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Low Cost of Living vs Reality
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If the Philippines has such a low cost of living, why do we live like hell, and my children are starving?
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The burden of the PH cost of living depends on how much you earn. If you earn 5,000 USD per month that’s approximately 250,000 PHP which is equivalent to the salary of senior manager / director in a multinational company. You will be able to live comfortably even in business districts such as Makati or BGC where rent and cost of food is high. If you earn 5,000 PHP or less than 100 USD per month you’d have a hard time. Minimum wage is around 14,000 PHP a month and that is barely enough to sustain 2 people let alone a family of 5. To survive in a 5,000 per month income household, you have to find a place you can live in for free (maybe relatives who have extra space in their home) so you don’t have to pay for rent. Put your kids in public school so you don’t have to pay for school fees, uniforms and shoes can just be hand-me-downs from relatives or friends. Let’s say you pay 500 for utilities (assuming you have no TV, aircon, ref and only have an electric fan or two). 4,500 will be left for food assuming you don’t spend on fares for commuting. That would give you 150/day to feed 5 people. A kilo of rice is around 35 pesos good for 1 meal that feeds 5. Canned sardines is around 25 and that’s probably the cheapest fare you can buy. So let’s say per meal you buy a kilo of rice and 2 canned sardines so that’s 60 pesos. You can just eat rice 2x a day (lunch and dinner) for 120 pesos. For breakfast maybe just buy pandesal (local bread) 2 pesos/piece so spend 20 pesos so each person can eat 2 pieces. The other 10 pesos may be to buy cooking oil or an egg. If you observe, most households that can survive or live comfortably (not well off, just enough to pay bills and not have a lot of debt) if at least 2 adults are working. Or 1 is working while another one has a small business (online selling, small retail store, canteen or part time work). Especially if there are kids that need to be put through school. Those who are considered upper middle class (class C) households have cars and houses they pay for 5 years or more, both parents or all adult children who have jobs, all contribute to pay household expenses and bills. This is also why most adult Filipinos do not leave their home once they turn 18. If they can stay as long as possible they will, so that household cost is shared among the members of the family. And at least one member of the household has a side hustle on top of a full-time job. The low cost of living only applies if you belong to the upper classes (A or B; usually Chinese business owners or Filipinos who come from old money) or you’re an expat who earns an equivalent salary as what you will earn outside the Philippines, while you’re here in the country. For all the rest, it’s the same. You have to work at least 10 hours a day to survive or be a celebrity – join some reality show or put up a YouTube channel.
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Because the country is ran by fraudulent and corrupted dynasties, Duterte Is doing his best to break the monopoly but the population are too Americanised to understand. The Philippines has the potential of being better and richer than Japan only if the Filipinos people stand up for their rights and stop being yes yes to everything, landlords abuse the poor, build terrible tiny houses with terrible cheapest materials and selling them and Filipinos are falling over themselves to buy. If there is no buyer there is no market no market no money. Money is power and power is money the longer the more stays in your pocket the more power you have and if 100,million Filipinos peacefully stand together with one voice your country will blossom and all will rosy in the garden but carry on as it is today your great great great grandchildren will be asking the same question in 100years from now.