THE CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS

An In-depth Look on Angeles Citys Red Light District

Opening Remarks:
In many countries paying for sex is illegal.
Pampanga's red light district is one of the biggest and
oldest sex destinations in the world. It is already an
all-knowing fact that prostitution in the Philippines is
unlawful. Penalties range up to life imprisonment for
those involved in trafficking, which is wholly covered
by the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003.
However, despite all these measures, prostitution in
Pampanga, specifically in Angeles City, is legal since
the 90s. It is now Pampanga's main tourist attraction
generating millions of pesos a year.

Introduction of Fields Avenue, Perimeter Road,

and Friendship Avenue:

The nightlife scene in the Balibago district

features hundreds of girl-oriented clubs and bars in
the traditional walking street as well as restaurants,
hotels, and KTVs. Despite the closing of Clark Air
Base, the area continues to thrive and host
thousands of foreign tourists arriving on a daily basis.
Balibago can only be described as an area dedicated
to alcohol and young women, engrossed in the idea
of sex tourism. A true example of a city that never
sleeps.
The Balibago district encompasses three
entertainment areas, including Perimeter Road (also
known as Don Juico Avenue), Friendship Avenue
(also known as Korean Town), and the globally
renowned Fields Avenue, dubbed as the
Entertainment
Capital
of
Central
Luzon,
Entertainment City, Amsterdam, and Sin City. Club
Asia, Tropix, Dollhouse, Forbidden City, Ponytails,
Club Lancelot, Viking, Hangout, Club Atlantis, and
Lollipop Bar are some of the most popular and
expensive bars in the district.

This documentary will center its story on the

issue of sex tourism and rampant prostitution on
Fields Avenue, along with its societal impacts and
possible outcomes.
DAYTIME IN ANGELES CITY:
During the day, Fields Avenue is a peaceful place
to eat or drink. Restaurants, cafes, and some bars
are already open at this time whose patrons comprise
of mostly foreigners with Filipina dates. Beggars
flock the Walking Street in order to ask for alms to get
through the day. Mornings in Fields Avenue may
seem like the perfect spot but when nighttime comes,
the avenue is nothing like what is presented here.
NIGHTTIME IN FIELDS:
When nighttime falls, the peaceful and quiet street
turned into a world full of neon lights and loud music.
At this time, a wide array of businesses like toy stores
were already bright and open. Street vendors

fluttered around carrying goods like cigarettes,

flowers, and even drugs. Pleasure seekers from
around the world check out one of Asias more
raucous entertainment districts across from the main
gate of the one-time air base, wandering in and out of
bars featuring bikini-clad dancers available for the
price of a bar fine.

Issues:

 The legality of bars and clubs in the Balibago

district should be revoked.
There are minors working in bars who uses fake
identities to hide their true age; most of the girls
when recovered through raids are from Manila.
There are many jobs or ways to earn money but
they chose to work as a bar girl/boy.
These bars and clubs must no longer situated in
the city, if policemen really patrol in the area, and
if the government officials in the city are really
doing their job.
Citizens in Pampanga hated to call their city as
Sin City of the Philippines, but these type of
businesses are existing.
Are these type of businesses pushes the city to
be called, the Entertainment Capital?

 A lot of children in the city are born without a

father, and sometimes without both parent.
The City mayor denies that there is prostitution
happening in the city. However, if you search
Angeles City, Pampanga in the web clubs,
bars, and those girls wearing revealing clothes
are the first to appear on the screen.
.
.
.
.
.

Interview:
Gerald Bolado, 35, a resident of Angeles City, is
working as a tricycle driver on Fields Avenue for five
(5) years. We asked to get his views and opinions

with regard the pressing issue on Angeles City via

tape to which he gladly agreed.
On the first run of interviews, Kuya Gerald
seemed hesitant when asked about his opinion on
the legality of these businesses in the area. He
confirmed some of the allegations that city
government officials, including the mayor is really
benefitting from them. The next thing that the team is
concerned about is the selling of drugs on the street.
He cut us short mid-question and verified the issue.
On Cialis and Viagra:
Cialis (Tadalafil) and Viagra (Sildenafil) are both
PDE5 (phosphodiesterase type 5) inhibitors used for
the treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED), which only
work when a man is sexually aroused. Though, Cialis
has been known to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia
or the enlargement of the prostate gland, side effects
may occur. Some of which include headaches, body
pain, digestive problems, dizziness, vision changes,

flushes, congestion, and worse priapism (or erections

that last longer than four hours).
In closing, we asked further about the status of
prostitution in the district.
Interview Conclusion:
There really is more to Fields Avenue than meets
the eye. Not only does the residents knew about the
existence of the issue but they seemed tolerant about
it. To further prove if such condition really exist, the
team decided to go inside a bar to film and observe.
We scoured the Walking Street to look for bars or
clubs that we can enter, but all security personnel
declined. They told us that we cannot get in if we are
not accompanied by a foreign escort or client. This
shows that the area exclusively caters to foreigners
only, especially those carrying a vast amount of dead
presidents or dollars, to put it simply.

