Bob Martin

About 6 years ago, not long after I moved from General Santos City to Davao, I met a young man.  He was the brother of a friend, and had just moved to Davao himself.  This young man, his name was Omar, was half Filipino, half American.  Omar had grown up in the USA, and had never been in the Philippines before, but had decided to come and live in Davao, and attend College here.  I think it was sort of a combination of wanting to connect with his Filipino heritage, save money on college expenses and just get out on his own that brought him here.  Frankly, having never been in the Philippines, Omar was quite confused about many aspects of life here.  One thing that complicated his life here was that he looked to be 100% Filipino.  Because he looked Filipino, people here treated him as a local, yet emotionally he was really 100% American.

This unfamiliarity with Filipino culture lead to a lot of misunderstandings for Omar.  Not being able to understand the local language at all made life even more difficult, because since people thought he was a local, they would not speak to him in English.  When he would try to explain that he could not understand, they thought that he was just joking, and some people would get mad at him.  Because of this, Feyma always did a lot to help Omar in these situations.  If Omar was out in public and had a language problem, he would always call Feyma on his cellphone and she would help him through the trouble.

One day, I was planning to take a trip out of town for one night.  I asked Omar if he wanted to come along with me to see some other areas in Mindanao.  He readily took me up on my offer, and was excited to get out of the City and see the countryside a bit.  When we were ready to head out of town, Omar asked me if I would mind stopping at an ATM machine so that he could get some cash for the trip.  Of course, I was happy to make the stop for him.

I stopped at a bank with an ATM machine that would work with his US ATM card.  After a few minutes Omar came back and got in the car.  I could tell that he was troubled by something, or had something on his mind.  He wasn’t very talkative, and seemed to be focused somewhere else.  I just let him have time to work out whatever was bothering him.

When we arrived at our destination for the evening, and we were having dinner, Omar opened up to me.  “I want to talk to you about something.”  I replied “No problem, what’s up?”  “Well,” Omar said, “remember when we stopped at the bank?  I checked my balance on the ATM machine, and it said that I have more than $25,000 in my account!  Now, I was pretty sure that I had only $500 or so.  What do you think I should do?”

Inside, I was kind of chuckling, but I didn’t let on to Omar about that.  I explained to Omar, “you see, the ATM machines here don’t work in US Dollars, they are in Pesos.”  “What do you mean?” Omar asked.  “Well, Omar, when you do a balance inquiry, the amount is automatically converted from US Dollars, which you have in your account back home, into Philippine Pesos.”  “So,” I continued, “If you have $500 in your bank account, and the exchange rate is P50 for every dollar, the balance shown will be P25,000.”

“Oh,” Omar said, “I thought that the bank made a mistake, or maybe my Dad put in money for my schooling or living expenses!”  We had a mutual laugh, and enjoyed our dinner.

So, keep in mind, if you use ATM machines here in the Philippines, no matter where your bank account is, or what currency the account supports, the amounts shown by the ATM machine are in Philippine Pesos!

Last night, I had dinner with Matt.  Matt Mullenweg.  For those who don’t know who Matt is, he is the founding developer of WordPress, the software that this site runs on, and that powers millions of blogs on the Internet.  Matt is also the founder of Automattic, the company that runs his online ventures.  It happens that Matt is in Davao for WordCamp Philippines, a gathering of people who use WordPress software.  There will be a mini-WordCamp in Davao tomorrow night, and a full blown WordCamp in Manila on Saturday.  Matt is here to address the conference, which will be the first WordCamp in SE Asia.

The dinner was a small, rather intimate affair, attended by Feyma and I, Matt, Blogie, Ted Padova, Rodney and Chattee.  Blogie is a well known blogger in Davao, Ted is one of the world’s leading authors on Adobe PDF and other Adobe Creative Suite Products, Rodney owns a local software outsourcing company, and Chattee is also a local blogger, and a photographer too.  So, it was a small number of people, and it gave me an opportunity to talk with Matt about various WordPress issues, software problems, and just generally learn more about blogging, and share my experiences too.

