The Philippine Online Chronicles

The first time I entered a motel, back in 2009, I was shocked. It was the night when I covered for a whole day the Feast day of the Senor Nazareno. Virtually exhausted following the procession from morning to evening, I realized I could no longer go home so late at night, and with only a few hundred pesos left in my pocket, I decided to spend the night in one of the cheap motels in Quiapo.

This motel was located in the second floor of a decrepit old building in Quezon Boulevard. From the street, double swinging doors opened to a flight of stairs, on top of which was a small receiving area. A thin middle-aged Chinese man in a white sando was in the counter, and behind him was a collection of keys with room numbers printed on them. In a smattering of Tagalog, he asked me if I was going to stay “short time or overnight.” For the uninitiated, “short time” means one to three hours of stay. I answered "overnight" and he told me the cost would be P200. I paid in cash and was ushered into my room by a teenaged boy who also gave me a towel and a small piece of soap.

Entering the motel was a decision I would later regret. The room was dirty, and the bathroom stank. Scribbled on the walls were phone numbers of people offering to have sex. "Just call this number," one said, "and I’ll be knocking on your door in a few minutes." Here and there were also scribbled very lewd drawings of sex organs and sexual positions. During the night, I had difficulty getting to sleep. I could hear passionate moans from adjoining rooms, and even some banging on the walls. I hurriedly dressed and took a taxi back home. I have never entered a cheap motel since then.

Some of you may think that entering the motel all alone is very unusual, since a motel, in the Philippine context, is a place where people usually spend very private moments with the opposite -- or same -- sex. Indeed, by checking in, I risked censure of my friends and colleagues if they found out. Yet I have always maintained that there are no sinful places, only sinful people. Motels cannot be sinners, in the same way that a prison cannot become a criminal.

Postwar travelers' lodgings

Looking back at the very first Philippine motels (short for "motor hotel"), they were not originally designed as places to have illicit sexual affairs.

Actually, the first motels in the Philippines sprang up to meet the postwar shortage of lodgings for travelers. Immediately after the Second World War, ruined Manila had no hotels but a lot of lodgers, such as American soldiers. To cope with the demand for lodgings, the first rooming houses were established in downtown Manila in 1945. Then, in 1946, the first authentic motel was established in Apelo St., in Pasay. This motel was a six-garage bungalow with air-conditioned units complete with toilets and bathrooms with hot and cold showers. The motel also served food for G.I.s weary after a long journey from their camp. At P30 a day, the motel's rooms were always filled to capacity.

Then in the 1950s, motels became superfluous. as regular hotels which offered better conveniences and services began to be built in Manila. Most of the G.I.s also returned to the United States, and thus in the 1960s motels changed. With the opening of night clubs and bars around Manila, many motels began offering cheap "short-time" rates, which were for one- to three-hour stays. Back then, it was considered highly improper if a man was seen entering a motel with a female companion. Thus, many couples entered motels a few minutes apart. Patrons also didn't want their identities known -- men pretended to read newspapers while entering motels and women wore shades and used abanicos to hide their faces from public view.

'Tirahan ng mag-syota'

The transformation of motels from simple lodging houses to private venues to conduct illicit sexual affairs became complete in the 1960s. A popular joke back then was a question of the difference between a hotel and a motel. The answer was "Ang hotel ay tirahan ng mag-asawa, samantalang ang motel ay tirahan ng mag-syota (Hotels are where married couples live, while motels are where boyfriends and girlfriends stay)."

The so-called "love hotels" were considered anathema by women's civic groups in the 1960s. In particular, the Catholic Women’s League of Manila (CWL) filed a petition to then-Manila Mayor Antonio Villegas to close the motels because, they argued, the motels were venues for illicit sexual affairs (Mayor Antonio Villegas was the writer's late grandfather. - Editor). But motel owners, primarily thought to be rich Chinese businessmen, fought back. The motel owners argued that preventing people from entering motels was a violation of their basic rights.

