I often get quizzed by fellow Americans about the  dangers of living in the Philippines.  Although I try to keep a level-head view there are times some of these inquires get under my ski9n a bit, because they are often phrased as if I were living here in total ignorance and that the questioners, speaking from the outside, with no experience are somehow smarter than I am, actually on the scene and living here full time. You may indeed be smarter than me, but as an old friend of mine was wont to say … I may be dumb, but I ain’t stupid.

I have an income that meets my needs … and it is an income for life … actually for my life or my spouses, whomever dies last … and it is adequate to live virtually anywhere we choose to.  My wife and I both carry "blue" passports, so we can live in literally dozens of countries aside from the Philippines and the US … our native countries, respectively.

So do you really think I would be living here if I felt any significant danger?  Come on if I felt I was in any significant danger because of my choice of where I live, I would be on the next plane out.  I have no property here and nothing that prevents me from leaving, at will.

I actually feel a lot safer living where I do now than I did the last few years in Colorado, USA.  Aside from the frequent school shootings, mall shooting, church shootings and the low life bums who broke into our home three times in the last year of living in the United States, it’s pretty safe to live there … sort of. 

Here’s one comparison factor that might be of some interest:

Secretary Puno said that the Bureau of Jail and Management and Penology (BJMP) studies show that the total jail population could reach 89,000 in 2008; 101,350 in 2009; and 114,930 in 2010. See the Philippine Info Agency site here.

Rounding of numbers that looks like around the end of this year there will be 100,000 Filipinos out of a population of about 92,000,000.  That’s about 1.08% of the Philippine population who have committed some crime and shown themselves as being dangerous to warrant confinement.

In the US this February we set the sort of record I am sure President Bush is really proud of … 1 in every 100 Americans in in jail… see some more sobering stats here.  At least three times as many are on parole, so that makes your chances of rubbing shoulders with a felon several times higher in the US than in the Philippines, statistically speaking.  (why the dig at Mr. Bush?  Texas has the distinction of having the largest prison population of any US state. (drive south from Amarillo some day, gaze at the sea of prison roofs vanishing off into the distance and wonder, "what the Hell has become of our once proud country" … I know I have.  The US prison population, by the way, is growing at a near 5% per annum rate, far more than the much maligned Philippines population growth rate, and roughly 3 times the total population growth rate.

So, if you are currently living in the US of A and love it, that’s great.  It’s my country too, and I surely don’t desire to be the citizen of any other country.  But don’t base your judgement of other countries on the perceived dangers of those other countries without taking a good close look at your own backyard.

One of the main reasons I live in the Philippines a9and put up with the negative factors of living here as well as the positive) is that I feel far safer here, personally, than I did in the US of A.

Popularity: 2% [?]