Live shows in Tarlac City can be had at P500 per group of 5

TARLAC CITY – For only P500, a group of five men can see a real "live show" in this city where the flesh trade continues to proliferate.

And it is not really hard to find honky-tonk joints that offer such "amenity" to customers, as these could be found with names easily associated to "live shows."

One bar is called "Japayuki," while another is known as "Chow Queen," and so on and so forth.

Bars and drinking joints that are actually fronts of prostitution dot the MacArthur Highway here, while others are located within the city proper.

Drinking joints that offer lewd shows can be often seen to have small cubicles, where victims of the flesh trade dance nude.

Arranging for "live shows" in these joints is so easy that even bar owners and waiters openly offer these to their customers.

Each "show" only lasts for three songs, and it would be up to the customers if they want to pay an additional P300 for "live" performers to do another round of lewd dance, but for only one song.

Based on previous raids on these joints, the youngest girl who was arrested while dancing nude was only 16 years old. The eldest so far to be booked by the police was only 28 years old.

Meanwhile, pirates of the film industry are now making a killing with video compact discs (VCDs) of the controversial "Live Show" selling like hot cakes in Tarlac province.

With the Malacañang decision stopping the showing of the movie purportedly depicting the exploitation of flesh trade workers, the curious have been buying pirated VCD copies of "Live Show."

"Live Show" was already actually shown in local theaters here about two weeks ago, but theater owners said that the movie was a flopped. But with the controversial order banning the movie, VCD copies of the film have been selling briskly here.

Because of the loose monitoring system of the Department of Trade and Industry on patent and copyright violations in this city, vendors of pirated VCDs dot the city proper, especially near the public market areas.

They even rent stalls from the city government, while some of them hop from one office to another to sell their pirated wares.