippines is self-evident.

Page 161-162: The prostituted children told us their story and said that they had told it all before to Gordon’s investigators. They skipped school and frequented the streets most of the week begging from the sailors and went home about three times a week. They were street children. Pimps offered them money to go to the apartments and rented houses where US sailors had sex with them. None of the children being prostituted was older than sixteen. The pimps then gave them fifty pesos, about five dollars.

Three pimps were identified and named in the press. However, despite vows by Gordon to prosecute, nothing apparently was ever done to bring them to trial.

POINT: Shay Cullen names children and government officials, but disguises the names of those who abuse or prostitute children by simply calling them "pimps" and obviously he knows their names; nor does he show any effort at all to have such perverts arrested and charged for violating the human rights of children. And this same theme continues throughout his book in a very disparaging manner against all Filipino values of family, dignity and honor to the world.

Page 162: Another child, Analiza, was brought by Doc to an area on the river bank near the bridge joining the city and base called Friendship Park across Lot 21. There, in public, he put her sitting on his lap, draped her dress over his knees and had sex with her while onlookers stared but did nothing.

POINT: By stating that onlookers stared but did nothing, what is Shay Cullen saying about the moral values of the Filipino to the world at large?

Page 163: Not only did children run after the sailors, begging for pesos, the national leadership was continually looking to the White House begging bowl in hand.

POINT: Shay Cullen puts the government of the Philippines on par with beggars.

Page 171: It was now October 1982 and relations had not improved. A signed petition sent to the Columbans and to Bishop Henry Byrne from various Catholic church organisations, the local United Methodist Church and the Masons to have me removed from Olongapo appeared. I was an undesirable and must be banished.

The reasons given: I abused the hospitality of the People of Olongapo! As a journalist, I had acted unethically and irresponsible in exposing the prostitution of the children. I had allegedly accused the Mayor and the US Naval Base commander of covering up the crimes against the children. “Fr. Cullen should have been helping them (the children) in matters of faith, and virtue and spiritual guidance,” the petition read. But worst of all I had failed to show priestly concern for the people of Olongapo, and I was a hindrance to the growth to the city.

Mayor Gordon took the position that the children were rape victims and not prostitutes as if this in some way changed the terrible reality. Dougherty was brought before a general Court Martial in Guam. The US Navy flew out the seven children to testify, but the Court Martial did not call them. Gordon went to Guam now loudly protesting the terrible crime that he failed to bring to trial. Later he lambasted the light sentence of the military court.

POINT: Shay Cullen admits in his book that even his fellow clergy were turned against him for his disparaging remarks about the Philippines. He then continues to call children "prostitutes" and not "rape victims" and defends his stance as if calling them "prostitutes" would be a better description of Filipino children. Furthermore, Shay Cullen never took the effort to attend trial in Guam and achieve any conviction, but he does take the credit rather than giving the credit to the Filipinos who did go to Guam for the trial.

Page 181: At PREDA we were trying to be self reliant and operate a sustainable project. We did try to make the parents of the teenagers responsible by asking them to contribute to their child’s recovery. But most were very poor and those from a middleclass background were reluctant to help preferring to exclude the child from the family and use PREDA as a human garbage heap for their family problems. All too frequently parents refused to accept their shortcoming and accept that they had a role in the problems that contributed to the drug addiction of the son.

POINT: Shay Cullen claims that families had no concern for their families, treating their offspring like trash, and refusing to help. Quite a poor representation to the world about the family values of the Filipinos, isn't it?

Page 209: The bases were an accepted and integral part of Philippine political and economic scene for the past fifty years and life without the American presence had been unthinkable. It was important to take the initiative and present new concepts of national life no matter how unacceptable they were to the majority. We were elated that the discussions on alternatives were taking place. They gave legitimacy and respect to the concept and the plan grew with every discussion. We felt we were participating in what might one day contribute to a change in Philippine history.

POINT: Shay Cullen and his staff were taking measures to impose their will on the Filipino people, even "no matter how unacceptable they were to the majority."

