Expatriates in the Philippines

Back from the ethereal dead

2009-11-29T15:59:00.017+07:00

Hello ETP readers!
I've been gone for years. So Solly, Cholly.
I was locked out of my account when Google took over Blogspot. It took forever to get it back. Plus other things - crazy, terrifying, impossibly bizarre events occurred that prevented me from keeping current with ETP. I'll update you about those chaotic and fascinating events in due course. But for now, having just - November, 2009 - reestablished control over my blog, I'll have to learn the in's-and-out's and tricks about operating my Blog again - then sit down and begin writing and posting once again.
I guarantee you that you will find my new stories about my personal experiences entertaining, fascinating, instructive, and unbelievable. Although you will most likely think my tales of life in the Philippines and what can happen to you at the hands of Filipina's unbelievable, I assure you it will all be true!
Stay tuned for BS kidnapping's, ghost attorneys, fake land holdings, death threats, assassins, non-existent land deals, non-existent relatives, inheritances, manipulation, cons and scams for money, court cases that never were, theft , a cheating wife's tale, a disappearing wife, and much more.

Reply to John P., and Notice of new articles coming

2005-11-07T16:01:00.000+07:00

Hey Ric,
I am going to be in the Philippines for two weeks in December. I might visit Palawan. Let me know if you want to meet for lunch.
How can we exchange email addresses?
John P

You can leave your email address on this site. I will remove it so no one else can see it. If I put my email address on this site, I'll never see an end to the emails.
....................................................................................

I'm going to be putting up some new articles sometime in the next few weeks (November).
The adventures of Celine continues. Celine stabs a stalker, and much more.
Rik

Peter Gets A Lesson

2005-10-03T14:11:00.000+07:00

His Pinay honey teaches him that appearances can be deceiving.

Note: This is going to be a very long article of 21-pages. There is correspondence between ‘Peter’ and I, about his involvement with a Filipina in Mindanao. Towards the end you’ll find an investigative report from a firm in Cebu.
For regular readers: Below this article you will find two more new articles written in October, plus more photos. Rik

“Peter” is a fictitious name. He has requested anonymity.

Peter is a middle-aged fellow from a north-eastern state. He’s never been married. He plans to retire and move soon to the Philippines. Peter has decided he’s now ready to be married. His plans are to live permanently in the RP, take a Filipina as his wife, and perhaps even have children.
Peter first contacted me by leaving a message in a comment area of ETP. He was seeking help in learning if the Filipina with whom he was having an Internet love affair was all she said she was.
All of Peter’s later email’s came to me via my private email. The readers therefore had no knowledge of the ongoing story taking place.
I do attempt to help people at a more private and personal level when it fits their nature, and if it is not necessarily relevant to the main purpose of ETP. It’s one of the reasons I sometimes ‘disappear’ from my website. I become so involved with writing in the background with private correspondence that ETP suffers. I can only sit at this computer so much before the pain in my bad back becomes too acute.
Now that the story has played out, and with Peter’s permission, I’m going to share Peter’s story and how he discovered that all is not what it seems between foreign men and many of the Filipina's they meet on the Internet.
It’s an important lesson for all those who contemplate moving to the RP and who begin their journey by starting a long-distance Internet affair with a Filipina.
Below are excerpts from Peter’s emails and portions of my replies. Be warned that some of Peter’s messages can be hard to understand, as occasionally he drinks J W Black while he writes. Although I will edit (correct punctuation, etc.) some of his correspondence for necessary clarity, I have neither the patience nor the desire to spend much time rewriting everything.
Some of the excerpts are unnecessary to the story, but are simply shameless promotions – and for vanity - to the ETP site.
Rik

Peter: Thanks Rik for your quick response. I have greatly enjoyed both your pictures, your explanations of the culture, and your invaluable advice on the Philippine woman. Everything you have stated in your blog seems very rational and well thought out. I look forward to reading your blog and check daily for any new blogs.
My gameplan, subject to change, is to live in the Philippines and commute back to the States once or twice a year. The electronic age is becoming so global that where you live is not very important.
I have never been married. Your description of the American woman seems right on the mark.
I have been on the internet dating sight, Filipina-Heart, and have received at least a thousand responses in just a couple of months.
My intercourse with you was to primarily have the groundwork in place. I may be very close to corresponding for the PI and then again I may not. I will thanks to you, be checking the background of any prospects that make the finals.

… I like your input because you are there and you have Celine as a possible advisor.
… the information download that you have provided is priceless. I am an intense researcher and have done a boat load of work on the Philippines. That is how I ran into your website.

… Your website easily boosted reliable information by at least 50% and I experience everything you say to be true. There is no way that I would have known the best technique and the only technique if not for your blog. It was through your blog and other research found at the end that changed my final destination in life from the Caribbean to the Philippines. Thank you.

… decided to join the website Filipina-Heart in July. And of course you get immediately bombarded with ladies. Now I know from other research all about a lot of scams, including the one you detailed in your blog. While it is not foolproof the best answer is the web cam. I selected Filipina-Heart because it received the most hits. If you don't have a good hit meter try www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic, they also give reviews of various websites.

- I decided to join the website in July. And of course you get immediately bombarded with ladies. Now I know from other research all about a lot of scams, including the one you detailed in your blog. While it is not foolproof the best answer is the web cam. I selected filipina heart because it received the most hits. If you don't have a good hit meter try www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic, they also give reviews of various websites but I take thoughs with a grain of salt.

Now using submissivewives.com without joining, I broke down a profile of their women and I set myself up a score card. I also looked for women that sat up straight or stood at attention I like that body language. Now I wanted a submissive wife, not just for sexual purposes, just in general… I have never been married.

… My strategy in life has been to make money first, women second.

… I no doubt have been charmed beyond anything I thought was possible, although I have not yet lost my sanity,(again thanks to you), by a certain 20 yr old. She is from the Provinces above the dangerous area of Davao. About a 4 hour drive. She was not the only contestant as I told you. She is a virgin. I have actually never had a virgin because I never wanted that lack of experience and all that goes with it. Now I am not giving her to you Rik , but I would have felt better if she had a little tiny bit of experience. The virgin thing makes breaking up significantly more difficult and perhaps more dangerous(family).

Of course they are poor. She is non materialistic in her profile. That along with her posture and education caught my attention along with my scorecard. The non materialisticness is taken with a grain of salt. However, she has never asked for money. About a month ago, however, I felt a money request coming, (She had something important to tell me that she needed my advice) and I shut her down before I heard the request. Broke off communications completely. Again thanks to you. I decided after a week that that was an unfair way to end this relationship. I told her my aunt a filapino, said she was a bad woman and that she had someone in mind for me. I most certainly had her attention. I have been in the drivers seat ever since.
She works in an internet cafe. 7 days a week, 13 and a half hours a day. She makes 160 pesos a day. She gets free room and board. She has to pay to use the internet. (I can't believe this). She is the cashier. I know from other reading that they obviously are trusted.

Rik: It is... smart of you to take the advice - arguably the best advice I can offer - to have your Honey Ko investigated. And I sincerely hope that's all you need to find that your sweetie is honest and trustworthy. However, even though you may get a good report, I still caution you to take things slowly. If you plan to take your Honey Ko back to the States, then you should also plan to marry her there, as well. As you should know from reading ETP, there is no divorce in the RP. I am currently into my fourth year of trying to get an annulment from my wife (not Celine), and I don't see myself getting any closer to my goal. Although my attorney rested the case last October and I was told by the judge I would get a decision within 60-days... I'm still waiting, and I could be waiting for many more years.
It's far better to marry in the U.S. where a divorce is quick and easy, and which is recognized by the Philippine government. If you're planning to move here to retire or work; even if your PI gives you a 'pass', you should live with your Filipina for years - at least three - before you make it legal. If you marry in the RP - getting married in the church will make an annulment even more difficult. Marrying at 'City Hall' makes things at least somewhat easier.

When you contact a PI, it would help the investigator to know in what Barangay she lives in. A Barangay is like a neighborhood or county, but in an official sense. Mail reaches me because the mail delivery guy, who shows-up occasionally (there's no daily mail delivery, and it can take a week or more for the mail to travel the 2-kilometers from the P.O office to here) on a small motorbike knew to come to the right Barangay, then to the village, then he asked around to learn which house I live in, Then he remembered me on later deliveries.
So you need to get your Filipina's best address to provide to the P.I., in case you're just writing her through the Internet.
… Now, here's my next best advice: protect yourself - protect yourself - protect yourself!

Peter: She lives about an hour from her parents… They all know about me... She send part of her earnings back to the family. (We spend so much time online, it can't be much). When I sent her my picture at her request along with a square of my blanket I enclosed $50.00US. I have read somewhere, where the postal people have x-ray vision, but as the package was going to her cafe and said pictures on it, it made it. I thought it a reasonable gamble. It took 14 days. I just felt guilty that she was spending so much money on me. We have communicated via email, chat and web cam. The cafe cam was recently stolen. (Problem) She said she put the money in the bank…
…I got mad at her a second time the day I corresponded with you. Again, I want to thank you for your rapid reply. I was mad that day because we had a phone date at midnight PI time. They had a festival in town and she wanted to go to a sing and dance event at the gym with her girlfriends. The operator said "your call is either unattended or out of the listening area. I was not crazy about either of those prospects, but she did set up the date that day. She does not own a cell phone and has to borrow one. She never did answer her phone.
The next day, I received your email before I received any of hers. I had sent her an email prior, prior to sending you one, with the operator quote. I told her, I think I am your boyfriend. Mid-afternoon she sent me two emails and explained that tere had been a bad storm that took down the satellite. I told her that I had set up a chat date with my aunt's friend, which I had, and had made connections with several (only you) Americans living in the PI. I also quoted one paragraph from you letter ananymouly: David, "Now, here's my next best advice, protect yourself - protect yourself - protect yourself!".

… Second JW… When I sent her the $50.00US, I told her that it is probably too late(I had to make sure she got it, I couldn't tell her that it was coming), however I would prefer she didn't tell anyone about it. i told her that I gave it to her precisely because she never asked for it. That I never give money to people that asked for it because, you don't get it back and they often spend it on booze or drugs. I don't mind helping people, and I don't. I know there are a lot of poor people and I am sorry, but I only give money when I want to and never when anyone asks for it. (Thanks Rik) She said she understood.
… I have been clocking her period, I think I have it. This is indespensible information that very few guys know about. If you know where you are in the period other than the obvious, a lot of things make sense.
… She said she wanted to bring a girlfriend with her and that she would stay at her aunts in Cebu. She wanted to stay by my side day and night. She said that she had never been to Cebu was scaried to fly and scared to take a ship. Her safety was a major concern, it made sense what she told me, the other girl had been to Cebu. I said I would pay for both's expense when I meet them if they had receipts. I said the internet and or phone was not foolproof. She agreed and was very happy.
… She asked me if I wanted to sleep with her. I told her that that decision would be made at the appropriate time and not over the phone/internet.
… I found out (accidently), that she was a virgin when we were in a chat and I asked her if she was a good hostess. She immediately went offf about that fact that she is not that type of woman. She is a woman no one can touch. This chat was a couple of days ago.

Rik: If you decide to, and then marry your Filipina, it's far, far easier (less time consuming by as much as 18 months) and much cheaper to get your 13(A) Permanent Resident Visa (for married persons) by first telephoning the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco or New York City, having the proper paper work mailed to you, filling it out and getting the required documents. Once you have the documents filled out and mail them back to the Embassy, they will request that you go there to see a consul official. They will have you go a second time to pick-up your papers. The two trips I made to S.F. was spaced over only 5-days - because I went on a Thursday then had to return on the following Tuesday. The processing took three days only. I was charged about $57 for everything.
I've talked to Americans who started the 13(A) process here and it took up to 18-months and cost $700 or more, mainly because in the RP you will need an attorney to do the work for you.
If you do contact the S.F. RP consulate, be prepared to have to call numerous times as they are inept and will shuttle you from office (phone) to office and you will be hung-up on and disconnected. Have patience and keep at it. Try to be as clear as you can about what you want to accomplish. The best thing is to tell them repeatedly that you need to talk to a consulate official about getting a 13(A) Permanent Resident Visa, and that you need the documents to apply for it. Doing that myself required telephoning the Consulate between 12 and 20 times over a four day period before I got through to someone who could or would help me. But then, I didn't know what I was doing, and had no one to advise me.

If you want to go very slow and be very careful about who you're marrying, you might want to just live here with your Honey Ko, sans marriage, using a 59-day visa. You can renew it for a small fee at the local immigration office. There's foreigner's who've claimed to have lived here for as much as 15-years on a 59-day (renewable) visa. When you're absolutely certain you can trust her, and want to marry your Filipina, go ahead and do it. You might consider, I repeat, flying her to the States just long enough to get married, and then return.
She will need a passport, of course, and an American tourist visa which will require her (you) to put up a P450K refundable bond before she can get the visa: that's about $8000.

About terrorism in the Philippines. Yeah, it's here, but mostly in the Manila area and in Mindanao. I wouldn't live in Mindanao for anything, nor will I visit there; it's too dangerous. There's some danger to living in Pampanga (Angeles City, Clark air-force base area some 60 miles north of Manila) because of the large number of foreigners. Angeles City has the highest number of retired Americans at over 3000 people, so I'm told. That's where all the bars and wild goin's-on's are located. If you like to drink (I do not) and like cheap sex by volume (quantity of females; bar-girl prostitutes), or being continuously chatted-up by retired military types, that place may be a good place for you to live. However, there's Rebels (as they're called here) in the area who on occasion kidnap foreigners for ransom.
Terrorism has a decidedly financial motivation in the RP.
In Mindanao, there's more kidnappings for money. But there’s also plenty of political terror. Many more people die in that area, as there's a penchant for public bombings.
Palawan is peaceful and quiet in contrast to the rest of the RP islands.
Palawan is separated from the rest of the RP by the Sulu Sea. Although there are some Rebels here, in the far north and south; they are generally content to kill policemen and military people. Puerto Princesa City (PPC) is free of rebels, and in the four years I've been here I've never had to worry or feel afraid. It's a good place to live. Manila or Cebu can be reached by a 55-minute plane trip. There's great resorts and some of the best dive spots on earth. Palawan is known as the "last frontier." There's still mountain tribes living in the old ways of a thousand years ago in the south.
It's growing (PPC) and will become like everywhere else before too many more years, but I would rate Palawan as the best spot in the RP. However, if you need your city fix and you can't live in small towns, you need to stay somewhere in Luzon - the island where Manila is located – or in the Cebu area. Be warned that Manila is a horrid, filthy and dangerous city, where the pollution will coat your skin with an oily mess within minutes of stepping outside.
When you fly into Manila, I would suggest that you stay at the Swagman Hotel in Ermita (a section of Manila). It's cheap compared to the big hotels and is only one block away from the US Embassy. There's good low cost food to be had at the Park Embassy Hotel dining room, which is directly across the street from the US Embassy, and around the corner from Swagman's.
Don't wear jewelry or carry a cell-phone openly in public. Keep your wallet, passport, money, etc. secreted. Try not to dress like a typical tourist or in fancy clothes. It's best to travel with a cloth belly pouch (which has an elastic strap) under your shirt. You can buy one in most travel shops or online for about $10.00. Buy a good and comfortable inflatable neck pillow for the plane trip. You'll thank me for that advice every time you fly for 11-15 hours.
Before you leave the States buy one spray bottle of OFF mosquito repellent to bring with you. When in Manila go to one of the Mall's like Robinson's Mall, which is also close to Swagman's Hotel, and into a department store (Robinson's) and buy one or two more. You can also get OFF at the drug stores. The RP is full of mosquitoes, including Manila which even has dengue fever.
You might be interested in going to this website to look at the Filipina's and read profiles: This is the home page: http://www.submissives.net/
It may help give you insight into the difference between the women of the East and West.
I can't say enough times that you - or any Western man - should just come here and taste of the exotic fruits (so to speak) and enjoy yourself for awhile. Get to know the ways of the people and the ladies. We Westerner's often feel the need to have something 'waiting' for us in advance before we come here. I plead guilty of doing that, myself. But I've long since learned that you don't need to. Very quickly after setting up house here the jungle drums will start beating, and before you know what's happened you'll have mother's bringing their daughters, aunties bringing nieces, sisters bringing sisters, men bringing groups of women to your door to offer them to you.
You won't be lonely for more than a few days or weeks - if that long. But know that if you let a girl through your door on some sort of permanent basis, it can be very hard to get them out again when you discover they lie, deceive or steal from you.
You need to tell the girl, the parents and everyone else your rules beforehand: "Lie, cheat, steal , deceive and I'll throw you out. Period!" If you are extremely clear in your rules, you'll get little or no argument from relatives when you do toss the girl out for breaking rules.
SET YOUR RULES - MAKE SURE THEY UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU TELL THEM - KEEP REPEATING YOUR RULES - DON'T BEND YOUR RULES, AND ALWAYS KEEP YOUR PROMISES.
That means you should be careful what you promise.
Some parents will try to sell you their daughters for the price of a multi-cab or tricycle so they can start a business. They may just want money. Some parents will offer to sell you their 13, 14-year-old girls. If you take one of the young ones, you can and may be black-mailed to keep from being turned in to the police. But, if you take good care of the parents - build them a bamboo hooch, give them some money now and again, pay some of their doctor bills, and so forth, they'll protect you. But it’s against the law to take a girl under the age of eighteen. So you take an underage girl at the risk of finding yourself in a Philippine prison. Believe me, you don't want that.
It's quite common for girls as young as eleven to marry. However, they mostly marry Filipino men. Girls are bought and sold. There's a large segment of Muslim's in the Philippines. Buying and selling brides - as well as multiple wives - is way people can see that their daughters find husbands who can afford to give them a good life, and the parents can benefit financially along the way. I personally don't see anything wrong with it. I think one needs to live here for a while to recognize he necessity, the logic and the benefits of that sort of marriage. Prior to 200-years ago, virtually every marriage marriage in the world was arranged for financial and personal benefit. Can we say that the 'contemporary' style of marriage for love is better while 52% or more of all marriages end in divorce?
Anyway, it's a weird world here, and nothing... nothing like the USA.

It may be a good idea to have some honey's to meet when you get here but, unless you're in a big hurry to marry, take your time and don't talk too seriously with the Filipina's - and don't stick to only one. Tell them up-front that you are 'looking' for the right girl and that means you have to 'look' at more than one. Think of dating as interviews for a job. and don't hire the first applicant that comes through your door. They'll **** you anyway.
When you get information of a girl's address let me know and I'll have Celine send text messages to get you a PI in the Mindanao area.
… I suffered when I first came here and had to learn through the trip, stumble and fall method. I just hate seeing others go through that when I can help them without a lot of effort.
… I hope all of your dreams come true for you once you're living in the land of endless summers.

Peter: …The only evidence (refresh you virgin thought) she has presented or I quiz up was that she broke up with her boyfriend about six months ago as he married another. I beat he was from the fh website I originally thought he was a Filapino. I probably will cross-exam her on this.
One of the problems with virgins is that they never forget their first one. I also think about the family and religion problem. She said she would die when I died and was crying that my man is the key part of the menstual cycle. That and other evidence. However, I told her foolishly that was and email her after the phone conversation about the foolishness of her comment, but it is a concern. Rik these women are loyal, she doesn't even know me.
… She loves the way I respect her (I know what you are thinking), I am not profane at all and I am very respectful at least initially of everyone. She said other men turned profane after a while and that she is not that type of girl. The profane part is most likely true. I have seen to much evidence to discount that.
I told her from the beginning that I am a man that believes in a back up plean always. I would have a #2 ready if this didn't pan out. However, I told her the truth and that I haven't decided on a number 2 yet, but that I am still looking. She understands. The only thing she acts concerned about is my aunts friend (fictious). She also did not like the fact that my aunt said she was a bad woman.
Sidebar: I did not know that a hostess was essentially a bar girl, hadn't ran across that.

… How do I keep her from being materialistic. I like when she says your the boss, I was trained to be firm and fair. This materialistic question bothers me. She has seen that I own three TV and countless other electronic gadgets on web cam. She claims and I don't necessarily doubt that she is a simple woman, I got her definition of the simple woman. That one incidently is from your (I have no connection to the website – ETP) submissive wives website and asset. Your thought about this problem and of course this whole letter I would truly appreciate.
When to purchase the PI? I am going to be greatly surprised if he finds out anything about her that I haven't already known. However, her family??? I am sure she protects the family.
Not crazy about the inabiltiy to test the exotic fruit. However, we are dealing with a possible virgin here. Celine's imput would be interesting. Seems like I need a plausible line. I have laid on her several times that jealousy is very unappealling (thank Rik). She is not very jealous and I am thinking about building a bridge to Japan from PI. However, if you are publishing the correct answer is if you can ditch your woman get another hotel room.
She will bring ID, don't ever be so stupid.
I expect to use American Express, but how much cash is smart to have, I have long used the money belt, but thanks for the pillow, I have one, but would not have taken it.
Where to go after Cebu? I would imagine I would like to experience other safe parts of the country obviously with her.
… Where else in the Philippines is there my need for mass communications without interruptions and safety? Perhaps were I can raise children. What are my best connections for this? I have not done any research on this, however I have had mixed reports on Cebu. I am talking about permanent residence.
… She said I can take her anywhere I want to go.
… I am not use to having a woman by my side. I used to operate on the one hundred **** theory, that nothing good happens after that. However, I am getting older, I don't feel comfortable my sister and I believe I need to marry. I will be surprised if this lady is a 9 or 10, but she has an education and comes from a Province and no doubt is a 'simple woman', certainly a prospect. It will be “heartbreak hotel” if I drop her. I know that shouldn't be in the equation. I will make her time montarily prosperous if we split.
So I trust my instincts, but I have some problems. Your imput would be greatly appreciated.

Rik: I have to tell you that you should stop at the first drink when you write email's of such duration. There's a lot I don't understand. Perhaps you could re-read the email's and see what I mean.
I don't drink, so I don't experience those problems. Nor do I smoke. And, for the record, I don't like being 'profane' either. I'm not a religious nut - even as a Buddhist - believing religion is best served by more action (of personal responsibility) and no talk
… Ok, I'll start following along on your train(s) of thought:
… statistics don't do a very good job of predicting which Filipina will be a good one. There are more variables than even (chose one) God can get on a statistical chart. God must have been drunk the day he made women, because they are the most unpredictable creatures on earth.
Exotic Fruits: You should definitely stay away from any kind of entanglements before you come here, and after you get here. I know it is, and will be, very tempting to do mating 'display' when playing on the Internet - it's safe, and can be fun. Internet dating games in the RP are a major industry. Filipina's will tell you all sorts of things - endless variations of things. There is no way to tell what is and isn't true. But if you play with telling your Honey Ko how you feel, etc., over the Internet ("I'm your boyfriend"), she'll take it as bring carved in stone.
You should consider saying, "Let's meet and see what happens. I'm searching for the 'right' girl, who must be a certain way (your criteria). So I must spend time and meet many girls... I can't and won't make any promises." Once you're in your sweety’s arms - and before you **** her - you should tell her that ****ing her doesn't mean you've picked her to be the one, so... "are you sure you want to do this?"
My earlier advice stands: Although it's nice to have some girls lined-up to meet and spend time with; it's better to live here for awhile and enjoy being single.It will be like being a kid in a candy store with an unlimited selection. Girls will be coming out of the woodwork. You can get a house-keeper, and she will find you girls. All you want. I used my house-keeper (H-K) as a procurer and she brought me many girls. I never went into a bar but once (taken there by a Pinoy (man) on a 'tour' of Puerto), except for the time I made one trip to AC (Angeles City).
The only real way to learn what you need to learn in RP is to live here and 'experience' things. Don't be in a hurry.
As for Celine and giving you advice about "exotic fruits"; Celine is private in the most extreme sense of the word. She wouldn't even consider advising you. She talks to almost no one, and completely shuns the pinay habit of chika-chika (gossip) - which you'll soon learn about to your regret. She won't talk to the neighbors, and will hardly talk to her own sisters. She stays in the house and does needle work and other crafts, and listens to the TV while I sit at the PC. She works outside in the garden daily - eschews jewelry and showing-off, and goes nowhere unless I send her. She's as about as perfect a partner as a man could hope for.
On chika-chika: You will have to be very careful about what you do and say to anyone. I call the compound's maids and house-keepers, “The Maid Mafia” - and for good reason. Everyone is in a conspiracy of chika-chika about each other's "bosses." You will always be called "boss" here. It's best to say nothing you don't want anyone - everyone - else to know. And, believe me, they'll all know.
Find yourself a girl who hates chika-chika and doesn't want friends, and you find yourself to be a much happier man.
As to being the "boss": You can be as much of a boss as you wish. Here, your word is law. Tell your woman how she is to obey you - right away - and that breaking your rules will get her kicked out the door. Use the words 'training,' 'discipline' and 'punishment' often. Tell her that you're going to train her how to behave. It won't faze her. Discipline your woman how you wish. Filipina's are designed to obey and defer to men. You can spank her, tie her up, **** her until the cows come home, and she'll take what you give her as a matter of course. Training is everything, so you should have a plan on what you want and how you want it... then implement it.
Filipina's, as you probably know, are known by the term LBFM's (little brown ****ing machines), and they deserve the title. You can *** your Filipina as much as you want. It's not America and Americunt's here, Toto.
Do not allow her to indulge her friends at your house. Keep the family at bay by telling Honey Ko you don't like or want company, but are a very private person. Tell her she must want to live that way or you won't 'take' her in. Filipina's, for the most part, love chika-chika, to visit and have visitor's. Once they learn that she's living with a foreign man, long-lost friends and family will soon start arriving if you don't preempt it first - all wanting - expecting - to be fed and given sugar drinks with their chika-chika. If you allow it in the beginning, you'll regret it. Be tough but soft. Calm but firm. Love your woman and play and laugh, but be in control - like a boss would be. But not like a tyrant 'boss.'
I joined Intimate Submissive's, but never met anyone. It quickly became apparent it wasn't necessary. You'll understand once you're here. There's girls everywhere. But you need someone to introduce you. Bar girls are no good. But dating is almost impossible. Shy Filipina's won't talk to you.
Get a house-keeper. She'll be your gateway to women.
Intimate Submissives is good because they screen and only accept submissive's. Filipina-Heart takes anything. If you don't get a submissive woman, you'll generally get trouble. Many Filipina's now want to be Westernized, and so behave as if they are. You have to be firm, controlling and discerning. If your Filipina doesn't behave right away, or shows signs later of rebellion or deception either punish her or throw her out. There's an unending supply of honey's waiting to get in your door.
I told my H-K to talk to Celine when I saw her walking down the street. I stood off about 20-feet away while they talked. Once I saw Celine look at me and keep talking and listening, I knew I could safely go over to where she was without frightening her. I immediately told her I was looking for a proper Filipina that wanted to serve a loving, responsible, but demanding man. About ten days later she was living with me. Try that in America!

My strategy has been to be happy, and make money in the process. Women are great, and can be a lot of fun. I wouldn't want to deprive myself of their company for long. But in the USA I didn't want to get deeply involved, since they only manipulate you once they know you care about them.
AIDS is a problem, no doubt. Stay away from the bar-girls if you're afraid of it. There's plenty of girls everywhere. There's lots of virgins here. Celine was a 25-year-old virgin when I met her. I don't like virgins, either. But I've had a wonderful time training Celine. When you're older - and retired, you have a different perspective - not to mention plenty of time - on sex. Most any Filipina will learn, and enjoy, whatever you teach them, so new kinds of sex and new tricks can be a source of fun for you, also. And virgins have no real pre-conceived notions of what to expect. Asian women are used to serving and being dominated… They seem to like sexual gadgets, and porn movies. If you'd like to or want to provide sex toys, you can't get them here, so you must bring some or go to Hong Kong or Thailand to purchase them.
The Catholic's are in charge here. Many levels of society are very strict.
The virgin thing won't get you in trouble with the parents. Mostly, they don't care. Sex is viewed differently here - people don't have those puritan hang-ups like in the USA.
But you need to talk to the parents even more than your honey about what you expect and will and won't do for them, and what you expect from their daughter; absolute obedience and loyalty, no deceptions, blah, blah, and how you will throw her out if... Get their full understanding about those things. "Do you understand that I won't tolerate or permit..? and what I'll do if...? They may want you to give them a monthly stipend for loss of money from the daughter who will no longer be working and giving bucks to them. It's up to you whether you will or not. I told Celine's parents "no." Once that was established, and after I saw that Celine was a good partner, I gave help to them. They appreciated it - and me - a lot more when I did it from the goodness of my heart rather than having to. But they never ask for anything.
... Of course they're poor (Peter’s girlfriend’s parents)... most everyone is. Many dream of the American's riches. Plenty of girls will tell you they don't want money when they do. Don't be deceived by words. Again, the experience of being here is your best ally. Trust at your peril. Plenty of Filipina's will tell you they don't want anything from you, because they know that will turn you off to them.
Steady as she goes, mate!
You shouldn't lie to your Filipina (the “auntie” lie). The truth is always best. The American games aren't necessary here.