HOSTO INTERACTION:
Following the instruction of Kuya Gerald, we
began searching for gay bars and found one. The
team was hesitant to enter at first but was invited by
one of the bar entertainers. Though expectations are
already set about how bars work, the entire
experience was way beyond ones imagination.
To get more information, we paid one of the male
escorts working at the bar. His name is Romer
Dacallos, 25, working as a dancer at Macho Man Hosto & Comedy Bar. He is originally from Manila,
but transferred to Angeles City in order to be with his
wife, who also work as an entertainer within the
Balibago district.
BALIBAGO.COM:

We researched the prostitution in Angeles City

online and found this website. Not only does it
provide an all-inclusive sex guide to Angeles City, it
also offers a Philippines Girl Guide, much to our
astonishment. If you search further, you can even see
a Wiki Sex Guide (similar to that of a Wikipedia page)
of Angeles City.
CONCLUSION:
Its saddening to see how the City of Angels is
portrayed to make matters worse, we often blame
society; yet we always forget that we are the
society.

PROSTITUTION IN THE PHILIPPINES

Even though it is widely practiced, prostitution is
illegal in the Philippines. There is an organized
movement to make prostitution a legal activity in the
Philippines. By one estimate a half a million women
prostitute themselves.
There are basically three kinds of prostitutes in the
Philippines: 1) those that work out of casas, or
brothels, and are employed by pimps or brothel
owners: 2) those who work in bars, karaokes and
hotels, who are usually controlled by the owners of
the establishment where they work; and 3)

freelancers, who work the streets. Brothels are often

disguised as restaurants.
Most of the men who use prostitutes in the
Philippines are locals not foreigners. You would not
get this impression by visiting one of the better known
red light districts. Local tend to use community-,
neighborhood- and town- based brotherl and sex
workers. In Angeles City, near Clark Air base, there is
one street with bars for foreigners on one side, and
bars for locals on the other.
Many prostitutes work for pimps. One Filipinos social
worker in Cebu told the Japan Times, There are two
type of pimps. The Amou, or maintainers, who recruit
and take care of the girls, and make sure they do not
run away. They also push drugs on the girls. The Iti,
or wild ducks, chase customers, and bring them to
the girls.
Former prostitute Liza Gonzales told the Philippines
Inquirer, Women in this field are often looked at as
sinners and home wreckers. But we are not

criminals We are actually victims, Gonzales said.

Some are victims of rape or incest. Some are girls
from rural areas who were fooled by illegal recruiters
We are victims of different circumstances, but we
all fell into prostitution, she said. [Source: Rima
Jessamine M. Granali, Philippine Daily Inquirer,
September 26, 2011 /*\]
The police arguably do more to abet prostitution than
stop it. One sex worker told the Philippine Inquirer:
When cops like the apprehended woman, she is
forced to have sex with them. Nowadays, kotong
(bribe) ranges from P3,000 to P4,500, and
transactions begin even before they reach the
precinct, she said. /*\
Transvestites also participate in prostitution,
especially with unwary foreigners. Male homosexuals
and child prostitutes who created Asias reputation for
sex tourism are concentrated in major metropolitan
cities.

Early History of Prostitution in the Philippines

Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson wrote in the
Encyclopedia of Sexuality: Tribal wars between the
aborigines in the Philippine islands turned the
vanquished into slaves for labor or cannibalism, but
not sexual slaves. When Chinese merchants started
trading with the inhabitants of the archipelago in 960
C.E., they intermarried with native women, but did not
sexually exploit the women. With the advent of
Spanish colonists in the late 1500s, a flourishing
slave trade was established between the Philippines,
the Caribbean, and Spain. Anecdotal reports
revealed that some Filipina slaves were sold as
exotic sex objects or prostitutes to European
brothels. When Pope Gregory XIV abolished slavery
in the Philippines in 1591, middle-class Europeans
started to immigrate to the archipelago, but the
sexual exploitation of Filipinas by the Spanish
colonists continued. [Source: Jose Florante J.
Leyson, M.D., Encyclopedia of Sexuality www2.huberlin.de/sexology, 2001 |~|]

