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View Point: Guess which celebrities you can sleep with
These days, there is no place quiet enough to hide from the barrage of saucy news about high-class hookers and their well-heeled clients presented as a drama to make you forget all about poor law enforcement, political turmoil and rising prices
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These days, there is no place quiet enough to hide from the barrage of saucy news about high-class hookers and their well-heeled clients presented as a drama to make you forget all about poor law enforcement, political turmoil and rising prices.
How can one possibly be ignorant when the juicy news is bombarding the public space as 'infotainment' programs on TV, online and in the newspapers? They are all battling for our attention with the latest developments and speculations on which celebrity you can probably hire to bed tonight ' of course, if you're super-rich.
That some individual artists in the glamorous entertainment industry double as high-heeled prostitutes is, in fact, nothing new in Indonesia or elsewhere. But what is happening in this self-proclaimed religious country is truly interesting in many ways.
Well, it's official, to begin with. Last month, an undercover policeman posing as a client caught a pretty woman, whom the authorities identified only as AA, an adult magazine model and an actress, along with her alleged pimp Robby Abbas, aka Obbie, a professional stylist.
From Obbie, police obtained 200 names of call girls under his management and ' whoa! ' many of those on the list are, if media reports are accurate, celebrities who entertain us as soap opera actresses, dangdut singers, fashion models and TV personalities.
As expected, the list is the best part of the story. Hungry reporters have vainly battled for a copy and the stories that followed are entangled facts and fiction.
Rakyat Merdeka online published a list of 17 initials it claimed are mostly of celebrities under Obbie's management, complete with the rate they quote for every three-hour session under the sheets: TB is available for Rp 200 million, JD for Rp 150 million, RF Rp 60 million, CS Rp 60 million, MT Rp 55 million, KA Rp 55 million, SB Rp 55 million, NM Rp 40 million, LM Rp 35 million, DL Rp 30 million, BS Rp 30 million, AA Rp 25 million and FNP for Rp 20 million.
The rate range may be fair, or even peanuts, for the very wealthy businessmen and politicians who, Obbie says, account for most of his angels' regular clients, but flabberghastingly impossible for most people living in a country where the minimum monthly wage is around Rp 2 million.
Obbie told the police he got 30 percent up front from the payments that his prostitutes received from their clients.
Unlike the AA on the pimp's list, the AA who was caught red-handed offering sex in the upscale hotel in South Jakarta quoted Rp 80 million for a short session of three hours and a whopping Rp 200 million for a whole-night stand, police say.
Now people have more evidence to wonder why some celebrities are fabulously rich despite their meager popularity. An actress who featured in several local no-brainer movies was recently flooded with questions about how she could afford to buy the sports cars and luxury houses she often flaunted on TV.
The actress' initials are on the Merdeka list, but she has denied that the initials refer to her name. However, the latest case may make it even more difficult for any celebrities to convince the skeptics.
And those initials ' yes, they are part of the guessing game that people in the street and in cozy air-conditioned rooms try to resolve.
If there is any success you can attribute to the police work, it is their unshaken stand not to leak the names of the prostitute 'angels' on the list they confiscated. They refuse to revealed the identity of AA beyond her profession.
Soap opera singer Amel Alvi, who has been widely suspected on social media, has denied the allegations.
While people enjoy the wild guessing game, some celebrities whose initials happen to be the same as those on the published list have come out and tried to clear their names. So the mentioning of SB has forced out dangdut singers Siti Badriah and Seruni Bahar and actress/singer Shinta Bachir.
In fact, there is nothing new about the official revelation that many celebrities double as high-class prostitutes. During the authoritarian rule of president Soeharto, public officials and super-wealthy personalities having affairs with celebrities was a public secret that the tightly controlled media was afraid to report.
As time goes by, the game is headed for an anticlimax: Obbie will be the only one to be prosecuted under the prostitution law. AA, despite having been caught red-handed offering sex for money, has been treated only as a witness along with TM, another actress moonlighting as a lady of the night.
The police have been accused of unfair play for not prosecuting AA, at least up to this point, as the laws require. They have turned a deaf ear to Obbie's claim about public officials who became his prostitutes' clients ' a lead that they should follow to see if any our political leaders commit unethical or even criminal conduct.
There has been ample precedence to believe Obbie's claim. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has detected money siphoned by such graft convicts as businessman Tubagus Chaeri Wardana, former Constitutional Court chief Akil Muchtar and political broker Ahmad Fathanah, to numerous actresses and dangdut singers.
At the end of the day, this high-profile case will likely remain a hugely popular infotainment. The hot issue is an effective drama to divert public glare away from the police, who have been struggling to polish an image badly dented by the shoddy way they handled their conflict with the KPK, the pervasive street crimes and corruption within the force.
You will be disappointed if you hoped that the revelations about high-class prostitution will provide momentum for the authorities to start busting the illicit flesh business.
There is every reason to worry that all the publicity, the easy money and the inadequate legal action will only inspire more young celebrities to sell themselves to feed their lifestyles.
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The writer is a staff writer of The Jakarta Post.
