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Scam texts are back, stay alert

Have you all noticed the scam text messages starting up again? 😒

Things seemed quiet for a while, but now they're back, going after even ordinary locals.

Looks like the remnants of the old POG* scam operations are still finding ways to keep going.

Stay alert, don't click suspicious links, and never share your OTP, bank details or personal information.

WorldRemit is a total joke

On September 23 I sent 500,000 PHP and 550,000 PHP to my own bank account (UnionBank) to pay hospital bills. The 500K arrived the next day, but the 550K didn’t. The whole reason I didn’t send 1 million pesos in one go was exactly this — I was afraid the remittance wouldn’t go through.

I’ve been following up since September 27. Every agent gives a different answer. It’s on the way, it’s with the local partner bank, “give it some time” with no clear guidance, it needs extra checks and verification, and so on. At one point I was told the local partner bank was asking for additional documents. Fine, I’m ready to comply. But no email ever came. I asked WorldRemit again. They said they’d follow up. Still nothing. Another follow-up. This morning, September 29, a pop-up appeared in the WorldRemit app asking for more information and documents. I filled it out and submitted. Got another notification asking for documents (again). I complied. Got yet another notification asking for documents (third time). Then suddenly my transaction was cancelled. The agent said I didn’t submit the documents in time. Mind you, it hadn’t even been 12 hours since they asked.

That was it. After 6 days of waiting, the transaction got cancelled. The agent said the refund will take 7-10 days. Just like that, my money is floating somewhere in the air. Call me dramatic, but 550,000 PHP is not spare change.

Safe to say I will never use WorldRemit again. Bye

The usual suspects are making threats again

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the pork haters are making public threats in South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat in Mindanao. So far 40 people have been arrested since the Banga high school shooting.

I hear they got upset because there’s a shortage of magic prayer carpets down there. Corruption in the supply chain or something.

My favorite Italian phrase: “bon appetit”

Together, we nap

Spinning before bed

Everyone, has anyone here tried claiming a CHAMPVA reimbursement (maternity benefits) from the Philippines through their US citizen husband? How do you prepare and file the papers and so on?

Please be respectful…. Thank you 😊

BIG MIKE

Big Mike came to the Philippines in 2017 for a two-week vacation.
He still hasn’t left.

Mike was 61, twice divorced, from somewhere near Cleveland. When he landed at NAIA he was wearing cargo shorts, white New Balance sneakers, a Hawaiian shirt, and a money belt holding $3,800 in cash, because his buddy Randy had told him, “Never trust the ATMs over there.”

Within 72 hours, Mike had pulled off four things.
He bought a used Toyota Fortuner.
He got engaged.
He opened a sari-sari store.
And he had no idea at all where his passport was.

His fiancée Joy was 34 and called him “my handsome American,” despite plenty of photographic evidence to the contrary.
Mike moved with Joy to her hometown in Pampanga, and right away the whole barangay knew him as “Sir Mike.”
Mike loved it.

Back in Ohio, nobody had called him “sir” since the judge finalized his second divorce.
Every morning Mike walked to the sari-sari store in basketball shorts and no shirt.
“Good morning, Sir Mike!”
“Morning!”
“Where you going, Sir Mike?”
“The store.”
“You eat already?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s Ma’am Joy?”
“Inside.”
“When you go back America?”
“I LIVE HERE, RONALDO!!”

This exact conversation happened every morning for six years.

Mike soon learned that retiring in the Philippines meant accidentally picking up about 47 relatives.

Mama.
Papa.
Three sisters.
Four brothers.
Seven cousins.
Two uncles.
One aunt nobody could properly explain.
And roughly sixteen kids who called him “Uncle Mike.”

Mike bought one nephew a bicycle.
That was a tactical error.
Within three weeks he had bought four bicycles, two school uniforms, a refrigerator, a karaoke machine, and a replacement carburetor for the tricycle of a man named Jun, who Mike was fairly sure wasn’t related to anyone.

Then came the house.

Mike’s original budget was 2.5 million pesos.
The final cost was ₱6.8 million.
Nobody — not even the contractor — could explain why.

Still, Mike loved his house.
It had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, seventeen security cameras, and an outdoor kitchen that got used far more than the expensive indoor kitchen Mike had designed himself.
His pride and joy was a giant American refrigerator.
Nobody used it.
The family kept putting food in the smaller fridge next to it.
“Why don’t you use the big fridge?”
“Too big.”
“But we ALREADY OWN IT!!”
“Yes, Mike.”
This was Mike’s first taste of Philippine logic.

