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For many years, my wife and I served as buyer's agents. During this time, we bought and sold 85 properties. We learned many lessons and insights the hard way. As to the poster's question about what keeps prices so propped up:

The number #1 reason is there are no listing service where buyers and sellers can find the going price of a similar property. Sellers do not know what the lot or condo next door sold for because the selling price is often deflated to save on closing cost. The only measure a seller has is the asking price of his neighbor. This means that if one condo owner is asking an "over the moon" price, other condo owners will jack up their price. This is a tough situation to come up against as a buyer. We have found that many times an area gets way overpriced and there is nothing to do but walk away. It sometimes takes 3-4 years for a condo building or a neighborhood to return to reasonable prices. It is also very difficult for a foreigner to negotiate with a Filipino. Our tough-buyer tactics are usually taken as rude.

 

I would suggest that if you are serious about purchasing a lot. Check out the foreclosures at the Banks. They all have a list of foreclosed properties. The banks do not want to own land they want their money back. So you can find some good deals but it takes a lot of research. Plus the ownership document's are in order before the banks will loan money on the land

 

Genuine people often show conpassion to the less fortunate, but it has often been said and I include myself " I care but I can't feed the world"
Sadly sometimes foreigners are look upon as ATMachines, taken advantage of and cast aside when the well runs dry.
As pointed out 57 million people in poverty, it's survival by any means, including some "Fat old men" who provide a meal ticket in return for some comfort they couldn't find elsewhere.
Each to their own reasons and choices, life is a one way ticket for us all, whatever your desires or actions may be. I have been blessed with reasonable good health and have always had food in my belly and a roof over my head, 57 million people in Philippines alone, can't say that. Am I lucky?....... you bet I am!

 

Well, if I had kids I was home schooling, I wouldn't waste money on a specific home schooling curriculum like Charlotte Mason, but instead would create my own tailored to the child's strengths/ weaknesses, likes/ dislikes, and personality.

It's actually easier than you might think, although a little time consuming.

First I would find out what is covered in that subject/ year in the government national curriculum. For example, if you chose the British curriculum, all the information can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/education/school-curriculum

Then I was use one of a number of websites that are full of worksheets/ ideas/ projects/ lesson plans/ activities/ interactive exercises/ assessments, specifically choosing ones that would interest my child. The key is to make the lesson interesting so the child wants to listen, interact, and learn. I wouldn't (and never) use textbooks, as they are usually boring and I don't believe following a textbook is teaching. Any muppet can do that!

A couple of excellent sites for this are:

https://sharemylesson.com/
https://www.twinkl.com/

Hope this helps.

 

Like learning anything, learning how to do quarantine takes practice. Not as much practice as it takes to learn Bisaya but some practice nonetheless.

Filipinos can be proud that the Philippine government is doing a better job at this than most other countries. Nearby, Taiwan shows the world that a community well trained in how to do quarantine can easily cope with the coronavirus. Meanwhile other more affluent countries are failing at this horribly.

So Filipinos need a little practice in how to do quarantine.

The local situation is worse than we know. Currently, with very little testing, there are two confirmed cases in the local hospitals. We know statistically that only 20% of cases need hospitalization and another 20% who do not feel any symptoms leaving 60% who feel sick. Therefore, there should be another 6 infected people that feel sick and 2 others who feel healthy but are contagious and are walking around among us.

Time is of the essence! Because number of infections can grow exponentially very quickly, we need to learn how to do quarantine in advance of the outbreak. In other countries the number of contagious people can easily double every three days. In two weeks (approx 15 days) There will be 5 doubling. 8 people becomes 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + 256.

448 contagious people is too many for the health department to do contact tracing and the system becomes out of control. (448 contagious + 56 recovered)

This is why, we as a community, need to learn how to do quarantine well. Consider this first quarantine as practice and insurance. Like a military that does war games to hone their skills and discover their weaknesses we need to do germ games to practice our ability to do quarantine.

As residents of Negros we have no choice but to stay healthy. When the virus flares up around the world there will be no one who will send us medical equipment to treat the sick.

Let's hope we are not to late and as a community, we pull together to learn how to do quarantine well.

Internationally speaking economics and the strength of currencies is relative to the strength of each countries economy. If Filipinos learn to do quarantine as well as the Taiwanese, they will be rewarded with a prosperous economy. Considering how things are going in the US and Europe, in two years Filipinos may be using US dollars as toilet paper.