P160 pesos-a-day sounds about right (how much the girlfriend earns per day). And most children give money to their parents.
She probably gets free time on the PC, though, as she would only be able to get online before or after hours or when things are slow. She'd soon be broke if she had to pay. It's likely to be a feel-sorry-for-me line.
Free room and board is standard for many jobs in the Phlippines. It binds workers to the owner.
One thing to learn is that Pinoy don't normally come out and ask for something like American's do. We Americans are very straight-forward as a people. Pinoy's, no. They'll beat around the bush for days on end and try to get you to offer. They may never actually come out and ask for what they want. You're supposed to know somehow what they want and give it to them. That also makes it easier for them to never pay you back.
Put that info to the front of your brain and keep it there.
It's possible that a storm took the satellite; that sort of stuff happens, all right. But... you can never know.
The $50 gift was a silly thing to do - under any circumstances. And to think she won't tell everyone you sent it is, at the least, unrealistic. That was very American of you. $50 is more than half-a-month's pay. Big money. Imagine if you had 17-days extra pay given to you as a bonus. Don't think she saved it; a Pinoy saving money is too rare to contemplate. Money pours through Pinoy fingers. She may have given a little to the parents, but it's probably spent.
But it's your money to do with as you please.
Your honey may or may not be educated, but education here and education in the USA is two different things completely. Don't expect her to be smart. Most Pinoy - even University trained - are ignorant as all get-out, and superstitious in the extreme. You're in for a lot of laughs when you hear the things you're going to hear from your Honey Ko.

About women's periods: Yeah, there's a lot to be said about knowing that stuff. Celine, to my delight, has never once been in a bad mood, even when her cramps bother her.
Whether you thought of it or not, you did exactly the right thing writing on the envelope you sent that there were pictures inside. I use that trick when I have new credit cards sent to me. Always have the envelope hand-written and put a piece or two of thin cardboard - like on the back of writing tablets or a cereal box - on each side. Better still, pay for FedEx delivery to your door or the office.
A fourteen day snail-mail trip is normal.

There's tons of festivals here, and girls love to go to them as well as to dances and kereoke clubs. Don't allow it once you're here. Many Filipina's with foreign husbands will have a boyfriend hidden somewhere, and they'll support them with your money. You should always control the flow of money. Don't leave it laying around - not even a change jar - where she can get a hold of a 20 or fifty peso bill.
You'll probably give her an allowance. She'll take as much as you'll give her. Most want P10K ($200) or more. I never gave more than P3K a month, and I only give Celine P2K. For the last year I've given her nothing except small amounts when she needs it. I'm using all my money to invest in fish cages and rice buying and selling and loaning for seed and pesticides - plus I help her parents with bills. Since the businesses are in her name, her allowance goes there as a share of the investment.
Usually when you give an allowance, the girl is expected to buy all of her own things - make-up, shampoo, conditioners, lotions. tampax, clothes, and so forth. Do one or the other, but not both.

Cebu, according to Celine isn't a very safe place top live. There's not a lot of terrorism, but there are kidnappings. Celine continued that Cebu City is full of crime and criminals. Celine says most of the criminals in Manila come from Cebu - meaning it's a breeding ground. Personally, I wouldn't know. I've never gone there.
...Cebu, and Manila, is a one hour flight from Puerto.

Your lady friend is doing the normal thing in taking a companion (read: ETP) - it's normal. It's not surprising that she's never been there or flown on a plane. This is the RP, after all. Asking for receipts is a good idea. Better remind her more than once and just before she leaves; Pinoy have a habit of forgetting practically everything - except who owes them money.

Peter: "I said the Internet and or phone was not foolproof."
" ... She immediately went off about that fact that she is not that type of woman (bar-girl). She is a woman no one can touch."
"She asked me if I wanted to sleep with her."

Rik: Hmm, that opens lots of questions and rings bells in my head. That would not be the normal question for a Filipina virgin to ask. Do you see the incongruity between the statement and question?

Hostesses: Yes, there's an example of language translation and different meanings. A hostess is a bar-girl, but may (rare) be a greeter in a good restaurant or even bartender. But, yes, mainly it means bar-girl/prostitute.

The boyfriend was probably a Pinoy. But there'd be no surprise if she was writing other men, either, like you, keeping her options open, or for play. Pinay love to email and chat with foreign men.
A lot of Filipina’s practice their skills of deceit and get money from many men on the Internet.

Celine has also told me that she wants to die when I die. It's standard fair in this part of the world, and has nothing to do with menstruation. Filipina's will attach themselves to you either through loyalty and love or though your bank accounts. That's why I keep saying don't jump into the first spiders web you come across. Some of those girls will make it very hard for you to get rid of them.
One girl refused to leave and informed me that she was staying right where she was when I told her to get out. I had to take her by her hair and drag her to the door and toss her through it. But before I could close the screen door she had her body up against me and both hands clinging to the door jam as she screamed and tried to push herself - and me - back inside. It took three tosses to get her far enough away to get the door closed. She raced around the house screaming and crying and demanding to be let in.
I ignored her.
I finally wound up giving her money to go to college for a year to get rid of her, and a P15K loan (never paid back, of course) to the mother.
In the beginning of the relationship I had promised to give the daughter's allowance to the mother as she had been working and supporting the mother and was paying the cost of putting a brother through school. When I threw her out, she went to school and the mother had nothing.
It was the right thing to do under the circumstances. But I told the lot of them never to bother me again. That was my most expensive lesson.
Because she kept threatening to cause me trouble and demanding to be let back in for weeks, I called my attorney for legal advice.
Under RP law, if you let a Filipina into your house to live - if you let her bring her clothes, etc., into the house and she sleeps there - you can't legally throw her out. My attorney advised me that if she refused to leave and stayed inside the house, and if I then threw her out I could be arrested, so the best thing to do was to rent another place, move out and stop paying the rent. That's legal. But if you buy property for you and your wife (or girlfriend) to live in, and you throw her out, you are in effect throwing yourself out - and you will lose your investment.
Because all property must be in your wife's or woman's name, and not yours.
Something else for you to remember.
When your Filipina said that men became profane on the Internet, she meant they talk dirty about sex - what they would do to her, and vice-versa.
I think you're making a mistake trying have a number one, number two back-up plan. And I believe you'll see the mistake after you've been here awhile. In the USA, life is one way, and the man-versus-woman culture requires a certain attitude of management.
But this is the RP - a totally different gig altogether. You're a shark in a pool full of minnows. Why bother giving one or two minnows special attention?
PLDT (the national phone company) has the best offer for communication. I have high-speed unlimited-time broad-band 124K-per-second DSL for P2500 ($44.60). The phone charge is now P897.00. You can get good PLDT service in Cebu, I'm certain. Power goes out a lot though, even in Manila.
I don't doubt that your Filipina is a simple woman. Again, standard stuff in a land of poor people. The question is: will she stay simple once she's under your care?
About jealousy: Simply said, "I will not tolerate jealousy. Period. Play jealousy games with me and you'll be standing on the other side of that door. Obey me and you'll be all right."
Your American Express card may not be very useful to you. Better to have a Visa. Bring in traveler's checks, and expect to use them. You can cash them at any bank. First, though, get a few photocopies of your passport. Many, if not all banks will require that before they'll cash your checks. When you use traveler checks and buy pesos with dollars you'll get the going daily rate - which may rise. Four years ago it was P49=$1.00. Now, P56=$1.00.
Everywhere the power is 'iffy' - on and off. You can't get around that. I don't recommend wi-fi communications as that can easily be tapped into from outside your house. Use PLDT.
I recommend that you rent some place. You'll probably want to move at least once when you find something better. Get some place (in Manila or Cebu) that's secure - somewhere you can have you house or apartment guarded - in a guarded compound or apartment building. An apartment might be best at first - so you can safely leave your belongings and travel. Tip the guard a small amount to make sure no one breaks in. Tell him you'll give him a nice tip upon your return if your apartment stays unmolested while you're gone. Travel to find where you'd really like to live.
I don't necessarily agree with your sister. Marriage may not be what you need - at least for awhile.
You will need someone to take care of you as you grow older. If you pick well, - unhurriedly - there's hardly a better woman to take care of you than a Filipina.
By the way, the more highly educated Filipina's can be far more dangerous and deleterious to you than a simple girl. A 'forest girl' as they're known as here can be the best. They live simply and are already well trained in obedience and submissiveness by their father and mother, relatives and neighbors.
Celine, for your edification, has a third grade education, has worked more or less steadily since she was eight years old. She's a forest girl. But, she is one of the smartest Filipina's I've met so far - certainly the most trustworthy, faithful, obedient, loyal and hard working. She's unassuming and satisfied with what I give her. City girls - college educated girls want MORE, and expect to get it. They know the ways of the Western world and want their piece of it. Forest girls are happy if they have electricity and a fan.
I would never let a city Filipina through my door. They preen and love to spend money and, worse, they love to show-off. They practice deception and dream always of more. They're never satisfied. They want you to take them to the States and live in the land of golden opportunities. Stick with simple; you'll be much happier.
They are far easier to train to do what you want.

You might be interested in looking through this site: http://www.pointmancebu.com/. They offer, among other things, investigative-style services. The gentleman who operates PMC tells me that he is not a licensed private investigator and does not advertize his services as such. However, confidential interviews are performed. The Filipina will not be informed that she's being interviewed for her potential foreign mate.
Rik

Peter: What am I doing to prepare myself?
I daily reread one of your months great lessions. Everyday a different month and about every other day reread your personal correspondence with me, that I greatly appreciate the time you took and the great of detailed personal instruction. Thank you so much. I believe the deprograming process is gradually working its charm.
Of course being a weak, sensitive American sent me astray back into some communication with my honey-ko. However, do to your instruction, I am in complete control of the situation. I was already in pretty commanding position with the last email that I shared with you. It set her back a day or so to respond. I told her that it was at best a 10 to 1 chance that I would see her after a couple of exchanges. I asked her last week, what kind of a wife would she be to me and demanded an answer by Wednesday this week. (Notice I am not drinking). She delivered a response on Wednesday (quite long) and ended with a. .. to be continued... She mentioned that she was sick with the flu. That sickness was brought on by the stress I placed on her.
… With her Friday response, I went on the attack, and told her she must obey me at all times. I told her that that was such an easy question that I did not think it should take three to five days to answer. I said to put it another way, if we were getting married and the priest presented you with the marriage voes, would we have to wait three to five days for you to answer his question. This was totally unexceptable, that if you were living with me you would be out the door. Or else I would leave. I cannot have a rebellious woman. Rebellious women is what we have here in the states, they think divorce is okay. I do not. You must obey me, obey me, obey me. Now there has to be punishment. I may not see you at all this year. I want you to email me each day for the next five days with your response. If you do I will email you on the fifth day. If you cannot do this I will email you in ten days.
She emailed back that she would obey me all the time and do whatever I want etc., etc., in some detail. Of course I will stay firm to the five days if she follows through.
… I like your idea of a guarded residence or else an apartment and explore next year with a base camp.
…I look forward to your future blogs and any advice you may have for me.
… Speaking of trust, the www.pointmancebu.com web-site rated filipina internet ladies with a 20% honest rating.

Rik: What is your agenda, now, concerning the girl you've been talking love and possible marriage to in Mindanao? Are you still making her the focus of your affections?
For most Filipina’s, Pinoy (men) are worthless. They find it almost impossible to be monogamous. Most affluent men have many lovers, mistresses and concubines (for children) - all at the same time. Even many of the very poor will have at least one lover on the side.
Pinay don't mind all that much unless it affects their own and their children's well-being, by virtue of the man spending all of the money drinking and on the second household where he keeps the mistress.
Keep giving serious thought to staying single for awhile. You can keep renewing your 59-day visa as many times as you want for a small fee. It's far, far cheaper than what it would cost by having a woman who steals everything from you, or having to pay a girl off - or her family - to go away.
In the RP most foreigners have to pay the girl to come and then to go.
... Flirting is common and acceptable in the Philippines. Don't be afraid to flirt. But don't be lewd. Compliments will take you far. Telling a girl how affected you are by her beauty, charm, etc., is very effective. "Would you have dinner with me? I'd like to get to know you better and know more about you." is a good line.
Steer clear of sexual innuendo.

..............................................................................................................

I think this is enough for the reader to get an idea of the inter-play between Peter and his Internet girlfriend. There's just a bit more needed, however, to lead you in to the investigators report.

After going to www.pointmancebu.com, Peter made arrangements to have his Filipina interviewed, In the following portion of this article you will learn just how close to knowing his Filipina Peter was, and what kind of a person he was really dealing with, and also how much ‘truth’ Peter was actually getting from her.

Peter: Of course, I am still communicating with the Mindanao lady. I have been very honest with her and the little money that I sent her will take care of any communication or picture expenses she has incurred. It is supplementing my education on the Filipina culture, she is very beautiful and I plan to have her investigated, if for no other reason than my curiousity.
I receivied an email from Pointman Cebu. I hope they are a reputable agency as I can find nothing good or bad about them.
… As far as going slow, my world record is three months with a woman. I was in a forum yesterday on WSG, with single never married men. They all seemed to want to get married but they cannot bring themselves to that elective. Only one guy had a solution, he was about our age and he found a killer woman as his main woman and had three college girls on the side until he thinks now he can be monogamous. I don't have any idea what kind of therapy I need. The main reason to get married is to have children which I think would be nice.
…Thanks for everything, Rik.

The following is the initial report from Pointman Cebu, who did the investigation of Jukie, Peter’s “girlfriend.” Jukie is not the girl's real name.
In the reports of those from Pointman-Cebu below - I will also not use real names of the interviewer's, and Pointman-Cebu will be recognized as "PMC."

Hi Peter,
Here is our report on Jukie for you:
Jukie, upon first communicating with her, seems to have a very nice personality. In fact, she is an attractive girl. However, when you dig deeper, below the skin is where you find she isn’t quite so attractive.

First, she wants to use you (in her own words) as a “stepping stone” in the US. This means that she will leave you after she has become established there, as many scammers will do with their foreigner husbands and fiancé’s.

Second, she said that you are too old for her and that she wants to find someone else who is younger. She only wants to gain your trust so that you will take her to the states.

Third, she still chats with other men online. She is allowed all the free time she wants online, in exchange for her working, as it is part of her agreement with her boss, whom I happen to meet as well while there.

Fourth, she has received money from other men she chats with online.

Lastly, she uses her personal cell phone at work and was sending text messages on it while we were there.

So, from what we found out, I would strongly suggest not taking her to the US to be with you. Please feel free to contact me regarding any questions you may have. I realize that you may not wish to talk by phone. However, in this case if you make an exception I will be happy to discuss any of this in further detail with you. My number is: 1-912-228-3385 I will be happy to ring you back, if you prefer.

Thanks,

PMC

Peter: … Thought you would be interested in PMC's final report. I am going to call him to see how he formulated each of his decision points.
Rik: Due to time-zone confusion, an email was dispatched to PMC, instead.
The following is first the questions from Peter, then the answers from PMC.

Hi PMC,
On your report:
How did the (going to) United States get brought up into the conversation?
How did you learn that she thought I was too old for her?
How did you find out that she still chats with other men online?
What did you learn from her boss about Jukie and/or our relationship?
How did you learn she had received money from other men online?

General Questions:
Did she seem shy?
Were you a party of four?
What were your wife's general observations/conclusions?
Do you think she is married or has a boyfriend?
Did you feel that I was her main boyfriend?
How long of a conversation did you have with her?
How busy was the cafe during your visit and did the weather have any effect on there business at this time?
How time consuming do you believe her job to be?
Did others in your party have any good/bad observations?
How safe is the area that you travelled through for americans?
What would be your recommended method to travel there?
Did you use any of the computers at the cafe if so did they appear to have poor internet connections?
Did you notice a web cam? There web cam was supposed stolen about a month ago. Only the web cam was taken.
Do you have anymore pictures of interest to me?
If you were hiring an employee, based on what you learned about Jukie, would you hire her to work for you?
What is your best guess on how Jukie would handle your report if I told her?

Finally:
Have you made any general observations during your time in the Philippines about islands that have better prospects than others? Are there islands to avoid?
Is there anything I can do for you, such as a letter of recommendation for your web site. I will ask Rik to include your firm in his blog.

Many thanks, PMC, I am glad you are safe, thanks for the picture, it seems to me like a fine report.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Hi Peter,

I apologize for the late reply. Anyway, here it goes:

First, she said she was surprised by our visit as she was expecting me (us) to arrive the day before.

Now, regarding your “On Your Report” questions:

How did the (going to) United States get brought up into the conversation?

Answer: At first, Yeti asked her how many there were in her family. She told Yeti there are 6 of them, from near Tandag. She is the eldest. Her mother is a house wife. Her father is a driver.

Yeti then asked if she were content in living like she does now. Jukie said, “No, I want to go to the states, because the Philippines is very poor and you cannot find a decent job here (in the Philippines).”

How did you learn that she thought I was too old for her?

Answer: Jukie was discussing other chat mates (did not specify how many others) and was comparing his age to her other chat mates.

----------------

Regarding your General Questions:

Did she seem shy?

Answer: No, she seemed very willing to talk with me, whether Yeti was in the room or not. (Yeti had to step out and assist her sister with our brother-in-law.

Were you a party of four?

Answer: Yes, there were myself, Yeti, her sister and her sister’s husband.

What were your wife's general observations/conclusions?

Answer: Jukie has a bad character when it comes to relationships with *any* foreigners, certainly concerning the one she has with you. She has no good intentions in her heart. She is, what they call in the Philippines… ambitious. That is a bad term to use concerning someone here. That means the person in question doesn’t care what they have to do in order to achieve their goal in life, including using others to accomplish that goal.

Do you think she is married or has a boyfriend?

Answer: I do not believe she is married, although that isn’t impossible to find out. She could have a Filipino boyfriend, but we could not prove that with the information we have, currently.

Did you feel that I was her main boyfriend?

Answer: No. When talking with Yeti, she never mentioned anything of the sort, although she did tell the foreigner (me) what I wanted to hear, that she was your girl friend.

How long of a conversation did you have with her?

Answer: Yeti and I spoke with her for a little over an hour while she was at the café. Incidentally, we have been to that café a number of times in the past, while visiting Hinatuan for other clients.

How busy was the cafe during your visit and did the weather have any effect on there business at this time?

Answer: The place was fairly busy, but Jukie made it a point to tell us it was only busy from about 5pm to 8pm, daily. The weather was clear and dry, so people were all over the area.

How time consuming do you believe her job to be?

Answer: During busy times, she will be pretty busy. However, that time is only when the kids are out of school. During the day, the café is quite dead, so she will have tons of time on her hands.

Did others in your party have any good/bad observations?

Answer: We do not include anyone else in our conversations with people we interview for our clients. Other than the other couple coming inside the café to use the bathroom, we were the only ones who spoke with Jukie.

What would be your recommended method to travel there?

Answer: Flying into Butuan or Davao then driving south or north to get to San Francisco, then go East to Barobo, and finally south to Hinituan. Be prepared for very nasty road conditions, as this is typical of the Philippines.

Did you use any of the computers at the cafe if so did they appear to have poor internet connections?

Answer: I believe it was a dialup connection they were using. This would be fairly slow, but quite predictable for provincial towns.

Did you notice a web cam? There web cam was supposed stolen about a month ago. Only the web cam was taken.

Answer: There was one on top of the computer, at the time we were there.

If you were hiring an employee, based on what you learned about Jukie, would you hire her to work for you?

Answer: I don’t have enough information that I have gathered during the time we spoke with her. I didn’t ask her many questions regarding her abilities. However, as far as operating a basic program on a computer, she seemed to do okay.

What is your best guess on how Jukie would handle your report if I told her?

Answer: I think she would be upset over the fact that we were there to interview her. However, each girl reacts differently after being told they were interviewed. Typically, they are mad with us, but that isn’t a big issue normally. What can become an issue is the fact the girl was told by her fiancé that he had her interviewed. As it sits right now, she has no clue whatsoever that she was interviewed by us. The only way she will find out is if you tell her. We never reveal to the girls why we were there.

Have you made any general observations during your time in the Philippines about islands that have better prospects than others? Are there islands to avoid?

Answer: Some foreigners told me to avoid Mindanao, however, Yeti and I have been all over Mindanao without ever having a single incident to crop up. As far as peaceful places to live, I would suggest Bohol, Negros Oriental or Siquijor Island, which is located off the coast from Dumaguete City, which is the capitol of Negros Oriental.

Is there anything I can do for you, such as a letter of recommendation for your web site. I will ask Rik (ETP) to include your firm in his blog.

Answer: Nothing at all, now. However, if you would be willing to serve as a reference in the future, that would greatly be appreciated.

--------------------------------------

I hope the previous information has helped you more. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me with them.

Take care,

PMC

As the reader can plainly see, what Filipina’s say and what they mean are two different things.
I purposefully added a lot of the correspondence between Peter and me in hopes the reader would notice the way in which Peter chose to believe his Filipina chat-mate, how he convinced himself that he understood and knew what his Filipina was really doing and the truth to what she was saying, and the level of her truthfulness. He was playing a ‘game’ with her, by his own statement, and was trying to manipulate her in order to both learn more about her, and also to see how well he could control her.
I think Peter believed he had things fairly well in hand, and had a good understanding of his Filipina’s motives. He believed he had good insight into her true nature.
I believe most readers would think otherwise.
It may have been good practice for Peter, however, to “dance” with a Filipina in order to have more clarity in his future exchanges.
I hope that Peter, and you the reader, learn the most important lesson from this encounter: Honesty and respect for each other is most important. With those two aspects in force, deception, manipulation and domination isn’t necessary to have a good relationship with a Filipina or any other woman.

I recommend that my readers go to a number of inter-connected websites. They will find a wealth of information that can assist them in understanding things Philippine.
There are forums to get direct access to locals who are willing to share knowledge and experience to you wannabe’s.
For a personal interview of a Filipina, PMC can help you. The charges are affordable and reasonable. For more information, contact:

www.pointmancebu.com

www.cebuliving.com

www.cebuliving.com/forums

www.cebutours.com

www.ceburealtors.com

PMC has put up a forum page – listed in “Other Area Information” for readers of Expatriates in the Philippines.
http://www.cebuliving.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=7481

Readers can also get information at: WWW.livinginthephilippines.com.

ETP

2005-10-02T16:02:00.000+07:00

A day at sea ends. Click to enlarge

2005-10-02T16:01:00.000+07:00

A butter colored butterfly. Click to enlarge

2005-10-02T15:58:00.000+07:00

Death returns to visit. Click to enlarge

The Grim Reaper Once Again Stalks Celine

2005-10-02T15:21:00.000+07:00

... but misses.

Sometimes I think I should change my blog’s name to:
“The Life And Times Of Celine”
Tales of good fortune and beating the devil.

A few days ago Celine went to the hospital to visit a friend who was about to give birth to triplets. Afterwards she went into a sort-of indoor flea market that’s attached to the Pelengke to look around.
Celine moved from booth to booth. Walking around, Celine passed two security guards who were talking and laughing with each other, ignoring their duties.
Celine noticed that one of the guards kept lifting the gun and holster and pushing it back down again, he would then slap his palm on the gun butt in a way that would make the gun and holster rotate, raising the barrel so that it was on a horizontal plane with the floor. In other words it looked like it was being pointed straight out, but upside down and ‘aimed’ behind the guard.
It made Celine very nervous to see the guard repeatedly doing it, as if it were a nervous tic. But, she continued walking to a booth about 2-meters from the guards, stopped and was looking at something a seller was offering to her.
Suddenly a loud shot rang out. It was obvious that it was from the firing of a gun.
Celine whirled around to see what was going on. She saw the two guards standing stiffly, scared and wide-eyed.
One of the guards began looking around, while the other stood still, stunned and shocked.
A small boy of about eight or nine years of age, who was standing right next to Celine, reached out and grabbed at Celine’s blouse. When Celine looked down at him, she saw the boy look around for a moment then slump to the floor. Blood poured from a wound in his side just above his hip.
The boy’s mother screamed and rushed to her son. The one guard whose gun hadn’t fired used his cell-phone to call for an ambulance.
The police arrived, hand-cuffed both guards and took them away to the police station for questioning.
Celine rushed from the store, hopped into a tricycle and came home. She was terribly frightened. She told me the bullet that hit the boy missed her by no more than 8-inches!
I held her and kissed her and let her lay in my arms for a long while until she was finally able to calm down.
I don’t know what’s going on; why so many near-death experiences are happening to Celine. I’m sure glad they’re all misses, though.
Maybe it’s just the way things are here in the Philippines. Maybe it’s just coincidence. If it’s coincidence, there sure have been a lot of them lately.
Rik

2005-10-02T14:37:00.000+07:00

A flower's magic colors Click to enlarge

2005-10-02T14:36:00.000+07:00

Young boys and the far horizon Click to enlarge

2005-10-02T14:34:00.000+07:00

Park that pig! Click to enlarge

2005-10-02T14:32:00.000+07:00

Bananas in the RP Click to enlarge

2005-10-02T14:30:00.001+07:00

Sunset In Bohol Click to enlarge

2005-10-02T14:30:00.000+07:00

Blue Flowers

Let's Play Bus Roulette

2005-10-02T14:11:00.000+07:00

Getting Around In The Philippines: City to town, and back again.
Celine has two accidents on two occasions on one bus!

So you want travel and adventure. There’s plenty of adventure in the Philippines. It’s beautiful, and for the new visitor there’s an unending panorama of things to see and enjoy. Most Filipino’s are wonderful and friendly. Pinoy know how to relax and enjoy life. What problems might come tomorrow are usually not worth worrying about today. And there’s a strong chance that the problems won’t be worried over tomorrow, either. In a very true sense, the philosophy of most peoples of the Philippines is to live in the Here and Now. For too many, that’s all they have.
As a Buddhist, I can relate very well to the idea of living in the Now. It can be less stressful and even mentally and physically healthy not to fret over the future – or anything else – and keep the blood pressure low and steady, the mind relaxed and calm. But even a Buddhist understands that the rice won’t sprout in the pond tomorrow or provide one’s food in the days to come if one doesn’t first plant, then tend to and care for the rice plants today; protecting and nurturing them, ensuring a good crop and life sustaining food for the many months ahead.
We in the West would call that good crop management or, for health, good preventative maintenance.
While the Philippines is a wonderful place and the easy way in which the average Filipino glides through life has some enviable advantages over the high-voltage fast-paced, stressed-out Western lifestyle, that same ‘glide through life’ behavior, taken too far, can spell real tragedy and heartache for the unaware traveler.

An Introduction to long distance transportation

* VANS: The vans are by far the safest and most comfortable way to travel from place to place. They are all relatively new and in pretty good shape. They are air-conditioned, which adds mightily to one’s personal comfort. On the other hand, it can also be a source of discomfort in that many of the other passengers can and do have rather rough smelling perspiration. You can find yourself trapped and nauseous as the smells from your fellow passengers are endlessly cycled by the air-conditioning. Also, bad breath is common in the Philippines where good hygiene is difficult if not impossible for most due to poverty.
Personally, I avoid riding the vans for those reasons, preferring to ride the jeepneys for the fresh air.
Vans are almost always overloaded with more passengers than there are seats to accommodate them, and everyone is forced together at elbows, shoulders and knees, leaving no room to move. You can get from point A to point B the quickest, but that can be dangerous as the drivers are always competing with other drivers and themselves to beat their time. They’ll pass on blind curves with no regard to safety. Vans are the most expensive to ride.
I once rode a van to Aborlan, a small town south of Puerto Princesa. The van had so many passengers that the conductor/helper had to share the driver’s seat with the driver. That meant that the helper had to push in the clutch and help steer while the driver controlled the brakes and shifted the gears.
When we topped one hill, up ahead we saw a military check-point had been thrown-up together with some Land Transportation officers. The van stopped and in full view of the persons at the check-point some 100 meters ahead, the helper got out, ran around the van and sat on the floor wedged like a sardine between the seat and the side sliding door. Then we were off again. When the van reached the check-point, the driver got out for a few moments, paid a bribe, and we proceeded on. Over the next hill and out of sight of the check-point, the van stopped once more – and the helper ran back around the van, crammed himself into the driver’s seat and, again sharing driving duties, we completed the trip to Aborlan.
No one in the van showed any sign that there was anything unusual in having two people drive at once.

** Jeepneys: Jeepneys are open with glass-less windows and have an opening at the rear to enter and exit. Unless you sit on the front seat by the driver, you must ride sideways on one of the two padded bench seats that run the length of the back with the window openings at the passenger’s back The rider can get wet in a rainstorm.
The jeepney makes plenty of stops along the way to pick-up and drop-off passengers and cargo. The roof is overloaded with passenger’s belongings and extra cargo. Extra riders and animal stock – mostly chickens and pigs – will ride up there, also.
Flat tires are a common occurrence, due to the fact that most tires are kept in use long after the inner-threads or steel-belts show through. Jeepneys are all handmade – maybe in a shop, maybe in someone’s front yard. There are no laws applying to the standards under which they must be built. Failing brakes are not uncommon. More often than not there will be no brake or tail-lights. They’re mostly noisy, cumbersome and slow going uphill. Going down-hill they are driven much too fast for safety. Most often they carry weight far beyond the jeepney’s load limit. However, that doesn’t deter the drivers from driving at break-neck speed when possible. These drivers will also pass around blind curves, and take the turns so fast that the highway traveler would not be surprised to see them leaning dangerously or on two wheels as they careen through the mountain turns. Much too often the jeepney’s wind-up demolished in a ravine and the passengers dead or mangled.