During World War 11 (1941-1944), the Japanese

Imperial Army forced Philippine women from Manila
and surrounding towns to serve as comfort girls
(military prostitutes) to provide sexual favors to all
Japanese soldiers serving in the Philippines and in
the Pacific region. In the 1990s, with international
(legal) backing, these comfort girls were partially
compensated for their humiliation and moral
sufferings. When the American troops liberated the
Philippines from Japanese imperialism in October
1945, many American soldiers left illegitimate
Amerasian children behind. The mothers of these
children and their Amerasian children were social
outcasts. In order for these mothers to survive, they
became part-time prostitutes in the rural areas for
single laborers and traveling salesmen and in the
cities with all kinds of customers. |~|
Impact of the U.S. Military and the Vietnam War on
the Sex Trade in the Philippines
According to government figures, more than 10.4
million Filipinos live and work overseas, taking jobs

ranging from low-skill domestic work in the Middle

East and Hong Kong to jobs as emergency-room
nurses in Canada and Europe. Most Filipinos who go
overseas for work are sent to Middle Eastern
countries, often laboring in difficult and dangerous
conditions in order to send money to their families in
the Philippines.
In 1947, President Roxas signed a military
agreement granting twenty-two military bases to the
United States. In the following year, the two largest
U.S. military bases in the Far East, the Naval Subic
Bay and Clark Air Force Base, were established north
of Manila. Angeles City, located near Clark Air Force
Base, later became the Mecca of Sex Trade, the
military adult-entertainment capital of the Philippines,
with every variety of prostitution, exotic bars,
pornography, and sex tourism conceivable. [Source:
Jose Florante J. Leyson, M.D., Encyclopedia of
Sexuality www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology, 2001 |~|]
The origin of the sex trade in Thailand and the
Philippines as it exits today has origins in the Vietnam

War when soldiers and navy men, that before this

period had a reputation of being gentlemen, found
themselves in an unwinnable war and needed a
release from the stress. In their time off they
caroused bars in Bangkok, Saigon and Manila and
girls attracted by money came to meet the demand.
In his book Fall From Glory, Gregory L Vistica wrote,
"respect for women was pretty much non-existent at
Subic Bay. The girls working bars in the pasties and
G-strings were 'hostitutes' and 'L.B.F.M.'s (little Brown
F------- Machines). The Navy tacitly sanctioned this
trade. Commanding officers used a formula to decide
when to order troops to stop having sex with local
prostitutes: 30 daysthe normal course of treatment
for venereal diseasebefore they arrived home."
"In the mid-'70s, the brass prepared a film called
"Sex and the Naval Aviator," to explain to wives the
intense pressure on pilots, to rationalize their need
for physical release after they had endured so much
under fire. But the production was deemed to
embarrassing and was never released."

Book: Fall From Glory by Gregory L Vistica (Simon &

Schuster, 1996)
Modern Prostitution in the Philippines
Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson wrote in the
Encyclopedia of Sexuality: With the advent of
information technology and global travel, the old
part-time prostitutes have moved to the big cities.
Prostitution survives because of poverty, the
commercialization of human relations, and the
sustained carnal demand. Although for different
reasons, all social classes made their
contributions to the trade in sexual services. The
rich are looking for entertainment and diversity of
sexual practices that they would never dare to ask
from their wives. These respectable matrons are
assigned by society only to bear and raise children,
manage households (sometimes businesses), and
organize social activities. The out-of-town students,
immigrant workers, and wayward youths may be
looking for their first sexual experiences and to

combat the loneliness of being separated from their

family for the first time. The poor frequent the brothels
to affirm their masculinity by using many women or to
relieve their loneliness. [Source: Jose Florante J.
Leyson, M.D., Encyclopedia of Sexuality www2.huberlin.de/sexology, 2001 |~|]
As in most other countries, there are three types of
prostitutes or sex working girls in the Philippines:
streetwalkers, entertainment girls (hostitutes), and
call girls or high-class prostitutes. Streetwalkers are
not common, are usually self-employed, and many
have pimps. Their safety is at jeopardy on the streets.
The majority of the prostitutes fall under the category
of entertainment girls. These hostitutes include bar
girls, nightclub hostesses (waitresses), masseuses,
exotic dancers, and those that work in brothels. They
are usually business employees and have contact
managers (sophisticated pimps). Their safety is
secure because they work inside an establishment.
However, they cannot refuse clients who are
produced by agencies and their managers. They
cannot set the prices for their services. Some

massage parlors are commercial fronts for prostitutes

who offer their services from oral sex to regular
intercourse ($25 to $65 US). |~|
Call girls comprise approximate about a third of the
female sex-worker population. Self-employed or
autonomous, they usually do not have managers.
They advertise their services in specialized
magazines disguised as escort services for
sophisticated gentlemen and sometimes ladies.
Hostitutes and call girls advertise their services
through word of mouth, by taxi drivers, bar bouncers,
club managers/owners, and hotel bell captains.
These agents receive part of the price in exchange
for referring clients. In the large sophisticated hotels,
the bell captain may have an album with pictures of
different prostitutes from which guests may choose.
In 1997, a new phenomenon emerged, the
Japosakis, Filipina hostitutes who return home from
sex work in Japan and continue serving their
Japanese special clientele or sugar daddies on their
periodic business trips to the archipelago. Recently,
there are also reports of an increasing number of

