TACLOBAN CITY- Alleged victims of sexual abuse by an American priests previously assigned in Naval town, Biliran province, may just get their justice through the help of an American lawyer.
On Tuesday (March 19), McDonald Worley, an American lawyer based in Houston, Texas, came to Naval to personally interview nine of the victims of Fr. Kenneth Bernard Pius Hendricks who stand accused of sexual molestation of ‘several’ young boys who mostly served as his altar boys.
Hendricks served as a missionary priest in Barangay Talustosan, Naval since 1988 and was arrested by members of the Homeland Security of the United States, together with the personnel of the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation, and local police on December 5, 2018 inside the St. Isidore the Worker Chapel in said village.
The 77-year old priest is currently detained at the Regional Special Operation Unit of the National Capital Region Police Office in Quezon City and stand accused for acts of lasciviousness and child abuse under Republic Act 7610, or the ‘Special Protection of Children against Abuse, Exploitation, and Discrimination Act.
Worley, in a press conference Wednesday (March 20), said that he is not after the criminal liability of Hendricks but on civil aspect, particularly on seeking compensation to his young victims who are now on their early to late 20’s.
“I have nothing to do with the criminal aspect of the case. I just handle the civil side. So, it’s basically (collecting) money that has to be paid to the victims,” Worley said.
According to him, he is not getting any money as legal service fees from the victims though he expect to receive a percentage of what possible financial rewards that the jury would award to the case that he expects to last at least for three years.
The civil case will be filed by Worley in Cincinnati, Ohio where Hendricks came from.
Hendricks is also facing a federal crime as an American citizen for engaging in illicit sexual acts in a foreign country.
Worley said that he was able to get to know the ‘horrible’ stories of the victims through an American friend who lives in Manila who has a friend from Naval.
“I am sad that this happened which should never happened. This is embarrassing to me as someone from America came here in the Philippines and did something like this,” he said, alluding to Hendricks.
According to him, he got a sick feeling when he was interviewing nine of the sexual abuse victims of Hendricks, calling them ‘brave’ for speaking out.
“You have to understand that it’s very embarrassing to come forward and say that this thing happened to them and you don’t like the world to know that and you just want to forget about it,” Worley said.
“So it’s really brave for them and say ‘hey, this happened to me and I will say something and do something about it so they will not happen again to somebody else,” he added.
The American lawyer said that the narrations of the victims, who were seven and 12 years old at that time they were reportedly sexually abused by Hendricks, would serve as testimonies that he would use to pin down the disgraced priest.
“It’s basically testimonies as evidence ‘here’s what happened to me, here’s what happened to him’. It’s all testimony,” he said.
He also urged other alleged victims of Hendricks to come out and speak to ensure that their case will be strengthened further.
“I hope that they will come forward. The more witnesses, the more it will help the case and maybe help stop from happening to someone else,” Worley said.
Hendricks reportedly sexually abused around 50 children luring them with food, money and promised of sending them to school.
Worley said that after gathering the needed evidences, he would then file the case against Hendricks, to include the church which sent him to the Philippines.
Hendricks was a Franciscan missionary from Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
But earlier, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has denied that Hendricks belong to the archdiocese.
It said that the disgraced priest was ordained in the diocese of Naval and describing him as one of the 75 Franciscan missionaries who only received financial support from the Mission of Office of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
(RONALD O.REYES,JOEY A. GABIETA)

CAMP RUPERTO KANGLEON, PALO, Leyte- A commercial fishing vessel with 30 crew members on board sunk off the waters of Guiuan town, Eastern Samar on Monday (March 18) morning.
Reports reaching the regional headquarters of the Philippine National Police (PNP), disclosed that at about 10 pm of said date, the Saint Anthony commercial vessel was about to anchor in Barangay Sulangan when it hit some corrals at the Inatraban Reef, about three nautical miles from Barangay Ngolos, also in Guiuan town.
The incident resulted to damage of the vessel’s bow which resulted for it to sunk.
Members of the Guiuan Municipal Police Station led by Police Chief Inspector Jerome B. Camacho went to the area and help the personnel of the Saint Anthony commercial vessel, said to be owned by Erlinda Cailim of Tacloban City.
All the 30 personnel were declared safe and unharm, report from the Guiuan Municipal Police Station under its chief of police, Chief Inspector Jerome Camacho. (PR)

