Visting next month...

Hi Jim,

Welcome to Expat.com!

Hi Jim, welcome to our humble land. I hope you enjoy your stay here. I would be willing to help you if you have any queries or problems.  Members here are friendly and helpful. I can also be a friend if you want.

Cheers!

hi jim visit also cagayan de oro city, it is a nice city to stay in the Philippines

bing

Welcome to the Philippines!  I'm sure you will soon discover great places and cultures in my country. 
Please ask if you need to know anything to help you settle.  All the best to you!

Hello Jim. My name is Don and I was your neighbor when I lived in Vallejo. I came to the Philippines after I retired from teaching. You may know that there are over 50,000 Filipinos in Vallejo.
Well, the people here are not like the majority of the Filipinos back home. First of all, I am married to a Filipina and have a baby boy. We live here in Leyte. I wanted to tell you that so you know I am speaking from experience.
First of all, please be careful while you are in the Philippines. Honest to God, most people are going to think that you are rich and try to take advantage of you at every turn. Don't lend any money, don't get married quickly, (take your time if that is your intention), stay calm when people purposely try to give you a bad time.
I would not suggest retiring in this country. We foreigners can never own land, so its hard to put down roots. It is so hard to trust anyone to become friends with. Nearly everyone you meet will have an angle lined up for you.
Remember, that all the people you will meet have gotten along quite well with out you or your money their entire lifes. You are not going to end up helping anyone. Enabling people is not helping them. Providing a job is great. But dont give money to people or provide for people who dont really need it. You are just making us foreigners look stupid, because to many Filipinos, anyone giving money to them is stupid, get the picture?? Write to me if you have any questions, like about immigration, etc.
Sincerely
Don Davis

well, yeah, sad to say that there are those who are taking advantage of other people, but not all people are like that though. Just be careful in dealing with other people, it's okay to befriend them but also at the same time be cautious. Filipinos are very friendly and approachable and hospitable people. But just like any other people in any parts of the globe, there are the good and bad ones.

On the lighter note, there are many foreigners and expats who enjoyed their stay in the phils, and they keep coming back here. some even made this their new home!

I will say that foreigner who are down on their luck (as we aussies say it) are worse than Fillipinos for trying to con money from other foreigners, we have a lot of foreigner here in Naga City and often have a few beers together, the broke blokes are always sponging on the others,
so watch out for all people DO NOT LEND OR GIVE MONEY TO ANYONE

Totally agree with everything dondee31 and blueoakey wrote.

hi dondee31
your advice to your neighbor jim is good exactly correct.
for all who would like to retired setle down life in the phillipines. plz be careful no no no NOT recomended at all.
not all pilipinos is friendly, approachable, hospitable
even do goverment worker who is educated will tell us fuck off and go home. i thought philippines need foriegners tourist investor to invest business. about land we connot owned property land here if we foriegners married to the filipina everything will be in the wife's name we as foriegners no rights at all zero point zero. mostly pilipino think we are rich. so they do there best to suck-out foriegners. like we come here in the phillippines single buy the property and put in the bestfriend pilipino man who is goverment employe so you can trust really good. then if foriegners can settle down can find the good wife filipina have a good happy familly with kids, we think the trustee filipino bestfriend will sorrender the property to our wife's NAME? NOT AT ALL.  thats why plz to all foriegners who would like to come retired here in the philippines be careful
if the phillipines will change  there LAW that foriegners can own property here,philippines will booming be a rich country, bad crook scamers attetude of some pilipino who put all pilipino in a verry bad repution to all foreigners.
mostly foriegners beach ressort owners or a foriegner who is engage in buying property all of them have a really bad problem include me!
ps carefull to invest here in the philippines

Hello Flying Fox,
I truly wish I was completely wrong about the Filipino people, but I sincerely believe that I am not. The entire culture of the Philippines is corrupted. No part of this society runs honestly and fairly. Whether is the government, industry, the Catholic Church, the military, police, universities, medicine, communications, etc. No matter what laws they may have on the books, everything in this country is for sale. Just watch the impeachment procedures against the head of the supreme court. The corruption here is legendary and known world wide. There is so little foreign investment here because of the endemic level of corruption.
My wife has talked about buying a house here, but there is NO way in the world I would ever do that. When it comes to money, I do not even trust my own wife. Too many foreigners have lost their life savings in land and housing rip-offs.
The worse part is, that no matter what I do for any Filipino person, it is never enough. When I die, or leave this country, no one will remember my kindness or help. It would have been like I was never here.

well there are a lot of BROKE foreigners here, mostly because they trusted Filipinoes with their money, even their wifes
we have one Pommie in Naga who lives on the streets and sells whatever he can too eat, we have others who went into business thinking it was easy to make money here, it's not by a long shot.
look all foreigner living here(or intenting to live here) should have an income oversea(like pension or returns from investment)
and I know lots that do, they are careful with their money(some call them tight) but u goota be, watch ever peso, even today we descovered that our filipino barman at our local drinking hole increase our bill if he think we will not notice and pockets the money, bloody hell can u trust anyone??????
Pete

Hi Guys, I have moved to Angeles to get away from my girlfriend's family.  I got sick of the begging, BS'ing, stealing, expecting, pack of parasites.  I have told my girl she and her son can join me and we can be a family again, but she leaves her family behind.  I know it is a tough choice for a Filipina to make, it has also been a tough choice for me to make as I love them both very much.  BUT i only have enough money us, not the whole damn clan.

not whole our life we support the whole clan family. they will not work anymore for there own,they just wait for everything still not enough we give then they will steal.

about stealing. mostlly tourist foriegners have a really bad experience here in the philippines. all the door of my house gone they still even the light bulb the switch everything. i have this tourist imformation mostly tourist complain about there badtrip experience stealing there surfboard,shoes,camera everything. if there is good law punishment,good management there will be no bad record like this. if you refort to the Police Station. the police will blame us! as a foriegners they say why you dont careful your things?

if you like to invest business dont think that you can get back easily your investment specially if you are in a good hands partner together with the crooks scammers.

except to those good pilipino

to those who planning to come and retired here in the phillippines, be careful.

Hey Kiwi,

Wow, you made a big move to get away from your girl friends family..now let's see if your girl friend will accept that. Please forgive me, but there is a business in this country of Filipinas irresponsibly getting pregnant by their "true love" Filipino man. Then of course as soon as she becomes pregnant, the man is off to conquer another one. Then the Filipina goes looking for a foreigner to take care of her and her "love-child". It really is a scam. There is a chance that your girl friend does not love you at all and NEVER will. IF that is ok with you, then fine, but if you really want the kind of love we in the west grew up learning about, you probably will not get it here.

Hey dondee31 can't disagree with anything you posted.  I don't know if the girl really loves me, and to be honest I am not head over heels in love with her (I gave up those emotions long ago).  However I do love her son very much, and want to see he gets a good education and does not become a useless piece of trash like the rest of her family.  That is why I am careful with money, so I can provide for him and look after his mother, and one day she may love me for that.  I know us Westerners and Filipinos have a different way of thinking, we long term, they short term, however it is my money and therefore my way of thinking wins.

Kiwi,

Good luck and I am glad your girl friend's son has you looking after his current and long term well fare.  Not much more I can say.

Don

dondee31 wrote:

The worse part is, that no matter what I do for any Filipino person, it is never enough. When I die, or leave this country, no one will remember my kindness or help. It would have been like I was never here.

Remember that not all Filipinos are like that & there's always that one person who'll remember you for your kindness