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I hesitate to get into this disjointed "discussion," but I'd like to point out that the Muslims arrived in Mindanao around the 1400's and successfully administered the entire southern Philippines for 500 years until the US gave the land and the governments to "Christians" imported from Luzon in the 1910's and 1920's. The Spanish pretty much ignored Mindanao, and never got a good foothold... The current problems in Mindanao are mostly a result of that upheaval. Wikipedia has several good "short histories" on the subject.

 

Since he is an active radio commentator, he must have offended the feelings of some big or small people, but that is such a barbaric reason to kill someone. Other killings are the so-called "drug-related" killings so yes, the best thing to do here is to just live a simple life, avoid offending people, and do not get into anything illegal.

 

I am German, but not nessicarily a lover of german food.

Anyhow, Grumpy’s is the place to go if you love well prepared food and good service.

The menu contains some German dishes as well as international and Philippine cuisine. All freshly cooked with high quality ingredients. They even make their own bread.

I didn’t find a better restaurant in Duma yet in terms of quality and freshness of its products. You can have really nice breakfast, delicious lunch and wide offers of excellent dishes for dinner.

Only negative thing is the location. Very close to main road it’s quit noisy.

 

Sub-division........dont be fooled by all the lovely brochures, it will be filipino standard (poorly constructed), will also be a lot smaller that you imagine, cannot pick your neighbours, will be drug-dens/havens in a few years time......especially if you are buying from the plans, its possible the area will never be completed, the roads left unfinished, no streetlights, no security guards, no boundary fences/walls..........thats all on the outside, give it a little time, then your doors an windows going to start to warp, and open by themselves, then the electric going to give you grief........and good good good luck trying to contact the builders to fix anything, they will be long gone

 

I definitely go with this "retirement" plan.

I look at the way my wife was treated by her parents, I find this very believable.

After finishing her schooling, she was told not to search for a job or even worse plan for a career.

Whilst her cousin (grew up together, same age, educated together, same schooling, best of friends then and still now) had the full support of her parents and followed a career that took her to Manila, Cebu, Arabia and now USA,
Sherry was turned into a yaya for her mother. Her brothers moved on and she had free available time. Took in onto herself to do a Carers Course (Aged and Child) to enable overseas posting, with the help of her auntie.
Parents found out and it was stopped by them. Comment to Sherry - "That will teach you to aim for something better than what you are". They then "allowed" to have a few jobs - never more than 2 years - picked by them.
And insult added to insult - she was allowed to keep just enough income for travel and clothing.

Anyways almost 10 years later.

Her last job at Comelec came with a supervisor who noted Sherry's unhappiness and lost love soul. The same supervisor is now one of our best friends. She encouraged Sherry to search for something different - online dating.
Online - at work - parents will never find out. And they didn't - till the day I arrived . Big Big boy, older man, swept their little housemaid (by now 32 years young) off her feet - up up and away.

Anyways Sherry came to Australia and we married. Planned to stay in OZ but my health did not want to co-operate. So instead of trying in Australia to make it work, we returned back here.

Build a house in Dumaguete (away from parents in Tanjay). Supported the love of my life finding the strength to stand up to her parents in spirit and voice. They accused her of not being married, being the shame of the family, not being as good as her cousin, being with such an old man and then IT IS YOUR JOB TO LOOK AFTER US - LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR YOU - WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN WE ARE GETTING OLD - THAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE DAUGHTER.

And my little lady sunshine let fly. Years and years of anger, frustration, tears, sorrow, disappointments, shame, etc were let loose.


Anyways - I think I went off-track a little here, but you are right. It is the Pinoy Retirement Plan.

 

That’s a difficult statement to deal with. Is it worth it coming here? I’m certain that in this area you’d find many, possibly the majority of expats who’d say absolutely yes, it is worth it, at least for them – certainly not for everyone. There are many of us who live peaceful lives here, usually with a girlfriend or wife, who’ve never been spit upon, shot at, harassed by the authorities… Many of us find life here quite livable and affordable. You won’t read about us in the press. Many don’t post on this or other forums. If you’ve never been to the Philippines or you’ve been here but haven’t spent much time, my advice would be come here, see for yourself, but don’t burn bridges at home until you’ve been here for some length of time. Don’t get overly committed, don’t buy anything – just check it out. Good common sense should keep you safe and out of trouble.

 

Most bars (or any food establishment) already have friendly dogs just waiting for someone to drop their fried chicken.
I doubt anyone would care if you sat outside with your dog, the concerns would be in what your dog "picks up" while there. I'm not talking about scraps either.
Lots of dog flu, dog covid (yes, it is a thing) overall dog viruses, fleas, and ticks from all the strays. Also concider any puddle of water contaminated with stuff you dont want them drinking.
I have finished putting my puppies thru a 20 day antibiotic regime and we dont even live in the city. Also, my dogs are NOT friendly to strangers, we walk in quiet and "off"hours. Yet they still got sick, vet said it is because of stuff that lingers in the air, on the ground and overall environment.
This is just a heads up.
If you still go out then, at the very least, make sure puppy is fully vaccinated, and boosted.
We people can skip vaccination and get sick if we want (free will), but our puppies deserve beter care than we give ourselves.

 

If Lee Plaza has a long queue for the baggage drop just walk across the road to Robinsons Supermarket and hand it in there instead. Never a queue to either drop off or collect, back into Lee Plaza and straight in within two minutes, lol.

 

Attaching some pics on where things are. 3rd floor slab placed and 2 weeks cure time so the forms are mostly removed. Tying into the beam and 2nd floor slab for the stairs landing. I actually had hoped we could drill and epoxy the bars in, but there is just too much rebar so we are going to have to tie into the existing rebar. Just much more time consuming, even with the jackhammer. There are 2 columns that the stairs will pass by so hopefully we will be able to drill and epoxy into; these stairs are "floating" so getting them properly supported is kind of important.

The new second floor ceiling will be grinded smooth as we can get, then skimcoat, sand and paint.

The view is going to be nice once done and am really feeling this over that metal roof before. I plan on building a couple smallish houses at our farm and will probably go with concrete roofs coated with elastameric or what similiar product is available here. A much better use of space, maybe not as great for heat dissipation, but will see how that plays out. The wife plans that the second floor is going to be all windows so we aren't losing too much of the views and breeze we enjoy on the second floor.

Shawn