S#77: Vergara, Jore May 25, 2009

S#36: Juliano, Hansley Hi 165: Rizal and the Emergence of the Filipino Nation
Section B Dr. Ambeth R. Ocampo

NOT SO DEMURE: Philippine Prostitution in the Spanish Colonial Era in Light of Pre-
Colonial Notions of Sexuality

We have a held perception that there exists in Philippine pre-colonial history a relatively
peaceful society, occasionally interrupted by “inter-barangaic” wars. They believed in many
gods and spirits, known today as paganism. We were a developing society then having a lot of
sophistication and knowledge during our time. These include metallurgical works of gold,
pottery, tools out of metals, stone and the like. With the increase in sophistication and
knowledge, social stratification inevitably emerged, likely for the maintenance of an organized
society back then. The main status symbol during the time was the gold ornaments stated earlier.
Amidst all of this, however, our ancestors displayed a relatively primitive regard to fashion,
based from how they dressed themselves merely by wearing minimal cloth, save possibly those
belonging to the pre-colonial nobility depicted in the Boxer Codex.
Eventually we established foreign trade, supposedly for the purpose of expansion and
cultural development. One of the important international relationships established during the
time was the trade we established with the Chinese. The Chinese brought with them various
items of porcelains and pots that attracted the eyes of our ancestors that they insisted on buying
the goods the Chinese brought with them. However, instead of using these goods as a
replacement of what we formerly used they used the goods bought from the Chinese as an
addition to the burial rituals of a deceased. And after some time trading with these people, our
ancestors have established a firm relationship between themselves and the Chinese. The Chinese
became a main source of labor and trade in the Philippines.
Before our readers become bored with wondering how these narratives on pre-colonial
history would be relevant to our tackling of a quite unmentionable topic in our Spanish colonial
past, we deemed it necessary to situate most of the major actors in this phenomenon in their
proper context. These connections, in a way, illustrate how a proliferation and intermingling of

1
culture has already permeated the life of the various barangays of the then-disunited Philippines,
broken up into separate petty kingdoms. Nascent communities were opening themselves up to
various modes of trade and communion with other cultures, such as the Orang Dampuans, Banjar
and the neighbouring countries within Southeast Asia (Agoncillo 1990, 23-24). Though there are
questions as to the nature and extent of these exchanges based from archaeological evidence
(Joaquin 2004, 37-38), recent finds dispel such doubts and these are already visible in museums.1
However, during this time of flourishing trade and cultural exchange, the successive
fleets of Spanish colonizers came starting from Magellan in 1521 until Legazpi in 1565, first
presented themselves as friendly people only looking for food and water in exchange for their
goods in order for themselves to go back home to Spain and report their findings. In the course
of our interaction with them, war broke out between their men and our chiefs (most notably
Sulayman) which eventually led to the destruction of native settlements, paving the way for the
establishment of European-style cities and towns. As a result, greater stratification that classified
the colonized by race, work, position in society and even “limpieza de sangre” (Ocampo-BOC
2001, 103) was put into place. It seems, interestingly, that stratification will be and always is a
constant mark of a civilized society, whatever stages of progress it undertakes.
With the current stratification during the colonization, there arisen a number of problems
to be addressed now that there is a clear line between the rich and the poor, the employed and the
unemployed, the city-dwellers and the provincial people. There were significant economical
effects, more so among the working force comprised of mostly native Filipinos, classified in
records as indios. And a notable profession here, due to the aforesaid reasons, is prostitution.
As any dictionary would define, prostitution is the practice of engaging in a sexual
activity with any person as a means of earning. Despite the existence of prostitutes from both
genders and varying purposes, prostitution, incidentally, universally affects the women of a
society. Today, there are various reasons for a woman to engage in prostitution and the most
common of them all is that it is the only option left for a woman to have a means of living within
that community. For the denizens of colonial Philippines, however, this wasn’t the only reason

