(GARISH. A recurring image of Angeles City in the internet is the red light district of Fields Avenue. Photograbbed from web)
ANGELES CITY- This city, rising from its prurient reputation as Sin City spawned by American presence at the former US Air Force base at Clark, is further breaking off from such image in part by launching an earnest campaign to rescue minors and families exposed to abuse in local streets.
At least 31 homeless minors and two street families were recently rounded up by a team from the city government and brought to the care of the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSDWO).
Street children here have been reputed to be among the victims of the local flesh industry that first catered to American concupiscence at Clark.
The attempt to uplift the ill reputation of Angeles has been a struggle since the Americans abandoned Clark in 1991. The process has been arduous for the city government, as the local unofficial red-light district in areas along the western periphery of Clark survived the Americans, as various nationalities, almost always male, took over what the Americans left, mostly along Fields Avenue.
Over the years, some success has been noted to upgrade Angeles’ repute. In the internet which has become a major source of information for potential tourists deciding on whether to visit a place, Google now has a list of decent information on Angeles, providing viewers lists of family destinations in the city.
In YouTube, how ever, the city still has a lot of work to do as the first videos to come out in the popular video site are skimpy clad girls luring customers in front of their bars along Fields avenue. Most of the videos were posted by foreigners actually promoting the city as a place for sexual escapades.
Some have proposed that the city government, offering attractive prizes, sponsor an annual video contest promoting Angeles as ideal destination for families and posting these on YouTube. The number of such videos could yet overwhelm the sex-oriented videos already on YouTube, or those yet to be posted by those selling the city as sex destination.
Meanwhile, the team that rescued the 31 children and two families was composed of Mayor Carmelo Lazatin’s chief adviser IC Calaguas, Executive Assistant IV Reina Manuel, and representatives from the CSWDO, the Angeles City Police Office Women’s Desk, the Gender and Development Office, and the Angeles City Economic Development and Investment Promotions Office.
Calaguas said the children and the families would later be turned over to the Tuloy Foundation for continuing assistance.
Last August 5 and 7, Lazatin met with Tuloy Foundation president and chair Fr. Marciano Evangelista to discuss programs for “children at risk.”
He vowed to support the foundation in a bid to “rescue and empower poor, abandoned, abused, and neglected out-of-school children.”
The administration of Lazatin has brought obvious changes, particularly in the area of old downtown where the night market along Rizal St. has vanished. That’s a convenience for access to two hospitals located along the street, but some have lamented this because the night market had been a good attraction for local folk as well as tourists.
The vendors who used to do business there are allowed to sell their wares along nearby sidewalks, also at nighttime. This apparently has also spread assorted garbage in wider areas.
