asiapacificresearch--2020-11-09--Daisy’s Story: Filipina Migrants and Other Women in the Shadow of the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa

To research my book , Night in the American Village : Women in the Shadow of the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa , I lived in Okinawa for a summer in 2003 , a year from 2008 to 2009 , and a few months in 2017 .
I wanted to tell the stories of local women whose lives were somehow entwined with the heavy U.S. military presence there—not only in the present , but also over the course of the long history of the U.S. military in Okinawa .
After World War II , the U.S. military occupied Okinawa , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the islands returned to Japan in 1972 .
Today , Okinawa hosts about half of the 54,000 American troops stationed in the country .
I wanted to include marginalized voices , like those of women who migrate to Okinawa and its base towns for employment .
While in Okinawa , I heard rumors about Filipina women who had been trafficked to the island to work in the entertainment areas around the bases .
I had worked with counter-human-trafficking organizations in Cambodia and knew the classic story : traffickers lure a woman from her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job , perhaps in a hotel or factory , and then force her into sex work .
This is what I imagined happening in Okinawa .
But when I sat down with a Filipina woman who had worked in Okinawa ’ s base-town bars , her story surprised me .
During my interview with Daisy in 2017 , she repeatedly emphasized her agency .
She said she had chosen to migrate to Okinawa , knowing the risks ; she had chosen whether or not to engage in sex work ; she had taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her advantage .
The ending of her story was not like I had imagined : it was happy .
Academic works I read detailed the many vulnerabilities and structural constraints of work like Daisy ’ s , but some also emphasized the migrants ’ agency ( see Rhacel Salazar Parreñas ’ Illicit Flirtations : Labor , Migration , and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo and Sealing Cheng ’ s On the Move for Love : Migrant Entertainers and the U.S. Military in South Korea ) .
However much agency women like Daisy had , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Filipina migrants in Japan as trafficking victims .
Embarrassed , Japanese lawmakers curbed the number of Filipinas who could enter the country on entertainer visas .
As a result , there is no longer a vast population of Filipinas working around the U.S. military bases in Okinawa today .
Many of those who remain migrated illegally or through marriage .
These marriages are sometimes business arrangements set up by a broker or friend .
Situations like these can make the migrants more vulnerable to abuse than the legal entertainer visa system of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. military base in Kin , Okinawa , 2017 .
( APJJF ) Writing about the U.S. military bases in Okinawa and the communities around them meant constantly challenging my expectations .
The more time I spent on the island and the more people I interviewed , the more I saw complexity .
While the majority of Okinawans don ’ t want another base on their island , and there is a long history of resistance against the U.S. military presence , many locals choose to interact with the bases in some way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who may date or marry U.S. servicemen or work in the base entertainment areas .
Contradictions are at the heart of the story .
A woman might have a U.S. soldier husband but secretly want a base reduction .
A woman might have borne the work of boosting militarized masculinity , but say she was the one who , in the end , got what she wanted .
Daisy wanted a better life for herself and her mom—for her mom , especially .
When Daisy was young , her family lived in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ simple life ” where candles lit the night and banana leaves served as umbrellas .
Daisy remembers enjoying herself , unaware of any other way to live .
But she also watched her mom work herself ragged , raising seven kids on her own .
To put food in their mouths , Daisy ’ s mother managed orchards of banana , coconut , and cacao trees , hauling produce to market twice a week .
She ’ d come home late at night , drunk .
She ’ d wake at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of work , sometimes still drunk .
If Daisy didn ’ t hear her stir , she would check that her mother was breathing .
She prayed to God for her mom ’ s life .
There had been too many tragedies .
When Daisy was a toddler her father died from colon and liver cancer .
A couple of months later , her baby brother died in a fire .
Daisy doesn ’ t know how it happened .
Her mother was at work , leaving the kids home alone .
Daisy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but the house didn ’ t burn down .
The flames took only her brother .
After that , her mother never left them alone again .
Daisy was the second-youngest child but took on the responsibility of caring for her mother and younger sister when the family left the southern island of Mindanao to escape guerilla fighting .
Her oldest sister had her own problems : ten kids and a husband who beat her .
Her older brothers had left for work on Luzon .
So , at age sixteen Daisy dropped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to support her mother and sister .
First , she served as a live-in maid for a wealthier family , making two hundred pesos , or about five dollars , a month .
Whenever she could , she snuck in time to read English-language magazines , studying on her own what she couldn ’ t in school .
After that , she worked a stint as a nanny , cut short because the boss was “ not good.
” The next job that she found , at a bakery , paid double the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a pharmacy student , was kind and loaded Daisy with bread , cheese , and candy when she went home to visit her family .
Then , Daisy moved on to a printing factory in Manila , where she silkscreened T-shirts .
That paid the best of all , thirty-five pesos a day with room and board .
Daisy had brought herself a long way—but still it wasn ’ t enough .
As a kid , Daisy had visited her cousin , whose father was an American soldier .
Daisy ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ II .
Looking around their house , Daisy thought , “ Oh my God—they ’ re millionaires .
One day I want to have this.
” She started clipping pictures of houses from magazines and promised her mom that one day she would build her a house like that .
To fulfill her promise , she needed to earn more money .
So , when Daisy was twenty-one , she decided to go to Japan .
She knew what she was risking .
She had heard stories about other girls who had gone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ murdered around the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka .
She knew what everyone thought when you said you were going to work in Japan : you were going to sell your body .
Daisy had never even been on a date , avoiding men because she feared they would derail her dreams .
Her mom begged her not to go , to stay at her job in Manila .
But Daisy was determined .
She could earn far more in Japan than in the Philippines .
She told her mom she was unafraid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s your time , it ’ s your time.
” With her oldest niece , she applied for and got a six-month entertainer visa to work in Japan .
Officially , the visa was for cultural dancing , but Daisy didn ’ t know what awaited her across the sea .
The promotion agency decided where each girl would go within the country .
Daisy ’ s niece , who was tall and beautiful , got sent to mainland Japan .
“ They said mainland Japan is first-class , ” Daisy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m probably not that pretty.
” Daisy was assigned to Okinawa .
Before leaving , she asked God for an angel to guide her .
“ Please don ’ t let me sell my body , ” she prayed .
As long as U.S. bases have existed in Okinawa , so too have sex workers to serve the troops .
For both the Imperial Japanese Army and the U.S. military , sex work has been seen as a natural and necessary complement to soldiers in order to keep them in fighting shape @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been the women ’ s backgrounds , their working conditions , and their degree of agency .
During the Pacific War , the Japanese military notoriously set up a “ comfort women ” system in which they enslaved thousands of women from Japan ’ s colonies and occupied territories to supply sex to Japanese soldiers .
These Korean , Taiwanese , Filipina , and other Asian and Pacific Islander women endured systematic rape and abuse wherever the Japanese military went , and Okinawa was no exception .
Before the battle , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women to the southern islands and established some 130 “ comfort stations ” across the prefecture .
The kidnapped Korean women and a small number of Okinawan women were made to serve dozens of men a day .
Most of the women died during the battle .
Some who survived continued working , now servicing American soldiers .
Following Japan ’ s surrender , Japanese authorities rushed to establish new “ comfort facilities ” —these for the American occupiers .
They reasoned the men would need sex , and without such a system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the public .
In Tokyo , the Japanese government and police forces worked with brothel owners , doling out direction and government funds .
“ A hundred million yen is cheap for protecting chastity , ” a Ministry of Finance official said .
Impoverished women were recruited to work for the good of the nation , a sacrifice to protect more affluent women from harm .
“ To New Japanese Women , ” a sign in Tokyo ’ s Ginza district announced .
“ As part of urgent national facilities to deal with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ active cooperation of new Japanese women to participate in the great task of comforting the occupation force.
” Soon there were “ recreation and amusement ” centers across mainland Japan , segregated by the race and rank of customers , where a dollar bought a GI sex .
Servicemen poured into the centers , until after only a few months the U.S. occupying government shut them down , trying to stanch the explosion of venereal disease .
Officials continued to permit prostitution , however , now confining it to certain city districts .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands of Japanese women supported themselves and their families with this work .
Under the separate U.S. administration of Okinawa , the story was similar but different .
Both the U.S. military and Okinawan leaders condoned prostitution , and thousands of Okinawan women were pushed into sex work to survive .
With the loss of male providers in the battle and the loss of farmland in the building of bases , they didn ’ t have other options .
A key difference was that in Okinawa the drawn-out occupation meant state-sanctioned prostitution lasted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ occupied Okinawa ( Okinawa : A Tiger By the Tail , published in 1968 ) , veteran M.D .
Morris writes that “ for the common good ” U.S. military officials organized a prostitution district after the war , and before they made it legal : “ some wiser , saner heads worked out an off-the-record arrangement whereby all interested girls were assembled in a single area in which drinking , money , medical examinations , and an orderly movement of actually thousands all were controlled closely.
” Military buses took troops to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chaplains and others ” banned the buses from stopping there .
Instead , the buses “ slowed down to a low-gear crawl , ” and men jumped on and off the moving vehicles .
When the “ crusaders ” finally got their way and shut down the prostitution district , the sex workers scattered .
The U.S. military became unable to enforce medical examinations , and “ the island-wide venereal disease rate skyrocketed.
