My Move to the Philippines

Well 2011 is finally here, actually it’s been here for a week now, but it seems like when I post on this column I’m on Filipino time. And yes, with this New Year there still are Americans living in the Philippines I’m sure of that. I have been getting numerous comments and emails from Filipinos and Americans assuring me that they are either in the Philippines or will be moving to the Philippines soon.

I missed celebrating Christmas and New Years in the Philippines this year because I’m here in the states but I will be there by the end of this month. I am so excited and even though I missed two of the most important holidays I will be returning in time to celebrate Fiesta in Pangasinan. I really love the way Filipinos celebrate important holidays. There are so many good times and time to be with friends and relatives, unlike the commercialism in many other parts of the world.

As I start this year on the blog I’d like to throw a question out there especially for Americans living/moving to the Philippines: Why have you chosen the Philippines to live/move? I’m asking because many people have began asking me this lately and if possible I try to refer them to my very first post when I started this blog/website: “I Shall Return” Although the timing has changed a little bit since I first wrote that, everything else is the same and I believe it is very informative. If you get a chance and haven’t done so, please read this post and the others after it, you will get the reasons. Maybe you can use this post and the blog to answer your own friends/relatives questions.

Just got back from celebrating Christmas with the family. My family in the United States and in the Philippines are both big families so Christmas is always a festive holiday no matter where we celebrate. The only difference usually is that one place there is snow and the other there is sand.

Anyway I just want to thank all the loyal readers of My Move to the Philippines blog for all of your support and comments throughout the year. I don’t do this website for commercial reasons and to tell you the truth if I didn’t get as many visitors and comments I might have given up on this blog completely. I promise you that many more things will be happening in the next month and in the near future as our permanent move to the Philippines is completed. Stay tuned and enjoy the trip as I will. Please keep the comments coming and once again Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Although it’s a small part of our house construction in the Philippines, a subject that comes up often is our kitchen cabinets. I’ve written posts on what type of material we should use and sizes of our cabinets also. What I’d ask you as readers of this blog is to look at the picture in this post or on my Facebook album and tell me what you think about what we did with the cabinet underneath the sink.

Many of the readers on here are Filipino and more familiar with Philippine home construction and I respect your opinions on things we are doing. Do you think the dish rack type underneath the sink is a good idea and have you seen this in other homes? If you don’t think it is a good idea please tell me why, and I’ll say I will welcome constructive criticism but not destructive criticism.  So the comments are open on this subject and we are probably not going to change what we’ve done but would love to know what problems with this type of cabinet we can expect.

To my friends and family in the Philippines see you real soon

I have been a fan of social media sites for awhile. I started off with MySpace and then got into Twitter, Friendster, and over the last year or more, Facebook. I have met many new friends and connected with old friends that I had lost touch with long ago. These friends are scattered all over the world and many I probably wouldn’t have got in touch with had it not been for social media sites.

Not all of the contacts I have made have been just a real person but groups of people and sites about things I am interested in. As I am planning my move to the Philippines I have come across some interesting businesses and informational pages as well, including one that I visit with everyday. It’s a Facebook page for a site called Definitely Filipino. This site describes itself as “The Blog for Online Filipinos“.

Not being Filipino, but interested in many things Filipino, I visit this site to see what is happening in the Philippines and topics involving the Philippines. It covers such things as Philippine culture, economy, living, and news, among other things. It is basically a non biased view of what is happening to Filipinos with a chance for them to interact through their Facebook page.

Ben Totanes, the creator of Definitely Filipino, says on the about page for this blog that the philisophy behind this Page is that “It’s the place to come, learn, interact and belong….” My favorite feature of Definitely Filipino is the identification of many famous people that I didn’t know were of Filipino descent. Did you know that Tim Lincecum who pitched a winning game in this years World Series is the son of Filipina Rebecca Asis? I didn’t until I read it on Definitely Filipino. They cover many other movie stars, athletes, and famous people who share Filipino heritage.

I suggest you go to their Facebook page and add them plus check out their blog for daily updates and keep up with what is going on with Filipinos worldwide. You may learn things you didn’t know or just get updated on current events or maybe interact with some interesting people.

I have added some of the most updated pics of our house in the Philippines particularly the kitchen cabinets. These cabinets were chosen by my wife and in these pictures all but the final finishing touches have been made. By this time I’m sure that they are completely done but I haven’t got those pictures yet. To see the latest pics plus others just click on the following link Our House in the Philippines Pics.

Just wanted to let the people of the Philippines know that Me and my family as well as people worldwide have been keeping an eye on Hurricane Juan and praying for the safety of the Filipino people. I know firsthand how terrible these Typhoons are because I have experienced a few while living in the Philippines and I’m sure I will experience more when I’m there. It looks like the worst of it has been done but the days after will probably be quite hard for cleanup and such. Once again, we are all praying for everyone there to be safe.

The latest pictures of our house construction in the Philippines will show you what is going on inside our house. As you can see we have picked the cabinets and they are almost done. The counter and sink are in and we are almost ready for appliances. That is something I really look forward to as I actually have some ideas that my wife will agree with. Visit our Facebook album of the house construction by clicking on the following link: Our House Construction in the Philippines

On another note there is a video making the rounds of the internet, news stations, and social websites. It is the video of Flight Attendants for Cebu Pacific Airlines performing a choreographed routine aboard a Cebu Pacific flight to demonstrate safety procedures. The video received more than 7.3 million hits in less than a week. Cebu Pacific based out of Manila decided to use this way to “draw more passenger attention to its in-flight safety reminders”. If you haven’t seen it yet I’ve provided the video on this website. It is very good and shows how Filipinos have found a way of mixing their love of music and dancing with something many of us travelers ignore.

