Business and Family in P.I.

You don't do people favors by gifting a business.

A successful business is an extremely difficult path with a ridiculous failure rate. The reason people go into business is the same reason that we have people who go on rampages with guns. That is, there are a small number of bat sh*t crazy people in the population. Fortunately, the crazy people who start businesses have a relatively productive outlet for their craziness.

A business is a recipe for extreme stress, medical issues, failed marriages, broken families, financial disaster and lost income opportunity. Most people running a business, barely scraping by, would be better off working for someone else and earning a real income. Even worse is people who have sunk substantial savings into attempting to prop up a dying business. The initial investment may get the thing off the ground, but the following hell can wipe you out.

If you want to help someone, give them the gift of skills. Send them to school to learn how to become a motorcycle mechanic or to learn how to weld. Skills pay the bills. I don't think general education is helpful. That's not for everyone and it guarantees you nothing. Every time I ride past NORSU I get the feeling like the people waiting around with backpacks and looks of optimism on their faces are being lied to. Higher education, like television, is a good baby sitter to the youth.

You don't gift someone a business. The people who have that gift of insanity find a way. They will rise from nothing. They can sell, they can hustle and they can use their creativity to jump from one level to the next. They are just as likely to get a huge boost out of a gift of 1000 pesos as from 100,000 pesos. In fact, in a huge windfall is as likely to derail them as it is to help them.

With the focus of one foot in front of the other, the entrepreneur constructs a journey. While long-term horizons are important, you have to build up to that. The most important outlook in the early stages is tomorrow, next week, next month, etc. You can't go from that to thinking about how to invest for your next 5 years. You'll lose focus and fall apart. It would be like taking away one successful business and having that person start over again. Maybe you lose everything and then you go back to square one, if you can muster the energy a second time.

Do not gift a business. Do not start a business and hire your friends and family as employees. If you must start a business, hire the best you can find, give your soul to evolving the business to an apex predator (you know you are on the right track when the government is coming after you for being a monopoly) and give away your personal salary from that business to your friends and relatives.

Otherwise, I would fund a piece of land (probably just rented) with bamboo huts and the most basic of food. If the family runs into a problem, then that's where they can go. It's not fun, but they won't be homeless and won't starve. It's a safety net.

 

Very VERY WISE Words Dude...

And THAT IS WHY 'I' am going to live with my Wife instead of bringing her here to live, to live a simple life, in a Nipa Hut without all of the mod-cons barring a small Car so that I am able to get around instead of dragging my bung into and out of tricycles and Jeepneys... Oh and I HOPE an Internet connection otherwise... :'(

 

Lots of interesting reads. I'm also one who has thought long and hard what I can do to help my others family. Being a good man and a smart man I want them to be self sufficient but also acknowledge they haven't had much for opportunity. But there is so much risk involved in whatever to help and the risk is very high. Generally filipino families rather you *help* by just giving cash. Don't give a sack of rice, or toppings for rice... just give cash. Try and start a business and even if you work out all the details yourself, set it up, get it going, get it turning a profit.... they will likely screw it up one way or another. Buy them a couple trikes for the men to drive and instead of making 300p a day each they sit on their rears making 100p a day and don't even bother fixing the trikes.

I fear for the day when someone in my others family gets really sick or in the hospital dieing. No one has any money and no one tries to even save 5p a day from their job for real emergencies. If it happens I'll be torn between covering and protecting my own financial rear-end and *helping* a likely lost cause or least one that would put me in the poor house. Whats bad is the looks you get from your other and they say how they *understand* but really want you to shell out everything for their family no matter what it does to your life.

 

Experienced this. Gave them a great place to live, furnished townhouse, near the mall, when they needed HELP. What did they give us in return? All of the utility bills. Afterall, if we can afford to let them stay for free, we should pay for everything else right? How dare we suggest otherwise! Besides, we should be paying them to keep an eye on it. And then they should get the copra for eternity as well.

 

Sad to hear about your experience, but it's rather common, to have the situation that "Muddyfeets" mentioned, help yes but only on their term, if they want a motorbike, they will not take care of the bicycle you buy them, one can make this comparison with other items too, like cellphones, tv's, cloths, shoes...

 

This has been a very good post, I think a lot of folks are having some of the same experiences. So many local folks think that when a girl hooks up with a foreigner life has just changed for the better...Red Horse and rum for all. Your significant other will feel pressure from the immediate family, but the immediate family will feel stress from the other folks that think the jackpot has been hit. Rumors will be everywhere...don't remember the saying in visayan anymore, but it basically translates that they are a fly on a caribou's back. I'm not the thinnest guy out there, but don't think I've hit caribou status yet.

I've helped with a welding school, security guard training and sent a sister in law abroad as a DH (ended up getting her a ticket back to the PI when she ran away in Canada)...none of those ventures turned into real jobs and no one paid a single penny back. I'll hire you if you can work hard, but as far as going into business together...not going to happen.

I have a soft spot in my heart for kids, so for many years we've bought rice for the family (four sisters) because I don't want to see a kid go hungry. At the same time, that is it; they made those kids and it is on them to figure out how to support them. The wife also has a soft spot and medicine for the kids is usually taken care of. We won't give cash because we know it won't be repaid.

I've said before that I really like most of the wife's family and when working for us they have really worked their asses off each day, any future work will be as employees.

Just my experience and my opinion.

Shawn

 

I can't agree any stronger that so many foreigners have learned some hard lessons trying to help a family that needs help. But I have one good story, around five years ago I had a 125cc China bike that my wife kept falling off of. I knew her brother in Danao Cebu just got a job at a beach resort and could not get home late at night on public transportation.

I loaded it in a truck, showed up at his job and told him it was his. Every one started jumping up and down hugging him and clapping. Now he still rides it and it looks even better than when I gave it to him.

 

A very good story!

 

:( I have been there, I had a young friend, she was my online GF whom I never met, we dated a couple of years online, everything I sent to her she sent half to three quarters back to her Family, then her Papa fell ill, he went into the Hospital and for two days screamed in pain begging them to save his life as his Son In-law was a Foreigner, "he would send money"...

Her Brother relayed to me the words his Papa cried out in vain, I sent $500 and that was swallowed up in the first day, the Hospital refused to treat him, I sent my last $700 I had in the Bank, a day and a half later the Hospital was demanding another $500 to treat him for pain, they said it would cost between $500 to $700 each day to treat him, he spent the next 3 days dying in agony, not understanding why his Son In-law refused to help, and I felt that the Family felt the same way towards me, but I could not help, I had run out of money, plain and simple.

Everything broke down after he passed away and we eventually parted ways six months later, but it still haunts me to this day to imagine what that poor man went through before they allowed him to die without treatment. From what I Understand he had very high cholesterol and his arteries were blocked. He had paid into Social Security to ensure his Wife and children still attending School would be taken care of, but for some reason he had not paid into Philhealth for medical cover?

That is the first thing I will be doing on my return, covering myself, my Wife and Daughter via Philhealth, well worth 3600 pesos per year in my opinion and I am looking into paying into SSS for my Wife and Daughter's sakes so that their futures maybe a little easier should I kick off earlier than expected...