TRUE enough, Pasay City remains to be the undisputed Sin Capital following simultaneous police operations against high-end prostitution dens where law enforcers rescued 15 Filipino women and arrested three Chinese nationals.
According to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC), eight units were raided in three towers of Shore Residences, adjacent to the Mall of Asia.
In entrapment operation, PAOCC together with the Department of Justice Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (DOJ IACAT), the Bureau of Immigration, Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, the Philippine National Police Women and Children Protection Center, and the PNP Intelligence Group also held for questioning two other Filipinos, a driver and a delivery man.
In a press conference following the joint operations, PAOCC Undersecretary Gilbert Cruz said that the unnamed suspects will face complaints for violation of Republic Act 10364 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.
Cruz however admitted that the operation missed rescuing 33 other women forming part of the 48 sex workers being maintained at the condominium complex.
“The raid that we conducted was quite early. If you noticed there were only several women but we already expected that since the area is not specific. The women can be sent to a different area, or in another hotel, or in another room of this building,” said Cruz.
Multi-Package Offers
Rescued women disclosed to authorities that most of their clients are Chinese nationals who are offered four different packages with varying prices depending on the duration.
Package A costs P4,000 for an hour of sex, while Package B embarking on two hour lust is pegged at P8,000. Package C is seven hours for P12,000, while unlimited intercourse is worth P16,000 under Package D.
Interestingly, the sex workers only get half of the amount paid by the Chinese clients. When asked who gets the other half, not one dared to provide details.
Sex workers are picked by Chinese nationals on Telegram channels, where girls are displayed in various poses and get-ups, with the prices of the service packages. The channels have private settings accessible to select networks and are not on public display.
Operatives are also in custody of internal communications in a private work channel that includes instructions on who services specific clients.
More Fabulous Offers
Aside from sex, the victims admitted that they were told to offer Chinese clients “wonder candy,” which seemed more like a sex-enhancing drug which served as an aphrodisiac.
The operatives in its report did not mention recovering “wonder candies” in the eight units which were raided.
Unlike in other ‘wellness facilities’ where sex is offered as an extra service, the rescued women said that in their case, “it’s the other way around here.”
“We offer massage as an extra service so we could earn an additional P1,000… Dun wala na kaming kahati,” averred the rescued women, whom operatives claimed, are billeted in the complex for the duration of their working engagement with their boss.
Asked how they got into the sex trade, the girls claimed they were referred by friends.
After the documentation process, the rescued Filipinas were transferred to Marillac Hills National Training School for Girls in Alabang for psychodynamic psychotherapy, and trauma-focused cognitive–behavioral therapy (TF-CBT).
No POGO Involvement
According to PAOCC, the most recent operation in Pasay City is the first raid in months where sex trade does not directly involve the controversial Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGO) firms.
Even back then, law enforcers and legislators told hotel managements they should have an idea of what’s happening since they have security guards and maintenance crew that have the capacity to relay information.
During Senate hearings in 2020 on alleged links of POGO to sex trafficking and prostitution, police officials said hotel managements often ignore signs of a sex trade in their premises, in the same manner that the administrators of the residential complex (where sex dens were discovered) behaved, added Cruz in describing the ambience when they entered the complex.
Cruz noted that lax management of residential complexes allowing short-lease lodgings could pose dangers to innocent residents or visitors – “Dapat yung owner ng building ay alam kung ano ang background or business ng kanyang tenants.”
Pasay LGU Still Mum
Cruz admits, he's puzzled why the Pasay City government has remained mum over the series of raids in establishments located in what has earlier referred to as Metro Manila's Sin City.
Pasay City Hall insiders however find the LGU’s silence as nothing new amid newspaper reports about a nephew of Mayor Emi Calixto, providing protection to dubious businesses.
A check on the supposed newspaper reports, a series of articles on a certain Prince Calixto were published by a daily tabloid which forms part of the chain of publications owned by a Manila-based media organization.
In these articles, the columnist accused Prince (who had just won as barangay chairman) as the protector of illegal gambling operators, sex dens, POGO and even the lucrative drug trade.
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