BAGUIO CITY – Every first of May, laborers from all walks of life are paid tribute for their contributions and achievements, being also among the underpinnings of any economy.
In Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) estimates the entire region’s total population labor force at more than 750,000 individuals, an increase of 1.2 per cent from the 740,000 economically active persons from the previous year.
But behind the statistics are stories of “hidden workers,” – a diverse range of unemployed or underemployed individuals who lack traditional job-market qualifications. An example are sex workers in CAR, Region 01 and elsewhere in the Philippines, a diverse, intersectional and hidden group of adults who work in various on-street, off-street and even online locations.
They could be stage dancers, performers, provide in-person sensual massage, intimacy or full sexual services. They are also an ostracized workforce often silenced by stigma, hence, they elude, as much as possible, public gaze or scrutiny.
It must be accepted that sex workers, like others laboring daily, are economically active and resilient in earning for their living, even if their kind of work seems irrational, as sex work carries an enormous burden of social stigma.
The Press and Public Affairs Bureau of the House of Representatives, 19th Congress reports about 500,000 sex workers in the Philippines, 3,000 of whom are in Baguio City, it being a top destination for domestic and foreign tourists.
In the streets of Baguio, at any given night, an estimated 300 women, including some males transform into “street hookers” and ply the forbidden trade.
Here is a story of a hidden worker Daily Laborer stumbled upon, years back.
Daily Laborer happened to know about this lady in 2016. She was then in her prime of life; she was 19 years old when he met her. Presently, Daily Laborer is in the dark if she is still in Baguio, went back to Manila or the Visayas where she hails from and wonders if she still engages in the only work she knows. She goes by the name of Karina.
Survival is the catch-all of Karina’s life. She identified herself as Karina but declined to divulge her surname when Daily Laborer interviewed her.
Whenever dusk settles, or day breaks, she takes a bath, primps up before a mirror, takes a jeep ride towards Baguio and enters one of the many massage establishments that have proliferated along Magsaysay Avenue, Abanao Road, Session Road and Hilltop in those years. There, she changes into a skimpy blouse, skirt or shorts, takes baby powder from her bag, dabs her face, then waits.
She waits for days and nights, biding her time. She has no holidays. Truth to say, if she has her way, she would prefer regular days’ transform to Saturdays and Sundays, these days being times for Baguio and La Trinidad folks pouring out from their homes and enjoying the city lights till evening – particularly the males. It’s a time for males when wine literally pours in pubs and an opportunity for her to have more customers.
She has been waiting on a lot of customers for how many years, she couldn’t really tell. Most likely, she will have to wait for several years more before she realizes she has to quit.
For she works as a masseuse.
But the need for surviving has a way of creeping into her consciousness. Most likely, she’ll live her life in those massage parlors for how many years more, we know not, until other people take it upon themselves to tell her to give it up.
Or, until the relentless creeping of old age bare ugly lines on her pretty face and tell her it is time to really quit for good. For in this kind of their work, aging brutally cancels any masseuse out of the competition.
That’s how bleak the world looks to Karina and a lot of other masseuses in CAR, Region 1 and in other regions in the country. Although the government has repeatedly informed massage parlor owners to give their attendants their due, many masseuses have yet to become members of the Social Security System (SSS) or recipients of Medicare.
Most “attendants” in the country are employed on a per commission basis, according to Karina. But there are lots of girls, she reveals, who hang around massage parlors “to service men” for an hour or so, the fee depending on mutual arrangement.
One need not wonder how Karina got to know of such hush-hush work. But Karina says poverty forced her and other girls to travel from Visayas to Manila. There, they were introduced to an owner of a pub where it also caters to massage services. And she intimated it was there where she learned the ropes of the trade, or, tricks of the trade, if you may. As the trade goes, she transferred from one pub to another, traveled to other places, until, in 2016, she, in the company of other girls, found themselves landing in Baguio City.