Page 210: Two of the boys in the PREDA community came rushing to the centre to tell us excitedly that there was a bulldozer climbing the hill to demolish the houses. We had heard roumours that a brothel owner was claiming part of the hillside under the PREDA leasehold and was planning to build an exclusive villa there, no doubt another brothel.

Those are not 'houses" to the right and upper right in

the above picture: That is the Olongapo City Cemetery.

See below for a roadside view.

POINT: The "houses" he is talking about did not exist. The bulldozer, according to sources I have, came up to destroy an illegally-built septic tank that was oozing foul liquids into the cemetery that borders Preda Foundation, Inc. Besides, what brothel owner would build a fancy villa in a cemetery? See the above pictures

Page 210: I felt a stab of nausea in my stomach, a sickly feeling of anger and fear. There would be a nasty fight ahead against politicians and their land grabbing cronies running the sex industry. I wondered if the community leaders had been intimidated to the point of surrender of their new settled plots. They had not contacted us or asked any help.

POINT: The point is very clear: Shay Cullen felt anger and fear. Anger at being caught with an illegally built septic tank, and fear of the consequences. Why would community leaders in a cemetery be "intimidated to the point of surrender of their new settled plots"? COULD they ask for help?

Page 216: Among the street children were several who were sexually abused by local paedophiles and sex tourists. Nothing much had changed since the Daniel Dougherty case in 1983. One day, on May 14, 1987, forty-five-years-old Gaspar Alcantara, one of the illegal squatters who moved into the relocation community on the PREDA leasehold, saw a young girl lying in the street along Magsaysay Avenue not far from the gate of the US Military base. She was in pain and her cotton dress was dirty, threadbare and covered in blood. There was a foul smell coming from her emaciated body. There were bystanders but they were doing nothing except gawking at her cramped body.

He walked her to a passing jeepney and brought her to the hospital. He pretended to the admitting clerk that he did not know the girl and gave her name as “Tomboy”, and an address as Lower Kalaklan. He later admitted that he knew her well for over a year and that she was a child that was visiting a friend at the hillside shack of his twin brother at Nagbaculao. According to neighbours, Alcantara was suspected of being her pimp.

POINT: Note that he names Gaspar Alcantara, notes him as a squatter, and accuses the man of being a pimp. The only man who helps the child is disparaged in this manner, and all other Filipinos are said to be gawking and doing nothing. Shay Cullen even claims he gave her NAME as "Tomboy", a word commonly used in the Philippines for lesbian. Believable? I think not. Further, on page 85 of Shay Cullen's book, he describes Mr. Alcantara as a hit man.

Page 225: Making a payment to settle a case is a common practice in the Philippines. Social workers would tell me that the local police negotiated the price with the parents of the victim. The parents were told that the case would be impossible to prove, it would cost them a fortune in legal fees to fight in court so it was better to settle. The abuser was free to target others victims until caught again. Corrupt Prosecutors are also known to shelve or settle such cases under the table. In the years ahead this practice became a target for our publicity campaigns for children’s rights.

POINT: This is showing to the world's pedophiles and perverts that the Philippines is the place where such deviants can get their rocks off without worrying about the government authorities or even the families who might try to obtain justice for their children. Indeed, even by the end of the book, Shay Cullen never changed the tone of the story: Perverts are welcome in the Philippines.

Page 229: Prostitution is a crime under Philippine law but it is seldom enforced and many of the women are abused while in custody, the bar owners pay the police and the next day everything is back to normal. Other clever bar operators invite the chief of police to a party, there he “accidentally” meets a very young waitress who is then encouraged and paid to become his girlfriend. He is now involved sexually with a minor and has to protect the industry lest he be exposed. Not only police but even Prosecutors and Judges can fall into traps like these are compromised and are easily blackmailed.

POINT: Continued defamation of the government, police, prosecutors and even judges.

Page 246: There was a growing hostility and opposition to our efforts to help the deprived settlers and our campaign to replace the military base with an economic zone. Local politicians made critical remarks too about the PREDA campaign for children’s rights. Some who had interests in the entertainment industry claimed that our campaign branded the city as a “Sin City”, and gave it a bad reputation that kept away tourists. According to the politicians, there was no evidence that there was any child prostitution in the city.