” Fees for sex also increased , and troops resorted to stealing cars to reach brothels .
Or , bored @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disorderly , and dangerous .
“ Once again innocent Okinawan girls , instead of their more willing sisters , fell victims to the inevitable violent prurience , ” Morris writes .
Just as for Japanese authorities , for Morris and others in the U.S. military community on Okinawa , there was a dichotomy between “ innocent ” local women and “ their more willing sisters.
” In their minds , depending on the regulations surrounding sex work , one group of women or the other was going to field the American soldiers ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lust .
With the unofficial prostitution district shut down , Okinawan women started renting rooms in residential areas to see customers .
In one town , now a part of Okinawa City , local leaders rallied to kick out these women so American soldiers wouldn ’ t be prowling their streets looking for sex .
The locals brought their grievances to Major General Alvan Kincaid of Kadena Air Base , but he brushed them off , saying , “ They ’ re just healthy , red-blooded young GIs , so there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sexual affairs are none of our business.
” Later—after the conflict between local residents and U.S. soldiers escalated , with GIs threatening to torch the mayor ’ s house if he intervened—Kincaid decided it was his business .
He presented the local leaders with a solution : build a “ special district ” on the edge of town .
In this way , Okinawan officials began collaborating with the U.S. military in building prostitution districts around the bases .
The public debated whether these “ dancehall [ s ] and facilities for recreational @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local society—bringing in money , limiting the spread of venereal disease , and protecting “ innocent ” women and girls—or whether they were immoral and harmful to the women who worked there .
Female activists protested the districts , citing the latter , but didn ’ t succeed in stopping them .
In these new entertainment areas , the U.S. military instituted an “ A-sign ” system in an attempt to control sexually transmitted diseases .
Beginning in 1953 , GIs could only frequent establishments officially “ approved ” by the U.S. military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bars , restaurants , and clubs got this stamp of approval when they passed sanitary inspections and subjected their employees to medical testing .
Still , STDs remained a problem .
In 1957 , one marine corps division reported that a quarter of its troops had been incapacitated by venereal disease .
The next year , the number was more than a third .
In 1964 , the Washington Post reported the VD rate among all marines on-island was “ so high ” it had “ been ‘ classified ’ by the command.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ these areas as “ a neon-lit nirvana for Neanderthals ” patrolled by military police and “ teem [ ing ] with enlisted service personnel of all branches , colors , and sizes.
” Pawnshops offered quick cash to GIs looking to pay a bar worker ’ s “ out fee.
” The two could “ then retire to one of the ‘ hotels ’ in the area , after which he [ would ] sweat out the next two weeks hoping he [ hadn ’ t ] gotten VD.
” In the Saturday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ joy palaces ” — “ more than 1000 ” with names like the “ Venus , the Butterfly , the Cinderella and the Chatterbox .
.
.
each advertising with gaudy neon the presence of ‘ many-beautiful-hostesses !
’ ” The 1957 article reported Okinawan women were “ delighted ” by their new profession because they had a tradition of selling their bodies to soldiers : “ Okinawans were used to Japanese troops before the war and accepted marriages of convenience .
They are now delighted by what Americans are willing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to say , not all the women were delighted .
Suzuyo Takazato explained the debt-bondage system that kept women indentured to brothels during the occupation .
In a typical example , the daughter of a poor family agreed to ( or was coerced into ) sex work , and in return the brothel gave her family a sizeable loan .
This allowed the family to eat , but the woman became indebted to the brothel , carrying a high-interest loan that was nearly impossible to pay off , no matter how many U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said the fee for sex in those days was five dollars a person .
A whole night , one veteran told me , cost twenty .
These earnings could be cancelled out by the penalty fees the brothel imposed : Twenty dollars for missing work on a U.S. military payday .
Ten dollars for missing work because of illness or menstruation .
Other high fees were for room and board and personal products .
The fees added up , along with the loan ’ s high interest rates , so when a woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ month , often her debt had increased .
According to Takazato , the average loan a sex worker carried was $ 2,000 .
“ Too much , ” she said , “ because in those days , a teacher ’ s salary was $ 100 a month.
” The highest loan reported was $ 17,000 .
Some Okinawan women were able to operate outside the debt system .
“ Honey ” was a postwar term for a woman who secured a longer-term relationship with an American soldier , who might put her up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things .
Okinawans adopted the English word after noticing the GIs ’ nickname for women .
Among locals , honeys were disdained for their perceived immorality , while also envied for their material advantages .
One Okinawan woman remembered honeys who enjoyed “ gifts of chocolate , soaps , and face creams ” and donned new clothes , while everyone else wore “ coarse and drab ” things , “ torn at the seams and worn in the seats.
” In this postwar landscape—with so many women in sex work , and prostitution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a great economic disparity between U.S. soldiers and locals—the purchase of sex became commonplace for GIs .
Marine Corps veteran Douglas Lummis said that when he arrived on Okinawa in 1960 the base commander told his men , “ On Okinawa the number of prostitutes is approximately the same as the number of U.S. military [ soldiers ] .
There ’ s just about one for each of you.
” Lummis recalled that hiring a prostitute became “ just something that one could do .
And virtually everybody—with some exceptions—virtually everybody availed themselves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s part of what made Okinawa exotic in the Marine Corps imagination.
” The number of sex workers in Okinawa peaked during the Vietnam War .
A 1967 police survey determined some 7,400 women were working as prostitutes .
Another source estimated the number was double that—which meant about one in every twenty to twenty-five women between the ages of ten and sixty was involved in sex work .
Together , their labor generated more money than any other local industry— more than pineapple and sugarcane farming combined .
One Kin club owner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Vietnam War at his establishment , which employed twenty “ hostesses.
” The cash was literally overflowing : “ We stuffed [ the bills ] into buckets , but they still overflowed , so we had to stomp the piles down with our feet .
.
.
.
Dollars were raining on us.
” Suzuyo Takazato told me that in 1970 the Ryukyuan government had the opportunity to enact Japan ’ s Prostitution Prevention Law , which had prohibited sex work on the mainland since 1958 , but decided to wait two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Here is the twisted feeling of Okinawan people , ” she said .
Lawmakers knew the dire situation of many indentured sex workers , but were afraid that if they banned prostitution , U.S. soldiers would commit rape .
They also wanted to keep that money in the economy .
“ In a way , ” Takazato said , at that time Okinawa was “ economically supported by individual women who worked as prostitutes.
” These women were the ones who pulled their families— and all of Okinawan society , really—out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s eyes their hard work and sacrifices weren ’ t selfless or noble or admirable ; they were shameful .
When Okinawa reverted to Japanese control in 1972 , prostitution became illegal and women were freed from their debt bondage .
Some continued to work , with local police often looking the other way .
Those who wanted to leave the profession received financial assistance and access to temporary living facilities , thanks to the Japanese government .
Takazato said the government also helped some brothel owners become hotel owners .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next wave of sex workers by issuing entertainer visas to overseas workers .
Soon , Filipinas replaced Okinawans in the red-light districts outside the base gates .
Stepping off the plane in Okinawa , Daisy was careful to touch her right foot to the ground before her left .
That way , she would head in the right direction .
It was March 1992 , and she was twenty-four years old .
Her first impression of the foreign island where she would live and work the next six months was that it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a megacity , Okinawa seemed small and quiet and so very clean .
She moved into a house in Kin outside Camp Hansen , where she would live with the other Filipinas working at the club .
In those days , Kin was crowded with clubs and women from the Philippines .
The place Daisy was sent to was run by an Okinawan woman , the mama-san , who owned three bars in one building , two downstairs and one upstairs .
Daisy learned she would rotate among them , talking with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay was impressive .
Even just her new food allowance—10,000 yen a month , plus rice—was more than she had made at the printing factory .
Entertainment district outside a U.S. military base in Kin , Okinawa , 2017 ( APJJF ) Women like Daisy replaced Okinawans in the entertainment districts around U.S. military bases because of economics .
When Okinawa reverted to Japan in 1972 , the dollar gave way to the yen as the islands ’ currency .
The new exchange rate raised prices on American servicemen .
Meanwhile , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ de facto colony , Okinawa came to enjoy an economic boost , with women ’ s economic power increasing , too .
Presented with better opportunities for education and employment , many no longer had to turn to sex work .
Eventually , the primary way local women and American servicemen interacted was through dating—mixing in the island ’ s clubs and shopping centers .
Meanwhile , in the Philippines , the problems of excess labor and foreign debt caused the government , as part of its economic strategy , to encourage women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entertainers .
Throughout the 1980s , the number of Filipino contract workers migrating to Japan rose steadily ; in 1981 there were 11,656 ; in 1987 there were 33,791 .
The vast majority were female entertainers .
On the mainland , many went to work in hostess clubs serving Japanese customers .
In Okinawa , they were concentrated around the bases .
Though the Philippines had its own U.S. military bases , women could make more money in base-town entertainment areas in Japan .
By the mid-1980s , an estimated four thousand Filipinas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military bases in Okinawa .
Okinawan women who stayed in the business moved to areas that served mostly Okinawan and Japanese men—at higher prices .
According to Suzuyo Takazato , Japanese tourists paid $ 50 for sex , while outside the bases what had cost Americans $ 5 during the occupation now cost $ 20 .
