Jacks Ridge Davao City

If you are lucky enough to come to Davao City one of the places I suggest you need to visit is a place called Jacks Ridge which set high up on a hill looks down on the beautiful Davao City and its Gulf and all the surroundings.

During the day time there its very quiet and you can almost have the swimming pool to yourself and partake at the restaurants with a view to die for. At night its very livey and boasts good music and a great atmosphere and is very popular with the locals who have money.

The Ridge has a children’s playground even what appears to be a mock up of a World War Two plane simulated in a crash position by the swimming pool which certainly gets your attention. There is evidence that a new hotel will also be built on the site and already you can hire small cottages that over look the City. from its vantage point of Shrine Hills in the Matina district.

Here is a link to the official web page JACKS RIDGE

The recent history of Jacks Ridge includes the fall of the Japanese in world war two by the Americans who outmanoeuvred them

The best things I’ve experienced in the Philippines

OK, in yesterday’s column, I discussed the worst things that I had experienced while living in the Philippines.  I like today’s topic more, though - the best things I have experienced here.  I would say that the good outweighs the bad by an immense amount, it’s not even a close contest.  If that wasn’t the case, I probably wouldn’t be living here anymore!

For yesterday’s column, I felt that I had to struggle to find bad things to write about.  Today, I’m having to struggle too, though - this time keeping the list of good things to a minimum!  There are so many good aspects in my mind about living here.  Let’s have a look:

1. I came very close to running out of money. What?  That was the number one bad thing yestereday, how can it be the number 1 good thing too?  Well, I did give you a teaser the other day and said to have a look at the number 1 bad thing and the number 1 good thing, because they are related.  You see, while running low on money was certainly a bad experience, it is something that forced me to learn how to money here.  Honestly, the number one complaint that I hear from other expats here is that they don’t have enough money.  Things are more expensive than they expected.  A lot of expats end up going home, because they can’t afford living here.  They need to go home and get a job.  Well, when I was staring at that same situation a number of years ago, I decided that I did not want to go back home, and I would do anything I could to make money here.  It took some hard work, time and commitment on my part, but I succeeded in that goal, and I’m glad that I did.  So, basically, through my hard work I was able to turn the worst experience I ever had here into the best.  I am very thankful for that too.
2. Learning to speak Bisaya. No, I am not fluent in Bisaya yet, but I am well down the road.  Last week, I got into a conversation with an old man in town.  He is from Leyte originally, but has lived in the Davao area for decades now.  He could not speak English much, so we talked in Bisaya.  Our conversation went on for an hour or so, I guess.  We talked about our respective lives, our families, kids, etc.  It was reallly enjoyable.  If I did not know how to speak Bisaya, I would have never been able to do talk with this man.  I have had other similar conversations with people over the past year.  I find that learning to speak the local language has been very rewarding to me.  It helps bring me closer to the local culture, opens up my understanding of the people and the place, and overall, it improves my life.  It improves my life a lot too.  Remember yesterday, I talked about feeling “superior” and how that was a negative thing about living here?  Well, I find that the ability to speak the local language gives you a lot of opportunities to be treated as “just a regular guy.”  And, I like that.  My only regret about learning Bisaya is that I should have done it earlier.  But, I can’t change that, all I can do is keep plugging away and improving my Bisaya skills.  I really offer a deep sense of gratitude to my teacher, Bebe Metillo for this too.  What she has done for me has improved my life immenseley.
3. Gaining better health. In yesterday’s list of the worst things that I had experienced here, I mentioned that I had a stroke in 2001.  That has not been a secret, I have eluded to it a number of times on this site over the years.  But, that stroke pushed me toward improving my health.  Living in the Philippines contributed toward improving my health because of a number of reasons.  I have the time to get some exercise, be it walking, swimming or some other activity.  I don’t have to always be in a rush to get to work or whatever, and can take the time to improve myself.  Aslo, since living in the Philippines I have lost nearly 150 pounds, and that is certainly better for me.  I am not thin now, by any means, I am still very big, but having shed the pounds that I have has been good for me.  All I can do is to continue working on losing more weight in the future.
4. Travel and learning about other cultures. If you have been reading any of my sites for any appreciable time, you will know that I have done a lot of travel around Mindanao.   This ability to travel the region has really opened my eyes to cultures other than my own, and that is something that I have found valuable in my personal life.  If I didn’t live here, I doubt that I could have had such an opportunity.
5. Becoming more thankful for the things that I have. It would not be easy to live here without developing a deep appreciation of the things that you have in life.  Seeing the poverty that exists in the Philippines can have a deep impact on you, if you allow it to do so.  One thing that has come to my mind is that some people who may be very poor in terms of finances are still rich in terms of other things in their lives - family and such.  Most westerns don’t appreciate these things as much as they should, in my opinion.
6. Making good friends. Yes, I had good friends back in the States too, but living here has given me the chance to make friends from many different cultures.  I have friends from dozens of countries - other expats who live here - as well as Filipinos and other Americans.  If I lived in the States, I don’t think that I would have had the opportunity to have such a diverse group of friends.

