HansS

Is it dangerous to live in Philippines?

They have vulcanos, earthquakes, landslides, typhoons, floods, three kind of terrorist organizations, snakes, lizards, dangerous fishes, mosqitos and other biting insects but the only real danger (beside my wife!) is the traffic.

The traffic rules seem to be individual and pedestrians are not regarded as humans. You are not allowed to drive drunk if it is affecting the driving.  If there is no accident, you are a good driver. Forget about promille and shit. If you are speeding, and you are, you are just told to slow down. There is a lot of signs with speed limits (30km/h) but never a sign when you are allowed to speed up. That means you are allowed to run at 30 and no more... The sugar cane trucks breaks down now and then and are sometimes blocking one lane without any warning light or sign.  30% of the roads are "under construction" and the warnings is normally put exactly where the road works starts. To drive from Escalante to Bacolod is 100km national highway but it takes 2,5 hours. That means an average speed of 40km/h.

The slow speed is good for one thing, you have all the time you need to stop.

If you by accident hit a pedestrian and he dies, you maybe have a problem. If it is nighttime and he is standing on the road and try to stop you, the recommendation is to take him down because he is probably trying to rob you. No one is asking for help nighttime. If it is daytime and the victim is a bread winner in the family you can be forced to pay as much as 10 000Peso.

LTO, the supervising authority, is corrupt, ineffective and unfair. When we bought a new car it took 18 months to get a plate. The tax sticker comes when the tax period is over. LTO office in Cadiz cannot agree with LTO in Bacolod if our tax is paid or not. When they inspect your car they have no equipment to lift the car, they have to go to a carwash nearby. Outside their office is six big signs telling the visitors to avoid "fixers". As soon as you arrive at least four fixers offer their service. Without a fixer a simple issue can take six hours to process. Of course it is illegal to be a fixer but who cares, they share the profit with LTO friends.

Of course we have a lot of friends in Philippines; Myra has a lot of relatives in Negros and Panay.  The more time we spend in Philippines, the more friends we have. It is perfect when you travel around and visit friends during the trip. They take good care of us and we experience a lot more than normal tourists.

Sometimes it is nice to meet foreigners also, we share experiences in Philippines. Ten minutes away lives Jan and Nene van Klaveren. He is a Dutch but has spent most of his professional life in Australia.

Right now he runs a crab factory for an American company, they buy crabs, boil them, and 100 girls are picking the crab meat. Later they send everything to a canning industry in Panay for export to USA.  He like farming and grow a lot of papaya, nice tomatoes, cucumber etc. He also raise pigs, sheep's and chickens.  When we need a pig for grilling we just go to Jan, pick a suitable pig and bring it back home.   Always top quality!  His vegetables are much nicer than market quality. I think Escalante needs more guys like Jan, business minded and industrial. During his Australian years he introduced more than 30 new species of fruit trees to Australia.

Swedes and dutch are the same in many ways and Jan and I are very good friends now.

Also ten minutes away lived Julian, a retired American officer, with his wife in a nice, big, newly built house. For different reasons he get bored of living in Philippines and decided to go back to USA. They sold the house to Tim and Sweet Geddes, a Canadian couple with two kids. They live in Alberta and will stay the same season as us in Escalante. It took less then five minutes to realize they will also be a perfect contribution to the small community. Do I have to tell you all of us are married to Filipinas?