1
The Ayala Museum has exhibited recently various excavations of gold ornaments made by pre-colonial Filipinos
and implements made of porcelain and precious stones from China and differing countries from Southeast Asia.
(Ayala Museum, “Exhibitions - Gold of Ancestors,” <http://www.ayalamuseum.org/index.php?
option=com_ayala_content&task=viewexhibitpage&id=14> and “Exhibitions – A Millennium of Contact,”
<http://www.ayalamuseum.org/index.php?option=com_ayala_content&task=viewexhibitpage&id=16> accessed 20
May 2009).
2
for engaging in prostitution, which spans a plethora of social, economic, maybe even political
reasons that stow away from whatever stereotypes we might have imbibed from our early age.
Thus, this paper intends to discuss about the other factors that have led to a woman go
into prostitution or, generally, why prostitution was present, and eventually prevalent, in the first
place in Philippine colonial history. In line with the belief that prostitution is one of the oldest
professions, it is no wonder, in a way, that it would manifest itself in the wake of the Spanish
colonization. Despite the proliferation of such “illegal” and “indecent” means of earning a
livelihood, the demographics of its patronage reveal a quite peculiar observation. In a way, it
seems that prostitutes are readily available amongst the citizens of the country. That such public
and prevalent patronage is present seems to underlie a question of the pre-colonial Filipino’s
sexuality which desires to break free from the “domestication” of colonization.
The discourse to be presented will be to do an appraisal of pre-colonial culture and their
treatment of sexuality during those times. Having done so, we try to analyse the role of a
prostitute with regards to her trade, the society wherein she moves in, and the motives by which
she was driven to enter such a profession. We also look at how prostitution was treated back
then, as well as the implications of their presence in the society they move in, in light of the
dominant Hispano-Catholic culture. In the end, summing up all of the points of discussion then
we conclude with an inference of how these still reflect in the modern Philippine society.

A Problematic Intercourse of Culture

To begin with, a study on a sensitive topic such as prostitution would warrant a look into
the views that people actually possess of their sexuality. To say that a particular act is an act of
prostitution would mean that somebody is committing a grave immorality, something that would
not be welcome to a particular society. This is why it is not surprising that the first Spanish
colonizers led by Ferdinand Magellan, more so the Italian chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, would
have a field day in describing sexual practices that would be deemed bizarre by their Middle Age
scruples (and even ours today), though this might actually be questionable: “The males, large and
small, have their penis pierced from one side to the other near the head, with a gold or tin bolt as
large as a goose quill. In both ends pf the same bolt, some have what resembles a spur, which
points upon the ends; others are like the end of a cart nail… The bolt and the spurs always hold

3
firm. They say that their women wish it so, and that if they did otherwise they would not have
communication with them. (Pigafetta 1521, 66-67).”
The behavior of pre-colonial Filipinos with regards to their sexuality, it must be admitted,
is not limited to the purpose of procreation. Sex is likely viewed by our ancestors as a manner of
expressing themselves in a relationship with the person they are performing the act with, as well
as an act wherein they gain pleasure. In much more controlled environments like those of
Christian Europe, this is most likely deemed an aberration of character, a horrifying sin even. 2 It
is no wonder, then, that accounts of Filipinos’ voracious carnal appetite would pepper accounts
of friars such as the notorious Fray Gaspar de San Agustin who wrote a letter in 1698 about
Filipinos, praising the chastity of Tagalog and Pampango women but would say that “Visayan
women… are ready for everything and are not so fastidious. On the contrary, they are very ready
to consent to any temptation.”3 Almost a couple of centuries later, W.E. Retana, formerly an anti-
Filipino journalist who eventually became Jose Rizal’s first biographer, would get into trouble
with the Filipino colony (and Rizal himself) due in part to declaring Filipinas “of easy nature and
by nature depraved.” (Ocampo-BB 1995, 81).
Such statements of savage and loose behavior, being seen from the point of view of the
Spanish colonizers, do not likely do justice to our ancestors more so they are written with a
prevailing superiority complex. In his annotations of Dr. Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas, Jose Rizal, despite his quite biased historical scholarship, nevertheless puts in
context the beliefs and points of view by which our ancestors believed they should act and
behave with regards to the function of reproduction. When Morga decried the seeming absence
of continence with regards to sex among our ancestors, Rizal rebuffed him