Women from other countries including Thailand also migrated to work in Okinawan bars and clubs , but the vast majority were Filipina because the governments of Japan and the Philippines made it easy for them to migrate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system was largely yakuza-controlled , including the promotion agencies in the Philippines .
A bar owner in Okinawa paid a yakuza-run promotion agency a fee , and the agency recruited women for the bar and paid their salaries , taking big cuts for themselves .
“ My salary is $ 400 a month , but I only receive $ 290 because $ 10 is deducted for insurance and $ 100 for the manager in the Philippines , at the promotion agency , ” explained one Filipina working in Kin in 1989 .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Okinawa was also deducted .
The women were legally in Japan as “ overseas performing artists , ” meant to sing or perform cultural dances in groups .
So , some were shocked when , on their first night , they learned they ’ d have to dance alone , wearing little to no clothes .
One woman , Rowena , cried her first time onstage , while her “ papa-san ” shouted , “ Take off your bra.
” He said if she lost her panties , too , she would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , women were required to sell a certain “ quota ” of drinks per month .
At one Kin club in the late 1980s , the quota was four hundred .
Each drink cost an inflated $ 10 , and the woman received a $ 1 commission .
The penalty for failing to make quota was receiving just half the commission .
Doing this work , most women received only a couple of days off per month .
Life in the clubs was about luck—or , as Daisy saw it , providence .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the promotion agency sent them to , and clubs differed according to owner .
Some had high drink quotas and would send women back to the Philippines if they didn ’ t meet them .
Others forced women to dance naked and perform sexual acts on customers in “ dark corners.
” Some places controlled the women ’ s movements outside the club , going so far as to lock them inside their rooms .
In 1983 , a fire raged through one Kin establishment , and two Filipinas died because they were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s first night of work , she repeated her prayer : “ God , please , please send an angel to guide me.
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Akemi Johnson is the author of Night in the American Village : Women in the Shadow of the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa ( The New Press , 2019 ) , which has been shortlisted for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Featured image : A club outside a U.S. military base in Kin , Okinawa , 2017 .
( Source : APJJF )

Introduction
To research my book, Night in the American Village: Women in the Shadow of the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa, I lived in Okinawa for a summer in 2003, a year from 2008 to 2009, and a few months in 2017. I wanted to tell the stories of local women whose lives were somehow entwined with the heavy U.S. military presence there—not only in the present, but also over the course of the long history of the U.S. military in Okinawa. After World War II, the U.S. military occupied Okinawa, building dozens of bases that remained after the islands returned to Japan in 1972. Today, Okinawa hosts about half of the 54,000 American troops stationed in the country.
I wanted to include marginalized voices, like those of women who migrate to Okinawa and its base towns for employment. While in Okinawa, I heard rumors about Filipina women who had been trafficked to the island to work in the entertainment areas around the bases. I had worked with counter-human-trafficking organizations in Cambodia and knew the classic story: traffickers lure a woman from her home with false promises of a good job, perhaps in a hotel or factory, and then force her into sex work. This is what I imagined happening in Okinawa.
But when I sat down with a Filipina woman who had worked in Okinawa’s base-town bars, her story surprised me. During my interview with Daisy in 2017, she repeatedly emphasized her agency. She said she had chosen to migrate to Okinawa, knowing the risks; she had chosen whether or not to engage in sex work; she had taken a difficult situation and used it to her advantage. The ending of her story was not like I had imagined: it was happy. Academic works I read detailed the many vulnerabilities and structural constraints of work like Daisy’s, but some also emphasized the migrants’ agency (see Rhacel Salazar Parreñas’ Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo and Sealing Cheng’s On the Move for Love: Migrant Entertainers and the U.S. Military in South Korea).
However much agency women like Daisy had, in 2004 the U.S. State Department categorized the Filipina migrants in Japan as trafficking victims. Embarrassed, Japanese lawmakers curbed the number of Filipinas who could enter the country on entertainer visas. As a result, there is no longer a vast population of Filipinas working around the U.S. military bases in Okinawa today. Many of those who remain migrated illegally or through marriage. These marriages are sometimes business arrangements set up by a broker or friend. Situations like these can make the migrants more vulnerable to abuse than the legal entertainer visa system of the past.
Entertainment district outside a U.S. military base in Kin, Okinawa, 2017. (APJJF)
Writing about the U.S. military bases in Okinawa and the communities around them meant constantly challenging my expectations. The more time I spent on the island and the more people I interviewed, the more I saw complexity. While the majority of Okinawans don’t want another base on their island, and there is a long history of resistance against the U.S. military presence, many locals choose to interact with the bases in some way. This seems especially true for women, who may date or marry U.S. servicemen or work in the base entertainment areas. Contradictions are at the heart of the story. A woman might have a U.S. soldier husband but secretly want a base reduction. A woman might have borne the work of boosting militarized masculinity, but say she was the one who, in the end, got what she wanted.
Daisy
Daisy wanted a better life for herself and her mom—for her mom, especially. When Daisy was young, her family lived in a rural area of the Philippines, a “simple life” where candles lit the night and banana leaves served as umbrellas. Daisy remembers enjoying herself, unaware of any other way to live. But she also watched her mom work herself ragged, raising seven kids on her own. To put food in their mouths, Daisy’s mother managed orchards of banana, coconut, and cacao trees, hauling produce to market twice a week. She’d come home late at night, drunk. She’d wake at four in the morning for another day of work, sometimes still drunk. If Daisy didn’t hear her stir, she would check that her mother was breathing. She prayed to God for her mom’s life.
There had been too many tragedies. When Daisy was a toddler her father died from colon and liver cancer. A couple of months later, her baby brother died in a fire. Daisy doesn’t know how it happened. Her mother was at work, leaving the kids home alone. Daisy remembers fire licking across their roof, but the house didn’t burn down. The flames took only her brother. After that, her mother never left them alone again.
Daisy was the second-youngest child but took on the responsibility of caring for her mother and younger sister when the family left the southern island of Mindanao to escape guerilla fighting. Her oldest sister had her own problems: ten kids and a husband who beat her. Her older brothers had left for work on Luzon. So, at age sixteen Daisy dropped out of high school and started working to support her mother and sister. First, she served as a live-in maid for a wealthier family, making two hundred pesos, or about five dollars, a month. Whenever she could, she snuck in time to read English-language magazines, studying on her own what she couldn’t in school. After that, she worked a stint as a nanny, cut short because the boss was “not good.” The next job that she found, at a bakery, paid double the one as a maid. The owner, a pharmacy student, was kind and loaded Daisy with bread, cheese, and candy when she went home to visit her family. Then, Daisy moved on to a printing factory in Manila, where she silkscreened T-shirts. That paid the best of all, thirty-five pesos a day with room and board. Daisy had brought herself a long way—but still it wasn’t enough.
As a kid, Daisy had visited her cousin, whose father was an American soldier. Daisy’s aunt had met him during World War II. Looking around their house, Daisy thought, “Oh my God—they’re millionaires. One day I want to have this.” She started clipping pictures of houses from magazines and promised her mom that one day she would build her a house like that.
To fulfill her promise, she needed to earn more money. So, when Daisy was twenty-one, she decided to go to Japan. She knew what she was risking. She had heard stories about other girls who had gone on entertainer visas, stories about girls murdered around the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka. She knew what everyone thought when you said you were going to work in Japan: you were going to sell your body. Daisy had never even been on a date, avoiding men because she feared they would derail her dreams. Her mom begged her not to go, to stay at her job in Manila. But Daisy was determined. She could earn far more in Japan than in the Philippines. She told her mom she was unafraid, even of death: “If it’s your time, it’s your time.” With her oldest niece, she applied for and got a six-month entertainer visa to work in Japan. Officially, the visa was for cultural dancing, but Daisy didn’t know what awaited her across the sea.
The promotion agency decided where each girl would go within the country. Daisy’s niece, who was tall and beautiful, got sent to mainland Japan. “They said mainland Japan is first-class,” Daisy told me, laughing. “I’m probably not that pretty.” Daisy was assigned to Okinawa.
Before leaving, she asked God for an angel to guide her. “Please don’t let me sell my body,” she prayed.
***
As long as U.S. bases have existed in Okinawa, so too have sex workers to serve the troops. For both the Imperial Japanese Army and the U.S. military, sex work has been seen as a natural and necessary complement to soldiers in order to keep them in fighting shape. What has varied over the decades has been the women’s backgrounds, their working conditions, and their degree of agency. During the Pacific War, the Japanese military notoriously set up a “comfort women” system in which they enslaved thousands of women from Japan’s colonies and occupied territories to supply sex to Japanese soldiers. These Korean, Taiwanese, Filipina, and other Asian and Pacific Islander women endured systematic rape and abuse wherever the Japanese military went, and Okinawa was no exception. Before the battle, the Japanese military forcibly brought thousands of Korean women to the southern islands and established some 130 “comfort stations” across the prefecture. The kidnapped Korean women and a small number of Okinawan women were made to serve dozens of men a day. Most of the women died during the battle. Some who survived continued working, now servicing American soldiers.
