Philippine Expat Lifestyle - Part 1

Geography 102

A quick look at the map displayed offers a snapshot of the main islands of the Philippine archipelago though obviously with over 7,000 islands more are not seen than are . In fact , some of the best beaches i have seen through the years tend to be viewed from a few thousand feet ^ and unfortunately don't have roads , power , etc .   :-)

The large island shown in the bottom right corner known as Mindanao is where  we are located on the northern portion of the island called Cagayan de Oro . I won't bore you with the specifics related to this countries history and geography as there is tons of data of that nature elsewhere . I will , however provide a few observations regarding the expat life style in the Philippines .

First of all at the risk of offending someone , somewhere  , Expat or Retirement living in the Philippines does not typically reflect the majority of retirees or seniors most often mentioned in residing abroad literature . The simple fact of the matter is that most folks retiring are not single males but instead are  couples .

Now that this little fact is out in the open we can proceed to discuss some of the reasons why this factor is significant in terms of expats residing in this country .
Though i have no hard data to back up the following statement i do believe it to be an accurate one . " The majority of expats residing in the Philippines are or were single upon arriving here " .

 Now , that statement could be broken down even further into racial and ethnic characteristics but that is not the intent  of this post . Nor , is  the statement presented meant to be sexist or demeaning in any way . At the same time i do think it would be fair to say that it is a reflection of a specific demographic component . ( Geez , almost sounds too politically correct , doesn't it ? )    :-)

One of the reasons there does not seem to be any hard data regarding expats living abroad in the Philippines is because Embassy’s tend not to report it , at least not to the general public .Common sense , would however suggest that the reason is primarily because the single guy is seeking a relationship , whether temporary or permanent .

 Note:  A press statement just released by Philippine Immigration places the number of expats holding ACR status as just over 200,000 . Separate post to come )

 At the same time the majority of expats residing here or anywhere else for that matter will tend to be older or senior folks . The younger ones being to busy working for a living don't generally have their  financial houses in order enough to retire anywhere , much less abroad .The demographics of the retired expat residing here do in fact offer some interesting observations from others that might be just visiting or on holiday as some say .

 Unless you have had the opportunity to hang out with the super rich , the Rodeo Drive crowd in Los Angeles , USA or other similar locations where the rich and famous/infamous hang out you likely won't see a whole lot of older folks walking around with a whole lot of younger folks , unless the older is the patient and the younger the caregiver .   :-)

You will see that here and frequently but that doesn't mean all the older folks are famous , infamous or even wealthy though some here seem to think so in regards to the wealthy part .  :-) What it does reflect is a different cultural attitude perhaps than the one you can from .  A common theme often heard here among older expats as to their reason for choosing the Philippines goes something like this .

 " Age is an attitude " , or this place reminds me of the way it " used to be back home " or " the women are of the Donna Reed or Ozzie & Harriet " type . With apologies to those not familiar with the Reed and Harriet tv characters but it's basically describing women before they became quite so " equal " in a politically correct sense , or in other words maybe 1950's in the US and fill in the blank for your culture .    :)

Now , whether such observations can be considered sexist i suspect will depend upon the culture viewing them . At least , that's my observation and would seem to be generally reflective of Philippine culture as a whole . Part of it is of course based on someone being able to provide a standard of living for their partner that they might not have otherwise . That's a reality and those who choose to ignore it generally regret doing so at some point in time if here long enough .

Are there " gold diggers " here ? . Well , of course there are just like everywhere else though the treasure trove required here might not match up to the ones required elsewhere . And , in fact some make quite a haul posing by way of the internet to those a bit gullible or narcissistic .  No need to give examples but doubt any expat that has resided here for long doesn't know or has heard  of someone that fell into such a trap .

 The Great White Hunter ( or maybe it was Tonto ) said something to the effect that the big game was sometimes easier to trap than the small .  Having stated the not so obvious we can now move on to the more obvious or the primary reason expats end up residing in the Philippines in part 2 of this post... The WOMEN .    :-)