ANGELES CITY – Four suspected child prostitutes who were rounded up Thursday night last week by village officials in a park near this city’s red light district admitted taking part in the racket of a gang that extorts money from foreign male tourists through false charges of pedophilia, the village chief said.
Balibago Barangay Captain Rodelio “Tony” Mamac said the girls disclosed their activities as he inquired on their activities at the Astro Park.
PUNTO saw them being held in a room at the barangay hall. Although rounded up for vagrancy, no charges have been filed against them yet. They were awaiting the arrival of a social welfare worker who will help them stop working on the streets.
Mamac, a former policeman, said the girls identified a certain “Jeng” as the leader of that gang.
Described as a young woman, Jeng works with a gay named Kit and a mamasan (bar manager) whose name the girls claimed not to know. One of the girls claimed that her mother works with Jeng.
“Setup is how they call what they do on male foreigners,” Mamac said.
The racket, as how he pieced it from the girls’ account, works this way: The girls are offered by Jeng, Kit or the mamasan to a prospective client in his hotel room or apartment. In 10 to 15 minutes, mother arrives together with a raiding team of policemen.
The cornered foreigner is not taken to the police station but is taken on a ride around Fields Avenue, this city’s red light district, until the settlement is paid. The amount runs to P100,000 or more, it was learned. The girls did not know how much actually is shared to their parents.
Mamac said the racket involved “some unscrupulous local policemen” but would not say who these were yet until a formal investigation was started.
The girls’ accounts hew closely to the disclosure of Dr. Stephen Soul, an Australian ex-justice of peace who claimed to have fallen a victim of the same racket.
Soul, charged here three weeks ago for attempted rape on two minors, said that in his case, a woman named “Lenny” and police agent Renato “Ranger” Torres were involved in the trumped-up charges against him.
Torres denied the allegation, denying also that he brokered for the demand of the parents to get P500,000 from Soul.
The police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Luzon began investigating last week the CIDG unit that arrested Soul.
