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It is highly doubtful he will save anything. Every contract I havce looked at, if you pay it off early you still pay the full interest on the entier term of the loan.

 

I totally agree with everything you say Shawn, my wife and Daughter have absolutely NO interest in living abroad, they would like to visit, but live there, no! And to live abroad, I would not like them to experience life there full time, not live the life I lived and the life my kids have to live there working their asses off getting nowhere fast.

We bought 2000m2 close by but do not plan to build a house there, it is purely to one day build Pig Sty's and hopefully generate an income one day where we can buy a house in a more convenient location, so basically I want to leave my Wife and Daughter something that can generate an income for them and provide for their future after I am gone. As you stated if I was in the West and things go belly up I would stand to lose most everything anyways, so like before, if it does go that way I will simply pick myself up, move on and start again... I have no problem with that.

I have the benefit of hindsight (in the West) which I have have learnt a big lesson from and carefully put to good use in my decision in my life to marry my Wife here and live here (in the East) I am taking everything one step at a time, I have a plan and we are slowly achieving what it is we are setting out to do as a team instead of me being the only one doing all of the work like before.

I have been watching/speaking with some other expats here and the ignorance and arrogance factor of some amaze me! They wonder why they are doing it tough here and for me they are getting exactly what they deserve! Believing that they are superior to, greater than, mightier than, smarter than, know everything and ridicule anyone else's suggestions because they know better, yet are grovelling to make it work here, I have resigned myself to zip my lips, turn my back, and let them self destruct! Who am I to worry what they think or do... My Wife and Daughter are my ONLY concern.

 

My first thought is where are these 2 runways? I have only seen one runway in Sibulan. Do they give it a different number if the plane comes in over the water instead of coming in over the land?

My second thought is that three rich people will be very happy with all this. Those being 1, the guy selling land in Bacong to build a new airport, 2, the guy who will get the contract to build a new airport and 3, the guy who will end up with the land in Sibulan that the current airport sits on. Yep, 3 very happy people out there stirring this up.

I can't imagine it being any cheaper to build a whole new airport than it would be to cut down a tree and expand the existing one into the water further, but its not about saving money, its about rich filipinos getting richer.

 

Actually it's neither a blackout nor a brownout, it's a power cut

"There's no such thing as American English. There is English and there are mistakes."

 

about visa: I find it very comfortable here in Phils, on a 6 months tourist visa, extension without problems for a fair ammount right here in town...I almost forgot the horrible visa runs in Thailand every 3 months where I had to leave the country just for a minute...
about relationship: there is a nice saying in asia: no money, no honey. turn it around and you have the perfect recipe for a great relationship, whatever kind of. don't be cheap charly, it doesn't work anywhere in the world, and espacially not here in asia. give a fair allowance and feed the girl 5 times a day and you get the best partner here. -only problem she will gain weight :-)

 

There's a bit of a customer service mafia here. People pull up with their foreigner dollars, daring to bring the service. And they go guns blazing if the service is bad. It seems like a power play. People who have money feel entitled to good service, maybe because nobody else will treat them well.

I fall into the same trap sometimes, but I try to beat it back when I feel it creeping up. There are resto-bars which have signature dishes I love and I will go back even though the service is terrible. There is a place I went to the other day which has a sign which says "don't complain about the service because there is none". When I asked for a beer he pointed to the fridge and I helped myself. I sat and listened to his stories and he is probably the most interesting person I have met in this region. I will be back.

The Philippines is an adventure, not good service.

It's the job of the top dog (where the buck stops, probably the owner in most cases here) to set the culture and do the hiring which will execute on that vision.

That culture bit is part of the key. A superstar employee isn't going to fix a problem that management should fix. And that light will fade as the this employee grinds against the grain.

Sometimes service just isn't on priority. Imagine walking into a front for an criminal organization and complaining about bad service. You might get laughed out of the building. Many foreigners here throw something up as a hangout for friends and they're happy to break even. Many business owners here don't know what they are doing. Some are retired for ****'s sake.

Employees come and go. They have mood swings. They may be inspired at the start and then lose motivation. Everyone from the highest paid sports stars to the lowest level employees suffer from this. It's the top dog who needs to put a system in place to deal with the ups and downs of employees (fix your problem, maybe take a vacation, or just GTFO).

Yeah, maybe the employees should hustle and earn their pay. But why should they care if the boss doesn't?

 

Dave, it´s crystal clear what you intended to achieve and it is also clear to me that your general opinion is not only black or white when it comes to the Plilippines and its people. You know this country better than I do and you know how many brilliant people are around here.

By the way, I don´t consider myself as stupid. But my wife is running the show here. She knows when to talk to whom in which tone and she is solving 99% of our issues in daily life. Our quality of life here in the Philippines is based on a certain financial power, but much more on her problem solving skills. That´s just fact. I can do a lot, but she can it do more easy, much better, much faster and she knows much better how to talk to people in case of conflicts.

And also by the way, being stupid is one thing. I can deal with that. But being lazy, arrogant, rude and / or being a cheater is something I can hardly handle.

 

Took awhile to get the glass for the windows and doors in; everything is basically done. The wife did decide to re-paint the exterior of the house and fence so a little bit left on the fence.

Shawn

 

Sir, I can absolutely see someone “flying of the handle” over this if, for example, they planned a typical 6 week visit to the states in January 2020 with a return flight scheduled for March. If I had been that person (I almost was but missed it by a week), I would still be stranded in the states and unable to return to my Philippine home, now in September. Where would I be staying over there? A hotel, still renting a car; who would be watching my place over here? It has been 6 months since I wouldn’t be allowed to come back home. This is not just some made-up “what if” situation, it is very real and many people are stranded abroad due to this arbitrary ban on a visa that is marketed as offering permanent residency in much the same way as a 13a.

Yes, the PRA yo trying hard to fix it; they have been trying since March 2020 but apparently not hard enough or BI us purposely trying to kill the program. They are doing a good job. PRA is a part of the Department of Tourism but BI makes the calls and BI apparently has no sympathy for PRA or its clients. One gets the impression that BI doesn’t really care much for the SRRV program and certainly does not work for its success.

So the travel ban in SRRV exposes it for what it really is, an extended “tourist” visa and not a “resident” visa per se. Anytime there is a ban on tourism, such as a reinstatement of the pandemic ban, after it gets lifted in the future due to future outbreaks that PRA clients cannot predict, you could expect to find yourself stuck outside the country as THOUSANDS are right now.

Go to the PRA Facebook page and see comment after comment after comment from people who cannot return home (if PRA has not pulled that down).

I think I would be justified in “flying off the handle” in your words if I was arbitrarily banned from returning home for an unknown indefinite amount of time when my entire home was relocated to thus country, in my case by a whole house full of goods moved by container, at the encouragement office the program who exempted import taxes in my behalf! We are so lucky that we missed that by just a few days.

For the future, there is a remedy. My wife will need to swear in as a dual and I get a 13a which is a true “permanent resident” more visa unlikely to be banned. And we will get our deposit back.

I would not recommend SRRV to mist people, not if they are making a permanent relocation and moving everything here. You will be here as a tourist and cannot reliably plan to leave and return home again. PRA is obviously embarrassed by this and trying to put it in its best light but it is what it is. Those people who are currently stranded have no idea when they can return home again on their Special Retirement “Tourist” Visas.


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