Well, there are so many good things that I have experienced here, it’s hard to list them all.  In fact, listing them all would be impossible.  I have, however, listed those things that I find very important in my personal life.  I hope that you all get the opportunity to experience things like this by moving to the Philippines yourself.

The worst things I’ve experienced in the Philippines

I love living in the Philippines.  At this point in my life, I can’t even imagine ever leaving.  However, no matter how much you love a place, you have to remember, no place on the Earth is perfect.  During the entire time that I’ve lived here, my life has never been perfect, far from it!  I guess if life was perfect, it would probably turn out to be boring.  We all need challenges to keep us moving forward.

As I mentioned in my column yesterday, last week I was having lunch with John Grant.  John asked me the question: “since you’ve been living in the Philippines what were the worst and best things that happened to you?“  Well, today I’m going to talk about the worst things that I’ve experienced since living in the Philippines.  Frankly, there are not that many, but in order to improve our lives, we always have to examine the good and the bad, and decide how we can use those to improve.

So, let’s have a look at the worst things that I’ve experienced since living in the Philippines:

1. I came very close to running out of money. When I moved here, I came with quite a nice stash of money.  Not enough to retire, but enough to make a nice start.  I’ll be honest, I came here with around $100,000 in cash.  I thought that would last me a long time, but I was not right.  Frankly, after about two years, I was in serious trouble.  It came to the point where I was not sure how is going to pay my bills the next month.  I had to make some money, and I had to do it fast.  We were at the point that Feyma even offered to go abroad and work, sending money back to help pay the bills here, supporting me and the kids.  I explained to her that that just was not going to happen.  If anybody was to go work, it would be me, but my preference was to keep the family together.  Feyma started encouraging me to try some methods of making money online, and I agreed.  Luckily through this effort, I was able to recover, and learn how to make a good living here.  How did I get into this position to begin with? Well, frankly, it was not hard.  Firstly, we invested in several businesses when  we came here.  Some of them did okay, others didn’t.  One thing I really learned is this, if you’re moving to a new country, take some time to learn how things work there before you start investing into things you don’t know much about, because, things don’t work the same way as they did back home.  You’re likely to invest way too much money into things that you don’t need, and not enough in the things that you do need to get your business off the ground.  Another thing that can make you run through your money is that most foreigners come here, thinking everything is cheap, and they just throw too much money at stuff.  When everything is cheap, they feel that they can spend recklessly, and it won’t affect their pocketbook much.  Well, believe me, when you spend money it depletes your savings, no matter how cheap the individual item is.
2. Temptation. This is a delicate topic, but one that must be discussed.  For men, there is a lot of temptation here.  I’m talking about other women who throw themselves at you and such.  Coming from a country where you may not be considered desirable, and rarely have even thought of other women being interested in you, and showing up in a new country where you’re like a rockstar is not easy.  There is constant temptation.  Such temptation, even if you do not act on it, is not good for a marriage.  If you do act on the temptation, that’s even worse for your marriage.  All of this is particularly tough in the first couple of years that you live here, because it’s new for you, and something like this is hard to say no to.  After a couple of years, you will get used to the feeling, and learn how to deal with it (or some may decide that this is the life they want, and continue full speed ahead).  But, it’s not an easy transition.  I am lucky that Feyma was patient and understanding with me.  I have had times when I had Feyma with me, and women would come up to me and make offers to me.  Many wives would not put up with that, even though it was not really the husbands fault that this happened.  This, in my opinion is one of the hardest things about living here, and it took me time to learn how to avoid such situations.  Honestly, I thank Feyma for her patience in this regard.  I love Feyma very much, and I could not ask for a better wife.  I hope she knows that, and I think she does. One important thing to keep in mind for you in this regard is that most women doing this are really only out for one thing - money.  By “catching” you, they can get money, and that is the prime reason why they are interested in you (sorry to burst your bubble!).
3. I had a stroke in November 2001. Having a stroke is certainly bad, but was it because I lived in the Philippines?  Probably not totally, but I think that living here contributed to it.  Why?  Because living here was stressful until I adjusted more.  There was a lot of pressure.  Financial pressure, as I outlined in #1 above, the kind of pressures in #2, and other pressures.  These pressures created stress, and stress leads to strokes.  I was not in good health, and there is a history of stroke in my family, so I probably would have had a stroke at a later time anyway, but living here probably speeded it up a bit.  Thankfully, I was able to make a full recovery, and I have improved my health a lot since then too.  I think that living in the Philippines had a lot to do with these positive things too!
4. Feeling superior. After moving here, I went through a stage where I felt superior.  I felt like I was the hottest thing going.  Why?  Well, I can think of a few reasons why I developed this attitude.  Firstly, as a foreigner, people here treat you in a way that makes you feel superior.  It’s always “Sir” this and “Sir” that.  You are treated in a way that you are better, more special, etc.  When you are constantly treated this way, it tends to go to your head, or at least it did for me.  It’s really a bad attitude, and one to avoid if you can.  Also, take into account #2 above, you have all these women chasing after you - of course it makes you feel high and mighty.  If you get an attitude like that - try to kick it as soon as you can.  I feel that I have, for the most part, gotten past that, and I don’t feel that way anymore, and I’m glad that I don’t.  It’s a lot more fun and enjoyable to live as a “regular guy” than the opposite!