Following Japan’s surrender, Japanese authorities rushed to establish new “comfort facilities”—these for the American occupiers. They reasoned the men would need sex, and without such a system they would take what they wanted from the public. In Tokyo, the Japanese government and police forces worked with brothel owners, doling out direction and government funds. “A hundred million yen is cheap for protecting chastity,” a Ministry of Finance official said. Impoverished women were recruited to work for the good of the nation, a sacrifice to protect more affluent women from harm. “To New Japanese Women,” a sign in Tokyo’s Ginza district announced. “As part of urgent national facilities to deal with the postwar, we are seeking the active cooperation of new Japanese women to participate in the great task of comforting the occupation force.” Soon there were “recreation and amusement” centers across mainland Japan, segregated by the race and rank of customers, where a dollar bought a GI sex. Servicemen poured into the centers, until after only a few months the U.S. occupying government shut them down, trying to stanch the explosion of venereal disease. Officials continued to permit prostitution, however, now confining it to certain city districts. In the postwar devastation, tens of thousands of Japanese women supported themselves and their families with this work.
Under the separate U.S. administration of Okinawa, the story was similar but different. Both the U.S. military and Okinawan leaders condoned prostitution, and thousands of Okinawan women were pushed into sex work to survive. With the loss of male providers in the battle and the loss of farmland in the building of bases, they didn’t have other options. A key difference was that in Okinawa the drawn-out occupation meant state-sanctioned prostitution lasted longer.
In his firsthand account of occupied Okinawa (Okinawa: A Tiger By the Tail, published in 1968), veteran M.D. Morris writes that “for the common good” U.S. military officials organized a prostitution district after the war, and before they made it legal: “some wiser, saner heads worked out an off-the-record arrangement whereby all interested girls were assembled in a single area in which drinking, money, medical examinations, and an orderly movement of actually thousands all were controlled closely.” Military buses took troops to this area after-hours, until “some chaplains and others” banned the buses from stopping there. Instead, the buses “slowed down to a low-gear crawl,” and men jumped on and off the moving vehicles. When the “crusaders” finally got their way and shut down the prostitution district, the sex workers scattered. The U.S. military became unable to enforce medical examinations, and “the island-wide venereal disease rate skyrocketed.” Fees for sex also increased, and troops resorted to stealing cars to reach brothels. Or, bored again, they became generally drunk, disorderly, and dangerous. “Once again innocent Okinawan girls, instead of their more willing sisters, fell victims to the inevitable violent prurience,” Morris writes. Just as for Japanese authorities, for Morris and others in the U.S. military community on Okinawa, there was a dichotomy between “innocent” local women and “their more willing sisters.” In their minds, depending on the regulations surrounding sex work, one group of women or the other was going to field the American soldiers’ “inevitable” and “violent” lust.
With the unofficial prostitution district shut down, Okinawan women started renting rooms in residential areas to see customers. In one town, now a part of Okinawa City, local leaders rallied to kick out these women so American soldiers wouldn’t be prowling their streets looking for sex. The locals brought their grievances to Major General Alvan Kincaid of Kadena Air Base, but he brushed them off, saying, “They’re just healthy, red-blooded young GIs, so there’s nothing we can do. Soldiers’ sexual affairs are none of our business.” Later—after the conflict between local residents and U.S. soldiers escalated, with GIs threatening to torch the mayor’s house if he intervened—Kincaid decided it was his business. He presented the local leaders with a solution: build a “special district” on the edge of town.
In this way, Okinawan officials began collaborating with the U.S. military in building prostitution districts around the bases. The public debated whether these “dancehall[s] and facilities for recreational sex” would be a boon to local society—bringing in money, limiting the spread of venereal disease, and protecting “innocent” women and girls—or whether they were immoral and harmful to the women who worked there. Female activists protested the districts, citing the latter, but didn’t succeed in stopping them.
In these new entertainment areas, the U.S. military instituted an “A-sign” system in an attempt to control sexually transmitted diseases. Beginning in 1953, GIs could only frequent establishments officially “approved” by the U.S. military and displaying a big red A. Bars, restaurants, and clubs got this stamp of approval when they passed sanitary inspections and subjected their employees to medical testing. Still, STDs remained a problem. In 1957, one marine corps division reported that a quarter of its troops had been incapacitated by venereal disease. The next year, the number was more than a third. In 1964, the Washington Post reported the VD rate among all marines on-island was “so high” it had “been ‘classified’ by the command.”
M.D. Morris describes one of these areas as “a neon-lit nirvana for Neanderthals” patrolled by military police and “teem[ing] with enlisted service personnel of all branches, colors, and sizes.” Pawnshops offered quick cash to GIs looking to pay a bar worker’s “out fee.” The two could “then retire to one of the ‘hotels’ in the area, after which he [would] sweat out the next two weeks hoping he [hadn’t] gotten VD.” In the Saturday Evening Post, establishments selling sex were “joy palaces”—“more than 1000” with names like the “Venus, the Butterfly, the Cinderella and the Chatterbox . . . each advertising with gaudy neon the presence of ‘many-beautiful-hostesses!’” The 1957 article reported Okinawan women were “delighted” by their new profession because they had a tradition of selling their bodies to soldiers: “Okinawans were used to Japanese troops before the war and accepted marriages of convenience. They are now delighted by what Americans are willing to pay for company and entertainment.”
Needless to say, not all the women were delighted. Suzuyo Takazato explained the debt-bondage system that kept women indentured to brothels during the occupation. In a typical example, the daughter of a poor family agreed to (or was coerced into) sex work, and in return the brothel gave her family a sizeable loan. This allowed the family to eat, but the woman became indebted to the brothel, carrying a high-interest loan that was nearly impossible to pay off, no matter how many U.S. soldiers she serviced a night. Takazato said the fee for sex in those days was five dollars a person. A whole night, one veteran told me, cost twenty. These earnings could be cancelled out by the penalty fees the brothel imposed: Twenty dollars for missing work on a U.S. military payday. Ten dollars for missing work because of illness or menstruation. Other high fees were for room and board and personal products. The fees added up, along with the loan’s high interest rates, so when a woman got paid at the end of each month, often her debt had increased. According to Takazato, the average loan a sex worker carried was $2,000. “Too much,” she said, “because in those days, a teacher’s salary was $100 a month.” The highest loan reported was $17,000.
Some Okinawan women were able to operate outside the debt system. “Honey” was a postwar term for a woman who secured a longer-term relationship with an American soldier, who might put her up in an apartment and buy her nice things. Okinawans adopted the English word after noticing the GIs’ nickname for women. Among locals, honeys were disdained for their perceived immorality, while also envied for their material advantages. One Okinawan woman remembered honeys who enjoyed “gifts of chocolate, soaps, and face creams” and donned new clothes, while everyone else wore “coarse and drab” things, “torn at the seams and worn in the seats.”
In this postwar landscape—with so many women in sex work, and prostitution sanctioned by the U.S. military, and a great economic disparity between U.S. soldiers and locals—the purchase of sex became commonplace for GIs. Marine Corps veteran Douglas Lummis said that when he arrived on Okinawa in 1960 the base commander told his men, “On Okinawa the number of prostitutes is approximately the same as the number of U.S. military [soldiers]. There’s just about one for each of you.” Lummis recalled that hiring a prostitute became “just something that one could do. And virtually everybody—with some exceptions—virtually everybody availed themselves of that service. And that’s part of what made Okinawa exotic in the Marine Corps imagination.”
The number of sex workers in Okinawa peaked during the Vietnam War. A 1967 police survey determined some 7,400 women were working as prostitutes. Another source estimated the number was double that—which meant about one in every twenty to twenty-five women between the ages of ten and sixty was involved in sex work. Together, their labor generated more money than any other local industry— more than pineapple and sugarcane farming combined. One Kin club owner recalled how much money GIs spent during the Vietnam War at his establishment, which employed twenty “hostesses.” The cash was literally overflowing: “We stuffed [the bills] into buckets, but they still overflowed, so we had to stomp the piles down with our feet. . . . Dollars were raining on us.”
Suzuyo Takazato told me that in 1970 the Ryukyuan government had the opportunity to enact Japan’s Prostitution Prevention Law, which had prohibited sex work on the mainland since 1958, but decided to wait two more years, until the official reversion. “Here is the twisted feeling of Okinawan people,” she said. Lawmakers knew the dire situation of many indentured sex workers, but were afraid that if they banned prostitution, U.S. soldiers would commit rape. They also wanted to keep that money in the economy. “In a way,” Takazato said, at that time Okinawa was “economically supported by individual women who worked as prostitutes.” These women were the ones who pulled their families— and all of Okinawan society, really—out of postwar poverty. But in society’s eyes their hard work and sacrifices weren’t selfless or noble or admirable; they were shameful.
When Okinawa reverted to Japanese control in 1972, prostitution became illegal and women were freed from their debt bondage. Some continued to work, with local police often looking the other way. Those who wanted to leave the profession received financial assistance and access to temporary living facilities, thanks to the Japanese government. Takazato said the government also helped some brothel owners become hotel owners. But in a way Tokyo also authorized the next wave of sex workers by issuing entertainer visas to overseas workers. Soon, Filipinas replaced Okinawans in the red-light districts outside the base gates.
Stepping off the plane in Okinawa, Daisy was careful to touch her right foot to the ground before her left. That way, she would head in the right direction. It was March 1992, and she was twenty-four years old. Her first impression of the foreign island where she would live and work the next six months was that it was clean. After the chaos of Manila, a megacity, Okinawa seemed small and quiet and so very clean.
