LAST NIGHT, in this same internet shop, I happened to sit beside a middle-aged woman and a little boy. I figured they were chatting with somebody. I thought they were talking to the woman’s husband who might be working abroad. But I was wrong.

It was the child, about 12 years old, who was typing the messages for the woman. There were some English words that they couldn’t understand, which I volunteered to translate for them.

Later on, they received a message from the person on the other end of the line that said: “Show me your ass.”

They asked me what it meant. Before I translated it, I looked at the mother in the eye, wanting to ask her, “Are you sure you want your child to see how that caucasian makes a fool of you?”

After I told them what it meant, the kid said, “Ma, talikod na.” (Ma,  turn around.) The woman did.

I felt enraged.  In my mind I was asking myself, “What kind of mother is this woman beside me?”

A little later, more videos were popping up the screen. Suddenly, there was a video of a man who was about to show his manhood on cam. Laughing, the woman covered that portion of the screen and asked the boy to close it.

The owner of the internet shop told the woman to take a picture of herself and post it on social networking sites to attract foreigners. She also told the woman to prefer older men to young men. Most of the younger men, she said,  do not have money.  They are just looking for Filipinas who willingly take off their clothes on cam. They won’t send you dollars. It was like the owner of the shop was giving her a tutorial.

What on earth is happening to these women?

I didn’t wonder when I’ve read in Paolo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes and Michael Chrichton’s Next) Filipina prostitutes as characters.

On TV Patrol SOCSKSARGEN this afternoon, there was feature on the law that protects Filipina women from abuse through schemes like online dating, where Filipinas are matched to foreigners.

The case of the woman who was seated beside me last night is different. She was the one taking the risk. She even made his son an active participant in the risk-taking.

Things like this really make me sad. I wish I could do something.

*I once wrote poem of this theme before. It’s found on my old poetry site.