StreetWise Philippines Dot Biz!

Well, seems when the police raided the Blue Nile bar the other night and took away a stack of employees as well as the bar owners… they also loaded a bus with patrons and took them to Manila. They arrested foreign tourists and took them to Manila where they could be held and pressured until they paid huge amounts of money to be released. Don’t believe me? Two patrons kept their cool and repeatedly told the police they were not getting on the bus unless they were properly informed of what they were being arrested for. They knew their rights and insisted on due process. Too troublesome to risk taking with them so they were allowed to leave. These two old hands knew enough not to jump up and down and make a lot of nose, they quietly refused to board the bus until they were told the reason for arrest. If they had made a fuss the cops would have lost face and grabbed them anyway.

Meanwhile the other patrons were taken away and as they were mostly tourists here for a short stay, no doubt they paid up and left as soon as they could to avoid further hassle. Being held illegally and falsely arrested would mean a long wait in a slum sewer of a jail (why they can’t even maintain a decent jail let alone a country beats me) and forever going to court to have hearings delayed and so on.

Did the cops raid the Filipino bars where the girls are kept as virtual sex slaves? No. They raided the foreigner owned bars where the girls come and go as they please. Did they raid the Japanese or Korean owned bars? No again because nobody messes with the Yakuza or Korean version, those guys shoot back. So a few greedy cops have, in the name of retaining grants from the US for fighting people trafficking, killed off the goose laying all the golden eggs in Angeles and every province in the country. Just as Lim did to Ermita in the early 90s to make way for his Chinese buddies to buy all the real estate cheap, all this will do is close down the well run establishments that provided a ton of money for the local economy.

Morality aside as far as prostitution is concerned, the reality is that the Philippines has little else to offer the tourist compared to other parts of S.E. Asia. Better infrastructure and no threat of kidnapping by NPA or Abu Sayaff not to mention more varied cuisine lure more to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, even Vietnam and Cambodia than to the Philippines. The scuba diving is no better than in other tropical countries and the getting there and back is often a lot simpler and more comfortable, not to mention safer in neighboring countries. With the catholic church keeping the population rate doubling all the time it is only a matter of time before the place collapses. The rich don’t care as they have their condos in the USA and Spain among other bolt holes. Those who can get out are doing so and have been doing so for decades, keeping the place afloat with the money they send back. Many families do nothing except wait for the remittances, then spend them. Industry is not setting up new factories in the Philippines and those already there are relocating because it is cheaper and simpler to do so. Wake up Kababayans, the double standards that are such an intrinsic part of your society are going to double back and bite you on those proud, swelled chests.