That's not Filipino time, that's 'I don't respect you or care about you that much' time

If you're 15 minutes late, I'm done.

I was in a basketball league, on a traveling team. So I show up at the gym at 6pm. The game's at 7. The place is packed. I stretch and shoot around. Two and a half hours later, around 8:30, nobody from my team has shown up. Plus I'm part of the team but also kind of an outsider at the same time. So I leave. The next day I'm getting texts: 'where were you??' They don't even realize what's wrong.

Yeah, I knew a girl who wanted to go out during the day. She lived two towns away, so I asked what time was good for her, she told me, so I ride my motorcycle for 45 minutes, get there, text her with pictures — radio silence. Then about 30 minutes late she says she's just leaving the house. I gave her that leeway, but my usual limit is 30 minutes, and when she still wasn't there 10 minutes later, I rode home. Everyone here is so flaky you have to make three appointments just to get one. I've seen her since, but I always set it up so I'm somewhere I can sit down, relax and have a beer, and if she's not there in the agreed time, I move on. Now, years later, my girlfriend understands that if she gives me a time, she's held to it.

I kind of like it. It makes competing easy when nobody else respects the customer's time.

Local here, not an expat. Sadly this behavior has become normal, but I find the younger generation, especially people from the cities, are more punctual. I hate it too. I'd rather bail than show up late.