First World Philippines

[MikeB]

I'm not sure where you're getting the 40% PhilHealth payment for in-patient hospital stays. The reimbursement schedule depends on what specific procedure was performed, it's not an across the board percentage. We've used it twice and it was about 12% both times. Of course if your declared indigent it should cover 100% - at a public hospital.

[i am bob]

Over the course of many years I have noticed the Philippines progressing, and yet, every couple of years I go back to Canada and notice that country progressing at double the rate that the Philippines is progressing.  Anecdotal evidence to be sure but you would have a hard time convincing me that the Philippines can catch up to anybody at that rate.

Dave, I agree with you to an extent... But when we have several Canadian senators looking at jail time for outright fraud on their expense accounts, our Prime Minister and the supposed next PM battling it out over what Muslim women wear on their heads, unemployment figures which don't include the thousands who have given to on trying to actively find work through the "official" channels, and a $ that has dropped in value by 25% in less than a year, are we in Canada any different than the Philippines?

Of course. You have universal health care, here there is none available (Philihealth is only 40% of inhospital care not clinic visits or labs) and never will be such an animal. Preventive medicine doesn't exist because people can't generally afford a visit so by now it's ingrained not to even participate in the system until it's been dragged out into a life or death situation. A simple UTI turning into septic shock was what a close family member got involved in just before I got here and hospitalization meant buying your own antibiotics or die in the corner. Widespread use of midwives due to lack of what we're accustomed to as simple OB-GYN care and little if any prenatal care, shamans instead of MDs, never going a dentist in their lives, etc. They drive everyone into various stages of asthma around them by claiming their burning garbage and yard clippings is an anti mosquito measure when they're really too lazy to put out the garbage for the weekly pick-up or "it helps the mango trees (does just the opposite, drying them up and driving the insects into your house), it goes on and on. The TB associated with the home cooking fires both in the barrios and the mountains is well documented.The longer you live here in Filipino neighborhoods the more you understand what it is like for them in their daily lives because you are equally affected. If you're in a gated type of place with actual rules or a condo then you wouldn't even know what I'm talking about. 

 Oh what else, as if that wasn't enough ? Oh yes I'd say that simple petty theft or even significant cash diversion for an expense account shies in the face of having politicians steal your and your children's futures for 30 years at the minimum. 

  Having half of your population either under- or unemployed is also quite different than a society where most if not all persons receive some time of temporary assistance in the form of unemployment assistance and "welfare". There are some cash grants available here and there from DSWD but at a paltry rate and no one is getting fat on those especially when you have 10 children under the old beliefs that these offspring would be obligated to take care of you in your old age. Now you can't even feed them properly and malnutrition is common. 

 Many of the economies that have their currency dropping in value are simply exporting more and so that is a mixed bag. There is nearly nothing TO export here except human labor more like slave labor when you see the fees taken by the agencies from their promised 400 PHP a month (a shop clerk here makes 300 a month so why leave to be abused in a foreign land ?). 

 I just don't understand how you can even begin to compare a Western developed nation that has made great strides in social structure with a developing one in Asia. It's not "apples and oranges" it's perhaps watermelon and pili nuts ?

Oh, my gawd but that was funny!!! You were trying to be humorous, weren't you?

Midwives are shamons? Did you know that NYC has midwives? Oh,the horror!

PhilHealth is useless and not affordable? The government gives it for free to those who can't afford the quarterly payments! And I think perhaps you should look again at what is covered!

We get TB from cooking fires? Cancel the BBQ!

Philippine unemployment jumped from 7 to 50%! That's what you posted yesterday...

There is nothing to export... Let's just give all that mineral and gas rich West Philippines Sea to China then... Never mind the rest of the country... Or even anything that's manufactured here.. Or...

Shopkeepers make a whole P300 a month.. Is this 1922?

How long had it been since you've been to the Philippines? Read anything current? Or are you just more concerned on bashing the country?

