Gasoline is expensive in the Philippines

The cost of Gasoline here in the Philippines is still very expensive! I saw a news report that the average cost for a gallon of gas in the USA is now down to $2.09 per gallon.

Let’s see what the equivalent cost is here in the Philippines.

Here are the formula’s we will use:

1 Gallon = 3.785 Liters
$1 = P49

So, one gallon of gasoline costs $2.09 in the United States.

Gas here in the Philippines is averaging P38 per liter.

So, gas in the Philippines costs $2.94 per gallon! Wow, it is way more expensive than in the USA. As a matter of fact, the price here is about 30% higher than customers pay in the United States.

What sports are popular in the Philippines?

If you are a big fan of sports, you are probably wondering what kinds of sports can you enjoy in the Philippines.

There are a number of sports on TV here, but if you have a favorite sport that is not too popular here, the amount of time it will be on might be limited.  Let’s look at a variety of sports that you might be wondering about:

• Football (American Football):  There is American football on TV here, but nowhere near the number of games that you might be wanting to see.  Over the course of a week, during football season, you should expect to see maybe 3 or 4 games in all on TV.  Most of these will be seen on ESPN Asia.  These will be Pro (NFL) games - College football is rarely seen here.  And, don’t expect to see them on Sunday.  For one thing, Sunday in the States is Monday here anyway.  But, the games will be televised here after they have already been played, and on different days throughout the week.  A few games will be on live, but those will be early in the morning and may not be convenient for you to watch.
• Baseball:  You will say a couple of Major League Baseball games on every week during baseball season.  Don’t expect too much more.
• Soccer (what everybody calls Football, except us Americans):  There is a quite a bit of Soccer on TV, so “Football” Fans will probably be pretty happy with the coverage.
• Golf:  Most major PGA tournaments are televised.
• NASCAR/F1/other racing:  Expect goo TV coverage.
• Basketball:  Ding Ding Ding!  You have hit the Jackpot.  Basketball is hugely popular in the Philippines, and you can watch basketball on TV at virtually any time you choose.  On Cable there is even an entire channel that is devoted to only basketball!  You can see current games, great games of history, college, NBA, PBA and other Philippine leagues, and just about any other basketball that you can imagine.

Besides Basketball, I would say that the other super-popular sport in the Philippines is Cockfighting.  Every town has at least one cockpit where regular matches are held.  Betting is rampant too.  To date, though, I have never seen a cockfight on TV.  If you want to experience cockfighting, you will need to take an afternoon and go watch in person!

Schooling for the kids

For anybody with children, one of the major concerns when moving to a new place is the quality of the schools. Let’s face it, education is very important, and a good education is the only thing that sets our kids apart and enables them to get good employment as they enter adulthood.

Because of this, giving my kids a good education was something that I looked into carefully before deciding to move to the Philippines. After all, when I moved here, I had three kids at the ages of 8 years old, 5 years old, and one month old! At those ages, eduction has to be considered.

The thing that you should keep in mind if this is a consideration for you is that there are schools of any quality level available here. Public schools in the Philippines, in my opinion, are not to be considered. The quality of education at most public schools here is not very good. They lack text books - many kids have to share, or use photocopies of textbooks! We always read in the newspapers about public school teachers who have gone months without being paid. If somebody is working months with no pay, how good of a job do you think they are continuing to do? It’s not that I have anything against any school teachers here, but rather it is the government that fails to allot adequate resources for the education of the children in public schools.

Luckily, there are a wide variety of private schools available in any town in the Philippines. Private schools are available for any budget you can imagine. I choose to send my children to Ateneo de Davao, which is, in my opinion, the best private school in Davao City. It is a school operated by the Catholic Church, and while I am not Catholic myself, Children of any religion are welcome. The quality of education in the Ateneo system (they have schools all around the Philippines) is excellent. Most people here consider the cost of Ateneo to be quite high, but they also think it is worth the cost. For me, I consider it quite affordable. I have three kids in Ateneo de Davao, and the cost is about $1,200 per year for each student. So, less than $150 per month. I consider it a steal. When I compare the education level of my kids compared to their cousins in the States, I feel my kids are ahead. That’s a good feeling!

