Best Posts in Forum: Expat Section

I have decided I will no longer live here for the long term and packing up to get ready to return home, building a house here has been much more costly than I ever imagined it to be? I have gone way over budget to build this, used up all my savings and have started to dip into my emergency fund to get the house ship shape before going home.

Building a bespoke house and expecting Pinoy workers to adapt to something other than which they know has been a big problem during the course of this build, having said that I'm not so sure they can be depended on to really know what they are doing building here with the standard CHB method, on the face of it labour here is cheap P350 to 450 a day depending on skill level, but in reality you are paying 3 times that much for the amount of work they do, they are just so inefficient at their jobs in just about everything they take 3 times longer than a tradesman in the western world would, then there is mistakes to be corrected of which there is many, which leads to added costs for labour and extra material.

I am selling up most of my construction tools which includes a cement mixer and a host of other tools, many related to carpentry.

I have a young son here of 4yrs and I will provide support for him and his mother, but now I can only come back for short term visits only, perhaps with holiday insurance? having had some minor health problems in recent times has made me realise living here without a reasonable emergency fund is out of the question, fortunately I still have a hoose back in Bonnie Scotland, I have always known that at some point I must return home to live out the rest of my years and make use of the free health care there ( not free exactly I worked and paid into the system for 47yrs) only I did not expect to have to do this so soon?

I have enjoyed my time here and building this house has given me a lot of pleasure, especially when I consider this very practical house fully insulated house, which is affordable for my wife and son to live in, come out of my own head, the carpentry work was all done with my own hands, never having built a house before this gives me so much satisfaction that I was able to do this for the family here, parting with my young son will be difficult for me, but circumstances are such that I have no option.

It is highly likely that I will be on DI from time to time and if ever anyone wants some advice on Building here in the Philippines I may be able to give them some useful very sound well researched information, so I will not be offended if I get a PM regarding this.

 

For those interested. If you have funds in Philippines banks, if you do not provide the bank with a copy of your last will and testament, the bank is not allowed to let anyone access your funds and the government will lock up your funds while whatever survivor research is done. Took over a year for a friend’s (former forum member) wife to get access to the funds, even though they had a joint account. This was about 9-10 yrs ago.

 

Watch you visa stamp when you reinter on a "13A"!

Last May when I returned from Seattle after 4 weeks in the hospital (in a wheel chair). The airport wheel chair pusher ask Maria for my pass port and she handed it to him and he in turn handed it to the immigration officer. The immigration officer stamped it with a Balikbayan Visa instead of a 13-A Visa like he should have. I went for my annual check in Dumaguete yesterday. I was told that because I was here on a Balikbayan Visa I could NOT get an annual check in on my 13-A. That I would need to got to Manila to see the main man in the main office to get my visa changed from Balikbayan to 13-A. Then get my annual check in, done.

My advice to all 13-A visa holders is to check your pass port vise stamp closely when going through immigration. Immigration officers do make mistakes. When mistakes like this happen it is up to us to correct them. In my case I will have to make a trip to Manila.

 

For those that choose to, a moment of silence for the 9/11 victims.

 

I tried three different dentists in Dumaguete. In order I tried Dr. Lyra Teves, Dr Myrine Garupa and Dr. Julie Cordeta of Premier dental care solutions. Here is my experiences:

Dr. Lyra Teves was recommended by a Philippine friend as being cheap and good. What a disaster! She did not even seem like a real dentist. She said I needed two fillings. The first fell out in two hours, the second lasted one day! She was friendly but totally incompetent!

I brought my wife to have her teeth cleaned by Dr Myrine Garupa. DR. Garupa has been highly recommended by some in this forum. The cleaning took less than 15 minutes and she charged 800 peso. She was totally unfriendly almost to the point of rudeness. After my wife's cleaning I asked her if she could have a quick look at my teeth to see what I needed. She refused to even look, saying I need to schedule Xrays before she could even look. I intensely disliked Dr. Garupa instantly! I would NEVER go back there! From my point of view she was a complete B---H!

Then I decided to try Dr Julie Cordeta of Premier Dental Care solutions. I first asked on the phone how much for an initial consultation. Initial consultation free! At the consultation she said I needed to redo the two cavities that failed from Teves (no surprise there!) , one of which was quite deep. I scheduled an appointment.