With Matt being such a well known person on the Internet, I was not quite sure what to expect.  Maybe he would be a little big-headed, having captured such a huge following at the young age of 24.  I was pleasantly surprised, though, when I met Matt.  He is very down to earth, just a “regular guy” if you know what I mean.

Of course, having Ted Padova at the dinner was nice also.  Ted has written dozens of books about Adobe software, and is quite well known in his circle.  If you search for him on Amazon you will find that they are carrying dozens of Ted’s books.  Ted has been a good friend for more than a year now, and I always enjoy spending time with him.

I was talking with Feyma tonight, and we were kind of joking, but almost amazed at how many well known people we have met since living in the Philippines.  What is the chance of meeting somebody like Matt and having dinner with him if I were living in the States?  It would be very remote, yet living here we have met many people like Matt.  I guess it is one of the benefits of living as a “big fish in a small pond.”

Great to meet you, Matt, if you happen to read this.  I enjoyed our time together.

Last week, a C130 Hurcules aircraft crashed last week near Davao.  So far, they haven’t found it.  What they know is that the aircraft took off from Davao International Airport a couple of hours after nightfall, in the rain - a heavy thunderstorm.  In less than 10 minutes, the plane was gone, never to be heard of again.  They have been searching for it ever since, but have not found the crash site.

It is virtually certain that the plane crashed into the Gulf of Davao, most likely near to Samal Island, but nothing can be certain yet.  They feel that they have narrowed down the crash area because of the places where debris from the plane (including body parts of the people who were aboard the plane) have been found.  However, there is no concrete evidence of where the plane is yet.  A few fishermen claim to have seen the plane hit the water, some of them say that the plane was struck by lightning before crashing, but that is not confirmed.  Nine Philippine Military people were aboard the doomed plane, all of which are presumed dead.

Yesterday, a US Navy Ship arrived in the Davao Gulf, the USNS John McDonnell.  The ship is here to assist the Philippine government in finding the crashed plane.  The US ship is equipped with more modern sonar capability than is available here in the Philippines.

Another problem that is hindering the effort to find the crash is that the Davao International Airport has no radar.  Because of this, they had no fix on where the plane was when it disappeared.

I don’t think that the Philippine Government is claiming this officially, but I heard one military person on the TV News saying that the United States has some blame in this accident, because they gave the C130 to the Philippine military, and the plane must have had some defect to cause the crash.  The problem with that, though, is that the US gave the plane to the Philippine government in the 1980’s!  Now, I think it would be more likely that the US had no blame in this incident, rather maybe a maintenance problem, pilot error, or most likely weather.  I found it frankly insulting to have somebody blame the US for having given the plane.

I certainly hope that the crash is found, and that the bodies of those who were killed can be recovered.

Can you believe it?  I hit the big Five Oh Oh - 5 0 0 - today! No, that’s not my age, so don’t start making those jokes on me!  What I mean is that as of this very article, I have personally written 500 original articles for this website!  LiP got started out in August of 2006, and in those days it wasn’t much.  I was the sole and solitary writer on the site, and I only wrote articles “when I felt like it.”  Things have changed a lot these days!  Now we have 8 writers, plus guest writers from time to time.  I write every weekday, in most cases, and the site has grown like wildfire in those two years since it started!  I must say, I am quite happy with the reception this site has gotten, and from the activity that it generates.  For that, I thank all of you!

So, what is LiP all about? Well, it is about Living in the Philippines!  It is about what it is like for a foreigner to live here permanently.  Living here is not the same, or even close to the same, as coming here for a vacation.  It takes some serious adjustments in your personality, your outlook on life and generally the person that you are if you want to succeed at living here.  Most people who move here “permanently” end up leaving in a year or two.  They can’t handle life here, because it is nothing like what they expected.  That’s what this site is all about, and that is why I am here.  I want to make it easier for you to make the adjustment to living here, by reading about what I went through in moving here.  I want to blaze the trail for you, so that you can maneuver a little easier.

When I moved to the Philippines, on May 2, 2000, there really wasn’t any information on the Internet that I am aware of about this topic.  I came here “in the blind,” so to speak.  There have been a lot of days when I said to myself - “I don’t understand this place at all, what in the world am I doing here?”  However, even when I’ve had those thoughts, I never really regretted making the move.  I try to look at it as having earned a little more education than most people, or a type of education that most people don’t necessarily recieve.  It’s an education that has not always been easy, but it has been valuable.  Talk about the old “School of Hard Knocks”!

