Open party highlight: Kissing, booty shaking

A 30-minute lights-off period during which participants “can do anything” with their partners, including body kissing and booty shaking, was the highlight of the two open parties in Mandaluyong City raided by authorities on Saturday night.

A total of 146 persons were rounded up by the police and local government officials as a result, including 80 minors, the youngest being 11 years old. The organizers of the events, Alfredo Supremo of Soy-Kan and Mark Eleaser Paz of Daydreamer, were also arrested.

According to PO3 Rizaldy Salvador, head of the Mandaluyong police’s antivice division, the organizers of the open parties that served alcohol to minors at BuddhaKan bar and Bagong Ihaw restaurant, promised their patrons that they “can do anything” during the 30-minute lights-off period.

Salvador, however, said that they did not catch any of the teenagers engaged in any lascivious act when they raided the two bars close to midnight on Saturday.

Soy-Kan organized the party held in BuddhaKan bar while Daydreamer put together the event at Bagong Ihaw restaurant.

An open party, Salvador explained, was an event wherein the invitation was spread through word of mouth, or in this case, through social media.

He said that when Supremo and Paz were arrested, they claimed that the events were just birthday parties yet they charged attendees P300 each.

A quick search of Soy-Kan’s event page on www.heyevent.com showed that the organizers listed the 30-minute lights-off as one of the activities during the party, along with “body kissing” and “booty shaking.” The organizers even reminded the attendees to grab a partner.

Fifty of the 80 minors rounded up by the police were 15 years and below. Of the 50, 23 were 15 years old, while the rest were aged 11 to 14 years old.

While Soy-Kan said on its event page that there would be “no drugs” in the party, authorities found an opened sachet of marijuana with fruiting tops inside a vase. At Bagong Ihaw, they recovered an eyeglass case with two empty sachets. The police believed that these used to contain methamphetamine hydrochloride, or “shabu.”

Salvador said that it was possible that some of the drugs were “flushed down the toilet” when they arrived at the packed bars.

He added that the open parties were not the first to be held in Metro Manila, saying that similar events had been conducted in Pasig, San Juan and Quezon City.

“The parties [arranged] by the arrested organizers were held at least two weeks apart in different cities. The organizers would post their event through Facebook and [the information] would be passed on and posted through [the social network’s] groups,” he said.

The unnamed owner of Bagong Ihaw told police that he was not aware of what was happening at the open party. Jerome Chang, however, could not claim the same defense since the BuddhaKan owner was in his establishment when it was raided by the police.