The last few houses in a coastal village in Ilang, Bunawan in Davao City which gained infamy as a haven of ‘Akyat Barko’ girls would soon be demolished. Akyat Barko is a local tag for young prostitutes, who clamber up vessels usually foreign flag carries docked at Davao Gulf.
The Committee Against Squatting Syndicates and Professional Squatters (CASSPS) in a resolution has ordered 9 house owners in Sto. Nino as squatters, paving the way for demolition of their houses by the City Engineers Office.
The resolution was released last week by CASSPS signed by among others City Administrator Wendel Avisado, who chairs the committee, and City Legal Officer Melchor Quitain.
Owners of more than 100 houses in Sto. Nino, mostly dockhands and stevedores, on a creek between Tefasco and Unifrutti have already voluntary demolished their houses and left the area to transfer to a relocation site donated by Tefasco.
But nine of the residents opposed the relocation, with beneficiaries given free lots, because they run businesses in the coastal village.
The nine house owners according to an investigation report by the City Housing Office refused to leave the area because they are engaged in money lending, money changing, videoke bars and other business catering to foreign seamen.
They would not be given free relocation because they are not qualified under the city urban poor housing program as they already own real property and actually live elsewhere and not in Sto. Nino, said the report.
The village has gained famed for its Akyat Barko girls—commercial sex workers who clamber up ocean-going vessels docked off Bunawan—for sex with foreigners on the vessel or to lure them to videoke bars and sex dens in Sto. Nino. Bunawan is home to several private wharfs for ocean-going vessels loading export Cavendish bananas, the Davao Region’s main export.
Health authorities here have earlier expressed alarm the commercial sex workers could pave the way for the entry of AIDS to the city through contacts with foreigners who may carry the deadly disease.
Tefasco, through its corporate benevolence, offered free relocation sites for the informal settlers as it was building an additional berth on the site.
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