Living In the Philippines, and Living with Filipinas and Filipinos

According to this fascinating brief, one Mr. Mas has been found responsible and in bad taste and faith for being too clever in assisting the Dane Stemmerik.  Looks like the Dane was counting on buying some land here in the Philippines and sent over a good chunk of change - but no land was ever put in his name.  What a surprise.  Sometimes there is more than meets the eye, but at least on the surface level it seems admirable that a legal representative is held accountable for breaking his oath to uphold the law and the truth. 

"Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez wants lawyer Serafin Abellon of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) 7, based in Mandaue City, to return to the BI office in Manila “immediately” and to stay there until further notice." http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/doj-orders-bi-7-lawyer-relieved

Is this a turf battle, reform, or both?

I've wondered sometimes about whether true love is possible - love where both the man and the woman value each other, respect each other, don't intentionally hurt each other, don't lie to each other, enjoy each other's company, don't cheat on each other, hold property in common and raise children working through their differences in values so that nobody gets trampled.  Of course there will always be something we say that comes across wrong, or we might for a moment see someone and experience a distracting temptation - but do those things add up?  Or are some or all relationships "doomed" from the start because rather than having mutual respect and compassion, they are based on one or both persons taking advantage of the other one?

So, to continue the saga of our ongoing purchase - we had negotiated and agreed upon a price for a property, but then upon closer inspection, found that a quarter of the property was occupied by squatters.

We went and talked to the barangay captain and the former barangay captain, and nobody officially wanted to say anything. "Maybe a survey?" they suggested. It reminded me of a tip I had received when I first arrived in the Philippines - most people won't tell you the truth about something, but they might tell you who to ask to get a more truthful perspective.

However, I didn't need a survey. I'm perfectly capable of reading a map, and about one fourth of the property was clearly occupied by squatters, and had been for many years.

Have you seen the land titles in the Philippines?  Some of them are written in English, some in tagalog, some of them are issued by the Bureau of Lands, some from the Department of Agrarian Reform, some appear to be written by Presidents, and some are even from the United States government.  So, are these titles secure?

The answer I've found is that most titles that are issued can be transferred - but the one type of title that is most problematic is those issued by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).

Here is a cute interactive map of the world with their U.S. expat populations listed.  Philippines is number one in Asia - 105,000 U.S. citizens.  No surprise there.  Asia's cheap, friendly, English-speaking country.  Well, more or less. 

From what I've heard, the current carrier for all internet traffic between the Philippines and the U.S. is Globe.  PLDT (which is the owner of Smart) currently has to buy their bandwidth from Globe, as does everyone else.  This bottleneck is one of the causes of the lack of goodbandwith in much of the Philippines.