BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
ONE AUTHOR described his experience on the streets of Olongapo in the gaudy days of sex slavery and drugs in “Sin City.” “The long street was lined with sex bars that began right outside the gate of the US Navy Base. The nightclub strip called Magsaysay Drive was blazing with neon lights. Loud bands were pounding out rock ‘n’ roll from bars and clubs on the strip. The Beatles hit Get Back was vying with The Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Woman and Judy in Disguise by the Playboy Band. The street was thronged with American sailors, all bar hopping, leading girls to a cheap hotel or carrying the small little ones in their arms like children. Many of the girls seemed to be no more than fifteen or sixteen.”
The sailors were tall, muscular and macho, dressed in bulging t-shirts and gym shorts. They walked about as if they owned the place, shouting obscenities to each other, waving beer bottles, and grabbing the girls who stood in the doorways of the sex bars and clubs. Welcome signs and banners greeted these high-paying customers: “Welcome USS Enterprise,” said one.
At the doors of the sex clubs, under the flickering neon lights, the older women disguised their hard life of exploitation and abuse behind masks of heavy make-up, artificial eyelashes, and mascara highlighted by red burnished cheeks. They lounged in sexually provocative poses. Beside them were their young trainees, these girls seemed as young as sixteen and on offer to the highest paying customer.
“Hi Joe, wanna good time, Joe, come on in, I give you a special job, Joe!” they called out. Every male foreigner was called Joe as in GI Joe. “You want a cherry girl”, that’s what they called a virgin. The customer would pay a very big price for a genuine cherry girl, most were underage girls.”
This author exposed the child sexual abuse by US Navy personnel and local Filipino pedophiles, the youngest victim was only nine years old, one of 18 children, and likely many more that were discovered suffering from venereal diseases. The expose started a campaign to close the Subic Bay military base and convert it into an economic zone. It was successful. The Philippine Senate voted to close Subic Naval Base, the last ship left in 1992.
Now after 32 years, the US bases are back. They are ensconced inside nine Philippine military bases. There is big trouble brewing in the South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea but it is all about money, power and pride over Taiwan. Trade is at the heart of the confrontation with China. In 2022, US trade with Asia totaled an estimated US$520 billion. The US exports to Asia totalled US$160 billion while the US imported from Asia a total of US$360 billion. So, South-East Asia has grown in greater importance in recent years.
That same year, US exports to Taiwan were 1.8 percent of all U.S. exports and 2.6 percent of US total imports came from Taiwan. The United States wants to keep Taiwan as a trading partner and prevent China from invading and capturing the production sites especially for electronics and chip manufacturing as it is threatening to do. Hence, the military build-up in the Philippines as a deterrent. If it comes to a missile war, the unfortunate Filipino civilians will be killed as the civilians are dying in Gaza. They will be expendable.
Will the evils of the sex industry re-appear around the new US bases inside the Philippine Army bases? If so, that will likely lead to moral outrage again and allow history to surely repeat itself. (preda.org)/PN
