.5M FILIPINAS LEAVE RP YEARLY UNDER THREATS OF DANGER
Villar presses women protection

"Where are our women?"

Senate President Manny Villar, after being alerted on the alarming increase in the number of women leaving the country as mail-order brides which is now close to half a million annually, vowed to look into their plight and expose the web of crimes by syndicates preying on hapless Filipino women.

Villar cited a recent report which bared that an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Filipino women leave the Philippines yearly as mail-order brides.

The Senate President, as an active advocate of women's rights and issues, filed Senate Resolution 101 yesterday urging the Senate committee on youth, women and family relations to inquire into the plight of these women and the brazen violation of corresponding laws.

Villar reminded that Republic Act 6955 enacted on June 13, 1990 and entitled, "An Act to declare as unlawful the practice of matching Filipino women for marriage to foreign nationals on a mail order basis and other similar practices, including the advertisement, publication, printing or distribution of brochures, fliers and other propaganda materials in furtherance thereof and providing penalty therefore," is in effect.

The practice of marketing Filipino women as mail-order brides is openly pushed via several Internet sites, a number of which the resolution cited as www.2bwed.com, www.afilipina.com, and www.1mailorderbrides.com.

Advertisement of the sites states: www2bwed.com: "world-class service for a 10th of a century has been in business to introduce girls from the Philippines who would like to correspond, meet and marry Western men" through which Filipino women can be "instantly ordered" subject to a $5 processing fee; www.afilipina.com: "mail-order brides, pen pal girls exclusively from the Philippines, lovely Filipina ladies wishing to correspond and meet foreign gentlemen for romance and possible marriage"; and www.1mailorderbrides.com: Philippine women from Luzon have masters degrees.

"The government must implement the law prohibiting the violation of Filipino women, and should look after distressed Filipinas who have suffered abuses in the hands of foreign spouses," he stressed.

Villar's resolution is entitled, "Resolution urging the Senate committee on youth, women and family relations to conduct an inquiry in aid of legislation on the growing number of Filipino mail-order brides, and on the non-implementation of relevant laws for the purpose, resulting in the violation and desecration of Filipino women, with the end view of charting remedial measures to protect the dignity of Filipinas."

The last two decades have witnessed the high rate of Filipino mail-order brides who became prostitutes or were raped and abused overseas. (30)