She moved into a house in Kin outside Camp Hansen, where she would live with the other Filipinas working at the club. In those days, Kin was crowded with clubs and women from the Philippines. The place Daisy was sent to was run by an Okinawan woman, the mama-san, who owned three bars in one building, two downstairs and one upstairs. Daisy learned she would rotate among them, talking with customers and dancing on stage. The pay was impressive. Even just her new food allowance—10,000 yen a month, plus rice—was more than she had made at the printing factory.
Entertainment district outside a U.S. military base in Kin, Okinawa, 2017 (APJJF)
Women like Daisy replaced Okinawans in the entertainment districts around U.S. military bases because of economics. When Okinawa reverted to Japan in 1972, the dollar gave way to the yen as the islands’ currency. The new exchange rate raised prices on American servicemen. Meanwhile, as part of Japan and no longer a de facto colony, Okinawa came to enjoy an economic boost, with women’s economic power increasing, too. Presented with better opportunities for education and employment, many no longer had to turn to sex work. Eventually, the primary way local women and American servicemen interacted was through dating—mixing in the island’s clubs and shopping centers.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the problems of excess labor and foreign debt caused the government, as part of its economic strategy, to encourage women to migrate overseas as domestic help and entertainers. Throughout the 1980s, the number of Filipino contract workers migrating to Japan rose steadily; in 1981 there were 11,656; in 1987 there were 33,791. The vast majority were female entertainers. On the mainland, many went to work in hostess clubs serving Japanese customers. In Okinawa, they were concentrated around the bases. Though the Philippines had its own U.S. military bases, women could make more money in base-town entertainment areas in Japan.
By the mid-1980s, an estimated four thousand Filipinas worked in the bar areas outside U.S. military bases in Okinawa. Okinawan women who stayed in the business moved to areas that served mostly Okinawan and Japanese men—at higher prices. According to Suzuyo Takazato, Japanese tourists paid $50 for sex, while outside the bases what had cost Americans $5 during the occupation now cost $20. Women from other countries including Thailand also migrated to work in Okinawan bars and clubs, but the vast majority were Filipina because the governments of Japan and the Philippines made it easy for them to migrate. While legal, the entertainer visa system was largely yakuza-controlled, including the promotion agencies in the Philippines. A bar owner in Okinawa paid a yakuza-run promotion agency a fee, and the agency recruited women for the bar and paid their salaries, taking big cuts for themselves. “My salary is $400 a month, but I only receive $290 because $10 is deducted for insurance and $100 for the manager in the Philippines, at the promotion agency,” explained one Filipina working in Kin in 1989. The women’s travel to and from Okinawa was also deducted.
The women were legally in Japan as “overseas performing artists,” meant to sing or perform cultural dances in groups. So, some were shocked when, on their first night, they learned they’d have to dance alone, wearing little to no clothes. One woman, Rowena, cried her first time onstage, while her “papa-san” shouted, “Take off your bra.” He said if she lost her panties, too, she would be “number one.” Along with performing, women were required to sell a certain “quota” of drinks per month. At one Kin club in the late 1980s, the quota was four hundred. Each drink cost an inflated $10, and the woman received a $1 commission. The penalty for failing to make quota was receiving just half the commission. Doing this work, most women received only a couple of days off per month.
Life in the clubs was about luck—or, as Daisy saw it, providence. Women had no control over which club the promotion agency sent them to, and clubs differed according to owner. Some had high drink quotas and would send women back to the Philippines if they didn’t meet them. Others forced women to dance naked and perform sexual acts on customers in “dark corners.” Some places controlled the women’s movements outside the club, going so far as to lock them inside their rooms. In 1983, a fire raged through one Kin establishment, and two Filipinas died because they were trapped behind bars.
Before Daisy’s first night of work, she repeated her prayer: “God, please, please send an angel to guide me.”
*
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Akemi Johnson is the author of Night in the American Village: Women in the Shadow of the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa (The New Press, 2019), which has been shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.
Featured image: A club outside a U.S. military base in Kin, Okinawa, 2017. (Source: APJJF)


asiapacificresearch--2020-11-09--Australia Enters the Race for Digital Currency

Australia has joined the global wave of economic digitization .
On November 2 , the Australian Reserve Bank launched its own digital currency project .
According to the Bank ’ s official statement , the project seeks to “ explore the potential use and implications of a wholesale form of central bank digital currency ( CBDC ) using distributed ledger technology ( DLT ) ” .
In the same statement , the Reserve Bank announced that to develop the project it will partner with the Commonwealth Bank , the National Bank of Australia , the financial services company Perpetual and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At first , the main objective of this collaborative project is to develop a test to issue a “ tokenized form ” of digital currency in the future .
This currency could be used in a variety of ways , including by wholesale market participants within a distributed registration technology platform .
As the statement elucidates : “ The project will involve the development of a proof-of-concept ( POC ) for the issuance of a tokenised form of CBDC that can be used by wholesale market participants for the funding , settlement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on an Ethereum-based DLT platform .
The POC will be used to explore the implications of ‘ atomic ’ delivery-versus-payment settlement on a DLT platform as well as other potential programmability and automation features of tokenised CBDC and financial assets ” .
In the same statement , a statement by Reserve Bank ’ s assistant governor , Michele Bullock , who believes that the project will help to “ explore the implications of a CBDC for efficiency , risk management and innovation in wholesale financial market transactions ( … ) ” .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 2020 and will have its reports published in the first half of the next year .
The distributed registration technology basically consists of a database distributed among multiple devices connected in a decentralized network , where records of financial transactions are stored .
A well-known example of a distributed registration platform is the blockchain technology – which has been used in other countries to create digital currencies , such as the Chinese “ digital yuan ” .
In the same sense , token is a security system that generates a unique and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ users ’ sensitive data .
Tokenization completely excludes the human factor from transactions and guarantees – at least in theory – the security of all tokenized data .
Since token is instantaneous and lasts a few seconds , it is widely used to authenticate online financial transactions , especially from banks , but the creation of a tokenized currency is a much bolder and more complex project .
However , what we must consider is the fact that this is not a mere change in Australian financial strategy .
Nor is this a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it corresponds to a new world trend of advanced economic digitalization , which is progressing more and more in several nations , mainly since the beginning of the pandemic of the new coronavirus – which showed several weaknesses in the global financial system and evidenced the need for structural changes in the market .
In early October , the Bank of Canada , the Bank of England , the Bank of Japan , the European Central Bank , the American Federal Reserve , the Sveriges Riksbank , and the Swiss National Bank published @ @ @ @ @ @ @ currencies should work and formed a mutual cooperation project in this regard .
The real objective is only one : to stop the Chinese advance .
China is the most advanced country in the world in economic digitization .
Currently , Beijing continues to test its digital yuan and is seeing positive results , which indicates that the country will soon move towards the official implementation of the currency in its relations .
Still , unlike many other countries , China aims to make the digital yuan available to all its citizens , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neighboring and allied countries , not restricting it to bank transactions in the financial market .
Indeed , the pandemic has revealed weaknesses in all sectors of global society , especially in economy .
To overcome the crisis of financial capitalism , a race for digital currencies has started .
Central banks in many countries are in a hurry to create their crypto currencies as quickly as possible because they know that this will guarantee them an advantage over other nations in the near future .
In the face of Chinese progress and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the digital economy between Beijing and the West , it is likely that Australians will join the group of central banks that announced joint projects last month and thus form an anti-Chinese bloc of international cooperation for the creation of digital currencies .
It remains to be seen whether such coins will actually be sufficiently refined and tested before they are implemented .
Overconfidence in technology may create even greater problems for international society than the current economic crisis .
In addition , the decrease in the human factor will also generate a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sector with the extinction of several positions currently held by people and which will now be held by machines .
In the end , regardless of which country will win the race , the real improvements from these changes still seem a distant reality .
Note to readers : please click the share buttons above or below .
Forward this article to your email lists .
Crosspost on your blog site , internet forums .
etc .
This article was originally published on InfoBrics .
Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international @ @ @ @ @ @ @ de Janeiro .

Australia has joined the global wave of economic digitization. On November 2, the Australian Reserve Bank launched its own digital currency project. According to the Bank’s official statement, the project seeks to “explore the potential use and implications of a wholesale form of central bank digital currency (CBDC) using distributed ledger technology (DLT)”. In the same statement, the Reserve Bank announced that to develop the project it will partner with the Commonwealth Bank, the National Bank of Australia, the financial services company Perpetual and ConsenSys Software, a blockchain technology company.
At first, the main objective of this collaborative project is to develop a test to issue a “tokenized form” of digital currency in the future. This currency could be used in a variety of ways, including by wholesale market participants within a distributed registration technology platform. As the statement elucidates: “The project will involve the development of a proof-of-concept (POC) for the issuance of a tokenised form of CBDC that can be used by wholesale market participants for the funding, settlement and repayment of a tokenised syndicated loan on an Ethereum-based DLT platform. The POC will be used to explore the implications of ‘atomic’ delivery-versus-payment settlement on a DLT platform as well as other potential programmability and automation features of tokenised CBDC and financial assets”. In the same statement, a statement by Reserve Bank’s assistant governor, Michele Bullock, who believes that the project will help to “explore the implications of a CBDC for efficiency, risk management and innovation in wholesale financial market transactions (…)” . The project will be completed by the end of 2020 and will have its reports published in the first half of the next year.
