I had left my place of employment in Quezon City seven hours before my flight was due to depart.  Being PAL it would be later than that, of course.  In nearly twenty years of flying with PAL I can’t remember when they weren’t late, hence their slogan, “Planes Always Late”.  I was hoping to snatch a standby seat on an earlier flight but that was not to be.  Seven hours up ones’ sleeve is a bit much, even for Manila and despite the stupidity of the taxi driver who actually hit the world’s longest car park (EDSA) five kilometers, half an hour and fifty peso on the meter before he had to if he had known his way around.

Still, two hours to the airport wasn’t the worst time ever recorded.  The lines at the security checkpoint just to get in were horrendously long and of course full of Filipino’s more important than others, pushing their way to the front wherever a turned back or lapsed attention allowed.

Mind you, standing in a long queue with nothing to do but watch the pretty Filipina’s walk by isn’t the hardest duty to pull on this earth.  There were several very obvious “Japanuki’s”, Filipina’s who had just returned from working as an entertainer in Japan.  You could tell them by one of two ways,  They either displayed a loud, garish and weird dress sense picked up from the Japanese girls or they were in the company of a middle aged Japanese man and one or both displayed loud garish and weird dress sense. The colour blind slutty schoolgirl look is in this season.

There were several bargirls heading home for the holidays with their foreigner boyfriends, standing out like sore thumbs as they flaunted their wealth in a way only a poorly educated gal from the provinces going home with cash to spare could do.  The boyfriends were also of a type; older, larger and doting on their diminutive dates.  One or two wore shorts and shoes with black business socks!  Nothing looks worse than black ankle length socks worn with shoes and shorts.  Buy some white sports socks for goodness’ sake!

The married couples, bringing home the anaks for the grandparents to dote over for the first time were also obvious.  Either she was dolled to the nines to show it was her first trip back or she was dressed well down showing how used to the whole tiring trip she had become over the years.  Either way it was the kids that got the doting over.  Romance may not have been dead in the marriages but was probably (and sensibly) on hold until after the stress of travelling with junior was over with.  At least until the trip back to Minneapolis or Manchester or Melbourne or maybe Munich.

Rich Filipino’s were everywhere, vying for who was most important, even though nearly every flight to the far flung provinces they called home were serviced by aircraft without a Business Class.  Never mind, buy an overpriced pastry at Delifrance and make sure someone sees you doing it!  The drive to the airport had been interrupted several times by convoys of window tinted Expeditions and Suburbans with motorcycle outriders and ominous looking bodyguards following in the Revo.  Sirens and horns and flashing lights everywhere.  Get out of my way, I’m more important than you, I can afford an entourage!

I even saw one convoy that had three outriders who were not armed and not Police.  It seemed to me they were a civilian escort service with police like motorcycles.  I must confess having done the job myself when I was in the Military Police, these civvy’s did a better job of controlling intersections than the Police I had seen trying several times.  I guess you get what you pay for!

I thought one convoy might be Erap heading for his flight to Hong Kong, due today unless someone threw a conscience ridden spanner in the works.  Then I figured since he had attended FPJ’s funeral yesterday by helicopter he wasn’t going to fight the traffic in the back of a Benz!

My taxi ride by the way, cost P245, at least P70 over the average fare and thirty minutes longer than necessary thanks to the drivers’ ignorance and incompetence.  His driving was erratic and amateurish and I think he has a lineal recognition issue to deal with.  We never seemed to sit within a lane, just straddled the white lines!  Nevertheless we made it and with no chance of getting an earlier flight, I settled in for an afternoon of working on the laptop and sipping over -priced coffee at the aforementioned Delifrance.

 Before I knew it I was boarding my flight and we were less than ten minutes late, a new PAL record!  Next challenge, getting a Cebu cabbie to use the meter!

The Pollo Diavalo was, to be honest, superb!  The Maple Butter that covered the succulent breast of chicken spread its’ tasty treats onto the accompanying vegetables, the bread was still warm and the butter spread itself without complaint.  I was thoroughly enjoying the meal, and the old guy on the grand piano running through a medley of old standards.

The Jameson’s Irish Whiskey was a nice surprise, not many places even in Makati carry much in the way of whiskies other than Johnny Walker or J&B, even getting a decent bourbon can be an iffy proposition.  Somehow, the meal, the malt and the mood were just right.  I felt decadent, just like the Manila social set dancing, dining and drinking the night away as the army pulled out and Macarthur declared Manila an open city over 62 years ago.