So, these are the things that I have been able to come up with as the “worst things that have happened to me in the Philippines.”  Certainly, there are other bad things that I have experienced here, but in the end they add up to very little.  Overall, I would call life here super.  As I have said many times on this site, I don’t really have any thoughts about leaving here, so that would tend to show that I like living here!

From a Davao Diary

There I was one pleasant morning on a long sweaty walk that starts at the Davao City Hall and leads to the unimposing South Ilustre Mall downtown: moving, maybe lost, but moving. Even though according to the locals I actually came close to the Chinatown of the largest city in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, it was a stretch that struck me as more Western than Oriental: diners and billboards; no teahouses and no lanterns.

No matter. Why exchange sixty minutes of sun and solitude for anything else? The weather was agreeable, and I was enjoying being a traveller, as opposed to being “just a domestic tourist”. Only briefly did I stop: upon a minor assault of hunger I breakfasted at a McDonald’s at one corner of an intersection. I forgot for one reason or another to take mental note of the streets’ names, a habit I had acquired in Manila. It was something else which I let guide me: the kites being flown above –looking like seven sperm cells in the clear blue sky– or something simpler perhaps, and vaguer, such as an impulsive fearlessness of the unknown. Whatever it is, if the guide disappointed, I still would’ve moved, just moved, in what R.L. Stevenson had once expressed as “the great affair.”

See, I wasn’t intent on arriving anywhere specific. I had the morning and early afternoon to myself, and was thus half-witted enough to prowl downtown Davao –a land of which I still knew very little, except for its being rashly heralded as “the most livable city in Asia”– in an unaware sort of way.

Don’t get me wrong: there were plenty of reminders that this was the Philippines still, where one was served Coke seconds after ordering Sprite. “But I ordered Sprite,” I mumbled to the teenage girl in a French fries hat. She didn’t hear me. I walked away with a drink I didn’t want and a McMuffin sandwich I didn’t particularly care for.

Looking out through the glass window I observed the absence of Ped Xing signs. The ones motorists in Manila ignored to the dismay of commuters? Where were those yellow signs? This was as unusual to me as the occurrence of here seeing a smooth sunburnt road, one whose noiselessness was broken only by the quick hello-goodbye of a friendly security guard. He greeted the customers. The customers, save for me, greeted him back.

Right across from McDonald’s there stood a drab and advertisement-plastered commercial plaza called Times Square, and I was reminded of New York City. Pigeons dove and foraged for what little biodegradable litter there was, and I fantasized about Venice. A bike with a multicoloured umbrella rolled past and I thought of a busy district in Thailand. You see, one needs only to use his imagination and he’d be all over the world.

I resumed my journey on foot and thought it strange that the people walked ever so slowly. (I almost cursed a nursing student for listening to her iPod instead of letting me pass.) Here, rarely did one pedestrian sidestep another. Have they no urgent jobs they must rush off to? No game to catch? Where are the moving cars, and if no one can answer that, what are these stoplights for? These were inappropriately Manila questions, mind, but I was not to be blamed for being presented this world of sterile, style-cramping newness.

This means, of course, that I thought of home oftener than I had expected, or wanted to. I heart-shatteringly pined for my second-hand Penguin Classics (there aren’t, so far as I can tell, many decent bookstores in Davao) and my guitar. I actually missed the people; and the dirt; the traffic; the contemptuous stares; Manila’s notorious unrest. I found that all these were dear to me; being far away, I thought I would become none the more colourful, or interesting, or – what? Street-wise? Hardened? Davao felt safe alright, as alleged, as though it kept everyone on an even keel.

