Olongapo's Trap

During the past year, I have become friends with some of the women who live in Olongapo City, just outside the U.S. Subic Naval Base in the Philippines. They are prostitutes, although I hesitate to use that term because it has derogatory connotations which are not applicable to these friends of mine.

Lina and Maritess (not their real names) are go-go dancers. The bar in which they work features country-and-western music. When a U.S. naval ship is in harbor, the bar has special shows with women boxing and oil wrestling. The bar itself and its shows are not what draw me to visit. I visit because of women such as Lina and Maritess, women full of fun as well as heartache.

Lina is deaf. Each time I visit, she teaches me a little more sign language. She is lively and vivacious, telling stories with sign language and dramatic acting out of events. Maritess, a good friend of Lina's and more fluent in sign language, translates into Tagalog when I do not understand. All this happens, of course, between their dance routines.

Lina is from Olongapo. She and her sister, also a go-go dancer and also deaf, support their family by their work as "hospitality women," or prostitutes. Her family is poor, and her parents are deaf and have no work. She would like to work on the military base but has no skills to offer. Over the years she has learned not to trust the sailors.

Maritess is from a nearby province and is in Olongapo to help support her family. Having little education she could not find other work. Soon after beginning this work, she was abused by a sailor. Now she sees little hope of leaving it unless she is "lucky enough" to marry a sailor. Recently her family discovered the truth about what she does and became angry. She seldom goes home to visit now.

Maritess did try to leave Olongapo once. With hopes of staying in a cousin's home, she went to Manila but found herself snubbed. Maritess felt she had no choice but to return to Olongapo and the bar.

Together Maritess and Lina try to find some joy amid the pain in their lives. My visits are memorable for me because we laugh, tease one another, and find easy companionship. I am often amazed by their continuing ability to laugh and love in this city. I know they love, for I have been the recipient. Even though verbal communication with Lina is limited, she communicates non-verbally with her expressive eyes and actions. Just like so many other women here, she craves wholesome relationships, friendships of mutual respect and caring, rather than sexual abuse.

PROSTITUTION, though technically prohibited in the Philippines, is institutionalized in Olongapo. Women such as Lina and Maritess are employed by a bar and are therefore considered "legal." Unemployed women ("streetwalkers"), who sell sex independent of the bars, are illegal and subject to arrest. Employed women are required to have biweekly checkups for venereal disease at the local Social Hygiene Clinic, a government-run clinic that receives partial funding and technical assistance from the U.S. Navy.

Since Lina and Maritess are go-go dancers, they receive a small monthly salary of about $25. Women who are waitresses or entertainers receive no salary. All women earn most of their money by commission, which is earned by "ladies drinks" and "bar fines."

A "ladies drink" is a mixed drink bought for a woman by a sailor who expects that she will sit and perhaps talk with him. He pays the bar $1.50 to $2, of which she receives less than half. A "bar fine" is the amount a sailor pays to take a woman out of the bar, presumably for sex, although not always. He pays the bar $15 to $70, depending on how posh or shabby the place is. The woman again receives less than half the fee, the remaining amount going to the bar.

A woman employed in a bar is under immense pressure to go out on bar fines. Not only is it one of the few ways to earn money, she may be fired for refusing. Maritess, for example, has been threatened with losing her job because she seldom goes out.

Estimates on the number of hospitality women in Olongapo alone (Angeles City, just outside of the U.S. Clark Air Base, is a similar city) range from 10,000 to 15,000. The majority of these women come from Samar and Leyte, two of the most impoverished islands in the Philippines. The women leave these provinces because of poverty and lack of jobs and generally go to the capital city looking for work as domestic help. With little education, due to lack of money for school, jobs even in Manila are difficult to find, particularly for women. Women in the Philippines make up an estimated two-thirds of the country's unemployed and underemployed population.

After arriving in Manila, these women go to Olongapo hoping to find a job on the naval base or as a domestic helper to a wealthy American family. Once in Olongapo many women discover the only jobs available are in the bars. With no money to return home and knowing their families need support, many accept work in a bar, often considering it temporary but ending up caught in Olongapo's trap.

Another friend of mine, Joy, left her family in Samar at age 13 to look for work in Manila. She worked as a domestic helper for some years until she married a Filipino man. They had three children together. However, Joy finally left her husband because he drank too much and, when drunk, often beat her and the children. Joy sent her children back to Samar to live with their grandparents before coming to Olongapo to look for work as a maid. The only job she could find was in a bar, which she took because she had three children to feed in addition to helping support the rest of the family.

