⌛ Tourist Police - Police - friendly locals

As for the Tourist Police, if they are here on Mindanao, I have never seen one.

As for the regular police, both LTO and PNP that I have had conversations with, they have obviously had some training or been told to treat foreigners and/or tourist with the upmost respect, because they do.
They always are polite and well manored to me, almost more than in Texas.

As for even the locals, they seen to show more respect to me then they do for each other. They are constantly asking me what I "think about the Philippines" and every conversation eventually has the question "are you happy with the friendliness here" or words to that effect. It seems like everyone is concerned about the image of being friendly here and/or the perception of how nice it is to live here.

Police and locals always get a big proud smile on their faces when I say that I
am staying here and not leaving. I guess it is their way of thinking that the Philippines is better than other countries (to me it is).

And to agree with firefly and Rhoody, it has gotten more friendly in the past
several months, noticably, but I thought it was just because I was getting use to living here.

 

OK Lets do it!

:p I was not sure where to answer this Ron, I will agree to agree with Rhoody & Firefly with you. he He He:D how about that for a double Thingy in English??? The thing is Ron, I get the impression that the longer any of us are here, the better we are known, As with you, I am Jack now, no longer just the Foreigner, with the onset of this Tourist police thing, I tend to think that we will all be looked on a little differently. No doubt Rhoody will, as he said, enlighten us when he has recovered from his Meeting. Firefly seemed surprised at his encounters with local Plod (Police), I am sure that it is just because he is a nice Guy, as I said Yesterday, nice to see this happening, a little reassurance goes a long way. I concur with your thoughts on a new thread Ron so Carry on my friend and I am sure a lot will follow!

Jack P.

 

Just came back home and had an interesting meeting with some of them. I will write a longer article some-when this week. For now just a few interesting info.

The Tourist police in Dumaguete are real police-officers, not like in other Cities I know where some civil volunteers got some nice shirts and are called tourist police.

Our Dumaguete tourist police is active since October 18,2010 and part of the TOPCOP - Program. Don't you love the acronyms here? TOPCOP stands for Tourist-Oriented Police for Community Order and Protection. The DOT has identified 14 travel destinations for this project and Negros Oriental is one of them.

You can find their office at Burgos Street, that is the street on the left when facing the City Hall direction Boulevard. Their Hotline which might be of value in each tourist, expat and local cell is for now 0909 6164 776.

More Info about their duties soon.

cheers

Rhoody

 

As an interesting sideline and/or addition to this, I went to a beach party today. And I was telling some of my friends about this thread and my feelings about safety here. One man (mid 20's) listened and then said that if anyone "messes" with me, they had better be ready to take on ALL of Aplaya. He said "we protect our own family here".
So.....not only am I no longer the "foreigner", but now I am "family".
Things just get better and better!
And, I met another foreigner today. He is married to my wife's cousin (one of many). Nice guy. He's an Aussie. Originally from Poland, been living in Australia for 15 years. Just bought a house here and will be moving here in about 2 years full time. Now he just comes here for 20 days, every couple of months.

 

Ron see what happens when you buy the pig! LOL Thanks for the info Roody.