Economic Development ECON20163

Name: Erika Malilum Date: October 17, 2019

Course, Year and Section: BSMA 2-9
Question: It is no secret that the sex industry exists in every country forming a substantial
part of the underground economy. For many developing countries, prostitution is a major
export industry and source of foreign earnings, a means of redistributing income on a global
scale, should prostitution be legalized? Explain your answer.
The Philippines, like some other Southeast Asian countries, has an unfortunate reputation
for prostitution. It’s a huge industry domestically with an estimated 800,000 men, women
and, sadly, children working in the trade. While it’s illegal to sell or procure sex, the trade still
operates under the guise of entertainment: sex workers are employed as singers, dancers,
waitresses or “guest relations officers” in clubs and bars where they are expected to leave with
any client who pays a fee. Many are forced into the sex trade against their will, are threatened,
drugged, or worse if they attempt to leave and also, many sees it as the only answer to be able to
provide for their living. The film, Oliver, shows a father, Reynaldo Villarama, turning to
prostitution as his last resort. He is known as a gay night club performer with an especially lurid
“Spider-man” act. Oliver is a female impersonator who supports his family by performing in
Manila’s gay bars. “It’s easy to earn, …. but at least it makes my family lives” he said on his
interview stating the bright side of being in the industry, yet still having to possess being in a
situation where he doesn’t choose to be at in the first place, but learned to accept it eventually.
Furthermore, in a testimony from a survivor of prostitution, it says that prostitution has its ways
of stealing all the dreams and goals and beautiful essence out of a woman. During the years of
being in the industry, she haven’t met someone who enjoyed what they were doing and everyone
is trying to get out. A picture of how prostitution becomes a barrier for people who doesn’t even
have a choice but to deal with the situation in exchange for money they get for their living.
Prostitution should not be legalized because it currents human rights, increasing a sex offers,
and destroying a family. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood. To protect human rights is to ensure that people receive some degree of decent,
humane treatment. To violate the most basic human rights, on the other hand is to deny
individuals their fundamental moral entitlements. It is, in the sense, to treat them as if they are
less than human and undeserving of respect and dignity. Whether or not it is legal, prostitution
is extremely harmful especially for women. Women in prostitution have the highest rates of rape
and homicide of any group of women based on the study. They are regularly, physically
assaulted and verbally abused, whether they prostitute in street, bars and hotels. Sexual violence
and physical assault are the norms for women in legal prostitution. In one Dutch study, 60% of
women in legal prostitution were physically assaulted, 70% percent were threatened with
physical assault, and both 40% experienced sexual violence and had been coerced into legal
prostitution. The dilemma is not that there is no legal redress for coercion, physical assault and
rape in illegal prostitution. In certain countries that already legalized prostitution, there are laws
against those forms of violence. The dilemma is that once in prostitution, there is no avoiding
sexual harassment, sexual exploitation rape and acts that are equivalent of mental torture. Also,
prostitution could negatively affect a family in a way that if a person having the sex is married, it
can tear families apart.
Decriminalizing prostitution might institute benefits for many, being one of the source of
foreign earnings, establishing business that creates tax revenues, and helps give people a
particular job, but the underlying effect of it which questions the morality of a person and the
negative effects being on the mental well-being of the prostitutes still needs consideration after
all.
Economic Development ECON20163
Name: Erika M. Malilum Date: October 17, 2019
Course Year and Section: BSMA 2-9

Q. What is the Nash equilibrium and why does it matter? Explain why Nash
equilibrium should be a part of the critical analysis of almost any kind of social
institution.

The Nash equilibrium is the understanding of predicament outcomes for certain

situations. To analyze the probabilities of the chances on how someone would react if
approached. With the given scenario, when Nash and his friends were at the bar and this white
female showed up. Nash’s friends immediately got attracted with this female. Though this
individual had friends with her, Nash and his friends were only attracted. Along the way, Nash
started to give his friends the options on how they should approach the females. He stated that
if, they were to approach the female all at once, none of them would be able to close it with her.
Another option was to approach her friends, and all of them would create a chance of closing
with all her friends or on his terms, ‘get laid’.
Our lives are made from choices, hour by hour and day by day we make decisions that
have outcomes that would either effect our lives positively or negatively. Nash’s equilibrium
works in our lives the same way as we make decisions. With each event that we partake in, we
are presented with different choices on how to go about these events. Some may take it as a
challenge, and some might think it’s a work in the park. Acknowledging the circumstances that
are given by the events of life have the possibility to change our lives forever. In the film, when
talked to his friends about the scenarios that could happen with the different outcomes that
come along with them, it made me realized that there is no such thing as no choice. We have a
choice all the time, its just sometimes the choices that are offered to us aren’t the choices that we
were hoping for or expecting to have. The equilibrium is more of just a theory-based explanation
of things, like a term used by those people that are not ‘simple folks. If we were asked to explain
what is, that makes us think about the outcomes of certain events. We could use the Nash’
equilibrium to give a structured answer how why we choose to sometimes overthink things
through. As Nash went on with his theory, which not to mention he spent hours and hours to
complete was able to present this to his professor. Choices and the decisions we make in each
event in our lives have an explanation and Nash just proved that it does.
If lots of people realize that there is an actual purpose for us to sometimes overthink the
situation through, then most of them would avoid getting stressed out or maybe depressed when
things go south. The equilibrium opens us to another chapter of our lives, or should I say
another attachment, since this gave us something to look forward to. Its fascinating that our way
of thinking is very complex once we dive into it. Our lives unfold in many ways, and its our job to
think of the path we want to go with it. There are different ways and different outcomes from a
single scenario in our lives. One example it with Nash and his friends at the club. The ways that
they could go in order to get a chance to talk to the other females. Or as he was saying, the
equilibrium is another way of a man thinking about the benefit of his friends as a whole and not
as individuals.