[Larry45]

As much as I would like it to happen, it's doubtful an emergence into the first world will happen anytime soon.  Corruption is mainly the culprit.  Two years ago Richard Gomez (the actor) was running for mayor of our city.  I had met him once and really thought he was a good guy and a great chance to break up the local political dynasty.  The night before the elections, wife and I had a long talk about corruption and the damage it causes to the common man and how she can save her country by doing her part.  Next day she visits her barangay, all set to vote Gomez, it takes all day to vote, and she walks in about 6PM with a huge bag of groceries, downcast eyes and a frown on her face.  "So why didn't you vote Gomez?" "Codilla was paying more and mother told me to vote Codilla." "How does mother know who you vote for?" "Sister was the one collecting the ballots."   Gomez ended up losing a VERY close election.

 

It's just hard to have high hopes for a country that cannot even hold fair elections.  It's the basis of democracy. :(

[cebuseminole]

I'm not sure where you're getting the 40% PhilHealth payment for in-patient hospital stays. The reimbursement schedule depends on what specific procedure was performed, it's not an across the board percentage. We've used it twice and it was about 12% both times. Of course if your declared indigent it should cover 100% - at a public hospital.

 

 

Yep-just last month had total hospital bill of 151,000. Phil Health paid 20k. About 13%.

[Jack Peterson]

Yep-just last month had total hospital bill of 151,000.

 

 So as you can see folks, you can add another $248 to your monthly Outgoings if paid over 1 year.  :rolleyes: the balance of 131.000p

 

OH! OH! Oooooooooooops, wrong Topic  :unsure:

 

But I am right YES?

 

JP :tiphat:     

[Methersgate]

I have a 29 year old Filipina friend of K's, Elizabeth, staying with us during a  break in a course she is attending.

She is interesting as some one who has made it from Third World to First, at a personal level, in just a few years, evidenced by the fact that she had no trouble getting a UK Visit Visa to attend an RYA Course, which she has paid for herself.

 She was born and brought up in Olongapo, where her parents have a bakery, but she now lives in a house that she rents, "on base" (in the SBMA) as "It's quieter and I am away from the noise of tricycles". She is an active member of the Subic chapter of Filipino Freethinkers - the last activity she was involved in when she was home was arranging sex education and contraception for the Aeta, whom nobody had bothered to include in the RH Law arrangements..

I asked her about the practice of paying for votes - she said that a change of policy now permits representatives of the candidates to be present inside the polling stations. Previously, only the teachers (who, as I think we all know, run the polling stations in the Philippines) could be inside the polling station.

 

She says the result has been a huge increase in "paid for" votes and in intimidation of voters, as the voters are now checked to see that they have voted "as bought".  

 

Elizabeth is generally optimistic about the future of her country, despite a school system that she describes as "absurd" - she has not been to Church, or voted, since she was 16, but she holds down a good job as a member of a super yacht crew in the Med, and has a clear ambition about what she wants to do. So from her point of view the glass is a bit more than half full.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Methersgate

[Jollygoodfellow]

 

As a matter of interest, after you have returned home for 6 months or a year can you come back and post how you feel about living back in the US. More often than not the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence so would be interesting to know if you made the correct decision.

It would also be interesting to hear how the people who don't live here or have been here < 6 months feel after living here a couple years.

 

 

Yes it would be interesting. Is there something wrong with my post on a matter of interest?  I bet everyone who moved to the Philippines wanted to, they were not forced and some in time found it not to their liking. Some will never leave so if one decided to leave can one blame the country as I am sure they knew where they were going and had a good insight of how it is before selling up and making the big move. I've seen or for a better word read about many who moved to the Philippines, built a big western style mansion that accommodates and mimics their western lifestyle so probably had no inclination of adapting to life in the Phils so in the end they move back home. My post was a sincere question to hopefully find out what happens after an expat returns home.

I'm going to start a new topic titled, "Why did you move to the Philippines" just to find out why one would move to a third world country in the first place. Newbies who have never lived in the Philippines like myself can add their reasons for why they intend too. 

[Jollygoodfellow]

This article talks about the Philippines future and is quite interesting. One part says

 

 

Again, he pointed out that this country is in much better shape than we have been for the last 16 years, and that he looks forward to a “very dynamic 2015.” I should add that international economic and media organizations have recently said that the Philippines will be the SECOND fastest growing economy in the world.

