Dumaguete; what a Wonderful City!

Well I have just returned from 6 of the most amazing weeks of my life! Nothing short of life changing!

Dumaguete; well what an eye opener, but I would rather be there than back here in Australia, not once did I have any reason to be afraid (except that one time outside Ukay where the 'I think' toothless bakla Prostitute tried picking me up for sex, Thank God I was wearing my Wedding Ring!!:D lol) unlike my return to Australia to find my house had been trashed, my waterbed slashed, and being confronted the following morning inside my home by a Junkie who had come back and was ransacking my bedroom... :( Thankfully a very LARGE Butcher's knife saw him back off the 3x times he tried going me then his fate was sealed when my mate strolled over from across the road when I had him bailed up at the gate with the knife... O--O

I will never get anything back and had no Insurance (approximately 20k in stuff gone) but it has only given me more incentive to speed up the process to apply to Centrelink to Port my Disability Pension to the Philippines... I have been told I will most likely lose my Pension and will have to return to the Workforce but if that maggot Campbell Newman thinks that will happen he has another thing coming! I WILL scream from the highest Towers, and ring the Bells at Channel 7's Today Tonight Current Affair program due to me having a permanently broken leg that the Doctors cannot repair, so they WILL hear me roar if I am refused!

I am only starting the process now, some tell me I will need to return back to Oz each year as a Balikbayan Husband for periods of 24 hours/ 1 Month to 3 Months... I am not sure as yet where to start my line of questioning (here is the best place I feel to get a straight answer) and some have told me varying stories of paying to live in Negros, all which I know nothing about, the only thing at this time I do know is I WANT TO MOVE THERE PERMANENTLY! And retain my Australian Disability Pension while I am doing that...

I will be living with my Wife's Family, I have read horror stories in the past from others, but I have lucked out by marrying into the most wonderful Family who have accepted me as one of their own, and I wish to integrate into Filipino Culture, so I am very happy to live with them in their small Nipa Hut and eat the same foods they eat (except Green Mango! :p Bleh!!) and live alongside them regardless how hard life their lives are...

So begins a new chapter in my life, married New Years Eve so we woke up to a New Day, New Year, New Life together with New Beginnings, here's to Dumaguete becoming a local sight for me in my near future, love the City, love the People, love the Country! Fingers crossed I will be calling there my home very soon

 

Thank you for sharing!! Congrats on your marriage. I hope you can get things all sorted out and soon get back here permanently.

 

Likewise... I too,wish you a speedy recovery of health and happiness. Good luck for the future. JB

 

HI m8 from another aussie , center link told me I would loose my aged pension if I returned to the phil. I went higher and won .
I think ABOTT has made it harder now ppl on age pension can only stay for 6 months and have to return for 6 months, this is only for people turning 65 now
Good news here you can stay 36 months now before you have go out for chop your passport
GOOD LUCK M8

 

Glad to hear you had a great time up in Dumaguete Brian. By coincidence I was looking at various pension rules last night….at some point in the not too distant future I would like to retire. Had thought I'd be totally self-funded, but still not enough in the kitty for that thanks to the GFC….so looking at least at a partial pension and how to get it paid overseas. Fortunately I qualify for the service pension from DVA and they are quite a bit more tolerant of overseas payments…I noted looking in the Centrelink website for disability pensions:

Disability Support Pension (DSP)
If you leave Australia to live in another country you will not be able to receive Disability Support Pension (DSP) in the other country, unless you:

are terminally ill and are leaving Australia permanently to be with or near a family member, or to return to your country of origin, or left Australia prior to 1 July 2004, and at the time of leaving you were told that you could be paid indefinitely, and you have not returned to Australia to live since that time,
or have been assessed in Australia prior to the departure as having a permanent, severe impairment and no future work capacity. Assessment involves a review of your DSP qualification and a Job Capacity Assessment
In these situations, you can keep your DSP payments for the whole time you are outside Australia, however, the amount that you get may change.

Payments paid while outside Australia

You might try going for the 'no future' work capacity exemption….

I'm still a little confused about the aged pension overseas payment. This is what the same Centrelink web page has to say:

Age Pension

You can get Age Pension for the whole time you are overseas, regardless of whether you leave Australia temporarily or permanently.

However, the amount of pension you receive may change if you remain outside Australia for more than 26 weeks. Whether or not your payment amount changes will depend on how long you have lived in Australia between age 16 and age pension age.

For more information on how the pension payment rates are calculated, go to Pension payment rates while absent from Australia.

If you are travelling to New Zealand, the amount you receive may be affected by the social security agreement between Australia and New Zealand.

If you returned to live in Australia and were granted or transferred to Age Pension within the last two years, you will not be able to receive your Age Pension outside the country. After you return, to be paid outside the country, you must have been living in Australia for two years since your last arrival for residence. If you travel to a country that Australia has a social security agreement with, you may be able to continue to get your payment under that social security agreement.

Confusing?…..yes…very…

Good luck and best wishes for a successful battle with Centrelink!