At the second appointment she did the cavities. I felt very confident with her. She projected an air of total confidence and competence. She spent about an hour filling the deep cavity. I really feel confident that she is a very good dentist. She will be my dentist going into the future. Only down side: She has many patients and you might have to wait a long time for an appointment.

 

Someone send this to me via Facebook

Jon T. Hermosisima, July 29 at 1:54 AM ·
Bureau of Immigration Ex-Chief of Legal, Arvin Cesar Santos, who was arrested and charged by the Manila Prosecutors office for Graft and Corruption during his term, has revealed detailed information of a corrupt syndicate of prosecutors between the DOJ Prosecutors and the Bureau of Immigration Legal Department.
The Ex-Chief of Legal Arvin Cesar Santos said: "I will tell all, I am not taking the fall for everyone, I was a small part of a good old boys network". This criminal syndicate consists of DOJ and Immigration Prosecutors that were classmates, alumni, and fraternity brothers from Law Universities. These brothers, which I was a part of, controlled the fate of hundreds of foreigners charged with immigration violations. These foreigners were detained until they paid, they either paid us or if they appealed our negative decisions to the DOJ Prosecutors, they would have to pay them to get a positive decision in their favor. If foreigner case files were reviewed over the past 4 years, they will see that no hearing before the Special Board of Inquiry was ever heard, only 3 cases of bail were ever granted and those 3 had to pay 100k under the table to get them approved! We made it crystal clear, no bail was granted!
Arvin Cesar Santos with remorse in his voice told that "these poor foreigners were denied bail at immigration and denied bail at the DOJ, we would make sure no one got bail, this would break their will power, force them to pay big money!" Their cases were administrative in nature, if they did have criminal charges in the courts, they had already granted bail, but we denied them anyway so that we could fill our pockets.
The ex-chief of legal admitted that if the foreigner resisted or filed complaints with any agency like the Ombudsman or Office of the President, we would retaliate by losing filings and motions, delay answering until the last possible minute, place their file at the bottom always, never seeing the surface. We would make a simple resolution last years, all the while, the foreigner remains at the Bicutan Immigration Detention Center. "If they complained against our brothers, we would make the foreigner and his family suffer, we gave a clear message, resist and you will suffer!"
When asked who was involved in this criminal syndicate of prosecutors, Arvin Cesar Santos replied: "Take your pick, who would refuse payoffs of 300,000 - 2,000,000 PhP?" Every prosecutor at the DOJ that handles Immigration Appeals and the Immigration Legal Department is involved! All this going on right under the nose of DOJ Secretary Leila De Lima.
Arvin Cesar Santos stated: "If the case files of foreigners that had cases on appeal were ever reviewed, they would find cases of arbitrary decisions." When asked for an example,
Arvin Cesar Santos described a case of an Indian national who paid 2.2 million PhP in November 2013 to DOJ prosecutors to overturn his Summary Deportation Order. Thangam Madhana Gopal was charged with being an overstaying alien and in possession of fraudulent immigration papers/visa stamps, married to a Filipina with 2 children. He had been convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude, hoarding, black marketing or profiteering and was set for deportation. Thangam Madhana Gopal's release was based on humanitarian reasons. The Indian's resolution only took a few months because of the large payoff.
Arvin Cesar Santos could not remember names but he said an Estonian who was 17 years overstaying and had several criminal cases pending in the courts was issued a release order by the DOJ Prosecutors but there is a recent case with an American businessman who was 2 months overstaying and has yet to be arraigned on a minor criminal charge, has been denied bail and his Summary Deportation Order upheld by the DOJ Prosecutors because he filed a complaint about a corrupt BI Prosecutor, Mark Anthony Antonio, that was handling his case and was fired from the Bureau of Immigration; some of his classmates are DOJ Prosecutors that were handling his case when it was appealed. They upheld the SDO not because of its merits but because they were going to punish this American for complaining.
Arvin Cesar Santos also disclosed another case that is presently in the DOJ Prosecutors Office on appeal for a Summary Deportation Order issued by the Bureau of Immigration. He states: "A Greek businessman that owns a call center in Cebu that employs hundreds of Filipinos was illegally arrested and detained by BI, he has no visa violation and his passport was in order, he had no criminal case in the Philippines." He was charged as being an "undesirable alien" because of a mere letter from the USA embassy asking to validate his entry into the Philippines and if his passport was authentic, allegedly a fugitive but no authenticated copies of the arrest warrant were ever produced. The Greek embassy verified his passport and citizenship was authentic, BI verified that all his visa renewals were confirmed legitimate. "We tried to squeeze him for millions of pesos but he refused to pay." Instead, the Greek businessman started filing criminal complaints against various BI officials which included ex-Commissioner Ricardo David Jr., ex-Special Prosecutor Liza Julie Interior Madera, ex-Chief of Intelligence Marie Antonette Bucasas Mangrobang, Executive Director Eric Dimaculangan and Field Agent Armello De Castro. Most have either resigned, were reshuffled or presently being investigated by the Commission on Human Rights and will be charged.
His current appeal at the DOJ has been in review for almost a year, add in the 6 months prior in the Bicutan Immigration Detention Center, "he has been detained for over 16 months and he has not violated any laws." Arvin Cesar Santos added that "This Greek businessman will be made to suffer as long as the DOJ prosecutors can drag out his case." They want reciprocity for him causing problems and filing complaints. He is one of the reasons the BI Bicutan money making machine has halted. He has cost corrupt BI officials millions of pesos in payoffs.
Commissioner Siegfred Mison continues to say publically "come forward and tell us who these corrupt BI officials are, so that we may deal with them" but complaints are filed, evidence presented and yet the corrupt BI officials are either reshuffled or left in the same positions. The foreigner complaining is the one punished!
Arvin Cesar Santos said: "The list of cases are endless, there was No Due Process of Law, every case has human rights violations and I knew it all, now I am in fear for my life. I know too much about the corrupt officials at BI and the DOJ Prosecutors Office.
If I do not reveal all now, I will be executed in the streets or they will go after my family, we are currently in hiding! The Philippine Press will not run my story; we all know how the Philippine Media is controlled. I must reveal all just to protect myself and my family, I have no choice."