*** Buses: Buses in the large metropolitan areas like Manila and Cebu are manufactured by legitimate businesses which use quality control methods. And though, for lack of first-hand knowledge, I can’t speak of the buses of the rest of the country, I can tell you that the buses of Palawan are almost all hand-made. The chassis is purchased new from Manila and shipped to Palawan, or removed from a previously smashed and junked bus, heated and straightened as best as can be achieved. The buses are then built around the chassis by anyone with even the most rudimentary skills. I have yet to see any two buses that look alike. Nor have I seen a builders name on any bus. Buses, like the other modes of transportation are normally hand-built. As with the jeepney’s, there are no laws applying to how the brake and electric lines are installed or maintained, or whether they must use new rather than used parts.
Safety maintenance checks are non-existent. Bad parts are only replaced after they have failed and the bus has had an accident. And someone’s life is usually forfeited because of the complete lack of concern and maintenance for safety. Profit is the only motivator for bus companies.
As with the jeepneys, bald tires are all too common.
The bus seats may or may not have cushioned seats or backs. It may be just a piece of wood. The seat and back are built at a 90-degree angle to one another, leaving the back stiff and sore.
One bus that Celine rode in on a trip home from Queson had three flat tires before it completed half of the 120 kilometer trip. Celine reported that all the spare tires were bald. When she learned that the driver and the helper were going to take one of the blown-out bald tires and have it patched somewhere, then put it back on the bus - as the fourth tire change of the trip - she flagged down a passing van and rode that the remainder of the way home.
In my opinion, the buses are the most dangerous of the three choices of transportation. Bus drivers are not given any special training to learn how to drive a bus. If they can steer it and shift the gears, they’re qualified to be hired. Bus drivers seem to think that because they are bigger than most other vehicles, they can drive as they please. The buses often drive on the wrong side of the road, especially in the turns. Every single time I ride up into the mountains on my motorcycle, I see buses passing on blind curves, and at the same time at such dangerous speeds that they lean over so far as to fall over on their sides. It happens.
The brakes often fail. Buses side-swipe other vehicles while on the wrong side of the road. Loose, heavy cargo flies off of the roof and hits other vehicles. Buses often wind-up in ravines, rivers or ditches. Many people die every year, or are mangled and disabled with missing limbs. The bus companies carry no or little insurance to cover its customers. The families of the dead, and the injured must seek redress and compensation through the civil court system at their own expense. Few have money for attorney fees and court costs.
I know that I may frighten you with the above information. Well, you should be frightened; at least frightened enough to make good choices and to be both aware and wary of the vehicle you are about to embark on. Fore-warned is fore-armed. Keep you eyes open and look at the tires, and how much cargo is on the roof, etc., before you decide to get on and ride.
You ride any of the three long-distance vehicles at your own risk. And, indeed, it is a risk.
If you are a tourist and you can afford it, one of your smartest moves would be to choose to hire a private commercial van and driver – a service offered by many local travel agencies. It’s by far the safest choice. You can also hire a travel guide to go with you if you wish. I estimate the average cost at about $100 per day for all of the above. You can – and should – control the rate of speed and safe handling by the driver. Plus, you can stop wherever you see a photo opportunity.
If you are a permanent resident, the best thing you can do is to buy either a motor(cycle), van, car or truck and get yourself around. Remember, however, that you will need to grow at least six more eyes in your head (two for each side) to stay aware of the wild and crazy Filipino drivers who will kill the unwary and uninitiated in a New York minute.
NOTE: I got my temporary driver’s license papers in March, 2004. At this time, October, 2005, I am still waiting to get my actual driver’s license identity card. Upon being asked three months ago, the person to whom I must see about getting my I.D. card indicated that one-and-one-half-years was not a terribly long time to have to wait. Patience… patience.

In writing the following two stories, I was forced to write the second story first, then, later I added the first story. The second story only happened days ago, and the details were fresh in my mind. Celine was off shopping and I had it mostly finished by the time she returned. I had to have Celine refresh my memory as I wrote story number one. New details that I was unaware of surfaced, and I realized that the two stories were becoming at times convoluted and redundant.
To straighten out and rearrange the details would make for a more clear story, but would require considerable time to revise. So, instead, I will rely on the reader to sort through the mess and rearrange details and explanations to fit better in his curious mind.
The same bus: It wasn’t until last night when I was almost completely finished writing both stories that Celine told me, in both instances, the bus she was riding was the same bus. Even more amazing was that, in both instances, she was also seated in the exact same seat!
It was the bus from hell! Now, however, it is the bus in hell since, being completely destroyed in the last wreck, it will never roll again. Thank goodness.
So, good reader, do your best to make sense of those seemingly backwards explanations and details. Rik

Play Bus Roulette… at last.

Consider the risk you take when you ride on the typical modes of land transportation throughout the Philippines, as I tell you a story about two recent experiences my darlin,’ Celine, had while traveling in Palawan by bus.

Down The Mountain From Buena Vista

On this particular trip, Celine had gone to Makirawa to see her father who had been quite ill. Celine was very concerned that he might die, because he was losing a lot of weight, and he already is a bone-thin and slight man who only weighs about 40-kilos. Among other things, he was having problems with his heart and his breathing.
Making the return trip, Celine met the bus at Buena Vista, as usual. The bus had traveled only about six kilometers when it came to a place where the highway drops in a long, steep decline. The road, at the bottom, curves in a tight blind curve to the right.
Soon after Celine boarded the bus and seated herself, she noticed that the bus was wandering on the road, crossing over the painted center dividing lines again and again. She watched the driver intently to try to understand why the bus was veering around. Was it because the bus had a mechanical problem? Or was it that the driver was sick or just a horrible driver.
Celine watched carefully so she could make a decision whether to get off of the bus or not, perhaps saving her life.
It wasn’t long before Celine realized what the source of the wandering bus was. It was the two young teen-age girls in tiny mini-skirts and blouses with a deep v-cut that exposed more than a decent Filipina should expose and seated on the bench seat directly behind the driver.
The driver had adjusted his inside mirror for maximum exposure, and he was giving most of his attention to filling his eyes with the tender flesh of the two girl’s thighs.
All men can understand the intense concentration that can consume the attention of a young man when confronted by the toned and shapely legs of a teeny-bopper, and the chance to catch a glimpse of that little mound with a hint of a split at the bottom of a girl’s panties.
We just hope that the one whose attention is so concentrated won’t be the guy whose driving the bus we’re a passenger on while rolling down a mountain road!
According to Celine, the driver eyes were fixated and he gave scant attention to where he was going.
Celine gave thought to either going to the front of the bus and yelling at the driver to keep his eyes forward, or getting off of the bus.
But it was too late to do either.
The driver, distracted as he was, took advantage of the long straight part of the road to feed his lust with the sight of those four fine legs, and didn’t notice that he was on the wrong side of the road, nor did he realize that he was then beginning to enter the blind curve.
Traveling through the blind curve in the opposite direction was a large dump truck filled with gravel. The dump driver, seeing the bus headed towards it had no time to do anything but react by blowing the truck’s horn in a long warning blast.
The bus driver brought his eyes back forward only to see that avoiding the truck was by this time impossible. The truck driver tried to steer to the side of the road and out of the way, but the bus’s trajectory was fixed for collision. There was an ugly grinding between the sides of the truck and the bus as the two vehicles met; the bus hitting the truck just behind the drivers door. The bus scraped along the truck for its full length. During the process of side-swiping the truck, the bus’s back wheel was ripped-off. The left rear of the bus sagged, raising the right front wheel off of the ground, preventing the driver from being able to steer the bus.
Once they separated and passed each other, the truck, now traveling uphill, came to a stop on the side of the road. The bus, having cleared the end of the truck, continued going straight. However, since the bus was at that time going through the curve in the road, the bus drove straight to and over a 50-meter deep cliff which dropped at a very sharp 75-80 degree angle. The bus, while still airborne, rolled over to the left 90-degree’s so that the bottom of the bus was now on the top. The driver had caused the bus to roll as he tried to make a correction to keep the bus on the road.
The bus, now upside down, dropped about 8-meters before it crashed into a large tree that was growing from a rock outcropping. The tree snapped in two and the bus continued another few meters until it hit and was prevented from going further by a stand of four other large trees - the only remaining trees on the outcropping of the rock.
Had the bus gone over the cliff a few meters sooner or a few meters later, it would have plummeted to bottom of the canyon, and ended its fall in the river, with a high probability of killing all those aboard. It was only the passenger’s good fortune – if it could be called such – that they hit the only outcropping of rock on the cliff.
By amazing luck, no one was killed. But, there were many injuries of broken bones and severe lacerations. There were pigs tied on the roof of the bus, being transported to Puerto Princesa to be sold in the market, which were crushed and killed when the bus landed on top of them.
Note: Celine had been seated by the window in the exact same seat as in the second story you’ll read after this one.
When the bus turned over Celine had been holding both the horizontal hand-bar and the vertical hand-bar that is used by those disembarking from the side-door immediately in front of her seat. She also wedged both of her feet under a fold-down seat that hung down over the door-steps and which was used to seat one more passenger. That prevented her from being thrown around inside the bus as it rolled and when it crashed into the trees.
The only injuries to Celine were a few bruises to her legs. She later complained that her hips hurt, but nothing serious came of it.
All of the passengers had to climb out of the bus any way they could and climb back up the cliff. The truck driver was there standing alone watching as the passengers made their way back up to the road. He had used his cell-phone to call the police and for an ambulance.
There were two foreigners on board; a Swiss husband and his wife. The wife was seriously injured with two broken legs. One leg was broken at mid-thigh; the other broken at the shin-bone. The broken bones of both were protruding from her legs.
A private van came along and stopped to offer assistance to carry injured persons to the hospital in Puerto Princesa. They offered to carry the foreign couple. The husband at first refused the ride saying he preferred to wait for the ambulance to arrive and take them to town.
Celine told the Swiss man, “Here in the Philippines, it’s not like the United States. Every time there is an accident and it’s very far from town, they use a helicopter to save them. Here, we have no helicopter; if you wait for the ambulance, you’re wife is going to die. Often-times they don’t have gasoline in the ambulance and it may or may not get all the way here, and it may or may not get back. If you want to live, better you ride in the van rather than wait for the ambulance.”
The Swiss insisted he’d rather wait for the ambulance because it would have trained medical personnel, medical equipment and medicines and oxygen.
Celine could only laugh at the man, as serious as the situation was. She told that man, “The ambulance only carries the driver, a mid-wife and dextrose, and nothing else. No medicine, no pain pills, no oxygen - no nothing. And when you ride in the ambulance, the bed-cart isn’t fixed to the floor, and there are no locks on the wheels. So the bed keeps rolling around, and the mid-wife has to hold onto the bed to keep it from crashing around inside the ambulance.”
The husband was astonished by the description of the ambulance services Celine described to him. “Really?” was all he could say.
“Yeah,” Celine replied. “I live here and know how things are. Believe me… that’s the truth.”
The Swiss man asked Celine if she would ride with them, as she spoke good English and could translate for them. Celine said she would.
They laid the Swiss wife on her back on the middle bench-seat of the van. The husband sat on the floor with her, and Celine sat on the rear seat.
The husband was in a panic. His wife was unconscious. He tried in vain to get her to wake-up, while admonishing the owner of the van to drive faster. The driver spoke no English, so Celine had to tell him what the Swiss man was saying. The driver drove as fast as he safely could, and after one-and-one-half hours they arrived at the Adventist hospital.
The Swiss man didn’t want to let Celine leave, still wanting to use her translation skills to communicate with the nurses. But the nurses spoke English more-or-less enough to understand him.
Celine left the couple in the care of the nurses and the emergency doctor and came home.
When Celine got home she was very upset and shaking, and I held her close to me as I took in her tale. She has had so many close calls with accidents and near accidents involving tricycles, motorcycles, vans, buses, and has come close to being killed so many times…
I was grateful to have her home again and in my arms.

As for the fate of the Swiss couple; we never heard what the final outcome was.

Celine Clings To A Banana Tree

As my regular readers know, I have a fishing banca that works on the coastal waters in northern Palawan, and recently I had two fish cages built in Ulugan Bay. Since I have a bad back and can’t get around to keep an eye on things myself, I rely on Celine to handle my affairs for me. And, as her father, sisters, brothers, and brother’s-in-law are all working for me, with hardly a one able to speak English, it’s better if Celine does the traveling and runs the business. That means that Celine must travel the mountain route north and south on the National Highway by commercial bus, Jeepney or a van.
Last week Celine made one of her trips to Makirawa at Ulugan Bay to see how the building of my second fish-cage was going and the move of my first fish-cage from one place to another. The government made the area where it was off-limits for fishing.
Business and visiting taken care of, Celine began her trip home.
To get home from Makirawa requires one to either take a banca, travel down the bay, then up river to a point where a 3.5-kilometer long trail must be traversed before reaching a place where you can catch a ride to the highway by tricycle or small jeepney. The only other choice is to walk through 8-kilometers of jungle. For obvious reasons Celine doesn’t like to walk through the jungle. It’s not safe for any girl, but a slim, beautiful girl is at high risk for being raped.
The long-distance bus passing from Tay Tay and Roxas in the north on its daily run can transport one the remainder of the way to the terminal on the outskirts of Puerto Princesa.
Buses and commercial jeepney’s are no longer allowed to enter the city as of a year ago. One must then hire a tricycle or ride on the mini-van’s to get home. The mini-van’s are what I call toy trucks. They’re very small, but can carry about ten passengers in the same style as a jeepney – that is, sideways one a long bench seat. They are extremely cheap, costing about ten U.S. cents to ride.

Celine boarded the bus in Buena Vista and made her way over the cartons of food, clothing, sacks of rice, cans of propane, etc., that completely fill the isle of all buses, front to back, until she found a seat by the window just behind the side-exit door. Another woman joined her there, sitting on the bench seat by the isle.
Philippine buses aren’t air-conditioned. Well, they are, but only by virtue of having all of the windows open. The window where Celine sat was open when she sat down. On this particular bus the windows had been made larger than most. As it turned out, that was most fortunate for Celine.
The bus lurched forward and Celine sat back to relax and look out of the window, hoping to be spared any talk with her neighbor or others. Chika-Chika is a national pastime and on any kind of transport, most people take the opportunity to talk and visit with each other, and gossip about mutual friends and acquaintances. This bus ride was no different. However, Celine is a very quiet and private person who detests Chika-Chika, and so she always tries to keep to herself.
Celine watched the world go by through the window, but shifted her attention to the bus after they were going down the steeper part of the mountain road. The bus, she noticed, had picked-up quite a lot of speed and Celine was concerned; knowing how many times the stupid drivers end-up crashing the buses or going off of cliffs. She was particularly concerned this time because of the new, inexperienced driver. Part of the Chika-Chika circulating through the bus was about how the regular driver had refused to drive the bus that day, claming the bus was unsafe. Why it was unsafe apparently no one knew.
The owners of the bus could not be bothered with having the bus checked for unsafe conditions; there’s no profit in that. The bus has to makes its run.

The driver was someone who had been hanging around the terminal hoping to find driving work. At last his chance had come, and he was told to make the run to the northern-most part of the island. Now, on the return back down out of the mountains, he was speeding too fast for the conditions of the road. This was area with many steep and high cliffs. There were a few places that the road ran next to long sloping areas that ran all the way down to the river. It was no place to be recklessly speeding.
Celine was all to aware of the dangers, having already been in one accident that took her over a cliff.
No one except Celine was paying any attention to the bus, the driver or the road. They were too immersed in gossiping or listening to gossip.
The bus continued to pick-up speed. Celine watched the driver. The first thing she noticed was how often he kept looking back at the passengers in the rear-view mirror, and his frightened eyes. Celine leaned forward and to the left so she could look down the isle and see the driver better. She saw that the driver was pumping the brake pedal furiously, and the pedal was going all the way to the floorboard. She looked in the mirror; the eyes of the driver were even bigger now and more frightened. It was obvious to Celine, now, that something was very wrong.
Celine called to the driver, “Driver, do you have brakes or wala (nothing)?” The driver didn’t answer, but only stared in the mirror, wild eyed, at Celine. He seemed frozen to the wheel.
Celine watched him continue to pump the brakes, but the bus, rather than slowing down, was still gaining speed.
Celine shouted to the other passengers, “The bus has no brakes!”
They just looked at her.
“The bus has no brakes!” she again shouted, louder this time.
The passengers paid no attention and kept on with Chika-Chika.
Celine turned to the woman next to her. ”You’d better jump from the bus. There’s no brakes.”
The woman acted as if she didn’t understand. Celine repeated the words to the woman, and the woman told Celine that she wasn’t about to jump from that bus.
Celine stood up on the seat, turned around and shouted repeatedly to the people in the back of the bus, “The bus has no brakes!” Crouching down, Celine grabbed her back pack and threw it through the open window. Then, putting one foot on the window sill she put most of her body out of the window and, using her foot, launched herself from the bus. An instant before she kicked-off, her view was to the rear of the bus. She noticed a teen-age girl hurling herself from a rear window. She saw the helper lean over the roof and look down at both girls. He immediately jumped. Celine then pushed herself with her foot and flew through the air. She was now moving through space, the road rushing passed beneath her.
Celine looked forward to see where was headed. She immediately saw a banana tree rushing up to her on the side of the road. Reaching out, she grabbed a hanging banana leaf with both hands. Since she was moving forward both she and the banana leaf continued to the trunk of the tree. When her body slammed hard against the trunk, Celine wrapped both of her legs around the truck and locked onto it.
She watched as the bus continued about ten meters before it left the road, dropped over the edge, and 50-meters down a 45-degree slope, picking up speed, bouncing wildly, the cargo on the roof flying-off in all directions until it entered the river and came to a halt after and crashing against a large 10-meter high boulder. Steam rose from the front of the bus which was now crushed inward.
Some local people, along with the riders of a passing van rushed down the slope to assist the people who remained in the bus. Others ran to aid of the helper and the girl who had jumped from the bus and were now lying on the road, bleeding from their injuries.
The passengers were removed from the bus and helped or carried back up to the road.
Fifteen to twenty minutes had passed by this time since the accident.
Celine, still gripping the banana leaf and in a complete state of shock, heard a voice say, “Hey, woman, what are you doing in that banana tree, are you from that bus, too?” Looking down to see a woman looking up at her, Celine thought, “Oh, that woman is talking to me. That means I’m still alive, and not dead.”
The woman continued, “Come down, now. It’s already fine, and we already called an ambulance to help the people. How did you get up there in that banana tree? You’re like a monkey hanging there in that banana tree.”
Celine lowered herself down the tree trunk. The woman repeated her question, and Celine replied, ”I don’t know. I think I jumped.”
Celine didn’t realize at that moment that she had actually jumped from the bus window or had grabbed the leaf of the banana tree. She was so frightened that she had been hanging with that banana leaf in her frozen fingers for more than twenty minutes.
Walking to the edge of the road, Celine looked down at the destroyed bus, and around at all of the passengers laying and sitting along the side of the road.
Three were dead and many were bleeding from serious injuries. One boy had had his arm severed. A foreign woman, who was on vacation with her husband or boyfriend, had a metal pipe protruding from her upper chest. There were many facial injuries, broken teeth and jaws.
The driver had been killed instantly. The woman, who had been sitting beside Celine, was killed when the side-door’s hand-rail pipe was ripped-off and sent completely through from one side of her head to the other - sticking out some eight inches. The third was a young teen-age girl.
The girl, who had leaped from the rear window after seeing Celine jump, broke her knee and exposed bones from protruding from one elbow. Both ankles were broken.
The helper, who’d leaped from the roof, had one broken ankle – the other sprained, and was bleeding from his head. He stood at that time, however, and in a daze said that the real driver didn’t want to drive the bus because something was wrong with it; that he wanted the bus checked before it left. The owner told him that they had lots of passengers and he had to drive. But, the driver refused. The helper then said he should have listened to the driver and not gone along on the trip, then sat down on the road.
We later learned he had suffered a concussion and had slipped into a coma. Whether he lived is unknown to me.

Three days after the accident, Celine’s sister, Baby, came to the house. She knew that Celine had been on that bus. She’d heard about the accident on the radio and traveled from Makirawa to see if Celine was among the dead..
Baby told Celine about the radio’s news report, describing it in detail. The last piece of the story was about a “Miracle Girl” who had somehow landed in a banana tree and was completely unhurt. No one knew the identity of the “Miracle Girl in the Banana Tree.”
Celine laughed and told Baby, “That miracle girl was me. I was the one hanging in the banana tree.”
The truly frightening thing about the two bus accidents Celine was involved in is that it was the same bus involved in both accidents. Still, in neither accident, was Celine hurt in any way. Amazing…

Sunday, October 02, 2005
I did some editing of this article this morning but couldn’t finish because Celine wanted me to drive her up to Santa Cruz to check on some of her younger siblings. Two boys, age 14 and 10, and one sister, age 9, are living by themselves and going to school while the parents are living in Makirawa, some 36-kilometers away. That isn’t considered unusual in the Philippines. Life is very different here.
While I was driving through the mountains I was thinking about this article. I decided to do a survey of the commercial transport vehicles I passed on the trip.
Of all I saw while going through a blind curve, all were well over the center lines; and all were speeding. Even while driving on a straight stretch, all but one vehicle was over the lines on the wrong side of the road.
I saw one bus come around a curve up ahead of me that looked so strange. It looked as if the bus was on ice and the back was trying to “slide’ around to the front. I soon saw that the chassis frame was so bent that the rear wheels were a full 18 to 20-inches off center!

Things such as these two stories are all too common. Much too common. Death is always lurking nearby in the Philippines. One can never be too careful when traveling in the city and on the highways.
It’s the responsibility of the foreign traveler to keep his eyes and ears open at all times and to protect himself from all of the many types of accidents that, in their own country, would only occasionally happen through a freak accident, but is a daily way of life here.

Although I have written a truly frightening report that should concern every tourist and expatriate, I also don’t want to scare you off from coming here to visit or to live.
Things are as they are, and there’s no getting around that. But not everyone dies in some horrible accident. I, for one, have never been in an accident, although there have been plenty of near misses.
By all means, come to the Philippines and enjoy yourself. It is a wonderful place. You only have to be aware, wary and careful. Don’t be so busy being the ogling tourist that you don’t pay attention to what’s around you, or the vehicle you’re about to get into.
If you have a bad feeling about riding in a tricycle, bus or jeepney, don’t get in it. Follow your intuition. There’s always another that will be along shortly.
Use your good common sense, and you’ll be fine.
Rik

2005-08-16T12:12:00.001+07:00

Five peso coin. Click to enlarge

MALE CALL: Jim E.

2005-08-16T12:12:00.000+07:00

Jim E. has written to ETP quite a few times. His early ‘MALE CALL’ messages appear on this site. Most, however, I received at my private email address. Jim has suffered mostly from a jealously problem. His wife apparently is insecure and constantly accuses him of having affairs – even if he went to the store to buy a few items, then returned home in a short time. Her ranting has caused Jim no end of trouble and heartache.
Jim has come close to throwing away his Honey Ko, even as he contemplates retiring within a few years in the RP. There are issues of propertyin the RP in his wife's name, and I’m sure Jim E. is concerned about it. As was noted before; RP property is held in the citizen’s name – in this case, Jim's wife – and the foreign spouse in fact has no rights regarding property, in spite of the fact that he will most likely have paid for it in full from his own pocket. That’s something future retiree’s need to be clear in understanding. Spending all of your savings on property in your wife’s name could put you in the poor house. You will be dealing with the laws of the RP, not the U.S. legal system. If your wife is scamming you, or later gets angry with you and decides to seek vengeance by selling all of the RP assets you paid for, she’d be within her rights to sell-off everything, and wouldn’t be required to give you a single peso. It might be in your best interest to wait for any number of years before you buy anything. Renting property might be a good option for you until you feel certain that your Honey Ko really loves you and will protect you – even from her. You can always write a will giving everything to your Honey Ko upon your death. That way you will protect yourself while you’re still living, and protect her from poverty once you’re gone.
Jim has long been afflicted with control and manipulation issues instigated by his wife. Jim has made attempts to gain control over his wife. Whether he’s been successful is still in question. Reading his earlier MALE CALL messages will help you to understand his plight more clearly.
ETP.

Here’s what Jim E. had to write recently:

Well, Mahal has gone back to her old tricks, and so we had a quick and definite conversation that ended with her wondering "What will I do now?"
I'm probably too soft a touch, but I gave her ONE more chance, and tried to impress on her that all she really has to do is to flush her mind clean, and remember that I am faithful, and have always been so, and will continue to be. That she cannot use accusations to manipulate nor control me, and so must stop trying. I had gotten her the reservation to the RP, and told her to send her balikbayan boxes (boxes filled with goods and taken back to one’s home country: ETP). She has characteristically not saved any money from her job, so can't send her boxes, and she wants me to send them for her, which I am not willing to do. So, perhaps this will settle the problem - at least for me. This was day before yesterday.

Your story about the Jollibee is great! I got a real laugh out of it and (it's) certainly food for thought! More and more I'm seeing the importance of going to the RP and finding one's Honey Ko, and getting to know her and her family and their situation.

I've been truly schocked by Mahal's children regarding helping me to protect what is really theirsfrom intrusive attack and removal (of hardwood trees). That's the kind of thing one needs to be on site to know. I'm going to put a caveat on my Philippinaprincess.com website to that effect, letting all know that it's not a good idea to just contact someone and then go to marry them right away!

Give my best to Celine. She's a treasure, as you surely know!

… as I described in my e-mail, Mahal has gone back to her old ways.
And we have had a good "set-to" about it. She accused me of buying a house for one of my customers who just happens to be a woman. That's a really stupid thing to accuse me of, since I can't just "rip off" $70,000 from my savings and give it to some unknown woman. Anyway, I lost my temper and told her to get her stuff packed for the coming trip to the RP. Then I went on-line and looked up the NWA (North West Airlines) schedule for flights from Orlando to Manila and presented them to her. I told her to ship-by-sea all the Balikbayan boxes she has been accumulating recently so they would be there waiting for her when she arrived. Needless to say, we went round-and-round for about 3 minutes, at which time I told her the conversation was closed. Her comment was "What will I do now?". My answer was that I don't care what she does, as long as she is out of my house and life ASAP.After a couple of hours, I (perhaps foolishly) relented, and told her that if she is satisfied with her life as it is, with me, here in the USA, all she has to do is to flush the garbage out of her mind, PERMANENTLY and never again make any such accusations! The rest of her (and my) faults can be dealt with, as of now. One of her Filipina girlfriend’s, married to another American was here, and I asked Mahal not to wear a particular ring to do her work or to take to her job. The ring in question is a 3/4 carat Canary Diamond Brilliant in a 14K gold fish-tail mounting, and the stone could be easily lost doing menial work at the job, or in the garden here at home. It was given to her by my mother, before she died, and came from my great-grandmother. (her engagement ring from my great-grandfather) When Mahal objected, her friend "got on her" in Tagalog, and told her she must obey her husband first, and that the ring has such family sentimental value that she (the friend) thought I was right. Mahal took it off, and casually put it in her apron pocket, to which I immediately objected, and told her to take it to her jewelry box and put it away properly - with agreement by her friend. She did all that, but I don't see it, now that she is gone to work. I'll have to deal with that some more, but we can work that out. Her children have reported to me several times that their half-uncle has been cutting hardwood trees on our property in Siay, and selling them. I responded that they should take some action with the Police and the DENR there in Ipil. The response I got was that "It's a long way from Pagadian, and I only have a motorcycle, and it's raining, and I don't have the money for gas, and I have a lot to do at home, etc. etc. etc..." This when I have made it abundantly clear that in the end, it's their property, and that they are being "ripped off", and the plans and provisions their grandfather made for them are being taken away! Mahal and I will probably use two or three of the trees to build a house with. The rest are for the children's use! But the uncle is clear-cutting, and has burned over half of the Cocoanut trees I have had planted, so as to plant rice or other crops. I'm shocked! Do they think I'm going to fly out there, solve the problem, and then fly home? As of today, that would be $1,400, or P78,260, just for air fare! To give them credit, they haven't asked for money to get the job done, at least up to now. And I have "No Personality" in the matter, anyway, not being a citizen of the RP. And so life goes on... sometimes good, sometimes tiresome, but in the end result, life is what we make of it. I have resigned myself to just not thinking about the land at Siay, until I get there, and then taking whatever action is needed to solve the problem permanently.I like the changes you've made to ETP, with the new medallion and the photo with the Male Call portions. Keep up the good work!

