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Angeles and Child Prostitution"...And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is." "It’s a lot more complicated than that –" "No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts." Terry Pratchet via Granny Weatherwax in Capre Jugulum 10th May 2007 I'm going begin this article with a Wayne's World-esque approach and have several different starts. Start Number One: Make it personal Bernadette, or Berna as she is affectionately known is about seven years old. She has a shot crop of curly brown hair with yellowy-brown tinges in her fringe (a sure sign of malnutrition). She is usually dressed in a large grubby t-shirt, underwear and not much else. Her feet are bare and the soles of her feet are baked hard from walking on hot concrete. She seems like a happy kid. She is forever doing cartwheels and grabbing the hand of any white person in the vicinity. She'll be on your lap in a flash, her arms around you as she giggles away excitedly. What's wrong with this picture? Let's dig a little deeper... Berna's mother is mentally handicapped. She too will hone in on any white person in the vicinity and hug them excitedly. Berna is almost certainly the result of a rape or her mother turning tricks to put food on the table. Berna can't speak a word of English and her Tagalog (the local dialect) is not much better. She will answer questions (in Tagalog) like "How are you today Berna?", with a "Yes". I doubt she's ever been to school. But why the over-the-top friendliness? Berna's mother is probably priming her to be a child prostitute. Berna is encouraged to jump on people's laps and laugh. That's what the market wants. So that's what Berna does. This is all conjecture, of course. But the word on the street is that this is what will happen to Berna.It just breaks your heart. She's a good kid. Start Number Two: Tug at the heart strings This is not to say, of course, that the Filipino people do not need help. The are poor, malnourished and live in bamboo shacks and slums. Just because someone is suffering worse than you, that does not mean that you yourself do not need help. Try explain to a victim of rape that they should count themselves lucky that they weren't murdered. When I think of suffering, be it in Africa or the Philippines, I can't think of many things worse than the fate suffered by child prostitutes. Child prostitution is rife in the Philippines. They are treated like things. At the extreme end, they are herded into overcrowded small rooms, feed the odd bowl of dry rice and forced to service many men everyday. Start Number Three: Try a joke to lighten things up But, I'm getting ahead of myself... Angeles City and the Brothels 
The city of Angeles sums up a lot of what is wrong with the Philippines. Back in the days of American occupation (as opposed the the current pseudo-occupation), an American military base was set up inside of Angeles. The undersexed military boys helped fuel the proliferation of brothels and the sex trade. The base has since closed down, but the sex trade remains as the backbone of Angeles' economy. I wanted to check it out first hand, so I found a contact in Angeles and had my good friends Raymund and Pom drop me off in Fields Avenue, the heart of the red light district. I tried to get hold of my contact, but they never answered their cellphone. Still haven't in fact. So I was left all alone. So I did the obvious thing any red-blooded man would do in Angeles: headed to the girly bars! I figured I was there to learn more about Angeles and the problems that the young girls face. The only way I was going to do that was to see for myself. Having never been to such places before (except for this exception), I was a little nervous. I remember thinking, "Right now, I would be more comfortable going to war-torn Kitgum than into the Viper Room". But go in I did. To many of them in fact. Most of them were more or less the same. Flocks of young girls wearing next to nothing and dancing on the stage for white men like myself to ogle at. Paradoxically, their faces were most revealing. Some of them looked acutely embarrassed, their eyes focused in the middle distance while their bodies did the minimum-sway dance. Some of them grab a friend and giggled a lot as they tried their sexy moves. If I caught any of their eyes, they would either giggle and look away or just look away. Which is, quite frankly, not what they are there for. The whole point of them being there is so that people like me can point them out to a staff member and have them come down and join the guy. The guy is expected to pay for drinks for the girl for 200 pesos (which is stoopid high by Filipino standards). The girl is expected to be all over the guy. I saw one Korean guy with about four or so girls with him. The girls grinded away on his lap and slapped his hands when he got too friendly. He seemed to be enjoying himself. The girls, less so. This sort of thing is probably repeated in many girly bars all around the world. If you look around the periphery of the bar, you see something a little more disturbing. There is usually a very young girl sitting at the end of most the bars. One of the ones I saw was quietly sipping a drink. She must of been all of thirteen. She was dressed in a figure revealing outfit, which was ironic, because she was not yet old enough to have a figure to reveal. Why was she there? I don't really know. I was too embarrassed to ask. But... Young girl... Not much on... Waiting patiently in a girly bar... One does not have to be a rocket surgeon to work out what she was waiting for. Outside of the bars I saw many old white guys. The guy who summed it most for me arrived on his big ol' Harley-esque bike. He had a thin strip of gray hair around the back of his head, a handlebar mustache and a gut grown large by beer. He had big black boots, dirty jeans and a too small t-shirt that revealed his belly button. They guy may of well had "pedophile" tattooed on his head to complete the image. I saw him later on with a very young girl (Twelve? Thirteen?) on his arm. Going a little deeper I decided to venture out a little deeper to see what I could find. I found a grubby little place in a less populated part of Angeles. Inside, were a few rows of chairs, beer soaked tables and beer soaked Filipinos. I was the only white guy in there. The girls took turns doing their dances on the stage. Some revealed a little, some far too much. Most stared blankly around the room as they danced, some gave toothy smiles with soulless eyes. Just before their song finished - they never stayed till the end - they disappeared back into the changing room before grabbing a seat somewhere in the bar. After a while, a group of Koreans piled in. They'd obviously been drinking a bit and were a little schonzelled. They grabbed a front row seat and took great delight when a young girl gyrated in front of them. Many Koreans come to the Philippines for business trips and holidays. Part of the package includes visits to places like Angeles. Out the back were three private rooms. The numbers on
the door and the sliding Vacant-Engaged signs were strangely ominous.
I'm sure their were worse thing going on in Angeles, but I had seen enough and wanted no more. I can't say I enjoyed my time in Angeles, just like I can't say I enjoyed my time in Kitgum. It is a depressing face. Whenever I returned to my hotel room, they're were generally a bunch of young girls giggling away at the entrance saying inane things like, "I love you hunny", "I wont forget you", and so on. Not nice. I am a guy. Guys like seeing provocative young ladies (though not too young...) with not much on. It's inbuilt. When my brain kicks in though, any thoughts of indiscretions flee from my mind. This young ladies are desperate and are taking desperate measures. One only has to look at their eyes for a few seconds to realise this. When I was in Dumangas, a couple of lads invited me to a brothel so that I could see "the other side of the Philippines". I politely declined. I wish I had replied with "Oh I see. You're inviting me to fuck the people I am trying to help? They get fucked enough already, both metaphorically and literally, by people like you who feed the prostitution problem. Thanks, but no thanks." But hey, if you don't like my take on Angeles, take WHITEVIPER916's review of Angeles:
Or perhaps the somewhat misguided review by LuzonTS:
One feels he might of missed the eyes... Update I noticed the odd prostitute wandering the streets of Angeles, but not as many as I thought there would be. Why was this? Turns out that all the young girls dancing on stage, were not just dancers but prostitutes as well. If you see one you like, you point them out to the staff and she comes and joins you. You'll buy her a drink or two to see if you really like her, and then you can pay a "bar fine" to take her back to your hotel room. The bar fine is paid to the bar. It is a fine for taking the girl away from work and not earning money for her place of work. It's around 1000 pesos ($NZ 25). Half goes to the girl, half to the bar.
(c)
2005, 2006 and 2007 Malcolm Trevena. |
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