The Trafficked

32

‘How long are we in the air? Do you think the plane is safe? It seems really old to me…and what are those drops on the wing?’

Becky and Mann were sitting on a small domestic aeroplane heading for the island of Mindanao.

‘Just relax-just takes a couple of hours, that’s all. I can’t believe you are frightened of flying. I thought you loved travelling.’

Mann was having a hard job keeping the smile off his face.

‘I love to travel but I hate getting there.’

‘Just relax, close your eyes, try and sleep.’

‘No way-at any minute I might have to fly the plane.’

Mann laughed. ‘This plane is made out of bits of chicken wire and soggy cardboard, God knows how it stays in the air as it is-if there’s any trouble we are going down fast…’ He looked at her panic-stricken face-her eyes were huge. ‘I didn’t mean it. This airline has a better safety record than Qantas-believe me, there is nothing that can go wrong-why don’t you read a magazine and forget about it.’

Becky slumped in her seat and took the in-flight magazine from Mann, but continued to stare at the water droplets that ran in ragged paths across the wing.

They were on the second leg of their journey now. They had stopped at Cebu, sat in the suffocatingly hot departure lounge, paid boarding tax, luggage tax, departure tax and now they were sitting on the connecting plane that would take them to Davao, the capital of Mindanao. It was a small old plane with one very short-skirted hostess and a pilot who coughed incessantly. Becky was wearing cut-off jeans and a vest top. She looked at the hostess and was glad she had chosen not to wear shorts. She wouldn’t want to begin to compete with those legs.

They flew out of the cloud and Becky looked down below to see white-rimmed islands floating dream-like in the transparent turquoise ocean. She felt calmer. They had a chance now they were over water. She had rehearsed the escape from a plane in the sea many times in her head. She was a good swimmer; she could afford to relax for a while. She opened the magazine and started reading about Mindanao. She turned to ask Mann a question but he was asleep. His sunglasses were resting on his head; his black hair and choppy fringe were pushed back from his forehead. She studied his face. His broad forehead had a permanent crease, a frown line across it, even when he was resting. His eyebrows were black and thickest where they arched over the centre of the eye. The scar on his cheek sat right over the cheekbone in an otherwise quite beautiful face, thought Becky.

She looked at the way his faded blue T-shirt folded softly around his bicep and his washboard stomach. He was a lot like Alex, thought Becky, in the way he liked to look good, but Mann was understated, he liked to be well-groomed, not flash. Alex liked people to know how much his suit cost; Mann liked to keep them guessing.

Mann knew she was looking at him. He was resting his head and trying to take his mind off the fact that he was so tall that his knees were jammed against the seat in front. He was aware of her turning towards him and he felt her soft breath on his face-a hint of mouth-wash. He snapped his eyes open.

Becky quickly turned back to her magazine.

‘Says here that Davao is one of the safest cities in the Philippines. I thought Mindanao is where the rebels are?’

Mann leaned over to look at the magazine on her lap.

‘Some parts of the island are no-go areas-terrorist strongholds-but Davao has been transformed into a crime-free zone. It’s held up by the government as a model city, crime rates falling, vagrancy dealt with.’

‘How come?’

He sat back. ‘It’s called the forty pesos solution. Forty pesos is the cost of a bullet. Davao has a death squad. Two men dressed in black ride shotgun on a motorbike-the Davao Death Squad. They target anyone undesirable. It used to be rebels but now it’s petty thieves, drug dealers and vagrant kids who live off the streets.’

‘They kill children?’

Becky looked past Mann and became aware that she was speaking too loudly, as across the aisle an old Filipina was staring at her looking annoyed.

‘The Philippines has a massive vagrant child population.’ Mann kept his voice low and smiled over at the woman who smiled hesitatingly back. ‘The country is eighty per cent children. The average size of the family here in the Philippines is six. The streets are clogged with children, they live off refuse and they sleep on the pavements. They have no papers and no identity. Lots of the kids don’t have any birth records. They don’t exist, so far as this city is concerned.’