POINT: Did Shay Cullen and his staff brand Olongapo as "Sin City", or is this a misdirection of critical remarks? Consider Shay Cullen's own words on page 4 of his book: "One late afternoon before sunset, I left the rectory dressed in casuals and took a short ‘jeepney’ ride into the heart of ‘Sin City’, the center being right outside the gate of the U.S. Navy Base. The nightclub strip called Magsaysay Drive was blazing with neon lights."

Page 249: Later some government officials said the pimps escaped because I wrote about the investigation in my weekly column. That was long after the authorities had identified the suspects and they had disappeared. It was clear that a policy of cover up and denial by higher authorities had buried any prosecution. It would make the city look at itself and surely they would not like what they would see.

POINT: Ok, so the pimps escaped. Shay Cullen says not because of him, and the authorities claim because of him. Either way, did Shay Cullen just admit that he wrote about the atrocious behavior of the suspects? Even when he writes his book in 2006 of an event that occurred seven years earlier, according to him, why does he refuse to divulge the names of the so-called pimps? Is he protecting them from something?

Page 265-266: That October PREDA social workers were in contact with two children on the streets persuading them to come over the centre. They did and told that they were child prostitutes and had been going with foreigners for sex since they had been eleven and twelve-years-old. They named one retired serviceman and another active one as those currently abusing them. The mother of one of the children, who was at this time fifteen, then filed a formal complaint with Prosecutor Dorentino Floresta and it became another indication of the extent of child prostitution.

At PREDA, we were not very knowledgeable as to the legal process necessary to monitor and help support the case for the children. Four days after making the complaint the mother of one of the children did an about turn and claimed she was “forced” into it and withdrew her charges. We were astounded. We heard later that the city legal officer order the police to bring the mother to her office and soon after she dropped her complaint. The authorities did not press any charge despite the testimony of the child. We were dumbfounded. Alex and myself and the social workers visited the mother at her home and found a very frightened and intimidated woman. There was nothing we could do.

POINT: Shay Cullen does not name those perpetrating such abuses of power, nor of the sexual abusers of children, even after many years, yet he lays out the circumstances of what happened to children in a flamboyant manner that is meant to shame the Filipino. Again, this is an encouragement for sexual deviants to come to the Philippines to abuse women and children with no threat to their own persons, and these complainants have the gall to say that I shame Filipinos and demand my deportation when they are the real perpetrators of such shame themselves and my crime has been to find out about their activities and bring it to the attention of the authorities by filing complaints against them.

Page 269: The article read: “When the ships anchor at Subic Bay Naval Base, Juanita sells her only possession – her thirteen-years-old daughter. Sailors and Marines pay $5 a night to indulge their fantasies, using Christy as an erotic toy. In the morning, the girl slips into a blue-and-white uniform and walks to school, where her mental retardation has kept her in the first grade."

POINT: Shay Cullen makes it a shameful point that Filipinos sell their offspring to survive in a book not for sale to the Filipino. He holds no punches in mentioning the mother's name, the daughter's name, the circumstances, how much she gets and so forth. This is nothing more than shameful writing at its worst, defamation of Filipinos, and his hiding of names of perpetrators and those who cover up such crimes is nothing less than despicable. For him to write such garbage is nothing more than being a pimp to the Filipino, making money off the misery he sees and doing little to eradicate the situation, and his staff do not want him to be brought to justice, hence their unwavering support against me for trying to uncover the truth about Preda Foundation, Inc.

Page 272: Outside there was a staged demonstration. There was a crowd waiting in force with placards denouncing me by name, one read: CULLEN, Journalist – NO, Opportunist – Yes! Others had derogatory slogans. The media were following in hot pursuit and it was clear that this was staged for the media. The rent-a-rally crowd had been prepared and briefed in advance – a common phenomenon in political rallies and demonstrations. They were shouting invective insults and derogatory comments, as I tried to make my way out.

