Philippines Books

Taking A Look At The Cost Of A Pregnancy

Last month we took a peek at how much it costs to leave this mortal coil. This month we’ll start at the beginning and discuss bringing a new Filipino into the world. I have only been responsible for one new mouth to feed in this burgeoning land, but I have done my research and it is interesting how the costs and what you get for your peso varies from place to place. I can’t comment on Manila, although I have been led to believe the situation is pretty similar and prices fairly consistent.

So, you and the Asawa are about to enjoy the blessed event, you’re in the family way, she has a bun in the oven or, as they say in Visayan, she is Buntis! Well done but now you have to suffer the mood swings of the first trimester, the incredible urges of the second trimester and the dragged out interminable length of the third trimester! Personally I wouldn’t want to suffer through that again and I remind the Asawa of this whenever the subject arises. Since she is a Filipina and we only have two kids (I inherited a lovely daughter) this subject does arise often. She also thinks I would have an illegitimate child with another woman providing it is son! As far fetched as that sounds to us foreigners, it is perfectly reasonable to a Filipina.

If you think you are too old to become a Daddy (again perhaps), then stay away from the Philippines. I know men who have fathered at the age of 73 and men hitting retirement age at 65 and being a new parent at the same time is not at all a rare occurrence here. Some might argue how fair that is for the child, will they ever really know their father? Who knows? People are living longer these days and if having a child with a woman 30 or 40 years your junior keeps you feeling young, who is to say what is and isn’t right? 

What is important is that if you have the child, make sure you look after the poor little tyke! That care starts as soon as you know the Asawa is pregnant. Women are funny creatures and I haven’t all the answers but I have learnt that what might seem trivial to us mere males is of vital significance to a pregnant Filipina. Keep in mind they may be sensitive and insecure to begin with and all of a sudden they are burdened with bringing a new life into the world. She wouldn’t be the first woman to wonder if you are going to stick around until and then after the big day! Some reassurance, no matter how trite and banal it might sound to your male ears, just might make all the difference.

Remember women go through some major hormonal swings when pregnant, it is a big deal after all. You really have to give them a lot of leeway and put up with a great deal of BS, for want of a more apt term! Not just the regular female pregnant BS, but the stuff that has her wearing black bra and panties to keep the Onggu’s away, or stuffing leaves in the window sills and pinning black patches onto her clothing. I must admit the Juju works as we didn’t get one Onggu coming around wanting to rip into the foetus! Some of these Onggu’s actually cut themselves in half and fly away into the night, then crash through the roof and drop onto the sleeping mum to be and devour the baby! Not worth the risk! Get the black knickers and keep them handy!

You also need to keep away from old women down the market. Many of these crones are actually Onggu’s themselves and love to disrupt the pregnancy by touching the swelling belly. They cluck and make cooing noises but in reality they are sucking the vitality out of the unborn! Don’t let it happen and make sure she has her Anting Anting pinned to her black bra!

Now, should you make it to the big day, you will have had to attend a pre-natal every month. Or maybe not! Some women can’t afford it or don’t want the expense, others will rely on the Barangay Quack Doctor or local midwife. Personally I have a lot of faith in these midwives. They have seen just about everything there is to see when it comes to Ob-Gyn work! Forget Stanford Medical School or wherever, these old hags have been in the front line for generations.

Our local Quack successfully turned our baby when it was threatening a breech presentation and the rather expensive, US trained Ob-Gyn specialist in Cebu was too scared to risk trying this. Of course I was left in ignorant bliss about what was happening to my child or maybe I would have stuck my fat foreigner face in where it turned out not to be needed.

Now at first we wanted the local doctor in the province to handle the pre-natal and delivery but she refused. It seems us foreigners have a reputation of complaining about everything and not finding local standards up to snuff. Actually, for a rural practise I have always felt Dr Dublin runs a pretty tight ship up there in Daanbantayan. Anyway, we had already cancelled our Cebu Doctors’ Hospital Specialist after the breech presentation fiasco and we didn’t think we’d make it down to Cebu in time anyway. Or else we would have to hang around in a hotel there for a week racking up the bills. Plus when I told the Asawa she could spend whatever she saved on some nice jewellery she was quite happy to look for something cheaper than the P25,000 (starting price and providing here were no complications) Cebu Doctor’s were charging. If she needs a caesarean and quite often the wives of foreigners do, that will set you back at least P50,000 or so at Chung Hua or Cebu Doctors’.

There are packages in Cebu at the Cebu Maternity Hospital from about P10,000 and this includes all the pre-natal check ups, ultra sounds and so on. A friend of ours insisted his wife have their child there as it was a maternity hospital and not a hospital full of sick people. If you have seen your average Filipino hospital you would understand his point. Basic hygiene is ignored as money for cleaners and maintenance is pocketed by the administrators and nursing staff are too proud of their professional status to clean walls and windows. Or do much else other than stand around and chat!

My sister in law had a P10,000 package deal at the Vellez Hospital but when she had complications and later, tragically died, the limitations of the “package” became evident. We could not move her to a private, aircon room because then we would have to pay for the doctor’s visits. Even though the room was right next to the public one she had been in for days! The rigid adherence to ridiculous “hospital policy” amidst emergency situations and surrounded by a total lack of professionalism really does make us foreigners wild. Perhaps Dr Dublin knew a thing or two I didn’t?

In the end we spent around P12,000 and had the baby delivered at Medellin Base Hospital. We had to buy our own delivery kit for the doctor and her team to use in the delivery room! This cost a few thousand but the local drug stores know what’s on the list and stock everything. Make sure you insist on pain killers for the wife for before and after delivery, the word epidural was unknown to the midwife! The doctor had heard of the term but since few of her patients could afford such luxury, she never wrote a script for it!

Be there and make sure you know what is supposed to happen because not all of the staff may know much about nursing, first aid, basic health and hygiene etc. Just because they graduated nursing school doesn’t mean much in my experience. I studied my US Army Special Forces Medical Handbook, an absolute must for any Expat! When the nurse brought my newborn daughter to me, I knew enough to know she had fluid on the lung and needed to be drained and ventilated. I turned her over and fluid poured out of her! Frightening.

My oldest daughter was born at home with just my father in law assisting. It thankfully went without a hitch as the midwife was delayed and of course, it was virtually free. However, although babies have been born since Adam was a lad, maybe I’m too much of a modern day wimp. Pay the money and get the best medical care for your wife and new born that you can afford. And be thankful you can afford it.

A Few Thoughts On The Importance Of The Expat Exercise Plan.

I came back from two years of living in the Philippines 12kg (26lb) heavier than when I had left Australia. I was several inches wider and I could hardly tie my shoe laces without panting. I am sure my blood pressure was up there somewhere I didn’t want to go and I know I was in line for the hereditary diabetes since I was knocking back 2 litres of Coke a day, the cola drink not the narcotic.

I was in bad shape and it hadn’t happened overnight. Two years of sedentary living, even when I was working it was pushing a mouse and keyboard around for a living, had gradually pushed me up and over the self set bounds of comfort. I smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day, slept badly and snored like a freight train. Something had to give sooner or later.

After the first week of stuffing my face with real bread, enjoying not sweating, ever, shivering and scraping ice off the windscreen of the car, I got to work on myself. First thing was to get an exercise routine happening so it would become a habit.

Just as not exercising can become a habit, the reverse is true and far better for you. The secret is to take it so easy to begin with you are champing at the bit to get sweaty and really work out. Everything is about pleasure and pain, so associate more pleasure with exercising and more pain with being a couch potato and you have the motivation thing beat!

I use the Royal Canadian Air Force 5BX program, or at least my version of it. 5BX and 10BX were the fitness fads of the sixties at some point although originally developed as an exercise regime for flight crews. My version is you pick five simple exercises and do them five times each as soon as you get out of bed. I did a waist spin, a deep knee bend, a side stretch, an arm swing and a bend over and touch my toes set of five each side. At first it hurt and I could hardly do these five simple exercises!

Gradually, each day got easier but I resisted the temptation to try and rip along to 10BX. The regular, simple, limited exercise started to not only get me in the habit of doing SOMETHING, but it got the blood flowing and stopped the foot cramps and other problems lack of circulation had been causing. Sitting in front of a computer can bring on pain in the feet, cramps in the stomach, all sorts of weird ills and aches all due to not using muscle groups. Use it or lose it!

The next thing I did was quit smoking. I had known that going from fifty cents a pack to ten dollars a pack would be both a shock and a good incentive to quit. In the three and something months since I last smoked, I have not smoked 2300 plus cigarettes! Can you imagine laying out over two thousand cigarettes in front of you and saying, ok, stick each one in your face, set it alight and suck in the carcinogens! So far I have not spent (can’t really say saved as where is the money?) AUD$920 (US$644 or P36,000). Awesome!

How did I do it? Firstly I had nicotine patches (three of them) but I never used them. They can cost as much as the cigarettes and can be just as hard to quit as they are merely a different method of nicotine delivery. I just got my head around it and associated more pleasure with quitting and more pain with staying a smoker. The money factor helped, especially when I rationalised I was here, away from my wife and kids to make money, not set fire to it. Believe me, the mental factor is the major one and unless you really have a handle on your personal motivation for quitting, it ain’t going to happen!

Then I had to look at my diet. That came about after I lost a sedentary job selling cars and got another, more active job working with road repair crews. One of my old martial arts students owns the company and two of the old gang work for him. They found me just when I needed a job and, unknowingly, a change of lifestyle. Funny how these things happen!

I went onto a low carbohydrate diet, cut out sugar, bread, potatoes, rice, noodles etc. Ate lots of meat and fat and suffered for the first two weeks as my body cleansed itself of the toxins and sugar. I was already sleeping better from quitting smoking, but now I slept even better still without the glucose spikes and sugar rushes. Check out the Atkins Diet for yourselves, it may be what you need, it may not. I’m not a nutritionist or a health professional, I’m just telling you what worked for me!

So now I am back in Cebu several kilos lighter, cleansed of my nicotine addiction and feeling so much more active and physically fit than ever before. I am walking everyday, using the wonderful pavement (sidewalk) the Cebu South Road provides, the only decent walking track in the entire province! I am starting to get back into a Boxing Workout (I used to be a professional Boxing Trainer and before that an Inter-Service Heavyweight Boxer in the Army) I drink only Diet Coke or water, have less caffeine each day and each one of those has half the sugar they used to have. Once or twice a week I drink booze and every now and then I eat whatever the heck I want, then get back on track!

Not eating bread is easy here, the same goes for potatoes and the rice I consume is far less than before and always washed for starch after cooking. I eat less each meal and move more and the weight is staying off. More importantly, I have more energy for doing stuff with my kids. So many of us expats marry women half or more our own age and then start a new, young family. We owe it to them and ourselves to be around to enjoy the family and the new lease on life as long as we can. Taking better care of yourself is the first step. It really has made a world of difference for me.

A Quick Look At A Question Many Ask Before A First Visit.

I am not a Doctor or qualified medically any further than a fairly competent First Aider with a fair amount of trauma management experience courtesy of the Army, scuba diving, sailing and getting
around a bit.  I had a full set of “jabs” as we called them way  back in 1968 before accompanying my father on his posting to Singapore with the Royal Air Force.  When I joined the Australian Regular Army in 1978 I went through the full regime of just about every shot in the book except Yellow Fever and Anthrax.  Later, when I volunteered for active service in Namibia (South West Africa) as part of the UNTAG Force I was given that all important Yellow Fever jab and a few more besides!  Talk about sick!  I’m not sure which jab did the deed (the smart money was on the Cholera jab) but one of them laid me, and everyone else, pretty low for a day or so.  Of course the Army gave us the jabs on a Friday
and before the effects took hold, announced we had the weekend free. Free to roll around  in our beds and groan, vomit and so on!

Since those long ago days I have travelled a fair bit in South East Asia and all over the Philippines and have never needed to show any vaccination certificates or have ever been advised to get any.  I have
a friend who was caught on a bus in India once by a UN WHO team of injector freaks!  Apparently the bus was stopped and two guys with grubby white coats and face masks got on and started  injecting
everyone on the bus with this vaccination gun. Same needle for all of course!  My mate was frantic trying to find his yellow card (international vaccination certificate) to prove he had already been given everything under the sun but the Hepatitis or HIV/AIDS that communal needle was probably spreading!  He came close to smacking the jabbers and bailing out through the back window but finally he was able to convince them not to inject him and his girlfriend.

Horror stories like that are common in India, but to my experience nonexistent here in the Philippines.  I have had Dengue Fever, but you can’t immunise against that anyway.  I am sure Typhus is lurking somewhere in the sewers, awaiting a flood or landslide but since I find little to fascinate me in slum areas, the risks are low.  Smallpox and any other similar disease is fairly well controlled and I doubt you would catch it.  Distemper may be something to worry about, or is that only dogs that catch that?  Be aware of course that Rabies occurs here (Australia is rabies free so we tend to be ignorant of the disease) so watch out for monkey bites and dogs acting strangely.

I would be more concerned about Tetanus from standing on a rusty nail while wearing flip flops than anything else.  Make sure your tetanus shot is up to date, I think they last only 5 years or so.  They are available here very cheaply so don’t panic if you are reading this on the airplane enroute to Manila!

There are courses of vaccinations for various types of Hepatitus, I believe.  I also have been told that you need to take the course long before leaving home, the shots are spread out over several months and if you contract the disease in between the first and last shot you’ve wasted your money.  Please, correct me if I am wrong and feel free to email in more up to date or accurate info!  Hepatitus can be avoided by applying good hygiene habits and watching what and where you eat, but I have been coming to the Philippines since 1988 and lived here constantly for over 2 years and haven’t had any problems bar the odd bout of food poisoning.  Nothing I haven’t suffered back in Sydney, either I might add.

Malaria is always a possibility but a rare one and the prophylactics available are hardly worth the effort in my opinion.  Some require you take them before, during and after the trip and others are daily, some weekly and of course there is no guarantee you won’t catch a new  strain the treatment isn’t effective over!  Cover your arms and legs after dark and use a bug spray!  When it comes to Dengue, that’s a different species of mossie, so spray and cover during the day time, particularly
in the wet season.  I treated the symptoms with paracetemol for the aching back pain and lots of fluids, plenty of rest and an eye kept on my gums in case it turned haemorrhagic.  If you do start bleeding, then go to a hospital as they can at least keep your plasma levels up or whatever they do.

Other than that, I really can’t see how a series of vaccinations will do you any good other than maybe as a placebo to calm your apprehension of journeying into the unknown.  I am open to correction from professionals and those who know more than I do on this subject, in fact I welcome it!  If I am wrong, then please correct me.  If you are not sure then go and get professional advice and take what precautions you are advised to take.  Meanwhile, few things in life are ever fatal!

I don’t know why, but many men think marrying a Filipina means they don’t have to work at the marriage like they would if they married a woman from their own country.  Filipina’s are women, just the same as American females or English females. Women. A strange breed to us men and full of surprises.

We choose Filipina’s in the most part because they accept us as we are, more so than the women back home.  Modern American women, for instance, seem hellbent on proving that they are not just our equals, but superior to us mere males.  OK, maybe they are, but the Filipina is more inclined to let us
believe we are in charge!  They are more old fashioned, the kind of woman Dad married and all of that, but they are women all the same. So, after the killer divorce and the cleaning out of your bank account
you turn your attention eastwards and look for solace in the loving arms of a woman maybe 20 years your junior (on average), maybe more.  What have you two got in common?  Why is she willing to accept you, a fat, forty plus foreigner, maybe fifty or sixty plus? She is this exotic, 20 something beauty, why you?

There are as many reasons as there are Filipina’s, but two or three seem pretty constant and recurring.  Firstly, you are the exotic one.  She will want children and the Filipino obsession with fair skin and western features means the offspring will be guaranteed to be beautiful!

Secondly, most Filipina’s either have difficulty judging our age ( a common thing with many Asian women) or prefer a more mature man.  A man less likely to stray and more likely to stay.  And usually more financially secure. Which brings us to reason number three. The majority of western men who marry a Filipina do not marry into money. They do not court and wed a young lady, half their age, from the monied classes.  They marry women from the lower socio-ecoomic strata. That’s pretty much a fact.  What else is a fact is that the rich Filipino’s daughter has everything she needs, money, education, travel potential and thus doesn’t need an average Joe from Hangnail, Iowa to sweep her off her feet and to a life of luxury in the land of plenty.

The girl you are most likely to meet will be lucky if she ever went to college. If she did, I doubt it was the Filipino Ivy League variant.  Her family will be large, extended and some may be looking forward to your largesse, even if the immediate family are not.  Her English may not be as fluent as first thought, there will be numerous opportunities to practise your communication skills in the years to come as she takes your words and interprets them completely about face to how they were intended.

However, despite her humble origins, she will be loving, loyal and dedicated to your well being. Most of them will be, anyway.  There are bad apples in the Filipina barrel the same as there are men you would be ashamed to inflict upon your ex-wife! To her, even a regular working stiff has a life of plenty she has only dreamed  of. If you take her back to the States, she will have a major period of adjustment to get through, and so will you.  Don’t expect her to know the “simplest” things we take for granted, like what goes in the refrigerator and what doesn’t.  Everything will go in there and on a plate covered by another plate, even if you have a saran wrap factory dumping free samples in your
backyard.

It won’t be long before you are faced with the eternal question: how much do you give to the family back in “da province”, if anything? How do you say enough is enough?  At some stage there will be an emergency and you will want to help.  At other times you may feel like a walking ATM machine with a
neon sign on your head reading “patsy”.  Your mileage will vary as eac marriage is different, but here are a few tips I have gathered from friends and my own experience.

Set a limit to how much she is allowed to remit to her family each month.  A  hundred bucks goes a long way over here and shouldn’t break anyone’s bank, especially if both of you are working.  It helps the family out while not giving anyone an excuse to give up their job and hang around the Western Union office every second day.  (Western Union, by the way, is an expensive but fast and reliable way to send money. I’d advise you find another way as the fees get pretty high.)  Sending too much means family members just might not have any reason to work and support themselves.  Sending too little is stingy and insulting, better to send nothing.  Some couples never send any money on a regular basis
simply to avoid having relatives depend on them for their livelihood. Some people I know only send money when a specific request is made, such as for a funeral, birth, hospital emergency etc. In some families, they lead lives far more exciting than the average soap opera cast and seem to be forever in
dire peril.

Everyone needs to set their own limits, and make sure you do make at least a mental decision to give X and no more.  If your wife works then it is fair enough to let her decide how much of her salary she will send to her family. Some may send all because they are so warm and generous by nature. Others may do the same but only to show off to the family back home. Family ties are strong and not always clear cut, so don’t be in a hurry to apply your homespun American values on your new Filipina bride. Take the time to really learn why she does as she does.

Then there will be the time when you simply can’t afford to send what is asked, or you don’t want to.  Everyone has a limit.  The best way to deal with a request for money is to tell whoever is asking that you will think about it. It’s a lot of money and you need time to assess the request.  Then you do nothing.  If they ask again, you can tell them you are still thinking. By now they should have taken your polite hint that the answer is no.  If they ask a third time, either the situation is desperate, or the borrower is. That’s up to you to decide.

Never loan money to relatives, always consider it a gift, even if the arrangement is, on the surface, a loan.  That way if you never see the money again, for whatever reason, you aren’t disappointed.  Another way to handle the request is to tell them that you can’t afford it this month, but you will see if you have enough next month.  If they ask again next month, then repeat the excuse.

The whole secret is to never say “NO” directly.  There is no reason to say the “N” word, Filipino’s don’t.  That is why they will take your order for a drink, knowing full well they are out of stock of whatever it was you ordered. It is more important that they don’t offend you than actually serve you  what you ordered. Get it?  So do the same and nobody will be upset. Simple. More or  less! 

GETTING YOUR DRIVER’S LICENSE
TRANSFERRED

If you visit the Philippines for less than ninety days you are entitled to drive a vehicle, similar to what your home license allows, without the need for an International License or to obtain a Philippine Driver’s License.  If you plan to stay, and drive, longer than three months, then I would advise you to
obtain the local document.

Many might wonder why on earth you would want to drive here anyway, given the seeming chaos on the roads and the cheap and available alternatives. Quite frankly, I have only ridden with one or two Filipino driver’s who I would say come close to my skill and experience with a motor vehicle.  Most
drivers here are self taught and haven’t a clue about road safety.  Neither have the pedestrians, dogs, chickens, carabaos, goats etc.

The policing of the road rules is arbitrary at best and everyone does pretty
much what they like, with scant regard for the consequences.  When God is protecting them, they have little need for decent brakes, seat belts or common sense.  The amazing thing is that there are not more accidents than occur.  Don’t believe those who tell you the accident rate here is low. It isn’t! If you drive often enough and in the major cities, you will see plenty of prangs!  Official figures are misleading because few accidents are reported. What keeps the death toll down is that many of the accidents are low speed “fender benders” in heavy traffic.  However, I have seen more than  my share
of higher speed fatal accidents on the major carriageways and country roads, usually involving trucks, buses, jeepneys and other large vehicles carrying multiple passengers.  Another factor is the Filipino attitude is generally much less insistent on “right of way” than it is in the west.  I have often said if you could blend the discipline of the western driver with the attitude of the Filipino, you would have the safest roads in the world.  The best advice is to never be in a hurry and always expect the dumbest, most dangerous option to be the one chosen by Dong in his jeepney.

I once offered the theory of the “Rule of Threes” as to who give way to whom.  If you have three times as many passengers, three axles or more or three times the gross tonnage, you have right of way.  Three times the speed of the rest of the traffic, three quarters of your vehicle or more over the center
line or three times the decibel level from your horn and you are sweet! Number of wheels helps too. Two wheels gives way to three, three to four and four to multiple axled vehicles, with a fudge factor for vehicle width and velocity.  Cost of vehicle plays a part, the more expensive your car, the more
arrogantly you assume everyone must get out of your way.

So if you still insist on driving here and you have gone past ninety days, what do you do?  You go to the LTO, or Land Transportation Office.  Not every LTO issues licenses, make sure it is a larger, regional office.  The main LTO in Cebu now issues the plastic card “permanent license” the same day,
allegedly.  I waited 8 months for mine after being told it would take six at the Danao branch.  In the interim I had a paper “temporary license”.

As a foreigner you can’t have a “professional” license as this is only for those who earn a living driving, like taxi drivers and this and most all land transportation jobs are off limits to foreigners.  So you get a “non-professional” license.  Make sure you specifiy motorcycle and car if you want to ride a
motorbike. Even if your home license isn’t endorsed for a motorbike, they should give you the “restriction” on your Filipino license. (1 and 2)  Once at the LTO, push through the milling crowd and go to the window marked licenses. Ignore the “fixers”, they’ll only cause you grief. Usually your
foreigner face will get you inside asap.  Ask for the form to transfer your license, fill it out, or up, as they say here.  Then you will go for a drug test.  Nearby will be several “Diagnostic Centers” where you will pay P250-300 and pee in a cup. I was told I was drug free but four months pregnant.  Actually,
my sample wasn’t even checked!  Then you need a health check.  At Mandaue there are several doctors offices nearby where you go and have your blood pressure checked, answer some questions, do an eye test and that’s it.  

At Danao I had to tramp around the municipal offices paying for a stamp, then getting a receipt, then being checked etc. Mandaue was much simpler. Once you have the drug test receipt and the health receipt, return to the LTO.  They will then get you to copy the answers for the test onto the back of
your form. Only copy answers 1-40, as 41-60 are for professional licenses. Copying the answers is the authorised procedure, so don’t make a big deal about it.

They don’t have the resources to properly test anyone, which is evident on the roads.  So once you copy the answers, you go and get a photo taken and they print out your temporary license.  You pay P500 and then get another photo taken for the permanent license, ready in six months. Apparently they have to be sent to Manila for some reason, although the LTO offices in Cebu and Davao (not Danao) can issue the same day.  Given Mandaue LTO is about five miles from the Cebu LTO, I wonder why they can’t…..nevermind, this is the Philippines.

So off you go and when you return in six months, hopefully your permanent licenese will be ready to be picked up.  It is valid for two to three years, depending when you had your last birthday, which will be the day used to calculate renewal. All up it should cost around P1000 or so, although the official fees on the LTO website don’t quite match what everyone pays.

