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What is the worst thing that has happened to you as an expat in the Philippines?
ramireztheboxer
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What is the worst thing that has happened to you as an expat in the Philippines?
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A week after I moved to Cebu, I was in an isolated bungalow on the beach that was burglarized & everything was stolen. Even my passport. I literally woke up in bed & reached over & the burglars had even stolen my pants. The PNP told me I was lucky. Had I woken up, they would have probably stabbed me in my own bed…I always suspected my landlord’s brother honestly. He worked as a caretaker for his brother & was a ne’re-do-well drunk. The front door was locked & he had the spare key. The thieves knew exactly where everything was & the PNP deduced that they had been in the bungalow previously.I had a plumbing problem & hired some local workers to come in my house & fix it & one of them stole my cell phone which was 10,000 PHP.I had no car & was living in a subdivision which was nice but outside (This was Cebu) was a poor tough Barangay & it was filled with shabu addicts & one night they bum’s rushed me at the gate of my subdivision & tried to snatch my laptop. One of these shabu addicts, named Ramos, later went crazy over the timbla of his shabu & set the dealer’s house on fire & burned half the Barangay down.I was pickpocketed on a Jeepney. My bank card was stolen as well, so I found myself miles from anywhere with no money.I was bitten by a local flea-bitten dog & I was afraid it had rabies. I was walking down the road & this askal dog raced out & bit me unprovoked. I had to go to the Barangay Town Hall & make a report to make sure it had its shots…this dog had previously bitten a 2 year old girl. When I lived in Cebu stray dogs were a serious problem.I had an American friend named John who was about 70 & seemed normal enough but he was arrested for being a pedophile.I met an American named Clinton in Cebu City. He said he had been robbed & had no money & asked if he could stay in my apartment. I agreed. Then it turned out Clinton, an Irish-American from Connecticut, had been homeless in Cebu City for years. He had simply run out of money but did not want to return to the USA because of a bad divorce. He had been a contractor in Iraq. I could not get rid of him. I finally moved out of my apartment. Clinton developed a dislike for me. Meanwhile he was living on the street in Cebu City. Literally. And he was becoming crazy, assaultive. He got into fights with local squatters. He assaulted a Ladyboy who came on to him. He also got into fights with Koreans tourists who chased him & beat him up in the Lapu Lapu Tourist Police Station. Some sympathetic fellow Westerner gave him $100. He took it to a bar where he got drunk & paid a prostitute for sex. Then he was homeless again. All Clinton would do is walk up & down the streets. Occasionally he would hang around the McDonald’s where other Americans met. He got so bad & so crazy I finally reported him to the US Consulate. The Consulate director told me “It’s a good thing you did that, he would not have lived another week”. As it happened, he had to be taken into the Cebu mental asylum for evaluation.I had a couple of instances-I was under 40 so I was not a retiree-where younger Filipinos just wanted to fight me or heckled me. Once I was heckled fairly badly by a young woman…I don’t know who she was or why, but I ended up getting off the Jeepney. But mostly it was just young Filipino men either wanting to fight or acting aggressive towards me. Usually drunks. You are really foolish to go into a poor Barangay & booze up with locals.I rode a taxi once with a driver who was obviously under the influence of shabu. He was running red lights etc. I was so scared that I simply asked him to let me out. He did so but was extremely angry he was not going to get the full fare. I paid him the full fare anyhow just to get away from him because he looked like a dangerous junkie. A Tweaker as we would say in the USA.On one occasion in rural Negros where there is a great deal of NPA activity a young woman threw rocks at me as I rode past on a rented motorcycle. I don’t know why & I don’t know who she was. New People’s Army was active in Negros.My other landlady when I rented a beach house had a son who was a shabu dealer for the local Barangay. I did not find this out until after I signed the lease. The entire Barangay was full of idle brain-fried young addicts in Neepah huts staring off into space. Alan, the woman’s son, tried to sell me a stolen