Live in the Philippines

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Who Gave You Permission?

Expats / by

The last two weeks have been a heady time here on the mountain where I live in Bataan. It all revolves around 1500 square meters of land beside my house. For 15 years we’ve never known who owned it or who the caretaker really is.

It all started a few months ago when a person from the purok built a Sari-sari on the land. I have no idea if they had permission to build it, nor do I care, as in the grand scheme of life if has no bearing on me or mine. It’s like other things in the Philippines, it just is.

Years ago the local kids leveled the land and with some old wood I had given them they built a basketball backboard and hoop, and nailed it to a tree. 7 or 8 years it was used, until the last Barangay election, where it was removed and one with a metal stand was erected in its stead. This lasted 3 years and last week a new and improved one appeared. A new group of kids re-leveled the land and installed this new piece of equipment. Funny that no elections are on the schedule for this year as that would be the normal time for something like that to happen here in our purok.

Then a guy who lives up the street bought a new old L-300 Van, his house lot is too small to park it on, so he asked me if he could attach his carport to my carports outside wall so he would have a covered parking area, and of course he said that he had permission from the landowner. I declined his request as there was no way on this planet that I wanted to be involved in the upcoming crap storm that I knew was about to take place. He moved the construction away from my wall and started building a freestanding carport.

All was moving along smoothly, as I calmly awaited the forthcoming hell-a-baloo that I mentioned earlier. Saturday 3 November a car arrives and a man and woman emerge and the crap storm commenced. I slid out to my roof patio to observe yet keep a distance from the missile hazard area that the flying crap was causing. The man was silent, but oh my, could his lady talk, 10 to 20 decibels above normal speech levels. Which was fine with me as I have a slight hearing loss caused by 30 years on ships.

The carport had to go, the basketball hoop had to go, and the Sari-sari could stay if they agreed to pay rent. I was feeling very safe away from all of this, until I was pointed to by the wife from hell.”I want to talk to you.” she demanded. So into the blizzard I walked, but of course being well armed with my firebrand wife named Mayang.

“Sir what happened to the four mango trees that lined your wall? No one gave you permission to cut them down.” she loudly proclaimed. I smiled and told her they came down during a typhoon and so it was an “Act of God.” “Sir, you had no right to trim them and I’ve been told that you did.” She shouted.

“Madame; is this your land? “ I asked to which she said it was. Thank you as I’ve been looking for you to pay the 32,000.00 pesos damage your trees caused to my house before I trimmed them. I have the pictures and I’ve filed a report to the Barangay Captain four years ago, but we never knew who you were. But I am most pleased to meet you, and I wrote down the tag number of their car. Because when I requested their names they both went mute.

A new story as told by the lady with no name, she does not own the land; a relative of her husband who is living in the United States is the lawful owner. So I smiled once more and said; “If you are collecting the rent for the Sari-sari store than you should be the one to pay me, my lawyer will contact you next week.” Now I’m hoping she is not a regular reader of LiP or she would find out I was running a major-major bluff.

All was calming down, now I was once more out of the fray as the subject of money hath raised its ugly head, but I think I had empowered the people of the purok with my bluff, and this is how it worked out for them. The carport had to go as it was a permanent structure which made sense to me at least. The sari-sari store was again rent free since it was bamboo and movable. The basketball court will remain there until a house is built on the land as she didn’t want to go head to head with our Barangay Captain. Mango trees became a forgotten subject as money and the law was involved. The husband collected his wife and departed the mountain as quickly as they had arrived. Many brown eyes were looking at me in awe, and our quite little purok returned to normal once more.

It all goes back to a tried and true Navy expression; “If you can’t dazzle them with fancy footwork, baffle them with pure Bulls**t.” As long as no one calls your bluff, as I was only holding a ten high.

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Comments

  3. Great article, Paul. Isn’t it funny how the lady was so authoritative until she found out that a person in authority might just owe you a few bucks? ha ha.. loved it.

    • Bob;
      She could have beat Lance Armstrong with her back peddling when the subject of money came up. I was sure glad she didn’t call my bluff. I tried to buy that land years ago, but to no avail.

    • David;
      The weather here is that pre-Christmas cooling down that I love so much, warm days and cool nights. My wife is starting with Christmas decorations this week, two months behind the stores.

  5. A former Filipino from the Philippines, retired US navy as AMH1, became naturalized citizen and so is my wife. How can I stay in the Philippines. Triwest/Tricare told me to disenroll if I stay in the Philippines for more than 30 days. Can you give me info or guide me so that I can go back to my home country as it’s fun in the Philippines and I do agree. Any washers and dryer available there for me to buy, the Japanese or American style. Thank you shipmate and may we cross our path someday. God bless to you and to your beloved family

    • Raymundo;
      You have been gone for awhile, 98% of anything you can buy in the US is here also. I have an American Dryer and a Washer from Japan.
      As for TriCare, that’s a question to be left until the first of the year when a new program is supposed to go into effect. I pay the bill and then file with TriCare, and wait months to be repaid, not the best but it works. For small medical issues PhilHealth is good.

  6. Well done Chief, theres something about senior NCO’s I always admired. I wish a few of my fellow officers had the grit you guys have.

