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Foreign and fatherless: Abandoned children in Pampanga's sex industry


Inside a small apartment in the middle of a grassy field roadside of Mabalacat, Pampanga, 32-year-old Katrina tends to her seven children, the eighth is still inside her womb.

Her only daughter Alexa is a princess, she looks like one, too. Her long silky hair has brown highlights, her eyes are mahogany, and her skin, ten shades lighter than her mother's and siblings'.

Katrina met Alexa's father, a British national, when she was 21 years old and had just started working at the Fields Avenue, the red light district in Barangay Balibago, Angeles City, Pampanga.

Katrina says she and the British had a real relationship. But they broke up because other girls at the Fields got into his head.

"Kasi doon, marami kang ka-competition. Yung mga babae ganun, yun 'yung naging conflict namin," Katrina said.

Alexa is now 9 years old and fully aware that her father does not want her. She has not seen him, only in pictures. One good day while conversing over Facebook, her father made a casual promise to Katrina that he will buy Alexa a bicycle.

Not only has she not gotten her bicycle, her father has also stopped acknowledging that Alexa is his child.

"Minsan po nagagalit din po kasi hindi niya po ako kinikilalang anak," Alexa said.

'Am I really the father?'

Nowadays at the Fields, "DNA test" is a common phrase, and paternity test clinics have appeared in town like mushrooms.

Foreign fathers used to just get away with simply saying, "am I really the father?"

But with paternity tests, the women have a solid case.

So the foreign men started to just cut contact, never to be seen, never to be reached again, until there was Facebook.

Katrina has offered Alexa's father to have paternity test, but she sometimes gets second thoughts.

"Masasaktan ang anak ko, 'yung feeling na ayaw sa kanya ng Papa niya kaya dadaan sila ng ganun kaysa 'yung kusain na lang," Katrina said.

Vina is only three years old and is oblivious to these issues, so her mother, 21-year-old Maica is determined to have the test.

Despite her ex-German boyfriend's harsh words in denying Vina, Maica has fervent hopes that once the paternity test proves positive he will have a change of heart.

"Gusto ko talaga na mabuo kami, magkaroon siya ng ama, hindi katulad ng naranasan ko, wala akong tatay. Gusto kong maramdaman 'yung buong pamilya, 'yung happy. 'Yun talaga ang empty sa akin e," the Leyte native said.

The foreign men, however, have found another way out, have the women pay for the paternity tests.

Maica is willing to shoulder the cost, but her ex-boyfriend insists that it be done in the most expensive hospital in Makati, rather than the initial plan of having it in a "cheap and easy" paternity/DNA test clinic near Fields Avenue.

The clinic's website states that the paternity test costs P14,800 for both the father and the child. A cursory search on the high-end hospitals in Metro Manila reveals paternity test costs a minimum of P25,000 per person.

"Saan naman ako kukuha ng ganuong pera?" Maica said.

Life after Fields

Maica and Vina are living at the shelter of Renew Foundation, an Angeles-based NGO targeting women like her and Katrina who leave, or want to leave Fields.

We asked Renew if they have data on the number of former Fields workers who have foreign children, and how many of them were abandoned by the fathers, but the foundation said it does not have data-gathering operations because they would rather spend their funds on their rehabilitation programs for the women.

"If you're focused on just human trafficking, that's much easier to raise funds for, but for women who have gone into prostitution for economic hardships, it's much harder to make people commit to your cause because they have very stereotypical views on women who are prostituted, which is often wrong, but it's harder for them to understand why we do our work," said Paulo Fuller, Renew Foundation's founder.

The foundation currently has four part-time social workers. It houses the women and their children, including Maica and Vina.

The foundation also sends the women to college.

Maica is now on her last year in an I.T. school, taking up Office Information System.

The Angeles City Social Welfare and Development Office does not have specific programs for the women of Fields, just general programs for women and children.

Its head, Heide Patio, even said that rarely do women like Katrina and Maica go to them for help.