Some resources in planning your next flight to the Philippines or anywhere else


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As you can see from this and the other pictures in the album our house construction in the Philippines is in the latter stages. It’s a good thing because in our phone conversation with family it was raining so hard in Laguna that we could hear it through the headphones. I’ve posted one of the pics from the album at the beginning of this post and the rest can be found in our Moving to Philippines photo album. Click on the link to see them.

In other news, I have been contacted from a tourism student at a University in Manila to be interviewed for her thesis entitled “The Philippines as a retirement destination for foreign tourists” If our schedules match up I may accept her offer and get together with her and her group for a sit down. I’ll post more on this later.

Well thats all I have right other than to say I’m counting the days until my return back to the Philippines. As soon as the college football season is over I will be on my way. See you all soon!

This August 23rd was a little eventful for Filipinos and the Philippines in general. One of the events was on the good side and ended less than good and the second event was bad all the way around.

The first event I’m referring to was the Miss Universe pageant where Venus Raj, the Miss Philippines, had a misstep in answering the question at the end. IMHO she could have answered much better, but I still think she wouldn’t have beat out the winner, Miss Mexico, anyway and probably would have made first runner up. The good part of the night was that Miss Philippines reached the final five runner ups and that the Filipinos in attendance were definitely the loudest cheering section which shows how Filipinos will rally behind each other and show their pride.

Also on August 23rd there was a tragic event where hostages were taken and a few were either killed or injured. This event may have hurt the tourist industry slightly but you can only look at London and New York to see how they have recovered after even larger terrorist events happened in their cities. Look, it could happen anywhere, and it does quite often. If people are afraid to visit places and see the world because of  isolated incidents such as this they will be living in a bubble and will never experience what this world has to offer. As for me it doesn’t change a thing about how safe I feel in moving to the Philippines.

Having been in the U.S. for the last Presidential election and then the Philippines for the recent Presidential election I would like to offer a couple of observations about the differences I saw. Now I must warn you that I watched news programs during both elections but my English is better than my Tagalog so in the latter case I might have missed a little bit in translation, bear with me. Also, I’m only making observations of what I saw and not choosing one country over another or one candidate over another, just my opinion.

The main difference I noticed was the television coverage of the two different countries. In the U.S. I witnessed many ads that were not much more than smear campaigns not focusing on what a candidate would do if elected but what his opponent had done or would do wrong. In the Philippines of course there was a little bit of that but on a less personal case. The Philippine candidates promised to rid the country of corruption and help the needy while the U.S. candidates focused on what would happen if the opponent got elected.

Secondly, since I am a history buff and enjoy the little sayings that go along with a campaign I was disappointed not to see any in the last campaign or the ones in recent history. I’ve read about “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too” the 1840 U.S. presidential slogan of William Henry Harrison and his Vice President, John Tyler and “Give ‘Em Hell, Harry!”1948 U.S. presidential campaign slogan of Harry Truman, among others. These just aren’t present in American politics anymore.

In the Philippines there were political slogans along with catchy nicknames there was “Noynoy” “Gibo” and “Erap” along with Aquino’s catchy politcal slogan “If there were no corrupt, there would be no poor.” among others. And everywhere you went it was a festive mood with shouts from the children of Noynoy! Nonynoy! completely different from what I experienced in the 2008 U.S. election.

Now a catchy slogan or phrase or shouting a nickname may not make a difference in election results but I wonder how many people went to the polls undecided and all they have heard in their heads were little kids yelling Noynoy or Gibo. It makes you wonder!

Now that we’ve got the political commentary out of the way I’m going to post that latest two pics I have of our home construction so those following along can see how it is going. You can see all of those pics by visiting my Facebook album just click here

Having much experience flying on international flights, especially from the United States to the Philippines, I can tell you there are not many airlines better than Philippine Airlines (PAL). So it was sad to see that many of their pilots are leaving for jobs with other airlines.

When I fly I don’t have much interaction with the pilots on these flights but I do talk to and observe other members of the crew and I can tell you that PAL people are there to assist you in any way they can. All of the attendants are neat and friendly and smile all the time even on the long 15-20 hour flights. Try taking one of these long flights with a U.S. airline and you can tell the difference.

With the U.S. crews it is not unusual for an attendant to be rude and ignore passengers when they need something. One thing I think contributes to that is the U.S. airlines people look tired like they are overworked which could be the case. Maybe someone thinking of leaving for greener pastures should consider that. Secondly, the PAL and other foreign airlines employees seem younger and fresher, not burnt out. Maybe airline jobs are more coveted in these countries with a fresh batch of young people ready to work, I’m not sure.

The last difference I have observed between the airlines is the ability to keep on schedule. My last two flights from the U.S. were delayed significantly on the legs that involved U.S. airlines while the foreign flights were perfectly on schedule. Not sure why it was this way, but it has shaped my view of how I want to fly possibly taking the foreign airlines all the way.

There are other differences that I won’t go into here including food and comfort items but it is true that Philippine Airlines and other foreign airlines have beaten out the U.S. guys.

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