Because they saw nothing sinful in the act of the reproduction of the species. The ancient
peoples, like many other peoples, did not see in it more than a natural instinct which has
2
Such a belief will be echoed centuries later by philosopher Michel Foucault when, in making a differentiation
between scientia sexualis and ars erotica, he would criticize the controlling power of the pastoral as a means of
habituating the body, stifling it into “docile bodies” which reduces sex as a tool of production, stifling the body’s
means of expression. As an illustration of this, he writes: “Up to the end of the eighteenth century, three major
explicit codes – apart from the customary regularities and constraints of opinion – governed sexual practices:
canonical law, the Christian pastoral, and the civil law. They determined, each in its own way, the division between
licit and illicit. They were all centered on matrimonial relations: the marital obligation, the ability to fulfil it, the
manner in which one complied with it, the requirements and violences that accompanied it, the useless or
unwarranted caresses for which it was a pretext, its fecundity or the way one went about making it sterile, the
moments when one demanded it (dangerous periods of pregnancy or breast-feeding, forbidden times of Lent or
abstinence), its frequency or infrequency, and so on.” (Foucault 1990, 31).
3
Blair and Robertson Vol. 40, 254.
4
 to be satisfied. The same Mosaic religion did not prohibit it except adultery. Only
Christianity made the act a mortal sin, because (perhaps agreeing with the agnostics) it
saw everything carnal as corrupt, bad, like something from the devil… Between
prostitution, however, and Cenobite anti-naturalism, gloomy and barren, there is a middle
ground: Obedience to natural laws without adultering them or frustrating the purposes
that all things have. (Rizal-Morga 1962, 289, fn. 1).

These aforementioned debates and debunking of beliefs, bordering on accusations of

myopia from both sides, is something which, if viewed with hindsight, something which they
cannot be blamed for. It is only in the last three decades that an analysis of the dialectics between
the cultures of the East and the West has been inaugurated by philosopher Edward Said: “as
much as the West itself, the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought,
imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West. The two
geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other.” (Said 1978, 5). Without
examining orientalism as a discourse, one cannot possibly understand the enormous discipline by
which European culture established itself by placing the Orient as a somewhat underground
image. Misunderstandings between contact of culture between the East and the West, precisely
because of their locations and distance, were driven to be curious and, eventually, suspicious of
each other. This mutual distrust (despite claims to friendship and paternal protection of three
centuries) will manifest itself in the criminal sectors of Philippine colonial society, which
involves the sector of sexuality suppressed most by the Roman Catholic Church; prostitution.

Inspecting the Meathouse

To begin with, prostitutes are persons who engage in any kind of sexual activity in
exchange for any form of income. Like in most cultures, it is females who are the ones most
likely to engage in this trade or ‘work,’ though there are indeed isolated cases of male
prostitutes.4 Contrary to our stereotypes of a very pious population, the deemed crime of
prostitution is actually very much rampant and active despite voiced-out condemnations from
religious Orders. Various factors are present which could make a woman choose to become a
prostitute, the most general one being economic (Camagay 1995, 108). Since many rural areas,

4
Camagay 1995, Appendix F, 184 & 186. In the records of prostitutes during the years 1862-1879 from the
Philippine National Archives, a pescador (fisherman) named Faustino Nicolas, unmarried at 35 years of age, was the
sole male prostitute.
5
then as now, are impoverished and poorly developed, many women from the province are
attracted to work in the cities where in the end they end up being criadas or maids of a house
where, nevertheless, the pay wasn’t that much (51). Sometimes they were turned over to brothels
by the mistress of the house (114). Another more despicable means is when “a woman was
seduced and persuaded to elope with a man who had not the slightest intention of honoring his
promise to marry her, but who took her instead to a brothel. These men were known to be the
pimps or brothel keepers, ‘recruiting’ women with their caressing yet deceptive tongues.”
(Bankoff 1996, 41). The very term by which they were referred to, mujeres publicas, which
literally means “public women” (and in a way resonates to an old euphemism used in Tagalog
provinces, “asawa ng bayan”), shows the acknowledgement of their presence by the societies
they move around. They do, however, need protection of “minders,” sometimes public officials,
and they themselves have to be “street-wise” in order to avoid occasional incarceration. (42)
Besides their means of procurement, they were also subdivided into four categories
depending on how they managed their work (Camagay 1995, 109-110):