motorcycle. His garage was a pawn shop of stolen items traded for shabu from addicts. His mother objected to his dealing & he beat her up once. He also like to seduce high school girls by introducing them to shabu & then having sex with them. Finally, I heard that the EJK were after him but he had disappeared…to who knew where.I WOULD STATE THE FOLLOWING… There is a drug war in the Philippines for a reason. Meth addicts known as “dragons” in PH slang or tweakers in the US parlance are common. Many of them are violent & crazy. Also, the Philippines is poorer than the US so the average Filipino addict has to commit crimes everyday to pay for shabu.It is foolish to pick up prostitutes off the street because many of them are shabu addicts & will rob you. Or their pimp will break in & rob you at gunpoint.Most violent or petty crimes in the Philippines are a result of shabu addicts.Some Filipinos are anti-Westerner. Not like Afghanistan but to the degree you might be heckled.Much of this assholery is alcohol-related.The chances of any Westerner not experiencing a single minor property crime ie a stolen phone is 10:1.Beware of older foreigners like Clinton who are broke but refuse to leave the PH. They will tell some story about a hacked bank account but basically they are intentionally homeless in the PH & do not want to return home. All of them will possess a ticket, because you cannot enter the PH with no return ticket. Give them money & they will spend it on alcohol & prostitutes. Some of them go crazy on the street. They will often turn on other Americans who try to help them.Wild stray dogs used to be a problem but I don’t know about now.It is worth investing in a motorcycle if your subdivision is near a poor Barangay. The local squatters or Tambays will soon know who you are & some will fixate upon you. If you walk past a poor Barangay everyday, you are asking for trouble.PHIL-CHINESE Generally, if you live in a subdivision or do business in the Philippines you are more likely to meet them. They are generally well-educated & non-violent. But most of them are influential & don’t make any enemies in the Phil Chinese community. LONELY HEARTS SCAMS & PROPERTY DISPUTES If you live in the PH for any period of time, some older foreigner (I was in my 30’s in the PH) you meet will be in some horrendous property dispute with an ex-wife. Their story will always be the same. Well, that is my two cents.
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I was addressed by two strangers near a sari sari store in Lahug, Cebu while I was buying some cigarettes, and one said that he was working for the Immigration. That he was the government and he was on top.He showed me his ID but it was from Department of Agriculture. He demanded to see my visa. I told him he was not an Immigration officer and that he needed to show me his Immigration ID because I did not have to show my visa to just anybody. “So”, he said, “ a Filipino must show you an ID?” I said, “ I am covered by the same law”. He hit me in the forehead once, then once again. I shouted for help and the store owner ran out and held him while I went to call the guard. The second stranger disappeared and then, the guy who hit me got on a motorcycle and left in a hurry. 2) Then, in Cebu, I was visiting a lady whom I had met online and she had a female friend with whom she was boarding. And I invited both ladies to dinner. Then, the father of her friend found out that his daughter had gone out with another girl who was dating a foreigner. He went mad and went to see my friend threatening her. He had seen me visit her and then said that he had seen a foreigner on TV arrested for white slavery and that he looked like me. He also said that he had been watching GMB and that it said that all men who were dating on the Internet were maniacs and criminals. Then he brought another guy with him to threaten the lady and that guy had a gun. 3) Then, I had been working in Saudi Arabia and decided to take a break and went to the PH and then took a ferry from Cebu to CDO. I had a cap on that said “ ABC Company, Saudi Arabia” on it. From my last job. There was a drunk guy, he was very big in size and he was with an entourage of several men. He started calling me a Muslim, and that I was a Turk and that he would have a military escort attached to me and if he saw me near a mosque, he would have me killed. He said that killing me was easy. Just tell the army “Get rid of that guy!” His entourage was laughing. Then, he calmed down and fell asleep. I no longer really go to the Visayan area. Too dangerous there and too many bad and ignorant people. You can lose your life for nothing.