Why? (One could ask!) Would any human being desire a trip to Mega Manila? I’d sooner drive a Peterbilt 18 wheeler through New York City at 5pm rush hour, or accept a sharp stick in my eye, so I hired a driver! Four hours from my house in Dinalupihan Bataan to the Philippine Capital or NCR. What does the “MEGA” in Mega Manila mean? (Oh, I know, mega problems), the reason for the trip was that I came to renew my un-expired Retired Military ID card as requested by letter from some very high placed government official. I arrived at the location designated in a most official letter I had received from The U.S. Government asking me to visit them at a hotel in Manila. Very Nice Hotel on the U.S. Taxpayers dime I might add.
I told the driver to park and I entered the hotel to find the visiting ID card people. Four Minutes later I’m seated in front of a computer station and the young lady from the States is proving to the computer that I am indeed me. Three minutes later I process a new and updated Military ID card and had time to chat. The reason that I was there, I discovered, was because retirees in the P.I. seem to live an extraordinary long time, Spanish American War Veterans were still collecting their checks. And for some reason the Government had serious doubts that this could be true. I told them I felt it was more than likely true.
You see in 1997 I pulled into Manila Harbor onboard the USNS Tippecanoe (T-AO-99) and noticed while boarding the liberty boat, that there was not one Pinoy from the ship with gray hair, whereas, the day before there was. This could only bring me to the conclusion that the waters of Manila Bay must contain magical properties, or at best be the true Fountain of Youth!
I told the young lady a story on how this longevity occurs. A Local Bank in Olongapo City in the 1970’s told the Filipina wife, she could not pick up her husband’s money without his thumb print. He had lost both legs to diabetes after retiring from a base Civil Service job, and she had to load him into the car once a month and take him to the bank. After he passed she never notified the U.S. Government and still went to the Bank every month to collect his (her?) money, but now she only had to take his frozen thumb in a cooler.
The young ID card lady from Washington seemed to view that with much humor, and went to explain my theory of Philippine Longevity to her fellow workers, who stopped working and started laughing. I departed, thinking, “What do they know?” I choose to live here, and am kinda’ glad I do, as I want to live forever also!
Great article, Paul. I enjoyed it! I’m gonna remember and tell Feyma to keep one of my thumbs and put it in the freezer, in case the opportunity ever presents itself! 😉
Hi Paul – Baby Boomers have always expressed the desire to, and have always acted like, they will live forever. Count me in with “Ol’ Stubby” there. 😆
Hi Paul – just wondering which thumb you are going to take off first, and how you are going to preserve it! 🙂
put it in Tuba or a bottle of san migual.
Hi, Paul, I met a Pinoy vet (WWII?) working at a local supermarket to supplement his U.S. government checks being sent to the Philippines every month. Then the checks stopped coming, reports his wife in the Philippines. Instead of the monthly check, she received a letter from the U.S. government requiring her husband to submit a picture of him with his face clearly showing while reading a newspaper with the date of the newspaper visible in the picture. No frozen thumb prints here. 🙂
Btw, Federal retirees, Social Security recipients, and recipients of U.S. veterans disability compensation, there may not be any COLAs for us in 2010 and for the next couple of years, I guess you all know that, right? Without asking the obvious, this is directed to U.S. military retirees in LiP.
Hi Bob;
Could this be where the expression “Thumbs Up” comes from?
Here’s an extra story. My Master Chief years ago, asked me to go to base personnel to check if Seaman Juan ______ send an allotment to his wife. I returned with the answer. “Yes his wife receives it every month.” Two months and the complaint letters keep coming in. The Master Chief calls me in and shows me the letter from Juan’s wife in Guam that she has received any money to date. I smiled and told my Master Chief that the records show, his wife lived in Manila. I cannot write in this family orientated web site, the Master Chief’s response.
Yeah, John, I was hoping for at least a $200 raise from Social Security and VA disability, combined. Boo-hoo! I guess I’ll pay off a bill and take that as a raise.
Hi Paul – So when do they start with the SS retirement folks? It was my plan to live to be a 100 years old. What now? Cut my thumbs off and freeze them? Maybe cut my hands off while holding todays newspaper. Oh dear…I should have saved more money. Oh no! I can’t even get a haircut now. That would make me look like someone else. Life can be hard at times. As long as I can kick back under a nice shade tree with a iced tea, things will be OK.
Hey Paul,
This adds a whole new twist to survivor benifets lol
I couldn’t figure that one out either, Paul. Maybe the U.S. Government figured that, instead of sending a team out there to confirm a person’s identity like they did with you face to face, they could do some age progression techniques on the retired Pinoy vet’s picture taken when he joined the Philippine Scouts some 70 years ago and compare it with the current picture of him reading a newspaper to see if he MIGHT be the same person he claims he is. Hahaha
You know, sometimes the U.S. Government could be so naive and clueless as they are being scammed with eyes wide open. I know certain people, particularly those from the third world who come here to deliberately take advantage of America’s generosity. They come here and apply for welfare, or they come here sponsored by their relatives, then apply for some kind of Social Security benefit and gets it although they have never worked in America a single day. Don’t ask how it’s done, because I honestly do not know. I do know that it was done, and the person has been receiving monthly U.S. government checks without fail for the past 20 years and counting!
Meanwhile, I have to live with the fact that I will not be receiving COLA for the next couple of years on my OPM annuity, my Social Security benefit, and my VA disability (3 years in USAREUR) after working the past 40 years of my life. But it’s OK, I’m not greedy. Let the more needy have some of that money. Those three checks I receive every month from Uncle Sam for the rest of my life are more than enough for me to live like a king in the Philippines, in the words of Bob Martin, but not here in the States, believe me. It’s just above-average, but not kingly by any means. It’s that somehow I feel cheated when I hear that someone out there beat the system and receiving my tax money without having worked a single day of his life in America.
Hi John – You can let me have your share of that money. I know a needy couple out in the province! 😆
Hi Paul,
Sad but true! Frozen thumb is macabre but kind of there is truth in there!!
Somehow it made LMAO!!
Enjoy the Philippines and hope you will have a REAL LONG and HAPPY LIFE!!
Toting
Hi, Paul, Ilocana bakets are known to keep their piggy banks hidden in bamboo tubes that serve as trusses for their nipa huts, but since your house is neither nipa nor hut, I don’t know what else to tell you. 🙂
Hello Edward;
Live to be 100 years old? If I’m healthy and the mind is working (or can still joke), then I’ll give it a try. Otherwise I’ll take that last San Magoo and wait under the Mango tree ‘till that shaft of light hits me. Which could be quite often, as it is sunny here. I did request to be buried at sea, so that on All Saints Day my kids could go to the beach, vice a grave yard.
Hudson;
That comment was on the mark, I like to laugh too! Thanks.
Thank you Toting;
And may I wish you the same!
Gentlemen; (both John and Paul K.)
May I suggest hiding the money under Paul’s new mango tree; I’ve heard urban legends that years ago that was a habit here in the Philippines to bury gold there? I have a large Mango tree in my front yard, and while consuming ice cold beverages, I thought about chopping it down and seeing if it’s true. Luckily I get sleepy prior to taking action. Beer is good in so many ways!
You chop that mango tree down, Paul T, and you’re going to be visited by duwendes, aswangs, kapres and manananggals. Dave DeWall’s Tatay Emeliamo had already chopped down the balete tree, so now our friends have found a new home in the mango tree. 🙂