Is PhilHealth Worth It?

(Updated 5 March 2020)

I have probably had this question, “Is PhilHealth Worth It?” repeatedly asked more than a hundred times since I moved to the Philippines, full-time, in 2006.

My answer is almost always a resounding yes, but a great many ex-pats will tend to disagree with me. This opinion generally seems from the attitude of most North Americans (at least those who actually even bother to HAVE health insurance) that to be worth anything. health insurance has to cover all expenses.  PhilHealth does NOT cover all costs involved with every sickness or surgery, but it is one hell of a lot better than having no health insurance at all … and when you get sick (not IF, but WHEN) you’ll be damn glad to have it.

[Read more…] about Is PhilHealth Worth It?

Will your disability be payable in the Philippines? 

(Updated 27 February 2020)

The answer to this frequent question is a definite yes, no or maybe.  I hate to sound flippant but this is one of those questions that can only be answered with another question.

What do you mean by Social Security Disability?

I get a lot of questions on this subject because while Social Security Disability payments are quite common, and they are supposed to cover the expenses of folks who are permanently disabled, they are very, very hard to live on in the USA.

The average disability monthly payment will support most people who live in the Philippines.  But there are some major factors to consider:

Will your disability be payable in the Philippines?

There are typically two categories of disability payments from the SSA (Social Security Administration)  — Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).

SSDI _IS_ payable in the Philippines.

SSI is _NOT_ payable in the Philippines.

So before you make your plans to move to the Philippines and live off your disability payments, you better check very closely to make sure your payments will continue should you move here.

Be very careful about this because there are many folks on SSDI who also receive a monthly SSI supplement.  If you leave the USA for more than 30 days, your SSI supplementary payments will stop, and they can’t ever be restarted until you have been back in the USA for 30 days or more.

So your SSDI payments can continue if you move to the Philippines, but if you also have an SSI component to your payment, it’s going to stop 30 days after you leave the USA.

So you may well wind up with a greatly reduced payment.

Can you then actually receive that payment?

The Social Security Administration contracts with several commercial banks to send overseas payments to overseas recipients.

But don’t think you are going to receive a check in your mailbox.

Americans receiving government pensions may have those pensions direct deposited to their Philippine bank accounts.  Participating banks include the following followed by the fees each charges per direct deposit to a U.S. dollar account in the Philippines.

Allied Banking Corporation – $3.00
Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) – $3.00
Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) – $5.00
Land Bank of the Philippines – $5.00
Maybank – $3.00
Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB) – $3.00
China Bank – $3.00
RCBC – $3.00 to $5.00
Bank of Commerce (BOC) – $5.00 to $7.00
Manila Bank – $1.00
Security Bank – $5.00
United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) – $4.00 to $6.00
Metrobank – $3.00
Philippine National Bank – $7.00

The banks with variable fees charge more for larger direct deposits.

How Do You Start Direct Deposit of your Benefits?

If you’d like to sign up for direct deposit in the Philippines go to the bank you have chosen, open a US Dollar account and ask for the direct deposit enrollment form.

The bank will help you fill it out and the bank will submit the form to Social Security representatives in Manila.

The account into which the funds are paid must be an individual account.  For example, you can not deposit into a joint account with your wife or a child or caregiver.

A Social Security concern is that benefits may continue to be paid and spent long after the pensioner has expired.

So you CAN receive your benefits by direct deposit in the Philippines, but it is not necessarily easy.

For an authoritative Reading On Receiving benefits overseas, you may find this

Payments Outside the United States tool useful

 

So Now You Know More About Will your disability be payable in the Philippines? 

How long does my round-trip ticket have to be to go to the Philippines?

(Updated 25 February 2020)

The answer to this question can be very simple.  You get 30 days of stay in the Philippines, free, upon arrival at an airport in the Philippines.

But who said you need a round trip ticket?  That’s the complicated part.

The Law of the Philippines and the Rule Airlines Follow Is:

You must have onward travel out of the Philippines within 30 days of your arrival.  If you don’t have this onward travel, the airlines normally will not let you board your flight from the US to the Philippines.  But nowhere does any law say you must have a round trip ticket back to the USA.  That’s the first issue that complicates the answer to the question.

But I WANT A Round Trip Ticket

OK, then, that’s fine.  Many people do.  Perhaps you only have so many days off from work, or you have other reasons you have to be back in the USA by a certain date.

No problem then, a round trip ticket from any USA cu=ity is normally quite a bit cheaper than two one-way tickets.  Here’s a real-world example with prices quoted today, 25 February 2020.

Kansas City to Manila and return: Depart 9ak March 12th,

and the return on April 12th:

Not bad connections and not bad arrival and departure times.

But Is a One-Way Just Half Of That Price

And the answer is no, it’s almost always way more than one half.  Let me try to see what a one way, same date and time would cost.