(((((ETP)))))

Hi, Jim, and thanks for once again for writing to ETP. I hate to rain on your parade, but the issue of Mahal “going back to her old tricks again,” is probably not her fault so much as yours. Mahal’s just doing what comes natural to her. You, however, are still enabling her to continue with her bad behavior. I can’t help but feel that you treat her very nicely as soon as you think you have things under control – reverting back to your usual kindness. She only interprets that as her opportunity to do what she wants. In training Mahal you must make it a 24-hour-a-day job; and you must keep at it for a long, long time. She’s set in her ways, and she liked the way things were. Why should she change now just because you’re made some verbal statements about changes? Words may get your idea across to her, but actions are going to either create the desired effects or show you that she has no intention of becoming a better, more obedient wife to you.
There are ways, and then there are ways to accomplish the same thing...
In another part of your message you wrote, “I asked Mahal not to wear a particular ring…” You asked, Jim. You didn’t tell her, “ You’re not allowed to wear that ring when you work outside… you will always put it here…” If you want to be obeyed you must calmly order her to do what you want. You don’t need to say it in a mean voice, but just be absolute in your demands. Asking will get you zip- zero - including respect.
“I’m probably too soft a touch,” you wrote. Usually when someone makes a statement such as that, they’re saying, “I AM too soft a touch.” Mahal sees that, if you don’t.
Have you wondered why Mahal, “…accused me of buying a house for one of my (female) customers(?)” I wonder what motivated that statement? What’s the purpose behind the words? If nothing else, I would think that she’s still fighting for dominance. If that’s the reason, then she still believes you can be manipulated – which shows that you haven’t asserted your dominance effectively. I know you want to be a nice and good person from your personal beliefs and volunteer bible work, and you’re probably trying to follow the teaching of Jesus to ‘love others… turn the other cheek, etc. But the bible also speaks volumns about the behavior of men and women, husbands and wives; more specifically abouthow women should behave with their husbands, and how women were punished for disobedience. The Bible speaks often to training, obedience and punishment. Try to view your marriage in context of bible teaching as well through common sense and a historical cultural flow like a river of experience and wisdom passed down through the millennia. There’s a purpose behind all that past experience of thousands of generations of relationships and marriages. To turn everything on it’s head for the sake of the current, popular Big Father model of all authority belonging to a mindless government bureaucracy is, well… mindless. It’s the same problem with the current government's attempts to regulate sexual behavior and morality. No amount of laws will make people stop doing what they’re bodies are genetically programmed and prioritized to do. To tell us to "Just say NO" is to say we’re just so stupid, we believe we can write laws governing biology and have them be obeyed.

Your biggest obstacle, after yourself, is the crazy system of laws in the USA that strip you of your right to demand a wife that works on your behalf, but instead encourages her to work against you. The only way you can gain control over her is to literally control her. It would be good practice for both of you before moving to the RP. You can begin (again) by telling her that she must ask permission to do anything – just as if she were living in the RP. That means going to the neighbor’s house or to the 7-11, as well as asking permission to leave to go to her place of work. That’s the custom in the RP. Are you going to allow her to behave as she wishes once you’re both here? Will she just be an American woman living in a foreign country? I can’t help but think that when you first married Mahal, you were wanting a Filipina-style and not an American-style wife. But you wrote that you trained her to be an equal and have the freedoms of an American woman. Well, American women believe they are more equal than the men. And they’re free from having to answer to you in any way or fashion. Did you get what you wanted?
You write that Mahal saved no money from her job, and yet she has lots of Balikbayan boxes. Who are they going to, and what’s inside? It’s all give-aways to relatives and friends, right? Who paid for the gifts? Have you considered telling her that she can no longer send boxes to the RP? Again, you’re enabling Mahal to do as she wishes, by spending and living off of your money, giving gifts away, and all the while disobeying you and making you miserable.
Is she hurting you, or are you hurting yourself?
She should be asking you permission to fill and send those boxes.

Permission – permission – permission!

It’s your responsibility to make certain to always remind, reprimand or punish her if she neglects to ask for permission. Letting it slide, even one time because your ‘tired’ and don’t want to bother or to argue, means you aren’t interested enough to do your own job ‘properly’.
I noticed that you are now using the word ‘proper’ to emphasize how her behavior should be. That’s good. But you also must behave properly in meeting your responsibilities to train her. Somehow, you need to find a way to do that within the laws you are living under. Because of those U.S. laws giving rights only to the State, it may be too late for you to make any lasting change in Mahal.
If you were already living in the RP, there would be no problem. A poorly behaved wife gets beaten with the approval of the mother and father, the rest of the family and neighbors. Even the police will most often look the other way if they know the circumstances that brought on the beating were because of a misbehaving wife. Getting drunk and beating your wife can land you in jail, though even that is not so common.
One man, the husband of Celine’s aunt Jennifer and the mayor of a town in Mindanao, went so far as to put his wife into a 55-gallon drum and kept her there for days. Knowing what I do about Jennifer, she got less than she deserved. But that’s a story for a later time.
Spanking is your best bet. It would be difficult to have you put in jail – even in the USA – for spanking your wife. Then again, thinking how the current American government is busy chipping away at everyone’s individual’s rights and becoming ‘Big Father,’ to all, I wouldn’t assume anything anymore. You could pre-empt her by telling her that she must accept her training and punishment, and that she would very much regret bringing in the authorities and making trouble for you in the USA once you’ve moved to the RP. Or unless she quietly submits to your authority you’ll “throw her away for being a worthless woman,” and she’d lose everything - so she would return to the RP with nothing but her personal possessions – and you will get a woman who wants to be your woman and a ‘proper’ wife.
There’s always the method of purchasing bondage gear such as leather wrist and leg cuffs and tying her to the bed as a way for her to ‘time-out’ and think about her bad behavior and how she’s going to improve in future. It’s even possible she may enjoy it. As I have learned from my time spent here, very many Filipina’s thoroughly enjoy being tied-up and put in forms of restraint bondage. I‘d never been interested in any sort of bondage prior to moving here; it just wasn’t part of my preferred repertoire. I’ve had to learn some new things since being here to satisfy a number of Filipina’s taste for the ‘unusual.’
It’s for certain that I, in advanced middle age, have been retrained by Filipina’s in the arts of fetish sex. Changing sure keeps things from becoming boring, if nothing else. Unlike in youth, when we know everything there is to know, I’ve since learned that I know very little, in the grand scheme of things, and am no longer so critical of others with different tastes and attitudes.
Both slapping and spanking are commonly used in the RP as a disciplinary tool between both parents and children and husbands and wives. Often you’ll find that spanking has been incorporated into a sexual pleasure, as well.
But, I’m getting into areas of “Let’s Get Physical: Two,” and so I’ll stop here.
The point is that it’s really up to you to learn how to both become an effective and responsible disciplinarian and how to train your wife to be a proper Filipina. You will never accomplish anything by being wishy-washy. Right now I think you are still looking at your wife’s behavior and her training needs through the eyes of a Westerner, and not by the ways of the Pinoy culture. That means when you bring your Honey Ko back to the Philippines to live, you’ll find yourself stuck with an Americunt but surrounded by submissive Filipina’s. Personally, I wouldn’t want to have that happen to me – the desire for what was all around me, added to the regret for what I had as a wife would be too much to bear.
You’re not doing yourself or Mahal a favor by not standing firm in your resolve to have your wife be a ‘proper’ Filipina wife.

Now, you wrote that you are giving Mahal “one more chance.” How many one more chances have you given her before? Rather than tell you what to do, let me offer alternative way of looking at the same problem. Using semantics:
A: “I’m giving you one more chance.”
B: “There are no more chances; that was your last one”
You’re saying the same thing, really, but the meaning is totally different.
“One more chance” is malleable in content rather than concrete and indicates the possibility for bending and reshaping the future, whereas, “no more chances” gives the impression of finality.
You tell her how you will be, “faithful… and always remain so”, but I don’t hear what she tells you, or what you demand of her. But what she tells you is unimportant; it’s actions that count. And it’s what you demand and how she responds that matters. It’s up to you to tell her how she will be. She will behave; she will be faithful; she will obey; she will submit to your authority; she will do what she’s told, when she’s told, and so forth. Those aren’t questions nor suggestions, leaving things open for her to interpret.
“Do these things or you’re out of here. Behave and obey as a proper Filipina or be thrown out.” It’s clear-cut with no ambiguity and no wiggle-room. If you want to be obeyed, you will have to present yourself to her with absolute authority and conviction. Anything less and you’re telling her you’re not really serious, and so there’s room for deviation.
I used (still do) the word ‘tolerate’ a good deal when I talked to Filipina’s, including Celine. “I won’t tolerate deception, even once.” “I won’t tolerate stealing or disobedience, or lying,” etc. ”If you do any of these things, I’ll throw you out and I won’t let you come back. That’s a promise, and a guarantee.” “You will either accept those terms or you will not be my woman – there’s no third choice.”
I kept my promise, and I threw out or threw away every Filipina that thought she could wiggle out of trouble or not get caught deceiving me. When I met Celine, the first talk I had with her included all I wrote above. I also told her that I was demanding and that I would dominate her and control her. I went so far as to tell her that she must give herself to me as property – that I would own her, so her obedience must be absolute. If she couldn’t accept that and serve me with total obedience, then she must go somewhere else. And there would be no trying to change things at some later time; I would own her for her lifetime and she would belong to me. Celine went homw to talk it over with her parents, They told her to do what she knew she thought best.
When Celine came to my house with her decision to be my woman, she verbally told me among other things, “I give myself to you as your property, and I belong to you completely.”
Celine later told me that because I told her those things, she knew that I would be strong, and that’s what she wanted – a strong and dominating man.
I’m not playing with words, nor fantasizing, or elaborating on what I told Celine - or what she told me. If anything I’m not telling all of what I said for the sake of brevity.
Celine has been faithful and completely obedient to me for over two years. We’ve never had a argument or a difference of opinion. She has obeyed me without questioning me once. So, instead of fighting to see who the boss will be, we laugh every single day and get along better than I ever dreamed I would with any woman. I’m satisfied beyond my wildest dreams.
Filipina’s are not Americunt’s, and their attitude, desires and needs are far different from Western females. They value and appreciate a man with a strong character.
Jim, in your message you wrote that you told Mahal… “I don't care what she does, as long as she is out of my house and life ASAP.” Then only a few hours later, you… “(perhaps foolishly) relented, and told her… all she has to do is to flush the garbage out of her mind, PERMANENTLY and never again make any such accusations!” You’re sending mixed signals to Mahal. On the one hand, it’s finished, but on the other hand you’ll relent if she can, “flush the garbage out of her mind.” Why should she? Did she the last time you told her that?
Falling back on the Western-style of relenting and non-demands won’t get you anything but more headaches.
I know you want to love you wife, but can you trust her to obey and behave? Do you think… have you considered whether she will be better or worse, or just the same once you both are living in the RP? You’re going to be facing some new and very formidable problems once you’re living here permanently. The worst of it is going to be Mahal’s need to show-off her status and wealth to those less fortunate relatives and friends. All returning Pinoy and Pinay get caught-up in that trap. Even when they don’t want to, the local people will try to force money and gifts out of her or be called “kuripot” – stingy.. If she doesn’t give, she’ll lose face – unless she can tell them that you forbade her to give anything. Believe me; you’re going to have a lot of things to forbid her to do back in the Philippines. Will she obey you then if she’s not trained to obey you now? Or will she go, “back to her old tricks again?”

Sometimes the best thing to do is admit defeat and start over. Yes, you’ll lose property and money, and perhaps the feeling that you somehow failed in your marriage. But is that worth being unhappy through the end-days of your life? Freeing your mind and spirit from problems and pain, in my humble opinion, is far more important. Haven’t you ever felt that exhilarating feeling of freedom and relief when you finally came to terms with yourself after anguishing over some hard decision? That time, as a young man, when you thought you would just die when your girlfriend broke up with you, but then realized what good fortune it turned out to be when you later met someone infinitely better? Doesn’t it feel wonderful when you make a definite decision, and then you know there’s no more agonizing? It’s not only uplifting but mentally and emotionally a freeing of the spirit.
When you finally tell your wife, “It’s my way or the highway,” so to speak, and mean it deep in your soul; you’ll know that calm feeling inside that says, “There’s no going back - and I feel great.”
Maybe that will be the moment you know that you own Mahal and your troubles with her are over. Or perhaps it will be when you know she and all her problems are now permanently in your past.
I’ve indicated to you numerous times that you don’t have to think like an American man; that there may never be another woman in your life and you don’t want to be lonely and that something is better than nothing. But I’ll say it again: there are many thousands of beautiful, young and firm Filipina’s that would gladly strangle Mahal for a chance to be your woman. Notice I didn’t say “wife.” There’s something very liberating in knowing that. You aren’t dependent on or defined by your American wife. And if I can winnow through the greedy, bad-seed Filipina’s and find Celine in two years, it’s also possible for you. Besides, it was fun going through more than 2-dozen young Filipina as I searched for Celine. There is definitely a form of happiness in variety for a middle-aged man – angst and trauma free of youthful needing-to-be-loved.

Going to the Philippines and meeting the Honey Ko you’ve met online or through the mail, and meeting her parents, and learning about their situation isn’t going to teach you much. Time is the great teacher. The parents, 99-out of-100 times, are going to be poor, and you most likely won’t be able to talk to them anyway because of language differences. The only thing you need to do is to tell everyone that you won’t support anyone but your Honey Ko, and that you expect Honey Ko to obey and protect you completely and totally. “Obey and protect me or go somewhere else.” Everything else is simply chaff in the wind.
“What will I do now,” Mahal queried?
“Obey or get out and find you own way,” one might say. Case closed.
As for Mahal’s children and your lamentations on their lack of involvement and protecting you - you have a lot to learn about the Pinoy way. Most Pinoy care about today - tomorrow or ten years from now is a long way off, and their not going to waste time thinking about that. You also wrote, “To give them credit, they haven't asked for money to get the job done, at least up to now.” I beg to differ; but that’s exactly what they’ve been doing. When they wrote, “It's a long way from Pagadian, and I only have a motorcycle, and it's raining, and I don't have the money for gas, and I have a lot to do at home, etc. etc. etc...," they were telling you, in the Pinoy way, “If you want me to do anything you’re going to have to pay me to do it.” Like I said before, you have a lot to learn about Pinoy culture. You just learned something new. Nothing will ever be done for you unless you pay. They don’t care if their inheritance is burned to the ground – they’ll take your land later: they want your money now! Welcome to the Philippines!
You can fly there if you want to, but as soon as you fly back out everything will go back to the way it was. The only way to stop the stealing and destruction of your coconut trees is to live there and protect it yourself. The police won’t do anything. They’re probably extracting a bribe to allow it. And since you aren’t going to move there for a few more years, I suggest getting over it so your blood pressure can normalize.
Write to the children and tell them you’re going to allow their uncle to steal and destroy everything, and when you get there you’re going to sell the property, even if it's at a loss, and they will get nothing from you – that since they don’t care about protecting you, you aren’t going to protect or support them. Then see what happens. But don’t say it and later not keep your promise.
Philosophically speaking, when it comes to property, don’t buy anything you’re not willing to give away, because you’re probably going to lose it anyway, either to your Filipina or through theft.
It’s nice to be nice, and it’s nice to be kind. But neither of those ideals works here. Most especially when there’s a foreigner in the mix. “He’s only a foreigner; we have to protect each other,” is an all-too-common phrase in the RP. Only strength works in the Philippines. Not mean or violent strength, but a strong will and a strong constitution. Show weakness or a willingness to be manipulated to your Filipina, her relatives, authorities or neighbors and they’ll eat you alive. It’s just the way it works. Accept that and be happy. Try to change it and you’ll end in tears.
When in Rome, do as the Roman’s do, and you’ll survive just fine.
You’ll do what you feel you need to do concerning Mahal. Follow my suggestions or not. It’s for you to decide. But, whatever you do, do it from a position of strength from within yourself. And always keep your promises.

Thanks for writing again to ETP and keeping me and my readers abreast of your on-going saga. I’m sure it will be a help to those that will eventually move here to live. Keep writing us.
Good fortune to you, Jim.
Rik - ETP

2005-08-16T12:11:00.000+07:00

Kubo house. Click to enlarge

2005-08-16T12:10:00.000+07:00

Anemone clown fish. Click to enlarge

2005-08-16T12:09:00.001+07:00

Saline loving tree. Click to enlarge

2005-08-16T12:09:00.000+07:00

Bahay kubo house. Click to enlarge

Stung In The Jollibee

2005-08-10T15:31:00.000+07:00

I’m sorry, faithful readers; I’ve been involved with other things and have been neglecting my blog… and you. I’m still working on “Let’s Get Physical: Part Two” and will have it on the blog soon. But I just I had to offer this true tale to you now, however, before the details slipped my mind.
Here’s a story of warning and a knock on your funny-bone at the same time. It happened just today: 08-09-05. It should provide an important lesson to all you guys who’ve fallen in lust, uh, love with your Filipina over the Internet, by mail or phone, and are in a big hurry to get your Filipina into your life and into your bed, and so have convinced yourselves that your Honey Ko is wonderful and honest and true. Chances are at least 50/50 that you’re not getting the girl of your dreams you think you are.

What is a Jollibee?
Jollibee is the franchise name of a Pinoy fast-food store like McDonald’s, offering hamburgers, fries, chicken, and pig: mostly things with rice and soy sauce added.

Celine’s 17-year-old, 5-month pregnant sister, Rebecca, came down from the mountains yesterday to go to the local provincial hospital for a check-up and tests. She spent the night with us, and this morning Celine accompanied her to the hospital as her companion. Remember ‘companions’ from earlier writings?
They saw a friend who was a patient at the hospital. She asked Rebecca to go to the Jollibee and buy her a couple pieces of Chicken Joy, and bring it back to the hospital for her to eat. Rebecca had never been in a Jollibee – or any other fast-food place – before and asked Celine to go along because Rebecca didn’t think she would know how to order the food and was afraid to try. I had taken Celine to Jollibee once before so she could learn what crap the food was, and eliminate any desire to eat American-style fatty-foods. It worked, as we’ve never been back. We eat mostly vegetarian-style.

A Love Story: Short May It Last

Celine told me the story this way, translated from Taglish (Tagalog/English) so you will understand it:
“When we got to the Jollibee the restaurant was almost full – mostly with college students. Rebecca and I ordered our friend’s food, and we both bought a glass of pineapple juice to drink while we sat at a table to wait for the to-go food to be brought to us. While we were sitting there I noticed a group of eight or more people gathered together only a few feet from us and just in front of our table. My attention was drawn by them because of the loud laughter and the American English being spoken by the one foreigner in the group. I first noticed that the table was overflowing with food, and I then saw that one of the women was sneaking a sizeable amount of food into her large purse when she thought no one was looking. The American man was ordering still more food and encouraging the others to order more, also. So why was that woman stealing his food, I wondered? I pointed it out to Rebecca, and we were both curious as to what was going on, so we watched the party.
“Shortly, another woman entered the Jollybee, saw the group and went over to them. The woman apologized for missing the wedding, and learning where they were, came to congratulate the bride and groom on their marriage that was performed only hours before by a judge at the City Hall. It became obvious to me that the American man had just married one of the Filipina’s present. But which one? I wondered which one might be his wife because, on one side of the man was a Filipino man, and on the other side of him was a woman who was being touched on her waist and butt in a very intimate way by a Filipino seated on her other side. Surreptitiously, the Pinoy was rubbing his hand up and down on the new bride’s ‘pwit ‘(ass). It’s not something one would expect a new bride to allow from someone other than the groom.
“The woman who just arrived was giving her attention to the woman at the foreigner’s side and it was apparent that she was in fact the man’s new bride. So why, I wondered with disgust, was she allowing that Pinoy to touch her in that way?
“I turned to Rebecca and asked her, “”Do you see what that man’s doing?”” Rebecca nodded that she also had seen. We became aware at that time that the students at the tables on each side of us were also watching what the Pinoy man was doing, and were quietly discussing it.
“I was becoming more and more disgusted and upset with that woman, as I realized that she was obviously marrying that man for his money and, to add insult to injury, she had even brought her boyfriend along to the wedding and then to the meal. How low and shameful can this woman be, I thought to myself? That poor man; he was so happy with his new bride – only married for a few hours and already being humiliated and mistreated by his Filipina. I felt so sorry for that man – and was so angry with her!
“I decided it was none of my business. But I just couldn’t stand to see her shame all of we Filipina’s with such horrible behavior. Before I knew I was making a sound I suddenly heard myself saying “”Yuck!”” out loud.
““This woman, she just let that man touch her pwit. And she just got married today. Her husband is right in front of her.””

The man and woman heard what Celine and turned around and said to her, in Tagalog, “What do you care? We’re all Filipino’s; we need to protect each other. He’s a just a foreigner.”
“Yeah, I know he’s a foreigner,” replied Celine, also in Tagalog, “but he’s still a human; he’s not an animal. Maybe you’re an animal, not a human, because you do that right in front of him. He’s treating you good. And that’s the way you repay him?
The American man could tell that the words being spoken between Celine and the bride and her boyfriend were words of anger. He also recognized the word ‘animal,’ which is the same though with emphasis on different syllables. He asked his new bride, “What’s she saying? Why’s she so angry? Why is she calling that man an animal? Does she know you?” He looked at Celine.
Celine told him, “Ask to them why that man is touching the pwit of that woman, your new wife. I overheard that you just got married to her today, and yet she’s allowing that man there to touch her butt in a very intimate way.”
The American man looked to his wife: “Who is that woman (Celine), and who did you say that man is? “
The woman said “I don’t know who this woman is, but maybe she’s just jealous because she heard that we’re just married. Maybe she’s just trying to steal you away from me.”
Celine spoke indignantly, “I don’t need to steal your husband away from you. I have my own husband, and he’s also an American man.”
The American man, suspicion rising within him spoke more forcefully to his new bride. Pointing to the boyfriend: “Who is he again?”
The bride was nervous and said, “He’s my boyfr… he’s my cousin.” Oops!
A boy of about 10-years of age, who was part of the group, spoke proudly - wanting to show off his English speaking skills, “It’s her boyfriend. He’s always in our house.” The blushing bride gave the boy a sharp look get him to shut his mouth. But it was too late, and now the new husband was all too aware that he had been chosen to play the fool in his new bride’s charade.
The American man jumped up and grabbed his bride by her upper arm, clamping down hard, and pulled her up out of the chair. “Come with me - let’s talk,” he snapped, and forcefully dragged her towards the bathroom.
“Please don’t pull me. I’m just going to follow you,” gasped the embarrassed and frightened bride.
Once in the bathroom with the door closed loud shouting accompanied by a female voice pleading emanated out to the eating area. The bride could be heard repeating , “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
The whole restaurant could hear the argument, and naturally everyone was highly interested and speculating whether the woman would be beaten – perhaps even killed – which the woman would have certainly deserved.
The manager was concerned, and sent the guard to the bathroom door. He knocked and said, “Sir, will you open the door?”
The American replied, “Just stay away; I’m not going to kill this woman.”
The guard said, “Please, sir, just don’t make loud noises.”
Meanwhile, Celine and Rebecca were still sitting at their table.
The brides’ mother was enraged at Celine and said to her, “Why did you tell that to the foreigner? Why do you care?”
“Of course I care,” retorted Celine. “I have a foreign husband, too. I’d never do something like that to him. That husband of your daughter doesn’t deserve to be treated like that by her. That’s why lots of foreigner’s, after they get married to a Filipina, they say that Filipina’s are bitches or are crazy. That’s not what your daughter should do to him. He’d give her a good life, be kind to her, take care of her, and feed her. Why should she behave so badly to him?”
The brides’ mother snapped, “If that man separates from my daughter, you’ll ruin the life of my daughter.”
Celine looked at her. “I’m not the one to ruin her life. You, and her, are the cause of her ruin - because you know that boyfriend was touching her pwit. You saw her. I saw you looking and seeing while that man was touching her. You know that that man is her boyfriend. What kind of a mother are you that it’s all right for you that the boyfriend touches her pwit in front of her new husband?
“What do you care? If they separate, I’m going to curse you that you’ll suffer,” hissed the mother.
Celine laughed at the mother. “Be careful who you’re cursing. Make sure that it’s me, and not you, old woman”
The mother remained irate. “You didn’t need to tell that in front of the husband.”
“Why not? You’re right there. You’re the mother. That’s your new son-in-law. Why didn’t you tell to the boyfriend not to touch the pwit of your daughter; that he had no right to touch her pwit. She’s married now.”
A woman in her late forties, who was sitting and observing the argument at another table, spoke up. “If that’s my daughter, I’m gonna smack that daughter in front of the foreigner. How could you sit there like that and do nothing? You know that daughter is cheating in front of that foreigner. You should be protecting him”
The mother of the bride sat silently embarrassed and humiliated while everyone in the room looked at her. Most of the customers – the students most loudly of all - were saying things such as, “Oh, my God, I can’t imagine what that woman did. Maybe she’s a whore or a prostitute – why she’d do that in front of the husband.”
The mother-in-law couldn’t stand it any longer. “I’m gonna go from here.” She got up and left the restaurant.
The rest of the family and friends sat at the table looking around at the people looking at them and talking about what kind of no-good people they must be. The humiliation was just too much for them to bear, and they hung their heads.
Now, another older female customer spoke up, addressing Celine. “Better you have the courage to tell that man what you saw. Maybe that man is going to divorce her.”
Celine answered, “I could not stand just watching and doing nothing. I’m thinking that, “Oooh, one day that husband is going to learn what that wife is doing. It’s just in my thoughts. But then my mouth could not shut-up.”
All the people in the Jollibee laughed at that while adding their own vocal thoughts such as, “What kind of a woman is that bride? What kind of mother let’s her daughter behave so badly?”
Celine and Rebecca sat listening to the yelling from the bathroom a while longer. The party members sat quietly, embarrassed, heads still bent down and looking at the table. Then, one by one, they got up and left the Jollibee. The only one who stayed was the boyfriend – no doubt to protect his girlfriend from her husband, or perhaps to escort her home if the man threw her away.
Celine and Rebecca decided to leave before the man and woman came out of the bathroom. Celine said she didn’t want to see the face of that woman when she came out, because she knew when the bride emerged, everyone in that Jollibee would become deathly quiet and stare at her with a soft background noise of chika-chika (gossip).
When they were outside, Rebecca said, “I wanted to stay and to know what’s going on in the bathroom. And I want to see her face when she comes out. I want to see, also, what that woman would do to you if we were still there.”
Celine told Rebecca, “I don’t want trouble and I don’t want attention from the other people looking at me. You know if we wait here that woman is just going to want to fight with me. I don’t want trouble.” They went back to the hospital to give the take-out food to their friend.

What you, the reader, should understand clearly is what happened to the American in the story wasn’t an isolated or unique event. That scene is played-out most everyday somewhere in the Philippines. It could well be you being prepared by your Honey Ko to be the next victim of the same scam, as I write this. This story should open your eyes and, I hope, make you think before you leap blindly into a quick marriage.
There are plenty of private detectives all over the Philippines, and the charge very little for their services. I recommend to you that you avail yourself of a detective’s services before you come here to meet your Filipina girlfriend. If you find out she has a boyfriend or husband, or is just running a scam of some other sort on you, you’ll spend far, far less money on the detective than it would cost you to fly over here and pay for food and lodging and the expenses of ‘treating’ Honey Ko and her family.
You just cannot be too careful. There are more scams than you can possibly think of being run by some very crafty Filipina’s. Be smart… be careful… then be happy.