The police were ready too to “give protection” and to heighten the spectacle and impression that this was a person non-grata and all that I represented was totally rejected. They began throwing things at me: rotten vegetables and stones, I learned later. I walked directly away, ignoring the curses, taunts and shouts as the crowd broke and ran down the street after me waving placards. Alex was there. He had witnessed it all and, as soon as he was a break in the crowd, he drove in, snapped open the door and we were away.

POINT: Is Shay Cullen telling the whole story? In our complaint for deportation filed, in 2004, one of the attachments was a complaint for his deportation in 1987 that mentioned the above incident, and I quote from that: WHEREAS, last November 10,1989, during the senate committee hearing on the bases chaired by Sen. Leticia Shahani, Cullen heaped insult on the people of Olongapo saying that the city is nothing but a hovel of sinners and criminals. As a result, he was almost mobbed by a jeering crowd; Therefore, was the crowd a "rent-a-rally" as alleged in Shay Cullen's book simply to disparage the Filipino, or were there hot tempers against Shay Cullen? Is Shay Cullen's disparagement of the police justified, or else why was it only later he learned that rotten vegetables and stones were hurled at him due to the fact that the police did, in fact, protect his person?

Page 277-278: The trafficking of minors was as rampant as ever. A Manila-based tabloid reported that young teenage girls were being picked in Manila and sold into the bars and brothels of Olongapo.

POINT: The clearness of this simple paragraph is self-evident as to the promotion of the Philippines as haven for sexual abuse of Filipino youth.

Page 279: A formal hearing by the Commission on Immigration and Deportation began on November 23. The list of unfounded complaints from seventeen Olongapo Officials claimed that I was an “undesirable alien” and an enemy of the Filipino people. They alleged that I was portraying Olongapo as a crime city, engaging in business in violation of my vocation (handicraft training). They also absurdly claimed that I was abusing Filipino hospitality, attacking Filipino dignity and honour. The almost endless list of complaints also stated that I was usurping the drug rehabilitation centre and using it to solicit donation for the handicraft project. The complaint also said that I had continually criticized Olongapo for being a hovel of sinners and criminals. They even complained about some small construction project we made near the cemetery and, most weird of all, was a charge of sponsoring lewd shows!

POINT: This paragraph is as clear as one can get that I have not been the only one to claim that Shay Cullen has defamed the Philippines. And I am being charged to be deported for "defaming and shaming Filipinos" when I have done nothing wrong? Did you notice the similarity of "some small construction project near the cemetery" and the incident recounted on page 210 of his book?

Page 283: On January 24, when I was on my way to Manila, I read that there was an arrest warrant issued for me by the Acting Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo. This was a form of harassment as there was no danger I would fail to attend the hearings but it was manipulated to make me appear like a criminal. An arrest in the Philippines is often interpreted by the public as a sign of guilt no matter how innocent the accused might be.

POINT: The incident is made to appear to Shay Cullen's readers that the Immigration personnel, even as high as the Acting Immigration Commissioner, could be corrupt. Is that pro-Filipino?

Page 287: We were in the midst of the deportation case, bombarded with false and baseless and bizarre accusations, staffers being recruited to give false testimony and now this, another crises that we could do without. There seemed to be no end to the plots, manipulations and intrigues deployed to destroy our work.

POINT: The deportation case was against Shay Cullen, so what plots is he talking about to destroy the work of Preda Foundation, Inc.? This is the same tactic he is using against me, due to the fact that I complain about unjust accusations about myself that have never once reached court by Shay Cullen or any of his staff, yet on the other hand, court cases filed have been pulled from the courts without hearings by even the Office of the President, and Shay Cullen complains loudly to the world that the Philippines is corrupt. He might well say that, because without such corruption, he would be in jail and deported, as he well knows.

Page 296: Pagsanjan is a small scenic town two hours south of Manila, famous for a deep gorge and a shallow rapids that end at a towering waterfall. Thousands of tourists, mostly Japanese, enjoy the boat ride over the rapids in the shallow dugouts. The famous scenery had become a cover for a shady business in the trafficking in children for sexual abuse and prostitution of small boys. The paedophiles were mostly Caucasian, wealthy and many of them took up residence in the town for a few months of the year. They gave lavish gifts to the family of the boys that they befriended and had the boys go live with them in rented apartments.

