Snowy79

Grab is quickly becoming a right pain in Manila. The price is fixed and although to the average Westerner it seams a decent price on average it's about 1/3 more expensive than a straight metered taxi. I also find that depending on the time of the day you'll struggle to get a Grab as the select what trips they want. Forget trying to get one on Friday late afternoon from anywhere on the Bay area to take you to Makati. The last four times I've waited over 3 hours continually trying to get one. With Hirna I think that's a new competitior for Grab. I saw it at Manila airport just before the Grab stand and thought I'd give them a chance. Knowing Grab charges about 260 peso for the trip I enquired on their rates and they guoted over 500 peso. Still cheaper than the fixed rate white ones who wanted from 1,200 to 1,500 peso.

Currently the waste had been going straight out of the properties right onto the beach front. Theres a coral reef that runs the length of the beach about 600m out. It made for a natural sewage trap. The water stunk before and was seriously poluted.

Sadly not bar girls. The guys appear to be getting switched on to them. Life is going well with my current partner. I'm now onto my third relationship having tried a successful older woman, pretty younger woman with a steady job and now another pretty younger one with get up and go. I've been friends with this one over 3 years and never once has she asked for a peso. Her dream is to be a qualified teacher and to stand on her own two feet.

I walked that very road in the last couple of months. It's just off of the main kite surfing area where the raw sewage was the worst. It's certainly looking better than previous though they have demolished a few of the properties completely to put the new road and drainage in. It is however the easist part of the improvements. The main heart of Boracay looks like it has been carpet bombed. The fronts torn off off the majority of properties to widen the roads and lay new drainage. The damaged properties are just sitting there with no work getting done to tidy them up as the owners have little money and also don't know if they will be evicted. I can foresee a nice wide modern road transferring tourist past what looks like a war zone.

The one thing I've noticed is certainly not investing more than you can afford to lose or will grudge losing. Buying in anothers name does appear to be a BIG no unless you've a strong and stable relationship. With the advent of the internet it's getting easier to meet a partner, but at the same time more of the potential partners are finding ways to con people which gives them the financial security to be with the one they want. My partner is doing teacher training and there's another girl on her course who is married to a foreigner and two others with foreign boyfriends. My partner tells me they chat amongst each other about the pros and cons of having a foreign boyfriend. I'm the only one that has been seen dropping my partner off, the others keep their boyfriends as low profile as possible due to the other girls impression that a foreigner is super rich and will set them up for life. My partner has already been briefed there's no Golden Egg. There will be only rentals that we live in so if she wants a sucker look elsewhere. Her other friends hear the girls talking about getting a foreigner to set them up then their true boyfriends will come and live with them. They know a couple of years of patience beats a lifetime of living in a shack with no way out. Having seen local boyfriends dropping their partners off to work in the girlie bars as prostitutes the guys don't mind waiting a few years either.

If you do your homework. Have a long term relationship within a decent family and don't invest more than you can afford to lose you will have slighly more chance of things being successful. If you meet someone on line, spend a couple of honeymoon weeks with her and are talked into investing in land then I'm afraid chances are you'll be lined up for a fall. There's a reason relatively attractive women in decent jobs are single, especially when they mix with similarly successful locals. I was just discussing this today with a couple of my married expat mates. One has been suckered hook line and sinker. He's invested in his partner and her mask has slipped. The other expat told me about a few of his friends in a similar position. Fell in lust, bought land and built the family home then realised just why she had been single so long.

I can think of one impedence.

I thought you were leasing and not buying! I'm hoping you've not been talked into buying land and putting it in anothers name.

Welcome John.

Fingers crossed my apartment is safe. It's titled but I've found out that as the title is less than 30yrs old it can be overturned. Fortunately my apartment is within Alta Vista who own over 500 of the apartments and they've got the money and political clout to fight most things. Duterte is pushing for Land Reform nation wide so it'll be interesting to see what comes from it.

You certainly don't hang around. I don't want to sound negative but I seriously hope you've done your homework and not relying on others. One thing I've learned here is most things are very simple to check out yourself and to be truthfull must be checked out yourself. From my personal experiences I've been assured about the availability and been shown clean titles. I used that as a starting point. I've then applied for a true up to date title from the Land Registration Office. In most cases the land turned out to be tax declared or the title had a few caveats on it, family members interests, loans, building restrictions etc. Just because an attorney says it's good doesn't mean it is. I've also been lied to so many times by sellers and agents. Even good Filipino friends when I asked for advice told me there's nothing to worry about then when I found problems they still assured me it was nothing. They just don't seam to get the idea of law here. It's pretty much go ahead and don't worry about it as everyone does the same. Well as Boracay has shown things are changing and changing rapidly. The Philippines is rapidly catching up with technology and finding ways to implement rules. Have you honestly seen a copy of the title dated within the time frame you were looking at the land? A common practice is for the land owner to have the title. He then accidentally loses it to get another copy or forges one with no restrictions. They take out loans on the land and these loans are tied to the title and the title updated. When you come along the original clean title is shown to you and you fall for it. If you are lucky and the title shown is genuine ensure your lease is annotated on the title and it's updated at the LRO. A gentleman's handshake or contract means very little if the title doesn't show it. It'll also make it harder for the landowner to sell while you have the lease giving you some protection. The next thing is the electricity. Hopefully it's running past the lot and just needs bridging. If it's coming from a nearby town good luck with that as " coming soon" could mean years away. Finally is there access to the land without crossing others boundaries? Barangay road etc. I've got a very good friend who has lived here 35 years fighting just this thing and he thought him and his wife were clued up. As I say I'm sorry for sounding negative but I've seen too many good guys getting shafted.

If only someone had blessed these churches. https://www.google.com.ph/amp/s/amp.rappler.com/nation/41381-ten-churches-damaged-cebu-bohol-quake

Sounds like you got a bargain for 25k. That would get you a few months lease in most places of the Philippines.

Congratulations on the purchase of the condo as you have some protection there but I hope you've seriously done enough due dilligence on the land leasing, especially up in the hills. Most land in the hills tend to be tax declared and not titled. Not that it'll make too much difference but if the land has a title chances are you'll be dealing with the owner. If it's tax declared the land could belong to anyone not just the person holding the tax declaration. If you build or farm on it there's a chance someone will remember they have ancestral rights to it and the probs begin.

You can load it yourself. Just take the sim out, put it in a phone and top it up. I use supersurf 50. 50 peso for 1gb and valid for 3 days. Once activated put the sim back in the router.