The rain was literally lashing the windows of the Italian restaurant on Tomas Morato Avenue, Quezon City.  Outside it was black, bleak, wet and windswept but “for awhile” I could sit back and enjoy the ambience of the restaurant and the pianist and just enjoy myself.  I rarely enjoy a meal in a restaurant here in the Philippines as much as I was savouring this one.  Admittedly the staff had to leave the plates just that little bit too long before being reminded to clear them away and for some reason my Jameson had taken rather longer to arrive than you would think, given the proximity of my table to the bar, but this is the Philippines. 

If you want perfect service of a standard you would expect in a western restaurant, go to the west!  At least the waitresses were pretty, friendly and tried their best.  If you don’t grow up in an environment that values and demonstrates efficiency then you can hardly be expected to have any idea of what proper silver service is all about.  I called for the bill and after a fairly lengthy delay it arrived.  Three Jameson’s and two cokes plus the superb chicken? About fifteen bucks! I’m not normally this extravagant but what the hey, there’s a typhoon coming!

My meal over with, I decided to head up to Mickey Dee’s for my favourite dessert, a caramel sundae.  Forget the fancy Tiramisu’s and Gelati, give me good old vanilla soft serve ice cream with caramel flavouring any day!  I even bypassed Seattle’s Best Coffee, Starbucks’, Figaro, Liberia, Mocha Blends, Gloria Jeans’ and Baang! on my way to the Golden Arches!  Two of them had already closed to give their staff a chance to fight their way home in the typhoon and the others offered overpriced brews I am seriously trying to give up.  Paying half a Dong’s daily salary for a cup of java does seem a little decadent when you start to do it on a daily basis and get rather blasé about the whole thing.

A bunch of Dong’s were huddled in the rain around a Corolla, trying to jigger the door open.  The driver was looking desperate, probably Ma’am or Sir were due back from their dinner and would be mightily upset that their limo had swallowed its own keys.  I knew from experience they would be hard pressed to open the car with just a wire coat hanger, you really need a brazing rod or something stiffer.  If I had my trusty old Slim Jim with me I could have had her open in a jiffy, but “going about equipped” is probably an offence here too, just like back home.

I had learnt the trade when I was a Military Policeman and had used it numerous times to my own advantage as much as anyone else’s so I know how dumb you feel when you lock the keys inside.  I also know the sweet relief as the door pops open but for this driver it was not to be.  Pretty soon the Dongs drifted away, but not without trying me out with a tentative “Merry Christmas Sir” plea for a handout.  After what I had just spent on a meal and a few drinks for one person, I wasn’t up for a spot of charity, never mind the weather!

My umbrella played hide and seek with itself all the way up the street, the tall buildings making the wind veer and wander so you couldn’t keep your brolly head to wind.  More than once I rounded up like my old sailboat on Sydney Harbour in a southerly just to save the umbrella spokes from terminally twisting themselves inside out.  The rain came in horizontally under the brolly that I had to hold in front of me leaving me walking blindly along the soaked sidewalk.  I had a few close calls with fellow pedestrians before I made it into the sanctuary of Macca’s.

I finished the caramel sundae, said goodbye to the clown and returned to the wind swept, rain soaked street and cast about for a jeepney to get me back to my room.  Two jeepneys roared past, ignoring my signal and naturally, empty.  Finally a very full jeepney came to a halt in front of me and I went to the back to clamber in.  Even though I hadn’t spotted anywhere to sit I scrambled aboard, knowing from experience a place would magically appear as I needed it.  It did and I plonked myself down with what little dignity I had left.  Trying to get my bear size bulk into these cut down sardine tins is an exercise in wishful thinking sometimes.  At least it was so windy and cool outside I was appreciative of the muggy warmth inside the vehicle.

What I didn’t cotton to was the smell.  It was like clinging to the collar of a giant, wet dog.  That damp dog smell, the one you get a whiff of just before he shakes four gallons of water onto you and your new carpet.  That’s the smell!  I hoped it wasn’t me and since the girls squeezed in either side of me didn’t seem to be squirming too much, I figured it came with the jeepney.