The wealthy ones built new houses for the family. Whether the parents knew that there was sexual abuse in the relationship or not, they went along with it, mesmerised by the flow of money and luxury gifts showered on them. Local politicians, who were themselves owners of hotels and apartments, prospered by renting rooms to the paedophiles. Many were their staunch protectors.

POINT: This clearly identifies the Philippines, shows that the authorities are corrupt and that sexual deviants are welcomed and protected. Isn't this anti-Filipino?

Page 300-301: Shay Cullen, in three or four paragraphs, describes how he helped in the marriage trade.

POINT: He clearly mentions the passage of Republic Act 6955 on page 301, but why did he admit that he engaged in the practice of helping such women?

Page 302: Framing up innocent people who are critics or rivals is a common tactic in Philippines. Writers, human rights advocates and troublesome clerics as well as opposition politicians are the main targets. I was to be one for many years to come. And much more lay ahead.

POINT: Shay Cullen stated clearly and concisely what are common underhanded practices in the Philippines to the world to the shame of all Filipinos. Is this not reason enough to deport him?

Page 303-304: Later, because of severe critics by the women’s right groups and ourselves at PREDA, the city gave a few former bar women jobs in the city health centre as a publicity stunt. A short term preventive education programme had begun under intense international pressure. The Government in Olongapo And Angeles were adamant in maintaining the fiction that there was no prostitution, only entertainment in their cities. AIDS-positive people were the unquestionable proof of uncaring and neglect and the consequence of the sex trade that they provided for their people. For them there was no money in sightseeing tourism as there was nothing to see. In Olongapo, the beaches are so filthy that no foreign tourist would go there.

POINT: Shay Cullen defames the City of Olongapo by claiming that no foreign tourist would go there due to the filthy beaches, yet throughout the book, where are all the tourists that he claims are in the Philippines?

Page 314: I passed by the local jail on Magsaysay Drive that leads to the main gate of the Naval Base and noticed two street boys behind bars. I talked to the policeman on duty about releasing the children. He was irritated, his mind was on something else that New Year’s Eve and it wasn’t the release of kids to a pesky priest. But I persisted, and eventually he called the police van, an old converted jeep painted white with wire mesh for windows. The kids were bundled into it and sent over to the government-run Lingap Centre for Children. This was managed by the national government’s agency Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). The city government made a point of never referring any street children or abused children to the PREDA Centre. They were under instructions from higher authorities not to do so. They feared that we would find evidence of many sexual assaults on the children and demand investigations. Soon the Lingap Centre was overcrowded with boys and girls.

POINT: Shay Cullen is saying here that the police are afraid that Preda Foundation, Inc. will uncover evidence of child abuse, but not the DSWD? Is Shay Cullen insinuating to the world that 1) the police allow, cover up or encourage sexual abuse, and 2) the DSWD would not report it to the authorities and 3) the only honest place in the world is Preda Foundation, Inc.?

Page 326-327: President Bush had made the greatest blunder of his career in regard to foreign policy when as vice-president under Reagan he praised the dictator Marcos and gushed on about how much he admired the tyrant’s “adherence to democratic principle”. This was at a time when there was more democratic principle among the sewer rats of Malacanang than the entire Marcos dictatorship that was steeped in the blood of thousands of victims of torture, foul murders, cruel executions and countless acts of Injustice.

POINT: There are many in the government today who were in the government then. Would they take kindly to their comparison to sewer rats?

