US Embassy backs efforts vs e-mail-order bride scheme

The US Embassy has vowed to support the campaign against the e-mail-order bride scheme by scrutinizing the visa applications of suspected victims of the practice, Senate Majority Leader Loren Legarda said.

Legarda disclosed that US Consul General John Caulfield has assured her that the US Embassy would not tolerate matchmatching of Filipina women with men in different parts of the world, particularly in the US.

She said the only way for the US Embassy to support efforts to stop the e-mail order bride scheme is to be strict in visa issuances to ensure that Filipinas do not end up in the clutches of syndicates.

The help of the US government, indeed, is much-needed since the American operators of the mail-order bride websites featuring Filipinas are not covered by Philippine laws.

In the US, maintaining such kind of websites is not prohibited and thus, Legarda lamented that what Philippine authorities got were derogatory e-mails from their maintainers, even mocking her efforts to stop their operations.

"They lampoon us for exposing them. They post their tirades against us on their websites," she said.

So far, the only action taken against Larry Pendarvis and Delaney Davis, who operate the e-mail order websites, was banning them from entering the Philippines. The Bureau of Immigration blacklisted the two last March.

The two maintain www.filipina.com, www.filipinawife.com and www.filipina-lady.com that offer access to catalogues of countless Filipinas, some as young as 14, for a fee ranging from $2 to $60.

Although they may not be applicable to perpetrators of the e-mail order scheme, Legarda said she would still push for her proposed amendments to the law against such illegal activities.

Earlier, she cited a report that 815 Filipinas had been victimized by such a scheme by various groups. The women were repatriated last year after escaping or being rescued from the clutches of mail-order bride syndicates or failed inter-racial marriages.

Legarda said Republic Act 6955 or the Mail-Order-Bride Act of 1990 should be revised to enable it to counter the use of the Internet by syndicates.

Legarda filed Senate Bill 1971 amending RA 6955 to penalize trafficking of Filipinas through matchmaking and outright prostitution via the Internet.

The bill, now pending in the Senate committee on youth, women and family relations, mandates the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Transportation and Communications and the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women to enforce the measure.

Under SB 1971, it is unlawful for persons to match Filipinas for marriage to foreign nationals either on mail-order basis via personal introduction, newspapers, magazines, television, radio or other media or via e-mails or websites with or without a fee.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development has admitted that the government is helpless in going after Internet-based syndicates because there are no Philippine laws that penalize their activities.