Best Posts

The Queen was the longest serving monarch in Britain ( 70 years )
She saw many changes both personal and in general, like many parents sometimes she was no doubt shamed by some of her children and disappointed by their behaviour.
However she was herself of empeccable charcter and behaviour,
RIP Queen Elizabeth 11.
John CH 8- v 7

 

ATTY. BANDAL'S STATEMENT:
"My parents do not own social media accounts, so I felt compelled to speak for them. This is about the brownout. My parents are the property owners referred to in the misleading, (sometimes libelous) posts circulating online. They are no longer constantly residing in our house in the property, the reason being that there is a big post illegally placed by NAPOCOR (NPC) in the middle of our property carrying 69 KV high transmission live wires, which can pose a real danger to the anyone in the property (imagine, your usual outlet in your house is 220 volts. 69 KV is like 69 x 1000 volts). Word is that there is no electricity because of an ongoing negotiation. That is a complete lie. I will tell you what happened.

As early as 2006, the Supreme Court already ordered with finality that the NPC should remove the post from our property. NPC (later on substituted by the National Transmission Corporation [Transco], being a spin-off corporation and successor-in-interest of NPC by reason of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) law), did not comply with the order of the Supreme Court, even if the order had already attained finality. About a year later, TRANSCO filed an expropriation case seeking to obtain possession of our property (despite the fact that said issue had already been resolved with finality in our favor, by the Supreme Court, just a year earlier). They offered my parents “25 pesos” for each square meter of property they wanted to get. 25 pesos????? Is that even fair? But again, Transco lost the case. The courts reitereated their previous rulings regarding our property. The courts said Transco failed to show the necessity for expropriating our property. In other words, we won both the aforementioned cases from the trial court level, then at appellate court level, all the way up to the Supreme Court level. Both cases have become final and executory. Despite the fact that the decisions have become final and executory in 2006 and in 2011, respectively, still Transco/NAPOCOR have failed to comply with the order of the Court. NGCP operates, maintains, and develops the country’s power grid owned by Transco, hence the public constantly hear the term NGCP when it comes to these brownouts. However, these brownouts are not caused by any negotiation whatsoever. There is no negotiation to speak of because the cases were decided several years ago.

My mom and dad were in their 40s when these issues began. They were in their 50s when the cases attained finality and when the courts, including the Supreme Court, ordered the post removed. My parents are now in their 70s. Until now, the post has not been removed and we are unable to use our property which my mom and dad acquired when we were still kids. Don’t believe if anyone would say they (Transco, et al.) is/are paying rental to have the post stay in our property. That is not true. It is not rental. It’s damages the court ordered them to pay. We are not in the business of leasing our property for them to place a post carrying 69 kilovolts of power, which has effectively made our property useless. Also, if someone tells you that there is an ongoing negotiation about the property, do not believe them. The cases have already attained finality so so many years ago.
So, to the company/entity causing the problem, I suggest that you follow the order of the Supreme Court and fix the problem. I was informed that works are being done now to restore power. So instead of blaming legitimate property owners, do your job. It’s been 15 years now and counting, and yet you refuse to follow the order of the Supreme Court. Now you forced us to release the decision. There are other landowners who have less legal background than us who are also suffering from the same situation. Stop corporate bullying."

 

It is a very long article to say that people who live in places with polluted air have more risk of pulmonary disease (!), either as a direct result of the noxious particles in the air or a greater risk from catching lung (and other) diseases because their lung (and other) tissue is damaged and/or their general health is impaired. It impacts on the lungs, heart, blood vessels and almost every, if not all, organs and tissues of the body - it even impacts on pregnancy. I have to say that this is a very well known fact by scientists and non-scientists alike - probably just about the most well-known fact.

As for reductions in air-pollution in China, I think you confuse 'cause and effect' - air pollution dropped principally because factories closed.

Of course if we had no air pollution then fewer people would die of any illness or disease linked to air pollution.

 

It seems being killed for having a job in journalism is more common here than you might think, as a search online will show. There is the case of 34 journalists killed in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre.

Bob Martin who lived in Davao for almost 30 years and owned a website advising expats, always said "It is not a Paradise in the Philippines" and he did that to counter the positive input from people who considered only the upside (I just read a few days ago of an expat excitedly recommending life in Manila where he lives for $600 a month!). Without getting into the amount he says he lives on in Manila, visiting many restaurants etc, as that has been covered here many times, there was no mention of litter, pollution from other sources, stray dogs, crime, etc. So many reports seem to avoid the negative.

So people need to know, so they can make a balanced judgement. It is a country where killing is too common and too often unpunished (that, of course, is one reason it is common!). Another very recent report is the killing by a group of gunmen of a 16 year old girl in Iloilo!

So articles on 'Living in the Philippines' also need to look at it from the angle of 'Living' (as in 'staying alive' in the Philippines).

