Jalan Joy B. Umbina October 1, 2013 ENG 10-THW3 Final Draft of Position Paper (1,979 words) End Clergy’s Sexual Exploitation, Give Justice for their Victims Ever since the Philippines was under the colonialization of the Spaniards there were cases already regarding the involvement of the clergy in sexual abuse. In fact, in one of Dr. Jose Rizal’s famous novel entitled Noli Me Tangere which reflects the condition of the Philippine society and reveals the immorality of the Spaniards that time, one character named Padre Damaso, a former parish curate, secretly violated Donya Pia Alba, the mother of Maria Clara. Donya Pia Alba was not given justice for the abuse; hence Padre Damaso remained a priest and a part of the church. Today, sexual abuse incidents concerning priests remain unresolved and continue to rise in the society; some of these are reported while unfortunately some are not. According to an article by Carlos H. Conde , the former president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Archbishop Orlando Quevedo said that about 200 of the country’s 7,000 priests may have committed “sexual misconduct” – including child abuse, homosexuality and affairs – over the past two decades. Aside from the alleged number of priests, in a report by Joe Torres, journalist of Ucanews.com, Fr. Shay Cullen, an Irish priest and founder of the People’s Recovery Empowerment Development Assistance Foundation said that catholic bishops in the Philippines are covering up "rampant sexual abuse of children by the clergy.” In this paper, I argue that laws and punishment such as certain years of imprisonment and excommunication of the clergy involved in sexual abuse should be implemented or existing state criminal laws should strictly apply to all citizens because ever since the colonization of the