Lenny Gemar

We enjoyed our five-night stay at Azalea Hotels & Residences Baguio, just across the street from the north entrance to Teacher's Camp.  While we can recommend it, I'm sure there are plenty of other places just as nice.  It depends on ... Read More

in 2019 I went into the BIR office in Kalibo and got a TIN within about 15 minutes. I'm not paying any taxes but needed it for some other government paperwork. My only income is retirement income from the USA, which is not taxed by the ... Read More

@nickfisher0640 I've heard differing responses. Some say leave and return the same day and others it must be 24 hours. It probably depends on the immigration agent you get when you return. To be safe, make it an overnight somewhere or even a ... Read More

@info65641 You would need to get an amateur license here in the Philippines. You don't qualify for a reciprocal permit as you don't already hold an amateur license in Australia.I just went through the whole process, starting in August of 2022 and ... Read More

Before adding solar, our monthly bill averaged 25k (pesos) each month. Since we added a net-metering solar system 16 months ago, it runs around 13k, which isn't bad since we've had a lot of cloud cover over the past six months. The solar dropped ... Read More

I made my entries on the website and then the next day I went armed with my passport, iACR, and 310P. In and out in about 10 minutes in Kalibo. Read More

@baxi2775 yes. That’s why we built our house with concrete and steel. Only the door frames and doors are wood, and of course some furniture. But absolutely nothing structural is wood. You have to do that if you want your house to survive ... Read More

I converted my US license to a Philippine license 60 days into my 12-month BB privilege. My passport, US DL, and a barangay ID card were the only paperwork I needed. Every office is different as I have heard, so trying another office may be the ... Read More

@Professor Stygian you have options. Theoretically, you could live here just fine with no visa whatsoever. When my wife and I retired here, we entered the country as Balikbayan. That's a privilege (not a visa) that is available where if you enter ... Read More

It looks like you have two choices. I did this with my wife 45 years ago so my experience is rather dated.If you are a U.S. citizen you have two ways to bring your foreign spouse (husband or wife) to the United States to live. They are:1) Immigrant ... Read More

My wife and I retired to her home barangay pre-pandemic in April 2019. We built our retirement house and visited the USA for Christmas that year. It was only a couple of months after we returned when COVID became prevalent in the news. April 1st, ... Read More

Ours was ₱13.85/kWh for February. Thank heaven for the ₱55.36 exchange rate. Read More

Our kWh peak at AKELCO (Aklan) appears to have been in November. The last two bills have fallen a bit.₱13.5686 Aug₱15.1160 Sep₱15.0511 Oct₱15.3504 Nov₱15.4116 Dec₱14.5313 Jan₱9.6204 was what we paid ... Read More

Honestly, I don't think I've had any issues with four-wheel drivers. It's the motorcycles and tricycles that pull out without warning or even looking, hanging in the fast lane when there is a perfectly good slow lane on the right. Driving at dusk ... Read More

@attykroll It is Internet service only. It can provide a path for VOIP phones (or Messenger or any other number of video/voice services) but doesn't provide a phone terminal to connect to a telephone. In my case I use a POTS phone connected to an ... Read More

We have three tankless heaters. One in the kitchen so that we can wash and rinse dishes with hot water. And two (one in each bathroom shower) so that we can take warm/hot showers. We had no need for one for the washing machines as cold water ... Read More

I most often meet expats in restaurants or maybe while I'm waiting on my wife to get out of the CR in a mall. I always smile and give a nod of acknowledgement and if they seem agreeable I'll ask where they live and where they're from. While most ... Read More

I have gotten a Smart home modem (pre-paid) and load up with 30-day unlimited data once every month for 999P. Globe may have a similar deal as well, though I don't know that. It works well since I can see the tower 1km away and I run my whole ... Read More

@pilotdrh That's interesting. I didn't realize that 13A added a physical exam if you applied outside of the PI. I knew the SRRV requires it and I had gotten that done as part of my SRRV preparation, but then they suspended SRRV apps so I ... Read More

There have been many good replies to this post already so I'll simply share my experience.When we retired here in 2019, my original plan was just to use the BB (Balikbayan privilege) to stay here. Leaving for at least one day every year seemed like ... Read More

Howdy, all! I'm Lenny and retired to the Philippines with my Filipina in 2019. Married in 1979, she moved to the States with me in 1980 where we lived until retirement. We built our Filipino retirement home on land she inherited from her dad out ... Read More

@peterzapfella Howdy. I got to visit Perth in 1985, which seems like a lifetime ago. I remember it as a beautiful, laid-back city not dissimilar to the way San Diego was probably 20 years earlier. Maybe we'll catch up on the airwaves sometime.73, ... Read More

The Philippine government bureaucracy is quite a nightmare. That said, my wife and I got our reciprocal permits in about five days. Yeah, the paperwork is stupid. Their requirements are pretty draconian. But I brought in all my radios and ... Read More