By the way, did you know that in the Philippines, there is only 10 years of school as opposed to 12 in the States? That’s right. The kids are in elementary school from 1st through 6th grade, then enter high school for 4 years. There is no middle school, junior high, or whatever it is called in your district. The kids to go for a longer school day, though. My kids are at school by 7am, and get home around 4pm or so.

Where do foreigners retire?

I get a lot of questions from people who want me to help them decide where in the Philippines they should retire.  What city is best for a foreigner?  Well, that question has as many answers as there are people!  Everybody is different, has different interests and desires vary from person to person.

Maybe you are a person who likes a lot of privacy and quiet?  If so, maybe you would be making a mistake by settling in a City, perhaps some secluded  beachfront in the middle of nowhere would be more suited to you.  Maybe you are the type who enjoys beaches.  If so, you wouldn’t want to settle in Baguio, because it isn’t on the beach.  Again, if you are looking for warm weather and sunshine, Baguio offers a cooler climate with more rain and probably wouldn’t suit your needs.  If you are hooked to your foods that you enjoy in your home country, better to settle in a larger city like Manila, Cebu or Davao (and a few others) to ensure that you will be able to get a good supply of imported goods.  Every city is different, and offers different benefits (and drawbacks too), so just do some research before making your decision.

Another thing to remember - narrow your list down to a few cities that are of interest, then go and see them!  It is not expensive to travel around the Philippines, so you have the perfect chance to do some investigation and sample the flavor of each city that you think is interesting.

Now, with those things in mind, let’s look at a few cities that seem to be favorites of ex-pats:

1. Angeles City:  This is probably the favorite retirement haven for Americans, and Australians are starting to favor it too.  There are a huge number of US Military retirees here, due to the fact that this is the former home of Clark Air Force Base until it’s closing in the 1990’s.  Angeles City is famous for it’s bar scene, with plenty of liquor flowing, and plenty of girls dancing at the bars.  For me, that is not what I was looking for when I moved here, so it is not the right environment for me
2. Baguio City:  Not as popular as Angeles, but a totally different atmosphere.  If you are looking for cooler weather, Baguio should be high on your list.  Baguio is known as the City of Pines because it sits among lush pine trees, which is unusual for the Philippines.  This is not really a tropical atmosphere as you find in most of the Philippines.
3. Manila:  Personally, I don’t care for Manila.  It is too polluted and crowded for my enjoyment.  Also, the cost of living is very high there.  However, if you want to be where the action is, that’s Manila.  Any kind of activity that you may enjoy would be available in Manila.  All kinds of foreign goods can be purchased there too.
4. Cebu City:  I would guess that among foreigners, Cebu is a close second to Angeles City when it comes to retirement destinations.  Cebu is hugely popular among foreigners coming to the Philippines.  Cebu is also going the way of Manila when it comes to overpopulation and such, though, so at some point in the future it may not be such a desirable location.  At this time, though, Cebu probably has among the best infrastructure to be found in the Philippines, good shopping, good access to air travel, both domestic and international.  Cebu would be fairly high on my list if I were to reconsider where to live.
5. Davao City:  A lot of people are scared to death when they think of coming to Mindanao, let alone living there.  However, for me, I consider Davao as the best place to live in the Philippines.  I feel that Davao is extremely safe, despite all that you hear about danger in Southern Mindanao.  Davao has a hard line Mayor who does not put up with crime - petty or violent!  Davao offers many of the advantages of Manila and Cebu, while maintaining more of a “small town” feel.  Personally, I would not consider moving from Davao, I find it to be a perfect location.
6. Cagayan de Oro City:  Many of the same comments that I said about Davao apply here.  Cagayan is, in my opinion, a safe place to live.  It offers many activities for foreigners, and makes for a nice retirement area.  Keep in mind that Mindanao is the only island in the Philippines that is outside the typhoon belt, so no matter where you choose to live in Mindanao, you will experience better weather than in many other Philippine destinations.

Of course, ex-pats choose many other towns and cities in the Philippines.  I have just listed a few places that seem to have higher ex-pat populations.  For me, a higher number of ex-pats means that you are more likely to find the goods and services that you expect or hope your new home to have.

Living with no connection to the outside world!

What will you do when your connection to the outside world is gone, and you are on your own?  It happened to me…. well, sort of.

