Is Burgos Street on a lifeline?

The Burgos area has about 20 expat-type clubs. That is, clubs that charge a customer by the drink ordered and has girls dancing on stage who can chat with a customer at no charge. This is unlike ktv-type clubs that offer a customer the opportunity to sing to lyrics shown on a monitor and a generally high pricing scheme that include charges for each song sung, unlimited drinks for an hour, chat time with a girl, table, show, etc.

-- Burgos area has experienced some closures.

DIVINO was a club closed by the Makati city government about six months ago. See my post below. In Dec 2011, the closed club was remodeled.

GIRLY'S LOUNGE was the new name for the closed Divino. According to the doorman of the Jools club in the same building, Girly's Lounge opened on Thursday, Jan 5, 2012. It was still opened on Tuesday, Jan 10, 2012, according to a local resident. On Wednesday, Jan 11, 2012 when I passed by, GL was closed. A poster on the door announced that the Makati city government closed GL for violations. The poster did not describe such violations.

MIRRORS was the club in the below-street level of the Royal Bellagio hotel. Now gone and the club area was turned into a part of an open-to-street lobby dining area, similar to the sidewalk cafe across the street.

FLAMINGO, closed for over six months, after supposed purchase by a group of Americans. Every now and then, some construction is done on the building. But, mostly nothing but a lifeless structure.

BAR BANDIDO, closed at about the same time as Flamingo. They were sister clubs. Nothing has replaced this basement club. As for the other sister clubs, Wild West is still in operation and Mogambo was closed over a year ago, but a new club took over its space and an adjoining former sports bar.

PALACIO DON PEDRO, closed about three months ago. This was not a club, but a primere house with on-site rooms. (Note that I usually use the term, cathouse, but there is a bar called Cathouse, located on a side street near Stardust, which is in operation.). I thought this house had better girls that Air Force One's Flight 168, and other houses in Manila, except Quezon City's houses.

If you go to Burgos clubs before 8pm, the clubs seem lifeless. Later in the night, many clubs come alive.

-- Prices in most clubs are still high: beer for 160 pesos, lady drink for 390 pesos, bar fine for 3,500 pesos which does not include payment for services. Except for many ktv's, most Burgos clubs cost more than Edsa Complex clubs and Ermita clubs. There are cheaper prices at a few Burgos clubs.

Happy hour prices are offered by most clubs, and even all-night half-priced beers and lower-priced lady drinks are offered by many clubs on a weekly basis. For example, Ivory offers 80 peso beer on Wednesdays and Wow Wow Wow has half-priced Sundays.

-- Shows are still the best in the Burgos clubs. Jools club is easily the tops. Some say that Jools shows are similar to Las Vegas shows except it has about ten female dancers. I like the costumes, show sets, choreography, and dancer's technique. My favorite Jools show are its version of the Phantom Of the Opera, Japanese stately dance, and Indian bollywood dance.

Stardust shows have changed from a version of Jools shows to a different format: five numbers with the middle three numbers being three female solos. While the format is good, a dance number depends on the dancer. Thur - Sat nites, Stardust features a live band, different band each night.

Mixed Nuts have a midnight show. But, as a solo heterosexual male I am too fearful to enter this transvestite club by my lone self.

Other Burgos clubs have infrequent groups of 3 - 4 girls, who dance a unison-type performance which is better than nothing and better than the typical PI model-walk show.

-- Quality of the average girl in PI expat clubs was the highest in the Burgos clubs. Up to about 2010 and 2011 when Angeles City opened several spectacular clubs and attracted many male visitors and a few couples and female visitors, such that nearby hotels were nearly always capacity-filled. At that time, the overall quality of girls in Burgos clubs seemed to be below Angeles City clubs.

Now, with the frequent police raids of some Angeles City Clubs and the closures of a few houses in Makati, the honor of best-quality average girls seems to have returned to Burgos.

Even the supposed masseuses, standing on Burgos sidewalk offering massage services in your hotel room, have more high-quality girls.

-- Nevertheless, I often wonder if Burgos clubs will go the way of the old wild Ermita clubs in the pre-Mayor Alfredo Lim days of mid-1990s, and the wild Pat Pong clubs of Bangkok in the 1980s in the pre-street stalls nights.

But, with the current manic behavior on anti-trafficking, it may be well that Burgos clubs seem quiet and dying. By the way, have you ever seen reports of male prostitutes or under-aged males being rescued from sex traffikers?

As I ponder the future of the Burgos scene, I visualize myself as the average customer: middle-class, beer-drinking male enjoying variety but searching for a really nice girl -- for healthy indoor sports with a consenting female adult. Of course, if I had a high income, I could find such girls anywhere and everywhere in the world; but on a modest budget, I have to resort to certain areas in the world.

Keep on mowing.

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Makati - Divino - Closed - May 2011


Divino is a club in the same building as Jools. Each has its own door to the sidewalk, but Divino is on the street level and Jools is on the second level.

Divino has a reputation of having female pole dancing, some Russian girls among the Filipino girls, and expensive.

I visited it once and it was a large luxury-type club with many customers, waiters, and women. Several women were aggressive, inviting themselves to sit with me and asking for lady's drinks. It was doing obvious good business in spite of its moderately high prices, comparable to KTVs whch caters to Asian males.

In April 2011, Divino had a new sign on its streetside wall advertising School Nights and school girls. A week or two later, it was closed by the municipal government. A closure notice on the club door cited violation of a city ordinance, but did not write out the exact violation.

To my mind, the reason for closure was the sign that said, school girls. While the meaning could have been college females, the term could be construed to include minors. Whoever put up that sign should have consulted a lawyer first.

I guess the applicable advice is: keep a low profile.