Seeing Chinatown might have changed this. I wonder now if it looks like Manila’s infamous Binondo. I wonder if it’s a place just as fresh and just as rotten: alive with unkempt Chinese temples, marble dragons, DVD pirates, sidewalk stalls selling unlabeled bottles of herbal medicine, and wet streets permeated by the blatant smell of soy sauce and sewage. I missed it while I was there. But I’ll keep on moving, and in moving I might find what I’m looking for.

Why do I live here?

A few weeks ago, I was out walking.  When I’m walking, I tend to do a lot of thinking, and come up with some of my best ideas at that time.  On this particular day, I was thinking about a request from a reader.  Remember couple weeks ago I wrote an article about Penny, a white female who is thinking of possibly living in the Philippines, but was concerned about safety?  This particular day, while I was walking, that’s the subject I was thinking about, and planning to write the article.  However, my thoughts strayed on that day.  The subject that kept coming back to my mind was, why do I live here?

If you think about that, it’s not really an easy question to answer.  Even though I knew that I enjoyed living here, if I wanted to give specific reasons why I like it here, that was something I had to think about.  I mean, there are a number of reasons why a lot of people would not like it, and there were reasons that I did not like.  However, even though there were things I did not like, overall, I love living here.  Why?

Well, one of the things that I thought of that I didn’t like was that I’m different.  I’m always different.  No matter where you go, you are often the only foreigner there.  The only time that this is really not true, is when you go in a group with other foreigners.  And, I don’t just mean the you look different, you’re just different in almost every way.  As a foreigner, you will find the you think differently than the local people, do things differently, react to situations differently, you are just different.  Like I said, at first I was thinking this was something I didn’t like about living here.  However, as I thought about it more, I realized that I’ve always been different, no matter where I lived.  I never totally fit in any place that I went, because I was different!  There’s nothing wrong with that either, and as I thought this over, I decided that this was actually something that was okay about living here.  I accept being different, and have no real problems with it.  A friend and I once talked about this, and we came to the conclusion that if we weren’t different, we probably wouldn’t live here.  The normal person back in the states doesn’t move to the Philippines, it takes somebody who’s a little bit different to do that.

So, while this subject was already on my mind, last week I was having lunch with John Grant.  He has lived here for a couple of years now, and I have lived here for 8 years.  He asked me a question which I found intriguing.  He asked, “in the time you’ve lived here, what is the worst thing that ever happened to you, and what is the best?”  Wow, now that was something to think about.  It was not something that I could immediately answer, rather something that required some deep thought.  After a while, I gave him a few answers, off the top of my head.  However, now, I have given it more thought, and I want to answer it here in my column.

So, I’m going to write two more columns about this.  Tomorrow, I’m going to talk about the worst things that have happened to me since living in the Philippines.  These worst things are things that I do not believe would’ve happened to me if I did not live here.  The following day, I will write a column about the best things that happened to me since living here.  So, if you’re thinking of moving here, these two columns are some things you might want to consider for yourself.

Let me give you a little clue.  Tomorrow, take a look at the number one worst thing that has happened to me since living here.  The next day, take a look at the number one best thing that has happened to me since living here.  You may find that there’s an interesting connection.

See you tomorrow?

Good Kids

I’m not one who has ever been known to be good with kids… Be great if they were born housebroken, eh? Usually, my encounters with children are with those afflicted with Bratticus Horribilius, or something similar. I think I could make millions if I invented an ointment or something for that disease. So, for me to say what I’m about to say, those who know me must think that I’ve gone absolutely batty: I really like Filipino kids. I must say that I’ve experienced a 180 degree turnaround in my thought process. Since I’ve moved here, I’ve noticed that Filipino kids are some of the nicest, best behaved kids that I’ve ever met. I could speculate as to why, but I would be getting ahead of myself… I really think it has a lot to do with the family structure in the RP. I find “Mano Po” a very civilized custom, and, perhaps, things like that could explain it. A couple of short anecdotes:

Rebecca’s nephew lives with the family up in Abulug. His father is an OFW in the Middle East, and he can be a bit of a handful at times (Everyone gives him a lot of leeway to compensate for his father not being around). Rebecca made a big bowl of popcorn one day (She makes it with coconut oil and margarine… tastes just like at the movies… AWESOME!!), and her nephew was walking around basically leaving a trail. His little cousin, who is around five years old, grabbed a broom, without anyone asking her, and swept up the mess. He later made more mess, and she put both her hands on her hips and said, in Ybanag, something to the effect of “I’m not going to follow you around all day, clean up your mess!”. I told her, “Yeah, boys are really big slobs, huh?!!” She then swept everything up again, on her own. I was impressed… an American child would not even think of cleaning, certainly not without being told to clean. Probably would want to be paid or something… Yet, this little five year old girl…..

