Sex bombed

MANOMA – Makati north of Manila.

No idle daydream but a vision clearly in the offing for his beloved Mabalacat City is Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales’ compelling mission in this his umpteenth term as hizzoner.

And my, how he pursues that to near obsession with anything popping and everything upping in his city stamped “Manoma.” His latest leap: the city’s five-year, four-phased P3-billion development plan covering the bus terminal, the city college, a new-public market, and a techno-economic hub through private-public partnership. Oh, so Makati.

This, aside from major road networking through the Clark Freeport peripheries to be funded by the Clark Development Corp. Oh, not so Binay, thank you.

Boking has started channeling Duterte-as-mayor too, minus the body bags though, in a no-nonsense anti-drug campaign – himself setting the standard with periodic drug tests among local officials, the formation of citizens’ anti-drug abuse movements, providing the police with what it takes to successfully wage its war on drugs, pursuing the rehabilitation of reformed druggies, etcetera.

Aye, no clearer or wider a road to his legacy city than this being blazed by Boking.

Alas, only to be bombed out by the dailymail.co.uk with its take of the Associated Press story that burned the web Wednesday, kilometrically and graphically headlined Filthy mattresses, toddlers' shoes and dog collars: Inside the squalid Philippines home of 'sweating US predator who filmed the sexual abuse of children for international online pedophile ring.'

The Philippine Daily Inquirer did the London daily even better, devoting half its front page to the banner photograph of the “sweating predator” with the screaming headline CYBERSEX DEN BUSTED bulleted: “The arrest of David Timothy Deakin shows one of the darkest corners of the internet, where foreign pedophiles pay facilitators in the Philippines to sexually abuse children, directing their moves through online livestreaming services.”

The story datelined: MABALACAT, Pampanga. The raid dated April 20.
“Vile images” wrote AP of what were found, noting: “Children's underwear, toddler shoes, cameras, bondage cuffs, fetish ropes and stacks of hard drives can be seen scattered throughout the two-bedroom townhouse.”

Calling it “…potentially the largest ever seizure of illicit digital content in the country…the authorities reviewing about 30 hard drives, as well as numerous computers, to find suspected buyers and victims…In his computer files, videos and images of children engaged in sex acts were allegedly found.” 

Citing: “This relatively new crime, webcam sex tourism, is spreading rapidly…The United Nations describes ‘alarming growth of new forms of child sexual exploitation online’.”

Adding: “The FBI says it’s epidemic, and that at any given moment, 750,000 child predators are online…. With almost every case stems from the Philippines.”
The AP story veritably putting Mabalacat City right at ground zero of the child predatory epidemic. 

Least of Makati of the North for Boking’s city here; most of Sodom north of Gomorrah there.

Heritage of sin   

“Our culinary expertise is beyond compare. Let us claim it!”

Exhorted Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan of the chefs/culinary experts that formed Culinarya Pampanga only last Monday, which “cements our claim that Pampanga, specifically Angeles City, is the country’s premier culinary destination.”

Cuisine is just the latest point in the heritage agenda being pursued by the World City Mayor Prize awardee to wean Angeles from its Sin City image born and bred by the American occupation of Clark Air Base and, with its end in 1991, preserved and cultivated by a host of other foreign nationals.

Only over a week ago, the city celebrated its main entrée dubbed “the world’s best pork dish” with the Sisig Festival, initiating its campaign for inclusion in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network for Gastronomy.

EdPam has all the reasons to be gung-ho in this cultural revolution he is waging. What with Angeles City claiming back-to-back triumphs for the Grand Prize in the Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines-Department of Tourism Pearl Awards – for its entries “Revitalizing Heritage in Angeles City” in 2015, and “Safeguarding Angeles City Heritage: Success Stories and Beyond” in 2016.

Alack, the city readily reclaimed its “Sin” tag with the Washington Post’s in-your-face pictorial essay These photos show life for displaced typhoon victims forced into the sex trade first posted on April 28 but soon after gaining wide circulation and still trending as of date.

“Angeles City, dubbed the “Supermarket of Sex,” thrives with foreigners, and Filipina women making money in its bars. Its streets are filled with neon lights, high heels, lingerie and loud music…” making it the go-to-city for victims of disasters, Typhoon Haiyan in this instance.

The story chronicles some days in the lives of sisters Jojo and Gemma who “never planned to come” to Angeles but were forced by the hardship owing to the devastation caused by the super typhoon described as a “feast for human traffickers.”

“For many, leaving the sex trade is not an option. Jojo, like many of the matriarchs in Filipino families, believes she has a responsibility to support her family. She describes nights on the streets of Angeles City as affording small steps in rebuilding a home — going home with a foreigner can get her enough money for hollow blocks or a bit of plywood to repair her family’s roof.” 

But she says, “We have no plans to go back there. Here there’s at least some way to make a living. And here, there’s tequila.”

Some culture there, as much a part of EdPam’s city as its sizzling sisig; as hard to wean from it as from the dish.