‘And so they just get rid of them?’

‘The DDS do. The kids are either stabbed or shot by them. They are bad for tourism, unsightly. Their bodies are dumped in a killing field outside the city.’

‘My God! That’s awful. Why are we going there? What has it got to do with this investigation?’

‘Because, recently, they seem to have stopped killing them. There have been reports of children being snatched off the street. There are rumours that they have started trafficking them instead. Making money from them instead of just killing them for fun.’

‘Does no one care about these kids?’

‘Some people care. They risk their lives to care. We are going to talk to one of those people right now.’

‘Oh God, are we landing?’ She swung round and pinned her face against the small window at the same time as there came the familiar clunk of the wheels being lowered. ‘More planes crash either taking off or landing than at any other time.’ She sat back and quickly fastened her seat belt.

‘I wouldn’t bother doing that-when it catches fire you’re going to want to get out fast.’

Becky thumped him hard on the arm.

Ten minutes later she was following Mann out through Davao’s light and airy arrivals lounge.

There was no air-con, but the place was open fronted and the high ceilings, and cool stone floors kept the air circulating and the temperature down.

Outside, the day was idyllic: a constant breeze, rustling palms and an azure-blue sky. There was a throng of people waiting at the exit. Mann stood for a few minutes and scanned the crowd. He saw who he was looking for and waved. Becky saw a slight, wiry man, late fifties, salt and pepper hair, with a checked blue shirt, who was standing with his legs apart, his hands on his hips, like a military man. The man waved back and walked purposefully over to them. He shook Mann’s hand with both of his.

‘Good to see you, Johnny-can’t stay away, no?’

His voice had a charming, almost comical quality to it. It started soft Dublin then ended in squeaky Filipino as it rose at the end of every sentence.

‘Good to see you again, Father, this is for you…’ Mann handed him a bottle of single malt. ‘And this is my colleague-Becky Stamp, from London. Becky, meet Father Finn O’Connell.’

‘Both you and the scotch are very welcome.’ He shook Becky’s hand. He had a film-star charm about him: his twinkling emerald-green eyes were striking against his tanned face. He had deep laughter lines around his mouth. His eyebrows were as thick as black caterpillars. He shook her hand and gently steered her out of the way of a runaway luggage trolley. ‘How is everything back in the UK? Must be summer, no?’ he asked her.

‘Nearly, Father, but it’s been a long time coming.’

‘Tell me, this is your first time to the Philippines, no?’ He was already on the move, steering them away from the exit.

‘Yes. I have done Thailand before, been to Bali, Goa, but never been here. It’s a beautiful place.’

‘Yes. Beautiful place, wonderful people. They have the most trusting, happy disposition. They try and please. That’s probably their downfall, no?’

‘What about you, Father? You’re a long way from home. What’s a priest doing out here?’

‘Ha…’ His laughter came quick and fast, exploding into the air. ‘I hope it’s God’s work. It keeps me busy anyway. I will tell you all about it in great length when we get into the shade. It’s good to have you here. Now let’s go.’

Becky looked around her as Father Finn led the way at speed across the car park. There were lots of people just milling about or sitting in the shade of the palm trees that ran around the perimeter of the airport. It reminded her of a music festival, where there was nothing to do but mill about. To the left was the palmed perimeter of the airport; to the right was the public transport area, where queues were forming to get on the Jeepneys to take people into town. The main form of public transport in the Philippines, the Jeepneys were highly decorated and customised open-sided buses. Father Finn was a few paces in front; he was a fast walker. Becky stayed back with Mann.

‘Are there lots of priests here?’ she asked Mann as they walked past the people joining queues for Jeepneys.

