Foreigner visiting WALKING STREET, ANGELES CITY, Pampanga, Philippines.

I’ve visited a number of Asian cities in Thailand, Cambodia and Japan and have always been intrigued with what the Philippines has to offer along similar lines. What’s on offer on Mango Avenue in Cebu and P. Burgos Street in Manila is pretty lame. I read about Angeles City and wanted to check the place for myself. A consequence of the presence of U.S. bases in the country is the adult industry in Angeles city, centred around Walking Street, originally named Fields Avenue.

Philippines was an American colony from 1898 to 1946. Bars on Fields Avenue catering to the single American defense personnel, who worked in the adjacent Clark Air Base, first emerged in 1940. During 1940s and 50s there were only 3 such bars just outside the main gate of the airbase, By early 1960s, the Fields Avenue developed as a street lined with several bars. From November 1955 to April 1975 America fought Vietnam war, as the number of American troops in this war grew, more and more forces were deployed at Clark airbase or routed through it. This led to a proliferation of bars, live bands and pro activity, the latter mostly by young Filipina women, most of them either teenagers or 18–55 years old.

By the 1970s, there were more than 150 bars and pro joints along Fields Avenue. This led to a mushrooming of related ancillary industries in the vicinity, namely music bands, hotels, doctors, hairdressers and money exchange / transfer services. In its heyday, Fields Avenue provided direct or direct employment to nearly 20,000 Filipinos including plumbers, electricians and security guards. In the 1980s, though the American presence remained steady, the bars and pro shops continued to proliferate. Many bars and pro dens were owned by Americans as well as local politicians, thus leading to a nexus between the locals, politicians and American military and ex military personnel.

With the withdrawal of American defense forces from Clark in 1993, many of these establishments changed hands but continued to do business. As Clark was turned into a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), these bars and pro joints changed their clientele to suit their new customers – Japanese and Korean businessmen. Restaurants serving food from these countries began to appear and signboards in these languages were put up. The period from 2000-2010 saw further expansion of these joints, as the area was relabeled as an “entertainment district”.

In 2010, a section of Fields Avenue at the end where it meets the N2 MacArthur Highway was named as “Walking Street”, mimicking Walking Street in Pattaya; this section was made pedestrians only, with road traffic banned from 6 pm to 6 am.People arriving by air either take a taxi direct to hotel or a jeepny to Main Gate Jeepney Terminal located between to north SM mall, Fields Avenue to south and Bayanihan Park to east. Those arriving from Manila by bus, ask the driver to drop them off at the corner of Fields Avenue and MacArthur Highway, or alight at Capas-Angeles Transport Terminal which is also walking distance from Fields Avenue and the MacArthur Highway.

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