As I am sure most of you have already realized, “Editor Bob” suggested all of us who contribute to the Live in the Philippines Web Magazine write an article on our ‘home city’ here where we are living in the Philippines. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me, ‘Where should I live in the Philippines?’ is always a big topic of interest, so these articles should help.
My wife Mita (the Unofficial Cook) and I chose to make our home, at least temporarily, in the municipality of Marilao, province of Bulacan, in central Luzon, very close to the NCR (National Capital Region), commonly called Metro Manila. You can learn a bit about Marilao and Bulacan province by visiting their web sites, unlike just a few years ago, an amazing number of communities now have web sites and the first step in learning about any place you are thinking of is to look for their official web sites. They vary greatly in quality and usefulness, but at least give you a starting point.
Our good friend Wikipedia tells us this about Marilao:
Marilao is a 1st class urban municipality in the province of Bulacan, Philippines. According to the latest census, it has a population of 160,452 inhabitants in 22,363 households. In 2007, The City of Meycauayan and the town of Marilao in Bulacan province share a slot in the list of the world’s 30 most polluted places in the developing world drawn up by a private New York-based institute. In its report, “The World’s Worst Polluted Places” for 2007, the Blacksmith Institute said: “Industrial waste is haphazardly dumped into the Meycauayan, Marilao and Obando River system, a source of drinking and agricultural water supplies for the 250,000 people living in and around” the Meycauayan-Marilao area.
I added that pull quote in first, because Marilao and neighboring Meycauayan are known around the world because of the quoted Blacksmith report. Might as well get the bad news out of the way first.
Bulacan, in US terms, is sort of the New Jersey of the Philippines. It’s quite industrialized and must once have been a horrible place to live back when it was the tanning center of the Philippines. There are no tanneries left, or at least I have yet to smell one. The rivers mentioned are polluted, as indeed many rivers in the Philippines and elsewhere are. The government has an active program in place to identify pollutant sources and rehabilitate them, but in my estimation that program does little. I don’t swim in those rivers, buy food from them or drink from them. It’s just a fact of life and how these particular towns earned their ratings on the report I will leave to the experts. I mainly just mentioned it as sort of a preemptive strike before someone writes me, as many have, and says something like “OMG, how can you possibly live there?”
The answer is, we manage living here just fine … It’s nothing like, for example, living in Jersey City or Bayonne or Rahway New Jersey (or anywhere in the Los Angeles basin), for example. It is what it is. Marilao is much less industrialized than it once was and is now quite a “bedroom” community for Metro Manila. A great many residents here work in the NCR and commute, either by car, 45 minutes to many points of Manila via a modern, world class toll way, or by Jeepney or private car service (FX). We are far enough out in the province that there are no taxis or buses here, but still conveniently close to Manila.
So why did we move to Marilao, of all the many places we could have chosen in the Philippines? I’d say the two biggest reasons are family and convenience. First of all, Mita’s family (father mother, one sister, one brother and our two favorites nephews) are still living in the family home. I promised Mita years ago that we would come back and spend time with her aging parents before the inevitable comes, and unlike so many expats (I feel sorry for so many of them) I get along great with my married family. To say that they treat me like a king would be an understatement. I am really blessed, favored and have prospered in that sense. Just one example that helped make the decision for us, when we had a date set, my father-in-law walked the streets for days until he found this house for rant, and then worked with the landlord to get several crews in here and fix the place up from roof to
yard work. We move in to a spic and span house with a working toilet, lights turned on, a shiny new water tank, everything but the furniture. If you’ve ever rented a house in the Philippines you know how rare that treatment is. Landlords in the Philippines tend to do nothing at all for incoming tenants. With treatment like that, how could we go elsewhere for our starter home? We pay 7,000 pesos a month for rent, for a three bedroom, single bath house on it’s own lot. Similar rentals are available most of the time for 7 to 10,000 a month.
One thing to note, a lot of people write to me and ask, where are the places in the Philippines most popular with foreigners to live? My answer to that is, I don’t know of any in particular. There are a lot of foreigners here. I never go to the mall without seeing other foreigners, and I see them in every place in the Philippines I have visited so far. Often far from big cities. We who spend a lot of time in the online world tend to think we are getting the ‘big picture’ if we visit a lot of blogs and Yahoo Groups, but the truth is, in my opinion that we ‘online people’ are only the very tip of the iceberg. I meet foreigners day in and day out who never show up online and have no interest in doing so, so when you read sites like this, you are only getting part of the overall picture.
The second reason we’re here right now is convenience. We are walking distance from an SM City mall. When I was in the US I hated malls. I’d go out of my way to avoid them, but when you live here, especially in a provincial location, you’ll find a mall is a real outlet to the outside world, it’s our place for entertainment, food (both groceries and eating out), banking, bill paying, in fact most of our daily needs.