‘Yes, they’ve been here for many years. They are all over the Philippines-mainly Columban order. They do a fantastic job at guilt tripping the government into facing up to a few of the problems. Father Finn here runs a refuge for the kids that get into trouble, one here and one in Angeles City, north of Manila.’ Mann called to Father Finn, who was a few strides ahead. ‘I was expecting Father Vinny to pick us up. I didn’t think you’d be down this way. Here on business, Father?’

‘Yes, I am here to pick up a child-a boy, Eduardo. He is in hiding at the moment. We rescued him from the jail. We found him in there-wrongfully accused of stealing and imprisoned there for two months. He was shut up with men, some of them paedophiles. He was terribly abused. It will be the first case of taking the Philippine government to court. He should have been protected and he wasn’t, no? He will testify against them. They will drag it out for as long as they can. The trial will take a couple of years. I am here to escort Eduardo back to Angeles, where I can protect him. But that is not the only reason I am here. I got a call from a young woman who used to live with us, in our refuge.’ He stopped and turned towards Mann. ‘You remember Wednesday, Johnny?’

‘I remember Wednesday. Cheeky little Amerasian girl, she was with you at the refuge in Angeles for a few months, wasn’t she? That must have been, what, seven or eight years ago, Father? She must be grown up now.’

‘Yes. We rescued her from a paedophile ring when she was twelve. She stayed with us for a few months and then she ran away from our shelter-it is not a prison and we cannot force the children to stay with us. Well, sadly we lost contact. I didn’t know what had happened to her until she phoned me. I assumed, wrongly, that she had gone back to the bars, like so many do, but it wasn’t so. When she phoned me she told me she left because she found out she was pregnant and she felt she couldn’t tell us. That saddens me; there is nothing more joyful to us than the birth of a child, whatever the circumstances. Anyway, she came back here-to Davao. She was thirteen when she gave birth to a little girl. She has been a good mother. But her child has gone missing.’

They reached the car-a battered old maroon-coloured Toyota. Father Finn went round and opened all the doors quickly, whilst Mann lifted the boot and made some room inside for their bags. The heat was sweltering inside the car.

‘We need to leave it to air for a few minutes. We’ll turn on the air-con once we get going.’

‘You have air-con? I’m impressed,’ said Becky as Mann slammed the boot shut.

‘Ah, well, I might have exaggerated that slightly, no?’ he said with a mischievous smile. ‘We have Filipino air-conditioning in the car. When the windows are down that means the air-con on. When they are up its off so, if you wouldn’t mind…’ He gestured towards the back windows

Becky smiled. ‘Of course.’ She slid into the back seat and set about winding the windows down as fast as she could. Her legs were already sticking to the hot leather.

Mann sat in the front beside Father Finn, who grated the old car into gear and waited for it to stop juddering before pulling erratically on the steering wheel and heading out of the car park. Becky smiled at the armed guards, who grinned back from their sentry boxes at the car-park exit, their rifles resting just inside the entrance.

‘I read a report about the DDS, Father,’ said Mann, his elbow resting out of the open window, his sunglasses on. ‘They seem to be growing from strength to strength. They are still killing anyone the authorities deem to be undesirable. I thought that the world press would have shamed the powers-that-be into stopping them.’

‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But it’s the very opposite. They are being praised for their good work. The government is encouraging all other cities to do the same-get rid of the unwanted from their streets. It’s even been suggested that the government are funding them indirectly. How else would they exist?’ Father Finn crossed himself and shook his head in disbelief. His erratic driving seemed to fit in perfectly with everyone else’s. Cars beeped, swerved and braked continuously. ‘The government is holding the city up as a shining example of a caring, crime-free city that loves its children! Something has happened to the Death Squad-they are under new management, I think. They have taken a step up. They are an organised body now. They have a bigger team-not just two men on a motorbike. They now have new cars, black, plateless, of course, and they have been seen carrying the children away.’

They passed an ambulance with no windows. Curtains were flapping, and inside a man sat slumped forward, a blue mask over his nose and mouth. He was facing backwards, towards the road. A nurse held his T-shirt from the seat behind, to stop him collapsing and falling out of the back of the vehicle.

