BAGUIO CITY – The City Council approved on first reading a proposed ordinance penalizing the corruption of minors and white slavery in the city as a deterrent to the promotion of prostitution and for other purposes.
The ordinance authored by Councilor Edgar M. Avila stated that among the prohibited acts are acting as a procurer to solicit a person to become the client of a prostitute; inducing a person to be a client of a prostitute by means of advertisement or other similar means, meeting any person in any street or public place with the intent to solicit him or her to be the client of a prostitute, recruiting a person under the pretext of lawful employment but actually for the purpose of turning over such person to another or others to work as a prostitute or other acts of abuse or exploitation, deceitfully taking advantage or through influence due to his or her relationship shall procure another as a prostitute, threatening or using violence towards another to engage him or her as a prostitute, demanding from another who has prostituted himself or herself the whole or a part of the compensation derived from prostitution, giving monetary consideration, goods or other pecuniary benefit to another by means of an advance or other means with the intent to make such person a prostitute, maintaining call girls or call boys that will cater to foreign tourists and local clients, furnishing a place for prostitution or engaging in the business of furnishing the place for prostitution, to allow prostitutes to live at the establishment which he or she possess and manages, hiring or employing or another to work as receptionist, guest relations officer, bar attendant, waiter, waitress or host or hostess without compensation but under an arrangement wherein said person will earn only through a certain percentage of the food or drinks ordered and the bar fines which the customers pay the establishment in order to bring out said employee and imposing bar fines to any person in an establishment.
Under the proposed ordinance, all establishments and enterprises which promote or facilitate prostitution shall automatically be closed and their authority or license to operate shall be cancelled without prejudice to the owner or manager being prosecuted under the said measure or the Revised Penal Code as amended or other special laws. Such establishment or enterprises shall remain closed unless the court determines otherwise, taking into consideration the interest and welfare of the people and the immorality of the act.
Avila claimed an establishment shall be presumed in fact engaged in the promotion or facilitation of prostitution if the acts consisting sexual exploitation and white slavery as lawfully defined occur in the premises of the said establishments and enterprises.
In addition to the penalties provided for in the Revised Penal Code, Avila said a convicted felon shall forever be banned from living, residing and staying in the city and shall not be allowed to go within a radius of 500 kilometers. He or she shall likewise be enrolled as a sex offender in his name and picture posted in public conspicuous places.
The proponent admitted sexual exploitation is a growing social evil that gnaws at the very core of a person’s being and that its pernicious effects impacts heavily on the minors and women who are its unwilling victims.
By Dexter A. See
