Father Shay Cullen a Real Irish Revolutionary hero.

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Wednesday August 10, 2005 13:12 by Plato

Re: ITV and RTE News Reports of child abuse Philippines

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Fr. Shay Cullen is a Missionary priest from Ireland, now 59, a member of the Missionary Society of St. Columban, an Irish organization working for human rights around the world. After he finished six years of college education, in Ireland he was sent to the Philippines in 1969 and worked among the youth and drug dependents in Olongapo City. This was the homeport of the US Military base at Subic Bay. The social situation was corrupt because of the huge sex industry that sexually exploited women selling them to the marines in hundreds of clubs and brothels and on the street. This evil business and caused the spread of drug abuse, the AIDS virus, broken homes and child sexual abuse on a huge scale.

Fr. Shay learned to speak the Filipino language fluently, adapted quickly to the Filipino culture, and showed a deep understanding and solidarity with the suffering of the poor. He began working for human rights and protecting young people from the dreaded death squads that roamed the city that protected the US military personnel on recreation. There were 16,000 women and children prostituted in to the hundreds of bars, nightclubs and brothels that lined the streets of Olongapo.

In 1974, he established the Preda foundation The People’s Recovery Empowerment Development Assistance Foundation Inc. (PREDA) to help the victims of torture and military oppression by the Marcus martial law regime and it became a sanctuary for those threatened with summary execution by the military. The Preda center became famous for the help given to young people dependent on drugs.

With the help of the assistant founders of Preda, Alex and Merely Hermoso, a therapeutic community developed that brought healing and empowerment to the young people that came seeking renewal of life and help with many personal and family problems.

Fr. Shay and his co-workers developed Emotional Release Therapy that enabled the young person to express the deepest emotional pain of childhood and to release it with all the pent-up pain, hostility and anger. This was called scream or cry therapy and is used until the present to help sexually abused children who come to PREDA to seek refuge from their abusers

In 1982 together with Alex Hermoso, Fr. Shay discovered and exposed a huge child sex business that was selling young children to the US military for sex. The local Filipino officials who made big money from the sex industry were angry and tried to have him deported and discredited. However, Fr. Shay won his legal cases one after another but was harassed and threatened the more he exposed the evil trade in little children. The sax mafia has tried to close the Preda center with the help of corrupt politicians in Olongapo city. He tried to restore Filipino dignity and self-confidence that had been taken away by the colonel presence of the US military that dominated the community.

He began a campaign against the military bases, proposed, and advised how they could be converted into productive industrial parks providing employment with dignity for the Filipinos. Local politicians opposed him and his plans. After ten years of campaigning with other NGOs finally, the political battle was won and the US bases had to close. Fr. Cullen's conversion plan was realized and the facilities were converted into the high tech computer and other production zones. There are as many as fifty thousand Filipino working in good condition in these converted military bases today because of Fr. Shay Cullen and the Preda co-workers. It is a big success for the peace movement.

The Preda center has many social services that help street children, children in prison. The help release the child from jail. The project provides a therapeutic home that helps heal sexually abused children and a Preda legal office pursues the offenders and brings them to justice.

The Preda workers have uncovered international syndicates trafficking children and have brought offenders to justice in Europe and North America with the help of the Interpol and national police officers.

Fr. Cullen is one of the early founders of the Fair Trade Movement in the Philippines and was an early board member of the International Federation of Alternative Trade (IFAT). He set up with Mrs. Merely Hermoso the Preda Fair Trade organization and today thousands of Filipino benefit from the projects. Fair Trade criteria are spread in industry and are implemented and practiced in many projects.

The export of dried mangos is perhaps one of the biggest success stories. Thousands of farmers benefit because of this export .the gets interest free loans, advice and training on organic methods of production. They receive the best prices and the volume of sales has almost eliminated the buying cartels that dominated the lives of the poor farmers and keep prices at low levels. Mango Puree is mixed with organic apples in Germany for a tropical apple mango drink that is very popular. Today prosperity has come to the farmers and they remain in their villages. This has reduced greatly the migration of people to the cities. In this way the alleviation of poverty prevents the prostitution of impoverished and slum dwelling children.

Fr. Shay is a popular international speaker, campaigner, media commentator, a writer and journalist. He was an invited delegate to the conference drafting the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Helsinki 1989, and is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2001. Fr. Shay was awarded a German Human Rights of the City of Weimar Award in December 2000 and an Italian Human Rights Award at the City of Ferrara, 2001. Numerous newspaper articles and Television documentaries have reported the success of his work protecting children and campaigning for human rights.