Manila, Feb. 11 -- Senator Loren Legarda is pushing for the passage of the proposed Expanded Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children (OSAEC) and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials (CSAEM) Act to strengthen safeguards against evolving forms of child exploitation in digital spaces.

In her co-sponsorship speech in the Senate plenary on Tuesday afternoon, Legarda recalled how she was already documenting the horrors of human trafficking during her days as a young journalist in the 1970s and 1980s, showing that trafficking was already a global scourge even before the rise of today's digital technologies.

"Long before I entered public service, I saw how syndicates prey on vulnerability and poverty, and how victims a...