"Bakit walang lumalapit? Possibly baka nare-respond na (ng mga NGO) 'yung pangangailangan nila. Pero posible rin kasing natutulungan na sila ng iba't ibang sistema bukod sa amin, halimabawa sa mismong barangay officials nila," said Patio.

Part of the local social welfare office's rehabilitation program is the TESDA-accredited skills training, whcy they also offer to other indigents.

Fuller does not mince his words when it comes to government programs.

"It's not effective, vocational training or TESDA," Fuller said, "it's very good for your sideline -- massage therapy, manicure pedicure but it doesn't pull you out of poverty and it doesn't take you out of the bar. If you wanna be economically independent we have to have at least a degree."

Fuller is an orphan who was adopted into a British family. Her biological mother was Spanish who was also a victim of sex trafficking.

He spent many years with the United Nations, the last of those in Manila as a gender specialist for UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

He was also the research officer for the Children and Families Research Department at the University of Oxford.

Now he lives in Angeles, Pampanga with his wife and three children, running an international school and the foundation.

Child abandonment

The problem with foreign men who come to Fields, Fuller said, is that they don't like wearing condoms.

"There's a pressure on the women to not use condoms. If the women say to the foreign nationals 'I want you to use a condom,' maybe the men will not give them money, or they don't take her with them and they lose the opportunity to earne,'" said Fuller.

Of all the fathers of Katrina's eight children, Alexa's British father is the only one denying paternity.

"Hindi katulad kapag Filipino, kahit wala siyang ibigay. Ipapakita niya na anak ko siya, 'yun lang wala akong maibigay. 'Di tulad sa kanila dahil mas may pera sila sasabihin nila na kaya mo bang ibigay hinihingi ko? Tapos tatakutin ka pa na mapupunta sa kanila ang bata kasi wala ka namang maibibigay tulad ng maibibigay ko," Katrina said.

Fuller works within the international legal framework of Reciprocal Enforcement and Maintenance Operation (REMO) to run after the fathers. Under this, the women can apply for child maintenance through the court system of the country of the national, provided that the country is signatory to the convention.

Both the United Kingdom and Germany, where Alexa's and Vina's fathers came from, are signatories to REMO.

Different countries have different standards in enforcing child maintenance.

The UK, for example, waits for a subpoena from local Philippine courts before they enforce child support on their national.

Germany has a better system. If the national is working, their government will compel the national's company to deduct the amount of child support from their salaries, and then sends it to the Philippines.

Renew takes caution going through the legal process. For instance, Katrina fears that it could lead to the transfer of custody of Alexa to her father, which she does not want.

"Everyone has legal rights, we don't go banging on the doors of their fathers," Fuller said, "if you go to the court, it generates certain negative feelings and attitudes and what we want to do if possible is just initiate contact between the father and the child, to do it as diplomatically as possible."

Alexa's case has started legal process. Fuller said they may try to contact Vina's father soon.

Prostitution in the Philippines

Katrina left Fields when Alexa started asking about her job. She is open to her children about what she used to do, and is, until now, not embarrassed to tell people.

"Naintindihan ko ang ganuong buhay, naipagtatanggol ko pa ang mga dati kong kasamahan. Pero ayaw ko lang na dumating sa puntong maisip ng anak ko na normal itong trabaho, na isipin niya na 'baka paglaki ko puwede ko rin 'yung trabaho," Katrina said.

Maica, on the other hand, finds it difficult to move on. According to her social worker, she still gets lost in a daze. She groped for words during the interview, and asked not to recount the detail of her old life in Fields.

Katrina told me that no woman in Fields is happy with her job, contrary to some opinions that women prefer the sex industry because it pays well.

Waitresses in Fields earn P120 a day, dancers' fees range from P180-P250. For sex, they are paid P2,500 to P5,000 depending on the generosity of their customers.