Sometimes, when I look at some of the articles I have written, I wonder to myself - “what does this have to do with living in the Philippines?”  Well, when I think that question over in my mind, I usually come to the conclusion that almost anything I write about my day to day experiences is indeed about living in the Philippines, because these are experiences that I would not have had if not for the fact that I live here.  For example, last week, I wrote about “washed up” performers doing concert tours in the Philippines.  On first thought it doesn’t seem that has much to do with actually living in the Philippines.  However, it points to something that you should expect to see if you live here.  That’s how I look at it, anyway.  I mean, there are only so many articles that you can write about the procedure of moving here, or the adjustment that you have to make to live here successfully.  But, I feel that any peek into my life here is just one more thing that readers can look at and get a picture of what kind of lifestyle they can expect here.

I hope that all of you have enjoyed the majority of my 500 articles on this site!  None of us can agree with every single thing that a person has to say, and I don’t expect that.  What I can say, though, is that everything I have written on this site is honest, and an accurate description of my life in the Philippines.  Sometimes, I play devil’s advocate on the site, which generates some fireworks on the site, but that’s all part of life, and keeps us thinking.  But, I’ve never been dishonest in any of my writings on the site, of that I can assure you.

Well, let’s all raise our glasses and toast the first 500 articles that I’ve written here.  I hope, and expect that it’s just a small installment in what we’ll see on this site in the longrun.

It’s Monday, September 1, 2008 here in the Philippines, although it’s probably still August 31 for many people who are reading this.  The first Monday in September is Labor Day in the United States, so I thought I’d write a little bit about Labor Day in the Philippines.  Now, let me be clear, though, Labor Day in the Philippines is not celebrated on the first Monday in September.  Here in the Philippines, like in most of the world, Labor Day is May 1.

The first Labor Day in the Philippines was celebrated on May 1, around 100 years ago.  I have found sources that say that the first Philippine Labor Day was on May 1, 1903, and I have also found sources saying that the first Philippine Labor Day was on May 1, 1913.  I can’t really say which is correct, but I tend to lean toward 1903 being the correct one.

Labor Day in the Philippines is called “Araw ng Manggagawa” - Manggagawa being the Tagalog word meing “Worker” - so literally it is translated “Day of the Worker.”

Of course, Labor Day is a legal holiday, and Filipinos do not have to work on that day.  Traditionally, during that time the President tends to review the minimum wages and determines if a raise in the Minimum Wage of the country is in order.  Most jobs in the Philippines pay the minimum wage, and thus, most worker’s wages are set by the government, since they set the minimum wage.  Sometimes, I wonder if people here realize that in the USA, and most first world countries, only a very small minority of jobs pay minimum wage, most jobs pay well above the minimum wage.

In my research about Labor Day in the Philippines, I read that the original workers who protested for better working conditions, which started Labor Day in the Philippines, were asking for these items:

• Eight Hour Work Day
• Abolition of Child Labor
• Just Labor Standards for Women
• Liability for Capatilists

To be honest, I don’t really understand what is meant by “Liability for Capatilists.”  Perhaps they mean that if a businessman does something that injures or damages the workers in some way, he will be held legally liable.  Other than that, I can’t figure out what it may mean.

Funny thing is that here we are, around 100 years after the first Philippine Labor Day, and most of those original goals are, in my opinion, still not realized by Philippine Workers:

Eight hour work day: Today, I think that most Filipinos work more than 8 hours in a single workday.  I think that 10 or 12 hours is more common.

Abolition of Child Labor: Especially in the “underground economy” of the Philippines, many children work, it is not uncommon at all.

Just Labor Standards for Women: In this area, I believe that the goal has been accomplished.  It seems to me that women are treated fairly in the workplace here (in comparison to their male counterparts).  I mean, after all, unlike most countries (especially the USA), the Philippines has had two Female Presidents now.

What do you think, is the workforce in the Philippines treated fairly?