BABY Theo Raymundo doesn’t cry. His family say he rarely does.
“He’s such a good baby,” coos his aunt, Sharan, 41. “He almost never makes a sound.”
Baby Theo’s heartbroken aunt Sharan wants his dad to acknowledge him Credit: Dave Tacon
Sex workers in Angeles City line up in front of customers in a bar Credit: Getty
Children at an Angeles Relief Inc charity event – some are allegedly born to British dads Credit: Dave Tacon
Even when Theo’s mouth is prised open to collect from inside his tiny cheek, he barely makes a noise.
It’s a simple swab test that could change his life beyond recognition.
Four-month-old Theo is one of the 100s of forgotten children born to women – including sex workers – in the and then allegedly abandoned by their British fathers.
While these British holiday makers might have taken a plane home and left their responsibilities behind, advances in DNA testing and crusading charity workers mean they could now face being pursued for child support in the British courts.
If DNA tests prove the man we suspect is Theo’s dad, he can be held accountable and forced to pay for his child’s upbringing. It could lift the baby from poverty so extreme that there’s barely enough for food, let alone for school pencils or medical care.
I am the head of a that helps track down the fathers who have left their children behind.
We believe Theo’s father is a wealthy British businessman now living the high life in Dubai. The man’s life on social media is a flashy photobook of expensive cocktails, nights out and fancy cars.
In stark contrast, Theo, whose mother Liezel died in childbirth last year, lives in a crowded concrete shack in Angeles City, about 85km north-east of Manila.
Sadly – as The Sun’s exclusive new series Looking for Dad: The Children of Britain’s Sex Tourists reveals – he is not alone in his plight.
Around 180,000 Brits visit the Philippines each year, and in Angeles, you rarely see a Western woman alone, but there are plenty of men. This is where boys come to play.
The city is at the centre of the Southeast Asian , boosted by the existence of a former US airbase three miles away.
Women who fall pregnant to foreign visitors are often left high and dry as fathers deny their children, block contact and refuse financial support. Other men simply have no idea they’ve become a dad.
I first came to Angeles City as a journalist ten years ago, and began to write about the children of foreign fathers who live here – and the lives of their mothers.
Journalist Margaret Simons with baby Theo – she is trying to find his dad to lift him from a life of poverty Credit: Dave Tacon
Theo has a big sister, Thea, but his mum died in childbirth Credit: Dave Tacon
The stories I wrote drew attention, and I founded a charity, Angeles Relief Inc, based in my home country of .
As a charity, we raise money to provide welfare support to the abandoned children of foreign fathers in the Philippines.
We pay for decent accommodation, food, medical costs and school supplies – trying to keep the kids in school to give them a chance of options in the future.
There are lots of reasons to visit the Philippines, but in Angeles City, there is really only one attraction.
There are groups and dedicated websites that cater to the men who visit: Angeles City, they say, is a place where “you can’t help but get laid”.
Men often boast that they don’t use condoms, with one writing: “I took an unopened box of 40, and came home with an unopened box.”
Even if the women object, they tell me the men often ignore their pleas.
Prostitution here is illegal, but it is a bit like saying it never rains in London.
The euphemism is to be a “bar girl”, or a dancer, or a waitress. Desperate poverty means the boundaries between and prostitution, between being a bar girl and a sex worker, are blurry.
The family of Theo’s mum, Liezel, told me she was never a sex worker but met the man she claims is her son’s father when she worked at one of the bars sex tourists frequent.
They claimed Theo’s ‘father’ had been there several times.
Her family told me when the man visited Angeles City again in March last year, he got in touch with Liezel on , asking her to organise his room bookings – and a cold for his arrival.
I have seen messages that were allegedly shared between Liezel and the dad.
In one, she writes that she is worried because she was fertile when they had sex.
He advised her to take the morning-after pill, which she did, but she later claimed it was too late.
In another message, Liezel tells the man she is pregnant, and he replies: “Is it mine?”
The messages also reveal talk of an abortion, but Liezel went ahead with her pregnancy. Abortion is illegal in the Philippines – and always a risky procedure.
A message Liezel’s family say came from Theo’s alleged father Credit: Supplied
WhatsApp screenshots allegedly shared between Liezel and Theo’s dad Credit: Supplied
The family say the pregnancy had complications, and Liezel was so sick that she lost her job and had to sell her possessions and move in with her sisters. We have seen a message she sent in June in which she asks the British man for help with her medical .
The reply she received reads: “I told you I didn’t want the kid you said you was going to get rid of it and you have kept it not my fault that was your choice take care.”
Liezel died in childbirth in November last year after her blood pressure dropped and she was rushed to hospital with catastrophic bleeding.
Since then, the man we suspect is Theo’s father has been contacted by her friends and family. In messages, he was shocked to hear of her death, but says he doesn’t believe the child is his.
He did not respond to our requests to do a DNA test to establish the matter.
But I am onto him. Theo’s DNA sample is currently being analysed. Within a few weeks, we will have the results. And then we will hopefully be contacting the man.
As an organisation, we started doing something radical in 2020 to track down the fathers of the Filipino children left behind.