Check out the government websites listed in another article this issue for more details and drive safely.  (The author was a Military Police Advanced Driving Instructor, specialising in Defensive and
Protection Driving, as well as having raced, rallied, instructed in off road driving for Land Rover Australia and driven well over a million kilometres accident free. As a Military Policeman he attended numerous fatal and non-fatal traffic accidents. He has also received advanced driving instruction from several civilian schools, driven in Europe, Asia the USA and New Zealand in addition to Australia.  He holds licenses for cars, trucks, forklifts, buses, motorbikes and armoured fighting vehicles, one of which he often wished he owned here in  Cebu.) 

With over 20 years hands-on experience in the Philippines, Perry Gamsby is considered an authority on the facts of expatriate life in this fascinating archipelago.  As well as having a Filipina wife, four children and the requisite extended Filipino family, Perry is a teacher of Filipino Martial Arts and a former travel editor of the country’s leading map and travel atlas publisher. Five years ago he created Streetwise Philippines Inc. publishing eBook guides to the Philippines for expat readers.

His first book and to date, still the best seller, is “Philippine Dreams” (also sold in some markets as “StreetWise Philippines”). This comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of Filipinas, the Philippines and his own decision to move to the Philippines and pursue his dream of living in a tropical paradise strikes a chord with all who read it.  Written in an entertaining yet informative style, the eBook explores life and living in the Philippines in a special way: “This is what happens, this is why it happens, this is what you as an expat can do to understand what happens.” You can read more about Philippines Dreams at http://www.philippine-dreams.com/ 

“Philippine Dreams” created a demand for more information, especially about the four most important topics of the matrix:  meeting a Filipina, marrying and migrating a Filipina, putting a roof over your head if you decided to live in the Philippines and finding ways to pay for all of this!  The results were “Filipina 101-How To Meet The Filipina of Your Dreams” (co-written with his Filipina wife, Amelita) and “Filipina 202 – How To Marry And Migrate Your Dream Filipina”. These valuable guides dismiss the misinformation and stereotyping of the Filipina on the many online dating/matchmaking sites and provide a balanced and informative guide to men looking for Filipina wives.   You can read more about these guides at  http://www.filipina101.com and http://www.filipina202.com  

Perry then released “The Philippines Property Primer – The StreetWise Guide to Buying, Renting or Leasing Property”.  This is a ‘first read’ real estate guide for anyone contemplating buying, renting or leasing property in the Philippines.  Over the years, as well as buying, leasing and renting several properties himself in the Philippines, Perry has observed many people lose large amounts of money in property here; most of the time because they are not dealing with legitimate sellers or they have not protected their investment by taking the simple precautions listed in the eBook.  The Philippines Property Primer has all of the basic information you need to assist you in making a more informed decision.  You can read more about The Philippines Property Primer at http://www.philippinespropertyprimer.com/   

THE LATEST RELEASE FROM STREETWISE PHILIPPINES

Although the topic of how to make a living in the Philippines was covered in brief in “Philippine Dreams”, the response from readers was so insistent that a new, updated and more in depth guide on how to support yourself and your family in the Philippines has been released.  “MAKING A LIVING IN THE PHILIPPINES – The StreetWise Guide To Business, Employment and Investing”, will tell you what you need to know to operate a small business, get a job or invest in a tightly regulated, highly competitive and immensely volatile marketplace.  It has been written with the average guy in mind; the everyday guy without the big retirement income set-up or pre-arranged ‘fatcat’ expat job contract who wants to escape to the Philippines and live every day with the Filipina of his dreams but still needs to make a living! 

You can read more about “Making A Living In The Philippines” at http://www.makingalivinginthephilippines.com/  or check out all the Streetwise Philippines publications at http://www.streetwisephilippines.com/  The eBook, contains a wealth of information otherwise impossible to glean without having been there, done that.  In the safety of your own home you can learn first hand what is required to survive in a third world economy and be better equipped to decide if you should risk selling up and making that life changing move!

This E-Book will explain to you everything you need to know to start up a small business, get a job or invest in the Philippines!