Page 370: I drove through the center of Olongapo. It would never be the same again. Every bar and club was closed, shuttered and the hoarding of the building damaged during the volcanic eruption stood like broken teeth. The bands had packed up and the girls were gone. It was a ghost town overnight and the inhabitants were in a state of shock. There was no other industry or business in the city. The sex industry had totally collapsed. I walked through the deserted streets to savour the quiet reverie that had descended like a curtain on a noisy pantomime. Everything had been so unreal, so artificial and so dishonest. The greatest fake show had ended, the lies and manipulations had ended, the phoney smiles and insincere laughs were silent as the ghost town atmosphere descended and no flashy neon light cut through the gloom and darkness. There was hardly a jeepney moving along Magsaysay Drive that was once a bustling thoroughfare. While I was saddened by the loss of the jobs of so many workers in the US military base, I knew that many would take a generous retirement package and others would be well qualified to work abroad for a while and earn three times as much as they had at Subic Bay. Then, there was our vision of the conversion of the facilities to a thriving economic zone where many more jobs would be created.

POINT: A continuing point Shay Cullen makes about Olongapo City was that "there was no other industry or business in the city" other than sex, and here it is very clearly stated. How does that play to such places as Eastern Machine Shop on Rizal, Wimpy's restaurant on Rizal, Ocampo's, Choa or RC department stores to name only three, Kong's restaurant on Magsaysay, the many hardware stores, the dress shops, the battery remanufacturing that was done for local vehicles, the many auto repair shops, the motorcycle sidecar makers, the three public markets that were in Olongapo, among others, the local craftsmen that made wooden deskplates, mugs, model airplanes and ships, the barber shops, the beauty shops, the artisans who made velvet paintings, belts and fancy buckles? Shay Cullen claims that Olongapo is the Sin City, the Sex Capital of the world, and other names, BUT HAD NO OTHER INDUSTRY OR BUSINESS. How does that play to the dignity of the Filipino?

Page 373: It was incredibly difficult to implement this, although later Alex was elected as a representative to the Central Luzon Regional Development Coordinating Council. Alex organised a coalition of the non-government organisations in Zambales and Olongapo. The coalition also had the right to monitor election procedures and results. As a consequence, the massive fraud in the Olongapo City elections was uncovered and the elections were suspended. The family dynasty that ruled the city was shaken to its roots. It was discovered that the number of registered voters far exceeded the number of eligible voters. Thirty-five percent of the population is the normal percentage of the population eligible to vote, according to figures from the Commission on Elections and the Supreme Court. The Olongapo voter registration was sixty percent of the city’s population. There was a serious incident when Attorneys Sergio Cruz and Jun Cesa, official election monitors, were questioning the registration of additional voters that they believed were non-residents of the city. They took this to court and during the proceeding the incumbent candidate arrived with a troop of goons and unbelievably proceeded to threaten the lawyers in the courtroom. It reached such an emotional pitch the candidate threw the Judge’s gavel at the lawyers while he cowered. Such was the wrath of the politician who was being challenged. Needless to say, the hearing was postponed and the lawyers made formal complaints to the Commission on Elections.

POINT: Shay Cullen claims his book is about human rights and dignity and protection of the child. Does the above paragraph cover any of that or is it simply a sidebar into politics and making fun of the Filipino politicians? Is the term "goons" noticeable to the reader?

Page 386: We realised that this was the first time that a foreigner suspected of child sexual abuse was charged in this way. Unknown to us, it was the opening of a war against the sex mafia that was to continue indefinitely and involve us in a confrontation with leaders and customers of the sex mafia, a bishop, priests, politicians and government officials in the years to come. There was retribution and threats from the organised sex mafia to frame us with false charged to have our licence to operate withdrawn and close the PREDA Centre once and for all. That would end any opposition to their trafficking of women and children. The press were soon onto the story and the news of the pending trial was widely reported in the Australian media and elsewhere. The video footage of the arrest of Fitzgerald on the boat with the three children was used in many documentary video reports. The publicity was already having its effect and we hoped it was keeping away the less determined sex tourists. The operators of the bars and brothels were uneasy and we began to receive nasty phone calls of a threatening nature. It turned out that Fitzgerald had been in Olongapo and Subic for many months previous to his arrest and had friends in the bars and brothels.

POINT: Is Shay Cullen claiming that a bishop and priests consort with the sex mafia and government officials? How defaming is that to the Philippines?

