I’ve been reading about, researching, traveling to, touring around and living in the Philippines for nearly 10 years now. Actually, I had a business relationship with the Philippines for many years before that as well, because I spent a total of 38 years with the USAF and the Philippines was very important to us during the years the USAF and US Navy bases were active.
I’ve made a lot of friends in this knowledge quest and in these modern times some blogging friends too. I read a lot of people’s blogs and websites … many of these folks have years more experience than I, some are most certainly smarter, and most of them write better. But there is one overriding theme that I hate … the “Welcome to Paradise” hype.
My lovely wife Mita and I are now well settled in, living in the town of Marilao in the province of Bulacan, just north of Metro Manila itself. In 41 months I find more to like everyday, I’m very happy here and there’s very little chance I’m ever moving on to any other country … but the Philippines is not Paradise on Earth!
I have written and will write more about the good things here in the Philippines, but please, if you’re considering a move here, do think of this as a paradise on earth where all your problems will melt away. I have many “Western” acquaintances from the US, UK, Australia and other “First World” countries who make the move here and then spend most of their time complaining about how things are not done “the same as back home” in the Philippines. If you want things “the same as back home”, then stay at home. Here’s a few facts you might want to consider:
- Customer Service: The way things are done in stores, restaurants, public transportation, hospitals, etc. is different from you are used to. There are times you will get irritated or frustrated. Come with the attitude that you will have to change your expectations, because the Philippines is not going to change to suit you.
- Traffic: The roads are congested, old, in a bad state of repair in many cases and cluttered with dangerously driven smoke-belching buses, slow-moving tricycles, Jeepneys that stop whenever the want to in hope of finding a passenger and pedestrians who seem to be in a daze.
- Government Offices: Many government offices are difficult to deal with. The folks in the very organizations who make the rules frequently don’t know the rules. Be prepared to “fall in line” for sometimes unbearable waits only to find that when you get to the head of the line, the person you were sent to see doesn’t know how to do what you want done. While the Filipinos I have encountered are almost invariably friendly to foreigners, even such tourist-oriented agencies as the DoFA (Department of Foreign Affairs — equivalent to the US Department of State) and the BI (Bureau of Immigration — the Philippine analog of the Immigration and Naturalization Service) are not equipped to deal with foreigners.
- Noise: Traffic makes noise. Thousands of tiny tricycles (small displacement motorcycles with sidecars) ply the streets each one with what seems like a louder muffler than the one that just passed. Radios blare, a karaoke party may start at any time and end who knows when and people keep fighting cocks even in the town that crow incessantly.
- Pollution: The air, especially in the big cities is bad. People smoke a lot. Sewers often smell. Rice fields get burned every year as that have since the dawn of history.
- Corruption: The newspaper front pages are a continuous soap-opera of one government official after another being charged with some sort of crime of corruption. Mayors in towns with term limits of 6 years get sworn into office to start their 16th year while under arrest warrants for crimes of corruption. If this sort of thing bothers you, you are going to get very, very bothered.
- Crime: Journalists get murdered apparently for the offense of writing about crooked politicians. Politicians get murdered for having the audacity to run for office. Holdups, car napping’s (armed hijackings) and organized robberies of bus passengers are in the news every single day. I personally feel safer here than I did when I lived in Colorado, but I don’t go out at night often and there are many areas of the country my wife forbids me to drive through.
Wow! Looks pretty bleak, doesn’t it? Well, I really didn’t mean it to scare you, but on the other hand I just get a little sick of the paradisiacal “travel agent” style reports. Like me or dislike me, the one thing you will always get here on PhilFAQS.com is the straight, unvarnished truth. If you come back and read more I’ll talk about many of the good things too, I promise.
I just updated and corrected some errors in this post, originally published a couple years ago. I felt prompted to do this by some messages I have received recently from some folks overseas who “can’t wait to make the move”, because things are bad for them and they know it will be better here, in the Philippines.
Well, things may well be better. You’ll notice I write often about many advantages to living here, and if I write it, I firmly believe it is true, and it’s mainly written 100% from personal experience. But Paradise? The Philippines is not that. And if you have problems such as chronic “month left over at the end of your money”, or relationship issues, or problems with airline employees who don’t seem to treat you well, taxi drivers who seem to be looking for a tip without deserving one, (or here’s a big issue from people in “rule based” countries such as the US or England or Germany … people who drive like they never even heard of traffic rules … then think things through.
If you get really, really PO’d when a car cuts in front of you, for example … well better bring your heart and blood pressure medication, because it’s going to happen to you continuously if you drive here. Personally, whenever I see a blog or web site that talks about “Paradise” and the “Philippines” in the same paragraph, I go read somewhere else … I like it here, in many different ways, but Paradise? Not happening in the Philippines.
Popularity: 18% [?]
Dave
I don’t really think there is a “Paradise on Earth”
However in RP I think it is easier to live the simple laid back life that many perceive as Paradise. If you can adapt and overcome to the things that bother you then anywhere can be your own Paradise, or anywhere can Suck to live at.