Getting from the jeepney stop to my lodgings proved to be another challenge in keeping my umbrella alive and me more or less dry at the same time.  We both made it without further loss or injury and I basically just settled in for what I knew would be a long, wet, windy night.  I gave thanks that I was nice and dry and warm and not wet, freezing and homeless like many would be that night.  Only the other day Tropical Depression “Winnie” had claimed over 300 lives.  I wondered what the butcher’s bill would be for this little spat Mother Nature was giving us?  I called the wife and made sure she and the kids were safe and well, then went to bed.  After all, once you’ve battened down your hatches, there’s not much else you can do in a Typhoon, Nature pretty much has her own agenda!

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 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!

An expat I know owns nearly a dozen taxi’s in Cebu.  Each one brings in P600 per day “Boundary”.  Boundary is the term for rental and goes back to the days when there were boundaries taxi’s had to work within and is often confused with the more apt term of “bounty”.  Most cabs in  Cebu are worked 24/7 with a driver renting the cab for 24 hours by paying a boundary of between P550 to P700.  He then has to make enough to cover his gas which can be as high as P1000.  An average day will make him P500 and then he has a 24 hour break before getting another shift.  A good driver can look forward to making P8000-P10,000 a month, not bad for spending your day in airconditioned comfort.

For the owner of the cab, the story can be either a dream business or a nightmare, usually it depends on who you get to manage the business and drive the cabs.  If your cab is earning P600 a day, that’s P15,000 a month if you work on a 26 day month.  This allows for maintenance and drivers that don’t show, either sick or lazy.  Since you can buy a cab from P250,000 for the rinky dink Kia surplus cars you can achieve ROI (return of investment) in about  16 months, or a more realistically two years.  Whether the rinky dink Kia will last that long at the hands of a Filipino cabbie is another thing.

If you buy a new Toyota Corolla, the cab of choice for us Bears, then you will pay about P650,000.  Add in license fees and you are looking at probably four years to recoup your investment.  At the end of that time you can still sell your cabs and make a profit of 15% or more, depending how well the cab stood up to the work.

Maintenance is a major cost for the cab owner and many also diversify into running their own mechanical workshops, often making more money than the cab side of the business.  I devised a business idea last year for running car washes via a small, cheap pressure washer but all the know alls said nobody here would pay to have their car washed.  In the last six months I have seen dozens of car wash businesses crop up along the side of the road using the very same cheap pressure washers and doing a lot of cabs and other vehicles.  If you own a washer as well as the workshop and the cabs, you have the whole thing sewn up!  As the cab fleet grows the next thing you need is a used car dealership to move them on.  I don’t think the law here requires you to inform the prospective purchaser that the vehicle was previously a taxi, as you must back home.

My friend with the dozen cabs says at first it was an expensive gambit that was little more than a drain on his resources while he kept the car sellers and mechanics happy.  He went through several “trusted” managers before he found one who really was honest and efficient and hasn’t looked back since.  That manager now owns a share of the business, something my friend had intended all along but nobody stayed honest with him long enough to qualify!

Drivers were another problem.  He found he had to have them pay security deposits on the vehicles to get them to respect them and drive them with some care.  Now, two years down the track he has a core of reliable drivers who look after the vehicles.  I suggested he have two drivers share the same car every time and give them a rebate each month if the maintenance bill on the vehicle is below the average.  The average varies from month to month but each car can cost up to P5000 per month in oil, tyres, aircon and other general wear and tear even before bingles and scratches are looked at.  In the nine months since he trialled that idea his average monthly maintenance costs on those vehicles fell by 25% or more.

Naturally he doesn’t really “own” the business as it is illegal  for a foreigner to own 100% of a land transport business.  His wife is the owner and he supervises the manager.  At first he was supervising
virtually every minute of the day but now he has found a reliable manager he admits he pops in to the office once a day and more to be seen by the staff than to actually supervise anything.

Insurance on the vehicles can be cost prohibitive if you have a spate of accidents and premiums are increased beyond what is economically viable for the business to support, but that is perhaps the only other drawback to owning taxis.  Where most foreigners come to grief is that they buy a taxi and have a relative of the wife drive it and it is not treated as a business.  The relative either begrudges paying the boundary and being harped on at about looking after the car, or simply doesn’t care and works the cab only sufficient to bring in some beer money, fobbing off his Kano brother in law when the boundary is asked for.  More horror stories come to the fore when talking about accidents and minor car park scratches.  Other drivers often see a licensed Taxi as a ticket to get their existing panel work paid for.  Some drivers may even work in collusion with a relative to have an accident that is the taxi driver’s fault and has the relative’s vehicle being  repaired at the expense of the taxi owner’s insurance premium.