And a return on the 12th of April?

 

So we can see here, same dates, basically, the same airlines (cheapest) have a round trip cost of $1377.22

And the equivalent two single tickets (one-way) tickets add up to $1747.46   More than $370 “surcharge” for buying the same travel in two parts.

Or you could also say that buying the round trip airfare saves you more than $370 to spend on hotels. food.local travel and such.

Thanks, A Lot, I know I Want A Round Trip … But How Many Days Is What I Asked?

Yes, you did.  And the answer, which I already gave in the first paragraphs is 30 days.  But this may pose another question.  How do you determine what 30 days means to the BIR (Bureau of Immigration) in the Philippines?

Here are the rules that apply.

1,  The day your flight arrives is the first day of your stay in the Philippines.  Because of the day the BIR “counts”, you may want to think twice about your planned arrival time in the Philippines.  For example, if your flight arrives here leat at night, as many do, then most of your “first day in the Philippines” may be consumed in your final cramped hours in an airline seat.

On the other hand if you pick a fight that arrives here very early in the morning, you essentially get a “free day” in the Philippines.

Not a huge consideration, buy-t never-the-less something to think about.

2.  The day your outbound airplane departs is _NOT_ a Day Of Stay in the Philippines.  So technically, if the last day of your 30-day stay is on a Wednesday, and your outbound flight leaves the following day, Thursday, you should be “golden” according to the BIR rules.

Let’s look at the example flights I priced up at the beginning of the article here.

Depart MCI (Kansas City) on 12 March ay 9:15 am.  You arrive in Manila, after less than 24 hours of total travel time, at 9:45 on the night of (not the 12th but the 13th … you have to cross the International Date Line, so you are always going to lose a day going to the Philippines.)

So if your plane arrives on schedule, your “30 days of stay” clock starts with the 13th of March,  So on 31 March, the last day of the month, you will have used up 19 of your 30 days.  11 days to go.  From 1 April to 11 April is (count them up, surprise, 11 days) so with our outbound flight scheduled on Sunday, the 12th, isn’t there a problem?  The 12th is the 31st day, after all.

Nope, no problem at all.  Remember the second rule I explained above?  The day your flight leaves is _NOT_ a “Day of Stay”, so the immigration officer will be all smiles as you get your passport stamped for departure prior to boarding your flight home. 30 days of stay allowed, 30 days of stay used up … maximum bang for your buck.

(remember that id your stay extends of[ver the end of a 30 day, or a 28 or 29 day month, to count properly … if you are staying over a 3o day month, you can arrive on the 12 and schedule your departure on the 13th of the following month.)

(Also, note … that day you “lost” coming here?  Well, you get it back on your trip home … you leave the Philippines and you’ll be back in the USA on the same day you left here, almost no matter how many hours your flight consumes.

OK, I Understand Now, But What If I Don’t Know When I want To Go Back?

Well, there is an easy work-around for that.  It’s normally called a “show” ticket or a “throwaway ticket”.

Simply purchase a one-way ticket from your home to the Philippines,

Then also purchase a ticket outbound from the Philippines at any time within your initial 30 days, bound for anywhere.  The date and time nor destination don’t matter much, just make sure it’s cheap because you are never going to actually use that ticket.

It is just for “show” to satisfy the airlines’s requirements (and possibly the BIR officer’s requirement) when you arrive in the Philippines.  Once you are “in”, you’re in.

If you want to stay longer than the original 30 days, you can extend your stay, 30 or 60 days at a time, at any of the Bureau of Immigration offices located all over the Philippines.  They never ask for any onward travel and you can extend, 1 or 2 months at a time for up to three years in the Philipines … then leave once, come back and start the clock all over again.

That original “show” ticket?  Well, you just throw it away (or if it is an e-ticket, just hit delete.

Where To Get a Throwaway Ticket?

Simple.  Just type Philippine Throw Away Ticket into Google … there will be dozens of places shown.  Or you can do what I would do.  Go to  Cebu Pacific Airlines and check flight to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia from Manila.  Right now you can buy a ticket to Kota Kinabalu on the 29th of March for 2055 Philippine Pesos, or about $41 USD.  Buy it (ir will come as an e-ticket and hang on to it (showing it as needed) until you are safely through immigration in Manila, then delet it … it has served you well.

Two Questions For The Price Of One Answered Here

1.   How can I fly to the Philippines on a one-way ticket and how How long does my round-trip ticket have to be to go to the Philippines?

What else would you like to know?  You ask, I answer,

In case you are not aware, the Manila U.S. Embassy’s phone number changed recently.

It is now: 02-5-301-2000.

The sneaky 5 was added.

The Social Security office can also be reached at that number.

When the recording starts, press 9. Social Security only takes calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8am to 11am.

