Best Posts

Do a little vote counting and you see how it works in Dumaguete. There are 2,500 trikes. The trike driver makes a living, so he get family votes to support his trike provided income. So maybe there is 12,500 possible votes coming from the 2,500 trike drvers (driver, mother, father, mistress and wife.) Since most of the time the trike drives rent the trikes, there are also 2,500 trike owners but many trikes are owned by a few, so less say 650 separate trike owners. Assuming the trike owners have family members support them (owner, mother, father, wife, mistress and GF*) then there is another possible 3,800 votes, So that means support form the trike industry could possibly provide 16,300 votes. There is a trike drivers association here in Dumaguete, so there is some unification of corps here.
In the Mayor's race Felipe Antonio “Ipe” Remollo emerged as the winner with 29,518 votes, so a possible block of 16,300 votes would receive some good pandering for votes.

So yes, the trike drivers association does have a large political influence in this town.

*please note that children of voting age, legitimate or otherwise were not included in this count.

 

My view of the 4th of July is like Memorial day. I think of the freedoms that used to be celebrated on the 4th as dead and gone like my brothers in arms that I memorialize on Memorial day.
I spent the last 25 years in San Diego where I saw at July 4th celebrations all over Southern Ca. more Mexican flags and Viva Mexico signs than American Flags. I witnessed after the first Iraq war El Cajon Ca. completely over run by Iraqi refugees shipped in and given tax payer money to buy up everything. Now That small city is referred to as little Iraq. Now in SoCal flying the American flag is considered insulting to people from other countries so political leaders are forcing people to remove them from their houses. There is even a movement to force a ban on singing the anthem at sporting events.
It is going to get uglier before it gets any better. I feel the American Culture is dying in this age of open borders and Globalism.

 

I used to think most of those who were homeless were due to bad luck and not enough jobs. Then I ended up homeless for a year back in 2002. What I saw firsthand opened my eyes to the reality. While a fair amount have chemical dependency issues and a handful have mental disorders most are their due to straight out laziness. They find it easier to do nothing and have someone else feed them than working and feeding themselves. When I was homeless I started off going door to door at business's looking for work w/o any luck (well who wants to hire on someone without a phone number or permanent address). I started to go to the local day labor place which I walked to but you could take a direct bus to from street that all of the homeless shelters and soup kitchens were on or a block away from. I noticed though that only 2 others from the homeless shelter I stayed at ever went and only 1 of them was daily as I was going. I started to get day jobs semi regularly after I was showing up daily looking for work at 6am when they opened every day and I never left until 11am if I didn't get work and did that for a couple weeks. Eventually I got hired on full-time as a regular employee and went from their. But I saw no one else cared to do that almost and many of them were males and females in the working age range from 20-45 and able bodied.

When I was homeless I also had a week long cash job that was easy as it could be. The company hired 20 guys (5 vans 4 per van) to put flyers on doors and paid $50 cash a day. Two guys would walk one block putting flyers on doors while the other 2 waited until the next block and it was a small couple block area before they drove to the next area usually a 10-20 minute drive. Easy as one could hope for and easy cash. Yet day after day most of the guys never showed back up and ended up being replaced again and again because they took their $50 and ran.

I learned that most who are homeless its become their lifestyle because they don't want to deal with taking care of themselves, having things to manage, having responsibilities, and having expectations put on them. They wanted a carefree life to do whatever they wanted as long as they had someone else to feed them and some clothing handout places that is all that mattered to them.

I no longer give money to homeless or even a sandwich which I tried once offering a fresh "6 Subway sandwich and got cursed at by a homeless beggar because he wanted money, not food.

 

This is one of those impossible to answer questions.

Typically you ask this because you are worried about a constrained budget. If you had a relatively strong budget you wouldn't need to worry about it. So the closest I could come up with is for the low end.

If you have the monthly income that will continue to come in and which allows you to live on your own in the U.S. then you'll likely be able to live a bit cheaper here. If you can't survive in the U.S. on your income (even at a hand to mouth level or by moving to a cheaper area in the U.S.) then you probably shouldn't come to the Philippines.

That's it. You don't really need numbers. You would just be over-thinking and over-planning. Any plan you come up with will just unravel once you get here. You're bored and day-dreaming of life on the islands. Stop it. Go read a book instead.

NOTE: If you aren't from the U.S. then the same applies to other Western nations.

 

I have to agree with Aces. Its the only place around to get specialty laser care setup. They have a doctor come in from Cebu to check you out but the laser surgery is done in Cebu. I went through Doctor Tan at Aces a few years back to have Lasik done on both my eyes. I was a borderline person that 10-15 years ago would have been impossible. I have never had an issue and Doctor Tan did an amazing job. 50kp for both eyes at that time while in the US I was quoted at $3-4k for both my eyes.

 

Curious if your wife is getting a private ride just her and your child or if 6 other people are being squeezed in also? I had one driver who wanted to charge me 70 peso to take me 3 km after dark and I had two small shopping bags. I just told him good luck with your business model and took off walking. I had one of the shills at Robinsons mall want 60 php to take me and a friend to hotel Palwa. I said no thanks and walked out to the highway and about 20 meters down the road before a trike stopped and took us there. I gave him 20 peso and he wanted to make change! I gave him another 5 peso and told him keep the change with my thanks. Not all trike drivers are dicks, just like not all foreigners are dicks, at least I am not...not all the time anyway.

 

I was in the small store that sells beer in Valencia and i gave the man Michale a PHP1000 instead of Php100
He gave it back as he realized i had made a mistake it would not happen here in Australia you make a mistake you pay for it
I have only met nice people in ph maybe it has some thing to do with attitude and i have been going to Dumaguete for ten years