Our neighbor’s grandson has latched on to me… Similar situation… Dad is an OFW, and the kid lives in a house full of women, with no men around. He started coming over on the days I am in town working. I let him watch the cable TV in the aircon. Probably the stuff his mother won’t let him watch, like professional wrestling (American culture at its finest!). So, I just kind of let him sit downstairs watching while I am up in my office getting some work done. Once in a while, he’ll come up and say “Kuya John, why are you always up here working?” So, I reach into my wallet and pull out 100 Pesos. “Cedrick, do you know what supply and demand is?” “No, Kuya”. “Well, my supply of Diet Coke and Marlboros is running low, and I need some. How much is your labor worth to run to the sari sari and bring me some of each? Perhaps a Kit Kat?” ” Ok Kuya, I’ll be right back!” After he ate around seven Kit Kats that day, his mama was perplexed as to why he was bouncing around and not eating his supper. Needless to say, her and Rebecca ganged up on me, so I’m limited to giving him one Kit Kat per day (I don’t have kids, so I don’t know… I thought Chocolate was a food group!) I’ve recently been saving coins from my travels and helping him start a coin collection instead…few coins per trip. No negative feedback from that one! Yet….

Final story… I have two nieces in Florida. Now, these are two pretty good kids. They are not spoiled, per se, but I can tell you that at Christmas time, my mother’s house looks like a Toys R Us… I have never seen two kids get so much stuff. They are given every advantage in the world that is possible, and their schedules are kept in INDIVIDUAL DAY PLANNERS!   What the hell???? That’s right… They each have a Blackberry! Contrast this to the Philippines… Rebecca went out to the ponds to check on the land clearing. She gathered up her nephew and about six other kids, made a picnic lunch (and they fished some prawns from the pond, too), and they went out for the day. She talked to the workmen, everyone ate lunch, and then she, the kids, and the workers, built a raft out of bamboo poles, tied it to a carabao, and went on boat rides all afternoon and had an absolute ball. No batteries, no plastic Chinese toys, no helmets, no safety gear, no nothin’…. Just imagination and having fun. I find it interesting that kids who have literally nothing, or perhaps one small toy, have a childhood of which I am almost envious. Quite frankly, even from poverty, kids are still able to be kids. It is also why I always tell Rebecca that though she didn’t grow up with a lot of money, she grew up with ambition and principles… Two things that money certainly cannot buy.

Hope this is interesting to all of you…

Ownership Structure and Formation of a Small Business

Who’s really in charge and where does the peso actually stop in your small business?

The answer to these questions can only be found when you formally organize and legally register your small business. In the Philippines, for-profit small businesses can be legally opened in three ways. They can be formed as a sole proprietorship, as a partnership, or as a corporation. Each form is different in its characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages. The form you choose will not only determine the amount of paperwork and cost involved in forming your business, but also other things like the amount of government regulation you will be exposed to, the manner in which you will be taxed, the way in which profits or losses can be used or dispersed, and the liability incurred by different individuals listed as owners, partners, or shareholders in the business.

A sole proprietorship is the easiest form of business to register in terms of documentary requirements and costs involved. Foreign nationals cannot form a sole proprietorship on their own, but if married to a Filipino, then the business may be registered and opened in the Filipino spouses’s name. The requirements involved in registering a sole proprietorship include filing your business name with DTI, registering for tax purposes with BIR, and securing some basic local government permits (i.e. mayor’s permit), all of which are easily obtained. The total costs vary depending on the municipality and kinds of permits needed, but a sole proprietorship is by far the cheapest and quickest way to go for most small businesses.

A business registered as a sole proprietorship has some key advantages that make it a very appropriate option for small business owners. The biggest advantage is that once registered, the business becomes an extension of the person who registered it. What do I mean by that? Well, legally, there is no distinction between the person and the business. This means that a sole proprietor is the ultimate owner, and all decisions made rest solely with the owner. All decisions made and any profits gained by the business can be used at the discretion of the registered owner. In other words, a sole proprietorship places all the power and responsibility in the owners’ hands and rewards the owner with all the potential gains to be made. The major drawback is in terms of liability. While a sole proprietor can reap all the potential rewards of being sole owner, he/she must also bear unlimited liability for the business. Philippine law does not distinguish between business and personal assets when you form a sole proprietorship, so personal non-business property can be exposed to litigation in the event of a case being filed against the business. Another drawback to consider is that you will not have access to the resources a partnership or corporation provides (i.e. additional skills and expertise, financial backing, etc.).