Oddly enough Phil people that come here to the US think it is Paradise at first.
But after years of working there asses off, paying so many different kind of Taxes, and Mandatory expenses they simply want to save their$$ earn enough Quarters to get their SS benefits and return to their Homeland.
Time to go take my MEDS
Yep you are dead right on both your main pints there, Neal. Options in life are so much more flexible here. But that same ‘flexibility’ leads to the issues like “Filipino time”, and people promising you anything you ask for, just because it’s much more fun to say yes than say no. Then you hear the continual stories of “That blankety-blank never showed up, he promised to plant the tree and now the tree is in the backyard, dead, he fixed my car for only 100 Pesos but he used an old rusty nail instead of a cotter key, etc., etc., etc. There are a few Americans who have no business moving to the Philippines … and some of them, with their anger, stress and agitation over all the things that go wrong, are already here
Hi Dave,
I agree with you and also hate it when people call the Philippines Paradise,its far from that.
Being a seasoned traveller,in my book, there is no Paradise in this world.
Life is what you make it.
You really need a laid back attitude and tons of patience to live successfully in Phils.
If you have an arrogant attitude and expect things to get done instantly,then you won’t last,and the frustration could easily give you a heart attack.
regards Chas.
I was married to a Filipina for 25 years. Would have been 24 but the divorce took a long time. She would never take me to the RP. She said I would die there. Old boy friend that had a gun. So I know what it is like to be married to a Filipina but not to live in the RP.
I guess I am a sucker because I am going to move there in a couple of months. I am on SS and my money will go a lot further there than here in Michigan. No more snow. Cheap rent, I am tried of driving a car. Plus I have a lady that is a Bible Woman there. I am ordained so we will get along fine. Paradise?? I know better that that. I just hope to live out my years in peace. The X tried to shoot me to get the life insurance. She pulled the trigger twice on a loaded 12 ga. I had forgotten to show her how to take the safety off. I am ready for some peace!!!
Wow
I appreciate your honesty; but, I can’t imagine where you felt unsafe in Colorado.
Hi Kevin,
Unsafe in Colorado? Oh well, let’s think about 3 break-ins to our house in the last year we live there .. let’s think about shopping center shootings, drive by shootings, church parking lot shootings, road rage shootings at traffic lights, and a few other things like that. Aside from that? Real safe safe to live. Of course that was before the US Army was enlisting convicted criminals and sending them to Iraq to ‘finishing school’ for drugs and weapons and then parking them at Fort Carson when they come back from their tour.
In the first year my wife and I were in Marllao, Philippines, 6 people were shot within a few miles of out former home. Most serious crime I know of in an equal distance from our home here? Someone stole a car left running in front of a house. Oh, and the original padlock for our front gate got stolen, I used to leave it hanging, unlocked on the open gate and apparently a bote’ boy picked it up for the scrap metal.
I could go on, but I don’t want to. It depresses me. I am a military veteran, qualified expert on several weapons, I grew up with guns around all my life … not a hunter, but I certainly could be if the situation warranted … so I am far from your average ‘gun hater’. I know what guns are, I know how to use them, and I have no fear or hatred of guns, per se. But today? The US has gone insane with guns … shooting is now what shouting was when I was a boy.
If something were to cause me to leave the Philippines and live elsewhere, I’m pretty damn sure it wouldn’t be the US anymore, and assuredly not a “hate state” like Colorado … remember, my wife is not white. I won’t even go into some of the ways I personally observed how she was treated in 6 years in Colorado.
Anyway, aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Hi and greetings from the proud home of the Mountain Post, SAFB, PAFB, your Air Force Academy and purple mountain’s majesty.
I find the information you provide very insightful (i.e “adapt to the Philippines“, “the Philippines is not paradise“) and because of your postings I know these things going in. I appreciate that. I believe if you and I had this conversation fact-to-face (perhaps at a hateful Starbucks), we would find some common ground. Colorado is not Paradise, the Philippines is not Paradise, You “take the good with the bad” and in Colorado there is a lot of good and idiots / thugs are usually cowards anyways.
You were deeply wronged by the US and I have lived here a charmed life. So in juxtaposition you can see how I do not share your sentiments about Colorado nor the US.
I repeat, “I can’t imagine where you felt unsafe in Colorado“.
You were a victim of crime and ignorance. Were you afraid? frightful? suspicious? stressed? wary? unwilling to go out at night? jeez
Colorado is very safe, people are open, honest and helpful.
Colorado paradise? not close. Better then most states? YES! Best state, very possibly! “scenery, snow”; i would offer economy, education, business opportunities, cost-of-living, real estate prices, the arts, sports, the great outdoors and safety (real and imagined).
Coloradoans should be ashamed how they treated your wife. I promise those cited would have not gotten away with any disrespectful remarks/ actions towards your wife in front of me, my son nor my son-in-law (3 time finishing school graduate). I don‘t need to tell you there are hateful people with closed minds everywhere. Having lived all over the US (including Runnemede New Jersey), I believe racism, ignorance and intolerance is on the decline. I could be wrong.
