How much girl?

At the hotel front desk this morning, waiting for check-out procedures to be completed, I heard a gaggle of voices behind me, mostly male and speaking in Niponggo. I paid no mind. The hotel hosts many foreign guests, many of them divers (proof: t-shirts advertising dive-this-and-dive-that-site, dive computers, and mask-squeezed faces. kidding about the last)

But what did make my ears prick up was a small voice that piped up "How much girl?" I turned around and the querient was a Filipino. A petite Filipina to be precise, in shorts. She only came up to the chest level of the three men who surrounded her and was consequently looking up at them expectantly. "How much girl?" repeated one of the men and then engaged the other two in their language. Whatever vagueness there was that surrounded the question the first time it was uttered was dispelled by his subsequent reply to her "five thousand; no, six thousand."

At this point I had to run for the shuttle and couldn't rightly tell how the transaction was concluded. A half-hopeful voice inside me argued "who knows it might have been a totally different business altogether that they were negotiating." I wish I could believe that but there were just far too many signs that the collatilla of an economy riding on the unsavory face of globalization remain unchecked. When I arrived a few days back, there was a wedding celebration at the hotel. A young Filipina being married to a man who was, well you know the cliche, old enough to have been her father. And at breakfast, it was not uncommon to see Filipinas, haggard and wearing skimpy clothing, hanging on to the arms of foreign men. I swear the men looked like they were strutting.

I think it jarred me in particular that I heard the question from the Filipina, Would it have made a difference had I heard one of the men say it first? I don't know. Maybe. But to hear a fellow citizen negotiating away for another was just too unsettling. And to know that it adds up to short-term economic respite and long-term dependence.

Ah, but who am I to be contemptuous? After all, the leadership in this country does not flinch when it asks politicians "how much political loyalty?" before giving them cash gifts and when it asks the United States "how much patrimony?" before it signs yet another onerous agreement and receives yet another check.

Comments

[' '- ' ' -' don]

Hey. Yeah. I remember during our seminars during breakfast that there were indeed many of those kind of couples...Great article. Very sad. I just watched a documentary on who women are victims of sex slaves in turkey from states in the old soviet union...life can be shocking. Yet, it takes only a critical mass of good people who do something to perhaps change the course of things...In the mean time, these gruesome realities are happening all over the world everyday...the conveniently unnoticed truth...

[Mags]

Interestingly enough and I could be wrong but "critical mass" came to be hip among cyclists. The idea being that if there were enough people who ride bikes at critical hours, then cyclists could be visible and challenge the supremacy of four-wheeled contraptions.

I think that for the work in change that we want to accomplish, "critical mass" means: 1) people who are able to think & act critically; 2) enough numbers - "mass" 3) securing the support of the masses, meaning not just numbers but they who have the most stake in change because they are most disadvantaged now; 4) and securing the support of people who are in "critical" positions...

Then we will not be ignored.

[mylai]

sad. i get the biking part. i can't imagine how the critical mass can be started for the girls. for as long as i can remember, i only see the girls themselves being "rounded up" by the police.

where does one begin with challenging what is said to be the oldest profession in the country?

[mylai]

and seeing the girls being round up, as we know it is at best futile.

and what about the establishments themselves... the "legitimate" hotels... and the typical/obvious motels. is there and/or shouldn't there be a regulation of these businesses?