Thanks and a tip of the hat to the folks at RAO Subic Bay.

Also, and a further tip of the hat to reader Lewis:

Anyway, I called the U.S. Embassy (today, Dec. 9, 2019), to get the numbers for the Visa Call Center, and the numbers given in the recording are not complete/correct. I called the embassy mainline, got the operator and got the correct numbers. Please take note:

02-8548-8223
02-7792-8988

3900 Marbles and Health Insurance.

(Updated 04 DECEMBER 2019)

Let me ask you folks a question.  I just had a conversation with a lady who wanted to bounce some ideas off me about business.  It was a pleasant conversation, but there was one “take away” from it that still kind of rings in my ear and rattles around in my brain, even an hour or more after our conversation ended.

The main thrust we were talking about involved health care and health services and she made a statement right along in the regular flow of the conversation that I have probably heard a thousand times before … but it just jumped right out at me this time, and I have been thinking about it ever since.

The statement went something like this …”after all, if we are talking to retirees, their absolute number one concern is health insurance.”

Retiree’s Absolute Number One Concern is Health Insurance?

[Read more…] about 3900 Marbles and Health Insurance — 2019

Is Your Child a Citizen?

(Updated 05 December 2019)

Here’s a comment I recently received that may interest a lot more readers than just the guy who made the comment.

So I thought I’d take a few minutes and answer this reader’s questions in more detail, for the benefit of others who may pass by here as well.

The subject is something a lot of you out there have already dealt with, or will deal with, or have been wondering about …

But then many of you reading this may be Filipino citizens.  Does that make any difference in the child’s citizenship acquired at birth (often called “birthright citizenship”?

Well yes, indeed it does.  more citizenship information here

and here, U.S. Citizenship Through Parents or by Birth

Before you click on the “More” link to read the rest of this article, remember one important caveat.  I am not a lawyer, I can’t give legal advice and nothing I write here is to be considered legal advice.  This is my own personal opinion based upon my own research.

Now, if you’d like to read on. [Read more…] about Is Your Child a Citizen?

How To Stay Long-Term in the Philippines — Balikbayan Privilege

(Updated 16 October 2019)

I’ve written several recent articles about staying long-term in the Philippines.  If you haven’t seen them you can read them here:

How long can you stay in the Philippines if you are a US citizen?

Ways To Stay Long-Term in the Philippines — Part 2

Staying for an extended time on a tourist visa or with many of the permanent residency visas the Philippines offers can run into some money.

How about a way that requires no forms or applications to fill up and which is absolutely free?

Interested?  It’s called the One-year Visa-free Balikbayan Privilege.  If you want to learn more, just click the “More” link and I’ll give you the lowdown.

[Read more…] about Ways To Stay Long-Term in the Philippines — Part 3

What Top Right Corner is that, Dave?

(Updated 5 December 2019)

Umm, this page you are reading right now.  Or any page on this site.

I’m asking because I have software that tracks where people have visited, and I notice that two of the absolute least visited pages on this site are the  FAQS page (that used to be a commonly understood acronym/abbreviation for “Frequently Asked Questions” and the Best Places Philippines page.

The FAQS page:

In some ways, years ago, I thought this would be the most important and helpful page on this site.  Whenever someone would ask a question of common interest … such as say “How Long Can I Stay in the Philippines?” I would enter that question on the FAQS page along with a concise answer.

That’s what having a FAQS section is all about … people can visit there and get answers to their questions without wasting their time and mine in asig the same question over and over again.

I explained it here and even included a link for people to ask additional questions with just a single click.

Here I will list Philippine FAQS (and answers) as they come in.  I’ll attempt to put them in some sort of order, but issues and opportunities arrive in random bursts, so many of these Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS) will as well.  Got a question you don’t see “Asked and Answered” here already?  “Shoot it to me” here:  Contact Philly.

Apparently, this was a dumb idea, since no one ever visits or leaves additional questions.

Any suggestion?

The Best Places Philippines Page:

I started this page a long time ago as a place where readers could see “their” place on the Philippines “on the map” so to speak.

Each blue pin on the map, when clicked on, shows the name of the reader who posted it as well as a capsule description as to why this might be the “best place in the Philippines” for you.

So many people have the question in their minds as to where they ought to move to in the Philippines … yet so few ever visit the map and have a look.

It’s a full-fledged link into Google Maps.  You can do so much more than just look at some pins on a map.

For example, here’s what you see if you zoom in on my own pin on my home here in Marilao, Bulacan on Luzon.

You Can Learn A Lot About The Philippines With Google Maps

Also, be sure to go to maps.google.com and try the “satellite view”.

For example, how would traffic be if I left mt home right now to drive to my local SM City Mall?

So what do you think?  Why don’t people make more use of the map?

 

Top 10 Art Schools – 2018

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