Partnerships and corporations offer different sets of advantages and disadvantages. Both need to be registered with the SEC and this means a great deal more in terms of documentation and fees to get set up. Partnerships have two or more owners and therefore require a different kind of legal arrangement. In the case of a partnership, at least one partner must assume unlimited liability, while other members can assume proportional liability. Partnerships operate according to a binding contract that outlines who is involved, what is contributed by whom, and how profits and losses are proportionately shared. Partnerships are an attractive option in a number of cases. You have the advantage of pooled resources, which can mean financial contributions and/or technical contributions. People new to a market can form a partnership as a way of entering the market and tapping local knowledge and contacts to help give the company an edge it may not otherwise have if it had chosen to enter the market on its own. For foreigners, a partnership can be especially appealing because it can mean having a local point person that is capable of handling ‘front-office’ issues, while the rest of the partners concentrate on ‘back-office’ issues. There are disadvantages to partnerships. Sole proprietorships allow complete control over decision-making, but in a partnership, members must be willing to share decision-making or agree to have a managing partner that handles all but certain decisions entertained by the partnership. You are also limited to a proportion of any potential profits. And finally, you could encounter tensions in the partnership if there is disagreement over company direction, especially when expansion or contraction is an issue facing the company.

Corporations are yet another option in business formation. The most appealing aspect of a corporation is that the business becomes its own separate entity that is distinct from its stockholders. What this basically means is that the corporation assumes its own liabilities and cannot transfer these liabilities to the stockholders. As an investor in a corporation, you are only risking your investment and cannot be held personally liable for any wrongdoings of the company beyond what you invested. There is however a great deal of paperwork to be completed when forming a corporation. Articles of incorporation need to be formulated, the fees involved in setting up a corporation are much higher than other business forms, yearly reporting records must be made and submitted to the SEC, taxes are higher than those paid by sole proprietorships, a board of directors needs to be established, etc. In short, opening a corporation has the advantage of limiting liability, but adds on a lot of complexities to running a business that may not be worth the time and effort for a truly small business operation.

So which form of ownership do most foreigners choose when organizing their small business? Generally speaking, those married to a Philippine national choose the sole proprietorship route, with their spouse being the person ultimately responsible for the company. This is done for most small businesses because there is little or no need to go through the elaborate expense of forming a corporation for small or hobby businesses. That being said, when very large amounts of capital are involved, the formation of a corporation is usually chosen. Foreign nationals can legally own a proportion of a corporation, and this way they can be assured they will retain ownership of at least a portion of the business and have legal standing. There are other reasons to choose to open a corporation, such as being able to apply for an investor’s visa and being able to repatriate funds relatively easily.

When you do decide to register your business, keep in mind the above advantages and disadvantages. Every small business has different needs, especially at start up. Your business may grow to be hugely successful, but that doesn’t mean you need to start out as a corporation. It is completely plausible for a business to start out as a sole proprietorship and evolve into a corporation. You can always go through the process of incorporation after you have grown your small business and your needs change.

Good luck, and no matter what form you choose, always remember to follow the reporting and tax requirements appropriate to the type of business you ultimately choose to form!

 

A day of many firsts

Last Friday was a fun and interesting day for Feyma and I.  We spent the day entertaining some guests who are in town, Kevin Smith, and his wife Bebing.  Longtime readers of this site may remember Kevin, when we first converted to a multi-author platform, Kevin was a writer on this site.  I had never met Kevin in person before, until recently.  During the time he was writing on the site, he was living in the United States.  Kevin and Bebing still live in the United States, but are currently visiting the Davao area.  Kevin is a middle school science teacher, and teaching is something that he is very passionate about.

For Friday, Feyma, Kevin, Bebing and I decided to take a trip to Samal Island, just for a getaway.  We wanted to show Kevin and Bebing where we would be building our house, and also just enjoy many different sites around the island.  Anyway, this article is not about our visit, but particularly about one event that happened during our time on Samal.

We had stopped to explore the Samal White House, a nearly 100-year-old house, that is a landmark on the island.  It is very near to our property, and a place that we really love spending time.  While we were exploring the area there were some other people around, working on the house, doing some landscaping and such.  We spent a lot of time talking with these people, just getting to know them a little.  As we were leaving, a young girl started walking toward the area where we were.  I thought she was maybe around 10 years old, but as it turns out she is 13.  It was midday on Friday, so I asked her why she was not in school.  She could not speak English, but I was able to converse with her in Bisaya.  She told me that she’d quit school after fourth grade, so there was no school for her.  After she said that, a conversation broke out amongst all of us and we were really urging her that she needed to go back to school.  Her response was that there was no money available, so school was really an impossibility for her.