PALO, Leyte- A top official of the Department of Health Regional Office 8 (DOH-8) on Monday reported a decreasing trend in measles cases in Eastern Visayas due to the intensified immunization activities.
In a press briefing at the DOH regional office here, Assistant Regional Director Exuperia Sabalberino said their immunization program already covered 50 percent of the 192,056 children population aged 6 to 59 months old, targeted for the outbreak immunization response.
“These are generally the children living in the poblacion areas, so we deployed volunteer-nurses to all the municipalities in the region to help the local government units in conducting the immunization especially those hard-to-reach barangays,” Sabalberino said.
In the same briefing, Roderick Boyd Cerro, chief of the regional epidemiology and surveillance unit, reported 1,080 measles cases with 24 deaths in the region from January 1 to March 8 this year, compared to only eight cases with no death in the same period last year.
Cerro said the victims’ age ranged from 21 days old to 82 years old, wherein more than half (52 percent) were children under 5 years old and 52.8 percent of the cases did not receive vaccines.
The health department is continuously monitoring the measles transmission on a weekly basis and has noticed a slow down on the number of cases starting last week of February.
“Morbidity week 8 has 240 measles cases, then it went down to 160 cases on week 9 (Feb. 24-Mar. 2) and 70 on week 10 (Mar. 3-9),” Cerro further reported.
Elaine Villarosa, immunization program manager, said they also recommended during the health cluster inter-agency meeting, that athletes who will be joining the Eastern Visayas Regional Athletic Meet in Ormoc City on April 7-12, 2019, should be immunized at least two weeks prior to the event to prevent the spread of transmission of measles cases, considering also the big crowd.
“Ormoc City is also preparing for this and is conducting an intensive immunization for four weeks now, to protect also their community,” Villarosa said.
Meanwhile, the assistant regional director added that with the improved health-seeking behavior, more mothers bring their children to the health centers for vaccination, Sabalberino added.
“DOH is trying everything to control the transmission with the help of all our stakeholders, the media for the advocacy to help us out to reach these mothers especially in the hard-to-reach barangays,” she said.
(LDLopido/PIA-8, Leyte)

TACLOBAN CITY- Two administration senators backed on the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
And both Senators Cynthia Villar and Koko Pimentel believes that there would be no fallout with the Philippines’ withdrawal from the said international tribunal.
According to Villar, investors are not really concern whether the country is still part of the ICC but more on its economic fundamentals.
“Alam mo yung mga investors, tinitingnan nila ang GDP growth; kung tayo ay may recession. Kasi kapag may recession tayo, matatakot sila. Pagbumaba ang GDP growth, matatakot sila hindi yung (withdrawal from) ICC,” Villar said on Tuesday (March 19).
Sen. Villar added that there is nothing to worry on this move of the President saying that all the courts in the country remain functional where complaints that may involve government instrumentalities or officials could be lodged.
For Sen. Pimentel, there should not be an issue on the decision of Pres. Duterte to withdraw from ICC considering that even the world’s super powers like the United States is not part of the ICC.
“Let it be. The President has decided to withdraw. Let’s honor his decision,” he said.
“Sa tingin ko wala naman epekto sa atin yan.Ang malalaki at progresibong mg bansa gaya ng United States, India, Russia and China hindi naman ICC members,” Pimentel said.
He also said that the move to withdraw from the ICC does not need any Senate concurrence.
“Ang Senate, approval sa pag-sali pero sa pagkalas, nandon na mismo yung proseso sa treaty,” Pimentel said.
For Governor Imee Marcos, another ally of the administration who is running for senator under the Hugpong ng Pagbabago, she feel it was just right for the President to withdraw from the ICC.
“Sabi ni Presidente, we are a sovereign nation. Dapat walang makikiaalam sa atin.I think, we are within our rights to do that,” Marcos said.
She also said that investors will continue to come to the country as the Philippines is now considered as among the world’s prime investment destinations.
“We are doing well economically. Ang taas-taas ng growth rate natin so there is no reason why the investors will not come here,” Marcos added.
The Hugpong ng Pagbabago conducted their grand political rally here at the city held at the Tacloban Convention Center attended by police estimate crowd of 15,000 people.(JOEY A. GABIETA/LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA)