Philippines Books

Are There Business Opportunities To Be Had In The Philippines? We Take A Look Each Month.

So far I know of people who are getting involved in bat guano, tempura cart sales, sari sari wholesale supply and a few other interesting ventures, including real estate development, sea shells, prescription eyewear and more! The common denominator seems to be the desire to get involved in something. However, a word of warning.

A business in the Philippines can indeed be started on a frayed shoestring, unlike something you might try back home. But be aware that the less you invest the less it will produce. This has nothing to do with any law of diminishing returns, it is simply that the successful businesses here are successful for the same reasons a business is successful back in the UK or America.

If you have insufficient capital, or a poor location or no real business plan then just because it is only a few dollars to get Dong going doesn’t mean it has any special chance of success or even survival just because it is started in the Philippines. I was in a Chilli’s franchise tonight. Cost of the meals are over P200 and well into P400 with some even more. Drinks were fairly pricey too, but you can have the buy one take one beer deal for P65 that works out pretty good value. Anyway, the points I am making are twofold. Firstly it took a fair chunk of change to put up a decent business like Chilli’s in the first place and secondly, there is money in this country!

There may not be much to spread around in the province where the asawa comes from but in Quezon City there is a lot of it! I was speaking to a car dealer who brings in “gray imports”. On his lot he had a VW Tuareg, a Dodge Ram, a Mercedes, three Honda’s and so on. Plus a 2004 Range Rover HSE going for P6 million! Given the fact Land Rover pulled out of the country due to the gray import market back dooring them for billions, I wonder where the eventual buyer will get it serviced? Woe betide him if it breaks down or the computer chip needs a zap, nobody has the diagnostic gear to fix it!

So between the gray imports and the authorised importers, there has never been more new car metal on the roads in Manila. And it all costs money because financing here is a joke. I left Chilli’s and walked down T.Morato Avenue and turned into Timog Avenue, part of the South Triangle area of Quezon City. The place is wall to wall restaurants, coffee shops, liquor stores, aerobics gyms and anything else you want. By the time you sweat your way onto Quezon Avenue the giant KTV lounges and nite clubs fill your horizon with their ridiculous prices and lurid neon lies of love and popularity. No money here? Rubbish!

So if you don’t have real chunks of cash, then you are in the realm of the SME or small to medium enterprise, which officially lists a micro business as being worth up to P3 million, not including buildings etc!!!! Small businesses are P3-P15 million and medium sized P15-P100 million. Anything with more investment than that gets to call itself a large, or big business. If you don’t believe me, check the official DOLE figures! So unless you have US$60,000 or more in the venture, it isn’t even a “small” business! 

Getting back into Manila, my old stomping grounds, after a two year hiatus in Cebu has proven more than merely interesting. I have really gone out of my way to get back into the street vibe that oozes from this city’s pores. Everywhere you turn in Manila somebody is trying to turn a peso. Across the street from me every morning at 5.30am a young woman sets up a simple stall selling corn, sits there all day and by nightfall it still looks like she hasn’t sold a single cob.

Every second house has its obligatory sari sari store attached, the barred serving hatch the sign of a micro enterprise in the making. On the street corners, food vendors offer BBQ meat, BBQ bananas, squid balls, taho and anything else you can think of. There are ten million people in this city and it seems that at any one time five million of them are trying to sell the other five million something. Like I said, there is money in this country, it’s just a question of who has it and how much at any one time.

This Month We Meander Around Malate.

The first time I came to Manila nearly twenty years ago I ended up in Malate on my second night in Town. The first night I had rolled out of the plane into the APP Shuttle Bus, been handed my cold San Miguel Pilsen and watched as Roxas Boulevard rolled by on my way to the hotel in Ermita. I think I was in my first bar (The New Bangkok Bar for the record) within an hour of exiting Customs! The second night I had wandered down M.H. del Pilar Street all the way to Malate Park, where the Church and The Aristocrat Restaurant were located. I dined in Shakey’s Pizza with a great cover band hammering out some fabulous rock and roll tunes and the beer was cold, the pizza was cheezy and the atmosphere simply fantastic.

In those days and until a year or two ago, Malate Park was a pick up place for prostitutes, usually managed by fat women or sad transgender types. It had little to offer during the day and less at night unless you wanted to risk a confrontation or set up and there was no need with Ermita’s night life so close and so vibrant. Nearby the restaurants around Remedios did a decent trade along with several pension houses and the casual attitude to “Bakla’s” there gave it a thumb’s up from The Lonely Planet, yet they would cast scorn upon the seedy sex tourist ridden Ermita nearby. If only they knew that Malate has always been the home of numerous “love motels” where the Filipino clientele take their casual affairs and hookers in numbers no wave of foreign tourists could ever match.

When Mayor Lim closed down the Ermita bars in 1993-94, (mainly I feel as they were an easy target and besides, the rumours were he had his girlie bars safely tucked away in a different jurisdiction!) Ermita pretty much died out and only today, ten years on is it showing signs of recovery. It will never jump like it used to but it may attract some more much needed investment. A side effect of Ermita closing was that Malate suffered too. There was no longer any spill over of tourists and tourist dollars. The trendy restaurants around Remedios felt the pinch and took it hard, although lately they have recovered well and now thrive.

The face of Malate has changed a little, more Korean and less European influence. Once upon a time all the restaurants were owned by expat Germans, Spaniards and Swiss. Now they are Korean, Japanese and even Chinese and Middle Eastern. At the Remedios end of Mabini Street and Adriatico there are numerous coffee shops, nite clubs, restaurants and bars offering regular entertainment. The love motels are still around like Anito’s and Sogo, but they have all pretty much moved upmarket in décor and style.

Malate Park has been remodelled and two new statues and a large fountain fill the plaza. The church, once a gutted, shell torn wreck at the end of WW2, now stands proudly overlooking a plaza where once again families feel safe enough to wander. The plaza leads out onto Roxas Boulevard and looks out across Manila Bay. Along the Bay the new Bay Walk offers several places to sit and enjoy a snack, a meal or just a cold beer or three.

The skyline along the Bay towards Ermita has changed too, now looking very clean and modern. In the other direction towards Pasay and the airport lies the snooty Manila Yacht Club, the Headquarters of the Philippine Navy and beyond that the Philippine Cultural Center. Back across Roxas lies the Central Bank of the Philippines and behind that Harrison Plaza Mall. Harrison Plaza is still a dark, dingy and seedy mall that is frequented by prostitutes and their pimps. A known hangout for gangs who often pose as Police and terrify tourists into handing over large sums of cash to get off trumped up charges. Not a place to treat lightly.

Heading back towards the park you come across the Manila Zoo. This zoo has been progressively improved over the years but it is still what zoo’s used to be like back when most of us were kids. Lots of bars and cages and not a great deal of interaction. I have always found the animals and their cages to be clean and well cared for, but very sad when I compare the facilities with the world class Taronga Park Zoo of my home town, Sydney. Things are improving though as there are fewer instances of visitors killing the animals by feeding them with rubbish such as plastic bags! (this is how the giraffe died!) Asians do have a more callous, casual attitude towards animals than westerners, so don’t be surprised if the place strikes you as sad. I know both times I have been I have had to leave before I made it to the Kangaroo enclosure. I just shudder to think how I would feel seeing my Nation’s Emblem kept, Filipino style.

Overall I must say Malate comes alive at night and that is the best time to visit. Stay away from Harrison Plaza and stick to Adriatico and Remedios and the Malate Park area and you will enjoy a very cosmopolitan evening indeed.

The Biggest Growing Segment Of The Franchise Market Here Today!

I have been watching the steady growth in coffee shops in this country over the past few years with some interest. I do like a good cup of Java and when I first came to these shores 20 years ago it was a hard thing to find. Even today you will be lucky to do better than a sachet of Nescafe Instant, a sachet of creamer and a small cup of tepid water. Why the dumb mongrels don’t put the coffee in to the cup before filling it with water beats me! At least then it would have a chance to blend properly but why am I expecting western standards of civilised behaviour from someone who has never been exposed to such?

The reality is that Filipino’s enjoy a decent cup of coffee too, although maybe more for the fact it sends a message of affluence to others rather than the taste of the brew. At P50-60 and up (my café latte grande is a P100 cup of coffee) not every Dong and Dai out there is rushing to Starbucks, although more than enough are and new stores open all the time.

As well as Starbucks, there are Bo’s Coffee Clubs, Figaro, Seattle’s Best, Moccha Blend, Gloria Jean’s, Coffee Beanery and maybe four or five other franchises to choose from if you want to go into the coffee shop business. They all follow a similar theme, started by Starbucks back in the early eighties and itself modelled on the espresso bars of Italy, relaxed, casual and expensive! I wonder if the first recorded coffee shop, “Kiva Han” in Turkey in 1421 offered a mocchalatte or a frappucino?

In upscale areas they are everywhere and growing. It really is a market niche oriented business, you need lots of A, B and C class Filipino’s willing to spend relatively big money on a drink they really don’t need to get through their day with. At least not the fancy version on offer. Of course most places actually sell more iced drinks than hot versions, although this it is so cute to see Filipino’s wearing coats and jackets and sitting in the (still steamy for me) evening sipping hot coffee and pretending it is cold this time of year.

A decent coffee shop franchise will set you back around P2 million and up. You could get away with less but more will usually be needed. The way things are going though, it looks like a way to print money only a McDonalds franchise could beat. Or a Jollibee!

We Play Word Association To While Away The Hours Caught In Manila’s Traffic.

The other day I had to take a cab from one end of Makati, (Jupiter and Makati Avenue intersection), down Sen. Gil Puyat/Buendia Avenue to the LRT station on Taft. Straight run down one road, more or less. I entered the cab at 09.21 am, as proven by the printed receipt I have in my possession! Yes, a Manila cab with a receipt printer on the dash! The driver said he mainly works the Alabang area and sadly had to bring someone into Makati when I snaggled him. He promised he was heading back there as soon as he dropped me at the airport. I wasn’t going to the airport. He swore. I digress, where was I? Yes, in a cab at 09.21am heading down Sen Gil Puyat Avenue.

I arrived at my destination at 10.44am, 83 minutes and just 4 kilometres later! At a cost of P152 I had spent 71 minutes of that time standing still. At least the cab was stationery, I was squirming a fair bit in frustration! The “waiting time” is recorded via this machine the taxi was fitted with and this is how I know we didn’t move for exactly 1 hour and 11 minutes, in total. I wonder how long the journey would have been if I had taken it right in the middle of the peak “hour”? Of course peak hour in Manila lasts from 6am to at least 10am and then again from about 3pm to 8pm!

When I arrived in Manila the other week I took a taxi from NAIA2, the PAL terminal. I had to go upstairs to the departure drop off area as the airport management have cleared all taxis away from the arrivals area so they can maximise their revenue from airport “limo” services. In other words, the official going rate for a ride into Makati was P345, yet my cab cost me P120, and that included stopping twice to repair a busted fender and change a flat tyre! And this was at 7pm, the very height of peak hour!

When I came back to Manila this week I grabbed a cab at 9am for the trip to Quezon City. It took 90 minutes and cost me P200. The meter said P172 but the driver had asked for an agreed upon fare. I didn’t mind but I insisted he run the meter just so we could compare. Now maybe he was trying to get as close to the agreed P200 as possible, just so I didn’t do a Filipino on him and change my mind, but another person on the same flight arrived at the same destination as me 30 minutes sooner and for P150! His taxi took him via the “very traffic” EDSA route whereas my driver ducked through the middle of town following for the most part the northern railway line and squatter camp.

Traffic in this city is heavy, no doubt about it. It is, however, better disciplined than Cebu traffic, of that I am certain. Far more policing and more effective policing as well as more stringent road rules do make some difference. My favourite giggle is the “color coding” system used to limit the amount of traffic. On Mondays, cars whose license plates end in 1 or 2 are prohibited from being on the road. Tuesdays its 3 and 4, Wednesdays 5 and 6, Thursdays 7 and 8 and Fridays 9 and 0. Sensible system and one day a week is easy enough to overcome, arrange a lift with friends, work at home, use the other car, swap plates whatever. Now, can someone tell me where the “color” comes in to this system of coding? Another case of Taglish at work, methinks!

I have only been living and working here in Manila for a few days now but already the traffic is the locus of control over my life. Where I go and when I go, even if I bother to go anywhere, all is determined by the time of the day or night, the position of the stars and the planets and the omens in the entrails of the sisig soup the jeepney driver is having for his lunch! Where I am working and staying is right across from the Pantranco Jeepney Terminus, or Bat Cave as I call the dark and dreary dive. What it means is I can hop on any one of several jeepney lines and ride them to the end of their route, then simply ride back the same way and know I will never pass my stop!

Naturally, the best way of beating the clogged streets is to rise above it all and ride the LRT or MRT. These light rail systems are terrific. For less than P20 you can go from one end of town to the other, then swap lines and go somewhere else! The LRT has two carriages at the front reserved just for women, as I found out the hard way! I didn’t follow what the security guard was trying to tell me (move along, the first two carriages are women only you stupid foreigner!) and I stepped into a clean, quiet, orderly carriage…….full of women! I knew something was wrong and, concerned it was a trap set by my wife to tempt me into cheating on her, I quickly leapt out and ran to the next carriage. I was then able to stand at the end of the carriage and look through the large window into the women only car all the way to my station.

It can get crowded and those stairs leading up off the street are steep and many, but the MRT/LRT system can’t be beaten. There is a new east-west MRT line I will take one of these days, just to say I have done it! My only hesitation is to warn that pickpockets love the crowded conditions and they are very, very good at their craft. Never think for a second your wallet or purse is safe whenever you are within spitting distance of an MRT/LRT station or car. Then again, keeping one hand on your wallet is a small price to pay for missing out on sitting in the traffic for hours at a time.! If you have plenty of time to spare then why worry? Of course Manila is hardly an ideal retirement destination so most foreigners here are here for work and time is important.

An alternative might be to have a driver so you can sit in the back, read the newspaper or a report, make some calls on the cell phone and generally get some business done while in the traffic. At least it hasn’t degenerated into what Bangkok residents were forced to do a few years ago; basically live in their cars! They would leave home very early, give the kids their breakfast from the back of the family van parked outside of the school at the crack of dawn, then head for work, drop off hubby then fight back to school for the kids then back to work for hubby and then home so late it was re-pack car with the meals for the next day and hit the sack! What a life!

Manila’s traffic problems won’t go away, even as gasoline prices rise higher than ever before. More and more people are buying cars and more marques are opening dealerships to offer their wares to the car buying Filipino public. As the population moves upscale and can afford more and more luxuries such as personal vehicles, the only question left will be where can they enjoy them? More freeway systems are called for but the disruption caused during construction can be immense. I remember back in 1997 while the Skyway and the Ortigas overpass were being built, the traffic was just as bad as today, and there were fewer cars on the roads! Getting rid of the jeepneys and death-rattle buses is one answer, but hard on the lower income earners who need cheap mass transport. More light rail is another possible solution, but again construction will be a pain. Meanwhile, be as Filipino as you can, smile and go with the flow!

Spending The Day (And Often The Night) With The Whole Family In A Cebu Cemetery Part 1.

The first day of November is All Saints Day. The next day is All Souls Day. Or the other way around. Or both on the one day. It all depends on which explanation from my Asawa I was willing to accept as the right one. It varied each time I asked. I often do that, ask the same question several times or in slightly different ways. The answers rarely remain constant, just another part of the rich tapestry of life in this country.

Basically this is the drum. After Halloween, or all hallows eve, the witches and Onggu’s and evil spirits stop messing about and it’s time to nip down the cemetery, or “cement-tary” in Bisayan, and pay some respects to the dear departed. Apparently they go out and paint the town red on the 31^st October, then settle back into their crypts the next day, ready for the rellies’ visit.

Trying to get anywhere on All Saints/All Souls Day (I’ll combine them for the time being until told otherwise) is not impossible but it is fraught with drama. Buses and jeepneys run from the early hours and all are over loaded, packed to the rafters and then even more hardy souls perch on the roof and risk falling off. This does happen and if lucky they fall to the side which doesn’t have oncoming traffic to contend with! The police and traffic enforcers do actually try and curb the more obvious excesses, at least this is the explanation Asawa gave me this year when I asked why there were so many cops about. Last year it had something to do with overtime payments and the year before that it was a blank stare. Of course that was the first year we were married and communications have improved considerably since.

Having our own vehicle is a big help, of course this now means we can transport the entire family back to the vast family estates in Calape. So I decree that we will leave bright and early, spot on 6am. Naturally the city based family members (and the youngest sister who has been spending her High School break with us), arrive several days before the departure date. This allows them to re-acclimatise with living in close proximity to a foreigner, as well as tuck in to the ice cream, chocolate and other foreigner goodies that are regularly stocked at Chez Bear. Not that I eat them that often, but the Asawa and Anaks have all developed a taste for expensive imported foreigner foodstuffs! So have the rest of the family but I really don’t mind. I enjoy having them around, saves me washing the car, running to the sari sari and lots of other menial tasks.

So as I said, spot on 7am we depart. I am nothing if not Lord of All I Survey, the Supreme Leader! The Asawa pays lip service to my authority as only a “sub-servient” Asian wife can. Not sure how that myth ever got started but it is a standing joke in our household. So off we go, seven souls in a small sedan on All Saints/ All Souls Day. First stop was Jollibee so I could berate the staff for not having the Sausage and Egg Sunrise (like a McMuffin, but sweeter, of course). It is a 50/50 deal whether they will have the only western style breakfast item available during breakfast time. They will have fried chicken and rice, spaghetti, hotdogs, funny noodle dishes and burgers full of sugar but don’t expect them to have any breakfast items. It is all too hard for them to order the ingredients or make the items, far easier to just make the Filipino things they are comfortable with. We later stopped at another Jollibee where the girl was told several times the order was for two of these Sunrises, and of course after a 15 minute wait while they made it, she’d only ordered one. So then we waited another 15 minutes.

Back on the road I introduced the tribe to The Angels, at full volume, of course. Hard Aussie Rock didn’t seem to go down well, but Barry White did. I’ll keep that in mind but listening to the CD three times in a row proved to be too much, even for the most die hard Barry White fan on board. Meanwhile, with the tribe alternately chattering away or sleeping, the kilometres rolled under the wheels and we closed in on Calape. We stopped in Bogo and stocked up with meat and vegetables, UHT “fresh” milk and anything else that would be scarce to non-existent in Calape, like toilet paper.

Bogo has two main cemetery’s and like every other town we had passed through on the way they were doing a roaring trade. Stalls set up along the perimeter fence sold food and drinks, toys, candles, flowers and cell phones. Maybe they thought the dear departed would text them or were simply cashing in on the crowds. The police were there in force wondering whether they should try and control the traffic. While the Asawa shopped I watched and noticed they had a “No Entry” sign up and were trying to operate a one way circuit to ease congestion. After half an hour I saw a discussion take place and the sign was removed, the cops retired to the shade of a cold drink stall and life went on. I was silly enough to venture over and ask one of the cops why had they taken down the “No Entry” sign? He replied that since virtually nobody was taking any notice of it, they might as well take it down and let the traffic get on with it!

ALL SOULS DAY, FILIPINO FAMILY FUN.

Spending The Day (And Often The Night) With The Whole Family In A Cebu Cemetery Part 2.

Bogo has two main cemetery’s and like every other town we had passed through on the way they were doing a roaring trade. Stalls set up along the perimeter fence sold food and drinks, toys, candles, flowers and cell phones. Maybe they thought the dear departed would text them or were simply cashing in on the crowds. The police were there in force wondering whether they should try and control the traffic. While the Asawa shopped I watched and noticed they had a “No Entry” sign up and were trying to operate a one way circuit to ease congestion. After half an hour I saw a discussion take place and the sign was removed, the cops retired to the shade of a cold drink stall and life went on. I was silly enough to venture over and ask one of the cops why had they taken down the “No Entry” sign? He replied that since virtually nobody was taking any notice of it, they might as well take it down and let the traffic get on with it!

Don’t you just love this place? Back home people would obey the sign, or the police would start kicking some butt and make them obey. Here, they accepted the will of the people and simply ceased to try and regulate! I am impressed they took down the sign before handing the streets back to the traffic, that showed guts as well as an acceptance of the inevitable.

Once the Asawa was back with the groceries we drove the final 25 kilometres to Calape. The road is pretty rough in places and full of pot holes. With three adults and two small children in the back the suspension was having a hard time keeping the wheel arches from rubbing away the sidewalls of the tyres. Going home we had four adults, two small children and a baby in the back. To a Filipino all that matters is that you can fit in, any effect you might have on other aspects of the vehicle’s operation, like the suspension, is irrelevant. How many Filipino’s fit into the back of a Mitsubishi Lancer? One more!

Once at the vast family estates the Asawa and I borrowed our motorbike, the Lifan 100cc Super Tourer that we had “loaned to the inlaws last year” and tootled off to see our lot. We have a small farm lot in nearby Bagay and like to visit it whenever we are in Calape. My wife’s maternal grandparents have the lot next to ours so a visit was in order. Lolo the Grandfather was in fine form. Drunk as a Lord!

Within moments of being in the same nipa hut as Lolo I was drunk too! He greeted me like a long lost son ( I have to stop palming him peso’s every time we visit but he is a lovely old bloke). He kept yelling “Ya Tai!” like some pirate of the Caribbean, rolling the last syllable and adding other unintelligible words. Even my Asawa and her Aunt couldn’t understand what he was saying over and over. I decided to quote from Shakespeare’s’ “Henry V”, something I have found handles most situations where you haven’t a clue what to say!

He changed to “arrrgh! Ha tai!” for a while once he realised I meant what I said when I included him in my “band of brothers”. The line about “be he ne’er so vile this day shall gentle his condition” actually made sense to me in a way it never had before! We then “arrrrgh! Ha tai-ed” our way outside where I was able to break free while the Asawa distracted him with some beer money. He is a lovely old gentleman and so is his wife. Well, she smokes hand rolled cigars better than any man I ever met! She can keep the whole thing in her mouth, then open her lips and curl the stogey out on the end of her tongue! At over six hundred years old, that is quite a feat!

We dropped in at the cemetery on the way back, more to check out the roof we had paid for than to really do the All Saints/ All Souls thing. My Asawa would do that later or the next day with her sisters and mother. There were three boys at the plot next to ours. All around 12, one was kicking at the gate to the mausoleum type structure. I asked him if that was his family’s plot and he cast his eyes downward in shame, but replied that yes, it was. I told him to show a little respect to whoever paid for the gate and not kick the “tahi” out of it. If this were Australia, the UK or America you can imagine the response. But this is the Philippines. With eyes cast downwards and a chorus of sorry’s, the three boys ceased kicking the gate and started cleaning up the garbage lying around the plot. That would never happen back home, never!

Back at the stately family manse the cousins were running riot. We now had seven small children taking matters into their own hands. I kicked back with a cold beer and the laptop, the Asawa went to visit an old school chum and the kids went for the world record on decibel production from underdeveloped vocal chords. A feast would be available soon, then an easy evening and tomorrow, back to the city and the daily grind. For now, time to sit back and soak in the local colour. For me, that is a nice amber shade with a white frothy head!

Even More Thoughts On The Importance Of The Expat Exercise Plan.

When I was in the Army I managed to do some fun things, like leap out of perfectly good airplanes. One of the rather interesting characters I met doing this was a Corporal in the British Army’s Parachute Regiment. A rather tough, nuggetty character, he spoke in rapid fire Pom and had a vocabulary even many of us ex-Brits had difficulty following. One word he did use a fair bit and that I understood was “tabbing”.

Tabbing, to tab, to tab it, etc, means walking. Mind you it is at a decent pace that covers a kilometre every 12 minutes or so, or up to 5km an hour. You can go faster, but then you usually arrive in a condition less than fit to fight, and that is what tabbing is all about. Rapid movement forward to the battle by heavily leaden infantry troops.

The Parachute Regiment demonstrated this in 1982 when they tabbed across the Falklands and kicked the stuffing out of the Argentineans. The Royal Marines were doing something similar but called it “yomping”. Hmmmm, I’ll stick with tabbing. Anyway, tabbing is the single best way to get fit and discover the wonders of your neighbourhood.

Recently I accepted a position in Quezon City teaching English to Korean students. I spend three weekends out of four here and then get to fly home to Cebu, at least that’s the plan. So every morning I have been tabbing around the neighbourhood discovering all sorts of interesting things you just simply miss when in a car or jeepney.

For instance, I noted on my EZ-Map of Manila that several streets nearby were named “Sct Mendez” or “Sct Reyes” and so on. What did “Sct” stand for? Scout! They are all streets named after brave Philippine Scouts who died in battle. In fact the area is known as the “Scout” area when looking for houses to rent or buy in the newspaper. If I hadn’t been tabbing the streets I would not have been able to read the little plaques and signs that told me this.

My tactic is to divide my available time in half. I wake up at six am, have a stretch and a yawn and toddle off. I tab briskly in one direction for fifteen minutes, then I turn around and tab back. In thirty minutes I can cover a fair distance and I know I can make it back before breakfast. Sometimes I will meander, just following the streets and then the ten or twenty minutes still up my sleeve for cool down time may get used up if I am farther away at turn around time than I thought or the way back isn’t as direct etc. Usually though the theory holds and I get back in the same time it took me to go out.

So far I have tabbed the main streets and discovered the local swimming pool, tennis court and a really quaint little group of shops and carenderia stalls. Next week I will begin the exploration of some of the twistier minor streets too small to have names on my EZ-Map.

Tabbing is not a stroll. It is a purposeful, military like march that works the cardio-vascular system and gets the blood pumping as you cover ground. When I have every street within fifteen minutes covered, my next plan will be to tab out the jeepney routes that radiate from the next door jeepney terminus like the spokes of a wheel. I will go the full thirty minutes by tab, then hail the first jeepney coming back down the route and get home in a few minutes and five and a half peso’s!

I always carry some ID with me and a few peso in coin and small notes. I drink a lot of water when I get back, but I’m thinking of carrying a bottle also. Tabbing for half an hour consumes the same calories over the distance as if you had run the 2km or however long it was, it just takes longer than running. Tabbing, though is a lot safer on the joints and also if you are overweight and over 40, like me, safer than jogging into an early grave. Give it a try, and discover your neighbourhood!

Eighty Percent Of Filipinos Are Supported By Twenty Percent Of The Population. Part 1.

Overseas Filipino Workers are numbered at about eight million or so. The actual workforce of the country, not counting these “lucky ones” is about the same, according to an article I read in “The Expat” newspaper a few weeks ago. This suggests that out of a nation of 86 million or so, once you take away the over 65 retirees and the under 18 school age citizens, that means only 16 million or so are actually employed. Close to 70 million Filipino’s are out of work or not eligible for work or past their working prime! 70 from 86 as a percentage is 81%.

Eighty One percent of the country are living off the efforts of the other 19% and half of these are not even working within our borders! I just finished reading the Sunday issue of The Manila Bulletin and worked my way through the job ads. Page after page of jobs listed for the Middle East, KSA, UAE, Qatar even Azerbaijan and the Sudan. What is it with these Arabs, can’t they wait on their own tables or train their own people to staff their hospitals? Surely not all of them are busy barrelling up the oil their kitty litter countries float on? In fact I would say none of them actually work as the list of jobs encompasses just about everything you can imagine a society needing to be performed.

Add to this the numerous ads for caregivers for the USA and Canada, nurses for the UK and domestic helpers for Hong Kong, entertainers for Taiwan and teachers for China and you can see why so much of the workforce is heading to NAIA! Those who are left compete tooth and nail for the still numerous jobs available, at least that is how it seems on the surface.

There are several major full page ads asking for call center operators. I even saw one ad offering training in improving your “American Accent”, which apparently would guarantee a better salary and successful placement. Since the course was offered by “expand-your-mind.com” I have my doubts as to its’ validity! It is an indicator of the lengths people will go to to get decent work here, though.

You can’t blame them when the top few get to go overseas and study and then the next tier grab the best local jobs thanks to their education and what remains is fought over by the third tier. Below them are the poor “masa” who are lucky if they can swing a job instead of having to go on “standby” or work a sidewalk stall until moved on by the MMDA. Half of the problem, I believe is easily blamed on the attitudes of the employers.

Every ad for a position includes the criteria of age. Few jobs state they will accept anyone over 30. I rang a few of them up and asked why the candidate had to be under 35 or 30 or whatever age was stipulated. The average, mindless, mean nothing answer was “company policy”! I asked what happened if someone got the job and then a month later had a birthday and thus was no longer within the age range specified, would they be fired? I pressed my luck with a couple and asked them to define “pleasing personality”. I also asked if the lucky job seeker would be penalised if they had the odd day where their personality was perhaps less than pleasing?

Despite what I, a foreigner, might think of the hiring practices in this country, the reality is this is how it is! They can define everything they want in an employee, from looks to height to even waist measurements! Personality, sex, marital status, everything can be included in the criteria! It isn’t fair but then at least it is “honest”. Back home we aren’t allowed to list such discriminatory criteria but of course we apply it. Look how difficult it is for a 52 year old executive to find work after retrenchment. He will go for job after job and fail, but he knows it is because he is “over qualified”. That means the company can hire a kid half his age for half the money and there is nothing he can do about it, they just can’t say as much in the job ad!

Working here is a lot tougher than back in Australia. Employers really do expect a lot more loyalty from their staff and this has to be demonstrated in various ways all the time. Staff call the boss Sir or Ma’am, or Sir Perry, Miss Milet etc, nobody is on first name terms. Staff expect to work overtime and not be paid, it demonstrates their willingness to work and do as they are told. Nobody likes it. Filipino’s get as upset as anyone at being exploited, they just hide it better than we might. A tight employment market and a hungry family will do that to you! The employee is supporting four others at least, remember? (see figures above)

THE EIGHTY TWENTY RULE!

Eighty Percent Of Filipinos Are Supported By Twenty Percent Of The Population. Part 2.

The employment practices in the Philippines promotes the very annoying “Out of Stock” syndrome that drives most of us foreigners at least slightly mad from time to time. It is not the staff members’ job to re-order, but they can’t remind the manager whose job it is that stock needs re-ordering as that would make them appear to think they are smarter than the manager. 

The manager should know when things need to be re-ordered and bringing to their attention their failure to have done so invites wrath and revenge, usually in the form of dismissal. Filipinos can be very (to us foreigners) childlike in their behaviour when slighted and many wouldn’t hesitate to be spiteful and wield their power to fire for such an infringement as telling the manager basically that they aren’t doing their job! I know, to us it would make sense to advise the manager as the manager is human and can’t be expected to know everything, but it doesn’t work like that here!

Once a woman is 25 or 26 it is presumed she will be married and if she is married then of course she will want only to breed, so why advertise for anyone older? Certain professional women may be available for hire into their 30’s, but it is presumed they have a YaYa looking after their children and thus are free to focus on the job. Or the job will clearly state the incumbent must be single! What happens after 35? In three years of monitoring the job ads I have only twice seen ads for someone aged 40, one was a senior accountant and the other a senior chef. Both were for men, of course!

Perhaps one possible explanation for this age-ist mentality is that many Asian families expect that once the children graduate college they will support their parents. If you have four or five kids all handing over most of their pay cheque each month, you can live very well without looking for another job. You make sure you keep control of this income source so that as they marry, they bring the new spouse into the family home or compound and then you exert your influence over the new spouse and strengthen your position using the grandchildren. The alternative to that is that the employee stays with the same company up until retirement age, but often this is only possible for those lucky enough to be in professional positions. They probably enjoy some security from inherited wealth also so they are again more advantaged than the average Filipino.

Regardless of whether they are employed at home or abroad, the Filipino with a job is a happy soul! Even happier it often seems is the Filipino without a job! Somehow they always seem to get by, one day at a time and they have a smile on their face and a ready laugh. Perhaps we can take a leaf from their book and choose to be happy, no matter what life might throw our way. After all, those of us too young to have a pension or retirement income can always fly back to the States or UK or Aussie and get a job. For the Filipino that is often not an option. Even those who do win a coveted place as an OFW know that their income producing years are limited, and the clock is always ticking!

Are There Business Opportunities To Be Had in The Philippines? We Take A Look Each Month.

Here’s my latest and greatest! This is going to be huge! I have gift baskets full of shells that will sell for US$20 to US$30 in a craft shop back East, all day long! How much did I pay for them? Would you believe a buck? One Dollar! And I bought them retail, remember!

The big expense is shipping, of course. I think you could add US$2 each basket if you shipped them by sea, in say a Balikbayan type box. You could easily fit fifty baskets in and that would price it around US$100, so I guess that is within reason. In fact, smart operators would ship for less, much less.

So you add US$5 to each item, by now they are costing you US$8 each, landed in the USA and before customs duties, taxes etc are heaped upon them. Even at US$2 a basket, the shop is paying ten bucks and making 100-200% on top.

What is the secret? The secret is to have the outlet in the USA or Europe or Australia where you can sell your box of gift baskets. I admit US$250 per box isn’t a lot and maybe it will take the shop a season to clear its stock of sea shell gift baskets. Of course, if you can find one shop to take a box, then you can find two, and three and four….. One day, you’ll get that long awaited call from the giftware buyer at Wal-mart and before you know it…

How You Can Get In On The Growing Dairy Industry In The Philippines!

Dairy produce is taken for granted by most of us; at least until we come to the Philippines! I remember my first trip here in the eighties, I craved a milkshake and a decent ham and cheese sandwich! You could order both from Room Service at the 1 star doss house I was staying at in Manila, but the milk was made from powder and the bread was sugar infested Filipino bread, with strange purple ham and high temperature cheese!

Nearly twenty years later the situation has changed considerably. While you can still get the same bread, ham, cheese and powdered milk, you can also buy a much wider range of quality dairy produce in just about any supermarket. Note the location is the “super” market, not the “native”, “local” or any other kind of market. Dairy products are imported, new to the diet and thus more expensive than the average item on sale at the “merchado” or local market. 