Also, adjacent to the mall is one of our main reasons for wanting to live here, a dream which is currently on hold, a planned North Rail terminal. The Philippines once had a working rail network and a major line passed right through Marilao. A few years ago the government received a huge loan from China to rebuild a modern light rail service on the old right of way. For reasons I don’t really know, that’s all on hold right now, but someday we may still be on rapid transit leading to all the major areas of Manila.
Until light rail materializes, we make do with our own car (and yes I drive, wouldn’t live here without a car), the modern NLEX toll road which goes south to Metro Manila or north to Angeles City and Subic, and Jeepneys and private car services. Jeeps run right past the end of out block, 24 hours a day now that so many people commute to call center jobs, takes 30 or 40 minutes to their terminal at the end of the LRT, one of Manila’s existing light rail lines, and costs about 50 cents. Or you can hop a tricycle, 40 to 60 cents to take you to one of several FX terminals and ride in a van with aircon to the city for about $1 USD.
As far as stores, restaurants, gyms, theaters, doctors offices, dentists and such, there are many, often in walking distance, but more and more we go to the mall for that too. There is a local hospital with emergency room and basic services across the street from the mall, and larger hospitals on the way into Manila if you need a higher level of care.
There are a number of private schools in the area, some must be adequate, a neighbor’s son graduated high school last term and went right into LaSalle University in Manila. Many people send their children to Metro Manila private schools (by private car service, though, there are no public school buses I’ve ever seen in the Philippines). As Tommy recently pointed out it costs more for transpiration than for the school itself for some of his relatives.
I’d say that pretty much covers things, except I really should talk about the 500 pound gorilla everyone tries not to talk about, the ‘nightlife’. If you go along any major highway, like MacArthur Highway, near out house (it’s where the mall is, actually) it will look like atypical bustling business street, If you go there after dark you will see bars, videoke bars, ‘girly’ bars, just plain bars, and dozens of street vendors. Many think the sex trade in the Philippines is confined to ‘sin cities’ like Angeles City or Olongapo and Subic. Nothing is farther from the truth. In addition to the bars, there’s a ‘short time’ hotel every mile or two. This is a fact of life here and if it is something that gets you all upset and nervous, this is not the place for you. In general, this is typical of every built up area I have been in in the Philippines. To me, it means little because I typically am not even out after dark, but it’s better you hear the straight truth from the beginning, in my view.
Will we stay here in Marilao long term? Not likely. My wife has a farming property up north in the province if Zambales, and our current plan is to build and relocate there next year. After that, we may acquire another place or two elsewhere in the Philippines, because for me, at least, there is no one good place, there are a lot of places where I can be happy.
Hope this has been of some help, and if you have specific questions, you can always contact me through the Contact page up in the top menu bar, or preferably put your question in a comment below so that others can learn from it too.
Hi Dave – Marilao sounds like an interesting place to set temporary roots. 😉 Your description makes me think of some American places I've been – just interchange the language, culture and people.
Zambales is pretty nice, out in the rural towns. Come to think of it, though, I haven't been to a single place in the Phils that isn't pretty nice. Some are just nicer than others!
Kamusta ka Dave,
Sounds like a nice area with just about everything you need for now. Not familiar with Zambales, but it sounds nice too, and peaceful.
Thanks so much Dave for the description of Marilao, Bulacan.
Salamat ug ingatz,
Danny 🙂
Good article Dave. Thanks for sharing!
You hit the nail on the head there, Paul. I really haven't been to a place I would consider 'bad'. Same as I have lived in 10 or 12 different US states … I liked them all and found plenty to dislike in all of them.
Mnay people thinking about making the move get hung up on places they herar about from the people they are reading online. Example, any comments/messages her talk about Mindanao, especially Davao, because Bob. Feyma and a number of the other writer are based in Davao. That's fine, I've visted Davao twice now and like it fine. There are anumber of other sites that sem to focus on Cebu .. which I've also visted and enjoyed. Other people are very keen on Baguio, and I can asure you Bagauio is a great place also.
But the notion that there is obe place that is 'best' for foreigners, in my opinion, is wrong. There are hundreds of thousands foreigners in the Philippines, scattered the length and bread of the country. I believe there is no "best place", just as I could argue for ages about where the "best place" yo live in the USA is. There is no "best place" for everyone, only the place that is best for those who like it there.
In the Air Force we had a kind of joke saying, but it often proved true … there are only two decent bases to be stationed at, the one you used to be stationed at, and the one you are going to next 😉
Yep. All places are good, and all have their drawbacks. I have no idea where one 'best' place is. On the long term plan, afrter we get things set up in Zambales the way we want them, we might devlop a second home somewhere else … no one says you have to live 12 months in the same place. Frankly, as low as house prices in the US are now in some metro areas, we have even given some thought to our 'second home' being in the US. Land and home values here seem very expensive compared to the US
No Problem, David. Hope it will be of some value.