There will virtually never be a person like Celine to step in and save you. What Celine did took real courage and guts. It certainly wasn’t the typical reaction of a Pinay to go against another Pinay. Although many other women and girls saw and understood what that family was doing to that poor American man, not one of them besides Celine would have said one word to help the American. It was only Celine’s outrage and her speaking-out as she did that gave the others courage to join-in.
I can’t begin to tell you how fortunate I am to have such a fine Filipina woman not only protecting me, but other foreigner’s, as well. I like to think it’s because of the Buddhist morals and philosophy I have been teaching to Celine that has been a contributing factor in her current behavior and character. Perhaps, maybe, but I think it has to do with her father’s teachings, as well, which were unorthodox from typical Pinoy culture. And then, it also has to do with Celine true inner-nature. Maybe it’s a combination of all those things.
For me - I don’t steal, cheat, rarely lie and highly value honesty, and I won’t tolerate that behavior in others. I’ve taught Celine continuously through stories and actions that there is a higher way to live – with respect for self and others. She’s either an excellent student or she’s uncommonly intuitive. Whatever it is, I am reaping the wonderful benefits of her beautiful character and personality.
Rik

2005-08-10T15:25:00.001+07:00

Jollibee. Pinoy burger joint Click to enlarge

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Imelda's Dream Shoe Click to enlarge

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Ocean-front property Click to enlarge

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Yakan Bride Click to enlarge

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Young Filipina Click to enlarge

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Night Lights Click to enlarge

Let's Get Physical: Part One

2005-07-15T19:02:00.000+07:00

In my last article, “Is She Jealous?” I wrote that the man who was always being controlled and yelled at by his wife should “slap the crap” out of her. No, I haven’t changed my mind in a Western-style PC Moment. I stand by what I wrote. Perhaps some of you who still live in the West don’t agree with me on that point. Too bad – keep it to yourself. Or start your own blog and express yourself for good or ill.
If you had been paying attention, and I know most of my readers are intelligent and always do – you would have also read the add-on, “as per local culture.”
And therein lay the point of this article: local culture and Asian customs.
You should understand that I have never beaten a woman in my life (although sometimes I think I should have when I reflect on my Americunt ex-wife’s disgusting behavior and indifference to anything beyond the perimeter of her own skin). I have only slapped a woman once – a Filipina who perpetrated a deep deception on me. I’m not a fan of violence and it doesn’t turn me on. I believe in and am dedicated to being a ‘gentleman,’ with all of the courtesy, decency, and respect for others and myself that it implies.
I am 59 years of age, and I come from a time and world that no longer exists in America - a semi-rural, farming environment that was, at the time, more of the 19th than of the twentieth century. The folks I came into contact with as a child were of a nature to be straight forward, self-reliant and self-determined. These good and simple people had an inner strength that didn’t require signs of other's acceptance. They were honest, trust-worthy and kind, with a courteousness that is currently so rare as to rate being on the endangered species list. It was all I knew. And to this day I appreciate that I was fortunate enough to have experienced that style of life in my formative years.
Later, when I was ten-years-old, my family moved to the San Francisco bay area. My father went to work for the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. Whereas before, I lived in a spacious and mostly empty world of few people and lots of animals, trees and fields, I found myself in a crowded city of buildings, asphalt and cement, and surrounded by wild, unpredictable animals of the human kind. In all the years I lived in the bay area I found no more than a handful of people were even worth peeing on. I won’t linger long on how American life began to radically change (in no small part by the advent of television) in the late 1950's and 60's, and more-so in the current American incarnation, providers were replaced by consumers, courtesy replaced by rudeness, honesty by lies and deceit, trust by treachery, respect by disdain.
If you’re one of those ‘money and power at any cost’ kind of people who oppose kindness and caring with a finely-sharpened bottom line, then may you rot in hell for what you have done and will do to the people's of this world.
Now that you’ve been cudgeled with a little personal background on me, I can go into a little of family culture in the Philippines.
The following descriptions of Asiatic culture are no longer exclusive. Because of the global media - centralized in America - and the opprobrious desire by mostly myopic American religious zealots and even more recently, treacherous politicians seeking to force the ugliest portions of their own dark souls on all other nations, cultures around the globe are being transformed from their own national identities by what I call the "Hamburger Syndrome" - you can find the same one anywhere. Fortunately and thankfully, the older culture still remains the prevailing system.
I’m a firm believer that each country and culture has just as much right to their “way of life” as the one I came from. And the last thing I want to do is force them through fear or the threat to withhold needed funds unless “compliance” is met. Read: become like us.
While you read the following, bear in mind that I am writing of that portion of Filipino’s that follow their own culture and are either resisting or ignoring the Westernization of the Philippines.
Control is not the issue:
The family structure in the Philippines is and has always been patriarchal; for the most part, men run things. Women defer to men. It’s the man who will almost always have the final say in matters requiring a decision. Women are taught from birth to seek the blessings of, and to obey men. A Filipina wife will not go anywhere without first getting permission from her husband. She won’t go to the nearby sari-sari (small, general) store, to town, to the neighbor’s house - nowhere. Even when she has permission she will rarely go without a ‘companion.’ It may be you or her mother, her child, a neighbor or friend. If her husband isn’t at home, in all likelihood, she’ll wait for him to return before going anywhere, unless it’s absolutely necessary for something like timely food preparation. She may still wait anyway.
A married Filipina may stay inside the house and not ever leave it, other than to go outside to get water, gather wood, tend to animals, or care for her plants, unless it’s in the company of her husband. Celine was advised by no fewer than her mother, father, grandparents, aunties and other women relatives and friends to “Stay inside the house and take care of your husband. Don’t go outside to chika-chika (gossip) or go off anywhere without your husband’s permission.”
If a girlfriend drops by and invites Celine to go with her to visit other friends or maybe shop together, she will only go once she has permission. If I’m not at home, she’ll wait for my return.
If a wife is called to go to her parent’s house, and the husband is away, she will not go. I know of one woman who had cut herself rather badly while chopping wood and someone called for an ambulance. When it arrived she refused to let the driver take her to the hospital because her husband wasn’t home. The ambulance left and she waited for his arrival so he could take her to the hospital.
Did you guess it’s that way because of cruel, over-bearing and dominating chauvinist-pig husbands? If you guessed it was the men in her life, you’d be wrong. The one’s who have taught Honey Ko to stay in the house after marriage, to tend to the husband’s needs, and to always ask permission are women.
Women value the dominance of men because they find safety and stability and comfort in knowing that they have someone to depend on, and who will guide and protect them. They recognize that they are, in physical fact, less able to do the things that men do, and they still find value and importance in having men ‘take care’ of them. You could argue that men perpetrated a hoax by “creating” a dominant culture of and by men. But, if you were to do a poll and ask women if they want to be “freed” from a patriarchal culture – and if you asked women if they want to be equal to men and all that implies by way of doing men’s work and having men’s responsibilities; and if you asked them if they want to have men stop calling them “Honey (Ko),” and treat them as special for their important role in caring for the family and raising the children and teaching them the proper way to live, with honor and respect as moral and decent people – they’d laugh at you, the pollster, and not only tell you, “No,” but also tell you you’re crazy.
Women’s liberation is reserved for spoiled and pampered Western women, who pay others to care for them and their children so they can use their ‘maximized leisure time’ for their “Oprah moments” to cry and lament about how hard life is and how badly mistreated they are by men (those same men who are manipulated to work to get the money so their wives can lie beside the back yard pool and tell their husband to make his own damn lunch) – and spend $85 to have their nails painted with little swirls and stars by underpaid Puerto Rican girls.
It’s not for women who still wash and hang clothes by hand, cover their babies with reusable cloth rags for diapers, cook meals on top of a charcoal (charcoal made by the hand of her husband) stand, and work at night, mending and talking under kerosene lantern-light, who live in a bamboo house filled with flies and mosquito’s and wood-smoke in an attempt to keep the insects at bay - surrounded by a forest with no road access for an ambulance or pizza delivery man, only a long dirt path for friends and family to walk on through the forest when they want to visit – no telephone, and no way for police to get near the house to give or offer protection against robbers, rapists, thieves and murderers– no television to amuse oneself while lounging on an expensive and comfortable couch, eating micro-waved popcorn or cold ice cream and washing it down with cold drinks with ice-cubes clinking in the glass in a room flooded with electric light – without an SUV to hop into on a whim to go to town to spend unconscionably with a handful of credit cards provided and paid for by the very man they despise and belittle as being “too demanding.”

Filipina’s still depend upon their husband’s to protect them from harm. They don’t call the police and have the husband hauled-off to jail for slapping her when he’s just discovered she spent the rent and car-payment money on a new spring ensemble so she’d look cute at the golf course or at those leisurely lunches with the other spoiled wives and girlfriends. They respect their husbands and honor them. They don’t see serving and caring for a man as humiliation, but as a respectable privilege, and something to take great pride in.
When mothers, aunts and older female friends visit to a married woman’s house, they will join in to help with the wash and/or clean the house. They do not sit around stuffing their faces and talking about the stupid ‘men’ that are the husbands they agreed to “love, honor and cherish.” There’s plenty of advice from female visitors, but it’s along the lines of advice on how to better take care of the house, to better organize or clean. They usually advise keeping a good attitude and that ‘she’ should take good care of ‘her’ husband and make him happy.
That’s not to say there isn’t problems and that women stay no matter how bad things get. I’ve seen plenty of ‘runners,’ running from an abusive husband who beat his wife with fists and sticks, knives and bottles. Virtually to a man, every one of those low-life’s were devotee’s of Tanduay Rhum and Ginebra Gin. I don’t advocate wife-beating and detest those that do. And that’s not what this article is about. It’s about discipline and responsibility.
In the Western countries, the discipline, training and punishment of children is now controlled by the Psycho-Gods - Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Child Protection Services (run by the Psycho-Gods), etc., and through them the State, the courts and the police. Parents are no longer “in the loop,” but are merely relegated to housing and supporting the children, as well as pay the State to control you through taxes. Children do not answer to you, and you don’t have the right to do anything more to them in the nature of discipline than to yell ineffectually. If yelling doesn’t affect an obedient response and you go beyond “acceptable limits,” like a spanking, you’ll find yourself answering to a judge after a night in the jail-house. All American children are fully aware of their ‘rights” and know, also, that with one phone-call the cops will be at your door to haul you away for child abuse, and then the ‘child’ can be on his or her way out the door for a night of partying.
Fast forward those children to adulthood. No more need be said: you don't need to ne reminded of what you see all around you every day.
You and I are concerned with girls and women, so let’s leave the boys out of it.
Watch most any movie from the last 20+ years that caters to the youth market and you’ll begin to notice a repetitive cultural dynamic that one could easily call “training.” The girls always talk about how they can toy with the boys. “I can make Johnny do anything I want if I let him think I’m going to let him… you know. Of course I don’t go all the way. But as long as he believes he’ll get some, he’ll do anything for me!” They manipulate the ‘boys’ for their gain, all the while laughing at their stupidity. The ‘boys’ are nothing more than idiots with cars, money and hormones. They have little more purpose other than to be used to the ‘girls’ advantage.
The second noticeable dynamic is how physical violence is applied and its acceptability. It’s acceptable for a girl/woman (g/w) to slap, hit, pound with fists or with an object, or shove a boy/man (b/m) (over the back of the couch, hitting his head on the coffee table) whenever the g/w decides the b/m needs ‘punishment’ for his despicable behavior. The b/m will almost always be required to apologize for his bad behavior. The g/w will never apologize for her physical abuse of the b/m.
Let’s turn that around and look at it through the mirror, shall we? A boy slaps a girl. He’s done an unforgivable and unpardonable act. A boy hits a girl. He’ll usually later be beaten by a bigger, tougher man who “defends the g/w’s honor.” A b/m pounds a girl with fists or an object and he’ll die a violent death in the second or third reel. A b/m shoves a g/w and she falls, hitting her head – he must join the ‘pounder’ in death. The only act that will allow the offending b/m to redeem himself and live until the credits run is to profoundly apologize and state that he's “wrong” and that he’s so sorry, but he's learned his lesson and, "will never do that again." Film reflects a culture’s social mores. That’s a fact.
Now, what exactly did he learn? Girls can do whatever they want and a boy or man must accept that ‘right’ of females to have her cake and eat it, too. She may discipline and punish him as she pleases. On the other hand, he may only do things to a girl or woman that is acceptable to her. He has no right to either discipline or punish. A man’s only real choice, if it can be called that, is disenfranchisement. That is, he can walk away.
But walking away has its own punishments. For, most assuredly he will pay greatly for his act in the divorce-court system when half of everything he has worked all his life for will be legally handed over to Betty Sue. Years will pass and he’ll still be paying through alimony and possibly child support.
So what’s the final analysis of Western “culture?” The State controls your public, private and family life. Women rule men because they hold the keys to the kingdom between their legs, and men find more value in nookie than within themselves. Lastly, men have no real power (unless you’re filthy rich and can afford to buy your way out of trouble. See: O.J. Simpson and others). But you are allowed to hold the chamber pot.
No wonder beer and porn are so popular.

Part two coming soon

2005-07-11T22:29:00.000+07:00

Where's Paradise? You're looking at it. Click to enlarge

2005-07-11T22:28:00.000+07:00

Celine and niece, Danika. Click to enlarge

2005-07-11T22:26:00.000+07:00

Celine in a nice 1950's calendar pose.The dress is from India.The legs are from heaven. Click to enlarge

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Celine with family members. No bathing suits in the RP. Click to enlarge

2005-07-11T22:21:00.000+07:00

Way white n' pushin' 60. My father-in-law on my left; a kind, good man. My "Copper City Cafe" T-shirt (Bisbee, Arizona) PhotoShop work. Click to enlarge

In A Whirled Of Slings And Arrows...

2005-07-11T22:05:00.000+07:00

Dear Friends,
I want to thank all of you who wrote to express your good wishes and happiness concerning my darlin’ Celine’s lack of injuries from the altercation with the 'Jealous Woman' whom I wrote about in the last article, Is She Jealous? I admit, I was surprised to hear from you. It seemed just like good neighbors or friends being concerned about one of their own. So thank you for your gracious, kind words.
When I opened my mail I found a number of email’s from my readers waiting to be read. Some made me smile, others laugh. I called Celine to my little work-space, “Darlin,’ come here a moment.” She did. I said, “Sweetie-pie, you’ve got friends!”
“Huh?”
“You’ve got friends, darlin,’ writing about your fight with that crazy woman. Look at your fan mail.” And I read them to her. She just half-grinned and shook her head; she’s still pretty mystified by the Internet and world-wide connections to other people.
I read one from someone named Mark, I believe, as I got it from his email address, and the email was unsigned. In part it read, “I'm thinking it may be a long while before that lady steps on anyone’s toes again! Sounds like Celine opened a large can of Whoop Ass on her!” The portion, “…can of Whoop Ass,” really made me laugh because it’s so American in its slang and meaning, and I was thinking about how I’d explain that to Celine. Well, Mark, I did my best with, “It means ‘to beat someone vigorously’, or to ‘kick someone’s ass’ (which she understands somewhat), or to have a one-sided fight in which one person does all the beating and the other person does all the suffering.” She only looked at the wall, and I could see by her thousand-yard stare that a “large can of Whoop Ass” made no sense to her at all. It was lost in translation and the humor slipped by while I struggled to give it meaning. It’s all part of the scenery in the loving collision of two cultures.
I should tell you all that Celine saw that woman and her husband at NCCC the other day. Celine told me the woman had a very angry face, and was trying to get over to where Celine was pushing her cart, but the man had a firm grip on her arm and kept jerking her back to him. Celine just ignored her.
You know, I forgot to mention that in one of the previous episodes when that same stupid woman went to Celine and told her to stop flirting with her husband, Celine told her, “I’m not interested in your husband, he’s far too ugly for me to be interested in. And if you don’t want you husband to look at me, you should put a paper bag over his head and lead him around.” Naturally, that only enraged her more. Women can be an unfathomable breed. Filipina’s can be down-right strange sometimes.

I’ve never heard of some of you good folks before, and that also surprised me. It seems my blog has a following I was unaware of. Few people write to me to say they like what I’m writing or my writing style, or what they want me to write about, what they’re interested in, or what information they hope to get out of my blog. You mostly come to my site and then you go again, silently. That’s fine; I’m not here for the praise. But sometimes my impression is that no one is out there in that pixilated ethereal egg-shell where my blog resides. It would be nice if you sometimes left a foot-print that told me, like in an old Tarzan movie, when I kneel over a smelly piece of scat and glean information from the aroma and the warmth, “Hmm, people have passed here recently.” Of course, Jane would only look upon my odious endeavor with open revulsion and then make me wash my hands.

I am grateful, though, for the nice email’s to and for Celine. It was very nice. Thank you.

This morning I went to the hospital to have the stitches removed from my finger. It looks fairly good – at least there’s no infection. Now I only have a piece of gauze tape covering it. It makes it somewhat easier to type without that miniature punching bag that tormented my keyboard. When I asked Dr. Maypa for a clearer understanding of whether a nail would ever grow there again, he back-stepped and said he didn’t know if one would or not. “Come back in two months,” he said, "and I’ll take X-rays to see if there’s still nail growing. If there is, then I’ll have to open the finger (Again!) and cut out the cells that produce the nail. And we’ll see if I need to carve the fingertip to make it slimmer." No more driving into door-jambs for me. Having to see the local saw-bones' just ain't worth it.

Ya’ll come back soon, too, in your quiet way, because I’ll soon have another article posted entitled, “Let’s Get Physical,” which will probe deeper into the cultural differences of strict discipline and obedience, family roles and corporal punishment between East and West. Plus you’ll get a much abbreviated look at my own upbringing (How I developed my less than standard American personality) and, lucky you, a few of my personal opinions. Sticky stuff, that – sharing opinions. Best of all, however, you’ll get some first-hand opinions from Celine and insight into her thoughts on family, a wife's behavior and place, and some women's need for a good beating. I think you may be very surprised at what she has to share.
Could you help but notice the new pictures of Celine, above? Most were taken last week – some in Santa Cruz, Palawan where her family lives. A few were shot at my rental house, and the beach scenes were taken in Makirawa to the north of Puerto Princesa. Also, take a close look at the bamboo house (I’ll show more soon) and notice how it’s built. Like most “houses,” it was built from natural local products taken from the forest and hand built by the owner. If civilization ever falls apart (easy there, George!): while the great majority of Westerner’s in general and American’s in particular will simply sit down and die from lack of handy-craft ability and “good service” from those who now keep them well-fed and groomed, the Pinoy will just go on as usual. Minus the cd’s and television.

I just fired-up my DSL to go to ETP and post this, and my email program spit out six more email’s. This one came from Jim E. Thank’s, Jim, for the nice words. Golly-Gee!

“Rik, you don't have to apologize to us, your readers! It's not as if you exist only to entertain or inform us... Your dedication and your honest character are a value in themselves! But we DO appreciate all the info! Jim E.”

Yer welcome, Jim. And good fortune to all of you.
Rik

Is She Jealous?

2005-07-08T16:52:00.000+07:00

About jealousy and

how the Filipina mind works.

Now, there’s a lot of Filipina’s that are jealous in the extreme. I don’t recommend that you attach yourself to this form of cat; they can be more troublesome than a "Freddy" nightmare and cause you endless headaches and problems.
It’s difficult to know in advance whether your Honey Ko is going to be a violent hot-head. If you find yourself involved with this type of overly-jealous woman, I recommend that you put a stop to it as soon as you make the realization . That kind of jealousy works to Honey Ko’s advantage, as she will, in effect, be controlling you, what you do, where you go, who you talk to, and so forth. If you know and choose to live with Honey Ko anyway, shame on you. You deserve what you're willing to accept.
If she tries to use anger and jealousy against you, you should respond by being a strict disciplinarian and train your wife to obey you instead of repeating the sins of your own previous training of servitude by Western women. I can state without reservation that you will regret allowing Honey Ko to express her jealousy and rage to you in private and, worse, in front of others in public.
You are either a leader or a follower. There’s no in-between.
One way you might learn about her level of anger and jealousy before you commit to living with your Honey Ko is to go out in public, like going ‘malling.’ You can let your eyes rove and make eye contact with other Filipina’s. This will happen anyway, as many Filipina’s will be ‘eyeing’ you. If you let your eye linger, your Honey Ko will most assuredly notice, just as she’ll notice the looks and smiles other Filipina’s give you.
If Honey Ko goes into a rage with you or attacks the Filipina that is smiling or just looking at you - or if she's attacked even though she's unaware you were looking at her - you should run, don’t walk, away from Honey Ko as quickly as you can. You don’t owe her anything (yet) and, again, she won’t be the only one who wants you.
In the west you may have to go begging for dates - you may even be turned down and be humiliated every single time - but in the Philippines you will have as many dates as you want or can handle. In the Philippines, you are an object of great desire. Once you truly understand that, and once you experience the culture of Filipina submission, you will never, ever want to be with an Americunt again.

Many Filipina’s would steal you away from Honey Ko in a New York minute if they could, and so a smile and letting her eye linger with yours is a good way of letting you know that she’s receptive to you. You should know by now that, in the Philippines you will be or are a highly valued commodity and you can have your choice of thousands of Filipina’s. So, sticking with the first Filipina you meet, and especially a jealous and angry one, is not only un-necessary, it's just plain crazy.
Having written that, here’s what happened to Celine two weeks ago:

Celine came home with a great story to tell me about her trip to the pelengke (open market) in San Jose barangay ( a sort of neighborhood or district) where she went to see her sister off. The bus terminal's also there. Going around alone isn’t often done. Being with or having a companion is a standard practice in the Philippines, so it’s natural that Celine would take her sister, Rebecca, to the terminal. Rebecca had to buy vegetables before she caught the bus, and Celine wanted to get some mangos.
While Celine was picking out mangos, an American man who always ogles Celine whenever he sees her in town, approached to talk to her. His opening line was to ask her if I was an American or a German. She had noticed him a number of times in the super-market, because her attention was captured when she heard the man’s wife always yelling at him when she'd catch him staring at Celine. At times, when he felt he was not being observed by me or his wife, the man would smile and even wink at Celine. He’s had a long-term hard-on for her. Sometimes the wife would approach Celine and demand that she stop flirting with her husband. Celine finds the mans personally repulsive and has told the wife so. But the wife just doesn’t listen; she’s too intent on feeding her jealousy.
Lots of men stare at Celine as she has one of the finest body shapes in all of Puerto; men are always staring at her, and she's always being approached by foreign men. In the last four weeks, Celine has been approached by five different American men offering her houses and cars and money if she would just become their woman, even though they know she’s with me. They don’t care. She only slaps them and tells them she’s married.
This time, however, the man actually talked to Celine while his wife had her back turned and was a few yards away, occupied with buying vegetables and fruits. Suddenly the woman appeared in front of Celine and viciously stomped her 3-inch high-heel onto Celine's toe. Celine reacted without thinking and forcefully shoved that woman hard with both hands. The wife fell backward and landed against the mango stall, which collapsed and spilled all of the mangos onto the ground. The woman was lying on the ground and Celine jumped on her, straddled the woman and clamped her own legs around the woman's legs to keep her from kicking. Then Celine grabbed two handfuls of the woman's hair and began smashing her head onto the ground, letting go with one hand occasionally to slap the woman's face. Celine even grabbed a smashed mango and was rubbing the woman's face with it.
The woman was screaming and blood was running from wounds on her head from Celine’s pounding it against the rocks on the ground. The husband took hold of Celine by her shoulders and tried to pull her off of his wife, but the woman screamed at him to "stop moving!" because every time he pulled, Celine just pulled the woman's hair all the harder. Celine turned her head and bit the man hard on his forearm, turned back and bit the woman on her shoulder.
The woman's sister saw what was happening and went to her sister's rescue. She ran over, knelt down and grabbed Celine by the hair. Celine, while pulling the wife’s hair, and biting the husband, pulled off her 2-inch heeled sandal and began beating the sister on the head and neck with it. All the worse for that sister, the rubber pad that covered the bottom of the heel came off and there was a small nail sticking out of it. Celine was beating that sister with that nail and blood was flying everywhere. Apparently Celine punctured the woman's aorta on her neck and blood was gushing out from the wound.
Eventually, two policemen ran up and pulled the man off of Celine, then the sister off of Celine, then Celine off of the wife. Celine jumped up, put her sandal back on then stomped her heel, with the nail protruding, hard onto the wife's toes. Then she turned and kicked the husband in the knee, While he was bent over, Celine slapped him hard on the face before the policeman could stop her. It turned out that the man's knee was already damaged from an earlier injury, and Celine really hurt him rather badly.
When it was over, the man, his wife and her sister all needed to go to the hospital to be treated. Both women were bleeding from head and neck injuries, and the man could barely walk.
And Celine? She didn't have a scratch on her, but her head was a little sore from having her hair pulled. One elbow and one knee was a little sore, but I couldn't see even redness on either. All I could find was some minor scratches on Celine's neck.
The police asked whose fault it was, and the wife said it was Celine's fault for flirting with her husband. But the stall owner and other witnesses said the husband approached Celine and that she acted as if she didn't want that man to bother her (which she didn't, and even refused to shake his hand). They all pointed to the wife as the attacker.
The police asked Celine if she wanted to press charges (make a case, in local parlance) against the trio. Celine declined, but requested that the police officially record the attack and give the trio a warning to leave her alone in future. If the woman ever bothers Celine again, she'll have her arrested.
The mango seller, on the other hand, was really pissed-off and not only wanted to be paid for her stall being broken and the loss of about one large basket of
mango's, but she wanted to 'make a case' against them.
The wife refused to pay when she was told the seller wanted P2500K (about $50) for the damage. So the police hauled-off husband, wife and sister to the police station to be charged by the accompanying stall-owner’s sister. The husband was really angry with his wife, as Celine overheard him say to his wife, "Look what you've done, you stupid woman. You know I'm having money troubles right now, and now I have to pay for all of this damage and the hospital bills, as well!"
He admitted to the police that the fault was his wife's, adding that she's an extremely jealous woman. He said she's even jealous of her sister when he talks to her. In my opinion, the fault is entirely his, however. He should slap the crap out of his wife - as per local culture - and make her behave. But apparently he's more of a woman (a girlie-girl, as the “Governator,” Arnold Swartzenegger, would say) than his wife, and lets his wife wear the pants in the family. If he's going to be a woman, he should stop looking at and flirting with Celine, and other's if there are others he does look at.
The by now large crowd was exclaiming about Celine: "Did you see what that skinny woman did to those three people? She has no muscles and she's so skinny, yet she beat all three of them and made them bleed. She's as strong as a horse! Rebecca, Celine's 15-year-old sister, who didn't help Celine because she's 5-months pregnant, told Celine that it looked like Celine had ten hands, all flying at once, and she was amazed to see Celine ripping the wife's hair while beating her head into the ground, biting the husband and beating the sister on the head with her sandal all at the same time. Laughing, Rebecca, told Celine, "That woman's face was completely yellow from you rubbing her face with that mango. It's lucky for her that you didn't push that big seed down her throat! How did you do all of that?" Celine couldn't explain because she didn't remember doing any of it.

I was aware of that man’s appreciation of Celine, as she’s pointed him out to me a few times at NCCC, the local (laff-laff) supermarket. I’ve heard his wife screaming at him, ridiculing and embarrassing him in public. He was always completely cowed by his wife. I didn’t go yell at him or threaten him for looking at Celine. One: he’s got good taste if he’s looking at Celine. What man wouldn’t? Two: he gets more than enough punishment already from his domineering wife. His wife had approached Celine and threatened her two times before when she noticed her husband ogling Celine. Celine was unaware that he had been looking at her.
He’s not the only one who looks at Celine. If I wanted to waste my time being jealous and start fights with all of the men who look at Celine, I’d have to make it a full-time occupation. I know I have nothing to worry about; Celine is strictly a one-man-woman, and she’s not interested in those men’s offers of cars and jewelry, etc. Material things just don’t interest her. She only wants a strong man who will be strict with her and love her. Lucky me.

This situation has occured at least six times before, that I’m aware of, by other women. Men are always looking at and admiring Celine. But here’s the very strange cultural kicker. The women almost never get angry with their husbands, but focus their rage on the other woman (Celine) – the opposite of Western women’s attitude. It doesn’t matter, as in the case of Celine, that it’s the man whose eyes are straying and roving up and down Celine’s body. It’s always the other woman’s fault, and an attack and fight can break-out with unannounced swiftness.

