The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies; it comes from those you trust the most.
— Anonymous

MAYPAJO, Caloocan City — It's an ironical betrayal of mission that has triggered shaken the august halls of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a newly released United States Justice Department watchdog report cited FBI agents caught buying sex while attending anti-trafficking events.
Based on the report, while US federal agents trained Southeast Asian police forces, including our very own Philippine National Police (PNP), on how to combat human trafficking, several of their colleagues were simultaneously paying for sex—often in the presence of local law enforcement.
The damning document, released following a successful lawsuit filed by The New York Times, provides the most detailed account yet of how FBI agents—tasked with fighting exploitation—were actively participating in it.
Uncoverred was a long pattern of misconduct involving FBI agents posted in Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines, where some of the contradicting behaviors occurred while officials were in the region for conferences and anti-trafficking seminars—including a training course co-hosted by the Royal Thai Police and the FBI itself.
In one case, during a 2018 event in Manila, FBI agents accepted prostitutes allegedly paid for by local police. Another incident involved American agents visiting bars in Bangkok to negotiate sex—twice—while attending official events. Some outings ended in hotel rooms where employees were handed keys corresponding to sex workers and at least one supervisor participated.
The official misconduct spans nearly a decade, from 2009 to 2018, and includes scenarios where multiple FBI employees socialized and engaged in sex acts together, sharing hotel rooms and soliciting women, even while attending conferences on law enforcement cooperation.
Five employees were eventually removed, resigned, or retired during the investigation. However, the FBI and the Justice Department fought for years to keep the information secret. It was only after a federal judge in New York ordered disclosure that the more complete report was finally made public.
Originally reported by investigative journalist Mara Hvistendahl for The New York Times, the findings paint a disturbing picture of how systemic misconduct was allowed to fester quietly behind diplomatic immunity and bureaucratic delay—even after previous scandals in Colombia had already embarrassed US agencies like the Secret Service and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
In view of the US report, Gabriela party-list representative Arlene Brosas has called for an investigation in connection with the New York Times report that members of the FBI paid for or accepted sex with prostitutes while socializing "with each other and with the police" from 2009 to 2018.
The lawmaker demanded that all perpetrators—both the foreign agents and our local police who facilitated this abuse and exploitation—be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.
Stressing that this heinous exploitation of Filipina women should not go unpunished because it is not only a case of individual misconduct but a clear manifestation of the culture of impunity and systematic exploitation of women that continues to pervade in society and enabled by no less than those sworn to protect the people.

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