1. A prostitute is kept in a prostitute house under the supervision of an ama

(mistress) or amo (master).
2. A prostitute who managed by posting themselves in certain streets ready to offer
their services.
3. A prostitute who managed their trade by going to the house of their client. This is
especially made for the Chinese males of the society.
4. A prostitute who managed their trade inside of their own homes. These women
catered to men belonging in the higher bracket of society.

Those in the first category are most likely women who were seduced by the pimps, by
promising them better pay or better lifestyle through marriage. Denizens in the three remaining
categories, however, suggest that they are women who were willing (or are forced to by
circumstances) to become prostitutes for their own gain or for the livelihood of their family.
Unnerving as it may sound, the prostitutes undergo a quite vicious cycle which relatively
ensures their permanent association with the flesh trade. After having been recruited or deceived
and serving as a prostitute while doing other side jobs, she might be able to gain well-paying
clients which will allow her to become a “professional” getting her living solely out of offering
“services.” (Bankoff 1996, 42). Should she eventually retire, she can be part of the recruitment
and training of new prostitutes, usually making her daughters engage in the same job or by

6
means of referral, usually from the same province where she came from. In a way, the retired
whore can still live off the rearing, “maintenance” and deposits of the younger prostitutes (43).
It must be noted, however, that not merely Filipinas were participants in this form of
white slavery. Japanese scholar Motoe Terami-Wada gives us a quite vivid portrait of the Manila
Japanese community’s complicity in prostitution, albeit during the tail-end of the Philippine
Revolution. One Muraoka Iheji, an entrepreneurial “pimp” whose activities go far back since
1885 in Hong Kong, opened up a store and a restaurant, both in his name, as fronts for
prostitution activities in 1900. Starting out with fifteen women (including his wife), the area
eventually bloomed and by 1903 the Japanese Consulate in Manila would state that there are
about 280 “barmaids” reportedly present (Terami-Wada 1986, 292-295), despite their earlier
denials. Wada also noted that as early as December 1898, there were actually already houses of
“ill fame” in “Kari Karieta” (possibly Calle Carriedo) which serves various personages.
Confirmation came through reports of an American soldier’s arrest in such establishments and
the experience of a certain Hirayama, notably a volunteer in General Emilio Aguinaldo’s
revolutionary forces who usually hid in the brothels to avoid American authorities (296-297).