 

I might add…that most, if not all, of these negative changes to Australians overseas drawing their well-earned pensions….are not an Abbot plot. They were initiated and passed by Labor in 2012….I might also add, just for your amusement, that most of these restrictions do not apply to accepted refugees….real or fake…and the number of fakes is? I'm guessing around 70%….
Say thank you Indonesia…...and thanks to the Greens - and the Labor choir singing in harmony to maintain their hold on government…..

 

I spoke with a Centrelink Representative, WHAT A b*tch!!! O-| I was informed I needed to phone the International Centrelink Services branch to make an appointment for my Pension review, who told me I have to contact my Local Centrelink Office to make the appointment, which once I had seen the Doctors, my case would be handed to him to handle, so I contacted the Disability Services and spoke to a lovely Lady (wish I could talk to her everytime I phone) who read out the riot act which stipulates that it is the International branch who MUST make my appointment for me to see the Doctors and get the Ball rolling, so back to them... Daylight saving.... So tomorrow I will jump back onto the 3 hour Merry-go-round listening to the world's most annoying Classical Music where for some reason I envision myself back in Robin Hood's day beheading Centrelink staff with a single swipe of my trusty Sword!! O--O:D lol

I am slowly cleaning up here, but I have lost close to $8,000 of Die-cast Cars I had put away as a Nest-egg for my one day Retirement when I needed a few dollars, but I think it is the betrayal of trust and the personal attack that has stung the most, I cannot sleep in my Water-bed which has been my pride and joy the past 28 years, a beautiful Don Juan King size 4-Poster with Red Velvet curtains top and bottom and heavily scalloped/ burnt Pine finish. After stabbing the bed and then flooding my room, they threw all my kids photos onto the mess which covered the last 31 years of my 6 kids growing up from babies to their weddings so now they are all stuck together... :(

I am determined to go there, I do not care what the Australian prat Government says, I have had a broken leg since 1984 which was initially caused by my Bike accident, but exacerbated when I was operated in an infected Theatre which led to the deaths of 3 others who shared the same Theatre that day with all of us being affected by Staphylococcus aureus (Golden Staph) infection, then contracting Hepatitis B from an infected Blood transfusion, then the Doctor putting my leg back together leading to my right foot laying flat on the bed when I lay on my back with my left foot pointing towards the ceiling, because I signed the waver so I could have the initial life saving operation I was left unable to sue the Hospital, unlike how they tried suing me for $21,000 then another $12,000 when they removed the steel plate to end the infection... The way I see it it was the stuff up by the Government Doctor that caused me to be this way, but no one would take the case on to try for compensation against the Hospital or any of its staff. :(

So now I am putting all the BS behind me and will begin saving yet once again until I have the funds to return to Negros to my Family and I would like if I can remain there permanently, but I need to work out exactly how long I need to vacate the Philippines for each year and if my Wife and (hopefully adopted on my return) Daughter can accompany me to Oz when I stay at my kids for a week each so we can catch up with everyone here... That it appears will be another Minefield I will need to cross come the time... :(

 

That is the problem, I know many who fake it so that they can be on Disability and all told me to fake a bad back or neck when I was first refused with a broken leg... I really feel that the Disability sections needs a d*mn good clean out as well as the Unemployment section to try and put a stop to the lazy generation who are Welfare Dependent and refuse to work for love nor money. Australia has become a Welfare dependant country and IMHO it is time it was flushed out along with discontinuing Payments to Retired Politicians who receive a $200,000 yearly handshake for the rest of their lives. For every Five Retired Politicians Taxpayers need to rake up One Million Dollars to support them for one year not including their Free Travel, Free use of Government Cars, Free Medical and other lurks and perks... But while Politicians are milking the Country dry what do they care if they keep a section of the community happy for brownie points with our foreign neighbours... :( I do not know if I am getting old and grumpy or just growing tired of watching what was once called "The Lucky Country" being sold out to foreign interests with no reigns on who can come in and buy up Properties and Businesses willy-nilly when every other Country on this Planet have Laws protecting them from being 'owned' by foreign interests... I am just getting very tired and/or disillusioned with 'my country' as it stand today... O-|

 

G'Day Alex, does that (staying in Phili for 36 months before having to leave the Country) apply to the Aged or Disability Pensions? And how long must I be out of the Country for?

I was 'hoping'; if I needed to be out for one month each year, and if that is so; then it would work in perfect for my flying my Wife and step Daughter (who is 6 YO) back to Australia when it is her mid-year School Holidays, so that I could stay a week each with some of my kids so I can catch up with them, see the Grand kids and show Melinda and Meah around SE QLD during our enforced Holiday.

But speaking to various Officials from the local Municipal Hall when I spoke to them regards changing my Daughter's last name versus Adoption, I have had varying responses from 24 hours to 3 days to 1 week to 1 month to 3 months that they believe I will need to vacate each year for, so I am hoping if I can email the Philippines Immigration Department I can find out exactly what I need to do, how much I need to pay, who to pay it to and dot all the i's and cross all the t's so that I am doing everything above board and causing no ripples within my new Home.

 

Sad story indeed, I have now heard so many of them, that I come to the conclusion that there must be quite a large number of Foreigners here that are invalid or otherwise handicapped, maybe because the Filipina is not bothered by looks or handicaps, unlike the western woman...