The National Bureau of Investigation raided a health club in Quezon City last week over reports that masseuses there were made to offer sexual services to customers.
Rod Silverio, owner of Grandeur Health Club on Timog Avenue in Quezon City, was charged with human trafficking, child abuse, and white slavery on Thursday.
Silverio remains at large but club manager Byron Fule, Geneva Vesquiso Rollon, Joselyn Franco Medina, Antonio Samson Nuevo, and Richard Villegao Orpano are already in NBI custody.
“The NBI received a report that Grandeur Health Club, a massage parlor located in Timog Avenue, Quezon City employs minors in its human trafficking business. Many minors and young women are employed as masseuse but actually engaged in paid sexual trysts with male customers,” NBI director Nonnatus Caesar Rojas said in a Manila Bulletin report.
NBI agents posing as clients went to the club and were led to an “aquarium”, where girls in skimpy clothes were on display. According to the NBI, club manager Fule asked the agents to choose their girls and collected P1,800 each from them. “Extra service”, or sex, would have cost an additional P1,500.
“Soon, the operatives announced a raid, exposing girls in different state of undress with their male patrons,” the Bulletin reported.
It was found that 19 of the 42 women rescued from the club were minors.
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