Boracay PNP: 25 women prostitutes, 11 'lady boys' arrested

BY BOY RYAN B. ZABAL / Panay News / Manila Bulletin

BORACAY - At least 36 persons including 11 'lady boys' believed to be vagrants and prostitutes were separately arrested by the Boracay Special Tourist Protection Office (BSTPO) this year.
Superintendent Arnold Ardiente, deputy Aklan police director for operations, vowed to continue the drive following the complaints of foreign tourists victimized by sex workers or prostituted women in the island.
"The crackdown of commercial sex workers was intensified on popular bars frequented by tourists in the beachfront. The offenders were charged of anti-vagrancy law before the Aklan Prosecutor's Office," he said.
Ardiente, current BSTPO chief, said there were no minors apprehended since last month during the anti-vagrancy operations of the police. Those arrested, mostly women in early 20s, were found loitering and stay late at night in bars to attract customers in this typical island paradise.

Over 400 resorts, hotels, bars and restaurants, normally own by foreigners are doing business in the island. Young women work in tourism-related occupation as hotel clerks, waitresses or shop sales ladies.

A vagrant is defined in Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code as "any person having no apparent means of subsistence," or "found loitering around public or semi-public buildings or places" without visible means of support, or "any idle or dissolute person who lodges in houses of ill-fame."

"To eliminate vagrants in the island, the apprehending officers are conducting daily rounds of alleged sex workers, especially the 'lady boys' even at the wee hours of the morning," Ardiente added.

To decriminalize vagrancy, Senator Francis Escudero authored Senate Bill No. 1965 to provide equal protection to children, women and men as law enforcement officers cannot anymore recklessly use vagrancy in arbitrary arrests.
"The existing law on vagrancy fails to see that vagrants are victims of poverty and the lack of opportunities for employment and access to decent standards of living and quality of life," Escudero stressed.