Sex Workers Smell Corruption In Fee

Some commercial sex workers in this city have suspected corruption as official receipts issued by the city government for payments of smear test fee recorded only P50, not the P100 that they have actually been paying weekly since February.

“Even as some call us prostitutes, what we do is still work. Who made money from our labor?” a woman who wanted to be identified only as Jenny told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

The interview happened two hours before she went up the stage to dance, almost bare, before an audience of foreigners on Saturday night in one of the clubs at Fields Avenue here.

Jenny and the 10 or so women, as dancers, make P130 nightly. The dance routines last 30 minutes hourly in the eight-hour shift.

Doing bar fine, or offering sex through night clubs, get to earn them half of the rates that range from P1,000 to P3,000 for every customer. Jenny makes two to three bar fines a night to raise money for a cancer-stricken mother.

“Money is hard to earn so every centavo counts,” she said, ruing that male, female and gay sex workers have not been spared from what could be corruption.

It is the latest issue that has hounded the city’s flesh trade industry perennially suspected of engaging in sexual trafficking, illegal drugs trade and money laundering.

It is seldom that sex workers, estimated last year to be 25,000, have spoken against physical violence, health risks and labor concerns.

The P100 is either paid entirely by the sex workers or half by the bar owners. It is rare that bar owners shoulder half of the cost, Health Food it was learned.

“That’s how many kilograms of rice?” said Thelma, a waitress who earns P80 a night.

The P400 monthly cost of smear test or half of that amount is deducted from the salaries of the workers.

In the alleged collection scam, a maximum of P600,000 may have been ripped from the hard work of sex workers at Fields, at the adjacent red light district of Friendship Road, and at Area, where the so-called poor man’s prostitution dens operate.

The Inquirer arrived at the estimate based on the official figures of the Reproductive Health and Wellness Center (RHWC), which is at 480 to 600 clients daily.

The five women interviewed by the Inquirer all referred to the RHWC as “hygiene.” The former name of RHWC is Social Hygiene Clinic.

A recently retired bar manager, who heard the so-called irregularity from her wards, estimated the RHWC’s clients to be at 5,000 weekly, increasing the amount supposedly lost to corruption at P1 million monthly.

An “original” receipt issued to one of the sources bore no watermarks that local governments usually have for their sets of receipts. The absence of watermarks indicated that the receipts could be fake.

Dr. Lucielle Ayuyao, RHWC chief, said an employee of the city treasurer’s office is assigned at the RHWC and issues receipts to the clients. The Inquirer had tried but failed to reach that employee for comments.

Ayuyao confirmed that P100 is collected. The P50 goes to the city government while the other P50 goes to the League of Angeles City Entertainers and Managers (LACEM) as “organization fee.”

LACEM, she said, issues it own receipts. Inquirer sources said they could not recall being told that LACEM gets P50 as a share in the payments.

“It used to be that the (RHWC) collects P60. Only P50 is reflected in the receipt. Our girls didn’t get receipts for the P10,” the retired bar manager said.

Ayuyao said she or the RHWC did “not collect or handle” money from the smear test fee.

An Inquirer source at Fields said LACEM only gets P10 from out of the “missing” P50. The P40 reportedly goes to a group identified as the “Jojo Group.”