Pressured from both sides (CWL and motel owners), Mayor Villegas did not order the closure of the motels. Instead, he levied heavy taxes on the motel operators. In short, while he gave the motels a new lease for life, he made their existence difficult.

At about this this time came one of the most serious blows to the image of the motel: the rape in a motel of Antonieta Cabahug, the social secretary of the Philippine Constabulary chief, by Cesar Guy, a Chinese lumber executive. It was perhaps one of the most sensational crimes of the decade, and Cabahug died as a result of the rape. Eventually Guy was sentenced to life imprisonment, but has since been released and is now a Christian preacher. From this time on, motels became associated not only with illicit affairs but with crimes, too.

Removing the tarnish

It was only in the late 1970s and the 1980s when motels began a serious effort to rebuild their tarnished image. Some of the high-end motels even began changing their names into vogue-sounding names like "Ritz and Waldorf," "Bermuda," "Victoria Court," and "Capri." They also remodeled their interiors to provide a hotel-like ambience -- spacious and wholesome lobbies, and themed rooms, offering patrons forest-, resort-, and even Disneyland-like suites. Some of them also offered private jacuzzis, water beds, and sound-proof walls.

At present, love motels in Metro Manila are as ubiquitous as the shopping malls -- you can find them everywhere. In the Manila University Belt, one could count more love hotels than there are universities, so the area could also have been termed the "Motel Belt" with none the wiser. In Quiapo’s Quezon Boulevard stretch for instance, I recently counted twelve motels, not including the numerous cheaper, more dubious, no-signage motels that operate like boarding houses, located in the smaller inside streets.

The cheapest of motels sometimes masquerade as lodgings for travelers, although very few transients actually go there to rest. Unlike motels in the past that were located in high-walled compounds for the utmost privacy, love motels nowadays operate more openly in large modern buildings near malls, MRT train stations, and call centers. Some of these motels have even been designed to have exits that lead to malls and MRT train stations.

Photos by Dennis Villegas. Some rights reserved.

Click images to enlarge.

A 'romantic' atmosphere

The insides of motel rooms tells something about their very nature. One notices the absence of windows and the presence of dim lights. Some motel rooms even provide a swing hanging from the ceiling, in the middle of the bed. Some rooms are provided with cable television. What can be shocking to the uninitiated, though, is that these cable subscriptions include channels showing pornographic movies. Inside bedside bureau drawers, also, one can find condoms in different fruit flavors.

Motel managers are very strict in following the concept of “short time”. Fifteen minutes before the “short time” lapses, occupants will be reminded that they need to get ready to vacate the room as the next customers are already waiting to occupy it.

These conditions suggest the nature of the relationships of people lodging motels -- many times, they are after sex without the benefit of marriage. Since married couples usually have intercourse at home, couples staying “short-time” in motels are generally thought to be engaging in: (1) Pre-marital sex (sex before matrimony) (2) Adultery/concubinage (i.e., a married woman having sex with a man not her husband, vice versa), and (3) Prostitution (sex trade).

Of the three, the last is the most flagrant and the most obvious. Prostitution, as the saying goes, is the world’s oldest profession. But in Metro Manila and in other big cities for that matter, prostitution has also become a thriving industry. One could count Manila, Cubao, Caloocan, Pasay, Pasig, Quezon Avenue, as the places with the highest concentration of motels because of the thriving sex trade in these places. In all these places, prostitution is a 24-hour business. One only needs to walk at anytime of the day in certain streets and furtive offers will be made in exchange for money.

We are thus drawn to answer a very crucial question. Could the proliferation of motels be an indication of the moral degeneration of Filipinos? Or are Filipinos just beginning to experience a modern sexual revolution already experienced in Japan, the United States, Sweden, and many other countries?

Indeed, one cannot escape the conclusion that although many people consider motels as sinful places of fornication, illicit sex, and prostitution, their popularity will only serve to prolong their existence and increase their numbers in our midst.

WWII Photo: “Resilient Filipinos even in devastation go forward, May 2, 1945” by John Tewell, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved.

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