The Philippines has rapidly become a key hub of the billion-dollar global child cybersex industry, with operators aided by widespread poverty and legal loopholes that allow them to remain anonymous, police say.
Paying subscribers anywhere in the world can log in to sites operated from Manila and across the archipelago that stream the abuse of Filipino children on the internet, Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa said.
"We are the origin, the source," Sosa, head of the Philippine National Police's anti-cybercrime unit, told a news conference on Friday, adding the industry spread rapidly across the country last year.
Police in Britain, Australia and the Philippines announced on Thursday that they had jointly dismantled a pedophile ring that streamed live sexual abuse of Filipino children as young as six over the internet. In some cases, the victims' parents were involved.
Fifteen victims aged between six and 15 have been rescued, Britain's National Crime Agency said on Thursday, adding that 29 people had been arrested, including 11 in the Philippines.
Three other ongoing investigations have identified 733 suspects, the agency added.
The Australian Federal police said on Thursday they executed a total of six search warrants, resulting in the arrest of three Australian offenders for child sexual exploitation offences.
Sosa said the Philippines is a "top 10" purveyor of what he described as a global "cottage industry (worth) billions of dollars".
The victims are mostly younger than 18, he said, recounting how he took part in some police raids in the northern city of Angeles, where boys and girls aged between 10 and 14 performed "lewd acts" in front of cameras.
Some of the suspects arrested are Americans or Europeans, with Filipino "cohorts", he said.
In Manila, he said the streaming is done inside hotel rooms. It is also done in 31 of the Philippines' 81 provinces, with Angeles, the central city of Cebu and the southern city of Cagayan de Oro being the other main sites.
The police official said some of the streaming is done inside shanties in the sprawling slums of the Philippines, a country of 100 million where one in four people live on less than a dollar a day, according to government data.
"The parents themselves facilitate the children's participation," Sosa said, adding their earnings help support the families.