As Americans we have been conditioned to think of a single family home as an investment. This is often wrong thinking. History over the last 100 years proves it very wrong. When I was young, for example, I had no idea what out home was 'worth', what neighbors were selling homes for, etc. Over the past 30 years or so we built a huge 'bubble' environment that told people when they bought their home woul;d go up in value. Unrealistic expectations. The home you live in is typically a liability, not an asset.
We've discussed this before but worth a review. Americans tend to really focus on the not being able to own Philippines property issue. This fact may be a plus factor rather than a negative. My rent for our little Marilao house, would take more than 11 years to add up to what a typical down payment would be. People parrot the phrase owning is better thna renting' without thinking it through. In the Philippines, especially, it may not always be true.
I believe the Housing market most studied is Amsterdam in Holland. They have records going back centuries and economists generally agree that the Housing run up we have seen all over the world during the last thirty years or so is not the norm.
It would seem that Housing values remained flat for decades and sometimes declined dramatically in Amsterdam. Researchers were able to track the price movements of the same houses over a period of nearly 400 years.
To rent in the Philippines is an absolute no brainer. It never ceases to astound me on these internet forums when guys say the main obstacle to moving to the Philippines is that they are unable to buy property in their own name.
Why would you want to pay the big bucks for hassle. Let the money produce in some other market.
To top it off I strongly believe that the issue of property rights in the Philippines is a major reason for the dearth of foreign investment in the country relative to other countries such as my own country ireland or Mexico ect.
Dave: I can tell you that Rebecca and her family look at property as security for the future, rather than as an investment. It comes from a perspective of "When I'm old, I'll need someplace to live and land to sell if I run out of money". Quite simply, if land is owned, you should use it, whether as a home, farm, or whatnot.
I see two reasons for this:
1. They are farming folks, used to a simple life and the fact of the matter is that if you have land, you eat.
2. A result of colonialism, where land equals power.
Contrast this with the American housing bubble, where home ownership was mostly "keep up with the Joneses" and as a piggy bank to buy the big screen TVs and fancy cars… Success in life is determined by how many useless toys you have or how much Gucci you wear. I believe this conditioning came from over 60 years of relative prosperity, whereas here in the Philippines, the vast majority of people struggle to eat, much less buy a bunch of useless crap.
Additionally, home ownership is commonly thought of as a "right" in the States, as opposed to here in the Philippines where it is a dream, at best. I resisted buying a house in the States, and currently own no property there. This resistance was under criticism from many colleagus as to how I was an "idiot" for not buying into the hysteria and that I was a fool for not getting in on the action. Many of these same people are now cowering, licking their wounds, and strangely silent on the subject.
As to Americans resisting moving here without owning a home: There are no good tax reasons to own here, as opposed to the States, and maintenance is more complicated here. Before moving, I resisted buying anything sight unseen, though it was possible. Why? I want to see something before I buy, and a picture on the Internet is inadequate. Add in the fact that ownership ties you down and unoccupied buildings and property in the Philippines are ripe for squatters or vandals, and I have to wonder "Why is it that damn important?" The only reason I can think of is ignorance and inadequate research befor moving.
For me, being in marilao is the best. It's like you are born with the real filipino culture but not being late with the latest trends. Since our location was at center of North and South , you'll have the best of both worlds(Manila and through the North). One thing I also like here is the school where i graduated highschool. Its like every people here knowthe school and most of us studied there and have a memorable days from that school.
I'm thinking of moving with my wife to the Philippines to make my $ go farther. Is this a good idea?
Hi John – It's a personal choice. If you think it would suit you, then I suppose it's a great idea! If it's not for you… then it's a terrible idea! Every person is different.
Hi John,
Thanks for writing. Your question is a good one, but the answer is a whopping "It Depends". You should heed Bob's advice here, and also look at dozens of articles here on LiP, my blog, and many others.
In general, for sure you can make your money go farther.
A. You have to have income first, you can't come here and expect to just find some. This means you need a steady pension, an online business, or something to give you an assured source.
B. More than anything else, you have to want to live in the Philippines. If you just come here because it's cheap, and you don't like the place, the glow of cheap prioices will soon turn to bitterness at not living your life the way you want to.
C. And you have to want to live cheap. If you want to build a big house, have servants running in and out all day, eat in fancy clubs, restaurants, etc., you will find your lifestyle costs as much or more as living in the US.
So do consider, but plan carefully. In my case, my bank accounts and credit card balances clearly show that it has been a great move for me. For someone else? Only they can say.