Prostitution is illegal in the Philippines, but no one from Barangay Balibago will deny its existence, even its barangay chairman, Tony Mamac.

"Hindi namin dini-deny na 'yung prostitution ay nandyan pa rin, pero ang maipagmamalaki namin hindi na siya ka-open, hindi na siya rampant o ka-grabe noong mga naunang panahon," Mamac said, "aminado kaming mahihirapan kami, hindi naman kami superman para ma-eradicate 'yan lalo na't ang prostitution ay kalat, hindi lang sa mga club."

Mamac has passed numerous ordinances to regulate Fields Avenue, which they now prefer to call as the "entertainment center' rather than "red light district."

For one, any woman hired to work in Fields should comply to a series of strict clearances, including the "parental information" where parents write a document stating their knowledge of their daughter's job in Angeles. No minor is allowed to work in Fields.

Mamac also claims nudity is now banned inside establishments, but sexy performances of women wearing as few as a two-piece bikini is still allowed.

"Hindi naman natin puwedeng i-disallow ang bikini otherwise yung mga nagsi-swimming sa Boracay na naka two-piece e 'di i-disallow na rin natin," Mamac said.

Mamac also said they have scrapped the mechanism with which prostitution happens, something called "bar fine" where customers pay the club owner if he wishes to take the woman out.

"Bar Fine" is indeed gone, but it was just renamed to "Early Work Release" or EWR where club owners ask the customer to pay the work hours that the woman will miss because she has to leave earlier.

The maximum penalty for prostitution remains at small amount of P5,000, which the barangay council said is the maximum fine stated in the local government code. As a workaround, the revocation of license is enforced on the second offense.

Mamac boasts of the numerous revocations and even establishment closures that they have made.

Barangay Balibago also has its own health and social hygiene facility, where services like mammogram checks are cheaper. Its usual clients are women from Fields.

One notable ordinance was the requirement of all establishments to provide social security to their workers, namely the Social Security System, Philhealth and Pag-IBIG. The barangay council claims 100 percent compliance to this ordinance.

We asked around and found out that the women have been indeed registered by their clubs to SSS, Philhealth and Pag-IBIG, but they're still made to shoulder their own contributions, which, more often than not, they cannot do.

"Sa liit ng suweldo namin paano kami maghuhulog? Useless din," said one woman.

"There's a huge income generated by sex tourism so there's absolutely zero incentive for the government to close establishments linked to prostitution," Fuller said, citing a 1998 data from the International Labor Organization (ILO), which says the sex sector in the Philippines account for two to 14 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Acceptance

Alexa joins modeling gigs in a local mall and there, she has made friends with a lot of girls whose fathers are also foreigners. They often treat her to bonding activities, her favorite: swimming.

"Nalulungkot ako kasi ako lang yung walang papa na foreigner," said Alexa.

Their mothers do not want them to forget their link to their foreign fathers. Katrina wants Alexa to learn english, and Vina can now speak some basic German words.

It is an attempt to keep the family together, or at least make their children feel they are not entirely fatherless.

At the age of 9, Alexa is already practical. She says she wants support from her father, but will not leave her mother, even if it means a better life, or as many bicycles as she wants.

"Hindi po ako aalis na wala si Mama o ang pamilya ko, siya po ang nagpalaki sa akin. Kapag wala pong pera okay lang po sa akin. Kami po ng mga kapatid ko magulo, laging may nag-aaway pero masaya po kami," Alexa said.

Women like Katrina and Maica are judged by a society that blames prostitution on the women and not on the perpetrators, a society that sympathizes with foreign men, but not with abandoned mothers.

And in this polarized issue, there are children who will also bear the extent of this type of  discrimination -- their story made more tragic by their fathers who walk away, as if a child is as easy to forget as a cheap one night stand. —research by Leo Alexis Ecijan

Names have been changed to protect the identities of the subjects. This story first appeared as a television report for GMA News TV's State of the Nation with Jessica Soho produced and researched by the authors.

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