    • Murray;
      The main duty of Navy Chiefs is to prevent Naval Officers from tripping over their sword, albeit there will be a small percentage that never understood our function, so we still help them in spite of themselves. It’s our job!

      • Yes Paul, I will never forget a few of the “serious instructions” I received from Warrant Officers when I was a 20 year old stupid 2Lt.

        • Murray;
          I have two son’s who are career Army, an E-9 and an E-7, they asked me my plans for when I retired and I told them I’ll do, what I was trained for; “Open a Day Care Center”

  7. I had a coconut tree problem at my place.It overhung my old shed and every so often a nut dropped onto the galvanised roof. It made such a clanging noise and many times scared me to death especially at night.
    When I extended I chopped it down as I could not have it destroying my new extension roof.
    I seem to remember it cost about 2000 to buy it and there was no shortage of takers for the firewood….First time I realised how dangerous a fruit tree can be ha ha ha

    • Corjo;
      When a couple of those Mango tress mysteriously fell down, they were cut up and gone before you could finish a six pack of SMB, I know I watched them go. First the guys would look to me as if I had some say in the matter, I’d give them the “I know nothing salute” (Both hands in the air) I’d receive a smile and work would commence. Oh I remember coconuts hutting the roof from Puerto Rico, so I never let them be planted, dog killers if they sleep underthem.

  8. Paul, I see so many Filipino properties with high concrete fences like yours. Is there something the rest of us should be aware of? Mine is only a boho fence 6′-0″ high.
    However I admit I have no immediate neighbours like you do. On three sides I am surrounded by bush full of snakes.
    We are about to install snake barriers all around the property.
    I just killed a 6′ long Cobra last week.
    The 4th one this year!

    • PalawanBob;
      I was on a ship and when I returned I was faced with a copy of the Great Wall of China, my land could now be seen from space. Inside all the walls are 6 foot from the ground to the top. The outside is taller because we live on a hill and my land was sloped sharply to the back, rendering most useless, so 47 dump trucks later inside the yard was perfectly level. The walls serve more as a retaining wall than any other reason, notice no spikes or barbed wire on the top, (As I find that offensive) Snakes we’ve never seen, I’ve had more trouble with toads in my land drainage system than anything else.

    • Years ago I laughed at how high Paul’s concrete fence was. Later the laughter was wiped from my face. Now my fence went from 5 feet to 9 feet with all the trimmings on top. Razor wire, broken glass, spikes. Previously, anything that was metal mysteriously disappered like magic. PB trust the Cobras at least you know what they can do.

      • Yes for safety and security its got to be built to comply with the 2 drunks high rule. Whatever you build or attach outdoors has to be out of the reach of one drunk standing on the shoulders of another drunk..In the Phils thats about 6 feet plus razor wire ha ha

    • Lenny
      More often than not, this is the kind of situation that happens around my place. Drunk drivers!
      You can laugh at these guys.
      They just came back from the beach which is 100m away from my place, driving at not more than 10km/h.
      The road was not wide enough for them after a few San Miguels. There was absolutely not a single person or a vehicle around on a Sunday afternoon.
      http://i1237.photobucket.com/albums/ff474/PhilippinoBob/IMG_4066.jpg
      They hit this coconut stump right across from my place.
      It beats me how this could happen.
      I took the photo as it just happened.

  11. Nice article Paul with a very interesting result. I have just returned from my annual vacation in The Philippines. The Hurricane that caused so many problems in New York and the east coast delayed my originally intended return which enabled me to stay for the full 21 day passport allowance instead of the usual two weeks. Some situations I encountered reminded me of some of your, and other, articles here on ” LIP ” . I’ll be posting some of this years adventures here on LIP over the coming months.

    • Bob;
      I’ll be looking forward to your posts, I enjoy reading about other peoples point of view of life in Never-Never Land. I hope all was well with you when you arrived back home.

  12. The people here still amaze me with the things they come up with and what they do. What amazes me more is the people who can do something to prevent a problem, don’t. So many stories to tell, ah wait for the book.

    • Paul,
      I was expecting a story about the newly paved road in front of your house. But you posted another one of your classic articles. Funny as usual. Glad all is fine on the mountain now. Time to start celebrating the holiday season. Won’t be long and it will be time to gather the family for your annual shoppping trip to the mall. Take care and stay safe.

      • PapaDuck;
        Next week is the road, they’re not done yet. Mayang started decorating the house for Christmas yesterday, I ran away to Don’s house down the street.

  14. Just think of all the tickets you could have sold to that event. Plus a few chairs and a cold one. Nice!!! 😛

  16. John;
    And I hope you never do run into wacko stuff like that. But it keeps me thinking on the fly, He who writes it down/ or takes photos, will win most every time.

  17. Paul, as always, I loved the article. You did, what we call in prison, as “spining” someone. You directed them away to another location without realizing that they had been spun. Nice job! And I’m glad to see the kids in the neighborhood get to keep their basketball hoop for now!!

    Way to go Kano!

    • Scott;
      So dazzling them with fancy foot work, and Spinning are similar! I could get people to do what I wanted in the Navy, of course first by rank, but mostly by pointing out why they wanted to do it my way But I like that spinning analogy too.