Then he discovered karaoke.
At first Mike hated karaoke.
Six months later, every Friday around 10:47 p.m., anyone within a two-kilometer radius could hear a very drunk American belting out “Take Me Home, Country Road.”
Mike was from Ohio.

That didn’t matter.
By midnight he’d moved on to Frank Sinatra.
By 1 a.m. he was singing Air Supply.
By 2 a.m., Mike had become Filipino.

His food transformation was just as dramatic.
When he first arrived, Mike refused to eat anything but hamburgers.
Then he discovered sisig.
Before long he was lecturing actual Kapampangans on where to find proper sisig.
“No mayonnaise!” Mike would declare.
The locals nodded politely.

Mike got especially passionate about lechon.
At fiestas he’d stand next to the pig handing out unsolicited carving advice despite having zero qualifications.

Then Mike discovered Red Horse.
This was unfortunate.
Their first meeting was at a neighborhood birthday party.
“How strong is this?”
“Strong, Sir Mike.”
“I drank Budweiser for forty years. I’ll be fine.”

Mike was not fine.

At 11:30 p.m. he was explaining the American electoral system to a baffled tricycle driver.
At midnight he tried karaoke.
At 12:20 he announced he was opening a beach resort.
By morning the resort had been quietly called off.
Eventually Mike became an expert on the Philippines.
At least according to Mike.

After eighteen months there, explaining Filipino culture to Filipinos had become routine.
“The problem here is…” Mike would begin,
and everyone knew a 25-minute speech was coming.

His favorite topics were traffic, electricity prices, corruption, why nobody uses turn signals, and why every mall has seventeen coffee shops.
He complained about the Philippines constantly.
Then someone from America criticized the Philippines.

Mike was instantly furious.
“You don’t understand the Philippines!”
Mike’s transformation was complete.

Every six months he announced he was leaving.
“That’s it. I’m going back to America.”
Joy kept scrolling Facebook.
“I mean it this time.”
“Yes, Mike.”
“I can live cheaper in Florida.”
“Yes, Mike.”
“And the internet works.”
“Yes, Mike.”
“And people know how to drive.”
“Yes, Mike.”
Twenty minutes later:
“Joy, where should we eat tonight?”
“Samgyupsal?”
“Okay.”

Mike never went back to Ohio.
Instead he bought a condo.
Then some farmland.
Then another used car.
Then somehow he ended up in a tilapia business with Joy’s cousin Bong.
Mike knew nothing about tilapia.
Bong apparently knew slightly less.
The business lasted seven months.
Mike lost ₱240,000.
To this day, he describes it as:
“Basically broke even.”

But the best chapter came on Mike’s 68th birthday.
Joy secretly threw him a party.
Mike expected about ten people.
One hundred and twelve showed up.
Mike recognized maybe thirty of them.
There were three roast pigs, six cases of Red Horse, an industrial-size karaoke machine, balloons spelling HAPPY 68th BIRTHDAY DADDY MIKE, and an elderly woman who hugged Mike for five minutes.
“Who was that?” Mike whispered.
“My mother’s cousin.”
“Have I met her?”
“No.”

At sunset, Mike sat outside his house.
Kids were running everywhere.
Someone was grilling barbecue.
Someone else had started karaoke three hours earlier than was legally advisable.
His dog was asleep under a plastic table.

Joy handed him a San Miguel.
Mike looked around.

Nine years earlier he’d landed at NAIA expecting beaches, cheap beer, and two weeks away from Cleveland.

Instead he’d ended up with a house, a wife, a dog, dozens of relatives, three godchildren, two vehicles, one failed tilapia business, several mysterious financial obligations, and extremely strong opinions about sisig.

Mike took a sip.

“You know,” he said, “the Philippines is completely crazy.”
Joy smiled.
“So why you stay?”
Mike thought about it.
Then the karaoke machine started playing “Country Road.”
Mike stood up.

“Hold my beer.”

And the whole barangay groaned.
Because Sir Mike was about to sing again.

Friend in the US is married to a Filipino in the PH, has an African-American BF, and wants a divorce. What should she do? She's a Filipino citizen, in the US ~5 yrs. She cheated with this BF.

I've decided to buy a *Filipino-made guitar. Are there any guitar players here who know the local high-end makers? This one is built by "Ferangeli" in Cebu and it's exactly the type/design I like. The retail price is also an amount my wife will allow: 20,000–25,000. And it's gorgeous on top of that!

