Poverty And Some Effects Of It That We Do Not Perhaps Think About As Carefully As We Should.

[Medic Mike]

This is a calendar from an association that I belong to - officers  who served in the merchant shipping and oil exploration and production businesses of the Swire Group - Cathay Pacific have a sister organisation of course.

 

It is a photoshop of a genuine Christmas card produced by one of the most famous of the old MH Del Pilar bars in Ermita, before Fred LIm closed them in order to strengthen his run for Mayor. The year I fancy is 1988:

 

I would like to draw your attentionto the two girls left and right foreground.

The girl left foreground was Melanie and she was a Sergeant with the Manila Police and I kid you not.THis was her second job to support her sick father's medical treatment .The girl right foreground was Julie and she was dumb. I do not mean she was stupid. I mean she was from birth unable to speak, and she supported her mother and her kid brother. Dancing was perhaps the only job for which she got paid the same as everyone else. 

 

Don't just write off these people. Melanie might be a Judge these days!

I like the club :)...and the cop. :)

[Methersgate]

I like the club ...and the cop.

 

Alas the days of MH Del Pilar are long gone - but you could be 100% sure the place would not be raided whilst Melanie was on the premises!

 

Another bar girl story - this one is much more recent and concerns P Burgos Street in Makati within the past five years.

 

Kor has a balka friend - the son / daughter of her landlady, who does makeup for the girls. Nice enough fellow as baklas go. He told us this tale:

In one of the bars there was, for three years, a genuine virgin. She was quite well known. The mamasan had given up on making her take an "earlky work release fee" and accepted the situation because she was very pretty and  brilliant at scoring drinks from the punters.

 

She was in fact a student. She spent the afternoon helping her mother with a vegetable stall, got a short sleep, went to the bar around 8, stayed until 4, went to sleep until 8, went to college, studued until 2, helped her mother, and so on. Doing, in fact, three jobs.

She is not at the bar any more. She is in Makati City Hall.

 

Still a virgin. 

 

[Medic Mike]

 

I like the club ...and the cop.

 

Alas the days of MH Del Pilar are long gone - but you could be 100% sure the place would not be raided whilst Melanie was on the premises!

 

Another bar girl story - this one is much more recent and concerns P Burgos Street in Makati within the past five years.

 

Kor has a balka friend - the son / daughter of her landlady, who does makeup for the girls. Nice enough fellow as baklas go. He told us this tale:

In one of the bars there was, for three years, a genuine virgin. She was quite well known. The mamasan had given up on making her take an "earlky work release fee" and accepted the situation because she was very pretty and  brilliant at scoring drinks from the punters.

 

She was in fact a student. She spent the afternoon helping her mother with a vegetable stall, got a short sleep, went to the bar around 8, stayed until 4, went to sleep until 8, went to college, studued until 2, helped her mother, and so on. Doing, in fact, three jobs.

She is not at the bar any more. She is in Makati City Hall.

 

Still a virgin. 

 

I know there are quite a few bar-girls in Cebu that are also current students like the girl described above.

[Thomas]

It can be done: let me share a tale of a young Filipino. This young Romeo married and started a family as a day laborer. Once first born came, he realized something had to change. He made his living the next 40 years as a jeepney driver working 14-16 hour days 6-7 days per week.

He raised 7 children:

A physician

A mechanical engineer

An army colonel

An army general

A registered nurse

An international merchant marine ship's master

And professional actress.

All college educated, and most with advanced degrees. This is what came from a determined family of squatters in a shack with no electric or running water.

This is the brief story of one of the men I have most respected and loved in my life: my father in law.

May not be easy, but character can conquer a lot.

Yes. Here are two more examples:

/Father is tricycle driver but somehow they have managed to make all kids get higher exams (economic, engineer and such) - except a daughter, who managed to become pregnant to early. But now she has full time work too. I don't know how they solve child caretaking, because there are totaly 3 small kids - 2 belong to examed brother - and all grownups work full time.

 

/Other type:  Father is a not working ALCOHOLIC, who made so they lost their farm years ago, and mother is long time serious ill. The kids - all daughters - have managed to get higher exams anyway! (2 teachers, 1 computers.)

[Jake]

 

I like the club ...and the cop.

 

She is not at the bar any more. She is in Makati City Hall.

 

Still a virgin. 

 

Hey guys,

 

Believe it or not, I can personally attest to her virginity.  I've tried all kinds of the angle of the dangle.....he, he.

Dang, what a kill joy.......

[Medic Mike]

 

 

I like the club ...and the cop.

 

She is not at the bar any more. She is in Makati City Hall.

 

Still a virgin. 

 

Hey guys,

 

Believe it or not, I can personally attest to her virginity.  I've tried all kinds of the angle of the dangle.....he, he.

Chasity Belt.JPG Dang, what a kill joy.......

 

Dang!!!...LOL... :hystery:  :hystery:  :hystery:

[Jake]

 

 

And all these sensitivities are right beneath the surface, and all the foreigner does is to say "It does not bother me" - it bothers THEM.

Yes, the head of the household is usually delighted to see a foreigner to see a foreigner paying court to his pretty daughter, but

he is also worried that the foreigner may just leave her "in the club" and disappear, and he also hates himself for having to hope

that that foreigner will give him money.

Hello Andrew,

 

Another great insight about the weak and the poor!  You are certainly a student of sociology, unique to the

Far Eastern region and their street level culture.  You got into the mind of the poor farmer, thinking about

what to do about his daughters when the whole family is starving.   