Bebing said that her mother, who lives in Digos, about an hour from Davao, was looking for a helper in the house, and in addition, her mother is a school teacher.  So, an offer was made by Bebing to Mae that if she is willing to go to Digos and help around the house, she could go back to school.  She was excited with the offer, but of course, at 13, she would need her mother’s permission to do something like that.  Feyma, Bebing, and this girl (her name is Mae) headed off to talk to the parents.  Their house was not far away, just walking distance.  The mother was a little reluctant, Mae is the oldest child, and it would be hard to see her go.  But, the father encouraged the move, wanting his daughter to be able to get an education.  So, it was decided, Mae would go with us.

At the time when Mae joined us, and was ready to leave, it was quite touching.  Her mother was in tears, and Mae’s eyes were welled up with tears as well.  I’m sure it was very hard for May’s mother to see her go.  Kevin and I were talking about this, and thinking to ourselves, how much different our culture is from theirs. I can’t imagine some stranger showing out and taking one of my kids with them, I wouldn’t even hear of that.  Frankly, it would be unfathomable.  But, Mae’s parents realized that it was really her only chance that she would get ahead in life, and they accepted that.

When Mae joined us and we left, we had quite a talk with her.  We found out that this was the first time she’d ever been inside a car before.  In fact, she’d never left Samal Island before, and had actually only been to a very small part of the island.  Almost everything we did that day was the first time for Mae.  It was fun witnessing her amazement at so many things.  When we rode the ferry back from the island to the city, she was quite shocked, I don’t think she knew that there was such a thing as a boat that could carry a car.  She was a little bit scared with all this, but overall more amazed than scared.

When we got home, Mae was shocked at the size of our house.  That didn’t surprise us, because her house was only about 8′ x 8′, and they had a family of six people living there.  When we got home, Mae also enjoyed probably the best meal she’d ever had before.  After the meal, she even had ice cream, the first time she’d ever had that before too.  Mae stayed overnight at our house, and on Saturday morning Kevin and Bebing took her to Digos to start her new life.

Before leaving, Mae asked us if it was okay if she came to visit us from time to time, and of course we said yes.  Even though we only knew Mae for a short time, we’d grown attached to her and close to her, as if she was our kid too.  I hope that she gets a good education, improves her life, and can even help her family improve their life as well.

Good luck Mae.

UPDATE: I got a text message from Kevin and Bebing yesterday afternoon.  It seems that Kevin was contacted by Mae’s mother demanding the return of Mae, because her mother misses her.  So, Kevin and Bebing will be bringing Mae back to Davao later this week, and returning her to Samal.  It’s too bad, because this was an opportunity for Mae to end up living a better life.  Unless things change in the next couple of days, it seems that this opportunity will be passed by.

What Can We Learn From a Train?

Yesterday I was doing a lot of thinking about some of the discussion here regarding earning a living.  I hadn’t intended when I took this column on to make it an entrepreneur’s’ journal and certainly not a "make money online" column, although these are my current ‘hot button’ subjects.  But I am of an age where I can look back at 50-odd years of life experience and think about successes I have had and areas where I probably didn’t make the right choices. I am also sensitive to the turmoil in a lot of people’s lives as they consider thing like perhaps making a huge change in their lives by moving to the Philippines … what’s the right time, if ever, to do something like that and if such a move is right, whenever might be the right time.

And how on earth could I earn a living and what can I do if I can’t find a job?  Along with these thoughts come years of discussions with people often struggling with this issue which frankly can get a bit tedious at times because, from a country that was built on entrepreneurship and self-reliance we, speaking for myself and the Americans I know, seem to have ’shrunk’ to a fraction of our ancestor’s size … building our lives around what other people tell us is ’safe’ and making sure we finish our years never ‘taking a risk’ because everybody knows risk is wrong and the best move is always to ‘play it safe.

Well I could go back to Colonial times when 13 well-off colonies of great Britain took it upon themselves to break free from the ‘mother country’ and form our own.  Oh course virtually the only citizens of the original colonies who had jobs, with benefits at that time were workers employed by the King of England … most of the dissatisfied Colonists who wanted to break away were independent storekeepers, farmers, mill owners and newspaper publishers.  The ones who wanted to strike out on their own didn’t have Social Security, Medicaid, pensions, tenure, FDIC and all the other safety nets that make our life so secure today.  Do you think the US could even be formed today?  I doubt it.  Wouldn’t be ’safe’.  Wouldn’t be prudent.  Wait a while and ‘the government’ will make everything right.

