An open secret in ‘Yolanda’-hit areas

A young mother was in a quandary where to find money to feed herself and her 9-month-old baby.

She left her partner. She also could not find a job after several establishments shut down or were destroyed after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” pummeled this city on Nov. 8, 2013.

She did what she thought she would never do: sell her body for quick cash.

“I have a child to feed. I don’t have a job. We have nothing. Yolanda took everything from us,” Emily said.

But Emily said her case was not isolated since there were other women who were forced into prostitution just to survive after Yolanda.

There have been talks in Tacloban City about the likes of Emily although government agencies cannot give official confirmation.

Councilor Editha Pacuri of Barangay 88 in San Jose District, the worst-hit area in Tacloban due to Yolanda, said they had received reports about women selling their bodies following Yolanda.

She said she had heard that these women and their customers would have sex in dark, empty lots in Barangay 88, which didn’t have any power supply.

“But it’s quite difficult to really determine this. One, the women who are said to be engaging in prostitution would not admit it,” she said.

Pacuri admitted that life in their village remains tough especially that at least 2,500 residents have been unemployed since Yolanda.

Before the supertyphoon, more than 5,000 people from Barangay 88 had jobs. Now, only those who worked in the government or were running small businesses like retail stores had steady sources of income.

But the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWD) in Tacloban said it had not received any report on the proliferation of prostitution in Tacloban after Yolanda.

“That information has yet to be validated by our office. In fact, we have not received such information although we are not totally disregarding that [possibility],” said Ines Salvoro, CSWD administrative officer.

Open secret

But prostitution is an open secret in the city as people talk about it although no one comes out in the open.

Benjo, 41, and a technician, said that while doing the rounds in offices and houses, he has heard stories about women forced into prostitution just to have something to eat.

“In the weeks following Yolanda, so many people were desperate for money. It was hard because the local and national governments were not able to immediately provide relief items to many areas where people were seriously affected by the floods. There were hungry children to feed and so many had no one to turn to. You can’t blame people if they turned to prostitution,” he said.

Most of these women are in their 20s and 30s who have children, he said.

“With their husbands dead and two, three young mouths to feed, can anyone blame them if they sell their bodies in exchange for some cash or even relief items?” he said.

The customers, he added, were usually members of humanitarian groups that visited Tacloban weeks after Yolanda’s onslaught.

Some were foreigners while others were Filipinos, Benjo claimed. “They were the only ones who had extra money to spare.”

“People talk about this like it’s commonplace, but of course you can’t expect anyone to come forward to admit they’ve sold their bodies for money or food,” he said.

Emily, not her real name, 26, agreed to talk to the Inquirer provided she would not be named.

She said a neighbor, who was a veteran in the flesh trade, recruited her in December last year to be a prostitute.

Just a month after Yolanda hit the city, there was hardly any food to eat as relief stocks from the government came in trickles. She had no work, no money and no one to turn to.

Her elder brother died when the storm surges generated by the supertyphoon struck their village in Anibong District.

Her mother, who is in her 50s, also didn’t have any means of livelihood. Emily had no work because the establishment she was working for had closed down after the typhoon. She left her partner in September last year after learning he had a wife and children.

With a 9-month-old baby to attend to, Emily decided to accept the offer.

Almost a year into the flesh trade, her “work” gave them assurance of the family’s survival.

Every 9 p.m., Emily would go out in the street to wait for customers willing to pay from P500 to P1,000 for a night of sexual services. Her customers, she added, were Filipinos, not foreigners.

“In my heart, I know it’s not right. I don’t want my son to know that I work as a prostitute but if I don’t do it, we would not have food to eat or a decent home to live in,”Emily said in Waray.

Her “salary” enabled her to buy plywood and GI sheets to build a makeshift house on the same spot where their house used to stand.

“I remain positive that I will find a better and more decent job soon,” Emily said.

The spokesperson of People Surge, the grassroots organization established by Yolanda survivors themselves, said they, too, had heard about the reports on prostitution.

Marissa Cabaljao said the situation was worse in communities and bunkhouses that were not frequented by the media or the staff of nongovernment organizations and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

There, she added, some women were willing to sell themselves in exchange for bags of rice and groceries.

“They are barely surviving, and they have children who rely on them. People also continue to fall sick in the bunkhouses; to get money for medicine, they also sell themselves,” Cabaljao said.

Cabaljao said that during the last year, many bars also sprouted in downtown Tacloban. “These are not prostitution dens, but there are reports that women who need quick money go there and get customers. Some of the cheaper lodging houses have also gained seedy reputations; they are said to accommodate prostituted women, Yolanda survivors and their clients.”

Human trafficking has also become a problem post Yolanda.

Only last August, reports came out regarding the rescue of 18 young women from Samar and Leyte provinces by operatives of the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group after they raided two alleged sex joints in Angeles City. Arrested during the raid was an American.

The rescued minors could not give any explanation for being there apart from wanting to find work. They were turned over to the DSWD in Manila.