However, more is often less when it comes to headaches and nightmares and owning several cabs tends to add a note of serious attention and take the venture out of the hobby business mindset.  You can make money owning cabs and in many ways it is hassle free but it does take organisation, management and good selection of staff to begin with.

Everybody piled into the Red Terror and Papa Jusing and Vangie followed behind on the Lifan 100cc Super Tourer, minus the side car as the pigs are still too small to take to market.  The women had packed a mighty picnic lunch and lots of drinks and ice and with pots rattling in the boot we were off. Not too far from home we turned off the main road and went along the dirt, barangay road to the sea.  The chosen spot was beautiful!  A lovely bay with a coral beach and clear, azure blue water.  We parked the car next to some fishing bancas, under the shade of a jackfruit tree and got out the stuff.  

High tide meant that the water deepened nice and close to the beach. Most of the coast along northern Cebu is mudflat reaching out a long way before the reef drops off into deeper water. It can make finding a decent swimming hole a bit of a lottery.  When you do find one, there is often a“resort” clogging the shore and charging money for a “cottage”.  Cottages are nothing more than a table and bench with a roof over it.  Mama Alice didn’t want to spend the money on something we really didn’t need, so we were “roughing” it.

The girls had gone into Daanbantayan earlier and bought pork, chicken, fish and pancit noodles.  The local jeepneys were on strike so they had to grab a “Habal-Habal” motorcycle taxi to get home.  The rice and pork and pancit were cooked before we left and Papa Jusing handled the BBQ for the chicken
and fish.  I went for a swim with my two daughters. After we enjoyed the water, it was time to eat, so everybody just hooked in with their fingers and enjoyed the sumptious repast.  I sipped a few bourbon and cokes while the others drank soft drinks or beer as the want took them. The kids played on the waters edge and collected more shells than they would be able to carry home in a month of Sundays. Life was good.

It’s the simple things in life like a family picnic by the sea that makes living here so worthwhile.  I never have to worry about some psycho abducting one of my kids and abusing them, it just doesn’t happen here.  At school they may have to learn the National Anthem and salute the flag, but nobody
frisks them for firearms or checks their bags for drugs. We lit a fire on the sea shore and nobody came along to tell us to put it out or to move on.  We minded our business and everyone else minded theirs. Driving back to the city we passed no radar traps, no speed cameras, no highway cops.  Nobody to tell me how to drive, how to live, how to enjoy my life.  Common sense rules.  If someone oversteps the mark, it gets dealt with sooner or later, usually permanently.  Few step over the mark, we all know what is right and what isn’t, nobody has to play Big Brother.

Back home we are legislated into a false sense of security.  We think we are safer because there are rules, regulations, ordinances, standards.  But are we really that much better off?  Workplace safety is definitely better back home, but most regulations just save the stupid from their own stupidity. When there is no social security safety net you tend to look after yourself a little more.  

Where I came from if there was any risk, we screamed until the government legislated against it.  Then we relaxed and felt safer, knowing there are laws and rules to protect us; mostly from ourselves.  We lost touch with the reality that life is an inherently risky undertaking, even in this modern age. The Filipino’s haven’t lost that sense of reality.  They live with it every day, they just choose not to let it get them down.  How they keep on smiling, day after day with little of what we would consider hope for the future, is an inspiration to me.  Life here is at a slower pace.  It is a pace where you can take the time to smell the coffee, the roses, the buwad, the garbage, but also take the time to enjoy your life, and your family.  OK, it might not be paradise, nowhere is.  But since happiness is a choice, I choose to think it is, indeed, a paradise. At least for me and my own.

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.) 

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 has completed ‘Filipina 303 – Making The Magic Last’ although at this stage it has not been decided if the eBook will be released separately or as part of a three volume compilation of the ‘Filipina’ series.

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!

The very latest publication is ‘Philippines Survival Handbook’ which takes a very holistic and comprehensive view of the things that can give you grief in the Philippines. From bent coppers to under-age girl scams, snakes and sea creatures to dangerous bus rides!