gigallos or toy boys who provide escort services and

pleasures for lonely matrons and wealthy widows. |~|
Government Monitoring of Prostitute in the
Philippines
Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson wrote in the
Encyclopedia of Sexuality: Although prostitution is still
illegal, Filipino society believes that some regulation
is always needed, based on the premise that
prostitution is regulated in order to minimize the
damage to society. Local city councils may require
filing an application with the city to establish a
brothel, indicating the location for legal reasons
and/or tax purposes. Local authorities may also
restrict brothels to certain areas and regulate any
signs that would identify it as a brothel. Prostitutes
cannot reside anywhere other than at the brothel
itself, which is her official domicile. Brothels also have
to have a bedroom for each working woman. The
women cannot show themselves at the balconies or
in a window, nor can they solicit in the streets. In
order to work in a brothel, a woman has to register

with the sanitaryhealth authorities (Bureau of Health).

The authorities will check whether she is a victim of
deceit or coercion and advise her that help and
assistance is available from legal authorities.
[Source: Jose Florante J. Leyson, M.D.,
Encyclopedia
of
Sexuality
www2.huberlin.de/sexology, 2001 |~|]
Each prostitute is given a sanitary notebook with
her picture, personal data, registration number (if
any), and the main articles of the decree that concern
her rights as a provider of a service. Her rights
include being free to stay or quit the brothel in which
she lives and works, debts cannot be used to compel
her to stay in a given brothel, and no one can subject
her to any abuse. Each prostitute has to undergo
mandatory monthly medical examinations for sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs). If an STD is diagnosed,
the brothel pays for medical treatment. The sex
worker must show her sanitary notebook to any
customer that asks to see it. The manager of the
brothel cannot accept any prostitute-candidate or
applicant who has not first registered and passed a

medical examination. The manager also has to report

immediately to the sanitary authorities whenever a
prostitute is ill, be this an STD or non-sexual disease.
|~|
It is easy to imagine the rampant corruption that this
naive attempt to protect customers and suppliers of
contractual sex alike has produced. Police protection
is bought, violations are ignored, and politicians and
judges are bribed, often on the pretext of protecting
the free practice of a fully consensual sex by the
client and sex worker. In reality, this law and its
application or lack thereof does little to protect the
health of the women and their clients. The women
have no protection from customers already infected.
The prostitutes can request that their clients wear
condoms, but cannot demand the performance of
safe sex practices. The clients are not subject to
compulsory medical control, and many may be
infected but not show any symptoms while others
suffer in silence and continue practicing unsafe sex
with other prostitutes, lovers, and even wives. |~|

Manila's Red Light District

The heart of Manila's red light district is on the
Avenue de Pilar, a street lined with karaoke bars and
sleazy night clubs catering primarily to Japanese,
Korean, American, European and Australian male sex
tourists. The hookers and sidewalk touts are
ferocious, practically wrestling potential customers
into their bars or hotels. Inside the bars, girls in black
and red negligees do bored and uninspired dances in
front of an audience that looks like humanity's version
of toxic waste.
Many of the girls are barely in (not of out) their teens.
Some paint their face with garish make-up to look
older. Others look scared and as if they be more
comfortable playing with dolls than administering oral
sex. When asked, most of these girls will say they are
20 even though most likely they are much younger
than that. The government has gone through the
trouble of issuing identification that indicate the girls
dont have AIDS or venereal diseases. Many of the
cards however are counterfeit.

In 1989, I was at one bar on the Avenue de Pilar at

closing time. Unleashed from the pretense of their
trade, the girls finally got a chance act their age.
While they placed chairs on tables and mopped the
floor they giggled, danced and sang to sappy Tagalog
songs playing on the juke box. My friend and I did a
couple of slow dances with the girls standing on our
feet. The feeling was more fatherly than sexual. The
scene was so wholesome that all that was missing
was a pillow fight. The night was like a double feature
of "Night of the Living Dead" and "Ozzie and Harriet."
Prostitutes, Strikes and Money in the Philippines
Some prostitutes like their jobs because the money
is good. Many bar workers and prostitutes staged
protests in 1991 an 1992 against the closing of Subic
navy base. A sex worker who worked at the Pussycat
Club in Olngapo told Newsweek she began work at a
bar where she was paid once cent on each bottle of
beer she sold and $8 for each sailor she had sex
with. In the club you pretend. You pretend youre

happy. She gave birth to an Amerasian son and was

back at work 10 days later.
A typical Filipina prostitute begins working in her
teens and usually retires before she reaches her late
20s. If she gets pregnant she has to quit or get an
abortion. Most do the latter. Many take antibiotics as
a preventative measure against sexually transmitted
diseases but take them so long their resistance is
reduced and they get sick a lot.
The children of three Filipina prostitutes were given
$35 million each because they were fathered by DHL
founder Larry Hillblom, who liked to hang out Filipino
bars and died in plane crash and left behind a fortune
of $550 million. One of the Filipina prostitutes claimed
she met Hillblom in a Manila-area nightclub in
October 1994 and said the tycoon was drawn to her
because she was a virgin and took care of her after
she got pregnant. The children of the girls were linked
to Hillblom by DNA samples taken from a mole that
was his that was removed at a San Francisco
hospital.

