Over the last weeks my good friends Bob Martin of Live in the Philippines and RT Cunningham of Untwisted Vortex have had posts on their sites concerning toilets and toilet facilities in the Philippines. They have covered things such as how long you spend in the toilet to how the toilet facilities in the Philippines rank in cleanliness. My post on the subject will not go to any of those topics or at least I hope. My only take on that is I believe Americans have a much deeper fondness for their toilets and bathrooms than does just about any other country.

What I’m here to talk about is the problem with toilet bowls in my home in the Philippines. Last year when my wife traveled to our new home prior to us semi-moving in, I told her to make sure that the toilets had seats on them. As we know, many places in the Philippines don’t have toilet seats and I have not mastered the art of the squat yet. When I arrived a couple weeks later everything was fine and the flusher actually worked rather than depending on the tabo for flushing. But recently the bathroom has been redone and painted and it seems the connection from the pipe in the floor to the toilet has broken as well as the seal to the floor. Now not being there right now doesn’t give me an idea of what happened but my suspicions are that the workers used the toilet as a ladder when reaching the higher places in the bathroom. So of course they aren’t insured which means I have to purchase a new toilet.

The problem with buying a new toilet is I want a quality toilet and want it put in by quality workers. That doesn’t necessarily mean I want it at a less expensive price but then again we are dealing with someone who values getting the job done at the least price rather than sometimes the best quality.

In the past you know we have went to our local Ace Hardware here in the U.S. and picked out model number and priced it and transferred that info to our people in the Philippines and they have went to the Ace Hardware in Laguna and purchased exactly what we wanted. The problem here is the local Ace Hardware is not so big on toilets and toilet bowls, so we will have to rely on what is available on the local economy. In my experience most of the flush toilets I have used in the Philippines have not matched up to the quality I’m looking for. In the homes I have used the toilet it seems the flusher has been broken most of the time especially the ones that had the button on top of the bowl. Now I’m not looking for the expensive Toto Neorest bowls featuring hands free wiping or heated seats just a good quality such as American Standard type. Does anyone have a suggestion of something like that sold in the Philippines?

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