So, give some thought to that hot little Filipina you are with, and watch her carefully. Pay attention to her behavior. Make time and effort to ascertain whether she wants to be subservient and obedient to you, or whether she prefers instead to control you. Freely and easily expressed private or public anger and jealousy is an excellent indicator of her true nature.
And, most importantly, don’t be in a hurry to commit, through marriage, to the first woman you meet - - or even the second… or the fifth. Be discriminating, and make good choices. You have to keep reminding yourself that you’re not in America or Britain or Germany; you’re in the Philippines (RP), and there’s tens of thousands of women of all ages and sizes and levels of beauty just hoping you’ll glance their way and approach and talk to them. You may meet a few like Celine who are already taken, but one 90-degree turn and a few steps will lead you to yet another beautiful Filipina to talk to.
Whatever you do - don’t be a fool. Stay in charge. You’re the boss. Keep it that way. Either that or simply stay in America or wherever you are now, and let Linda Lou push you around and keep you begging for even more degradation.
Rik

2005-07-08T14:35:00.000+07:00

Ladies of the pool. Click to enlarge

2005-07-08T14:34:00.000+07:00

Country estate - Pinoy style. Click to enlarge

2005-07-08T14:33:00.000+07:00

Harbor coin-diver - to support her children. Click to enlarge

2005-07-08T14:31:00.000+07:00

Calbayog trike. Click to enlarge

2005-07-08T14:16:00.000+07:00

Pungtud waters - warm and clear. Click to enlarge

2005-07-08T14:13:00.000+07:00

Bugasok Falls. Click to enlarge

Mea Culpa

2005-07-08T13:52:00.000+07:00

A brief apology and personal note

To my readers: I’m sorry I disappeared for so long and let the site sit idle. Has it been so long? Time flies whether you’re having fun or not.
I wandered off in other directions. A constant electric supply in the Philippines is at best precarious. For some reason the power supply here in Palawan has been abruptly shutting off from one to three times a day for almost three weeks. The supply (220 VA) fluctuates up-and-down wildly most every day, as well. That means every time I’m writing and it shuts down I lose not only all of my unsaved work, but my system, motherboard, etc., is also affected. I’ve been having pc problems and have had to have it worked on. My monitor’s capacitors burned-up due to the fluctuation of the current. I thought I was going to have to buy a new monitor, but by good fortune I was able to be introduced to a technician who has experience in that area, and he was able to put in new capacitors and restore my monitor; it works like brand new, now. It was the most expensive pc-related labor bill I’ve had to pay so far: $30.00 for labor and parts. Cheap living in the RP. I lost more than a week because of the problems.
As some of you know, I’m an artist, among other things, and I play guitar, sing, draw, sketch, etc., and work in PhotoShop manipulating photos and creating my own images. I veered-off on a PhotoShop ‘jones’ after being away from my site for that short while and became immersed in downloading and practicing with new tutorials about working with PhotoShop, ImageReady and website creation. It was so much fun for me; I was spending all of my time at it and ignoring everything else.
Nachurly, I have to devote time to my darlin’, Celine. She’s as patient a woman as I’ve ever met, and to her credit she’s never once complained about all of the time I spend on my computer. I’m such a lucky man to have her with me.
I also had to put some time in on other business ventures: I own a 35-foot fishing banca (boat), and I had to fire a kapitan and make other changes. I also have a loan business and a rice buying-and-selling business that Celine mostly takes care of for me. But I do have to give it some time now and again. I’ve been tied-up spending time looking into buying a rice store.
There are other things. One of them is having my smashed finger (see earlier writings) operated on this last Monday (07-04). Now I’m writing to you with a giant bandage on that finger – and it’s neither fun nor easy. Here’s the update:

About four weeks or more ago my finger started swelling and hurt like something was stabbing it. A very small bit of fingernail began growing out of one side on my finger a month or two back, but it looked like it was growing sideways across my finger instead of toward the tip. It was growing from a recessed cavity - a hole, if you will - in my finger so dirt and grunge was getting in there and it was hard to keep clean. I thought that the sharp (pointed) edge was growing under the skin and flesh, causing the pain. I went to the doctor on Monday. We went back to the emergency room and into a room where he pumped my finger full of anesthetic and sliced the finger open length-ways from mid-way between the first and second knuckle to the tip. then spread it open using a clamp. We both looked inside. There was the nail growing under the flesh just as I thought. But the doctor kept spreading the finger wider and more nail just kept coming into view.
The doctor took another clamp and grabbed hold of the nail and started twisting and pulling on it. He ripped it from the nail bed and kept pulling. When he was done he'd pulled out a huge fingernail the size of a normal nail in width and about a quarter-inch in length, though jagged like a serrated knife. Wow! I was stunned that so much nail had been growing underneath my skin.
The doctor says the nail won't grow anymore since he tore the cells away that produce nails as they were attached with the nail. I don't know, but I hope so.
There was no way to save the nail as it wouldn't have grown normally due to the misshapen finger I now have. I have a huge gauze and tape wrapping around my finger as I type this.
I returned to the hospital Wednesday morning and the doctor looked it over and changed the dressing, It seems all right. I go back again next Monday.
The doctor did a better job on the finger than I expected... but then I didn't expect much. If I had been in the States I probably could have saved the finger from being so badly mangled and also had an intact fingernail. But I'm not there, so I'm happy he didn't just chop it off, as would probably be the case for most poor Pinoy because they would have to depend on the horribly inadequate socialized RP hospital-system and grossly incompetent doctors. There is a very low level in most doctors’ skills and knowledge here, especially in the Province’s. And Dr. Maypa's the best doctor on the island.
Now, because of the way the doctor put my mashed finger back together, the finger-tip is very big and it's difficult if not impossible for me to play the guitar without that finger touching and deadening one or two of the other strings.
I spoke to Dr. Maypa on Monday about carving out some of the flesh on the tip of my finger so it would be slim again. He said he thought it was just swollen and would become smaller and wanted to wait. Well, he's the doctor... but I knew, and know, that there's no swelling associated with the tip of my finger - and which the doctor acceded to Wednesday. He said that he would carve the finger if the fat shape of the tip doesn't change. So I'm sure I'm going to have to have the finger cut open once more in the near future and have the meat cut out of the tip.
I do like to play the guitar. Call me crazy, but it's worth it to me.
As you might now realize, I have a life beyond ETP. Also, I haven’t heard from anyone in some time except for Jim (and I’ll go into his story more in an article). Things have been very quiet. It doesn’t inspire me to write when you, the readers, don’t let me know you’re there.
I got an email from “rrcarpio” today. He wanted to know what happened to me, why I haven’t written lately. Well, now you know, rrcarpio. My question for you, however, is “Why haven’t I heard of you before? If you enjoy reading my blog, why don’t you leave a little message and let me know you’re there?” It would give me more reason to spend more time writing and adding to the site if I think someone is visiting. Otherwise, what’s the point? I already know what I need to know about living in the Philippines with a Filipina.
‘Nuff said. A new article or two will appear soon. Rik

2005-05-21T02:02:00.000+07:00

Boracay at sunset. Click to enlarge

2005-05-21T02:01:00.000+07:00

Walkway. Click to enlarge

2005-05-21T02:00:00.000+07:00

Lion fish. Click to enlarge

2005-05-21T01:57:00.000+07:00

Early Morning. Click to enlarge

2005-05-21T01:55:00.000+07:00

Dancing star fish? Click to enlarge

MALE CALL: Jim

2005-05-20T21:09:00.000+07:00

Readers: To fully understand the content, read Jim’s earlier letters:

Testing the water. He floats!

Hi, Rik!
Well, wonder of wonders! Here it is Thursday, and not one peep about unfaithfulness, or imaginary girlfriends, or any other reference to my faithfulness! I really didn’t think she could do it! (Talaga!) So, as of now, she is still here, and she has been thoughtful, and done my ironing and cooked each evening meal, and been what has passed for normally sweet, even giving me a kiss when she comes in from work or whatever errand she has been on.
Your instructions/suggestions are of value! She seems to have finally gotten the message, and is ready to accept some house rules, set by me. Thank’s, buddy!

I still intend to retire to the RP in a couple of years. (With or without my Mahal) My Social Security monthly payment is $800.00 per month, not nearly enough to live on here, but ample for the RP; converted at today’s money-rate to P44,000. I should be able to live quite comfortably on that amount… or do you disagree?

Will I, if necessary, take another Filipina to wife? Yes. But in answer to your next question; Yes, I certainly will act differently toward her, and will choose the replacement after I get there, and am settled in my own house. And I’ll use the old rule, “try before you buy”! Does that sound crass? Probably, but it’s the voice of caution, taught by experience! I’m truly happy for you and Celine! She is a gem! Does she have a sister?

How did I treat my wife? Your suspicion is correct! I treated her as I was taught by my mother. I expected her to be my equal in family decisions, and let her know that. “What do you think, Mahal?” As life goes on, I expect to deal with her now (and with any possible replacement Honey Ko) in the fashion that a Master Chief in the Navy deals with his subordinates. “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you!” Now, before you think I’m too off-the-wall, I know I should do it a great deal more diplomatically and with greater sensitivity than that, but that’s the end result, anyway! And if a “new recruit” doesn’t like it, she can take a hike! I’m hoping I can work it out with my Mahal, since I do have deep tender feelings for her, in spite of the pain she has caused me, but the same applies to her.

The land in Zamboanga del Sur (see below: Rik) is in Mahal’s name, and I have “no personality” - meaning NO AUTHORITY - in its ownership. I paid the taxes (and other expenses), and planted 300 Coco Palms there, and the fees necessary for her to have the title to the land clearly and legally in her name. But if the situation deteriorates to the same old stressful grind, I’m willing to write that off, just to be rid of the constant accusations!

………………

Earlier, Jim wrote about the matter of corruption in the Philippines to an editorial writer with a Manila newspaper:

My Filipina wife’s father left her about 25 hectares of land, near Siay, in Zamboanga del Sur, which she holds in trust for her children.
Her half-brother, who lives near the land in question, completely counter to the “law of the land” and the Department of Energy and Natural Resources is cutting down and selling hardwood trees on her land in her absence while she is here in the US with me. He has been visited before by the local authorities (Police) and the DENR and told to cease and desist, but continues his illegal activities, using up the resources earmarked for the grandchildren’s homebuilding efforts with no regard or respect, or trust in the wishes of his father!
… It has been my experience that the endemic, almost arrogant corruption at all levels of society in the Philippines is causing the horrible-to-watch decline of business, artistic expression, moral integrity, and personal pride in nearly all the populace. The corruption itself is not the problem, but the universal acceptance of it that keeps foreign business investors at arms’ length, and caused those who have already invested to close out and run, to cut their losses. The only exceptions I have found are those foreigners who have taken such advantage of the situation as to have effectively enslaved Filipinos in their own country, and can make a profit in spite of the prevailing necessary bribes, or as my Filipina wife calls them “mobilizations”!
This is a situation that can only get worse, until the full collapse of the country into total anarchy, starvation, and moral degradation brings about a sense of the need for basic morality in the common people.
How can I help? I can refuse to take part in “mobilizations”, and influence my family and friends to do likewise, giving up the perceived benefits of paying for what I want twice, in order to get it in some reasonable length of time.

………………

I don’t expect any fair treatment from Philippine law, as regards joint ownership of other properties we have, like our house in Antipolo City that I paid off in the amount of $6,500.00 US. She said the house was registered in her name and mine, on the tax rolls. That’s nice, but if we must part ways, I expect to lose that investment, also. Plus, the more deeply I go into this Dual Citizenship thing, I find that it is a river of muddy water. The RP seems to be OK with it, but the US is not forthcoming on the subject in any meaningful way. You (Rik) can own any land or facilities you chose, but at this time all must be held in Celine’s name. “Ya pays yer money and takes yer chances!”

… hang in there, and keep on tellin’ it like is IS! You’re a valuable resource for all us wide-eyed, naïve, wishful American men. Blessings on you!
Jim

…Rik…

Congratulations, Jim; ETP is glad you tested the water and learned you could float! Whatever part I may have played in your taking more control; I doubt it was very much. I only implanted the notion in your mind that things could be different – ought to be different - and you took it from there. You should take the credit for what you did. But, whatever my role was, I’m glad I could be of some help.

Mustering and using your own strength has paid off; you can feel confident and pleased about taking charge of your life, and removing the grip your wife once had on you.
Mahal should have concerned herself with treating you as a husband all along, rather than as a walking bank or useful tool. I’m sure you realize now, that because you allowed it, Mahal seized the opportunity and became little more than a puppet-master above you. You danced, but it’s obvious that you weren’t a willing dancer. It was ruining your marriage. But no more. How does it feel to be your own master?
Jim, you are now a long stride ahead of most of the pack of American men who will never have a truly good relationship. They say, “Behind every good man, there’s a good woman.” I would rewrite it this way: “Behind every American man, there’s a woman shoving him in the direction of her desires.”
From the beginning Mahal needed to know what the rules were, and what behavior was acceptable or intolerable. Without those, Mahal didn’t know what to do, so she did what she wanted without regard to you.
It’s none of my business, and I’m not asking you to tell me, but I can’t help wondering what you did differently and what you said to put an end to her bad behavior. My father used to use the term that someone needed to "get a spine.” I think most American men need to “get a spine” and stop permitting women to walk all over them; and I include myself, though now in the past-tense only.

If the ‘reader’ gives himself freedom to admit that he’s not the perfect Macho Man, he can find a way to admit that it’s we men who’ve have enabled women to take control of our lives. If the reader can do that, then he can take that control back.
Jim, reading your admissions of your trouble with your wife and how she was treating you induced me to write about my own relationship in an earlier article (read the previous article). It occurred to me that it might help the readers to understand just how bad things got for me, and then, how I was willing and able to turn things around for myself. Perhaps they would see themselves somewhere in my story.
In a sense, it was my wife who led me to think about my own failure to “get a spine,” and to take long overdue action to walk a path of my own choosing. I suppose I should thank her for that. For when I took that step to divorce my ex-wife, I said to myself in my mind and out loud, “Never again,” would I allow a woman to control and manipulate me. And I never did.

I was divorced at age forty-five. For the first time in 15-years I found myself back on the ‘dating circuit.’ It was an interesting period of my life, even though it wasn’t much fun. However, as time progressed it became quite humorous for me, as I was again to rediscover the true nature of the American female mind-set.
After my divorce, I continued to live in the USA for ten years. In that time I met only one woman that I believed wanted more than to simply be supported by me. And, although I dated a lot, I almost never wanted to date the same girl twice. Then again, they didn’t want to date me again, either.
It was a time of learning; re-education, you might say. At first it was frustrating, going through the dating rituals, but after awhile it got down-right funny. Here’s the story:

During that period I was no longer able to work, due to my back injury, and I was living off of my disability benefits and a sizable amount of money from the sale of my San Diego home. When I was working, I had made great money and had a comfortable lifestyle. As the years went by, I accumulated some expensive dress clothes, quality furniture, stereo, etc. I also owned a customized 1975 Camaro which looked brand-new. So I ‘presented’ well to the public. When I would meet ladies I made a pretty good visual impression, and I would venture that I looked like I “had money.” On dates, I would usually dress-up in my finest dress clothes and take the lady out to a good restaurant with a soft, romantic ambience where we could leisurely take our dinner talking over candle-light, and have a long conversation with wine afterwards to get to know each other.
When I would pick my date up and they would see how I was dressed, I knew they were impressed with me from the way they looked me up and down and the smiles and sparkle in their eyes. I hoped they were impressed because they could see I was willing to make the effort to look nice, and that I had good manners. They always loved my car. Me, too.
At the restaurant, my date would lean forward and smile and would make all those subtle moves that tell a man when a woman is interested.
The conversation during dinner - pretty much the same each and every time - with slight variations on the theme, eventually became a source of chuckles for me:

SHE: “Soooo, what do you do, Rik?”
ME: “I’m the artistic and creative type. I play guitar at a professional level and sing. I design graphic art on my computer for what business I can pick-up and, using PhotoShop software, I create and sell digital artwork in a local gallery. It doesn’t pay much, but it helps. Mostly I do it because I love performing and being creative. It’s all just for fun, really. It gives me something to do to amuse myself”
SHE: leaning forward more; eyes widening, hands placed close to mine, or her finger touching mine on the table. “Soooo, you don’t make much money at it? Then how do you live? I mean, you must have a profession where you make your real money? I can see that your clothes are expensive and tailored for you… your car…I mean, you must be doing something right?”
ME: “No, actually I’m retired.”
SHE: lights flashing in her head, her eyes rolling around as she assesses me - relatively young, in his 40’s, expensive dresser, custom car, intelligent, articulate, and with a good vocabulary denoting education…
“Soooo, you’re very young to be retired. You must have made a lot of money when you did work” – the big smile, the sparkling eyes. “Did you make a killing on the stock market? Own your own company? Are you one of those dot-com millionaires who now devote your life to enjoying your wealth?” she would ask in anticipation.
ME: “No. I’m just retired.”
SHE: unsure and hesitant. “But… how do you live?”
ME: "I live on social security disability benefits. I broke my back years ago in a work accident and I can’t do any kind of sustained work now. I have to lay down a lot to rest my back due to extensive pain.
SHE: eyes going dull, leaning back in her chair, hands no longer on the table, but in her lap. “Oh… I…I see. So you live on... social security. That’s it? How much is that? Can you live on that?”
ME: "Sort of. It’s not much. I’m certainly never going to get rich on it.”
SHE: “……………… ummm. It’s late, and I really should be getting home.”
SHE: at her front door. “Well, goodnight. Thanks for a nice evening.”
ME: “Would you like to get together again sometime?” (smiling inside because by now I know what the answer will be).
At this point I’d get one of two answers.
SHE: Answer one: “Let’s just see how it goes, OK? I’ll call you.”
Answer two: “I don’t think it would work out, ya know?”
Both answers were the kiss of death. "Get lost!" I got the same unspoken message every single time. ‘There’s no way I’m going to hook-up with a guy whose sole income is social security!’
In a way, it was a blessing to me. Once again I saw that the key to an American woman’s heart was not through love, goodness, kindness, humor or compatibility. Only with small, dull green pieces of paper would I ever carpet my path the entire way into the heart of an American woman.

Now, I don’t blame any woman for wanting more than a starvation income. But none of my other attributes were ever given any consideration at all. I’m not bitter and I’m not angry. Life is what it is, and people are what they are. But that doesn’t mean I personally have to agree with or accept everything that comes my way.
Anyway, life is funny. What breaks your heart one day can make you laugh on another. The truth is, if I had married another American woman, or if I’d never broken my back, I would probably never have come to the Philippines, and I would never have met Celine. When I boil it all down to its essence, the bad things in my life turned out to be good for me. And I wouldn’t trade what I have now and return to America even if I could afford to live in a mansion with an unobstructed view of the ocean in La Jolla, California. Sometimes cheap is just better.

That was for you Jim, and all the other readers. I may as well share my own bad experiences and burdens if it will help another. The best part, though, is that now that I’ve told my own story, I can let it slip into the fog of the past and get back to being happy today.

The writing was on the wall. I would probably never get married again, unless I knelt down to some trailer trash ‘chick’ who would be happy if she could only get a couple beers in her everyday. That’s not for me. Better to stay single.
And I was all too aware, as my savings ran low, that I could no longer afford to live in the USA on nothing more than SSA. My research on moving to a country where I could afford to live in was in progress. And, to make a long story short, here I am in the Philippines.

In the RP (Republic of the Philippines), I practically need a stick to beat off all the girls and women who constantly flirt and throw themselves at me. If I were the type that loved to play the field, I could have a different woman in my bed virtually every night. It’s a mighty kick and heady experience to have young girls, beautiful young teen-age girls, trying to get me to allow them through my door. Many blatantly flirt with me in front of Celine. They don’t care; they’d steal away what Celine has (me) in a heartbeat if they could.

Fellow’s, one way to put an end to being used and mistreated is to stop trying to get milk from a dry cow. In other words, if you want to be happy stop going through the same revolving door hoping you’ll get lucky enough to meet an American woman who will love you, “just because of who you are.”
I’m not going to say that that kind of lady doesn’t exist in America, but I am saying that they’re almost as rare as flying pigs.

The smart thing to do is to move to the Philippines where the kind of woman you want is not even close to being an endangered species. Or for you younger and less patient guys; if you just can’t wait to retire, marry a Filipina and take her home with you. But if you do, and she turns into an Americunt, don’t yell at me about it, because I don’t really recommend bringing them home. Far better, I think, to stand-up and start demanding that the women in your area learn how to be real women again. Staying single in America, given the options, isn’t all that bad an idea. Dating is always cheaper than marriage. And you can walk away when she starts trying to turn you into her own version of Disco Duck.

My readers, will you turn and go you own way, or will you not? You have gone to the Internet in search of something different, something better and more satisfying than what you have had to endure from the women of your homeland. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading my web log at this moment. Now you must learn to do things differently - even if that means moving to and living in the Philippines in order to find a woman who’s truly interested in being a good wife to you, who’ll work beside you to make a happy life for you both, rather than shove you around from behind where you can’t see what’s really going on. If your a more mature man I shouldn't need to tell you the following. But if you're a young man; When you finally sit still long enough to use your brain instead of your tool to think about life: all the money, and all of your toys, your stereo, your cool car, the house with the pool, the trips to Jamaica, the 65-inch flat-screen TV monitor - you fill in the rest - aren't worth worth anything. Having a woman to love, and to be loved in a real and meaningful way, as a good companion and trustworthy and dedicated advocate, as well as a good lover is all that's ever going to make a sustained and important impact on your life.

Jim, while it is possible to live in the Philippines on $800 a month, you can’t live the high-life on that amount of money. But you can be comfortable, pay all of your bills, and still have a little spending money to do things for enjoyment. You won't be able to live in a very large and fancy house, but you can adapt. If you go back to my article, “How And Why The Philippines - Cost Of Living,” you can calculate about how much you need to get by. It doesn’t apply to living in a city like Manila or Cebu. Like most cities, it costs a lot more to live, but where the quality of life is less.

You’re thinking more clearly, now, Jim, in saying you’ll treat either Mahal or another Filipina in a different manner when you retire to the Philippines. Neither statement about “try before you buy,” and using the technique of a navy chief to make you wife behave properly is crass or wrong. I understand that you don’t intend to be mean or abusive, but are just venting through an idea, after all your troubles with Mahal (By the way, readers; Mahal means, “Love,” in the Tagalog language).
Thanks for your wishes of happiness for Celine and I. To change the subject momentarily: How about this? Celine is currrently menstruating and having extremely bad cramps (the worst she’s ever had, says she). Poor girl, she’s really suffering this month. But is she making me miserable, as well? No way! She still laughs, and we’ve been kidding around all day. She just got up from the couch a few moments ago for no other reason than to come to the room where I’m working to give me a kiss and a hug, let me squeeze her oh-so-finely-shaped behind, then returned to lay on the couch and watch TV. What a sweetie! I’m such a lucky guy.
Yes, Jim, Celine has five sisters, but not one of them is like her. They were never disciplined as strictly as Celine was and have developed tempers and poor attitudes. The two married one's have husbands that behave like women, so the girls are the boss.
If you really love Mahal, and haven’t simply grown used to having her around, stick with her. However, I recommend talking to her a lot now, both to teach her that her current behavior is going to be permanently changed, and that you will not tolerate her previous bad behavior one more day - in preparation for moving her back to the RP. The kind of talk (action) I mean is to make her understand that when you two move back to the RP you are going to be very strict with her as Pinoy custom dictates. Also tell her that she will be severely disciplined by you in the RP if she doesn’t obey you. Include spankings or whatever other methods of discipline you feel comfortable with. Although the crazy laws in America now prohibit physical discipline, such things are not uncommon in the RP. Which is better? I won’t argue that, but I’ll point out that, in general, children, teenagers and the older youth in the States have become uncontrollable, unbearable selfish monsters since the right to implement strict discipline was stipped from parents and power was handed over to all of those insane Phychiatrist-Gods, who's noxious psycho-babble is a big contributor to the slow but inevitable self-destruction of the American family and society.

It’s my opinion that it’s vital for you to assert permanent control over Mahal immediately. If you don’t, when you get back to RP, she may throw away all of your money showing-off to family and friends just how rich and American she is, and demonstrating how she gained power over you by learning to be a hard-nosed feminist.
Speaking of money, you should give thought to also taking away her credit cards, etc., and train her to to live in a cash only environment, with you controlling how much money she gets - not as a monthly allowance, but as she needs it.
Since my arrival here four years ago, I have never used a credit card, and I have only used checks to deposit money from my American bank to my local bank. It’s a cash society in the RP. Besides, you’ll need to control the flow of money once you live here permanently. It will also benefit you in your training of Mahal to obey you.

You have a lot of work ahead of you in training Mahal to think and behave differently. I don’t suggest you mistreat her. To the contrary. I recommend treating her well, and with love – but strongly and strictly. She’s not sure at the moment where she stands with you and is most likely worried about what her future would be if she had to fend for herself. Now is the time to seize the moment to develop strict guidelines for her and to incorporate your new discipline regimen.
Thanks for the information on foreign property rights. I knew some of it already, but I’m sure I could learn more.

Readers, you more-or-less have no property rights in the Philippines. As I understand it, you can own one lot of 600 square meters in your name. Add any more property to your holdings and you will pay for everything, but your wife will be the titled owner. And she can sell it out from underneath you if she chooses to. That’s another good reason to train your filipina to be loyal to you and obey you through strict discipline. As part of the receipe of discipline, I recommend lots os laughter, joking, tickling, kitchen dancing (attention paid to your Honey Ko when she's cooking or washing dishes: a kiss on the neck can go a long way). I always sneak up on Celine and tickle her waist, kiss and lick her ear, and tell her, "You know how much it drives me crazy when I see you with soap on your hands!" Or any number of other excuses. Discipline isn't about being tough, it's about love and caring and responsibility from both husband and wife.

I hope you’ll keep writing and keep ETP aware of how things are proceding for you, Jim. And, as always, good fortune to you.
Rik

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At ease. Click to enlarge

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Blood sun on the sea. Click to enlarge

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A bevy of beauties. Click to enlarge

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Tropical garden. Click to enlarge

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Snakey Sneakers Click to enlarge

MALE CALL: John

2005-05-19T12:15:00.000+07:00

Hey Rik,I just found your site and have really enjoyed reading.I think it great that you have built such a nice life for yourself. Celine is a lovely lady. She reminds me of Raquel, a nice Mexican girl I was courting. I almost brought her to the US for marriage, but she got cold feet at the last minute.

I am 39 years old (a little too young to retire / stop working). I have been fascinated with the idea of leaving the US. Asian women really grab my attention. I love America, but I have gotten bored with the rat race. Do you have any more info on income opportunities in the PR? Do you know anyone at the University in your area? I have a Bachelors degree in accounting and a Masters in management. Teaching for a year at a university may be a good way to move somewhere interesting, while not fully dropping out.Keep writing!John P

…Rik…

Hi John, and welcome to ETP, I’m glad you enjoy reading the articles, and I hope the information is of use to you.
My years and life with Celine has proven to be, by far, the most satisfying. It’s been amazingly wonderful to be more precise. In 38 years of dating and marriage in the USA, my love-life and relationships with women were mostly ones of frustration and befuddlement; due to the mind-games, power-games, control games, and the manipulation-games girls and women practice in the States. American women have created a well-rehearsed management system of keeping men off-balance, and always wondering where they stand with their girlfriend or wife. It works wonderfully, and is highly beneficial to the women. Keeping her man stumbling and bumbling, never sure how solid or elastic his relationship is, and always wondering if his woman is going to leave him or stay, the Americunt holds on to the power, and can manipulate her man in any way she wishes.
The culture of playing men for what a women can get for herself begins in childhood. With methods passed down from mother to daughter, aunt to niece, older sister to the younger, by the time girls are in her late teens, most are experts at deception and manipulation. What do woman want when they look for a boyfriend or husband? You’ve heard it all; you’ve seen it all played out repeatedly on television and in films. The high school girl wants the jock for prestige and status, and/or the guy with the cool (read expensive) car, and plenty of money to take them places and buy them things. In college they graduate to wanting to marry the doctor, lawyer, CEO, or dot.com millionaire. Mom, wants to know what the man’s profession is and, “How much money does he make?” when the daughter informs her she’s “in love.”
So, what do you think Betty Sue is really interested in when you ask her out or to marry you? Is it all about love? Is it all about making a good and happy life together? Is it about giving or is it about taking?
What I most observed in my own and other American style marriages was that the wife was more intent on establishing authority and separation of responsibility, and independence from the husband, than she was creating a viable, long lasting and soothe running American marriage.
My own American ex-wife was deliriously happy with everything about me when we were dating. I was Mister Wonderful. I didn't learn until much too late that my wife was heavily into deception to hide who she really was inside; a person filled with self-loathing, afraid to look at herself. Far worse, she turned out to be a Contrarian; one who likes, hates or says or does the opposite of someone close to her. Even if she agreed with me in her heart, she would disagree with me vocally. If I liked something, she would hate it. Later, if I was to say that I hated the same thing, she would would insist that she loved it. What I wanted, she didn't; what I didn't want, she did, and so on. There were many times that I thought a good whack on her head with a Prescription Hammer, claw-end down, would have been just the ticket for what ailed her. Instead, I endured through the slow decline and collapse of a fifteen-and-a-half year relationship that had never made it past those first hope-filled opening days of my marriage.