 

Welcome to the Forum. I retired here almost 5 years ago at 55 and have mainly positive experiences. Certainly I love coming home anytime I visit Manila or Cebu - because of the laid back style of life here but it is not for everyone and I think has a lot to do with the relationship you are in, or looking for. I think Duma is far better suited to a quieter, coupled lifestyle. As to personal safety, I have never felt threatened - as I felt many times from my original home - but I stay clear of any business dealings and focus my romantic attention on my partner. I think this is true anywhere in the world, but particularly the Philippines and that is to lose your aggression, and become more sociable than you were in your original country. I have made lots of acquaintances and a bunch of good friends, where because of our retired and privileged position of relative costs can enjoy outings much more easily than we could in our homes. Unlike living in a metropolis where you can take taxi's easily, I think you will need to get transport here. I started with a big SUV and quickly moved to a motorbike, which I had never ridden before coming here and now totally love (except when it starts pouring with rain). Whilst PatO is absolutely correct about the restaurants and shopping, you can find your favourite restaurants and coffee shops and travel to the big cities every so often to get a fix of better quality and quantity - personally on balance I am satisfied with what I experience locally.

Good luck with your decision and ask the members any specific questions you may have - mostly you will get good and informative answers.

 

I am not surprised to hear you are disappointed. black coffee, overpriced, like every Starbucks on earth. No reason to waste money there, bagels or not. I try to avoid all these chains spreading out like pest.

 

Hi Neal,

I really had to think long and hard before commenting. As most people know, our company owns this site and we are also in the Construction business, so though we do advertise our own businesses here, we try not to blatantly troll on it for work. I will try to answer to some of your concerns without promoting our own, lol .
Typically here it is not unreasonable for an architect to charge you 3.5 to 5% of the contract price to oversee the work, however what they usually do for that fee is handle the construction management without the use of another contractor. That he wants to charge you a management fee, then have you enter into a contract with an independent contractor, would concern me a little 9you are paying his fee, plus the markup of the contractor). A secondary red flag is that he would be "managing" or "overseeing" a contractor he regularly deals with, and I would personally wonder how close their relationship is and how truly independent he is. I guess if it were me, I would want some one overseeing , in which there are no ties. Having said that, I do know Jet Construction from a competitor standpoint, and can vouch that they usually do very good quality work and are reputable (never heard of the other contractor personally).

He is correct that most of us contractors do want to enter into a fixed sum price. Just easier and cleaner that way, however you are right to be concerned about the quality of materials. It is easy for a contractor to save a few bucks by using substandard materials, the main ones being steel or hollow block. Easy to get here, and unless you know what to look for then easy to be taken for a ride. Honestly it has even happened to us, however when we did catch on we did what it took to rectify the problems because we just do not want to be faced with the sh*t if the building fell down, regardless of how much we could have saved. Again, if you go with a guy like Jet, I think you would not have this problem.

Several other things touched on here that you need to be cautious about. If you do not get the right contractor, you will leave yourself exposed financially. Most contractors,, and sub-contractors, just do not have the capacity to finance their work. Most will have to always be asking for advances and if they underestimated the job, or something goes wrong that they have to fix, in all likelihood they will not be financially able to finish. Either you give them more money or they walk. As a contractor, when we get a price from a sub, we always allow more than what they quote to insulate ourselves from a big hit.

The other thing is having the work done while you are not here. I do not want to cut Filipinos down, but again typically a Filipino contractor doing work for a foreign client while the client is not here usually does not end up well, and not necessarily because the Filipino is trying to screw the foreigner. The problem is more related to communication, transparency and cultural differences and expectations. The Filipino may have all the best intentions in the world, however they normally just do not understand what a foreigner expects. What you or I may consider as goes without saying, is something they may not have any concept of, and most Filipinos either do not have the language and technical capabilities to communicate with you as you require to nip small problems in the bud, before they become major problems. As an example, we ourselves are foreigners so do have a better idea of what a foreigner expects as western standards but most of our clients are overseas for the better part of the construction process and even we have issues. To minimize this issue, we have web based site cameras that our overseas clients can log into and see what is happening on their site at any time. We also have site pictures taken of everything everyday and upload once a week for our clients to review. On Monday we usually start getting the emails from clients asking questions for clarification. Many times this has saved us all , lol. To make a long story short, regardless of which Filipino company you get, (and there definitely are some reputable ones in the area), they probably will just not be able to communicate properly with you overseas and odds are pretty good that when you get back , you will be in for some unpleasant surprises.

A few last notes:, Typical design fees are around 250 p/sqm, but that does not include engineering stamps, structural analysis, or fees for the building permits. Design time should be 2-4 weeks and you should get a building permit pretty quick if all the requirements are fulfilled properly. When it comes to finishing items such as tiles, granite, faucets, water heaters, etc, best to just have the builder give you a budget schedule (eg 200 sqm for tile). If someone tries to specify one now, it will probably be out of stock when it comes time to buy it. Then you are at their mercy and could get dinged with extras that may be out of whack. At least if you have the budget schedule included as part of the contract, you will have a clear baseline if you have to choose other items.

Anyway hope some of this helps Neal.

Gord

 

I know Tommy we were in the expats club together for a short time ,he and his wife was at our house for a function 15 months ago ,i have no opinion as to the charges against him . What worries me is the damage this sort events does not help the reputation of all expats living in dumaguete, over the last 12 months i have felt more and more locals seem to hold amenosity towards us the yap and cohan storys did nothing to help the situation . Bad atitude and a lack of respect towards locals from some expats does not help . Yesterday we were waiting in front of globe when the natonal anthem was being played an expat made a point to walk back and forth during this time smileing at everyone while doing it , many pinoys standing there were very upset. IF you think this country is backwards n stinks then go back to were you come from n leave the rest of us to enjoy the good life .