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Philandering men warned about falling victim to ‘jocards’

By Erika Sauler
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Sunday, July 13th, 2014


Cops warn men on “Jocards.”

MANILA, Philippines â€" The Quezon City police have warned philandering men against “Jocards,” but they hardly listen, resulting in three to four cases of theft reported every week in the Kamuning area.

Jocard is a police term for the women who lure men to dingy apartelles for paid sexual services.

But while the men are taking a shower, the women will run off with their wallets.

These cases have become rampant on Aurora Boulevard, Superintendent Limuel Obon, chief of the Quezon City Police District-Kamuning  Station, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a recent interview.

But the complainants, usually married men, were not inclined to pursue charges, afraid that their rendezvous would be known through the media, Obon said.

Police officers at the Kamuning Station, who grinned knowingly when asked about it, could not say how the term “Jocard” came to be.

“It’s just a code we use,” a police investigator said.

He speculated that it could be “Joe Card,” referring to American soldiers who availed of the sexual services when the United States had military bases in the Philippines.

It could as well be Gentleman Jocard in the movie “Pirates of the Carribean,” a former slave who became a pirate lord.

Obon said the police used to round up the women and hold them in detention for vagrancy to prevent their modus operandi.

But the police could no longer do that since vagrancy has been decriminalized.

Women’s groups would also come to their rescue, maintaining that the women were victims, Obon said.

Police have tried to ask barangay (village) officials to revoke the business permits of the apartelles to no avail.

To help complainants identify those who took their wallets, the police would show a gallery of previously arrested women who never give their real names to the police.

“It’s Maria today, Jennifer tomorrow,” Obon said.

So the patrolling police would just warn the men when they see them hooking up with a Jocard.

But the men would usually tell the police to back off, saying, “Don’t meddle here, I’m not doing any crime,” Obon said.

And when they come seeking police help after being robbed, they’d probably get an “I told you so.”

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