Bars

Music

00:00

Bars with hidden camera

CAMPBELL: It's a tourist hot spot with just one attraction. Every night, thousands of women parade themselves in the bars and streets of the city of angels. For Western sex tourists, it's a buyers' market. Impoverished young women fight for the attention of rich older men.

00:14

Cullen with camera in bar

Shay:  I'm going to take a photo of my friends.

00:43

CAMPBELL: But one man comes here on a very different mission. Father Shay Cullen is an Irish priest. Sometimes filming openly, but usually with hidden cameras, he tries to find if the pimps are selling children.

CULLEN:  They are, you know, sold like chickens in the market

00:50

Cullen

you might say it's really terrible. Especially children, I mean we've rescued children from the sex industry as young as 13 years old.

01:13

Father Cullen's birthday party

CAMPBELL: Father Cullen has rescued hundreds of children from abuse. And he's given them safe haven in this home run by his children's rights organisation, PREDA.  His work has won him international celebrity, with Hollywood planning a film on his life.

01:26

Cullen with birthday card

Cullen: Wow, this is really beautiful! (English) Thank you very much! (Tagalog)

01:45

CAMPBELL: Many regard him as a saint.

01:50

Cullen: We love you Father. From Twinkle! (English)

0153

CAMPBELL: But this is not a straightforward story about a child crusader. Father Cullen has many critics, including some fellow priests, who claim he has ruined lives in a bid for glory.

DUFFIN:  I don't believe these stories.

01:59

Father Duffin

They're fables, they're not real stories.

02:18

Cullen with kids

VICTOR:  People are fighting back! You can't blame them for that,

02:23

Victor

right? This is a heinous and terrible accusation and it's something that I will take to my grave.

02:27

Back at birthday party

CAMPBELL: In his quest to protect children, does Father Cullen go too far?

02:37

CULLEN:  These paedophiles have to face justice and they have to repent!

02:43

Cullen. Super:  
Father Shay Cullen
Columban Missionary

You know, they should accept their crime, and admit it and do their penance. If it's in jail, all the better! (LAUGHS) That's what I say.

02:48

Angeles City

CAMPBELL: Father Cullen has long been a nemesis of the sex trade. When he first came in the 1970s as a Columban missionary, his area was the haunt of US sailors from the naval base at Subic Bay. After the base closed in 1992, the bars moved to nearby Angeles City. The customers now come from all over the world.

CAMPBELL: What percentage of the bars

03:01

Cullen

do you estimate is run by Australians?

CULLEN:  Well we had a figure here that 60 per cent in Angeles City are run by Australians.

03:32

Bars, Angeles City

Many of the operators do not register their names, they keep their names off the books,  they have dummies, you know, they operate through dummies.

03:47

CAMPBELL: Prostitution is of course as old as humanity. Many here argue it's not exploitation - just business between consenting adults. And there are strict laws to ensure that bar girls - or ‘guest relations officers' as they're known - are over 18. But an illegal trade in child sex has continued beneath the surface - and Father Cullen has never been afraid to get his hands dirty to dig it up.

04:04

Cullen's secret tape of woman

Shay: Can they get, even if they...

Woman [interrupting]:   How young they want? 15, 16?

Shay: How young can you get?

Woman: Fifteen, other one is fifteen. I think she's sixteen...she's sixteen.

04:32

CAMPBELL: For two decades, he has posed as a sex tourist, paedophile or brothel investor to entrap pimps.

04:43

Shay: So they'll do anything?

Woman: Maybe you can hide the camera while you're doing sex with them. (laughs)

Shay: Okay!

04:50

Cullen

CULLEN:   I mean we're considered you know just busybodies, no, and ah upsetting the applecart, no, so to speak. Why are you bringing all these charges? You want to destroy our tourist industry. You want to make the Philippines look bad.

4:55

Kids in classroom

CAMPBELL: Father Cullen's concern is not tourism or reputations, but young girls like Mary Ann Salo.

05:14

He saved her from a sex bar when she was just 13 years old.

05:22

Mary Ann

MARY ANN:  The first day they gave me a bikini, a panty and a bra. Then they told me to use it and go up the stage and dance.

05:29

Secret bar tape

I was really hiding myself, I was really hiding my body, and

05:39

Mary Ann

the Papa-san Jarell was mad at me and he scolded at me that I must dance and gyrate my body and seduce these customers.

05:49

CAMPBELL: What were these men like?

