Mother Teresa and The Bar Girls of Olongapo
During breakfast this morning with Archbishop-Emeritus Paciano Aniceto, he told me this little-known but true story of Mother Teresa when she visited the Philippines in 1987 to open a hospice for Olongapo's s*x workers and their unwanted babies. Archbishop Aniceto was then Bishop of Iba, Zambales.
"She asked me to take her to the red-light district because she said she'd like to see the condition of the place," Archbishop Aniceto said. "I put on my white cossack so that the girls would not make any mistake with me."
The girls immediately recognized the nun. They shouted, "Si Mother Teresa!" and left their American boyfriends to kiss her hand. Later, Mother Teresa turned to Bishop Aniceto and said, "I can feel that they already have babies in their wombs. We should save them."
That's when I suddenly remembered Fields Avenue of Angeles City and the women of Area, whom I met and interviewed last summer while I was writing the screenplay of "Area" (recently named Special Jury Prize winner in Kazakhstan). I begged Archbishop Aniceto to help these women the same way Mother Teresa had helped the women of Olongapo, by asking the same Missionaries of Charity to put up a similar hospice for the women of Fields Avenue and Area. He promised he would.
I think I just stumbled upon God's real reason for leading me to Area!
Written : Robby Tantingco
Photo : Jonel Diaz
"She asked me to take her to the red-light district because she said she'd like to see the condition of the place," Archbishop Aniceto said. "I put on my white cossack so that the girls would not make any mistake with me."
The girls immediately recognized the nun. They shouted, "Si Mother Teresa!" and left their American boyfriends to kiss her hand. Later, Mother Teresa turned to Bishop Aniceto and said, "I can feel that they already have babies in their wombs. We should save them."
That's when I suddenly remembered Fields Avenue of Angeles City and the women of Area, whom I met and interviewed last summer while I was writing the screenplay of "Area" (recently named Special Jury Prize winner in Kazakhstan). I begged Archbishop Aniceto to help these women the same way Mother Teresa had helped the women of Olongapo, by asking the same Missionaries of Charity to put up a similar hospice for the women of Fields Avenue and Area. He promised he would.
I think I just stumbled upon God's real reason for leading me to Area!
Written : Robby Tantingco
Photo : Jonel Diaz
Why dow we even have red light districts when prostitution, in all its form is illegal in our country? Hay nako!
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