Sex Tourism in the Philippines

In the 1980s, jets planes full of Japanese men
arrived in Thailand and the Philippines on per-paid
sex tours that included airfare, accommodations,
transfers and a local girl waiting for them in their
room. Organized sex tourism doesn't really exist any
more. Most sex tourists are individuals, groups of
friends or couples.
In the early 2000s, Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson wrote
in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality: The Philippines has
always been known as the Pearl of the Orient Seas,
the Land of the Three Ss - Sun, Sand, and Sea. A
fourth S, Sex, sold in coolly wrapped packages,
has emerged to the point where it has already
warranted the United Nations attention: sex tourism
involving child prostitutes as young as 6 years old.
[Source: Jose Florante J. Leyson, M.D.,
Encyclopedia
of
Sexuality
www2.huberlin.de/sexology, 2001 |~|]

Angeles City in Pampanga, north of Manila, once

home of the mighty Clark U.S. Air Base, is now being
developed as an international airport. But the new
airport has also become the center of sex tours to the
Philippines, openly promoted abroad, arranged by
Filipino tour operators and their foreign counterparts,
with attractive come-ons for men seeking sexual
activities with virginal or child prostitutes who they
hope are free of STD and HIV infections.|~|
While the government is making major arrests in
this trade, and sex establishments are regularly
closed down, the front page of major dailies show
bikini-clad young girls being led away by operatives,
but never the brothel owners, the tour operators, their
cohorts, and pimps. The Philippine Congress is still
struggling to pass a law making a customer of a child
prostitute criminally liable, even if he does not
engage the services of a pimp. An increase of the
maximum punishment for child labor and exploitation
to twenty years was sought. The 1995 law set the
punishment for child prostitution at twenty years in

prison; the punishment for pornography and

pedophilia, however, remained unchanged. |~|
Sex tourism is the third-highest money-making
industry in the Philippines. But the current penalties
and enforcement policies do nothing to have an
impact on the business. As in many other countries,
the prostitutes are arrested, but not the clients,
managers, and others whose enormous profits make
this business so attractive. The punishment for
committing prostitution is a US$500 fine or twelve
years in jail. While this law, in effect for three
decades, applies to women dancing in the nude or in
scanty bikini tongs, a major element in the
prostitution trade, arrests are seldom made because
of corruption and bribery. |~|
In order to reduce the negative moral and economic
effects of prostitution, government and some nongovernment agencies are working together to
rehabilitate former prostitutes or entertainment girls
who retire or change their profession. The
governments Department of Social Welfare and

Development has programs to teach these exprostitutes other work alternatives and technical skills
as a means to a decent living. A civic action and
rehabilitation group, Marriage Encounter, is also
training married former prostitutes to help them move
back into mainstream society and divert single
women from the sex trade by improving their
personal skills for future relationships and family life.
But funds and enthusiasm for such social programs
are too limited. |~|
Prostitution Near Subic Bay and Clark Air Base
In Angeles City, a town outside Clark Air Base, U.S.
servicemen have been replaced by lonely old men
lured by young girls selling sex at very cheap prices.
Describing the scene in Angeles, Ages Chan wrote in
the Japan Times, Girls in the go-go bar wear tiny
white tops and short skirts. They dance on the tables
waiting for customers. Once they sit down with a
customer, the customers hands move all over their
bodies.

Describing the scene in the 1990s in Olangapo, a

town of 120,000 people outside Subic Bay, Edward
Gargan wrote in the New York Times, "When the
sunk sinks, the jukeboxes crank, men in T-shirts and
jeans straggle the bars, and scantily clad women
scan the tables for prospects. More often than not, a
young man will sidle up to a newcomer an ask, 'You
want a young girl? Fifteen only.'" When the base was
open in the 1980s, there were 16,000 prostitutes
working in Olangapo. Now there are only around 500.
Reporting from Angeles City, John M. Glionna wrote
in the Los Angeles Times, At a club called Koko
Yoko, balding men with bulging bellies sit at an
outdoor bar, sipping beers and leering at the young
girls who pass on the model's runway gone wrong
called Fields Avenue. Many of the girls weigh barely
90 pounds, their high heels pushing their almost
adolescent bodies at perverse angles. There are
cross-dressers fooling no one, calling out to men with
tattoos, Popeye forearms and gray hair on their
backs. "Lady boy!" they squeal. "Lady boy!" Some
men pass by with girls one-third their age, swinging

their hands together like a couple on a first date.