The distributed registration technology basically consists of a database distributed among multiple devices connected in a decentralized network, where records of financial transactions are stored. A well-known example of a distributed registration platform is the blockchain technology – which has been used in other countries to create digital currencies, such as the Chinese “digital yuan”. In the same sense, token is a security system that generates a unique and temporary digital identifier code to protect its users’ sensitive data. Tokenization completely excludes the human factor from transactions and guarantees – at least in theory – the security of all tokenized data. Since token is instantaneous and lasts a few seconds, it is widely used to authenticate online financial transactions, especially from banks, but the creation of a tokenized currency is a much bolder and more complex project.
However, what we must consider is the fact that this is not a mere change in Australian financial strategy. Nor is this a peculiarity of the Reserve Bank, but it corresponds to a new world trend of advanced economic digitalization, which is progressing more and more in several nations, mainly since the beginning of the pandemic of the new coronavirus – which showed several weaknesses in the global financial system and evidenced the need for structural changes in the market.
In early October, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the American Federal Reserve, the Sveriges Riksbank, and the Swiss National Bank published a report containing guidelines on how digital currencies should work and formed a mutual cooperation project in this regard. The real objective is only one: to stop the Chinese advance. China is the most advanced country in the world in economic digitization. Currently, Beijing continues to test its digital yuan and is seeing positive results, which indicates that the country will soon move towards the official implementation of the currency in its relations. Still, unlike many other countries, China aims to make the digital yuan available to all its citizens, as well as to citizens of its neighboring and allied countries, not restricting it to bank transactions in the financial market.
Indeed, the pandemic has revealed weaknesses in all sectors of global society, especially in economy. To overcome the crisis of financial capitalism, a race for digital currencies has started. Central banks in many countries are in a hurry to create their crypto currencies as quickly as possible because they know that this will guarantee them an advantage over other nations in the near future. In the face of Chinese progress and the “new cold war” of the digital economy between Beijing and the West, it is likely that Australians will join the group of central banks that announced joint projects last month and thus form an anti-Chinese bloc of international cooperation for the creation of digital currencies.
It remains to be seen whether such coins will actually be sufficiently refined and tested before they are implemented. Overconfidence in technology may create even greater problems for international society than the current economic crisis. In addition, the decrease in the human factor will also generate a crisis, increasing unemployment in the financial sector with the extinction of several positions currently held by people and which will now be held by machines. In the end, regardless of which country will win the race, the real improvements from these changes still seem a distant reality.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Featured image is from InfoBrics


asiapacificresearch--2020-11-10--China: The Largest Cheap Labor Factory in the World

This article was published by Global Research in April 2015 .
This video describes China ’ s system of despotic capitalism , under a “ Communist ” label .
Wages are exceedingly low , productivity is high .
These are the social realities of commodities “ Made in China ” , marketed Worldwide .
China is an advanced capitalist economy integrated into the World market .
Wages for non-skilled labor in Chinese factories are as low as 100 $ a month , a small fraction of the minimum wage in Western countries .
The factory price of a commodity produced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 10 % of the retail price in Western countries .
Consequently , the largest share of the earnings of China ’ s cheap labor economy accrue to distributors and retailers in Western countries .
In 1981-82 , based at the University of Hong Kong , Centre for Asian Studies ( CAS ) , I started my research on the process of capitalist restoration in China .
I took a crash course in Mandarin at the HKU Language School as well as in Taiwan .
This research –which extended over a period of 3 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of China ( 1981-83 ) focussing on economic and social reforms , analysis of the defunct people ’ s commune and the development of privately owned capitalist industry including the cheap labor export economy .
I started reviewing Chinese economic history including structures of the factory system prior to 1949 , the development of the treaty ports established in the wake of the Opium wars ( 1842 ) and came to the realization that what was being reinstated in terms of extraterritorial economic zones was influenced by the history of the treaty ports @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , France , Germany , the US , Russia and Japan .
In the 1980s , the consensus among Leftists was that China was a socialist country .
Debating the restoration of capitalism in China in Leftist circles was a taboo .
Most “ Left wing ” economists and social scientists dispelled my analysis : “ What you are saying Michel is an impossibility , it goes against the laws of history ” said Brazil ’ s political economist Theotonio dos Santos ( in response to my presentation , Second Congress of Third @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Havana , 26-31 April 1981 ) .
A dogmatic perspective prevailed : Chinese socialism could not be reversed .
The Socialist Mainstream refused to even acknowledge the facts pertaining to land concentration , owership , the collapse of social programs and the rise of social inequality .
I completed the manuscript of my book entitled “ Towards Capitalist Restoration ?
Chinese Socialism after Mao ” in 1984 .
It was casually turned down by Monthly Review Press : While this was a slap in the face from what I considered to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I came to realize that MR ( Harry Magdoff in particular ) throughout the 1980s remained firmly supportive of the post-Mao regime under the helm of Deng Xiaoping .
I had previously met and was in contact with both Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff for whom I had high regard .
The book was subsequently published by Macmillan in 1986 .
Eighteen years later , Monthly Review came out with a book by Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett entitled “ China and Socialism : Market Reforms and Class Struggle ” ( Monthly Review @ @ @ @ @ @ @ editors ’ introduction by Harry Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster , while acknowledging “ the reemergence of capitalist characteristics ” associated with rapid economic growth tends to skirt the broader issue of capitalist restoration , a historical process which has been ongoing since the early 1980s : To summarize our argument—once a post-revolutionary country starts down the path of capitalist development , especially when trying to attain very rapid growth—one step leads to another until all the harmful and destructive characteristics of the capitalist system finally reemerge .
Rather than promising a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what distinguishes China today is the speed with which it has erased past egalitarian achievements and created gross inequalities and human and ecological destruction .
In our view , the present essay by Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett deserves careful study as a work that strips away the myth that Chinese socialism survives in the midst of some of the most unrestrained capitalist practices .
There is no market road to socialism if that means setting aside the most pressing human needs and the promise of human equality .
( emphasis added ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the reemergence of capitalist characteristics in the People ’ s Republic of China had its roots in post-1949 socialist construction rather than in the semi-colonial structures prevailing in China prior to 1949 .
The issue of high growth of GDP is misleading .
The rate of growth during the Maoist period was equally significant , its focus and “ social composition ” , however , was different .
The main thrust of GDP growth in the post Mao era has been the cheap labor “ Made in China ” export economy which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ levels of unemployment , not to mention the dynamic development of luxury consumption in the internal market ( what Marxists call department IIb ) .
Moreover , while contributing to impoverishing the Chinese people , a large share of the profits of this capitalist growth process have largely been transferred via international trade to the Western countries .
The video below should dispel any doubts concerning the nature of contemporary Chinese society .
Levels of income inequality are higher than in the U.S according to a 2014 University of Michigan study .
Social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the World .
While China plays an important balancing role on the geopolitical chessboard , it does not constitute a viable alternative to Western capitalism .
Moreover , in contrast to the US , China has no imperial ambitions .
Note to readers : please click the share buttons above or below .
Forward this article to your email lists .
Crosspost on your blog site , internet forums .
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This article was published by Global Research in April 2015.
This video describes China’s system of despotic capitalism, under a “Communist” label.
Wages are exceedingly low, productivity is high. These are the social realities of commodities “Made in China”, marketed Worldwide.
China is an advanced capitalist economy integrated into the World market. Wages for non-skilled labor in Chinese factories are as low as 100$ a month, a small fraction of the minimum wage in Western countries.
The factory price of a commodity produced in China is of the order of 10% of the retail price in Western countries. Consequently, the largest share of the earnings of China’s cheap labor economy accrue to distributors and retailers in Western countries.
Capitalist Restoration
In 1981-82, based at the University of Hong Kong, Centre for Asian Studies (CAS), I started my research on the process of capitalist restoration in China. I took a crash course in Mandarin at the HKU Language School as well as in Taiwan. This research –which extended over a period of 3 years– included fieldwork conducted in several regions of China (1981-83) focussing on economic and social reforms, analysis of the defunct people’s commune and the development of privately owned capitalist industry including the cheap labor export economy.
I started reviewing Chinese economic history including structures of the factory system prior to 1949, the development of the treaty ports established in the wake of the Opium wars (1842) and came to the realization that what was being reinstated in terms of extraterritorial economic zones was influenced by the history of the treaty ports, which granted extraterritorial rights to Britain, France, Germany, the US, Russia and Japan.
In the 1980s, the consensus among Leftists was that China was a socialist country. Debating the restoration of capitalism in China in Leftist circles was a taboo.
Most “Left wing” economists and social scientists dispelled my analysis: “What you are saying Michel is an impossibility, it goes against the laws of history” said Brazil’s political economist Theotonio dos Santos (in response to my presentation, Second Congress of Third World Economists, Economistas del Tercer Mundo, Havana, 26-31 April 1981).
A dogmatic perspective prevailed: Chinese socialism could not be reversed. The Socialist Mainstream refused to even acknowledge the facts pertaining to land concentration, owership, the collapse of social programs and the rise of social inequality.
I completed the manuscript of my book entitled “Towards Capitalist Restoration? Chinese Socialism after Mao” in 1984. It was casually turned down by Monthly Review Press:
“We unfortunately have no market for a book on this subject”.