 

I just want to say thanks again to all here who have been so helpful to me. First before i arrived in Dumaguete in September of 2014 with loads of useful information and answers to question i had as a new arrival. Then all throughout my stay here with updated information and news and always good advice. Most recently with help in finding a good home for my one year old pit bull. I have to travel and needed to find a good loving home and this forum was the answer. I had some trouble at first in my posting but concerned and thoughtful member helped put me in contact with the perfect home and i am eternally grateful. Any venture is only as good as the people involved and this is top notch in my opinion. Thanks again for all of your help.

 

Goodness me, I didn't realize my comment would upset some people. I certainly didn't expect to be called "idiotic", and told "why don’t you go the your first world country and play with yourself on the freeway during rush hour, blindfolded".

I was simply trying to express that I don't think it's possible to live a "Western" lifestyle in The Philippines.

I apologize if I upset anyone by not agreeing with everything they say. I thought that was the purpose of a forum: to express our opinions in a mature way.

Anyway, apologies to those people again, and wish them, and indeed anyone who is reading this, a pleasant stay in this wonderful country. I'm off to catch a jeepney and eat some balut

P.S. My comment about not marrying a local in order to spend less money was supposed to be a bit of light hearted banter.

 

Pinoy here, I grew up down south in Mindanao and it was beginning to get crazy there. 14 years ago my dad asked me to check on my sister who was then studying at Silliman and we were all wondering why it's taking her too long to graduate. I arrived in Dumagute, met her friends, saw the place and understood. I went back, reported to my dad and asked my then girlfriend in Zamboanga to marry me, she said yes and I transferred my small business here and called it home.

 

PhilHealth is good to have, but let me offer a bit of first-hand advice.....If you go into the hospital, do NOT leave until you are well!! Because if you return in a few days time, they will not pay again for the same issue. My husband went into the hospital with pneumonia for a couple of days, decided he wanted to go home (against everyone's wishes). PhilHealth paid that bill (100% to my recollection), about 10,000php. He voluntarily went back, not improved, 2 days later. He ended up in ICU on a ventilator (2 weeks), and ultimately passed. This bill was 100's of 1000's php, and PhilHealth denied every bit of it since he went back before the required wait time between incidents. Read their rules and understand them. But, again, it is good to have in case of hospitalization.