Others cavort with three girls at once, the women all
clutching their client like daughters competing for
Daddy's attention. [Source: John M. Glionna, Los
Angeles Times, August 16, 2009 ***]
Fields Avenue, the main pedestrian drag in Angeles
City, is a legacy of the time when this row of rundown bars was the romping ground of restless young
American airmen stationed at Clark Air Base. The
U.S. base closed in 1992, and the often-randy airmen
have gone with it. But the girls, the sex, the roundthe-clock raunchiness remain. Only the customers
have changed. A thriving sex tourism trade attracts
foreign customers by the thousands in search of
something they cannot find back home: girls young
enough to be their granddaughters selling sex for the
price of a burger and fries. ***
A young dancer in tight red hip-hugger pants and
matching sports bra acknowledges that Fields
Avenue may not be pretty, but the money is good.
She rolls her eyes at two overweight men who pass

by looking like large reptiles dressed in children's

clothing. Sure, the sex is disgusting, she says. But at
least it's over quickly. Outside Koko Yoko, the
doorman, a 33-year-old paraplegic, perches on a
wheeled wooden pallet. He says his father was an
American who once served at Clark, his mother a
local girl. He contracted polio when he was 11 and
has worked here ever since. The street, he says,
takes care of him. Soon, an idle stripper climbs onto
his back, rubbing her crotch into the back of his neck.
All along Fields Avenue, the come-on banners with
their Web addresses advertise good pay (up to $10 a
day) for hostess jobs. But applicants must speak
Korean, Japanese or Chinese. ***
Sex Scene in Angeles City Today
John M. Glionna wrote in the Los Angeles Times,
Once populated by men in their early 20s who
started each day with 100 push-ups, the place is now
home to older men who need help pushing
themselves out of bed in the morning. Most are
bused up from Manila, an hour away, on golf and sex

package deals. This is no quasi-innocent boys' night

out. Rather, it's a single-minded realm of wearylooking loners on a resolute hunt that smacks of
feeding an addiction. Many are ex-military men
reliving former glories, Peter Fonda and Dennis
Hopper wannabes, some gathering at the local
American Legion post before embarking into the
night. [Source: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times,
August 16, 2009 ***]
There is a one-armed man, a retiree with a walker
and another dapper gentleman who strolls along in a
dress shirt, twirling an umbrella, whistling a private
tune. Many head to the bars with the red-light special
called "The Early-Release": Buy your girl 10 drinks
and she's yours, no questions asked. Nobody asks
questions here. Nobody gives their name. Credit
cards are a joke; who wants to leave behind any
economic traces that they ever set foot here? ***
Nearby a saggy-faced Australian lights a cigarette.
He's been in Angeles City for about a month, his last
stop on a sex circuit from Bangkok to Manila after

getting laid off from his electrician's job in Sydney. In

Thailand, he says, the girls didn't speak the
language. Manila hookers were too streetwise, the
bars too spread out. But this is Easy Street. He can
sit atop his bar stool and ogle hundreds of passing
girls fresh from the countryside who perfect the tricks
of their trade before moving on to The Show in
Manila. The Australian signals a street vendor and
buys some knockoff Viagra. He says he prefers the
girls working one street over, who cost only 500
pesos, or about $10, apiece. "Anything goes here,"
he says, lighting another cigarette. He leans over to
offer a bit of Fields Avenue inside information: "You
can get a young girl here to do anything if you
promise to marry her." ***
A balding man pulls up on his motorcycle, greeting
several other men loudly in German. They already
have their catch, and girls jump on the back as the
cycles roar off. At the Tourist Assistance Booth,
Odysius Garche says the older customers are better
behaved than the U.S. airmen were. "I just tell them:
'The girls are inside. Go make your own deal.' "

Nearby, a chubby American with glasses eats a hot

dog. He says he's a bar manager, but offers no
details. He came to Angeles City from California, to
follow up on a chat-room hookup. He ended up on
Fields Avenue, drinking late with the dancers, hearing
their stories. "This is clean fun," he says. "There's no
sex shows. These girls are not slaves. They have
minds of their own." ***
Behind him, women call out from the doors of bars
with names like the Doll House, Club Lancelot,
Treasure Island, Club Cambodia, the Blue Nile and
the Amsterdam. Suddenly, a group of
twentysomething men storms past, laughing and
arm-punching. The news spreads and girls pop their
heads out the doorways to catch a glimpse of boys
their own age. One calls after them with a deal she
hopes they can't refuse: "Free!" she says, laughing.
***
Philippine Diplomats Involved in Prostituting Filipinas
in the Middle East