Shay Cullen is quoting in his book in many places the law (R.A. 7610). Why is it that Shay Cullen's video from his camera gets in the news (confirmed with his own statement on page 385, where he said, "I stayed on the beach and sent a staff member with the video camera to accompany the two agents as they got a small outrigger from a fisherman and went out to the boat."? Did he violate the law and publicly embarrass Filipino children and their families to the world?

Page 436: Death squads are not new to the city of Davao. There is a history going back to the Alsa Masa and other fascist groups that unleashed a reign of terror on the city residents in 1988 to combat communist infiltration. Davao is a wealthy city in Souther Mindanao, (Mindanao is the second to the largest island of the Philippines), that thrives on tourism and the fruit industry.

POINT: Clearly aimed anti-Filipino statements claiming that Davao, which is admitted in the paragraph to thrive on tourism and the fruit industry, is a dangerous place. Therefore, would tourists want to go there knowing that death squads abound and have been tolerated for decades?

Page 437: I wrote a letter dated September 8 1999 to the Mayor describing the killings and quoting a national newspaper article which said Mayor Benjamin de Guzman supported “secret marshals”. I was leaving for abroad and arranged with the PREDA staff that the letter be sent a few days after I left.

POINT: Shay Cullen was charged in court for the libelous letter by Mayor De Guzman, yet he published it again in his book after the Mayor graciously withdrew the complaint under pressure from Archbishop of Davao, Fernando R. Capalla, thru his emissaries, Fr. Pete Lamata and Fr. Paul Cunanan and other Non-Governmental Oranizations, "in the spirit of genuine reconciliation and unity". Was Shay Cullen's action to republish the letter in a book not visible in the Philippines a malicious act?

Page 442: Mayor de Guzman lost the next election and his rival, Rodrigo Duterte, was elected. The death squad became more active and the killings increased. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed Duterte as crisis manager for Southern and Central Mindanao. A crises allegedly created by the rampant killing for which no one was arrested or brought to justice.

POINT: Not only is Mayor De Guzman branded a supporter of killers, so it the following Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. Even President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is covered in the same paragraph, and that is not defamation of the Filipino? More interestingly, when he and his staff filed a complaint for my deportation (still not resolved after a year), they said that I defame Filipinos. Am I doing that, or is he?

Pages 444-445: In Puerto Galera, there was a big cover up of the abuse of the beach babies by the public officials. They were more intent on protecting their foreign high paying customers and sex tourist business than the children. The child victims were hidden away. Not even the DSWD social workers could find and bring them into care. Two were eventually found and they were brought to the DSWD children’s centre in Laguna. Statements were taken, charges were filed but that was an end to it. Even the US Embassy investigators met a stone wall of indifference and non-cooperation when they follow up leads I gave them about an American national abusing children there. No suspect was ever brought to trial. They had easily escaped. A few years later I found one of them, a German national, hiding in Austria and gave all the pinpoint information to the German Federal Police and promised to help them gather more evidence. What they did to bring him to justice I was not told.

POINT: Shay Cullen again shows to the world how available sex with children is for a fee, and protection, according to the above paragraph is done by Filipinos against their own young for the price of a few pesos. Would this discourage a pervert to try to come to the Philippines, or further defame and embarrass Filipinos?

Page 447: I was on another undercover operation in Manila to arrest two pimps selling minors for sex. Craig Kilburger, the young Canadian advocate against child labour was with me learning about the exploitation and slavery of the child prostitutes. We had what we believed was a professional police unit surrounding the McDonalds in Manila where the pimps pick up and sell the kids like Michael Clarke did for the price of a hamburger. I had the camera crew hidden in a van and I wore a hidden camera. The social workers were waiting in another van nearby to ttake the minors into care. As soon as the pimps brought the girls and offered them for sex, on camera, I gave the signal for the police to move in and cuff the two traffickers. Instead of a quite arrest, the undercover cops came rushing from all directions shouting and screaming with guns drawn. For a moment I thought they would open fire. We all froze with fright and the first four policemen grabbed the two terrified pimps and pushed them to the car park. I thought they were going to grab me and Craig too. The TV camera was out of the van and immediately every one of them wanted to be an action hero. Those who had no suspect to cuff ran off to get one and came back with our two drivers and cuffed them too. They were like the keystones cops running all over the place.

