Angeles bars lose US customers due to rape
By Joey Aguilar, Manila Times Correspondent
ANGELES CITY: The Subic rape case has hurt the entertainment industry here. Tourist-trade businessmen have reported a severe decline in foreign and Filipino customers.
Managers and waiters working in the colorful bars and karaoke places told The Manila Times that foreigners, mostly Americans, who regularly bar-hopped on Fields Avenue in Balibago, have significantly decreased in the past months after US Marines were accused of raping a Filipina in Subic. The case hit the front-page news daily.
Floor managers said business was bad throughout the Christmas season. “This is due to the news about the Subic rape. Maybe because the foreigners are now afraid of entering bars,” Joy Luenges, floor manager of Rhapsody and La Bamba bars, said.
More than 6,000 dancers, guest-relations officers and waitresses are working in about 115 bars here. This number does not include employees of laser karaokes and videoke bars. Fields Avenue is known as this city’s tourist belt.
Luenges said most bars suffered losses in the whole month of December.
She added that there were more customers during the Christmas season of 2004, with foreigners roaming from one bar to another for fun and drinks.
Luenges said the Subic rape case may have driven foreigners and tourists to visit other places like Boracay and stay in their hotels instead of spending time in bars and laser karaokes.
Lucila Paran, president of the League of Angeles City Entertainers and Managers, has observed that the increasing number of jobless Filipinos is a major reason why most businesses are slow, especially on Fields Avenue.
“Fridays and Saturdays now seem to be weekdays,” she said.
Paran, however, expressed optimism that various developments in Pampanga, like the construction of the SM malls, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac expressway and the NorthRail Project, could mean good business for the entertainment industry in the future.
She said the influx of tourist, when international flights increase at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, will boost the entertainment industry and help small businessmen in Pampanga.
The entertainment industry’s share in the city’s revenues is estimated to be between 40 percent and 60 percent, she said
ANGELES CITY: The Subic rape case has hurt the entertainment industry here. Tourist-trade businessmen have reported a severe decline in foreign and Filipino customers.
Managers and waiters working in the colorful bars and karaoke places told The Manila Times that foreigners, mostly Americans, who regularly bar-hopped on Fields Avenue in Balibago, have significantly decreased in the past months after US Marines were accused of raping a Filipina in Subic. The case hit the front-page news daily.
Floor managers said business was bad throughout the Christmas season. “This is due to the news about the Subic rape. Maybe because the foreigners are now afraid of entering bars,” Joy Luenges, floor manager of Rhapsody and La Bamba bars, said.
More than 6,000 dancers, guest-relations officers and waitresses are working in about 115 bars here. This number does not include employees of laser karaokes and videoke bars. Fields Avenue is known as this city’s tourist belt.
Luenges said most bars suffered losses in the whole month of December.
She added that there were more customers during the Christmas season of 2004, with foreigners roaming from one bar to another for fun and drinks.
Luenges said the Subic rape case may have driven foreigners and tourists to visit other places like Boracay and stay in their hotels instead of spending time in bars and laser karaokes.
Lucila Paran, president of the League of Angeles City Entertainers and Managers, has observed that the increasing number of jobless Filipinos is a major reason why most businesses are slow, especially on Fields Avenue.
“Fridays and Saturdays now seem to be weekdays,” she said.
Paran, however, expressed optimism that various developments in Pampanga, like the construction of the SM malls, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac expressway and the NorthRail Project, could mean good business for the entertainment industry in the future.
She said the influx of tourist, when international flights increase at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, will boost the entertainment industry and help small businessmen in Pampanga.
The entertainment industry’s share in the city’s revenues is estimated to be between 40 percent and 60 percent, she said
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