MARY ANN:  They were old, big stomach,

06:04

Super:  Mary Ann Salo

walking like a monster. For me, they are walking like a monster, they looked like a monster, and...

06:10

CAMPBELL: And what nationalities were they?

06:19

MARY ANN:  They were Australian, Americans, Germans, Austrian and Japanese or Chinese there.

06:21

Mary Ann in school

CAMPBELL: That was four years ago. Now Mary Ann, who is half Australian, has a new life at Father Cullen's refuge.

06:34

Not only is she going to school - for the first time, she's top of the class.

06:45

Mary Ann's life fell apart after her Australian father died.

MARY ANN:  When I was 11

06:54

Photos. Mary Ann's father

my dad killed himself in our home.

CAMPBELL: And that's when it all went wrong?

MARY ANN: Yeah. But before

06:12

Mary Ann

we have a happy family, we were studying, we have a good life, but then my mum abused it.

07:09

Photo.  Mary Ann and mother

Music

07:16

CAMPBELL: Her mother moved in with her boyfriend, who'd just got out of jail.

MARY ANN: I hate this guy

07:20

Photo. Mary Ann with family

because he is a drug addict. He always beats us

07:24

Mary Ann

and doesn't let us to go to school, doesn't want us to go outside our house.

07:29

Photo. Mary Ann with family

That's why I ran away and I stayed with my aunt.

07:34

Hidden camera tape. Girls dancing

CAMPBELL: Her aunt introduced her to a pimp, who got her the bar job. She was rescued after just one week, when Father Cullen reported the bar to police.

07:43

Photo. Mary Ann with brother

But she had already had to work for bar fines -- the fee customers pay to the bar to take girls out for sex.

07:53

Mary Ann

MARY ANN:  I was once bar fined and I went to the hotel with this guy and -- but we didn't make sex, but still he made me hold his sensitive part of the body and I slept with him in the hotel.

CAMPBELL: When you were 13?

MARY ANN:  Yeah, I was 13.

CAMPBELL: You must have thought you were in hell?

MARY ANN:  Yes, I was crying. But I didn't show it to the guy because I know that he will be mad at me and he will tell the owner of the bar and the owner of the bar will get angry at me. That's why - I was just crying in the toilet.

08:06

Father Cullen on balcony with kids

CAMPBELL: Shay Cullen's passion is not just to rescue the innocent, it's also  to convict the guilty. In the Philippines, that can mean a hard and grubby fight.

08:56

Mary Ann in court

Music

09:09

CAMPBELL: Mary Ann was one of six underage girls working in the bar. At Father Cullen's urging, she testified against its American manager, Thomas Jarell.

09:13

MARY ANN:  I don't want this to happen to other children so I must speak up.

09:25

Mary Ann

And I was not afraid, I have to be not afraid because I was just telling the truth.

09:32

Jarell leaves court

CAMPBELL: To her amazement, he was acquitted after claiming he didn't know the girls were under age.

09:38

Mary Ann

MARY ANN:   I was really crying, because what if he will do this again to other children,

09:52

Mary Ann crying outside court

why does the court believes with this guy? It's because he was a foreigner, why only the mama sans are accused.

CULLEN:  Prosecutors are usually

09:59

Cullen

on the side of the suspect, you know, and I've lost several cases just like that. They don't file the charges in the court, no matter what evidence we have. We have the victims, we have the abused child, we have witnesses, no, we even have videotapes, no, what does he do? Many tricks. The prosecutor can lose the papers, lose the evidence, he delays to file the charge with the court, so we cannot get a hold order at the airport. Everything is -- the whole system works in favour of the accused.

10:12

Cullen on internet

CAMPBELL: Father Cullen has fought back by getting down and dirty,  trawling the internet and going undercover to gain evidence no court can ignore.

10:46

Cullen

CAMPBELL: Do you ever worry about whether a priest should be doing that sort of thing?

CULLEN:  I don't but others do. But it's not so hard to gather evidence and convince the judge when

11:00

Super:  Father Shay Cullen Columban Missionary

you have videotape. So when we go to rescue a child, well, should we be rescuing children from rape and abuse and paedophilia and trafficking? Of course, we should, you know. I mean Jesus himself had a very strong view about paedophilia, those who abuse children should have a millstone tied around their neck and then thrown in the sea. He wasn't talking about forgiveness and compassion. Justice first!

11:10

Cullen on internet

CAMPBELL: Father Cullen's high profile campaign has won him a host of enemies - and not just the pimps and bar owners. Many inside the Philippines church argue this Irish missionary has gone way too far in pursuing suspected paedophiles - and has perhaps even forced the conviction of an innocent man.