 

 

 

The full article,   

 

http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2015/03/12/1432670/worrying-about-2016

[Methersgate]

 

This article talks about the Philippines future and is quite interesting. One part says

 

 

Again, he pointed out that this country is in much better shape than we have been for the last 16 years, and that he looks forward to a “very dynamic 2015.” I should add that international economic and media organizations have recently said that the Philippines will be the SECOND fastest growing economy in the world.

 

 

 

The full article,   

 

http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2015/03/12/1432670/worrying-about-2016

 

Very sound, sensible, article.

Some background on the speaker:

http://thedailyguardian.net/index.php/local-news/405-del-rosario-jr-education-and-entrepreneurship

 

His comments on the effective collapse of the Ramos administration with its failure to unify around a strong candidat e for his sucessor, and the loss of all it had gained for the country, leading to the wasted decade of Erap and Arroyo, are right on the money. I was there at the time and watched it at first hand.

Whether the next few months will be long enough to "cement the Rule of Law" sufficiently to create a bulwark against the corruption and sleaze that many foresee should the current favorite candidate win must be a very open question.  

 

Frankly, all right thinking people should unite around Mar Roxas and get on the ground and campaign for him - or else see everything slide back into the cesspit once again,. 

 

Edited March 12, 2015 by Methersgate

[Thomas]

As a matter of interest I am wondering what others see for the Philippines between now and ten years time.

Well. I'm not good at predict WHEN things will happen,

but I have a good record of predicting WHAT will happen  - so far   :mocking:

(Beside predicting results for individual companies.   Not the last, then I were occupied by having brain inflamation   :)  but earlier I have predicted huge stock market falls around a half year before they happened.)

Around 15-20 years ago I predicted the "western" countries are "doomed" in the long run, because the countries can't live of producing services for the OWN citizens and send almost all production to low salary countries, mainly in South East Asia. 

=The GAP between "western" countries and SE Asia will SHRINK at least until the majority of the "western" companies will find the difference to small to find it worth keeping the production far away and move it home.

BUT when that happen most people in "western" countries will be very UNoptimistic, because of the DROPED values of their incomes,  although they STILL will have higher than average Asians,

while the Asians have become OPTIMISTIC by their raised salaries. 

I mean in AVERAGE in the SE Asian countries. How big/small share the Philippines will get will depend MUCH of the Filipino politicians. I GUESS the Philippines will go on being BEHIND their neighbours, who have runned ahead of them, but the Philippines have improved much too compared to "western" countries. 

I asume our home country CURRENCIES will go on become WEAKER too in the long run., so our retirement pay will go on becoming less worth. That's a reason i aim at starting business in Phils to get some income in pesos too...

 

It's allready a HUGE difference between costs and salaries in "hot" regions and the "cold" provinces. I asume this huge difference will GO ON, so I asuime it will be cheaper to live in the not "hot" regions in the future too, if the Phil government isn't to greedy concerning how much they will try to get extra from expats. They have told INTENTIONS they want MORE retired expats.  IF they aren't to stupid, they will not demand to much, because then expats will chose to settle in other countries...

 

SUMMARY:  I predict the difference will be smaller than now, but if settle in not "hot" regions, we can still live cheaper there than in our home countries,

but we will need to reduce our living during work standards, which we will need to reduce if we stay in our home countries too anyway...

 

--

As others have said, the rich Filipinos will keep most for themselves, although:

 

 

I still don't see any industries, the only jobs I see are in special economic zones like Clark, callcenters...

 

Would have to disagree unless you mean just in your local area. A google search will show lots of new production plants in operation or soon to be. This one just from yesterday, http://www.philstar.com/business/2015/03/09/1431427/bulacan-host-philippines-biggest-steel-plant

the raised ranking for the Philippines seem to have added some foreign investors, which are good for the POOR too, because they add jobs.    

(Call centers have added many jobs allready.  There have been some foreign PRODUCTION companies earlier too - I have no statistic but comparing old and new news it seem there have been more production jobs added/planed recently.  Among them one big company starting my favorite business idea  :boohoo:   which the Philippines had NO one of earlier. I HOPE they will not produce WHOLE the Philippine need, so it will be national demand left for me...   :)