A man named Sanny Ramos, 26, was arrested for forcing a group of young girls — aged 12 years old to 17 years old — to work as prostitutes in a row of cubicles that he had set up as a makeshift sex den under the newly renovated Honorio Lopez Bridge in Gagalangin, Tondo.
The bridge is more popularly known to locals as the “Sunog Apog Bridge.”
“Five of the seven girls who worked for Ramos — mostly out-of-school youth and vagrants whom Ramos had befriended — were also rescued in the operation launched by a joint team from the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) and the Manila Police District’s antihuman trafficking division. The group, led by Supt. Dennis Wagas, filed on Monday an Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act against Ramos in the Manila City Prosecutor’s Office,” reports Aie Balagtas See in Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Ramos offered the girls’ services to truck and tricycle drivers, and pier workers. He reportedly collected PHP500 from each of the girls’ encounter with the men. He kept PHP150 and the rest went to the girls.
It was discovered, though, that “when there were no customers, Ramos sometimes had sex with the girls himself.”
“His clients also included workers from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority,” added said Aldrin Tamboon, an IACAT operative.
The report noted: “Ramos’ arrest was prompted by a complaint filed by 13-year-old Raya (not her real name) who said that Ramos had offered her to clients at least twice this year. Once, she tried to refuse but Ramos slapped her.”
In her four-page affidavit, Raya said in Filipino: “He would order the seven of us to go with his male clients who wanted sex. Sometimes, he would even ask [us] to use ‘shabu’ (methamphetamine hydrochloride)” or solvent.”
Barangay councilor Francisco Castillo of Barangay 147 in Manila claimed that “the existence of the prostitution den — in operation for about a year — had long been an open secret in Gagalangin, Tondo.”
However, he said when they tried to rescue the girls, they would fight back.
Ramos refused to comment on the allegations against him.
