Brother Ted

Teodulo Romo Jr. (centre)

Days before his 73^rd birthday, Teodulo Romo Jr., a social work manager fighting livestreamed child abuse in the Philippines, closes his eyes and blows out the candles on a large chocolate cake, made sugar-free upon his daughter’s insistence. When asked what he wished for, Romo looks confused at the question, smiles, then replies, “more years of service, of course.”

I met Romo last year while on a one-year internship with anti-human trafficking organisation International Justice Mission (IJM). Romo is IJM’s Head of Aftercare in Manila, where he leads a team of social workers handling online child sex abuse cases.

Upon meeting, I am immediately told to call him “Kuya Ted” – Kuya translates from Tagalog as “big brother”. Like a good older brother, Kuya Ted is stubborn and fiercely protective, prone to long, furious speeches on child rights that end in flustered attempts to return him to his seat with varying success.

I interview Kuya Ted inside his tightly packed office, walled by casefiles, in Manila, the world’s most densely populated city. “I truly believe, that I am here to serve the poor. That has been my mission. The purpose of my life,” he says, framed by length-of-service awards and family photographs.

In 2014, suffering from chronic diabetes, Kuya Ted retired from a 39-year career in the Philippine government. He unretired four years later, against doctor’s orders, to join IJM after hearing about rising online child abuse across his country. In these cases, children are often trafficked by a friend or family member, forced to perform sex acts in front of a paying audience of international sex offenders.

Kuya Ted cites a particularly traumatic case as motivation. It involved the abduction, rape and torture of multiple Filipino children by an Australian paedophile, who sold videos of the abuse to other global offenders.

“I was disturbed, actually, that this was happening to our children,” he said. “In my long years of public service, I never encountered that kind of inhumanity.”

The University of Nottingham Rights Lab estimates nearly half a million Filipino children are trafficked into online sexual exploitation each year.

“I always pray that will not be replicated. That’s why we need to rescue every child before they experience that kind of brutality.”

Kuya Ted was born in Jolo, a volcanic, Islamic-majority island in Mindanao, a historically volatile region in southern Philippines. Fighting between the Philippine government and local Islamic separatist groups has intermittently raged in Mindanao for decades. He describes his childhood using one word: “war.”

In February 1974, when Kuya Ted was 22, war erupted between the Philippine Armed Forces and the Moro National Liberation Front, a separatist group seeking regional self-governance outside the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

“When I graduated from college, I didn’t want to work with the government because everyone in Sulu hates the government,” he says. “To us, the Philippine government was an occupier, an oppressor.”

Kuya Ted remembers his town burning during the fighting. His youngest brother Rickson, 4, was killed in a bombing.

“I saw the wound here,” Kuya Ted motions across his neck, “it was white pale, no more blood.”

After surviving, Kuya Ted began working for the governmental Department of Welfare and Social Development (DSWD). He dedicated his life to protecting Filipino children. He would remain with the DSWD until his initial retirement.

“I tell my family and friends that the days after that bombing were like borrowed time. I should have been dead with my brother. But because of my purpose, God extended, provided me this life up till now,” he says.

“I think that’s what drives me on even in the midst of these things.”

Kuya Ted reports that just over 1,000 total Filipino children have been rescued from online sexual exploitation, most often trafficked by perpetrating family members. “That was not enough,” he says. “We would like to see like 1,000 a month children to be rescued”.

With diabetes and illnesses affecting him, Kuya Ted’s family have suggested he slow down. He refuses. “I have visited the hospital several times already,” he says, “but every time I came back energised to continue the mission.”  

When our interview ends, it's past 7pm. His daughter has texts, clearly unsurprised, asking when he needs collecting. I wait with him down on the street, facing lines of red taillights. He says I should go, “take care, it’s late.”

Before I have time to protest, he has gone, turned quickly inside the 7-11 to sneak sugary ube ice cream before his daughter arrives.