Article

An insider's account of free-love, group-sex cult

Philippines Inquirer, August 12, 2002
Inquirer News Service

Separated from family

Members were separated from their family and friends. They were
forbidden to interact with non-members, or even to read newspapers.
"They controlled our wills and minds by asking us to write everything we
did and thought every day. They would read everything, and then we are
told when we deviate from the norm or the rule of the group.

"We were made to recruit others through feminine flirtation, including
using sex or going to bed with a prospective member."

She said male members never had it so good because they could have any
woman they desire to go to bed with, and nobody would refuse or decline
them. It was past of loving one another. She said she saw Filipino men
sleep with beautiful white girls of every nationality in the group. Over
the nine-year period she was with the cult, Marivic said she must have
slept with more than 30 different men. Such sexual encounters were not
protected. So there were a lot of pregnancies and most of the time, the
women never even knew who the fathers of their babies were. Fortunately,
in her case, she had only one pregnancy and she knew who the father was
because at the time, she was staying with him in the same room.

"What about the man's wife?" I asked.

"She was sent on assignment outside the country."

"Also sleeping with other men?"

"Yes!"

"So, how did you get out?" I asked. She said she got out not because she
felt there was anything wrong with what they were doing but that she
fell in love with a British guy who was a former supporter of the cult.

"But he didn't know about the sex part until I told him." He helped her
get away from the group.

But even if she had been out of the group for many years, she was still
with them emotionally. She did not feel she was sexually exploited and
abused. And when she finally realized that, the feeling of guilt,
embarrassment and remorse never left her. It was only after she met a
foreign therapist, who was familiar with victims of cults, did she come
to understand what really happened to her and to do something about it.

"Is the group still active in the Philippines?" I asked her.

"Yes, they are still around, but very low-key. They are afraid of
publicity. I couldn't even find the old members anymore," she replied.

"I thought they were disbanded and expelled by the government from the
Philippines?"

"The foreigners, yes. They transferred to Thailand and Japan. But the
group is still operating in the Philippines up to now."

"That's scary," I said.

"That's why I want to expose them to warn others," she said.

She read everything she could about cults on the Internet and, thus,
began her long journey to recovery. She is planning to write a book
about her experience with the cult where she promised to reveal
everything that happened to her, especially the sexual exploitation.
That should make a best-seller.

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http://www.inq7.net/lif/2002/aug/13/lif_22-2.htm