Cybersex Girls "Rescued" From High-Paying Jobs

OK... let's get this out of the way first off: CDO Sun Star reporter Annabelle L. Ricalde is a twit. How else would you explain this opening sentence?

Seventeen female "models" — some believed to be minors — were rescued Wednesday from a suspected cybersex den in Cagayan de Oro allegedly owned by two Swedish nationals.

Rescued. Got that?

It turns out that the "models" were getting paid 15,000 pisos per month (more than the average high school teacher makes in The Philippines) to get naked on webcams and take requests from customers on what to do with their sex toys.

Of course all the models were free to come and go as they wished... and of course they all came back to work in the "cybersex den" every day. Why? Because they were slaves? Forced? Blackmailed? No: Because they liked the money. Because they could support their families. Maybe because it was paying for their college tuition or something.

Rescued. Yeah, whatever. Twit.

The way I see it, the upshot of this story is that 17 poor Filipino families just lost their major breadwinner and are going to have to find new ways of supporting themselves... or at least new cybersex dens for their daughters.

Maybe instead of finding another cybersex den where the only thing these girls have to deal with is changing the batteries in their sex toys, maybe they'll have to turn to working at one of the local CDO gogo bars, trying to deal with sweaty drunk Pinoys who refuse to wear condoms; or worse, walking the streets, trying to make a few hundred pisos in dark corners while trying to avoid AIDS, violence, and drug addiction.

Then... and only then... might "rescue" be a word worth using.