11:39

Victor on beach

Victor Fitzgerald lives in a small house on the bay beneath Father Cullen's refuge. Just the sight of it on the hill above fills him with anger. He spent seven years in a hell-hole prison after Shay Cullen accused him of paedophilia.

VICTOR:   I want to tell Father Shay this,

12:04

Victor

that if his cases were genuine, honest cases, not fabricated and bloody manipulated, but, if they were fair dinkum he wouldn't be getting any flak!

12:24

Cullen filming

CAMPBELL: In 1994 Father Cullen was filming a Christmas party from his balcony when he noticed a yacht moored in the bay below.

CULLEN:  I saw there was children and, you know, this Caucasian man there and no other

12:35

Cullen

Filipino people, you know. So that's already a violation of the law, to have children in an excluded place, not to be a relative. So right away we took note of that, I sent out my investigators and we began to do a survey of what was happening down there and eventually we called the police.

12:557

Archival. Kids on boat. Super:  January 1994

Victor:  You say somebody has made a complaint.

Who is that?

Policeman:  Well, PREDA.

Victor:  Who?

Policeman: PREDA.

CAMPBELL: The police arrested Fitzgerald and Father Cullen took the children into his centre,

13:21

Children leave with police

where in the following months they gave detailed statements of abuse. Fitzgerald was eventually sentenced to eight to 17 years in prison.

13:33

It was the first conviction under a law Father Cullen had helped introduce that made it an offence for adult strangers to be alone with children in a secluded place. But the story didn't end there. Other priests who studied the case decided a terrible injustice had been done.

13:47

Duffin. Super: 
Father Mick Duffin
Philippines Catholic Church

DUFFIN:  Victor was used as a scapegoat to have a celebrated case as far as I'm concerned. You know, this is my opinion, and I'm not saying this is the truth, but I've studied this, and the priest and the bishop here have studied this very well and we are certain that Victor is innocent.

14:11

Duffin conducts marriage service

CAMPBELL: Mick Duffin is an Australian priest who, like Shay Cullen, came to the Philippines as a Columban missionary. But there's no priestly love between them.

14:37

DUFFIN:  I don't trust Father Cullen. He's out for propaganda, he's out to make money, he's out for all these things that are not particularly straight. We really do think he's a bit hungry for publicity.

14:50

Duffin

CAMPBELL: You don't believe there is a child sex trade here?

15:04

DUFFIN:  Oh, there's a huge child sex trade here, but he doesn't seem to come to grips with it very often, but he has great stories, but I just wonder often whether his stories are true.

15:06

Eric with Victor and Duffin and copy of affidavit

Eric:  That's from the bishop?

Victor:  Oh absolutely, it's a sworn affidavit.

15:19

CAMPBELL: Father Duffin and 22 priests, including the then bishop, accused Father Cullen of forcing the children's testimony against Victor Fitzgerald. He was granted a new trial, and Father Duffin bailed him out of jail.

15:23

CAMPBELL:   And did you think this day you were going to be home free?

VICTOR: Well I've always had the hope, but it's always been dashed.

CAMPBELL But you've been here ever since?

VICTOR:  I've been here ever since.

CAMPBELL Since September 2001?

VICTOR:  That's under all the threats that I'd be running away. I've never run away and I never intend to run away, and  I'm here until I get some vindication of the whole imbroglio.

15:37

Cullen

CULLEN:  Fitzgerald using what we call the sex mafia, people involved with these people, they manoeuvred, manipulated his release from jail under the pretext of a retrial.

16:01

Duffin. Super:
Father Mick Duffin
Philippines Catholic Church

CAMPBELL: Are you members of some sex mafia?

DUFFIN:  We are, we are not, we are not. And ah, you know, it was unfortunate that Father Cullen had to have this in the newspaper some years ago, accusing us of being part of the, you know, the other side, the seamy side of this area. And that really is not true.

16:17

Archival. Footage. Children on beach with police.

Music

16:39

CAMPBELL: Thirteen years on, Victor Fitzgerald is unable to leave the Philippines and could still go back to jail.

Victor holds papers

Thanks to the moribund justice system, he's been waiting more than five years for the verdict on his appeal.

16:50

Cullen filming

VICTOR:  I was guilty until proven innocent, yes that's right, and I've struggled all these years to prove my innocence.

16:58

Victor

CAMPBELL: It's a hell of a charge to be called a paedophile isn't it?

