Judging from her “professional” name, Jessa started working the streets sometime in the mid- to late-1990s when her namesake, actress-singer Jessa Zaragoza, was at the peak of her career. We found her outside the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines) regional office in Davao City on the night of January 3, and since it was early she agreed to have dinner with us.
“Us” is the worship team of our church, which had a rather belated Christmas and New Year party. We had agreed beforehand that our get-together would emphasize service to others, and as such we decided that we would share a meal with commercial sex workers (CSWs) who worked around the Central Bank area. That place has become known as a haven for CSWs, and it just so happened that a church member had put up a small café in the area. We agreed to use that as our staging point.
We prepared a simple dinner — fried chicken, pork adobo, noodles, rice, and soft drinks — and just waited for the women to appear. Since it was a party we had our own little program consisting of a short talk, some gift-giving, and a lot of eating. When five women took their places on the street we approached them and invited them over for dinner.
At first they were apprehensive, but soon enough they were seated with us and were enjoying the meal. We had some small talk, but we stuck to our plan of not having an agenda with them save for showing them some warmth and love through food. They seemed to enjoy it, and weren’t too shy about asking for seconds. Pretty soon, however, they needed to be in their posts, and we let them go.
The café outside Central Bank where we served dinner
The second batch of three women was a little more engaging, talking to us and answering some of our questions as they ate. One of them was Jessa, and she had a fascinating, if troubling, story to tell.
“I don’t know how I wound up in this job,” she told us in the vernacular. “I grew up in a Christian family, and my parents would take me and my siblings to church every Sunday.” Her family was poor, however, and so she had to stop schooling after sixth grade. She eventually ended up in Quezon City where she worked in a bar.
“That’s where I met my husband,” she said. They were married and had four children, building up their family even though her work involved late hours. They later moved to Davao City where she continued to work in bars and her husband worked in a print shop.
The turning point in Jessa’s life came when the bar she was working at burned to the ground, and she was literally forced into the streets as a commercial sex worker. “My co-workers and I found each other here,” she said, pointing to the sidewalk outside Central Bank. “And we’ve been working this area ever since.”
“What about your husband?” we asked, and this is where Jessa’s story gets interesting and rather disturbing. “He doesn’t know I work here,” she said. We were incredulous, of course: how can a man not know that his wife is selling her body every night at a street corner? “He thinks I’m working in a bar,” she said. “He works during the day, and when he comes home at night it’s my turn to leave the house.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll see you here?” we asked. “No, he never goes out at night. He’s taking care of the children.” How convenient.
Jessa said her husband has probably heard talk from neighbors and friends about her work. “Once he asked me about this place outside Central Bank,” she said. “He said he had heard that this is where commercial sex workers hang out to be picked up. He was obviously trying to trap me, but I feigned ignorance and turned the conversation around. ‘Ano ‘yang Central Bank? Buti ka pa alam mo ‘yan, ako hindi ko alam ‘yan.’”
To this day Jessa keeps her secret from her husband, but she also dreams of getting a decent job some day, one that would finally save her from life in the streets. She also realizes that her work is a complete departure from the Christian faith she once had. “I pray every night for forgiveness,” she said. “Sometimes I also think that this is what God had planned for me.”
We assured her that God was listening to her prayers, and that in God’s eyes she was no different from us. “We are all sinners,” my wife told her. We let her and the two others go with that, since we didn’t want the night to be anything but showing God’s love in a simple and concrete way.
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This is so grabbing! =) What a great concrete way to share God’s love!
Those girls really need help. I know because, like you, I’ve talked to one of them. In fact, I even wrote about it here: http://arvinantoniospeaks.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/sex-in-the-city-expanded/
Kuya Jon. That was really a very cool evening of sharing our love for these sisters. I am praying that the conversation we had with Jessa would lead her closer to Jesus.
i guess we should meet to discuss how we want to proceed with this ministry.