Is a Philippine bank account worth opening?

I opened a BDO savings account.. mainly to use at ATMs. When I withdrew money with my Wise card, it cost about 400 pesos per transaction.. BDO is free or about 18 pesos at most. My girlfriend has a BPI account, and last week she ran into a problem using it.. She went to a nearby branch but couldn't get it resolved, so she went back to Tacloban, where her family lives, and her family handled it. Getting a new card took a whole week.

SRRV - check Driver's license - check Car - check GCash - not needed yet BPI peso account - check Sending money from the US to a local bank account here is very easy with Wise or Remitly. Local deposit insurance (like the FDIC in the US) only covers up to 1 million pesos. But BPI has never defaulted in over 150 years, so I've put quite a lot in there. However, in case I have to close everything and go back home, I decided I need at least $50,000 in liquid US funds for moving costs. Moving money from here back to there isn't as easy as bringing it in. If anyone knows how to move money back to the US, I'd love to hear it.

Having a local bank account is useful. What if GCash goes down one day? Don't put all your eggs in one basket. You can also have money sent from abroad to this account and then transfer it to GCash or withdraw cash.

I think local banks are totally useless. Their account opening rules are arbitrary. I showed my SRRV requirements, but the manager opened the wrong type of account, so I just have one. I use it once a year to keep the account active, and I can't be bothered to close it, so I just leave it. What I need here, GCash handles it all. It's not great, but it works everywhere. I also believe in redundancy, and Pouch and Maya are great backups. Still, the app that really makes GCash work well is Strike in the US. You can send money from a US bank to a Philippine bank or e-wallet in seconds, with no fees, no minimum amount, and a good exchange rate.