VICTOR: Oh it's a disgraceful, a disgraceful demoralising thing to have to suffer.

17:06

Campbell with Gloria, Duffin and Fitzgerald. Duffin translates

Eric: Okay so this is Gloria is it? Yes this is Gloria. Hello Gloria, Eric. How are you?

17:14

CAMPBELL: To demonstrate his innocence, he and Father Duffin arranged for us to meet one of the girls who was 13 when she was found on his boat.

17:19

Eric:  So you were the little girl that people said Victor did bad things to you?

Gloria:  Yes, yes.

Eric:  But what really happened? Did Victor do bad things to you?

Gloria:   Nothing.

Duffin: He didn't do anything at all to her.

Eric:  So why did you say those stories about Victor?

17:26

Gloria:  Someone taught me. It was Father Shay Cullen.

Duffin:  Father Shay Cullen taught her what to say.

Eric:  Right.

17:59

CAMPBELL: Now a young woman, Gloria insists Father Cullen forced her to make up her story.

18:07

Duffin: He said they really looked after her well because they were hoping that she would give evidence against Victor and actually they promised to give her, if she did give this evidence that they trained her to give they would give her fifty thousand pesos and they never ever gave that fifty thousand pesos.

18:18

CAMPBELL: Father Cullen's supporters have claimed that Gloria's mother made her retract the allegations in return for money.

18:35

Eric:  But Gloria, has anyone here, Victor or Father Duffin told you to say things, told you to change your story?

18:43

Gloria:  No, no.

18:56

Cullen. Super:  
Father Shay Cullen
Columban Missionary

CAMPBELL: Did you ever tell them what to say?

CULLEN:  No of course not. You don't put words in their....You don't have to. They know - they'll be caught out in cross examination anyway. It's very hard to try do anything like that, because such a thing would be discovered right away.

18:59

CAMPBELL: So were you angered when some fellow priests accused you effectively of doing it?

19:16

CULLEN:  Well um, you know, we very cynical about what's going on sometimes, you know, among church people,  who are afraid to face up and cannot cope with the reality of clerical sexual abuse of children.

19:21

Maybe they have something to hide and I would challenge them, if they have nothing to hide, you know, why are you doing this?

19:40

Music

19:47

Victor leaves house

CAMPBELL: The truth may never be decided. Victor Fitzgerald has compiled voluminous evidence he believes will prove him innocent.  But at 77, with failing health, he fears he will die before he clears his name.

19:51

Victor. Super:  Victor Fitzgerald

VICTOR:  Justice delayed is justice denied and that's the case here, right? If these documents are looked at and examined in the broad daylight of the truth then I have to be acquitted of these heinous crime, and that's what I'm praying for.

20:10

CAMPBELL: Would you like to go home?

VICTOR:  Oh, desperately.  Desperately

20:23

I would like to see my family.  I haven't seen them for so long. Yes, I would.

CULLEN:   No I don't feel sorry for anybody who is abusing children in some way. He was convicted.

20:26

Cullen

It was really a triumph of justice and hard work to get a conviction because he had everything going for him, he was protected by the authorities and by the sex mafia, you know, and the sex club owners. They don't want to have sex tourist convicted. It's bad for business.

20:43

Cullen conducting service

CAMPBELL: The controversy has not shaken his determination to pursue what he calls the sex mafia.

21:08

CULLEN:  We won't give up here. There's too much to be done and the mission isn't complete. We still working on.

21:17

Cullen

I don't give up with threats. I mean, then they win. It's you know, it's  a kind of a victory for the paedophiles and the sex mafia. We won't give up, no matter what they say or do, no, we'll have to fight them back.

21:26

Cullen conducting service

CAMPBELL: It's a campaign that has brought him fame and notoriety and the funding to run his refuge for abused kids.

21:39

Mary Ann. Super:  

Mary Ann Salo

MARY ANN:   I really love this man and I am so happy because I met him, he helped me.

21:53

Mary Ann walking to picnic with friends

CAMPBELL: But in the ledger of good and ill, cases like Mary Ann's will continue to stand out.

22:00

MARY ANN:   I believe that this guy is so good and he is really a nice man who really helps children.

22:14

Mary Ann

It was so dark for me, no light, no guidance that I will be rescued.

22:23

But then I was rescued And I was so happy for that.

22:31

Credits:

Reporter : Eric Campbell

Camera : David Leland

Editor : Garth Thomas

Producer : Marianne Leitch

22:40