In 2013, the Philippine government said it was

investigating allegations that its diplomatic personnel
have trafficked Filipino women in the Middle East who
were seeking refuge there. Floyd Whaley wrote in the
New York Times, Philippine diplomatic and labor
officials are alleged to have forced distressed Filipino
women, in countries like Kuwait and Jordan, into
prostitution in return for safe passage back to the
Philippines. There are allegations that this has
become institutionalized in terms of the establishment
of sex rings and so forth, the Philippine secretary of
foreign affairs, Albert del Rosario, said at a news
conference. Investigations are being conducted to
ascertain the validity of these allegations, he said.
[Source: Floyd Whaley, New York Times, June 24,
2013 <^>]
The investigation by Mr. del Rosarios department
has involved the recalling of 13 heads of diplomatic
missions throughout the Middle East, Hong Kong,
Singapore and Malaysia. The ambassadors were not
implicated in the allegations but were called upon to
provide information, he said. The investigation also

found three victims who alleged that they were

victimized by Filipino diplomatic or labor officials, Mr.
del Rosario said. One suspect has been identified
and recalled to the Philippines. <^>
A Philippine congressman, Walden Bello, opened
an inquiry into the allegations of abuse in early June
after receiving information about officials extorting
sex in exchange for flights home. Our initial
investigation into sex for flights revealed something
bigger, Mr. Bello said Monday by telephone. They
were running a prostitution ring out of Philippine
embassies in Kuwait and Oman. The information was
shocking. Mr. Bellos investigation alleged that a
Filipino diplomat in Damascus had sex with five
distressed Filipino female workers seeking shelter in
the embassy, in separate incidents. The
congressman also reported that a senior Filipino
labor official in Jordan was prostituting Filipino
women for $1,000 per night. The investigation found
another labor official in Kuwait who is accused of
running a similar operation using Filipino workers
seeking shelter. <^>

These criminals parading as officials must be

stripped of their positions, recalled to the Philippines
and prosecuted, Mr. Bello said during a June 18
press conference. Mr. del Rosario said that a hot line
had been established for other victims to come
forward and that it was producing additional
information, he said. We will be able to punish the
guilty, and we also will be able to review all the
policies and procedures governing our conduct
pertaining to cases such as this, he said. <^>
58 Arrested in Philippines over Global 'Sextortion'
In May 2014, fifty-eight people were arrested in the
Philippines for their involvement in a giant, global
Internet "sextortion" network, local police and Interpol
said. AFP reported: Victims in foreign countries have
been lured by people in the Philippines into giving
sexually explicit photos or videos about themselves
online, then blackmailed for many thousands of
dollars, the authorities said. "The scale of this
extortion network is massive," the director of

Interpol's Digital Crime Centre, Sanjay Virmani said.

"These crimes are not limited to any one country and
nor are the victims. That's why international
cooperation in investigating these crimes is
essential." [Source: AFP, May 2, 2014]
Philippine police chief Alan Purisima said the 58
people arrested would be charged over a range of
crimes, including engaging in child pornography,
extortion and using technologies to commit fraud. It
was not immediately clear whether all 58 arrested
were Filipinos, although authorities initially made no
mention of any foreigners who may have been
directly involved in the Philippines. However,
authorities emphasised the Philippines was not the
hub of the global sextortion network, only that the
current investigation had focused on the Southeast
Asian nation.
Purisima said the scam typically involved someone
posing as an attractive, young lady making contact
with people overseas via Facebook and other social
media, then seeking to establish a relationship with

them. "After getting acquainted with the victims

they engage in cybersex, and this will be recorded
unknown to the victims," he said. "They then threaten
to release it to friends and relatives." He said victims
had paid between 500 pesos ($11) and 500,000
pesos ($11,000). While he said elderly men were
often targeted, children were also victims. A Scottish
police chief who also briefed reporters at the press
conference said one boy in Scotland had committed
suicide after being extorted. He said the boy was 17
when he killed himself.
In the late 1990s, countries like Guyana, the
Philippines, Poland, Netherlands Antilles, Sao Tome
and the Dominican Republic earned a large amounts
foreign exchange from audiotext service (sex-lines
and other pay phone service) who routed their calls
through phone companies in these countries. The
way the system worked was that an American paid
his bill to his American long-distance phone company,
who shared the money with the foreign phone
company that received the call. The foreign phone
companies in turn shared their revenues with the

audiotext services that used the exchange for the

foreign phone company.
Group of Former Prostitutes Helps Prostitutes in the
Philippines
In 2011, the Philippines Inquirer reported: As the
night grows older, this part of the city becomes more
alive. Women in low-cut, body-hugging clothes start
appearing on the streets of Quezon Citys red light
district. Some make their move on potential
customers. Also in the area are other women dressed
more conservatively in jeans and shirt. They are not
around to earn money for the night. Belonging to
Bagong Kamalayan Collective Inc. (BKCI), they have
come to talk to their scantily clad sisters about their
rights and to try to inspire them to rebuild their
lives.Liza Gonzales, recounting the scene to the
Philippine Daily Inquirer, knows what life is like in the
red light district. She was once one of those scantily
clad women working in that neighborhood. [Source:
Rima Jessamine M. Granali, Philippine Daily Inquirer,
September 26, 2011 /*\]

