The Daily Mail blames Australians for Pregnancies in Angeles City, Philippines.
How accurate is their news story? More than 4.7 million foreigners come to the Philippines each year, 224,000 of these are Australian, and 4,475,000 (yes, almost four and a half million) are NOT Australian, but Australians are supposed to be the fathers of all the babies, according to the Daily Mail Headline
First of all: What is the Nationality of Visitors to the Philippines?
A list of the Top international visitors to the Philippines in 2014.
1,175,472 South Korea
722,750 United States
463,744 Japan
394,951 China
224,784 Australia
179,099 Singapore
143,899 Canada
142,973 New Zealand
139,245 Malaysia
133,665 United Kingdom
Looking at the top 5 Countries, we see a total of just under 3 million visitors. (2,981,701)
Of that number 7.5% are Australian……….
The Daily Mail Headline is:
Inside the red-light Filipino slum filled with children fathered by Australian sex trade tourists.
No mention of the real numbers though:
3,495,798 Visitors to the Philippines from the top 10 countries
224,784 of these are from Australia
There are also many more retired American Ex Servicemen permanently living in the Clark/Angeles City area, (it was after all, a massive US Base not that long ago).
Yet the British Daily Mail puts all the blame for pregnancies on Australian Men ?
Then the Daily Mail goes a bit further and insults the Philippines with this statement:
The only people who visit here are sex tourists and, in our case, those who report on them ?? my 55-year-old self and 39-year-old photographer Dave Tacon. The entire town ?? with a population of about 350,000 ?? is a brothel, and its support system.
They omit the fact that there are many Call Centres located in the Angeles / Clark area. They also omit the fact that only a tiny part of Angeles City hosts the Recreation Industry.
There is a tiny part of Angeles that was created to cater for the US services “recreation”, and it is estimated to employ about 12,000 people in that industry. That figure includes waitresses, barmen, security, and of course the dancing ladies.
The part of Angeles City that is really considered the “Entertainment area” is shown below, in the small rectangle:
12,000 out of 350,000 and yet the Daily Mail casually puts the other 338,000 Angeles people in the same situation as the small number in that industry.
The Sex Trade, as they explain it, is situated in just a few streets of Angeles right on the border with Clark, and yet they are happy to say the entire 60 square kilometers is a brothel!!
If anyone remembers SOHO in London many years ago. The same logic would say that all of London was also a den of sex shops and prostitution, etc.
Has the Daily Mail gone overboard with inaccurate reporting just for a HEADLINE ?
722,750 visitors to the Philippines from the United States
224,784 visitors to the Philippines from Australia
143,899 visitors to the Philippines from Canada
142,973 visitors to the Philippines from New Zealand
133,665 visitors to the Philippines from the United Kingdom
A total of 1,368,071 visitors from ENGLISH speaking countries
16% of these are from Australia.
10% are from Britain.
But it’s the Australian that gets the headline, and the blame, from the British Daily Mail!
It embarrasses me to be British now.
My link to the Philippines ? A marriage of over 20 years to a Filipino.
Take a look at the photos of the famous Walking Street in Angeles City. The majority of people are Korean men, the next lot are wearing US military ex serviceman clothing. There was a massive party on July 4th.
Most of the bars are owned by Koreans or US, and many give discounts to the US ex Military.
There are a few Australian bars and restaurants too, but probably in the same proportion to the tourists… Low.
Many Australians are in that location setting up the call centres that answer many calls from their homelands. But of course, to the British, they MUST be sex tourists !!! The Call centre industry is bigger in this area than the recreation industry. Almost 10 years ago there were over 47,000 Filipinos employed in the Clark Freeport Zone, where most of the call centres are located. This figure could easily be 10 times the number
How about a headline like this:
American retirees have been flocking to Angeles City, an inexpensive and convenient place to live.
Not as good at getting attention though is it?
Angeles City became a home to a large number of emigrants as many Americans chose to settle permanently in the city, and large numbers of Filipinos with American ancestry are still located in the city. Many of these can easily also be fathers to their girlfriends who work in the Bars.
The name SIN CITY, used by the Daily Mail News Article, was created way back when the US bases in the area created it, it is not recent.
The Angeles City government website: www.angelescity.gov.ph