Joy is a quiet, reserved woman. When she talks of her past, her eyes become sad. She often cries when she remembers the days in Manila, and yet life in Olongapo has its own problems. Joy desperately wants something to hope for--perhaps marriage to a sailor. She has a boyfriend on a ship but is uncertain as to whether he is trustworthy and really cares for her.

MYTHS ABOUT prostitution, in Olongapo and other parts of the Philippines and the world, need to be shattered. One such myth is that women want to be prostitutes, coming to Olongapo out of lust or the desire for sex. Other myths--that women become rich from their work, or that they are in need of a conversion of faith, after which they would recognize their sin and leave their work--are also false. These myths oversimplify the situation and do additional damage to women who are already hurting deeply.

Women come to Olongapo out of desperate poverty, not out of lust or desire for an exciting life. In my year in Olongapo, where the majority of my time has been spent befriending hospitality women, I have yet to meet a woman who says she wants to be here because she enjoys the work or the lifestyle. Rather, most are looking for a way out, and most are supporting families who live elsewhere.

Unfortunately, although understandably, the main hope is marriage to an American sailor who will take them away from the hell of Olongapo, or at least support them so they no longer need to work in a bar. Most women desire a genuine love relationship rather than a continual change of customers who are sometimes abusive.

Some women, if they are particularly beautiful or are skilled dancers, can earn more than other workers in Olongapo. They are a minority, however, because the competition is stiff, and life revolves around the arrival and departure of U.S. ships.

When a large aircraft carrier comes in with its escort ships, some 7,000 to 9,000 sailors descend on the city for "R & R" (rest and recreation), generally staying four to six days. Such ships come in about once every six to eight weeks. In between, smaller destroyers and submarines come in, but they bring only 300 to 500 men. Given some 15,000 hospitality women, even when an aircraft carrier is in, the ratio of women to men is high. When no ships are in, getting a customer is even more difficult. Hence, the majority of women often have no income.

The assumption that the women need a conversion of faith is as incorrect as the assumption that they get rich from their work. It misses the reality of their lives. Many are devout Catholics; some adhere to other faith traditions. They often deal with great internal contradictions, believing that what they do is wrong yet feeling they have no other alternative. Many attend Mass regularly and pray for God's understanding and forgiveness.

In addition to their own internal conflicts, these women live with societal degradation, coming both from families and home communities as well as from the sailors themselves. If a sailor wants to marry a woman he met in a bar, he often asks her to stop working. He says he does not want to marry a prostitute. But unless he is supporting her, she finds it impossible to stop working. Some women turn their anger and frustration at the situation inward. Several friends of mine have tried to commit suicide more than once. Others turn to drinking and drugs to forget. When no ships are in, there is too much time to reflect on life in the bar and the hopes and dreams which grow dimmer with the passage of time.

SINCE THE MYTHS are inaccurate, what accounts for such massive numbers of prostitutes in Olongapo? Two conditions come together to create the tragedy: poverty and the presence of the U.S. military base. But why is there such poverty? And why is it necessary that prostitution flourish next to U.S. military bases?

One reason for the poverty is that large amounts of money were taken out of the country by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Another factor is that the Philippine economy has been dominated by foreign business interests, including those of the United States. Also, women almost always suffer most from poverty. And under the Marcos administration, prostitution was seen as an important means of bringing in dollars and other foreign currencies.

Why does prostitution flourish next to U.S. bases? Some say it is inevitable when men are out at sea for months at a time. The Navy certainly takes such an attitude, simply trying to minimize the pain and violence by sending out the Shore Patrol to keep watch over the sailors. The expectation that sailors will use the women is part of a military system that encourages the belief that women are commodities. A sailor learns to use women (in this case, Philippine women) as part of his rights and pleasures as a serviceman.

The hospitality women in Olongapo and other cities end up bearing the shame, degradation, and societal ostracism of their work. Women who get pregnant bear the responsibility for raising children of sailors who have left the scene or face the difficult decision about whether or not to have the child. Knowing how difficult it will be to feed and care for a baby, some feel forced to choose abortion as the only feasible alternative, even though they may want to keep the child.

I often wonder what the future holds for Lina and Maritess. Will they marry sailors and leave for an unknown future in the United States? Will they continue in Olongapo until they are too old to work? Will they have children who end up working in bars?

I don't know. But I am grateful for the love and joy Lina and Maritess have brought into my life. I wish the same for them.

Brenda Stoltzfus was a Mennonite Central Committee worker living with the "hospitality women" in Olongapo in the Philippines, and was helping to develop an advocacy and educational program for the women with whom she lived, when this article appeared.