By Karina’s own telling, one learns these girls use massage parlor’s cubicles to do their thing, or both masseuse and customer agree on a certain place – like a hotel room – to meet. Karina says she can’t afford to give much thought as to how much other masseuses earn for she also worries about her food and payment for a dinghy room she shares with other sex workers.
Often, they have to move from one renting place to another. Times are bleak when they fail to pay their monthly rent and the house owner is obliged to write off and let go of their rent but in the course of such kind action, they must find another place to stay.
Depravity has a way of changing values. Karina says that some evenings, a customer will agree to 500 pesos or more. Other evenings, a customer will try to take them to bed for 150 pesos, such that the 150 pesos became a catchword along Magsaysay Ave and a song titled “Magsaysay Avenue” revolved around it.
Usually, Karina says, she closes a deal with a customer with a fee ranging from 500-700 pesos. Jackpot for her, it would be, if she clinches a deal of thousand pesos, not to mention a nice meal in an eatery extended by a customer after sex service.
Karina says they close their eyes to life’s scorn and take whatever comes their way. Like many human beings, masseuses have wishes for themselves and their families.
Nightly income of masseuses depends upon their looks, number of customers they serve and their asking price. Bluntly queried if she uses illegal drugs, Karina looked at Daily Laborer with a vacant look then flung her gaze away. When she looked at Daily Laborer again, somehow, her eyes became stony, yet pleading, for something, like understanding.
Then she dropped her gaze and started to draw imaginary lines on the table that separated her and Daily Laborer during the interview.
Karina also reveals she is constantly aware of the diseases that come along in the practice of their trade and says she constantly submits herself for medical check-up particularly at Baguio Health Center.
Asked if she would get out of such trade if offered with another job, Karina responded affirmatively and shared her hope of changing her lifestyle in the future. “Ayaw ko na hanggang kelan, ganito lang ako,” she says in her regionally accentuated Tagalog.
However, it can be recalled that years back, the city government tried to help the so-called “Magsaysay Express Girls” to engage in other income-generating activities, other than being bluntly called “hookers.”
Sadly, many, instead of pursuing such income-generating endeavors offered to them by the City Social Service, returned back to their old haunts – the streets. Asked why, one of them coyly said, “It’s a fast and easier way to earn money.” Speaking of laziness, some, if not, all of these Magsaysay Express Girls may be afflicted with such disease, to be quite frank about it.
If one listens to Karina, she will probably tell the same story she had told to countless strangers she spent an hour or so in bed with. And you take it with a grin and a grain of salt.
When the Daily Laborer softly asked, “What really goes on inside a massage parlor?” Karina replies: “Kuya Bony, do not kid yourself. A lot of sensational things happen inside those closed doors. In fact, masseuses may get offended if a customer doesn’t ask for that extra service.”
Apparently, as Karina divulges, customers prefer this type of masseuses who are out to get a fast buck rather than really toil by kneading the shoulders and aching backs of customers.
Then Karina made a repartee by asking, “Oy, Kuya Bony, hindi ka pa ba nakapasok sa isang massage parlor ni maski minsan? Huwag mong sabihin na hindi, kasi hindi ako maniniwala!”
Well, Daily Laborer answered Karina’s repartee by merely taking it silently with a grin and a grain of salt. For how can you answer a street-savvy woman who can spit expletives, holds a notion that in life, it’s a “dog eat dog world” yet pines for the day she’d met a man understanding of her predicament and wrench her from her world of bleakness, and adds it’s her dream.
Being a masseuse. It’s a fast way to earn money, it’s also a fast way for them to reckon wondering how many more years can they squeeze with this kind of job as they continue on being slaves to lusty men and lusty minds. When interviewed, she smiled a lot with Daily Laborer, but really couldn’t hide her world-weary eyes.
Always, her eyes are drawn up, like curtain shades that refuse to let the sun peep. In the meantime, she continues to survive in a brutal labor encapsulated as a hidden laborer in the so-called oldest profession in the world.
