PhilFAQS

Let’s see, I left off yesterday leaving the bank with my new-found wealth in hand. Looking back I noticed I had mentioned security but didn’t cover the part which will really seem strange to any foreigners who haven’t visited before … guards at the door.

photo credit: txd
The pedestrian entrances to the mall all have armed, uniformed guards, all day, every day. Normally when you walk in there will be a table where handbags and packages get examined and a sign that says “male” with an arrow pointing one way and “Female” pointing to the opposite end of the table. There will be a guard, almost always in a white uniform shirt and often with a tiny stick in his or her hand … this stick magically’ inspects purses and bags … I’m guessing it’s just a magnet … and then the guard will always ‘feel you up’ and the waist and especially in the small of the back checking for hidden weapons.

I’m not a security expert but I did serve in the military for some years and I went through several special security courses where we were taught to frisk people for weapons. Without going into too many details, these folks have no clue. Their procedures are rudimentary at best and will not detect even some amateurish attempts to walk in with a concealed weapon, but I am sure they have a psychological effect on potential bad guys and they certainly cause no harm, so I just raise my arms, smile and say hello. As the signs always say; “Please submit to our security procedures” … I submit. Occasionally there won’t be a male guard so a female guard will substitute … they seem very squeamish inspecting men; I’m sure it’s extremely uncomfortable for them to be stuck in that job

Doesn’t bother me of course … occasionally there’s a male guard who seems a little too interested in rubbing my behind to suit me but hey, it’s a rainbow world these days, don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue

Every store that is more than a mom and pop will have its own security grads inside and the banks keep their doors closed, opening them only when the guard outside the door has frisked you yet again and determined that you actually have business in the bank. They do take the security pretty seriously.

So I passed by the two sets of security guards in the Hypermarket entryway, the supermarket subsidiary of SM malls and caught up with Mita who was almost ready to check out. There’s a variety of checkout choices. Express lanes for hand baskets at either end of the row of check stands, lines for senior citizens (I don’t take these because although I am one, in the Philippines this is a special government program and I don’t want to get asked for my ID card).

There are lines for a particular brand of credit card that SM and their partners, the BDO bank are pushing … I think you get an extra half a percentage point rebate if you use these aisles and that card, kinda like Discover Card in the US but you already know my thoughts on Philippine-issued credit cards. We have one, for emergency use only; I sure am not going to start charging groceries on it.

Then there’s a special “Prestige Line” which we use because Mita has a super-slick “Prestige” Advantage Card. Everybody has an SM Advantage card it seems, you use it whenever you check out and after you spend a few hundred thousand pesos you have 100 pesos on the card to spend as you like. It’s actually better odds than that. I have mine too, because just like ordering a meal without rice, checking out without an advantage card makes the otherwise very easygoing and pleasant sales ladies very nervous… it’s their job to ask for it and if you don’t have one, someone in marketing isn’t doing their job.

We get through the checkout before the Daily Prayer came over the PA system … that doesn’t stop everyone in their tracks but it definitely halts store operations … with all the really poor countries in the world who have never even heard of the Bible or the Gospel story it always amazes me how many missionaries can’t wait to come to the Philippines, a land where 90% of the population is baptized in one church or another and the rest are practicing Muslims. I guess it’s because it’s easier to try to get believers to ’switch brands’ than it is to start from scratch in a country where prayer isn’t already an integral part of daily life. This is not the place for an Atheist.

Our checkout did get interrupted by anther ritual… the Japanese sounding ‘my dog has leas’ tones come over the loud speaker and a voice intones ‘Welcome to SM” and then every employee in the store drops what they are doing , claps their hands three times and chants’ “Happy to serve You,”. It’s not an ingrained ritual or anything, only happens about three times each and every hour

The next interruption was my pet peeve. My honey purchased some lovely fresh, young pusit .. squid from the fish vendor who has a contract to run the sea food operations in the supermarket and, as has happened numerous times before, the bar code label is scrunched up down inside the bag and can’t be read. No matter how you try getting these guys to properly label their bags of weighed merchandise is a losing proposition.

Finally the runner comes back with the bag legibly labeled and I hand over the loot … 3900.85 Pesos for 67 items, 2771.65 pesos worth were taxable items for a total 12% VAT tax of PhP 332.60, there were a total of 8 plastic bags used (the guards count and compare to the receipt when you leave, the cahier’s name was Manilyn R. Rivera and we had 913.45 Pesos worth of “Buy Me” items, yet another promo, which entailed atrip to a special counter where the give you a free scratch off lottery ticket … which as usual, won nothing … but as a consolation we were allowed to spin a wheel which stopped on a bottle of Coke prize. To “avail” of the bottle of Coke you take a form from the consolation prize lady over to the Customer Service window where you get your bottle, sign a lob book and take the bottle back to the Consolation Prize lady to sign another receipt to prove we actually got the prize and had our cash register tape stamped and countersigned to prove to the guards that we didn’t steal the bottle of coke.

I’m laughing when I am writing this because I know some of you are going to be saying, “This guy is crazy, how absurd, he’s making this all up.” Well, as my friend Mr. Dave Barry once was famous for saying. “I’m not making this up.” This is just a normal, everyday trip to the grocery store. Promos, prizes, “gimmicks” and prayers, log book signing, receipt stamping and counter-stamping are an integral part of retailing in the Philippines.

Since it had stopped raining we decided to get take out food and get home while it was dry, so we bought a couple servings of fried calamari rings at one stand (20 pesos each 5 piece order), an order of scallop dumplings, (34 pesos), and a couple orders of beef dumplings with noodles also 34 pesos a serving. Total cost for lunch then was about 142 pesos.

Make for the exit, get all the receipts in order for checking and the guard didn’t feel like counting bags today and just waved us through. Into the car, dig the parking receipt out from my wallet, drive through one more checkpoint where they take the parking slip and compare it to your license plate and we’re finally on the road home. Time elapsed? A little more than an hour and 50 minutes. Money spent in total, a little over $80 USD. Experiences to be savored, endured pr occasionally cursed? Priceless.

So many people always search here for prices I thought I would throw in a link to reader Ellen’s blog. Ellen write mainly about her cruising lifestyle (she’s the only returning Filipino OFW I know who never paid a dime in airfare to come home) and many of you may not be interested in boats. But her current post gives some excellent ideas abut prices in another area of the Philippines, Davao, and has some great market pictures. Where I live we do not have markets with the quality and variety you would get in Davao, Cebu or even in more rural areas of Luzon, but it’s all good for all of us, in one way or another.

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