1. The trade 
2. The operator 
3. 'Baby Love' 
4. She's not alone 
5. Nothing changes 
6. Objects of affection

Livelihood of last resort 

The trade 

 The Internet has helped rejuvenate the commercial sex scene in the Philippines, and a Ventura County company - Philippine Adventure Tours - provides some of the customers. It takes lonely bachelors to dimly lit saloons filled with women. A human rights group calls it sexual exploitation and picketed a tour in May. The next month, a Ventura County Star team went to the island nation to report on the sex industry and the people affected. 

 From a modest home in midtown Ventura, Philippine Adventure Tours sets out a road map to a sexual playground. 

 The company's Web site promises to take lonely bachelors on a search for "beautiful young ladies" in the Philippines, starting at a dark, musty joint called the Fox Hole Club in coastal Subic before moving inland to a neon-lit bar zone in Angeles City. 

 Follow the company's tracks, however, and you'll find out why some human rights groups in the island nation are so outraged with the Ventura company and other foreign sex tour outfits. 

 In Subic, a 15-year-old prostitute they call "Baby Love" is working alongside grown women in the bars, selling her slender body to foreign sex tourists to survive. 

 In Angeles City, a 16-year-old girl named Marife works as an erotic dancer in one of the clubs pictured on the Ventura company's Internet site. She says her parents need the money she earns each week. 

 And in between, dozens of bar dancers and prostitutes say they cater to sex tourists from America, Australia, Europe and Japan, only because the depressed Philippine economy offers little choice. 

 "We don't work there because we like the job or because we like American men," said Alma Bulawan, a 36-year-old former bar worker from the town of Olongapo near Subic. "We work there because we have a need. We go there because we need the money. We need to support the family." 

 It's that poverty, combined with the sexual appetite of foreign men, that some say leads to the exploitation of women -- and sometimes children. 

 "If the women take the power in their hands, educate themselves and fight for themselves, there will be hope," said Susan Pineda, a women's rights activist and Angeles City Councilor. "The problem is it might take too much time because first they have to think about filling their stomachs." 
 

The operator 

 The Philippines' notorious commercial sex industry was spawned by American involvement that began exactly 100 years ago. 

 Soon after the country declared its independence from Spain on June 12, 1898, the United States stepped in, ruling the country until its full autonomy in 1946. After that, the United States still maintained major military bases in Angeles City, Subic and other cities. 

 Prostitution thrived -- sanctioned by Philippine and American military authorities, who even set up a health certification system for women working in the bars. 

 After the Philippine government forced the U.S. military out in 1991, the local economies initially took a dive. 

 But the sex scene has rebounded thanks to a new breed of international sex tourists. They follow paths laid out on the Internet to the dimly-lit saloons and pay paltry bar fines for the company of women -- and sometimes girls. 

 Ventura County's connection to the Philippine sex scene began in 1983, when Navy veteran Allan Gaynor first advertised a "sex tour" to take bachelors to his favorite ports of call. 

 Gaynor was stationed in the Philippines for about 10 years and said he fell in love with the country and its women. He married a woman he met in the Philippines, although they divorced last year. 

 One problem, Gaynor said in an interview earlier this year, was that his ex-wife thought he was spending too much money on Philippine Adventure Tours, a business he runs on the side of his full-time job as a mobile home roof salesman. 

 In the past 15 years, Gaynor has tried to deflect criticism of his tours by adding sightseeing elements like visits to historic sites and scuba diving. But he admits that the country's women are the main attraction. 

 "If it was not for the fact that American men could meet the ladies, it would be very difficult for me to convince them to go to the Philippines," Gaynor said in a May interview. 

 Gaynor said men on his tours often join him in "bar-hopping" and sometimes pay bar fines to take the bar employees on dates. He defended the bar fines, saying they do not guarantee sexual favors and that what happens after women leave the bars with men is a matter between consenting adults. 

 He vehemently denied that the system encourages child prostitution. 

 "I'll kick anyone's ass if they want to stand in front of me and accuse me," Gaynor said. "I respect the Philippines. I love that place. The men that go on my tours are respectable, good men." 

 But human rights groups disagree. 

 They say both the foreign tourists and Philippine authorities look the other way when it comes to the children who blend with older women in the clubs. 

 "It's going on and minors are offered as tidbits for the foreigners," said the Rev. Shay Cullen, a priest who runs the PREDA Foundation shelter for abused children in Olongapo, near Subic. "When you see how local authorities allow their daughters to be sold into sexual slavery, its absolutely disgusting to see the biggest pimps in the Philippines are the local Philippine authorities." 
 
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