We utilise vast private databases that people sign up to in an effort to find family, matching DNA to abandoned Filipino children.
So far, we have successfully taken men to court in , , and the US – now we begin in the . The laws are there to help us.
If a person uploads their DNA to a database, it is often possible to trace their family connections or a distant relative – a third or second cousin, for example.
A mother and her children – who she says were born to sex tourists – eat in the slums Credit: Dave Tacon
Angeles City slums are home to thousands of sex workers and their children Credit: Dave Tacon
We started using DNA sampling and genealogical detective work to trace the fathers, aided by a small team of forensic genealogists and a lot of volunteer effort.
Then comes the hard bit. We contact the men.
Sometimes they don’t know they have a child. Sometimes they knew all too well, but escaped responsibility simply by leaving the country and blocking the mother.
I’d love to say that they all take responsibility and do some version of the right thing. That is true in only about a third of cases.
More often, they block us, deny us and avoid us.
It was summed up to me most crudely in the words of one British man I contacted: “She was a hooker, for f***s sake.”
The child, he said, was therefore nothing to do with him.
Sometimes we have to take legal action – which we do with the help of a growing international network of lawyers who act for the children and their mothers without charge.
If it is proved the British businessman is Theo’s father, it would have a profound impact on his upbringing.
His aunt, Grace Raymundo, works overseas in a factory job in Korea, having left her own 14-year-old daughter to be cared for by her parents and sisters, so that the children, including Theo, at least have enough to eat.
Grace sends all she can – about 40,000 pesos a month, or about just over £500, to support six people – Theo, his older sister, Grace’s own child and her parents and sister.
It’s not only British men who deny their offspring.
Walking through the streets of the slums in Angeles City, you can see a of faces – children who clearly have foreign fathers. Europeans, Americans, African Americans, Chinese and Koreans.
Angeles City has a booming trade in sex tourism THE LAW
By Margaret Simons
Supporting your children is not only a moral responsibility, but also a legal one in almost all countries of the world, including the Philippines and the United Kingdom.
Coming to a sensible and amicable agreement between mothers and fathers is usually in everyone’s best interests.
But as a last resort, we find lawyers to act for the children and their mothers and go to court.
The United Kingdom and the Philippines have a reciprocal enforcement maintenance order arrangement.
This means the British authorities and courts will enforce a
legitimate child support application from a Philippines-based parent.
The legal obligation to support your children does not depend on whether the mother and father were married, or had a long-term relationship.
If the father is not acknowledged on the birth certificate, then its more complicated and a special application with additional evidence, such as a DNA test, will have to be made.
If the father won’t provide DNA evidence, then an application can be made to the courts to make a declaration of parentage on the basis of any other evidence provided, and taking into account the father’s refusal.
The courts can also order a father to do a DNA test if they decide it is in the child’s best interests.
If the British authorities decide a father is due to pay child support, then they use a formula based on the income of both parents to decide the amount.
Failure to pay child support can lead to money being deducted direct from wages or pensions, or bailiffs can be sent to collect on the debt.
We have succeeded in helping mothers to take the legal path in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the USA – now we begin in the United Kingdom – the laws are there.
If a child was born on or after 1 July 2006 to a Filipino mother and a British citizen, then they are automatically British citizens. They can apply to the British Government for a letter to confirm this, and then for a British passport – but would have to provide evidence of parentage.
Again, the courts can be asked to order a DNA test.
Britain and the Philippines are both signatories to an international treaty that would see children like Theo eligible for British citizenship and support from the men who disowned them.
In practice, the barriers for a poor family with inadequate English and no money are insurmountable unless the father cooperates.
However, getting the Philippine government to forward an application to Britain can take up to 18 months, in our experience, and the families have no money for lawyers to take the matter to court and force the father to do a DNA test.
There are no official estimates, and no way of knowing for sure how many children of British sex tourists there are here. In the chaos of the slums, many of the kids lack birth certificates.
They barely exist to their own government, let alone to Britain.
Out of sight of the tourists, concrete block shanties and shed-like built of the refuse from building sites tumble down to nameless creeks littered with plastic. These streams are often both the source of drinking water and the toilet.
Many homes – sometimes little more than sheds and shacks – lack running water or sanitation.
The laneways of the slums are often too narrow for any vehicle except a motorbike.
For women raised in poverty, often not even finishing school, there are few alternatives to sex work. Unemployment in the Philippines is high, and even working in a restaurant requires school completion, if not a college degree.
When the women get too old, or when a relationship with a foreign man collapses, many become rubbish pickers combing the dumps on the edge of the slums for discarded food and materials they can sell.
When the young women arrive at work in the main red light district of Fields Avenue, they shed their workday shorts and T-shirts, the identity of mother, and brush their hair till it shines, don their skimpy costumes and prepare to meet the tourists, laugh at their jokes, and tell them they are hot.
But the reality is that, should they get pregnant, their babies will be abandoned and the women forced to face the music alone.
Coming next in our Looking for Dad series: Chasing the Birmingham father who left a five-year-old daughter in the Angeles slums.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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