 

Fast forward to Mt Pinatubo's (1991) devastation of land and people of epic proportion.  Many of those young

daughters ended up in Angeles City.  It was a dark reality for farmers to contract out their little girls.  Again, it

was the matter of sheer survival, deep sacrifice and deeper shame.   

 

Is there a light at the end of their tunnel?  

 

 

I don't like to take issue with you shipmate but there are thousands of other ways to make a living.  It sounds heartless but they could have done anything else besides be bar girls - but they liked the lure of big and "easy" money.  I disagree on the focus on them being "victims"....there are others who deserve that title, not them.  It was a conscious choice on their part.  There used to be thousands of them in Olongapo during the Navy's heyday.  How many do you think were actually from Olongapo?  I guarantee not many.  No girl from Olongapo would be doing that and risk becoming talk of the town.  The pokpok were all from somewhere else....which means they chose to come there and they chose that life.

 

Hey guys,

 

I could very easily see both sides of the discussion.  Perhaps during the Vietnam War, it was very quick and easy

money and many became successful mamasans and was graced by the Gordon dynasty.  You also have the ladies

who became successful in banking, sales, manufacturing and engineering during that time.  It was a good time for

Mayor Gordon and the US Navy.  

 

And then Mt Pinatubo's massive eruption, displacing tens of thousands of people with their livelihood buried deep

in the lahar.  Desperation and starvation motivates desperate and often times futile attempts to start living again.   

Soon after that, the nightlife of Angeles City exploded. 

 

Yes many pok-poks have flocked to Clark AFB, Sangley Pt and Subic Bay for the money, the honey and the green

ID card.  And then another massive catastrophe occurs -- you have a different kind of mindset now flocking to the

city of Angeles and Quezon City.  They are the desperate people.

 

I can see the smiling faces (among other thangs) of the beautiful ladies of the old Bubbles Club.  I'm wonder now

if today's ladies that are working the bars, beer house, KTV and nightclubs are equally as happy.  I wonder how

many ladies are forced to smile or too drugged out that she can't close her legs.  Shabu is prevalent among the

bar scene and I suspect those pretty baklas are the main candy man.   

 

I guess poverty has many faces........

[Miguk]

This is a calendar from an association that I belong to - officers  who served in the merchant shipping and oil exploration and production businesses of the Swire Group - Cathay Pacific have a sister organisation of course.

 

It is a photoshop of a genuine Christmas card produced by one of the most famous of the old MH Del Pilar bars in Ermita, before Fred LIm closed them in order to strengthen his run for Mayor. The year I fancy is 1988:

 

I would like to draw your attentionto the two girls left and right foreground.

The girl left foreground was Melanie and she was a Sergeant with the Manila Police and I kid you not.THis was her second job to support her sick father's medical treatment .The girl right foreground was Julie and she was dumb. I do not mean she was stupid. I mean she was from birth unable to speak, and she supported her mother and her kid brother. Dancing was perhaps the only job for which she got paid the same as everyone else. 

 

Don't just write off these people. Melanie might be a Judge these days!

I don't believe I ever "wrote them off" just that they don't deserve the "victimhood" defense for a job they clearly chose.  That was my only point (and I caveat the "they clearly chose" leaving out the true victims of human smuggling and trafficking).

[Methersgate]

Hey guys,   I could very easily see both sides of the discussion.  Perhaps during the Vietnam War, it was very quick and easy money and many became successful mamasans and was graced by the Gordon dynasty.  You also have the ladies who became successful in banking, sales, manufacturing and engineering during that time.  It was a good time for Mayor Gordon and the US Navy.     And then Mt Pinatubo's massive eruption, displacing tens of thousands of people with their livelihood buried deep in the lahar.  Desperation and starvation motivates desperate and often times futile attempts to start living again.    Soon after that, the nightlife of Angeles City exploded.    Yes many pok-poks have flocked to Clark AFB, Sangley Pt and Subic Bay for the money, the honey and the green ID card.  And then another massive catastrophe occurs -- you have a different kind of mindset now flocking to the city of Angeles and Quezon City.  They are the desperate people.   I can see the smiling faces (among other thangs) of the beautiful ladies of the old Bubbles Club.  I'm wonder now if today's ladies that are working the bars, beer house, KTV and nightclubs are equally as happy.  I wonder how many ladies are forced to smile or too drugged out that she can't close her legs.  Shabu is prevalent among the bar scene and I suspect those pretty baklas are the main candy man.      I guess poverty has many faces........

That is an excellent post by Jake.

 

It's not the same now.The poverty is actually worse than it was, because there are so many more people. There is greater pressure on everyone, and this bears down most of course on the poor.

 

I very much agree about the "shabu"  (methamphetamine, in US terms). I hadn't made the connection with the baklas and I fancy you are dead right, Jake.

 

Signs of shabu use include these, which are known to every Filipino

1. Very bright eyes, especially in photos.  

2. Loss of weight

3. Poor skin tone

4.Increased sex drive

5. Wakefulness, increased paranoia

 

Public vehicle drivers  and prostitutes are classic "shabu" customers.

Edited August 11, 2014 by Methersgate

[Hey Steve]

The Philippines seems to be a nation with very distinct social borders separated by what I believe are 4 different approaches to tackling their own family's poverty. The hard way out (education, sacrifice, determination), the quick way out-Bar Girl, criminal activity, scammers, the OFW, and resignation and acceptance of a hard frugal life.