The Impetus of La Gota

It appears, in light of the aforementioned data, that prostitutes weren’t given much
concern by the government despite the condemnation of the then highly-influential Catholic
Church.5 Only when there were occasional breakouts of venereal diseases were visible measures
enforced, and they were not even deemed problematic. For one, “prostitutes were not being
ostracized” during the time suggesting that they didn’t carry any kind of social stigma if they
were labeled as prostitutes (Camagay 1995, 106). In addition to this, government policy over
prostitution was quite ambivalent too (Bankoff 1996, 44). However, in the turn of the 19 th
century, local authorities imposed punitive measures against prostitutes in order to combat the
spread of venereal diseases (Camagay 1995, 99). The measures against the spread of the disease
include incarceration, deportation, and, wildly, marriage.
5
As an added note to this phenomenon, the Marquis de Ayerbe would write that “[t]ambien huyeron unas
cuatrocientas mujeres de mal vivir que quedaron abandonadas por la marcha del ejercito ingles (also, about four
hundred women of ill-repute were forced to flee Manila after they were abandoned by the English Army),”
suggesting that the English invaders were procuring prostitutes for their own relaxation after the fall of Manila.
(Joaquin de Urries 1897, 130).
7
 Incarceration of a prostitute lasted for 10, 15, and 30 days (101). Most of these prostitutes
served their sentences in the Carcel de Bilibid. Usually, they would serve their term by doing
hard labor appropriate for women. Upon finishing their sentence, the authorities of the prison
would certify these women that they have successfully served their term. Yet instead of
reforming them, incarceration created another place in order for them to practice their trade.
Sometimes, the women would return to the prison during the Thursday and Sunday visiting
hours, pretending to be relatives of the remaining detainees in order to get in the prison and
“peddle their goods” once again (1988, 243).
Deportation was then considered the most severe punishment a prostitute could receive,
such that even while wary of the activities of their daughters, the fathers and mothers of such
whores would “spare no effort to prevent the daughter from being deported to Davao or
Balabac.” (244). In a way, it suggests that the local authorities didn’t have an accurate consensus
of who were the prostitutes back then and therefore only suspected who and who weren’t guilty.
With such familial involvement, a means was created to supposedly circumvent the increase of
prostitutes: marriage. The offer of marriage apparently served to circumvent or avert the
deportation of a prostitute, since it was then perceived as another means of reforming them.
There are numerous cases of such aversions since 1849, though there were also instances that
such proposals came when the suspect was already serving the term, or even those who chose to
join their “beloved” in exile (245-247). Nevertheless, it raises questions as to why there were
men who would choose to marry women accused of prostitution when Catholic regulation (and
probably, perception) would say otherwise. It seems, in a way, that there is no stigma involved
with accusations of prostitutions with the working classes of colonial Philippines.
However, several factors convinced the authorities that regulation was more productive
than futile attempts at proscription (Bankoff 1996, 44). One of these is still the spread of venereal
disease cases that later created the Bureau of Public Health. At this point, punishment of a
prostitute was minimal because of the consensus and licensing made by the bureau, publicly
acknowledging that the “… Bureau of Public Health instituted the licensing of prostitutes in
Manila… [it] did not only facilitate a census of prostitutes but more significantly, it checked the
spread of syphilis in the city… licensed prostitutes were required to undergo examination twice
a week…[italics ours]. (Camagay 1995, 115). This suggests that the government has allowed
prostitutes to be, still, prostitutes only that they abide by taking an examination of syphilis. But

8
aside from this, they were sexually ‘free’ to do it. Bankoff adds that “the licensing of prostitution
was a symptomatic of a process by which pragmatism increasingly replace morality as the
guiding principle in administration of justice in the Philippines.6

