It is not just cultural - if you criticise a person, you can be sued for defamation - even if what you said was TRUE! I actually read in the national press recently of such a case.

Also, of course, many Filipinos cannot do anything other than seek 'traditional medicine' (even if it is not) because of costs.

 

See my posting re defamation - you even criticise a doctor, let alone file a case, and you are the one being sued. Professionals given too much protection.

 

You will have seen my earlier reply about being sued for telling the truth!

 

after seven years here, it is my observation that filipinos do not spank their children either. could that be the problem?

 

But will they spank an adult?

 

I know someone who had similar treatments in Dumaguete and Cebu - Cebu won outright on costs.

 

Some people do take legal action but the justice system here is so slow and sometimes flawed that people eventually get tired and move on with their lives and forget.

 

Probably. But I mean to inform other people of the bad service - it is a risk here with laws not consumer oriented.

Also, do people have an equal chance in law here (I know this applies everywhere, but seems especially bad here)? This seems to me to be very much a country of connections (family, school, college, clubs, 'donations'). That, I assume, is the basis of corruption.