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US TROOPS IN ANGELES CITY

Published in The Philippine Daily Inquirer
(January 25, 2000)

ANGELES CITY-Fearing an outbreak of sexually transmitted diseases, this city’s lone woman councilor has urged restricted activities of 2,000 American troops participating in military exercises with Filipino soldiers.

“They should be tightly reined,” said Councilor Susan Pineda told the Presidential Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement.

The activities of the US troops, who will arrive in the country this week, should be restricted within training camps and resting quarters, she said.

Eight years after they left Central Luzon, US troops are returning to the former Clark Air Base, Subic Naval Base and five other areas in the country to participate in the first of eight large-scale joint military exercises this year.

The Presidential Commission,on the VFA assured Pineda and other local officials that measures would be in place to address their concerns, particularly on prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases.

Elmer Cato, spokesman of the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Task Force VFA, also said the commission would be deploying inter-agency teams to strictly monitor the exercises.

‘The teams will ensure that visiting American troops will respect Philippine laws and comply with the provisions of the agreement, he said.

Cato clarified that 200 US troops, not 2,000, would participate in the exercises at Clark Field.

The bigger number of US troops, he added, would be on board naval vessels which would be positioned offshore.

Until 1991 when the Senate rejected the extension of the RP-US Military Bases Agreement and since 1996 when the joint military exercises were stopped, no big groups of American soldiers have returned to Angeles.

Pineda said a “rest and recreation industry,” a euphemism for prostitution, thrived along what is now Fields Avenue since Clark has been developed into an expansive military facility starting 1902.

Pineda is executive director of the IMA Foundation which helps prostituted and sexually abused women.

At least 41 full-blown HIV-positive cases were recorded here between 1985 and 1991, documents from the city’s AIDS Task Force showed.

Nine persons — eight women and one gay-have died of AIDS. In September 1998, two more commercial sex workers contracted AIDS, bringing to eight the number of persons with AIDS actively monitored by the city’s health council.

“Angeles City will again live up to its image as a flesh trade center for American soldiers next month and we will never be able to shed our ‘Sin City’ image,” Pineda said.

The city council was never formally informed of the plan to confine the soldiers in selected hotels in the city and make Fields Avenue a rest and recreation area for them, she said.

There are more or less 2,000 commercial sex workers in the city, according to an official from the mayor’s office.

However, Pineda said the number reached 5,000 between June and December when foreign male tourists arrived in big batches.

Already, there has been a noticeable increase of young women on Fields Avenue when news of the American troops’ arrival broke out in the media, Pineda said.

Tonette Orejas
with reports from
Eric Jimenez,
PDI Central Luzon Desk

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Written by Angeles CityChild Abuse CrimesDepartment of Foreign AffairsHIV/AIDSPhilippinesSex TourismVisiting Forces Agreement
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