So let’s look at something a little closer in time and smaller in scale than ‘nation building’.  In 1881 the Denver and Rio Grande railroad forged a whole network of narrow-gauge (only three feet between the rails) railroads through the Colorado Rockies to tap the rich gold, silver and lumber ventures being formed.

Over the next century the railroads evolved, some were made full-size, others were abandoned or sold, but overall a lot of money was made.  One hundred years later there were only two major pieces of the narrow gauge empire left, the most photogenic one being the line from Durango Colorado through the Animas River canyon to the town of Silverton.  The railroad company was still very much a going concern, making a lot of money hauling coal for power plants among many other freight sources.  But they had a terrible, terrible problem that they spent a fortune telling the world and lobbying Washington about.  It was going to drive them out of business, it was terrible, the government was "killing" them.

The "problem" was the antique "Silverton train".  A corporation in the 1980’s in America could not possibly make money running an antique steam railroad, and, at that time, government regulations prohibited the parent company from doing what they wanted to do … abandoning the toy-like, horribly old-fashioned steam trains.  I mean it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out … everyone knows that you can’t succeed by being different and by doing something no one else does.  Help us, help us please.

Well, they got their wish.  During the Reagan era (the Great Deregulator) the D&RG got permission to abandon their unique and horribly unprofitable steam trains.  End of story and happy ending in sight, correct?  Well, yes, but not in the way the "security experts" would have predicted.

A fellow named Charles E. Bradshaw refused to listed to government and private industry "experts" who know all about security and the "right way" to do things.  He formed the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Company, took over the worthless, antiquated equipment (which the original, professional railroad owners didn’t even consider worth hauling away for scrap) and put together what  is now, by far, the most well-known and profitable passenger railroad operation in the world. Trains are booked for months in advance.  Ticket prices run upwards of $45 USD one way for a child) on up into the hundreds of dollars for a chance to ride in the cab and covered with cinders and soot for a couple hours.  Worthless?  Well you sure wouldn’t think so to look at it today.

The point we all can learn from Bradshaw and the "Silverton Train"?  Experts are just one source of opinion.  The ‘ordinary’ way is just one of many ways to do things.  And belief in the dream that you, and you alone, decide is the best for you is more important than every expert, every government caution label and every piece of advice from those who want to see you stay right there in the same place as they are.  Perhaps because they truly care about you, or perhaps so they themselves won’t feel bad bad when you’ve succeeded and they have stagnated.

This train that we are riding today, (life) runs but for a short time, and then we never get another ticket.  At the end of the line do you want to be a Charles Bradshaw or a Philip Anschutz, (the last CEO of the D&RG who despite government help and relief from terrible ‘burden’ of the narrow-gauge lines couldn’t last past 1996 and folded the company … doing all the while doing what the ‘experts’ told him and playing it safe.

photo credit: Mike PierzynskiI

Housing market

I read a report this week about who actually owns homes here in the Philippines and I was a little surprised as the overseas Filipinos, retirees remain top buyers in RP residential market - low prices are the big draw  and a  top official of an international real estate services company said  Filipinos overseas workers and foreign retirees remain the most active buyers in the Philippines thus boosting market demand.

Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) have long been a lucrative market for residential properties because of their desire to provide a better life for their families and retirees both expat and ex Pinoy have  ramped up property spending, mostly from life savings and retirement benefits and want  now to see out the years in paradise. and why not?

So many new houses are apartments are being made here in Davao City too and although this is great for the the overall economy I am concerned that the actual population is being priced out of any chance of getting on the housing market by returning OFW and the ex pats. I rent!!!

Real estate companies are evrywhere and are growing not declining like the USA and I get approached daily if I would like to buy a house even when I am in the mall shopping you see many stands promoting new homes at very reasonable prices. Reasonable to us that is!

To address increasing demand by OFWs and retirees, real estate developers are developing affordable housing developments and condominium projects, with investments ranging from PhP1-Million to PhP2.5-Million, according to a CBRE Philippines report.

In the period 2008 to 2013, 28 residential condominiums are expected to rise in Makati City, providing more than 18,000 units. Now that seems to a big difference from what is happening in America and my homeland of the UK.

According to CBRE Philippines General Manager, mortgage rates are hovering in a range of 8.5 percent to 12 percent and another bright prospect for the Philippine residential market is the development and market positioning of retirement villages for expatriate “empty nesters.”