Not long after our wedding day, the way I dressed, in shorts and T-shirts, or Jeans and T-shirt, sandals or hiking/walking shoes was no longer considered acceptable dress. She started dressing me up – like a doll – to make me look “presentable.” That was in the late seventies, so I went from the loose hippy-look to Disco-Duck, complete with polyester pants, ugly print-shirts and gold neck-chain, before I knew what hit me. Nothing short of a complete make-over would have satisfied my sweet and dear darlin'. Now there was very little if anything about me that she liked. I required “readjustment.”
That stage didn’t last long. Unfortunately for her, I was not going to be rearranged like a piece of furniture, and I quickly refused to be sanitized, at her whim, to what her fantasy husband should look and act like.
While my “darlin’” considered me married to her and therefore responsible to and for her in every conceivable way; she, on the other hand, held that she was independent and bore no responsibility whatsoever to or for me. If she wanted something, a glass of water or clothes, etc., she would tell me to get it for her. If I asked for something, a cup of coffee, dinner, or most often, for her to pick-up after herself – since she was the biggest slob I ever had the misfortune to live with – she would tell me, “Do it yourself!”
My darlin’ demanded whatever she pleased of me, and always made it abundantly clear when she was unhappy with this or that about me, then demanded that I stop, change, or do for her.
When it was me that was unhappy with something about her, and I told her that I wanted to talk about her slavishness and laziness, her tacit refusal to participate in the marriage, she, as usual, flatly refused to have any discussion with me about any of my "complaints" - period. If she demanded of me, it was because I needed correcting. If I demanded anything of her, I was nothing more than a constant complainer. For the first thirteen years of marriage we had not one single “talk” though I tried to initiate hundreds. But I sure heard plenty from her.
One evening, after she had eaten her second piece of cake and drank her second glass of milk – each requiring fresh dishes, silverware, and napkins – and she had left them on the coffee table to be ignored (for days or weeks if need be) until I carried them to the kitchen and washed them for her, I finally had had enough. I wanted to talk, “No, I don’t feel like it,” came her familiar refrain.
This time it wasn’t going to work. I told her we were going to talk or she wouldn’t sleep all night; that I would pour cold water on her, if necessary; but we were going to talk!
“All right, say what you want and get it over with!” she said in a tone of voice that indicated she could care less about anything I might have to say.
“Blah, blah… and why do you behave as if there’s two Books of Rules for our marriage; one for you and one for me. One book says I have to answer to you for everyything and do whatever you tell me to do; the other book that says you don’t have to answer to me for anything. It’s as if I’m married to you, and totally responsible to you, but you aren’t married to me, and owe me nothing! … and... why do you refuse to pick-up after yourself, throw your clothes to the floor to rot, and never put anything in the same place twice… and... why won’t you clean-up after yourself or help with washing the dishes or wipe the counters or… anything?!
Tired of listening to me, I suppose, she offered as her answer the craziest reason I'd ever heard to explain why a woman shouldn't help out in the daily maintenance of a marriage.
“All right, I’ll tell you why I won’t wash the dishes, or anything else. It’s because I don’t want to set a precedent.” She paused, looking at me with hatred and defiance in her eyes.
“Pardon me?” I said. “Just what do you mean by that statement exactly? What the hell does refusing to wash dishes have to do with setting precedence’s in a relationship?”
My sweet darlin’s sharp reply: “Because, if I wash the dishes once you’ll expect me to wash them again, and I’m not going to fall into that trap!” … Huh?
“Yet, you don’t mind if I do all of those things for you," said I. "You demand that I do all those things; pick-up after you, cook, wash dishes, etc., but you can refuse to have anything expected of you? I have to answer to you, but you don’t have to answer to me; is that what you’re saying?’ I asked.
“That’s right. And I never want to talk about it again.” And off to bed she went.
Well, John, I don’t know what would be going through your mind at that moment as darlin’ stormed off to bed to turn her back on me in anger, but my mind was telling me that I had just wasted over 13-years of my life on a cold, self-absorbed, selfish, hateful sociopath, who never gave a thought to me or my needs, or even my love for her.

"Why would he stay so long with a woman like that?" I can hear you asking. Well, because in the beginning I loved her so much, and it was she I wanted to be married to. And I took my marriage seriously. I was also 30 years-old and she was 18 when we married, and I made a lot of excuses for her: she's young - she'll learn - grow-up - change over time. I was also, after-all, a pretty well-trained American male. I had seen a lot of that in other relationships. What one sees all one's life is considered to be normal, not strange or even bad. Mostly, though, I was, and still am, a loyalist. I believe that something like a marriage requires work and dedication. A good marriage isn't created overnight. Ah, well; I lived and I learned. Life isn't what we expect of it; it's what we each make of it for ourselves. My ex-wife's philosophy was to make my life a living, miserable hell. And me? Once I realized beyond any doubt that nothing I ever did was going to please my ex, and that she avoided happiness like it was the plague,I high-tailed it out of there. And, as it came to pass - my divorce was the best part of my marriage.

Am I happy with Celine, who is a complete partner, who loves to care for me, who enjoys serving me, participating totally in a ‘marriage’ with me, loving me with her entire body, mind and soul; always smiling, always happy, always pleasant, always willing, always giving?

Do I actually need to answer that question?

John, perhaps you can take solace for your loss of your Mexican honey, by noting that Mexican women are known for having fiery tempers, and their jealous rages are renowned. Also, by virtue of the amount of lard, fat and butter Mexicans use in their food, or after the first baby comes - even the slimmest of Mexicana’s can become very round, assuming that having a slim woman might be important to you.
I do prefer slim women, and you can see by her thin-bones and narrow hips in Celine's photos, she will never become fat. If a slim woman is important to you, you should consider looking for those two features in all of your future prospects.

I can understand your fascination with both the Asian world and with Filipina’s in particular. However, at the youthful age of 39, you face a predicament as far as living here in the Philippines and having gainful and financially substantial employment. In truth, I’m unsure how to advise you. If it weren’t the Philippines you were specifically interested in I would advise you that you could probably easily get long-term employment as an English instructor in China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia and other Asian countries. I would think that you would be required to speak a foreign language, however.

English is the official language of the Philippines, and although they don't speak it as we do, it's still fairly common.

There are agencies in the USA that specializes in hiring English instructors for overseas employment, and you can look into that.
That would at least allow you to physically be here and familiarize yourself with Asia and the cultures of the region. You would also be ‘local’ enough that you could travel from country to country on short trips to experience Asian life and culture, look things over and also meet women that you might interested in through Internet email, or Pen-pal and personals services.
As for Universities in Puerto Princesa, Palawan; I don’t think you could find a position here. This is a back-water province, and not a area that would require that sort of need from a foreign source. But I could be wrong.
There are foreign company’s that do business here, Nestlé’s, Bank of America, Unilever, Proctor and Gamble, and so forth. You could look into international businesses as a source of employment. Or, if you have the money, you could consider opening some kind of import store catering to foreigners, or buying, shipping and selling rice or specialty fish, squid, octopus, etc. throughout the country. The exportation to america of mango's and other specialty fruits to the USA might be an option. It’s difficult know what to suggest as I don’t know your interests or abilities beyond your education.
As you might expect, with the economy in the tank and wages ridiculously low, you couldn’t possibly compete with Pinoy for jobs. You simply couldn’t afford it. A doctor, or attorney, or judge makes an approximate monthly salary of around P25K – P40K ($485 to $800). In Manila, living in under circumstances and housing that small amount of salary would afford would simply appall you.
The best advice, I would think, would be to go with your strengths. As I see it, that would be accounting, business management or teaching. There are lots of schools, colleges, Universities in Bagio, Philippines, that cater to foreign students that you might look into for teaching positions. Do some research about Bagio on the Internet. It’s high in the mountains and can even get quite cold there. There are lots of pine trees - it’s the one place in the Philippines where strawberries are grown and sold, and it experiences a lot of cold fog. The Philippines presidential summer palace is there, and the place is filled with foreigners from all over the world. But, that also means it’s more expensive to live there.
Whatever you do, don’t even consider buying a bar in a place like Angeles City, Pampanga. Don’t buy one, period. You’ll only wind up being cheated and ripped-off at every turn and lose all of your money. Leave that to the Pinoy and the few savvy foreigners that have the fortitude to wade through the craziness day after day.

I hope I have been some help to you, John. And I hope you use your brain, instead of another portion of your anatomy, to find a Filipina that you can trust and who’ll treat you as you deserve to be treated; with love and respect.
Keep ETP informed as to your progress moving over this way and let ETP know about your experiences, both good and bad, with the Filipina’s you encounter on your journey through the world of Asia.
Good fortune to you, and thanks for visiting ETP: Expatriates in the Philippines.
Rik

2005-05-18T13:27:00.000+07:00

Welcome to the Philippines! Click to enlarge

Philippines and Filipina's

2005-05-18T13:06:00.000+07:00

You’re planning to retire or live in the Philippines.
Maybe you want to marry and take a Filipina back home with you.
You’re hoping to find a Filipina for love and happiness.
You're sick of Western women who only use you.

You want a woman who will treat you with respect.
What you need now is real and useful information
about sharing your life with a Filipina; so you can make

rational decisions and good choices.
You need to ask questions and get answers.

Read... ETP: Expatriates in the Philippines

2005-05-16T23:48:00.000+07:00

Chocolate Hills, Bohol Island. Click to enlarge

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Nudibranches. Click to enlarge

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Falls and pool. Click to enlarge

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Playing life's hand. Click to enlarge

2005-05-16T23:43:00.000+07:00

A desperate crab's home. Click to enlarge

Male Call: Jim

2005-05-16T12:04:00.000+07:00

Light At The End Of The Tunnel...
As Viewed From The Dark End

Hi, Rik!First, let me thank you for the photo of you in your cowboy hat! It's always nice to be able to visualize the person to whom you are writing, or with whom you are holding a conversation...Now, about your last instructions to “Anonymous...”You couldn't be more correct in all that you say. I send you this confirmation, so that others who are inclined to "take up" with a Filipina don't make the mistake of saying to themselves "Well, Rik is just a hard-nosed dude, and I don't think I will have to be so tough." That would be a LARGE and important mistake. Our society thinks that being what our Americunt’s have taught us is nice, (but) is not, in reality, all that nice!
I have the misfortune to have been a victim of this pre-programming, and am now paying for it. For the past nearly four years, I have had to put up with constant suspicions and accusations from my wife, concerning my infidelities, which are, I assure you, completely imaginary! I have never been in any way unfaithful to her, - a Filipina, by the way - and have no intention of ever being. But after DAILY, and sometimes many times daily, accusations, (all unfounded) I finally got enough today, May 15th, and told her to get out of my life or to control herself enough to NEVER mention even any suspicions concerning my faithfulness. I suppose it is a Filipina trait that both I and Rik have had threats to pull a "Bobbit" on us, if ever caught.
I'm expecting to go to the lawyer on Thursday or Friday of next week, to start divorce proceedings, since I cannot feature her being able to control herself well enough to stop the accusations. After over a year immediately following her arrival here, I put up with constant harassment from her, ("If you don't put my name on the papers, I'm not your wife!") I finally went to the courthouse, and signed a quit-claim deed, and included her (with me) as the owner of my house, which I had paid off before she even arrived here from the PI. (Philippine Islands; better known as RP, The Republic of the Philippines. Rik) Now, according to her, I will have to get an order from the judge to recover full ownership of my house in the process of the divorce. Please don't let this happen to you! What's yours, when she becomes your Honey ko (I call mine "mahal"; meaning “love”, in Tagalog) should remain yours! Plus, in Florida, at least, when we married, my house automatically became our house legally, although I retained the right to sell it if I decided to. Now, I must go through the courts to recover the right to sell it.She says "I will go home to the Philippines", as if that's a threat to me! I have told her today, "Pax vobiscum", and "Are(n’t) you gone yet?" I refuse to be brow-beaten any more. Four years of it is enough!I'm ashamed to find myself in the position of being the Horrible Example, and a little embarrassed, but if I can help someone else avoid all this heartache and financial trauma, then I guess it'll all be worth it. Blessings on ya, Rik!Jim

…Rik…

Hello Jim, and welcome to ETP. Are you the same ‘Jim’ that’s been sending me the other messages and emails from Florida? I’m getting a number of ‘Jim’s’ and it can get confusing.
Oh, boy… I’m sorry to read about your unfortunate experience with your jealous Honey Ko. But I thank you very much for sharing your problems with me and my readers. It was good of you. I know that no one likes to look the fool. So for you to be willing to help others under those circumstances is commendable.

For those you who aren’t familiar with the term, “Bobbit,” it refers to a man whose last name was Bobbit. He apparently was having an affair with another woman, and his wife, enraged, waited until he went to sleep, then, using a kitchen knife cut off his penis. Taking it with her, she drove off in the car and threw his penis into a field she happened to drive past.

Jim, I gather that when you first met and then took Mahal back to the USA, you treated her as you would most any American woman; that is, as a woman who would normally demand special and superior treatment from a meek and malleable (look it up, guy’s) American male. In other words you handed Mahal the keys to the Kingdom.
It should come as no real surprise to any man that that type of woman can live in any part of the world. Filipina’s, if given the chance, will assert themselves as the boss once they discover they hold an advantage over men with what they keep in their panties. Foreign men with foreign customs are most to blame for the emergence of Filipina’s-with-an-attitude. Too many come to the Philippines pre-programmed to please and be subservient to women. The bar girls get the picture fast. They realize that they can manipulate men and they use that knowledge. What's worse, they share the information with their girl-friends and sisters back in their home village.
In America, as in the rest of the Western world, we men only have ourselves to blame for the ridiculous and humiliating way we cater to females.
You have to hand it to American ingenuity, however: Americunt’s have taken their power over men to a whole new level of shameless manipulation. If you have any doubts about how it works, and since most Western men are, sadly, unwilling to read books, just rent the movie, “French Kiss,” and learn.
In the beginning of the film you will see a strong and independent Luc (Kevin Klein) slowly change as the minutes tick by until by the end of the story, Luc is stumbling around doing everything for and trying to please Kate, (Meg Ryan) who rules his now silly and womanly heart. Naturally Hollywood (and Meg Ryan, as producer of the film) has to make “Kate” sweet, kind, innocent and un-beguiling. But if you pay close attention throughout the film, you see that she’s learning more and more how to manipulate men. At the end of the film, Kate gives her money to Luc for no reason she can explain; but it soon becomes obvious that she's purchased her way into getting what she really wanted for herself. After all, she was broke, had no job, no man, no country, and nowhere to go. You may well be tempted to think she got what she paid for, as an investment, under the guise of giving something away for nothing.

I wonder if she let Luc keep smoking cigarettes and drinking his wine after the wedding.
Men, you can even watch the film in front of your wife or your girlfriend, and they won’t get angry. To the contrary, I guarantee that they will tell you what a great movie it is, and will probably compliment you on finally renting something that they enjoy! It's actually a fun and enjoyable film, and I enjoy watching it. But that doesn't mean I don't keep my eyes and my mind open.

Western men have been asleep for at least half-a-century. If you wish to stay asleep, it’s your business; you’ll get no argument from me. However, I woke up, and I like to see clearly. Better still, I enjoy the riches of being awake and living the way I now do with Celine, my Filipina Honey Ko. I, in turn, get no argument from her, because she clearly enjoys her position and status, and enjoys living with me. Need I say more to convince you to open your eyes and caste off your shackles? I do? Then read the rest of the web log.
The priority for any foreign man who comes to the Philippines to live with or marry and take home a Filipina should be to de-program himself first, and to learn how to think differently about his relationships with women. Once you have learned to change yourself, you then need to decide how you’re going to act and behave in future.
Filipina’s can be very jealous and they are not afraid to threaten you if you allow her the freedom to. Jealousy is a harsh form of control, and women understand its affect on men. We cringe and writhe, then beg forgiveness for something we had probably, as in Jim’s case, never done. Have you, the reader, ever noticed that in times of a jealous rage or anger, Western women feel themselves justified and think it appropriate to hit, scratch, and/or to throw things, and physically hurt their men?
You Western men just try to do that to your Sweetie Pie, and you’ll wind-up first in jail and then in the dog-house. Have you ever asked yourself how that double-standard came to be? I can tell you for certain it wasn’t invented by a man. Is it programming? You bet it is! Now, try to wake-up if you can and see behind the veils of illusion that women have been draping in front of your eyes for so long now, as they trained you in so many ways to worship and fawn over them and do as you’re told.

Setting your rules and establishing dominance in the very beginning of your relationship with your Filipina is essential, before you sign the marriage documents or let her through your door with her clothes and make-up.

Jim, your “misfortune to have been a victim of this pre-programming,” isn’t an isolated event; and maybe you can take some comfort in knowing that. You have a lot of company. Most men take for granted the way things are in the Western world between men and women. That’s what makes for truly successful programming! Just as Neo, in the first “Matrix” film didn’t realize he was nothing more than a sleeping battery providing power to those who controlled him; most American men just drift in a fog, hoping in their sad dreams that they can either find or have a woman who will love and nurture them. Once either is accomplished, they spend the rest of their lives working to maintain their woman’s pleasure, and walking on eggshells in hopes of keeping her satisfied enough not to leave them. It sounds pretty pathetic, doesn’t it? It should, because it is pathetic. Can’t you see all of those Macho Cowboy’s sitting in the bar, crying in their beer, and listening to a, ‘She left me n’ my heart’s broke…’ song on the juke box? How macho is that?!
You’ve done well, and perhaps better than most others, if you have awakened to your own strength, and the opportunities offered to men to live the proper way with a Filipina in their own environment, in her own country. I do not, nor will I ever recommend taking a Filipina back to the West. You still have a chance to enrich your life, if you cast off the old way you did things and begin anew. There are uncountable numbers of Filipina’s that would love to treat you with respect and honor, and serve you as her master and husband if you’ve learned well enough how to properly proceed with you future relationships.

I understand your feelings of shame and embarrassment at how you allowed yourself to be treated. But, I would suggest to you, that you can’t see what isn’t shown. In other words, when you live in a society where every man has been trained to be subservient to women, you really couldn’t be expected to behave any differently than you did. If you’re awake now, and you continue to allow yourself to be controlled by women, you will have no excuses left to hide behind.
Thanks again for sharing your story, Jim. Please keep ETP and my readers updated on how things go for you in future.

Now, go forth – to the Philippines - and be happy.

Rik

Male Call: Anonymous

2005-05-14T11:48:00.000+07:00

Rik--I really enjoyed your perspective on American-Filipina relationships. I am going to visit Cagayan De Oro in about three weeks to meet my girlfriend and her family. You give really good advice about the balance of power in relationships, and my gf Divine is very sweet and fun. SHe's quite a bit younger than me, but I understand that isn't much of a problem there. She has told me many times "You're the boss" and that she will follow my direction. But I have noticed a funny thing about her... she will say something like "I am not going to go back to school next semester" and I will agree with her. I'll say, "That's fine honey if that is what you want..." and then she'll get tampo and say "So, you don't want me to go to school then?" I am learning more and more about how to communicate past the culture barrier. She isn't the first filipina I've had a relationship with, but she willb e the first one I am actually going to see. And I need all the caveats I can get, cause I read the gravity of your words when you said "if you marry the first filipina you meet, you'll be sorry". Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. Divine is very sweet though, and very loving. We talk almost every day, and she is always sending me cards and letters and pictures. She's seems like the real deal to me, and I say this after being scammed by several foreign women in the past. Cheers!

...Rik...

Hello Anonymous, and welcome to ETP. Thanks for the kind words. This is about the only place you and others are going to get the truth about the Philippines and relationships with Filipina's... and at no charge! Remember that when you surf to all of the tourist and personal's sites. You'll find no hidden agenda and no hidden charges at ETP. That bit of advertisement is for you new readers.

Anonymous, if you have personal questions or want more personal advice, you can leave me your name and email address and I'll get back to you, I promise. No one else will have access to either if you don't want either known.

I gather this will be your first visit to the RP (Republic of the Philippines). You're going to meet your Honey Ko and, naturally, her family. It's common to be scrutinized by the whole family and there may be dozens of people sitting around staring at you that will probably include grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, friends. This will be a good time for you to learn some important things about your Filipina and the nature of her family, so keep your eyes open and pay attention to what goes on between you and them, and watch their faces as they talk to each other. Although you won't understand what they're saying to each other, if you watch carefully you may be able to pick-up intuitive feelings of what's going on.

Soon after the family meeting many foreign men begin to lose their money to gifts and the hand-outs' for fixing the roof, doctor bills, and so on. Your Dilipina may have already made you believe they need financial help from youin the earlier writing stage. You may be tempted by the poverty and poor conditions you see, or subtly coerced, to spend money. My advice is don't. Why?

Because you're going to be buried under smiles and friendliness either way, whether it's because they want to fleece you, or just be friendly. How will you tell which it is? And for your information, you're going to see a kind of poverty that doesn't exist anywhere in the USA, Australia or England, in the whole Western world; the temptation to give and to help will be probably be overwhelming. And although that can be a good thing, it can also work against you. Here's how.

1. If you are busy giving out the money, you won't know whether your Honey Ko really cares about you or your money. And it's important for both your future financial and emotional well-being that you establish, for yourself, the true nature of your relationship with her. If she really cares about you it won't matter whether you throw money around or not. It's all about the love, right?

2. If you find you really care about her after the visit, you should establish with her that you are not a repository of an endless flow of cash. For instance, before I allowed Celine to move in with me, I made it abundantly clear that I was taking on responsibilty for her, not her entire family, and that I would never support them or give them loans. Celine went home and told her family what I said. Good fortune smiled on me in that her family, although very poor, are proud and not greedy people. That's rare. Celine's mother and father said, "We don't want his (Rik's) money, and we won't ask for any. The father also went to all of his and his wife's relatives and ordered them not to bother us, come to the house or to ask me for money. Wow! That's incredibly rare! Of course it didn't exactly happen that way; refusing to take no for an answer, some of the more selfish and greedy relatives repeatedly came to demand money. My answer was consistantly the same. "No!"

It was important to establish to the relatives that they weren't going to be able to use me for their own gain. Before long, no one came anymore. Now, having written that, I have financially helped Celine's immediate family many times. But they don't ask for the help. I choose the times and the situations, and give because I want to, not because it's expected. Again, good fortune has been with me; Celine parents actually tell me they don't want my money and even try to refuse it - but I push it on them, always adding this same phrase, "It's my money and I can do what I want with it." That always leaves the opposite impression that I won't help if I don't want to, and subsequently they have no expectations.

The important thing is that I control the flow of my money. If you make the mistake of helping whenever you're asked to, or give loans (which virtually always means give with no hope of repayment) you are only asking to be put on a treadmill of never ending requests for money and hand-outs. You need to realize that you realy can't really help the people by giving money, anyway. The real poverty that is their daily existence won't change because you give a little money. But they will want you to give again and invent reasons to ask for more. My own, and most others' experience has been that they will not usually spend the money to make their lives better anyway, but spend it on snacks, and beer, rum or gin, jewelry or clothes. The sick child will remain sick and no doctor will see it, the leaking roof will still be leaking long after the money has disappeared. Commonly, Pinoy don't save money. Whether it's a little or a lot, it will be spent as quickly as possible, and on whatever the eyes happen to see first without regard to its importance in their lives.

Although I refuse all requests for money, Celine's parents, sisters and brothers all love me to one degree or another, and hold me in high regard. They admire my strength of character and truly appreciate that I want to help care for them when they have a real and desperate need.

If you show any weakness, Anonymous, you will be exploited. That's a fact, and you can count on it happening to you. If you accept that reality and take steps to protect yourself in advance, you should be all right.

3. Pinoy understand strength and power. They may not be happy with the rules you set, and they may not like you because you deflect their attempts to use you, but they will respect you and treat you a lot better than if they find they can manipulate you. They may come to love you, even though they can't control you. So you will be much better off in the long run.

Pinoy admire strength. Establish yourself as a man of strength, and never bend your own rules. You'll be amazed at the respect you'll recieve for your efforts. You will have established your position within the family and they will look to you to lead and will even seek your advise.

Aside from your obvious superior financial power, you have something far more valuable: knowledge. If they're smart they will tap into that knowledge base. And if you truly want to help them you should put that extensive knowledge that is so casually dispensed to most westerners to good use to give them the kind of help they really need.

You don't need to flaunt your superiority over them, nor am I saying that you should be tough, mean, raise your voice, yell or be commanding to the family members. Just be strong, be friendly, be happy and laugh and enjoy yourself; but always remain strong. You're entering into a uniquely Asian culture. It's far from what you're used to. The level of the Pinoy's ignorance about biology, medicine, the basics of virtually anything, is going to astound you. Use your knowledge to improve their lives - without the money component - and you will stand tall in their estimation of you.

Age issues: Anonymous, age doesn't have the same relevance as in the Western world. Just this morning Celine was telling me about a thirteen year-old female cousin of hers that went, of her own choice, to live with a 38 year-old man. The local version of a DSWD (child welfare) worker went to the man's house and wanted to force that girl go home to her parents. The parents had no problem with the arrangement, but it's the job of DSWD to insinuate themselves, just like in America, into other people's affairs. The girl refused and said she chose to and wanted to be with that man as his wife. DSWD, said, "All right, but if you change your mind, let us know," and left.

It's quite common for a 15 to 18 year-old Flipina to marry a man - Pinoy as well as foreign - who is well into his 30's or 40's. If you live here any length of time you'll soon hear about girls 15 to 25 marrying men as old as in their 80's. I won't waste time and space explaining why, except to say that young Filipina's soon learn that they're wasting their time with young, drunk playboy run-arounds'. Filipina's want to have a good man, one they can depend on, and they see that in an older man who's settled and reliable.

Anonymous, you wrote that Devine told you, "You're the boss," And that she'd follow your direction. She was teaching you about Asian culture and society, and how you could expect her to behave. And you did what most any well-trained (by women) American man would do; you relinquished your position as boss, as the one in charge, and your (potential) position as the head of the family. In her eyes, you were also showing a weakness. If you had been reading ETP thoroughly, you would have known that Filipina's expect you to be dominant and to lead. You left her with little choice but to challenge you to stand-up and take charge - I.E: "So you don't want me to go to school then?"

It was a big mistake on your part, but not an uncorrectable one. You will have to learn all over again how to behave with women. You rule... you're the boss... you make the decisions. That's what she told you. And you didn't listen to her! She must ask you for permission to do anything, and you must always make the decisions. You will control Devine. THAT'S how it is! Be kind, be loving, but be the boss. If you can't handle that, then you should stay home and get an Americunt - the European or Australian equivalent - to make decisions for you and to run things her way.

If you'd paid attention to Devine you would have realized that it's up to you whether she does or does not return to school. You tell her - "You will return to school," or "I don't want you going to school any longer."But, whatever you do tell her, also tell her, "You will obey me and do what I tell you to do." And if you don't want her to go to school, explain why - then tell her what she must do instead. That's what she expects from you!

Devine will still marry you, but she'll walk all over you if you hand her all the power. She, on the other hand, is looking to you for your strength and your willingness to lead, guide and, yes, control her. Is that what you really want? If the answer is yes, then you'd better start now. Remember an earlier suggestion of mine; start ahead of time deciding how you will do things, how she must behave, and what you will and will not accept and tolerate. Figure out now what those rules are and then lay it on the line for Devine. "You (Devine) will either accept my rules and how things will be or go somewhere else."

Anonymous, there's one other thing to consider about what or why Devine brought up the subject of dropping her next semester of college. It's possible that she hasn't been attending school at all. The school-scam is nothing new with Filipina's, and there are countless Filipina's using the school-scam to both deceive men into thinking their Honey Ko is intelligent and educated (and therefore probably from a good family). That would also make her a potential second 'earner,' which can be a plus for some men needing more money than can provided from a n often small retirement or disability pension. Then there's school-scam, Part II, about how Honey Ko can't continue in school because she can no longer afford to go - could you perhaps help her a little?

Foreigner's commonly use their own cultural and societal backgrounds to make decisions about their Honey Ko; one of them is education. It seemingly makes sense to want an educated woman - it fits-in with how people percieve each other in the West. Pinay know that. They may be ignorant, but they're not stupid.

That scam, used throughout the Philippines, is a popular ruse with the bargirl/prostitutes in Angeles City, Pampanga. They will usually be studying Computer Technology - more believable because they use a computer and the Internet to talk to you - or Care Giving.

Many men have discovered, after a hasty marriage, that their Honey Ko has no more than a grade-4 education, and that they're more adept at spreading their legs and getting a man's juices flowing than working with spread-sheets or flow-charts.

However, all of the highly educated American and European white-collar criminals stealing the public blind then, when caught, lie through their teeth, ought to indicate to you and others that education only offers opportunity, and doesn't guarantee honesty or trustworthness.

My Filipina wife, whom I'm seeking an annulment from, is college educated, but is both an idiot and manipulative. Celine, on the other hand only made it through grade-3, but is one of the smartest Filipina's I've met - and she is totally honest and has an innocent nature.

I'm not saying that your Devine is deceiving you about her education, but the fact that she is talking about leaving school just at the time you are going to the RP to meet her leads me to wonder, "Is it because she can't fake being a student when you're physically there in the RP with her?"

To be certain, here's what I would suggest you do. Ask Devine to take you to her college to meet some of her teachers, her school director and her advisor, so you can hear what they have to say about her abilities as a student. In that way, you can explain, you can find out her strengths and weaknesses and determine whether she should continue with her studies or not. And tell her you want to see her report cards - so you can see what a fine student she is!

If Devine tells you that the school is too far away for a visit, tell her it will make for a nice trip. If she starts giving you excuses why you can't go, and that her report cards are at her Lola's (grandmother's) house, your intuition should wake you up to the fact that something could well be amiss. Don't let her talk you out of going. It's best that you prove to yourself that she hasn't been or isn't in the process of deceiving you. If you discover that she is deceiving you, ask yourself what other deceptions lay hidden beneath the veneer of your "sweet and... very loving" darlin'.

Lastly, you can hire a Pinoy investigator to look into your Honey Ko and give you a report. It would cost you only a small fraction of what you would pay a P.I. in your home country. Doing any or all of those things would be far, far cheaper than marrying your darlin' Devine and then discovering you'd been scammed.

I'm not just flapping my ethereal lips for the fun of it. You're walking into a new world, a Twilight Zone relative to your Western brand of experience. It's up to you whether you will have a successful relationship. You can't blame her if things go bad. It's completely your responsibilty to protect yourself.

If everything turns out fine and you feel you know beyond a doubt that you can trust her, you can start counting your lucky stars.

Then you can reflect on what Devine has already told you about what she expects from you. And you can get started practicing your skills at being the boss. Don't be the arrogant, jerk boss that everyone hates, but be the boss all the same. The stronger you are the more she'll love you (if she loves you at all). You're going to have to teach her practically everything - so begin practicing being the teacher right away before you leave your home country. In Asia, being the teacher means that you must be a kindly but strict disciplinarian. Accept no substitutes... be firm, strong, dominant.

