US media titan Bradley asks RP rich help for child protection

[Submitted by Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter, to BusinessMirror Sept. 28, 2010. Published Sept. 29, 2010. Photo here courtesy of CPNFI.]

 

 AMERICAN publisher David G. Bradley has called on the Philippines's wealthiest to sustain programs against child abuse of the group he funded out of his personal pockets since 1997.

"There's an unbelievable concern for children and energy for their protection from the Filipino people. And the Philippines went from student to an authority on child protection," Bradley, currently owner of the Atlantic Media Co., said from Washington via online video feed.

Bradley spoke to reporters days after facilitating the 90-minute audience of US-based media with President Benigno Aquino III in Washington, D.C., United States, where the 56-year-old media titan also lives.

He said the work of the Philippines to curb child abuse has brought it the responsibility to raise the issue to the regional level.

Bradley referred to the group he established 13 years ago, the Child Protection Unit, now Child Protection Network Foundation Inc., which he said has the largest database of cases at 7,505 for 2009 only.

"It's the first professional society on child protection and offers a lot of research that can address this problem."

Lawyer Katrina Legarda said that the problem of child abuse is compounded by the spike in cases of gang-rape that the CPNFI is currently documenting.

These, she said, usually involves drug abuse and bullies in schools.

"So if you have daughters, warn them on their friends, especially if these are boys," she said adding that parents should also guide children on online social networking sites.

Bradley also noted that most of the cases of abuse his group recorded show seven of 10 are children of overseas Filipino women workers.

"That this monstrous crime is happening to a country with lots of good people, to a Catholic country, is incredulous."

CPNFI board president Irene Martel Francisco said that their CPU in the Philippine General Hospital receives an annual average of 1,145 children.

Legarda said ten percent of 114 comes from Cavite.

The Foundation has 34 centers across the country and Francisco said they want to have one in each province or a total of 81 within the next five years.

She added that they are targeting to raise P4 million in a charity ball in November to start working on this goal.

Francisco said that only P9,576 is needed a year for a child to survive abuse once he or she is brought to one of their centers.

The amount would cover medical check up and medicines, legal fees, psychological counseling, and home visits by social workers.

"It's a small amount considering the big effect the services provided to a child."

Francisco, however, clarified that Bradley wouldn't stop from funding the Foundation's work.

"I'm doing this because of the relationships I've nurtured with the Filipinos since I was there when I was 21," Bradley said.