‘Is it true that the younger children are being trafficked? Is that what you think has happened to Wednesday’s daughter?’ asked Becky as she leaned forward between the two front seats. There were no seat belts in the old car.

‘We think so. At the refuge, we have heard many stories from the children whose friends have disappeared. They have seen the black riders appear, kill one or two of the children, then force the others into a car that accompanies the riders. They are selecting the very young girls. I’ll take you to talk to Wednesday. She’ll be happy to see you, Johnny.’

They left the wide streets of six-lane traffic, flanked by long low factory outlet buildings and squatters’ villages that had attached themselves to the factory walls and occupied every gap. The roads became congested as they split and narrowed and wove over and underpasses and they neared the city. Beside the roads litter blew and became snagged on the barbed wire that ran alongside the road. The billboards were old and tattered with flapping grey paper bits peeling away from the images. A woman advertising sanitary towels smiled apologetically out from a big sign.

For Your Red Day.

The roads were congested with Jeepneys. Drivers hanging out of the sides all honked at one another. They beeped their horns constantly to communicate with one another, not aggressively, just passing on information: I am coming out whether you want me to or not. I am a VIP, look at my car. You are an arse. They had their own language.

‘Things are no better than the last time you came, Johnny. We seem to take ten steps forward and eleven back. There are more children living off the streets than ever before.’

‘How do the children end up on the streets? They must have caring families?’ Becky asked, shouting to be heard above the traffic noise.

‘Poverty is a terrible catalyst for misery. They consider a life on the streets is preferable to being hungry. Sometimes the parents just can’t afford to feed them and the instances of abuse in the home are high here. It’s a mainly Catholic country. The lack of contraception doesn’t help. I have tried to introduce the idea-but it’s not popular. Condoms are still not used much, even in the sex industry girls have to work without them.’

They stopped at some traffic lights and were immediately surrounded by a group of children. Their hair was matted, their skinny arms and legs emaciated. Their little dark bodies were clothed in just a few rags. Large, desperate eyes stared out from dirty scabbed faces, but lit up when they saw the three westerners. The children were especially delighted to see Father Finn. Their tiny black hands reached inside the car like monkeys after nuts, palms outstretched and begging for change. They peered into the back and beamed at Becky. Father Finn rubbed their heads and talked to them in Tagalog as he fished in his pockets for change. Then they smiled and waved farewell as the lights changed and the car drove off. Becky looked out of the back window and watched the small ragged group as they stood at the side of the road, waiting for the lights to change to red again.

‘Surely the death squads are not killing little children like those?’ she asked, as she watched the children scamper out of the way of the moving traffic. She shook her head sadly. ‘Someone in the world would love one of those children, would give them a home. I would,’ she said quietly to herself.

Father Finn turned off the main road and made left and right turns as he headed down towards the river. Becky was still thinking about the children when they turned down one street. At the end of the road there was a rubbish dump. They were heading straight for it. But then she realised that the rubbish dump had doors and walls.

She leaned forward, between Mann and Father Finn, and stared out of the windscreen.

‘What is that?’

‘A Davao housing estate. That is where eighty thousand of the city’s workers live-the waitresses, the shop assistants, the janitors, the labourers, even some teachers and professionals live here.’

‘What do they do for sanitation? Water?’

‘The government provides them with a standpipe for water. Sanitation? That’s easy. They use a bucket and empty it straight into the water below them.’

They parked up.

‘Please do up your windows,’ said the Father, ‘otherwise our seats will be someone’s new three-piece suite when we come back.’

They followed Father Finn as he walked along the mash of cardboard and rusty tin until he found the entrance he was looking for-the alleyway that marked the beginning of the slum town, on the edge of the Davao River. They left the sunny street and walked into darkness and stench as they entered the Barrio Patay, the Place of the Dead.