This writer joins for coffee several groups of Filipino-American men on weekends and, from time to time, on working days. While some of my acquaintances are indeed retirees (more like the DOM---Dirty Old Men), quite a few are in their early 50s. Do you know that one of the favorite topics of conversation is the ease and affordability of procuring call girls in the Philippines?
 

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Human trafficking cases in E. Visayas ‘alarming’

By Joey A. Gabieta
Inquirer
Last updated 01:23am (Mla time) 12/06/2007

TACLOBAN CITY—Eastern Visayas continues to be a source of women and children being sent to Metro Manila brothels and sweatshops, and the number of trafficking cases is alarming, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development in the region.

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As one DOM commented, the cheapest commodity (sic) now in the Philippines is the Filipino call girl, AKA Guest-Relations Officer (GRO) in night clubs or in bars or working student. This DOM said that while prices of food, gasoline and other staple products keep on rising in the Philippines, the fees for the youthful Filipino practitioners of the world’s oldest profession remain steady. Why? The reason is the law of supply and demand. While there are more and more Filipino women willing to use their bodies to generate income, only the rich, the powerful or the influential in the Philippines and the foreign tourists, including the Balikbayan, can afford the “good (sic) times.”

From what I gathered, the usual rate for a decent-looking young Filipino woman is P1,500 per night or US$30 (roughly @ $1/P50). Rates can go up to $100 (P5,000) per night for the better-looking and younger call girls. Another DOM said that for $300 (P15,000) or less, one can have the short-time company of a movie starlet. And indeed, the rates in Metro Manila are way below those charged by brothels in Nevada and other sin cities in the United States, as one Fil-Am retiree explained to his buddies. And more often than not, the rate for a Filipino call girl is per night for unlimited action. The rates are much lower in the Philippine provinces, although often times the girls are supposed to be younger.

Prostitution may be a bigger “business” than illegal gambling such as the “jueteng” (numbers’ game).

Golf tours to the Philippines of Filipino-American sports enthusiasts have become popular because not only do the tourists play golf but they can also avail themselves of the services of GROs and young female companions who double as masseurs or what not.

Prostitution may be a bigger “business” than illegal gambling such as the “jueteng” (numbers’ game). According to many of the call girls, half of their fees go to the pimp or madam who is handling the business end of the oldest profession. The pimps (or madams) in turn take care of the politicians, the law-enforcement officers (LEO) and other nefarious hands that dip into, and profit from the sex trade. It has also been reported that many members of the Filipino Fourth Estate refuse to do investigative reporting on prostitution as the writers are given the trade’s “fringe benefits,” such as payment in kind or using another euphemism, “sampling” of the girls.

Some of the DOMs try to rationalize their use of young Filipino prostitutes like their “sick” argument that they are actually contributing foreign-exchange income to the homeland. There is also the argument that after all, as some of these Johns would say, eventually many of these Filipino DCs (sic) “graduate” to work as Japayukis in Japan or even work their trade in known sex-trade capitals in Asian, Europe or somewhere else. And why not let Filipino men taste them first like mangoes, before they are exported to Japan and other foreign destinations?

If you think that DC stands for District of Columbia or the DC-10 jumbo jet, you’re wrong. DC is the root word for DC-seis, DC-siete, DC-ocho or DC-nueve, which mean ages 16-, 17-, 18- or 19- years old. Some Johns consider a call girl old when she reaches the age of 21.

Then some of these American citizens of Filipino descent use their U.S. passport as a tool in courting Filipino women who want to migrate to the United States by any means. They tell Filipino women that they are looking for a bride but the marriage has to wait, as the "divorce" they are obtaining from their American wives are still pending in court. Many Filipino women fall for this ruse and usually they go out with these "suitors" on free dates and they end up at the visitor's hotel room. This is like the latest version of the "Filipino 'brides' who were 'hangang pier lamang' during the old U.S. Navy days in Olongapo and Sangley Point."

This writer has mentioned in several articles in the Women’s Section of the www.mabuhayradio.com the turning of many Filipinos as the modern-day version of the wartime “Comfort Women” in Japan. But alas, there are also tens of thousands of “Comfort Women” in the homeland. And there are many vested interests that profit from prostitution and the operation of bars, massage parlors and sauna baths – from politicians, both on the national and local levels, to the LEOs and even reportedly the communist and/or Muslim rebels.

To think that the Philippines is supposedly the only Christian country in Asia, where probably 75% of the population is Catholic and another 10% belongs to other Christian denominations. And to think further that the President is a woman and that the Philippines has many woman senators, congresswomen, female governors, mayors and local officials. So, how come the country is the home of so many poor women who have to use their bodies to earn their livelihood and even keep their families intact? Why does the Philippines continue to be the homeland of tens of thousands of women who are abused by a corrupt system, by foreign employers and vested interests?

(To be continued . . .)