All of my advice goes double or triple if you are planning to take Devine back to the West. You'd better make her understand fully that if she lives in the States or wherever, nothing is going to change for her. Even so, you should expect that she'll become assimulated by her surroundings, and you'll most likely find that she won't be your 'little Filipina' for long. The Americunt's living next door, at work and elsewhere will see to that.

As for Devine being the real deal... well, time will tell if that's true or not. But, if you do things right by thinking about what you are going to do in advance, gird your loins, set and lay down your rules, then you will stand a much better chance of your 'real deal' turning into a sweet deal.

How, you may well ask, do I know things like I describe will happen? Because much, but not all of it happened to me, or to countless others.

I learned from my mistakes. No one helped me to understand how things work in the RP, so I had to trip, stumble and fall, then pick myself up again. Now I'm trying to help you and others get through the maze without bumping your head in the dark too much. It's up to you whether you heed the advice.

I do apologize if I seem tough on you, but there it is, none-the-less. Welcome to the Philippines and the Asian way of life. Good fortune to you, and thanks for writing to ETP.

Rik

2005-05-09T11:56:00.000+07:00

Batfish Click to enlarge

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Atiatihan Click to enlarge

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Downpour in Casiguran Click to enlarge

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Creatures of the Water Planet Click to enlarge

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Cover-up for the rain Click to enlarge

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Rik Click to enlarge

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Look at that sky! Click to enlarge

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Villa Escudero Click to enlarge

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Not enough passengers yet. Click to enlarge

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Your banca awaits - Malapasqua Island Click to enlarge

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Serene sunset. Relax and enjoy. Click to enlarge

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Chocolate Hills, Bicol Click to enlarge

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Beach on Coron Island. Palawan Click to enlarge

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It's a pig's life. Click to enlarge

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My Honey Ko Click to enlarge

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Red Haiku. Click to enlarge

Where's Your Filipina?

2005-05-06T19:20:00.000+07:00

If you've been thinking of moving to the Philippines to enjoy retirement and marry or live with one of the ten's of thousands of beautiful Filipina's who would like to meet you...

Or want to live and work in the RP (Republic of the Philippines) and enjoy the company of a loving Filipina...

Or if you want to marry your Filipina sweetheart and take her back to your home country; you've come to the right place to learn about making good choices and what you might expect.

What you need to know is - a lot.

Read on...

2005-05-05T10:45:00.000+07:00

PhotoShop play: Face The Ocean Click to enlarge

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Steamy morning in Palawan Click to enlarge

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My Banca Click to enlarge

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Sunset in Biliran Click to enlarge

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Mt. Mayon volcano in Bicol Click to enlarge

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Making a beer delivery Click to enlarge

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Jeepney Terminal, Palawan Click to enlarge

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Drying Squid Click to enlarge

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Into the Eastern world Click to enlarge

Photos - Fotos - Fo' toes

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Look below the text - there's lots of photos throughout the Site.

Male Call: Jim

2005-05-04T22:43:00.000+07:00

Hello, Rik!Your photos are great, and I even have stolen a couple to use as desktop backgrounds; if you don't want that, just let me know and I'll erase them. If you can, or want to, send me your e-mail address. For the reason, see my blog published just recently as "Dual Citizenship" by JimEdris, screen name jim. Lily and I have a good relationship, even if a little stormy at times, because of the differences between cultures. Unlike Celine, she is extremely jealous, and so I expect there will be some sparks when we move to Mindanao. There were none previously when I was there for 33 days, but the "new" probably influenced that. And of course, we went everywhere together. It is a blessing to me and many others that we can now obtain dual citizenship in the PI. As I understand it, that allows Lily and I to own property and do business as if we were original Philippinos (Filipino’s: Rik). Some of the Real Estate sections of the law have not, as yet, been tested. Is it your experience that the Property listings on www.IslandsWeb.com are a reflection of the real value of the property, or is it that the values are grossly inflated for the international market they are advertising to? Many of them seem very reasonable, and in line with your comments on value, and others seem wildly inflated. Beachfront property, especially, is quite inflated, as in P2,500 per square meter.You mentioned your banca. Is that one of your business ventures? I would like to buy one for personal use when we get there. Is yours operated using nets, or lines with hooks?I'm interested to hear your response to the question about buying and carrying a pistol, in regard to the raid Celine was exposed to. I understand that it would be futile against 20 men with full military equipment, but what about the occasional single criminal who will see me/us as an easy touch?Thanks for your good heart and ability to communicate!Jim
...Second Email...
Hi, Rik!I have one comment on the local transportation... Everything is made for people who are 5'6" in height or less. Even the tricycles have roofs that are too short for me. I am 5'10",
and have to sit bent over always in jeepneys, and almost always in tricycles. I have learned to watch for the highest tricycles and wave them down when traveling. Also, it makes it uncomfortable to try to see the scenery when you must bend down, and then bend your neck sharply up to be able to look. The city buses in Manila seem to have absolutely NO springs! And the tires are square! Much worse than your motorcycle... which I intend to get when we arrive in the PI. Our land is in Siay, West of Pagadian City, and is a good fishing area, according to Lily, my Honey Ko. We have planted 300 Coco Palms there, so as to have Copra to sell soon after we get there. They are about 3 years old now. How fluent are you in Tagalog/Visayan/Cebuano/Muslim Vernacular? I want to learn at least Tagalog, but Lily is not willing to put forth the energy to cope with speaking only Tagalog in our house for the few weeks it willl take for me to learn. I guess I'll just have to wait 'til we arrive!Anyway, blessings until next time...Jim

...Rik...

Hello Jim, and welcome to ETP.
Before I start to reply to your messages I want to ask you not to get angry with me as you read through it. I’m going to seize the opportunity some of your questions have offered me to address all of my readers with insight, opinion and, yes, even advice. So I won’t be talking directly to you in everything I write. That said - read on…

You’re welcome to copy any or all of the photos. Heck, I’ve stolen most of them myself. Not stolen, really; they’re open domain pictures I’ve found on the Internet from various websites. Although I enjoy photography and can take some pretty fair pictures, because I have back problems plus live solely on SS disability, I can’t physically and financially afford to travel around the Philippines taking all the wonderful pictures you see on my site.
Jim, I’d like to see your website, but can I just type in, "Dual Citizenship," and get there? I think you’ll need to send me the complete address.
I’m happy to know you have a good relationship with Lily. It always helps when you have a good partner. Since you didn’t actually say so, I’m assuming that Lily is a Filipina.
I’m not surprised there’s some steam mixed into your relationship; many Filipina’s can be extremely jealous, to the point of being downright dangerous to your health. One girl I lived with when I first moved here was always threatening to do a “Bobbit” on me if she ever caught me with another girl. She had no reason to accuse me or distrust me. I guess she was just building her perimeter fence around me and claiming ‘land’ rights. She went back out the door permanently rather quickly. You might say she cut her own throat when it came to having any relationship with me.
One suggestion I need to repeat throughout this endeavor is that it would be best for the readers planning to live in RP (Republic of the Philippines) to come here first, even if you have to keep renewing your 59-day visa, and give yourself plenty of time to find the RIGHT Filipina for you. I can almost guarantee that you will go through a number of girls before you find the right one. And the search itself can offer some great fun.
If you get married to the first one you meet, you’re begging for trouble, and you’ll pay a high price for the privilege of causing yourself that trouble.

I am very fortunate that Celine is not jealous. Having written that, I have to share a funny story. Just a week ago, Celine, playing with the Cell-phone, (now I have to enlighten the readers that Cell-phone ‘texting’ is a very big thing here because it’s so cheap, so you’ll see people everywhere furiously pushing the phone buttons, writing text messages to each other) sent me a text message while I was sitting next to her and watching the news on the TV. The phone beeped, and Celine handed the phone to me, “There’s a message for you.”
I read the message, “Hello Darling, I LOVE YOU!”
“Who the heck sent that to me?” I said aloud. Celine laughed and said, “Me!” and gave me a kiss. Yeah... that was sweet; Filipina's are very loving.
Fast forward two days. Celine was cleaning out the phone by deleting all the messages while I was once again watching BBC News. Suddenly Celine said in an angry voice,
“Who wrote you this message, and why are is telling you she loves you?!” She handed me the phone with anger in her voice and in her facial expression, so I could read the offensive message.
I read the message, “Hello Darling, I LOVE YOU!”
I looked at Celine and said, “You crazy woman, you sent me that message two days ago!”
Celine’s eyes rolled around in her head for a moment, then her face turned red and she laughed. “I forgot all about that!”
Hmm... at least she gave me a chuckle instead of a headache.

Back to serious:
You know, you have a responsibility to train your wife/girlfriend how to behave. Because of the cultural differences you will find, if you don’t take the initiative to set rules and standards, that a Filipina can go wild and quickly become uncontrollable; next thing you know you’ll be flat broke and wondering how you ever got into such a mess.
Many foreigners come to the Philippines and treat their women the way they were trained to treat woman in their home countries. The thing is… Filipina’s don’t come from a Western society or culture, but from a distinctly Asian culture, and the differences are innumerable.
Filipina’s, like so many other Asian cultures, look to their husband to lead them, to be the decision maker, to set the standards and rules of the house and relationship. If you look around at the Pinoy and most of the foreigner's relationships, you’ll see that the woman will ask permission to go anywhere, do anything, even to allow people into the house, let her family come over for a visit, or just to go outside to water the plants. They’ll ask you what you want to eat, make you coffee upon request, massage your feet, take out the trash - do anything and everything for you. In other words, they’ll take excellent care of you, and do it gladly -for the husband/man and marriage is seen with a perspective almost unknown in Western society any longer. Understanding and living by your Honey Ko's culture and ways will be a major key to your success. Remember, it's all she knows.
Culturally, Pinay (Filipina’s) expect to live that way. When you, the foreigner, come along and take a Filipina woman, she will watch and wait to see what you expect of her. She expect you to tell her how to behave, and she'll behave the way you teach her. She’ll do everything in her power to make you happy. Serving her husband is in her nature. Unlike the self-important and aloof Western women, to her, there's no shame in it.
If you treat her like liberated and independent-minded Betty Sue from San Francisco, you could soon find yourself in a major nightmare. Filipina's can't relate to American culture except for the money and spending money part. So if you hand her a credit card and/or put her name on your bank accounts, and give her free reign, thinking she'll behave like a responsible American woman, you can kiss all your money goodbye. Before long, all of her relatives will be driving new cars to their new houses while talking on their new cell-phones, and you'll be left to pick up the shattered pieces of your life.

Taking care of her family and helping them financially is also a big part of Filipina culture! If you give her the opportunity, she'll give most of your money away to them.
If you’re like most Foreigner’s, you’re fed up with the “Don’t call me ma’am!” and “I can open my own damn door!” and “If you’re nice to me, maybe I’ll reward you tonight” women of the West. Let’s be honest - Western women long ago figured out they could have whatever they wanted by manipulating men, and men’s importance have become secondary – or worse - to women’s desires for money, power and husband/boyfriend/lover financed rampant consumerism.
When an American or European’s eyes turn to the East for love and happiness, it’s because he’s sick to death of the attitude of the women of his own country.

Contrary to what Western women are so fond of telling men how there's only thing they really want; men want to have a happy, shared, meaningful relationship with a woman who is with him for more than what he can provide to her. Sex is wonderful, but it ain't everything. Western women tend to believe that if they hand out a little of that stuff once in awhile to their man, she can rule the roost of the marriage hen-house. There's very little of the, "I'll love you until death do us part" aspect of marriage, but an abundance of, "You just can't support my needy lifestyle."
So we come here for something different, better, more satisfying. And if we do things properly, we get it. But neither you nor I will find a truly good relationship if we don’t make it happen. And that requires planning and know-how, effort and work.

Treating Filipina’s as if they’re just short, brown versions of Western women is simply self-defeating.
Filipina’s will go every bit as wild and become every bit as nauseating as any Western woman if you create the conditions for her to do so.
But, Filipina’s, as strange as it may seem to a Western man’s perspective, not only expect to be bossed by her husband, but trained how to behave.
Yes - trained. And she will not look at you as if you’re crazy if you use that word. I use the word 'training' with Celine all of the time. She doesn’t become angry, or pack her bags and run off to her mother’s, or even open her eyes wide and cock her head to one side as if she’d just discovered that her man is totally insane. When Celine came to live with me, she expected that I would train her how she must behave, what she’d be allowed to and not to do, what was acceptable and unacceptable, tolerable and intolerable.
If I didn’t do those things, relative to Asian culture, I would be acting irresponsibly, and I would not be fulfilling my duties and obligations to her. A Filipina needs to know what to expect, and expects to be told what to do by her husband. Don’t do that and you’re looking at real trouble and problems in your relationship.
In America, who will be the boss (the decision-maker) of the house and of the relationship is decided by, at the very best a 50/50 vote (although I have yet to see a relationship like that actually work). Too many chiefs and not enough Indians means nothing much ever gets accomplished. And the next decision to be made will follow the example of the last with fighting for position and power and for who will get to have the final say - the decision itself getting lost in the anger and the bickering.
In reality, except in rare instances in America, who will be the boss is decided by the woman. She will either be the boss outright or she will be the boss, but let the man think he’s the boss.
That’s just the way things are in America (absolutely), and other Western countries (more or less absolutely). How many times have you heard a man say to you or to another when asked to go somewhere or if he will buy something, “I’ll have to check with the boss first?.” It’s as common a practice as eating hamburgers in the USA.
All right, that may be the way of things in America. But we’re talking about the Philippines. And it IS NOT that way here, with a few exceptions when the male prefers to be the weaker partner. The biggest mistake foreigners make when they move here to live is to bring their own training on the treatment of women with them and attempt to apply it to Filipina’s and Asian culture.
I am the undisputed boss of my house, and Celine looks to me for every decision and for permission for anything. Sometimes I get tired of having to decide what I will eat for dinner, but if I don’t decide, she won’t cook and will just keep asking me until I tell her. It’s not that I ever demanded the right to decide my dinner; it’s her culture. And that’s what Foreign men need to understand – the cultures of East and West are vastly different.
I have never once yelled at Celine, or threatened her, or beat her, and we have yet to have, in two years together, a single disagreement or argument. Neither none of us has ever gone to bed angry with the other.
Being the boss doesn’t mean one has to be bossy. I ask Celine for something, and she does it or gets it for me. I say, “Thanks, darlin’,” and we give each other kisses and hugs all of the time, and dance around the kitchen, and laugh and joke with each other daily. We’re both happy. I’m happy; happier than I ever dreamed I could be, and in a relationship with a woman that I never dreamed back in America could ever be possible.
I need to be repetitious about this point: This is the Philippines, not America, The planet IS NOT America-The-World. This is the East; this is the land of Asian culture: This IS NOT the Western World.
Bring your Western ways here with your programmed ideas about how a relationship should be maintained and you are only going to find yourself in a Western-style relationship with a Filipina, and you will wind-up being just as miserable as if you'd stayed married to your Princess. But then, you'll also miserable and 8000 miles from your homeland.

You’re going to move to Mindanao to live? Jim, you’re a brave man; much more brave than me. That’s Muslim territory; that’s rebel (pronounced Re–bell, with emphasis on the second syllable) territory; that’s let’s-kidnap-the-foreigner-for-ransom territory. Jim, I wish you well, and I fervently hope you have no trouble. But I wouldn’t live there under any circumstances. Even many Pinoy are moving away from Mindanao to avoid the bombings the murders and the bloodshed. Are you aware of the problems there? Do you know the Muslims are in a 100-plus year-old war for separation from the RP, and that they want their own country? That’s where the American Army fought back in 1900 against the Moro separatists. We didn’t when that war either.
Here in Palawan there is a constant influx of families arriving from Mindanao to live. Even Celine’s family moved here long ago to avoid the fighting and the Rebel “taxes” (forcing you to pay protection money) and indiscriminate kidnappings and rapes.
If you haven’t made an absolute decision on living in Mindanao, you might consider checking out Palawan as a potential place to live. It could be argued that it’s the safest part of the Philippines. Sitting by itself and separated from the rest of the Philippine Islands by the Sulu Sea, Palawan is considered to be the last frontier of the Philippines. You also might make a stop off (and do some Internet research) on Camiguin Island, just east of Cebu. There are quite a few foreigners on both Islands. Here, the foreigners pretty much keep to themselves; that is, we don’t visit each other much. I can’t speak to the sociability of those on Camiguin Island.
About dual citizenship: Now there’s a subject I know nothing about. Would you be willing to write an article about dual citizenship for me to put on my Blog? I’m certain there would be many people interested in knowing about that – myself included.
I’m living here on a Permanent Residence Visa (13-A). I can live here forever with that, but I have no citizenship rights.
To the extent of my understanding, I can own one property in my name, however, no bigger than 600 square meters (6,458 square feet or 1.6 acres). Any Filipina can own land, and you can own all the land you want through her. However, the downside is that it must be in her name. If you leave her, or if she gets pissed-off at you, she can sell it and take the money and run, and there’s nothing you can do about it – short of a good beating or murder. Not very reasonable choices.
About property prices: It is my experience that, if you are a foreigner, and the seller knows it, the prices will double, triple or go even higher. The best way to buy property is to have your Honey Ko go alone to the seller or to the real estate office and do all of the enquiries as if you don’t exist. Only after she has a commitment of the seller’s asking price on paper should she divulge your existence.
Most real estate sales-persons don’t even have a real estate license – something to look for in the office, and to ask to see – and most are devious and unscrupulous. You can’t assume you can trust business people the way you can back in the USA. It just ain’t so.
You may buy a property through than agent and still learn later that you don’t own the property. Going to a lawyer won’t help, either. You have to rely on yourself.
Things to do:
Checking the real estate broker’s license number against the name at the City Hall is a good idea, and also enquire about any legal claims or cases (legal charges) against the real estate agent. Check the public records to learn who actually owns the property you're interested in - it may well be the agent. If so, will he be serving his own or your best interests?
Another way to consider buying property is through the banks. I think that’s the best method. There is a huge turnover of properties in the Philippines through loan defaults leading to repossessions.
The bank(s) won’t try to cheat (though I wouldn’t bet my life on that). They’re usually interested in getting their money out of default and freeing it up to make more loans and more money. So the price you pay will reflect to cost to the bank. And banks, even in RP, don’t like to make loans on properties for more than the property is really worth.
A word of advice: NEVER EVER buy land from a private party without going to City Hall and finding out if the person actually owns the property. Who pays the taxes on the property? Talk to that person about whether he/she is even selling the property. More foreigners than you can shake a stick at have bought properties from caretakers or neighbors to the property, or relatives of the owner. When they tried to move onto the property, they found out they didn’t own it. And forget expecting to ever get your money back – it just won’t happen. The money disappears as fast as you lay it in the seller’s hand. All you will ever get whenever you ask for your money back is the Tagalog word, “Wala,” which means “nothing.” No truer or precisely spoken word ever left a Pinoy’s lips.
It’s impossible to be too careful. But, if you’re very careful, you may actually wind-up owning the property you paid for.
You can’t even trust your wife’s relatives. Two of Celine’s uncles tried to sell me land they didn’t own. One property had been sold five times to different people (onetime to another American). Another man sold his sister’s property while she was on vacation. It’s a sad but common story in RP.
Beach-front property will always be inflated. The best thing you can hope for is to make a ridiculously low offer and wangle back and forth until you find an acceptable meeting of the minds. Offering cash, is always a big incentive to sellers to lower the price, but, again, the above cautions apply.
You will learn that because of the harsh poverty in RP, people very often sell their properties to pay for medicines or for an operation or to send a child to college. If you keep your eyes open and your ear to the ground and, more importantly, have a little patience, a good deal will come down the pike before very long.
And because of that, I wouldn’t suggest being in a big hurry to buy land. One property of 15 hectares might be selling for 5 million pesos, three months later the same property might sell for 1.5 million so the owner can go to hospital in Manila. You just never know.
One thing I do know; wherever you live, you will soon be receiving visitors at your door trying to sell you properties. People will try to sell you things in tricycles or anywhere else you go. You can expect to be asked for loans over and over; they’ll offer to let you hold a lien on property (they don’t own), and on and on.
If you ever give a loan to anyone, including your wife’s relatives, understand and accept that the emphasis will be on the word “give” because you will never see that money again.

You asked about my banca, Jim, and about my other business ventures. Yes, I had a fishing banca built. It’s a big one, maybe 40-45 feet-long. It cost me P125,000 pesos to build a P85,000 banca. One on Celine’s cousin’s, a very honest and moral Christian man who would never cheat me, according to him, cheated me at every turn. That’s just the way things are here. You learn to live with it or you go crazy.
You can have a smaller banca built for far less if it’s just for your own use and you don’t plan to use it for business. Although, at the price, why not build a larger, safer one that will handle the ocean waves? P125,000, at current exchange rates, is only about $2,300.
When buying anything here, such as an engine for your banca, which is a Briggs and Stratten or Kohler-style single-stroke engine like an American gas lawn-mower engine, you have to make sure you are buying the real McCoy. Everything you can imagine has a Chinese or other Asian country knock-off. It may work and it may break-down. Probably, it will break-down soon after purchase. Be wise and make sure you’re getting the real thing when you buy things you need to last. Usually the truth of real versus fake will show up in serial numbers and guarantee cards and written information on your sales receipt. Knock-off’s have no serial numbers.
If there was no black market in RP, there’d almost be no markets, as you’ll soon discover.
My banca doesn’t use nets, but uses pole-and-hooks wielded by four fishermen. It makes very little money. In the last month I’ve only cleared about $30.00. But, hey, that’s better than a kick-in-the-head. Many months have gone by when I made nothing or lost money. It’s not a very productive way to make a living. As always, one has to be very careful about stealing and cheating.
Lately, because of Red-Tides in the local seas, my banca has gone farther a-field and the crew is now diving exclusively for squid. Unfortunately, two weeks ago one of the squid divers, the Kapitan’s brother, lost his leg to a shark. When the Red-Tide is gone they’ll go back to hook fishing.
You can have a very large banca built, if you’re interested in making money, which does only net fishing. They are large, 80-feet and more and go far out to sea. They are known to make excellent profits, especially if you use power gear as opposed to old-fashioned hand labor. A hand labor banca will have as many as thirty fishermen on-board to hand release and pull-in the nets.
I’ve found that rice buying and selling is far more lucrative. Filipino’s are a rice-eating people, and act as if they’d die if they missed rice in their meals one single day.

Coconut and copra farms are everywhere in the RP. Hope you do well, and I would appreciate if you kept me and my readers in touch with your on-going enterprise. It would help them to see what you go through with your new crop, your learning experiences, labor problems, profitability, etc. If you do well, it may encourage others who otherwise might talk themselves out of moving here, take a chance and come here after all.

About firearms: I really as unsure what to tell you about carrying a gun. I don’t carry or own a gun, and have never felt the need to. If I were farther out and living in a more rural setting, I believe I would buy several guns – a pistol (maybe two), a shotgun and a semi or fully automatic machine gun. You and I are foreigners and will always be a target for kidnapping or robbery by rebel gangs. But there are several rural foreigners who don’t own guns.
One American, retired from the navy, lives in Narra, some 40 kilometers from the city of Puerto and owns many hectares of land that he uses for growing rice and he also has a large scale piggery set-up. He protects himself, apparently, by hiring all of his wife’s relatives and, because he provides a lot of income into the area, no one wants him dead. There’s a Frenchman who lives in a small village in the mountains and has never had any sort of trouble or threats to his life.
About common street criminals: In Manila, that’s something you definitely have to worry about. It’s a big ugly city full of small and starving and drug addicted desperate people. You have to watch yourself and your possessions constantly if you’re on the street, day or night.
However, I’ve yet to hear of a single case of street or house robbery by force in the four years I’ve been living in Palawan. There’s the odd burglar and what-not, just like everywhere else, and the occasional cell-phone or purse snatching. Mostly the Pinoy steal from each other. Local Pinoy worry about what will happen to them if they go after the foreigners, like a harsher sentence. We bring a lot of money to our local areas. The police and the gummit people like to protect us like an investment – corruption being the way it is in RP.
I guess you have to go with how your spirit – and your intuition – moves you. Life is a gamble. Play and maybe you’ll win, or maybe you’ll lose. Don’t play and you can only lose. In other words, you lays yer money down and you takes yer chances. That’s life.

Transportation: You’re right about the transportation. In the States or Europe almost every single Philippine 2-4-12 or 18- wheeled vehicle would be banned from driving on public roads; they’re just not safe. And it’s for darned sure they’re not comfortable!
Springs? What springs? Seat padding? What seat padding. Recliner seats? What recliner seats? The seats are hard and the seat and the back are built at a 90 degree angle to each other. After an hour or two of riding one of those buses, suicide can seem like a pretty attractive alternative.
I’m lucky – I’m only five foot, five inches tall. So I fit in real well here. But even so the tricycles are cramped and the bus seats are small torture devices. And the wheels, while maybe not really being square, sure seem like it. I think it’s all of those holes in the roads, which there seems to be more of than pavement, that make the bouncing and neck breaking jarring so routine an experience in public travel.
My worry goes more to the safety and reliability of both the buses and the tires. They are not safe; the tires, more often than not are bald or close to it, and the buses are almost never safety-checked or given any form of maintenance. A bus is only fixed when it breaks, and that only after the bus is pulled up out of some ravine with dead and mangled bodies hanging out of the windows. Often on bus trips, two or more tires will blow-out and have to be replaced.
One can also easily see many trucks and buses rolling almost sideways down the road because of the incredibly bent frames caused by accidents and crashes.

I could not ride a tricycle one more time. With my bad back it was the worst sort of torture. I resorted to buying a motorcycle with a very soft seat. Getting around is much more satisfying and enjoyable. But, there’s a dark-side to driving in the Philippines. And it’s scary! The scary part is the way Pinoy drive and how the rules are not only broken, but ignored. But that’s going to be the subject of my next article. This is already too long.

If you’re tall – over 5’8” – and you want to live here, you have to just grin and bear it. In the case of the Philippines, the statement, “It’s a small world after all.” is the absolute truth. But those short Filipina’s make it all worthwhile.

I’ll end with your last question about speaking local languages.
You may find you have problems learning the languages of Tagalog or Visayan - then again, maybe not. It all depends on your learning ability. I thought I was pretty good with language, and was getting pretty good at Spanish some years back. But I haven’t done well with the two mentioned languages. Maybe I’m just getting too old.
Finding people to practice with, believe it or not, has been difficult. Most Pinoy are more interested in learning English than in teaching me their language. All of the Filipina’s I have been with made virtually no effort to help me learn, no matter how hard I pushed them to try. Even Celine doesn’t want to teach me, or can’t. I ask her constantly what the meaning of a word is, and she is seldom able to translate, and gives up.
I have learned to appreciate the simplicity and the beauty of English since living in the RP, and have come to realize that English is an exquisite language. We English speakers take for granted ‘ing’, ‘ed,’ ‘er,’ ‘s,’ ‘ful,’ etc., like watch, watches, watched, watcher, watchful. watching, watchless, and don’t give it any thought. The true beauty of it is in its simplicity.
We can use the same word repeatedly, yet change it’s meaning with the addition of a few letters: heart, hearts, heartache, heartless, heartfelt, and so on. Not so with all of the 179 known Pinoy languages in the Philippines. Each meaning has is own different and distinct word, and they are seldom spelled or sound anything remotely like another word of similar meaning. There’s no equivalent to those wonderful ‘add-on’s’ in any Philippine language.
And each Pinoy language is distinct and different from each other.
Tagalog or Visayan words can often have fifteen or eighteen or more letters in them, and twelve of the letters may be ‘a.’ There’s a word I’ve seen in Palawan, the meaning of which I can’t recall at the moment, that has five A’s in a row; and each one has to be sounded separately.
Tagalog was created when the Spanish conquered the Islands that today make-up the Philippines. Each tribe on each island, or on the same island, being remote from each other, could not talk to each other, and the Spanish couldn’t talk to any of them! So Tagalog was created like ‘Spinglish’ was in America so the Gringo’s could talk to the Mexican’s.
Celine has promised me that she’ll teach me Tagalog and Visayan, her own language, after she learns English. I don’t really believe her - mostly because she’s not very adept at teaching. I, on the other hand, am a very good teacher – to my surprise – and Celine is progressing rapidly. My style is to teach 24-hours a day, at every opportunity, and she’s learning well from all of my constant explanations of how and why things work the way they do in English.
Everyone who can or thinks he can use it wants to learn English, and they’ll want you to teach them instead of the other way around.
Thanks for writing, Jim. Please continue to visit ETP, and write more about how your new life in the Philippines is progressing, sharing your own insights and experiences. I’m very interested in how other writers can describe to the wannabe’s what they can expect when they come here, and how to deal rewardingly and effectively with their own Honey Ko.
Lastly, Jim, I sent you an email giving you my own email address. If you didn’t receive it, please let me know here on the Site, and give me a good email address to send it to again.
To all of you who are thinking of or researching living in the Philippines – keep coming back as time goes on. I believe ETP will continue to improve and add a lot more knowledge about the Philippines and its culture.
Rik