Cultural Checkpoints

By constant interaction, it is with the Chinese immigrants and traders that we share a lot
of societal roots with in colonial Manila. However, what really persuaded the Spaniards in
integrating the Chinese people within the colony is likely their appetite for labor and production.
Quoting from Liao, “The Chinese played an important role in the support of skilled labor,
materials, better methods of farming, and manufacturing for the development of the country.
They became the backbone of Philippine trade and industry (1964, 19). In a point in time, they
were deemed more efficient than our ancestors such that the authorities believe that “without the
trade and commerce of the Chinese these dominions could not have existed” (31), further
emphasizing their importance and significant contributions.
However, amidst this social inclination towards the Chinese in reliance of labor and the
economy, the Spanish still had doubts about them. The Spanish government was especially
alarmed with the rapid growth rate of the Chinese during the establishment of the Spanish
regime, such that they eventually made it a policy to monitor and control their movements
through the establishment of the Parian, close to the Walled City of Intramuros (Tiongson 1973,
22). Filipina prostitutes, interestingly, had a role of calming down the Chinese to prevent them
from conducting revolts, which in a way is a worse blockade to commerce than the flesh trade
itself. This is another reason why imposing punitive measures had a difficult time in the Spanish
regime because prostitution assumed this position (Bankoff 1996, 44). That they would choose
Filipinas to intermingle with reflects how close they are in the lower rungs of the social strata
dominated by the Peninsular Spaniards (Ocampo-BOC 2001, 105). This implies that they might
be receiving low wages (Tiongson 1973, 30-31) not equal to the amount of work they put into it.
As such, they can only afford cheap entertainments such as prostitution.
6
As early as 1591, then-Governor General Gomez Perez Dasmarinas has acknowledged and informed his lower
officials within Manila that most of the indios were supposedly “addicted to theft and licentiousness, and the women
were ready to sell their persons.” As such, it might be, to the consternation of the Orders and to the insult and
detriment of the native Filipinos, that prostitution was propagated within the colonized settlements. (Blair and
Robertson, Vol. 8, 81).
9
 Having brought up earlier in this paper the case of our relatively-free sexuality during the
pre-colonial era (Camagay 116), we might then have an idea as to why we have embraced
prostitution as a non-problematic means of livelihood. Once more, we note that “sex to the pre-
colonial natives clearly entailed much more than the propagation of the species; it was also
enjoyed purely in the pursuit of carnal pleasure” (Reyes 2008, 208). Sexual expression seems to
be a given that men enjoy much to have sex with the women within their society (and therefore
willing to follow their demands), which indicates a somewhat high regard for women.
Contrasting this sexual expression in the context of a conservative and scrupulous colonial
regime, however, suggests an entirely different picture, leading them to consider our women as
“inherently loose.”7 That Morga would describe our ancestors in somewhat condescending tones
illustrate how problematic indeed is our sexuality in their view:
…“The natives of the Islands of the Pintados, especially the women, are very vicious and
sensual, and their malevolence has led them to invent lewd (torpe) ways of intercourse
between women and men. The men have a custom that they practice from their youth
onwards. They make a hole in the miembro viril, close to its head, and pass through it a
device that resembles a serpent’s head made of metal or ivory, which is then secured in
place by material of the same substance. With this device they have intercourse with a
woman, and are unable to withdraw long after coitus, for women are so addicted and fin
delight in it despite shedding much blood and receiving other injuries. These devices are
called sagras…” (Rizal-Morga 1992, 289-290).

If we will try doing a psychological analysis by hindsight through the collective

unconscious according to Carl Jung, women who pursue prostitution (and are likely aware of the
colonial past despite hundreds of years of suppression) are likely to willingly show this particular
behavior.8 Since earlier in our pre-colonial life we were sexually active in pursuing our desires
then it is ingrained in our subconscious mind of what we were before. This is better commented
on by the eminent Philippinologist Ferdinand Blumentritt who, in reproduction, stated that “…
[v]irginity is not a virtue, for the girls easily give themselves up to any of their lovers, and only a
small number of them are still virgin when they are brought before the altar for marriage. This
may still be blamed on the time when there were still pagans and when virginity was not
prized… Prostitution is present. [italics ours]." (Reyes 2008, 201).

7
It is not an isolated case. Up to today, many still have misconceptions with regards to the purpose of the Vedic
Kama Sutra of India, thinking of perversions when in fact it was made for the maintenance of a lawful relationship.
8
“Carl Jung.” Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung> (accessed 24 May 2009).
10
If So, What’s New with Us Then?