While this was a slap in the face from what I considered to be an important and powerful socialist voice, I came to realize that MR (Harry Magdoff in particular) throughout the 1980s remained firmly supportive of the post-Mao regime under the helm of Deng Xiaoping. I had previously met and was in contact with both Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff for whom I had high regard. The book was subsequently published by Macmillan in 1986.
Eighteen years later, Monthly Review came out with a book by Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett entitled “China and Socialism: Market Reforms and Class Struggle” (Monthly Review, 2004) which concludes that
“market reforms” have fundamentally subverted Chinese socialism…. Although it is a disputed question whether the Chinese economy can be still described as socialist, there is no doubting the importance for the global project of socialism of accurately interpreting and soberly assessing its real prospects.
The editors’ introduction by Harry Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster, while acknowledging “the reemergence of capitalist characteristics” associated with rapid economic growth tends to skirt the broader issue of capitalist restoration, a historical process which has been ongoing since the early 1980s: To summarize our argument—once a post-revolutionary country starts down the path of capitalist development, especially when trying to attain very rapid growth—one step leads to another until all the harmful and destructive characteristics of the capitalist system finally reemerge. Rather than promising a new world of “market socialism,” what distinguishes China today is the speed with which it has erased past egalitarian achievements and created gross inequalities and human and ecological destruction. In our view, the present essay by Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett deserves careful study as a work that strips away the myth that Chinese socialism survives in the midst of some of the most unrestrained capitalist practices. There is no market road to socialism if that means setting aside the most pressing human needs and the promise of human equality. (emphasis added) Many Marxists including Theotonio dos Santos believe that the reemergence of capitalist characteristics in the People’s Republic of China had its roots in post-1949 socialist construction rather than in the semi-colonial structures prevailing in China prior to 1949. The issue of high growth of GDP is misleading. The rate of growth during the Maoist period was equally significant, its focus and “social composition”, however, was different. The main thrust of GDP growth in the post Mao era has been the cheap labor “Made in China” export economy which relies on abysmally low wages and high levels of unemployment, not to mention the dynamic development of luxury consumption in the internal market (what Marxists call department IIb). Moreover, while contributing to impoverishing the Chinese people, a large share of the profits of this capitalist growth process have largely been transferred via international trade to the Western countries. The video below should dispel any doubts concerning the nature of contemporary Chinese society. Levels of income inequality are higher than in the U.S according to a 2014 University of Michigan study. Social inequality in China is among the highest in the World.
Income inequality has been rising rapidly in China and now surpasses that of the U.S. by a large margin, say University of Michigan researchers. That is the key finding of their study based on newly available survey data collected by several Chinese universities. “Income inequality in today’s China is among the highest in the world, especially in comparison to countries with comparable or higher standards of living,” said University of Michigan sociologist Yu Xie. University of Michigan study.
While China plays an important balancing role on the geopolitical chessboard, it does not constitute a viable alternative to Western capitalism. Moreover, in contrast to the US, China has no imperial ambitions.
Michel Chossudovsky, February 15, 2015
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asiapacificresearch--2020-11-10--What Is the Shanghai Spirit?

What Is the Shanghai Spirit?

This was previously published in July 2016 .
The Shanghai Spirit — the core value of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ( SCO ) — has played a significant role in safeguarding regional security and promoting regional development .
The SCO ’ s undergirding values , which features mutual trust , mutual respect , equality , respect for diverse civilizations and pursuit of shared development , was born together with the Shanghai Five mechanism , the precursor of the SCO .
In 2001 , the SCO came into being after Uzbekistan formally joined the Shanghai Five , which were China , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at that time .
The Shanghai Spirit then became the guideline for the SCO cooperation .
During the course of its development , the SCO has seen fruitful results in various fields , deepening good-neighborliness and friendship , and win-win cooperation among peoples in the region .
Thanks to the Shanghai Spirit , the SCO has become a paradigm of global and regional cooperation , and serves as a model of efficient cooperation by paying equal attention simultaneously to economic development and security cooperation .
The 2016 Summit of the SCO , scheduled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city of Tashkent , marks the 15th anniversary of the organization ’ s establishment and will likely see India and Pakistan take a key step toward joining the group .
Note to readers : please click the share buttons above or below .
Forward this article to your email lists .
Crosspost on your blog site , internet forums .
etc .

This was previously published in July 2016.
The Shanghai Spirit — the core value of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — has played a significant role in safeguarding regional security and promoting regional development.
The SCO’s undergirding values, which features mutual trust, mutual respect, equality, respect for diverse civilizations and pursuit of shared development, was born together with the Shanghai Five mechanism, the precursor of the SCO.
In 2001, the SCO came into being after Uzbekistan formally joined the Shanghai Five, which were China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan at that time. The Shanghai Spirit then became the guideline for the SCO cooperation.
During the course of its development, the SCO has seen fruitful results in various fields, deepening good-neighborliness and friendship, and win-win cooperation among peoples in the region.
Thanks to the Shanghai Spirit, the SCO has become a paradigm of global and regional cooperation, and serves as a model of efficient cooperation by paying equal attention simultaneously to economic development and security cooperation.
The 2016 Summit of the SCO, scheduled for June 23-24 in the Uzbek capital city of Tashkent, marks the 15th anniversary of the organization’s establishment and will likely see India and Pakistan take a key step toward joining the group.
*
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asiapacificresearch--2020-11-11--In a Philippine Indigenous Stronghold, Traditions Keep COVID-19 at Bay

This article was originally published on Mongabay in April 2020 .
Each weekend since March , no one has crossed the boundary into the town of Bauko , in the northern Philippine region of Cordillera .
The prohibition , a municipal advisory , was prompted by the invocation of a tengao by community elders , many of whom are also local officials .
A tengao is the indigenous variation of a lockdown ; once invoked , it means no one can enter or leave the community for a day or more , depending on the consensus of the council of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , one of six that make up the Cordillera region , have invoked this practice , which is also called te-er , to-or , sedey , far-e , ubaya , or tungro by varying ethnolinguistic groups .
The Cordillera region is inhabited predominantly by indigenous peoples , with more than 15 distinct ethnolinguistic groups , according to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples ( NCIP ) .
As such , tribal leaders and councils of elders play influential roles in governance .
Municipal councils across Cordillera have a quota for indigenous representation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ IPMR ) , these are elders who are appointed through customary laws to ensure the participation and welfare of indigenous peoples in crafting laws and policies that affect their rights .
Mountain Province Governor Bonifacio Lacwasan Jr. says the judgment of community elders , especially in critical situations involving public welfare , is held in high regard and often taken into consideration in local governance .
Since towns in the Cordillera region are familiar with indigenous lockdowns , it ’ s easier for local governments to scale up the lockdown amid the COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As indigenous peoples , we listen to bearers of indigenous wisdom because this wisdom has kept our people safe and strong since time immemorial , ” he tells Mongabay .
Even locally deployed state security forces respect the imposition of such cultural practices , which when implemented amid the COVID-19 pandemic have complemented the enhanced community quarantine ( ECQ ) measures imposed by the national government .
This time , the village lockdown model was scaled up to cover entire towns to prevent the entry of potentially infected people into the villages , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ province on lockdown a week after the national government declared the central Philippine island of Luzon , where Manila is located , under ECQ on March 17 .
This was also driven by confirmed COVID-19 infections in the nearby province of Benguet , also in Cordillera , and in the neighboring Cagayan region .
Since the outbreak began earlier this year and due to the immediate invocation of the tengao , there have been no recorded COVID-19 cases in Mountain Province and the neighboring Cordillera provinces of Ifugao and Kalinga .
The whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ includes the provinces of Abra and Apayao , had 22 confirmed cases with one death as of April 14 ; nationwide , there were 6,599 cases and 437 deaths as of April 21 .
Image on the right : Local security forces are deployed whenever a community invokes an indigenous lockdown .
Image by Karlston Lapniten While indigenous elders can invoke a lockdown whenever it is deemed necessary , before the pandemic it was usually imposed as a rest period for the community .
Often it was declared following festivities or after harvest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to recover without disturbance from outside the community .
As it ’ s always been done , the tengao this time started with a ritual by community elders to declare the lockdown period .
In villages , a bundle of grass tied into a loose knot is placed at visible areas at the entry points of communities to serve as taboo signs .
When the town of Bauko performed the tengao from March 22 to 23 , the community closed its part of the national highway , prohibiting anyone from entering or exiting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was completed .
This forced people going to Bontoc , the provincial capital , to take a long detour via the municipality of Banaue in Ifugao province , adding at least four hours to their travel time .
The lockdown takes effect throughout weekends ; on weekdays , nighttime curfews are in place , the hours varying between villages .
In Bauko , the curfew runs from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. , while in Paracelis , also in Mountain Province , it goes from six in the evening to six the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the local semiotics and languages , signs in English have been posted along roads as reminders .
In some Mountain Province towns , physical barriers have been placed on roads to enforce the curfew .
Officials in the town of Natonin erected a makeshift wooden gate across their section of the national highway bordering Paracelis , which is locked during the curfew hours .
In the town of Tadian , officials blocked the road with rocks , while in Guinzadan village in Bauko , they used tires and mounds of soil .