Currently, the Philippines is about only 2% self sufficient in dairy production. The National Dairy Authority is aiming at increasing that to 5% this year with an innovative program called “Palit Baka”, more about that later. Imports of milk from Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Europe in various forms set the economy back nearly US$400 million in 2003. As the acceptance of dairy products grows in the A,B and even C classes, we can expect to see that figure grow.

One thing I have always found intriguing is the total absence of goat’s milk and goat’s cheeses. Given every spare plot of dirt has a ruminant or three grazing away and the market rarely has “Kambing” for sale (usually just a hind quarter, co where does the rest of the beast go?), how come nobody milks them and sells the milk or makes cheese or yoghurt?

I turned to the Asawa for guidance and she simply shrugged and said that no Filipino would buy goat’s milk or cheese. No reason, they just wouldn’t. I have learnt not to argue with her too much, especially on matters like this. Still, it seems pretty strange to me, especially when there are some great goat’s milk cheeses to be had and surely fresh goat’s milk is better than nothing at all in the calcium stakes?

But back to the baka, or cows. The NDA website is full of fascinating information and really should be visited. These people are making a very definite effort to improve the health and diet of the average Filipino. They are determined to bring fresh milk and dairy produce within the grasp of just about everybody.

The Palit Baka program basically has farmers borrowing cows and keeping them for a period of a few years. (They can also buy selected animals and at P70,000 each, it might be worth investigating if your in-laws have a few spare plots of grassy land around their house). During this time the breeding program the NDA sponsors is monitored and new cross breeds are developed that can survive the tropical climate. All milk produced that is not consumed by the farmer is sold to the local dairy center and much of it goes back to the poor of the community through subsidised feeding programs for malnourished children. 

Some of the milk of course ends up in the supermarkets and here in Cebu I can buy fresh milk for about the same as “fresh milk”, ie; UHT long life milk. My Asawa calls the UHT (ultra heat treated) milk “fresh milk” as opposed to powdered milk. Growing up in the province they never had (and her parents still never have) UHT “fresh milk”. Powdered milk was the best they could afford and that wasn’t as often as it should have been. Real fresh milk is a novelty and yet slowly she is getting more used to having it around. I find that you really need to finish the fresh milk off in a day or two, whereas back in Australia, even at the height of summer, fresh milk would last three or four days if refrigerated. Even using the same refrigeration practices, local fresh milk turns a little sour within 48 hours of opening.

If you see a bottle of Cebu Fresh Milk in the dairy department of your Gaisano, SM, Robinson’s, Fooda or Rustan’s supermarket, buy it! Help this fledgling industry get off the ground and help improve the diet of the average Filipino. The more real fresh milk that is produced and sold, the more chance there is that dairy products will become more affordable and more available to everybody in this country.

New Trends In New Business Opportunities!

Last month saw a Franchise Expo at Ayala Mall, hosted by Franchise Agents RK Franchise Consultancy. Rudolf Kotik, the founder of RK wasn’t there, but his Visayan representative Buddy Villasis was. Buddy is an intelligent, personable professional who was very open and forthcoming about the Consultancy and the franchise opportunities they managed and offered to potential franchisees here in Cebu. They have business opportunities going from a little more than US$1000 up to major investments in big name franchises.

I looked at the franchises on offer and noticed how there is a growing number of coffee shop opportunities. To me this proves there is a spreading trend to enjoy what is really a bloody expensive drink when you realise most cappuccino’s and latte’s start around P50 and go up from there! The Coffee Beanery, Indulgence Coffee, The Java Man, and a couple more are all on offer.

Food franchises do take up the majority of those offered but there were also educational and consultancy type franchises offered, as well as service oriented businesses such as massage studios. Wraps!, Rai-Rai-Kan, Kookels’, Ice Castles and others handled the food section. PC Quick Buys were there for computers, House of Praise for religious CDs and lots of other brands on show.

My favourite food franchise that was on offer is Dunkin’ Donuts. Me and the Anonymous Bear both love the Bavarians! We could buy into a franchise in Mindanao somewhere, but sadly everything on Cebu is taken! With Dunkin’ Donuts you can’t just buy a cart or kiosk or open a store, you need to buy the are or regional master franchise and then run things in the region, including setting up your own bakery. Big Money!

Out of all the 20 or so booths on display and the 70 or more franchises RK manage my favourite was the Kuryente Electrical Shop franchise. This is a nice looking concept that really should be looked into further because you could own a shop from around US$10,000 that will do well because light bulbs blow! What I couldn’t believe is they don’t have either a web site or an email address! Now that could be an opening for an intrepid web designer to leap in and make some money. If you want to know more, I would suggest you contact Buddy and ask him about Kuryente, I really think it just might take off! Otherwise, call Daisy Rafal on 0927 916 0565 and ask why they haven’t got a web site in this day and age!

It didn’t take too long to check out the entire expo, but what I saw was promising. There are much larger trade shows I Manila, but it was good to see someone trying something here in Cebu. I would suggest anyone with the intention of getting into a small business, either for themselves, their Asawa or an inlaw, contact Buddy and tell him you heard it here first!