As most of you probably know, in the final week of December there was a pair of big earthquakes in Taiwan, and they severed two under sea fiber optic cables that link Asia to the Internet.  It really slowed the internet connection here in the Philippines to a crawl.  Some days the internet, while slow, was still usable.  Other days, like the past week, the Internet has been so slow that trying to use it was frustrating and virtually impossible.

Now, in the relatively short life of this blog, I have mentioned several times that I earn my living through the Internet.  Having the Internet virtually unavailable over the past week or so has really made it hard to keep business going.  But, I’ve survived.  One thing that I have been doing is to get up at around 3am instead of my usual 6:30am or 7:00.  The reason that I do this is because there are far fewer people using the local internet during the middle of the night.  Most offices are closed, and most casual surfers are asleep at this hour.  If I start around 3am or so, I can be fairly productive on the net until around 8am or 9am.  By 9am the net has again screeched to a standstill.  So, I go back to bed at 9 or so, and sleep until Noon or 1:00pm.  Then, I find something else to keep me busy during the day.

With this schedule, at least I can keep my businesses up and running, which is a good thing.  It’s not ideal, but right now, I suspect it is the best solution to keep business going.  I am hearing that the under sea cables should be repaired by around Jan. 22 or so.  I hope it’s no longer, because Valentine’s Day is a major business season for my business, and I need full net access from the last week of January until the end of February.

If you were living in the Philippines, or some other of the far reaches of the world and the Internet went down, how would you stay in touch with the rest of the world?

Can I bring my stuff with me?

Somebody e-mailed me last night asking a question about bringing their belongings with them when they come, and how much duty they will have to pay to the Philippine Customs for that.  I am sorry, but right now I have lost your e-mail!  I am in the middle of migrating to a new computer, and my e-mail files got corrupted in the process.  I am still hoping to recover all of that, but it isn’t sure.  I thought I would post this info in hopes that you will see the information you are looking for. Also, I am sure that others will need this information as well.

Any of the visas that give you resident status in the Philippines, which would include the Special Retirement Visa and also the “13″ series of visas give you an opportunity to bring your personal belongings.  The law is written that you can bring up th $7,000 worth of goods without need to pay any taxes or fees to the Philippine Government.  I entered the Philippines on a 13(a) visa - meaning that with my wife as a former Philippine citizen, they grant all of our family resident status here.  At the time of my entry (2000) the same $7,000 value was in place for the value of the belongings that you could bring.  Well, we brought a lot more than $7,000 worth of stuff, and no taxes or fees were imposed.  The customs officials didn’t seem to care how much there was.

There is one catch - and this is something that the customs officials kept a close eye for - you CANNOT bring in a car as part of your tax free allowance.  On a car, the customs duty is 100% of the original purchase price.  So, if you paid $20,000 for a car 10 years ago and bring it here, you must pay $20,000 in customs fees.  In my opinion, it’s best to just sell your car before coming to the Philippines and buy a new one here.

Now, keep in mind that the law says you must pay customs on anything over $7,000.  So, if they decide to charge you, you have to pay it!  But, in practice, myself and others that I have heard from have not had to pay any fees on the value over $7,000 in personal goods.

Happy New Year 2007 from the Philippines

I am sitting here on the whitest powder beach that you could ever imagine, using my laptop over the wireless internet connection here at the resort.  I have to wear my sunglasses because the bright, hot sun is right in my field of vision.  Oh, it’s OK now, after typing that last sentence a beautiful girl came over and held up a shield to block the sun in my eyes.  Hmm… very nice!  Hold on while I have a sip from my mango shake.  Ah.  What a new year this is for me here in paradise!

Sorry, but I had to start off that opening paragraph for all of you readers who are stuck in the snow banks and such, enjoying New Years by watching football bowl games (too cold outside, right?).  Actually, I am sitting here in my office, which is in my house, looking out my window at some banana trees in the next lot over.

Just to tie this post in with our general theme here, did you know that New Years is celebrated in the Philippines to a greater extent than Christmas?  That is my observation, and my wife thinks so too.  For example, on Christmas Day, the malls were open here (albeit they opened in the afternoon), but today, New Years Day the malls are closed!  Just an interesting tidbit.

I just wanted to say Happy New Year to all readers of the LiP blog!  I hope that everybody has a great 2007, whatever your goals and plans for the year!