Looking at how our pre-colonial culture practices a free mode of sexuality, we find that
virginity is not given importance because it is deemed relative to a society which, though
definitely pagan, is not necessarily to be considered heathen due to their views on the goodness
of fertility and primacy of development. Such ideas, being deemed immoral and unworthy of
Christian values, morals and lifestyle drove, the Spanish colonizers to habituate us in a belief of
consistent sexual repression, therefore resulting in a Filipino woman to be more innocent, chaste,
and having great esteem for herself.9 However, this isn’t that much true in the colonial
Philippines because of prostitution and prostitution itself didn’t carry a social stigma during the
time (Bankoff 1996, 43). This means that people do not see prostitutes, who commit adultery and
pornography most of their time, as a set of people who must be sanctioned but as a normal set of
people just living their daily lives. Prostitution, as the norms of society would show base from
evidence, was to be tolerated but should be regulated. Therefore, Christianity hasn’t fully been
inculcated in the culture of the Filipinos because they still have their primitive sexual life within
them and that is why prostitutes weren’t given a social stigma.
It might be probably an exaggeration, but it appears that we as a people seems to haven’t
been in terms with our notions of sexuality and, as such, are not able to understand the context by
which our ancestors come from. True, the majority of Filipinos’ scruples and Catholic
upbringing seems to have a love-hate relationship with our mixed culture due to our desire to
find our true identity as Filipinos, sons of this long-fragmented country, and yet cannot depart
from the indoctrinations that more than four hundred years of foreign intervention has impressed
on us. As such, we cannot understand how, as gleaned from experiences with issues regarding
sexuality, we abhor prostitution and other “indecencies” yet in our consciousness we actually
desire to know more about them.
Michel Foucault, in recognizing this dilemma, seems to offer a challenging solution:

… [W]e must not refer a history of sexuality to the agency of sex; but rather show how
“sex” is historically subordinate to sexuality… It is the agency of sex that we must break
away from, if we aim – through a tactical reversal of the various mechanisms of sexuality
9
It is no accident, it seems, that in recognizing the free sexuality of the pre-colonial Filipinos one would recall to
mind our supposed epitome of Filipina virginity: Jose Rizal’s Maria Clara from the Noli Me Tangere. However, her
somewhat aberrant and highly-repressed (and therefore sexually-tense) behavior at the mention of her beloved puts
this idea to doubt, affirming our thesis on repression breeding more deviant behavior like prostitution.
11
 – to counter the grips of power with the claims of bodies, pleasure and knowledges, in
their multiplicity and their possibility of resistance. The rallying point of the
counterattack against the deployment of sexuality ought not to be sex-desire, but bodies
and pleasure. (Foucault 1990, 157).

Considering prostitution as a crime and a menace to society is inevitably tied up with the
logic and understanding of the colonizing Western culture. To comprehend through Oriental
point of view (that is, the perspective of our ancestors) the significance of prostitution in
Philippine society, we must look at the phenomenon of prostitution as an offshoot of our culture
of sexual freedom, albeit a twisted means of resistance against the prevailing puritanical
hegemony. If we are to consider our colonization as instrumental in fabricating our present
Filipino culture, some might deem it right that we consign this “orgasmic” period of our history
in the shadows, as it is a “shameful” spot in our national family tree. However, doing so blindly
will also indicate our inability to come to terms with an aspect of the past we seek and wish to
glorify. Doing so, we will be unable to use it to chart our future. Prostitution is a recorded and
persisting part of Filipino life then until now, and the exploitative nature of the trade obscures the
call for the liberation of sexuality. How we will deal with it is a reflection of the changing
perspectives we have as a people, as a community, and as a nation.

Bibliography:

Agoncillo, Teodoro A. History of the Filipino People. 8th ed. Quezon City: GaroTech, 1990.

Ayala Museum, “Exhibitions - Gold of Ancestors,” <http://www.ayalamuseum.org/index.php?

option=com_ayala_content&task=viewexhibitpage&id=14> (accessed 20 May 2009).

____________, “Exhibitions – A Millennium of Contact,”

<http://www.ayalamuseum.org/index.php?
option=com_ayala_content&task=viewexhibitpage&id=16> (accessed 20 May 2009).

Bankoff, Greg. Crime, Society, and the State in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines. Quezon
City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1996.

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Blair, Emma Helen and James Alexander Robertson. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803. With
historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord Bourne. Cleveland, Ohio: A.H.
Clark, 1903-09. 55 vols.: ill., maps, ports

Camagay, Ma. Luisa T. “Prostitution in Manila during the 19th Century”, in Philippine Studies
Volume 36, Third Quarter. Ateneo de Manila University: 1988, pp. 241-255. (cited as Camagay
1988)

___________________. Working Women of Manila in the 19th Century. Quezon City: University
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