Update: My long-distance girlfriend wanted to tattoo my initial on her ring finger just 4 days into our LDR

Just wanted to post a quick update and thank everyone who supported me and shared their ‘constructive’ opinions on this. I ended the LDR because of her many red-flag behaviors, the manipulation, and the lying. Sure enough, after that she kept crossing lines and trying to pull me back in with sweet talk and manipulation. She said she accepts my autism and came out with even crazier stuff, but I didn’t back down, and I blocked her after the breakup. Seeing the insane psychological tricks she tried to pull was genuinely scary, and it’s left a mark — I’m a bit wary of trusting people now. I guess that’s a lesson in toxic personality disorders. Thanks again for all the advice. You saved me from what could have been years of madness. Have a nice day.

My Filipino boyfriend (now fiancé) finally proposed!

Hi everyone!

I'm not sure if this is the right subreddit for this, but I just want to shout it out loud and proud!

I'm an Indian woman who's been living in the Philippines for 15 years. I came to Manila as an exchange student in high school. My dad encouraged me to study in the Philippines because he said the education there is much better than in our country. I'd say my journey and life in the Philippines have been worth it, but of course there were plenty of hard times.

As soon as I started high school, I got a lot of demeaning comments about my nationality — that I was unhygienic, that I played with poop, that I scammed people, that my skin was dark, and worse, awful things about my religion being ‘demonic.’

I was deeply depressed back then, but my dad pushed me to keep chasing my dreams, and those insecurities went away. I also meditated whenever those comments felt like they'd break me. Still, there were times I told my dad I wanted to go back to India and never come back to the Philippines, because it felt like Filipinos all had a strong prejudice against Indians. Some people even accused my dad of ‘money lending,’ the illegal lending business that part of the Sikh community in this country runs.

So while none of that made me study any less hard, I felt incredibly isolated. I got so hypervigilant that some random Filipino would say something about me being Indian again that I couldn't even leave my condo to buy something.

That anxiety grew until I ended up seeing a psychotherapist to work out how to get past it. I went to school carrying all that fear, and the bullying kept happening, until one day a tall Filipino boy finally stood up for me and cheered me up while I was sobbing. From then on I started spending lunchtime with him, and whenever I was with him I always felt safe just being myself!

Whenever I talked about my culture, he was always fascinated. I'd also cook Indian food for him every Friday, and he absolutely loved my cooking.

We were in the same school and the same class from junior year on, and I was so nervous to ask him to be my prom partner, but I did it anyway... and he said yes. He even asked me to dance that night! We were prom partners in both junior and senior high, and I got really, really sad when we ended up going to different universities.

Luckily, that wasn't the end, because that's when he asked me to be his girlfriend! For the first time in my life... I was dating a Filipino guy, and I was literally in shock. I was so happy I was dying to introduce him to my dad.

Even at different universities, we made time for each other. We asked each other out on dates and talked about school and life on video calls.

I'll admit there were times our relationship got rocky, but I believe that with mutual love and respect, we'll get through it.

Around the time we graduated from college, I finally moved in with him, and almost seven years later... the moment I consider a milestone in my life finally came... we went to the mountain city of Baguio, and he finally proposed!

I couldn't hold back my tears of joy in that moment. Through our 13 years together... I honestly never thought I'd be loved for who I am.

So as an Indian with a Filipino boyfriend (now fiancé), I'm truly grateful to the universe for letting me meet such a wonderful man who'll soon be my husband!

That's all.

If you made it to the end of this post, thank you so, so much. I wrote this because of everything I've been through, and because I finally learned that just because people don't like you doesn't mean you have to stop being yourself. And I learned that because my dad, my therapist, and my husband-to-be were always by my side.

NAMASTE! 🤗

A pleasant drive

My friend's cat has an admirer

Watch out, Trader Joe's — here comes S&R with their own tote bags!

Is it common to have no ambition?

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but I'm going to post it and see where it goes.

I fell in love with a man from the Philippines. I'm three years older than him and we're both in our 20s. We're perfect for each other, but there's one problem: I feel like he has no ambition. So I want to ask this sub — is this common in the Philippines? Or has anyone here had a similar experience with a Filipino partner?

Right now he gets by doing a bit of freelance work, and that's about it. His parents don't support him anymore because he quit college. I'm trying to get him excited about going back to college or doing something, but he doesn't seem to want that and would rather work as a waiter or something like that (not that there's anything wrong with that, but I see so much more potential in him).

Has anyone come back to the Philippines with an expired residency card (Quota Visa)? How did it go?

For context, we've been out of the country for six years.

Nice save 😸

World's youngest grandma

Tarzan shows us how he swings in the jungle