Violators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enters a community under tengao , they must remain until the declaration is lifted .
Mountain Province councilor Federico Onsat , who is also a lawyer , says cultural practices that generally promote the welfare of the public such as lockdowns do not conflict with local policies .
“ In fact , they confirm the government ’ s pronouncements just like the need for the people to quarantine themselves to prevent the spread of the virus , ” Onsat says .
Apart from imposing the lockdowns , the elders in Mountain Province also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and disaster and seek protection .
On March 21 , elders in the tourist town of Sagada performed the sedey , a ritual invoking the supreme being Lumawig , to cleanse and protect the town from an epidemic .
Indigenous groups like the Gaddang people ( above ) in the Mountain Province invoke lockdowns after festivals and harvesting and planting seasons .
Image by Karlston Lapniten In Bontoc , revered ama ( elder ) Changat Fakat performed the manengtey on March 30 , a ritual that involved divining omens from the internal organs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case , Changat interpreted the organs , particularly the bile ducts and liver , as presenting signs of protection , which the elders had requested against COVID-19 .
A fire has been kept burning for several days or until put out by elders in the hearth of dap-ay as a protective charm against the virus .
On April 1 , Changat performed a similar ritual again , this time to cover the entire province and its people who are currently in other areas .
Both times , local officials such as the mayor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ official backing to the rituals .
In Malibcong , in Cordillera ’ s Abra province , the indigenous Itneg people performed the sagubay , a similar ritual to ward off disease and pestilence , on March 17 .
The ritual involves placing warning signs , usually knotted grass or arched bamboo shoots , along pathways to keep people from entering the town .
Cordillerans have high regard for advice or rituals prescribed by the elders of the dap-ay or ato , the indigenous government system , because of the belief in inayan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Our culture and traditions existed long before hospitals were put up in communities and they are critical key to why have survived this far , ” Governor Lacwasan says .
Predominantly populated by indigenous groups , among them the Balangao tribe ( above ) , the region requires a quota for indigenous representation in municipal councils .
Image by Karlston Lapniten Those traditions have been passed on to the present day because of the fear attached to inayan , says Penelope Domogo , a longtime rural physician who champions indigenous health care systems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ invoke the inayan to prevent the use of soap at water sources to not dry them up .
“ This is not superstition .
It is a rule crafted by the wisdom of our ancestors meant for our survival [ because ] clean water is survival , ” she says .
“ Now , we see the rationale and value of these traditions , so common sense dictates we continue these rituals .
These are not superstitious beliefs … they are mechanisms for survival , peace , and order.
” Note to readers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or below .
Forward this article to your email lists .
Crosspost on your blog site , internet forums .
etc .
Featured image : Upland field in the Mountain Province .
Image by Karlston Lapniten .

This article was originally published on Mongabay in April 2020.
Each weekend since March, no one has crossed the boundary into the town of Bauko, in the northern Philippine region of Cordillera. The prohibition, a municipal advisory, was prompted by the invocation of a tengao by community elders, many of whom are also local officials.
A tengao is the indigenous variation of a lockdown; once invoked, it means no one can enter or leave the community for a day or more, depending on the consensus of the council of elders.
Different towns across Mountain Province, one of six that make up the Cordillera region, have invoked this practice, which is also called te-er, to-or, sedey, far-e, ubaya, or tungro by varying ethnolinguistic groups. The Cordillera region is inhabited predominantly by indigenous peoples, with more than 15 distinct ethnolinguistic groups, according to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP). As such, tribal leaders and councils of elders play influential roles in governance.
Municipal councils across Cordillera have a quota for indigenous representation. Known as indigenous people mandatory representatives (IPMR), these are elders who are appointed through customary laws to ensure the participation and welfare of indigenous peoples in crafting laws and policies that affect their rights.
Mountain Province Governor Bonifacio Lacwasan Jr. says the judgment of community elders, especially in critical situations involving public welfare, is held in high regard and often taken into consideration in local governance.
Since towns in the Cordillera region are familiar with indigenous lockdowns, it’s easier for local governments to scale up the lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Image by Karlston Lapniten
“As indigenous peoples, we listen to bearers of indigenous wisdom because this wisdom has kept our people safe and strong since time immemorial,” he tells Mongabay.
Even locally deployed state security forces respect the imposition of such cultural practices, which when implemented amid the COVID-19 pandemic have complemented the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) measures imposed by the national government.
This time, the village lockdown model was scaled up to cover entire towns to prevent the entry of potentially infected people into the villages, Lacwasan says.
Lacwasan placed the entire province on lockdown a week after the national government declared the central Philippine island of Luzon, where Manila is located, under ECQ on March 17. This was also driven by confirmed COVID-19 infections in the nearby province of Benguet, also in Cordillera, and in the neighboring Cagayan region.
Since the outbreak began earlier this year and due to the immediate invocation of the tengao, there have been no recorded COVID-19 cases in Mountain Province and the neighboring Cordillera provinces of Ifugao and Kalinga. The whole of the Cordillera region, which also includes the provinces of Abra and Apayao, had 22 confirmed cases with one death as of April 14; nationwide, there were 6,599 cases and 437 deaths as of April 21.
Image on the right: Local security forces are deployed whenever a community invokes an indigenous lockdown. Image by Karlston Lapniten
Indigenous lockdown
While indigenous elders can invoke a lockdown whenever it is deemed necessary, before the pandemic it was usually imposed as a rest period for the community. Often it was declared following festivities or after harvest and planting seasons, to allow people to recover without disturbance from outside the community.
As it’s always been done, the tengao this time started with a ritual by community elders to declare the lockdown period. In villages, a bundle of grass tied into a loose knot is placed at visible areas at the entry points of communities to serve as taboo signs.
When the town of Bauko performed the tengao from March 22 to 23, the community closed its part of the national highway, prohibiting anyone from entering or exiting, without exception, until the ritual was completed. This forced people going to Bontoc, the provincial capital, to take a long detour via the municipality of Banaue in Ifugao province, adding at least four hours to their travel time.
The lockdown takes effect throughout weekends; on weekdays, nighttime curfews are in place, the hours varying between villages. In Bauko, the curfew runs from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., while in Paracelis, also in Mountain Province, it goes from six in the evening to six the next morning.
For non-locals not familiar with the local semiotics and languages, signs in English have been posted along roads as reminders.
In some Mountain Province towns, physical barriers have been placed on roads to enforce the curfew. Officials in the town of Natonin erected a makeshift wooden gate across their section of the national highway bordering Paracelis, which is locked during the curfew hours. In the town of Tadian, officials blocked the road with rocks, while in Guinzadan village in Bauko, they used tires and mounds of soil.
Violators face penalties, and if anyone inadvertently enters a community under tengao, they must remain until the declaration is lifted.
Mountain Province councilor Federico Onsat, who is also a lawyer, says cultural practices that generally promote the welfare of the public such as lockdowns do not conflict with local policies. “In fact, they confirm the government’s pronouncements just like the need for the people to quarantine themselves to prevent the spread of the virus,” Onsat says.
Protective rituals
Apart from imposing the lockdowns, the elders in Mountain Province also performed rituals meant to ward off disease and disaster and seek protection.
On March 21, elders in the tourist town of Sagada performed the sedey, a ritual invoking the supreme being Lumawig, to cleanse and protect the town from an epidemic.
Indigenous groups like the Gaddang people (above) in the Mountain Province invoke lockdowns after festivals and harvesting and planting seasons. Image by Karlston Lapniten
In Bontoc, revered ama (elder) Changat Fakat performed the manengtey on March 30, a ritual that involved divining omens from the internal organs of a sacrificial chicken. In this case, Changat interpreted the organs, particularly the bile ducts and liver, as presenting signs of protection, which the elders had requested against COVID-19. A fire has been kept burning for several days or until put out by elders in the hearth of dap-ay as a protective charm against the virus.
On April 1, Changat performed a similar ritual again, this time to cover the entire province and its people who are currently in other areas. Both times, local officials such as the mayor and the governor were present, lending official backing to the rituals.
In Malibcong, in Cordillera’s Abra province, the indigenous Itneg people performed the sagubay, a similar ritual to ward off disease and pestilence, on March 17. The ritual involves placing warning signs, usually knotted grass or arched bamboo shoots, along pathways to keep people from entering the town.
Cordillerans have high regard for advice or rituals prescribed by the elders of the dap-ay or ato, the indigenous government system, because of the belief in inayan, a concept akin to karma. “Our culture and traditions existed long before hospitals were put up in communities and they are critical key to why have survived this far,” Governor Lacwasan says.
Predominantly populated by indigenous groups, among them the Balangao tribe (above), the region requires a quota for indigenous representation in municipal councils. Image by Karlston Lapniten
Those traditions have been passed on to the present day because of the fear attached to inayan, says Penelope Domogo, a longtime rural physician who champions indigenous health care systems in Mountain province. Domogo says elders invoke the inayan to prevent the use of soap at water sources to not dry them up.
“This is not superstition. It is a rule crafted by the wisdom of our ancestors meant for our survival [because] clean water is survival,” she says. “Now, we see the rationale and value of these traditions, so common sense dictates we continue these rituals. These are not superstitious beliefs … they are mechanisms for survival, peace, and order.”
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Featured image: Upland field in the Mountain Province. Image by Karlston Lapniten.