THOUSANDS of Filipinos, including children, may have been lured to an adult website that is now peddling sexual activities, a Philippine lawmaker revealed. Representative Joseph Santiago of Catanduanes said the US-based adultfriendfinder.com website claims to have 212,257 potential online sexual partners from the Philippines.

The adult website claims to be the world's largest sex and swinger personals site. It has over 19.6 million active members worldwide, 48,000 of whom are online at any given time.

The website is a paid service and also requires people to subscribe, and give out information and e-mail. Payments are made through credit card.

"Based on this website alone, assuming the figures are truthful, the Philippines now has the world's 15th largest list of possible sexual partners over the Internet. We find this surprising considering that outside the office, very few Filipinos have ready access to personal computers with an Internet connection," said Santiago Print this story Send this story Write the editor Reprint this article View other stories in a statement.

"This only suggests that a number of Internet shops may be fronting for cybersex operations, and/or that there are many gangs here running clandestine cybersex dens," the lawmaker added.

Among 35 countries in Asia, the Philippines seemed to have the second largest list of potential sexual partners, next only to India.

Thirteen countries that have larger databases than the Philippines were the United States with over 14.2 million; the United Kingdom with 1.9 million; Canada with 1.2 million; Brazil with 830,615; Germany with 762,055; India with 677,812; Mexico with 671,761; Australia with 624,949; France with 556,301; Spain with 20,324; Italy with 471,188; Argentina with 357,212; and Peru, 317,726.

In Asia, apart from India and the Philippines, the other countries with lists of over 100,000 members each are Malaysia, with 177,996; Singapore, 126,248; Japan, 112,053; and China, 106,163.

Santiago has been pushing for the swift approval of new legislation that would impose tougher penalties on cybersex operators. Similar proposals against cybersex had been filed by other lawmakers in Congress.

Cybersex is a form of pornography wherein live sexual acts are performed by men and women and even children before web cameras that stream images directly to the computers of paying users.

"We are gravely worried that going forward, as the country's Internet users increase, illicit cybersex activities will also proliferate," Santiago said.

Senator Ma. Ana Consuelo "Jamby" Madrigal has indicated early this year that she was also drafting a law that would make possession of child pornography a criminal act in the Philippines.

Madrigal indicated that the proposed measure would also mete stiffer penalties on people caught distributing, creating, and purveying child pornography in the Philippines in various media including the Internet.

"We want to tighten the laws so that we don't become the dumping ground of these foreign sex perverts. We'll fight for this law and speedy passage in the Senate," she said.

Madrigal is chairperson of the Senate committee on youth, women, and family relations.

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