Most of the BKCI staff used to gimmick in Cubao

and Quezon Avenue, Gonzales said in a recent
interview. We want prostituted women to see that
they can have a stable livelihood even if they quit,
Gonzales said. Today, BKCIs original five members
have grown to 50. They have found a source of
income not just for themselves but for other victims of
prostitution. BKCI recently opened a cooperative
canteen. Hopefully our canteen becomes a big, big
restaurant so we can help more women, Gonzales
said in Filipino. The place is barely half the size of the
other eateries along a street in Quezon City, but BKCI
members talk about it with pride. What they have now
is a far cry from what they had when the Inquirer first
met the group in 2005. /*\
They had no canteen then. Engaged in food
catering, all they had were a few utensils for cooking
meals which they delivered to meetings of various
other advocacy groups. To reheat the dishes, they
would bring along a super kalan (liquefied
petroleum gas tank with a built-in burner). For a time,

they also offered laundry service, washing clothes

with bare hands. Having no weighing scale, they
would go to a nearby market to weigh their clients
laundry. They also ventured into small businesses,
such as selling homemade soap, but these didnt
bring in much money. Three years ago, their money
problems worsened. We didnt even have a centavo
in the bank, Gonzales said. /*\
There were times when they had no money to buy
food. When you have nothing to feed your children,
its tempting to turn to prostitution for fast money but
because of our good foundation, we remained strong.
We survived without going back, Gonzales said.
Even as they struggled to live, they still conducted
educational seminars and scoured red light districts
in Quezon City and elsewhere on the chance they
might help other women trapped in prostitution.
Support from allied NGOs and their strong belief that
there is life after prostitution kept them going,
Gonzales said. /*\

Eventually members learned skills from livelihood

training seminars. Some even attended baking
classes at Miriam College. Initially, they thought of
setting up a bakeshop. But they settled for a canteen
because the girls found it difficult to make bread,
Gonzales said. With their personal savings and
donations from CATW-AP and other supporters, the
group earlier this year finally managed to open their
9-square-meter canteen. Their profit and donations
help them pursue their mission, support their families
and send themselves and their children to school. /*\
Gonzales is the only founder left in the organization.
Carrying thermos, packets of instant coffee and
bread, BKCI members still pound the streets of red
light districts. Over coffee, they would talk with
prostitution victims about laws protecting womens
rights and other issues. Most of them are not aware
of their rights. When authorities take them to the
precinct, they assume that cases are already filed
against them even without any inquest, Gonzales
said. Afraid to stay behind bars, women simply give

cash and their cell phones or, worse, give cops

sexual favors in exchange for their freedom. /*\
BKCI and CATW-AP are lobbying for the passage of
the antiprostitution bill, which shifts criminal liabilities
from prostituted persons to customers, pimps, brothel
and nightclub owners and law enforcement officers.
The measure has been pending in Congress for 11
years. Gonzales resents calling women in prostitution
sex workers or prostitutes. We call them prostituted
women because prostitution is not a job but a
violation of human rights. Gonzales said her group
did not force women to leave their trade. They have
to reach the point when they no longer want to be
there. We have healed our wounds, Gonzales said.
We may not be able to forgive those who abused us,
those who raped us. But to be able to heal, to go
back to the community and freely express ourselves
and fight for our rights, we feel blessed. /*\
Prostitutes helped by the Former Prostitute Group

The Philippines Inquirer reported: Gina (not her real

name), one of the survivors that the BKCI had
plucked from the streets, recalled a time when she
could not even pay the rent for her familys apartment
and she had beg the landlord not to throw them out
into the streets. In those hard times, other members
lived in the CATW-AP office. One of them, Rem (also
a pseudonym), was attending high school and had to
sleep in the directors office, where CATW-AP
employees also worked. [Source: Rima Jessamine
M. Granali, Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 26,
2011 /*\]
Gina has five children who are all studying. Her
eldest is now in college. Rem, 25, said: Before, I
could not even imagine myself going back to school.
It seemed impossible. She is now pursuing a
bachelor degree in cooperatives at Polytechnic
University of the Philippines. Her sister, 20-year-old
Rose (also not her real name) and also a survivor
from prostitution, is now a fourth year high school
student at Miriam College for adult education. /*\

The two sisters want to take up courses on social

development so they can better assist victims of sex
trafficking. With diplomas and newly acquired skills,
some members have left BKCI to focus on their own
lives. But others have remained because we need to
continue fighting for the rights of other victims of
prostitution and be their voice while they are still in
the trade, Gonzales said. Said Gina: I am most
fulfilled because I am no longer on the streets. /*\
Image Sources:
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los
Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet
Guides, Library of Congress, Philippines Department
of Tourism, Comptons Encyclopedia, The Guardian,
National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The
New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall
Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist,
Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various
books, websites and other publications.
2008 Jeffrey Hays

Last updated June 2015