Breaking the silence: Survivors of sexual abuse finally speak up

The victims of a predator at an international school in Samut Prakan are now standing up to demand justice for themselves.

The Filipino teacher, who is believed to be on the run in the United States, is alleged to have committed the abuse in the 2000s when the victims were in middle school.

One of the victims, who prefers to use the pseudonym “Tan”, shared his harrowing experiences with The Nation. He was 14 years old at the time and was studying at the international school in Bang Phli district when the abuse began.

Tan told The Nation that he still remembers the fear and confusion he felt about the teacher’s inappropriate behaviour, adding that he is still haunted by this violation of trust.

Start of the trauma

The alleged abuse began during a school trip to the United States, where the teacher shared a room with Tan and two other students.

The teacher’s identity is being kept secret as required by victims and for legal purposes.

Tan said the teacher began showing his true colours from the very first day they landed on US soil.

“On the very first day – I don’t know if he drugged me or because I was jetlagged – I was not very responsive and he took advantage of that,” he said.

“He put his finger inside my behind and I had no strength to stop him. All this happened in the teacher’s mother’s house in California. 

When I woke up, he told me I should have washed my behind well because he had faeces on his finger,” Tan said in his written testimony to The Nation.

Tan suffered abuse throughout the month-long stay in the US, whether it was being forced to watch pornography or being given fellatio while sleeping.

The victim said he was afraid the teacher would hurt him, so he chose not to fight back.

Abuse continued

After returning to Thailand, he was frequently asked to go to the teacher’s house every weekend for six months, where he suffered more molestation.

“This went on for another six months until I came to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore, so I stopped going to see him. It was like I had Stockholm syndrome [a mechanism abuse victims develop to cope with traumatic situations]. I tried to reason that I was willing to do it, that I wasn’t a victim, until one point when I blocked him and didn’t go out to see him anymore,” he said.

Tan said he tried to get over the past, but realised that he suffered from social anxiety and post-traumatic disorder even though several years have passed by.

Others come forward

Tan was not the only victim. Another former student reached out to The Nation, saying he wanted to see this paedophile thrown behind bars.

Choosing to remain anonymous, this former student told The Nation that the abuse started when he was in the 8th grade and lasted until the 10th grade.

The teacher, who was also his basketball coach, used to invite his students to his home for sleepovers. While the children were there, he normalised the inappropriate behaviour by showing them porn, plying them with alcohol and eventually initiating sexual acts.

“Once he had me go to his house and hired a prostitute to come over. He then videotaped me having sex with the prostitute,” the victim said, adding that the teacher had made him believe that this behaviour was normal for boys his age.

“As a 14-year-old boy, I listened to him, because at that age, we are very curious about sex,” he said.

However, he said, things started feeling wrong and that’s when he decided to pull away from the teacher and focus on “more important things in life”.

Lasting impact

Even though the abuse happened more than 15 years ago, Tan said it was time the predator was caught and punished.

According to Tan, the teacher started his career in the Philippines in 1990 before shifting to Thailand from 1992 to 2016. He is apparently based in the United States now, working as a teacher, and there is a good chance that his list of victims has entered hundreds, Tan said.

With the help of US-based charity, A21, as well as the Department of Special Investigation and the Bang Kaew Police Station, Tan and other victims were able to take the case to the US Department of Homeland Security in April.

Where is he now?

Latest updates show that the abuser is now working at a school in Los Angeles, where several cases of abuse have been reported.

By the time the update was received by The Nation, the teacher’s name and photograph had been removed from the school’s website.

It is still not known if any action has been taken against the perpetrator and his exact whereabouts are still unknown.