So now that we have that out of the way, I hope we can correspond.
Kevin Winterberg
Wntrbrg@comcast.net
The Springs since Oct 1992
P.S. They never finished the play Philly.
P.S.S Put Columbine in your quiver!
Nice defense of a city that I never wanted to discuss in the first place. You sound like you are on the chamber of commerce. Good for you, I just don’t like the place. You know, Ken, you brought this up, I believe all I said originally was that I felt safer here than in the US. “Feeling safe” is a pretty subjective statement anyway, no place on earth is ‘safe’, it’s all in what a person prefers and those preferences are seldom based on hard data. I guess, along with politics, I better take Colorado Springs off my list of tolerable topics, it raises my blood pressure, and I am living the life I am living now in harmony with at least one of Dr. Leary’s principles:
What else do you want to talk about?
Dave: I too hate that term. I’ve traveled to nearly 100 countries in the world, and I’ve never seen a place yet that the term “paradise” applies to. Your site and Bob’s are really the only ones out there that are no “bulls**t”. Just like anywhere else, you take the good with the bad. (I like certain things about Colorado too… scenery, snow. There are also lots of rednecks and arrogant Texans on vacation, and parts of Denver are downright scary)
Believing in Paradise is, I think, more prevalent when you are sitting in Chicago or New York or London on a bleak, gray, late March day, wishing for winter to be over. (When I was in insurance, when I used to walk into the different agents offices, someone always had the requisite screensaver or calendar up with the palm tree, hammock, and beach… Never failed). This naivete just sets people up for disappointment and failure when they get here. As you’ve probably judged from my comments on LiP, I’m a big believer that the problems many expats face here are created by themselves… Usually as a result of the girls, bar, and why isn’t this like home reputation. (That stuff really gets on my nerves, too. Have you ever seen the Dragon Ladies site? The stories on there make me wonder about how much common sense is really common!) The Philippines is what it is, and won’t change. You either adapt or go home or be miserable.
Hi John,
I agree with you 100%.
Yep, there are many things good about Colorado indeed. I tend to go overboard when I get on a kick. Hey, I’m a refugee (escapee) from New Jersey, for that matter, and I could put together a long list of good things about Jersey, too.
It’s all relative, for sure.
Yes i agreed 100%.i live here in PHILS.but i hate my country coz all leader corrup, some peoples no disipline.But i believe not only my country like that.For me no countrys call paradise bcoz i believe only heaven we can call paradise not here in the world.Yes i dream to go other countries but i think the best we do and think dont easily judged the conutrys you think unsafe place,For me whereever you are whatever you do you are not safe.We all live here in this world no one knows what and how and when we die no one knows only GOD.DO everything w/out complaining or arguing,so that you may become blameless and pure,w/out fault in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life,keep away from anger,short -tempered people,or you will learn to be like them and endager soul.Dont just pretend that you love others.really love them.HATE what is wrong stand on the side of the good.LET each of you look not to your own interest but to the interest of others ok!!!!!GOD love us and HE has chosen us as his own special peoples.So be gentle,kind,humble,patient put up each other and forgive anyone whom offened even does wrong with you.LOVE and FORGIVE most important we follow.GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!!!MWAHHHHHH
MAILENE AZUR
iam_sweet082009@yahoo.com
OK, I think in all that was the message, Don’t Hate, and I can agree with that.
MAILENE,
SURE I NEVER HATE GOOD PEOPLES I ONLY HATE BAD PEOPLES DOING BAD LIKE MERCY KILLING ESP.CORRUP LEADERS BCOZ MILLION PEOPLES DONT EAT BCOZ SOME SELFISH LEADERS.BUT I LOVE MY COUNTRY PHILS.COZ MANY PLACES HERE BEAUTIFUL ESP.BEACHES HERE.THATS WHY I WANT TO HELP MY COUNTRY TO MOVE ON AND CHANGE GOOD LEADERS I WISH AND I THIS COMING 2010.GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!!!
OK, fine, but I fear you missed my whole point. ‘hating’ is counter-productive. It’s bad for you physiclaly (stress, blood pressure, etc.). It’s bad for you mentally, and it’s even bad for you spiritually … go read your bible and see what Christ said about hating your enemie versus loving them. That’s why I advise people not to hate. Nothing to do with good or bad, but the hating itself is killing you. That’s also a major problem here in the Philippines … people get killed becuase of insults their ancestors made … just their family name engenders hate. Hate, itself is bad.
We have al these smiling people walking down the street, attending religious celebrations, praying in church and all the other trappings of ‘religion’, but then they walk out of church and kill someone because that person is some certain family name.
It almost seems an act of insanity, but ‘hate’ is very close to insanity, so perhaps it is .. especially during ‘election season’. The world, including the Philippines, needs less hate.