POINT: Shay Cullen is practicing police work, indicating to his readers that Filipino police cannot do their jobs and need his help. Note the phrase "keystones cops" in his last line is a reference to a series done by the same name, "The Keystone Cops" by Keystone Studios in the 1920s, sometimes starring Charlie Chaplin, the bumbling bum, while the Keystone Cops ran around confused, shot themselves, fell down, ran the wrong direction – a real madcap comedy. This is how Shay Cullen presents the officials of the Philippines to the world. And he and his Preda staff claim that I defame Filipinos?

Page 447-448: At least the children were saved. The pimps were charged (although they bought their way out later) and Craig had an important documentary evidence of the worst form of child labour. It was a moving experience that helped him raise public awareness in Canada about enslavement of children in brothels for years to come.

POINT: The children were saved, but at what cost to their sanity? The pimps are not named, and obviously, this incident orchestrated by Shay Cullen and his staff made it into the media in Canada. Is this praising the Filipino or defaming them?

Page 449: Little of this reached the tightly controlled media. Journalists lives were always under threat if they wrote stories critical of the administration. Throughout the Philippines it was similar. The one thing that proud Filipino politicians can’t endure is the shame of the truth. They hate being exposed.

POINT: Shay Cullen and his staff go out of their way to expose the Filipino's weakness, as evidenced by his own words in his own book, and the problem is that Shay Cullen and his staff have no compulsion to be nice to their targets. Any underhanded trick is ok by them, such as complain that someone like me is getting too close to the truth and demand his deportation, arrest, confinement, anything, but just get him to shut up!

Pages 449-453: This is too long to copy verbatim, so I'll quickly summarize: These pages repeat the same trash as in their complaint for my deportation. The complaint says I file so many complaints against them, but Shay Cullen attributes most of the complaints I filed to the "sex mafia" in the book, which has no named members. It is the ONLY area where my children and I and others around me are disguised by hidden names in the book.

POINT: Does this indicate that Shay Cullen is wary of my ability to get at the truth?

Page 464: In the next few years in the Philippines we were to see the rise of similar Nazi-like practices of torture, executions, and beheadings as President Arroyo consolidated her power. Many Journalists, broadcasters, human right workers and farmers organisers were assassinated almost daily, allegedly by military intelligent hit squads. The international sex tourists and child exploiters continued their activities with impunity threatening and harassing us in our work protecting abused children. I had a number of death treats in my time and one was more bizarre than another.

POINT: The above clearly defines the current President of the Philippines by name as being involved in Nazi-like practices. The paragraph clearly indicates that the Philippines is a haven for sexual perverts.

Page 474: I had to leave for Manila. I arrived back in PREDA and attended the court hearings day after day. They were over by October 26 and I could get back to Dublin to be with mother. With so many court cases I had to get clearance from the courts and the Bureau of Immigration. I was desperate to get the “free to travel papers” signed. There was no commissioner to sign the papers, the legal office was closed, the assistant commission was out of town, one obstacle after another blocked my departure and mother was becoming critical. I was never so angry at the corrupt bureaucracy all my life as I was that week. It took five days to process all the travel clearances and then I got on the plane, exhausted, tired and worried.

POINT: The bureaucracy is "corrupt" because people have their own lives to live. Isn't that what Shay Cullen is telling his readers about the Bureau of Immigration?

Page 482-483: The Mayor and his cousin, his wife and brother, all who succeed him as Mayor, had good intentions perhaps when they put the little children behind bars instead of the pimps and paedophiles. It was the common practice all over the Philippines. Sadly, the rounding up of street children to punish them as suspected criminals continues to this day but now PREDA human rights workers are there to protect and defend them for being jailed and beaten.

POINT: Shay Cullen disparages the efforts of politicians and assumes that children are beaten and abused to the world. Is this disparaging the Filipino or not?

Final thought: Was there any instance at all where Shay Cullen used the word "tourist" without the added label "sex" with it in his book? What does that tell the world what Shay Cullen thinks of all the visitors to the Philippines?