Filipinas - Opinions and Advice

[QUOTE=Dg8787;2120690]They did not get title to the property but the right to live there and the right to electrical power and water providing they paid for the hook ups. Thru out the Philippines you will see this on the coast, along the highways and even next to the shipyards in Manila.[/QUOTE]And the electric and water utilities have been exploited by "syndicates." The redtape in dealing with Meralco and Maynilad Water--being able to show that you have a legal residence there, that you can provide proof of income to pay the bill regularly, and so on--often makes it attractive to get water and electricity from the syndicate. These private parties get an electrical service "drop" from Meralco, and then sublet electric service to the local residents--at elevated prices. Often squatters are "renting" from other "professional squatters." These are people with money who own property and live elsewhere but have established squatter claims, hold homes inside the squatter settlement, and then rent them to poor familes who are truly poor and landless. I have been shown squatter areas even on the campus of the University of the Philippines in Quezon City. I have a friend employed in a professional position at UP who rents from a professional squatter who has established apartments on the campus. He lives in fear that he, his wife, and twin daughters could be evicted if the university chooses to dislodge the professional squatter's claim.

I was once invited to observe as squatter families from alongside Diliman Creek near Tomas Morato Avenue in Quezon City were being relocated to a new housing development being bulit elsewhere in QC by Habitat for Humanity. The PNP provided buses to transport the people and a handful of deuce-and-a-half military trucks to transport their belongings. Diliman Creek in this area is like a gorge--which occasionally floods over its banks--and many of these homes were perched on ledges on the sidewalls of the gorge. But a protest broke out in which those who were relocating were blocked from moving their belongings to the trucks. The protesters were primarily "professional squatters" for whom the relocation represented a loss of income when these people moved out of the homes owned by the professionals. Eventually the police arrived and created a path out through the blockade. Some of the resistance, however, is from poor squatters who have established lean livelihoods as street vendors, tricycle drivers, or recycling scavengers and fear they will be unable to find new livelihood elsewhere. Others simply don't want to be separated from family and friends from their home provinces who live nearby.

In 2009 Typhoon Ondoy created dangerously high water in the Agno River in Benguet and Pangasinan Provinces. In order to protect several dams from breaching, including the huge San Roque Dam, the authorities decided on short notice to open the flood gates to release pressure on the dams. Unfortunately, there were weak or non-existent systems to warn about flooding downriver. Hundreds of people drowned downriver in Pangasinan Province, most of them squatters living precariously in the river flood plain. Sometimes life is very cheap in the Philippines.

I'the like to thank Soapie for his comprehensive, articulate analyses of the major problems associated with Disaster Relief and Recovery DRR) programs here, and for his discussion of the underlying problems. The only additional information I can provide is that there are now several donor-funded projects focusing on working with local communities to develop more comprehensive DRR plans, to provide the national and local governments with improved digital mapping information, and to allow local leaders to communicate more quickly with local residents about impending disasters and the necessity for evacuation. Much work however, remains to be done, and it's unlikely that the poorer "squatter" communities, which are often built in danger zones, will be relocated any time soon.

As part of a project in which I was involved for a while, I worked with some of the Urban Planning professors at UP Diliman, some of whom are highly skilled. The ex-Department Chair had earned her Ph. The. In the UK and had taught / lectured all over Europe. Historically, she told me, political concerns, corruption and pure greed had trumped the land use plans developed by these competent professionals, with the result that effective zoning, and the protection of flood plains, were effectively ignored and the paving over the natural drainage locations continued unchecked. As has been true historically here, politicians' venality and obsession with short-term payoffs trumped national interest every time. As the frequency and severity of disasters increases however, this may be changing.

In poorer, more rural areas, as Soapie has indicated, the resistance of subsistence farmers and fisherfolk to avoid building ramshackle dwellings in the middle of flood plains relates to livelihood. For these populations, living at or below the poverty line, long-term plans are a luxury for wealthier people. The government, both in the cities and the rural areas is reluctant, and often unable, to remove squatters due both to the social unrest that such displacement causes and because in most cases there's no other place for them to go. Mindanao State University in Marawi has an enormous squatter community on its grounds and the administration is powerless to destroy it. The same is true of UP Diliman and, in a smaller way, in every major town and city in the country. Further, "informal settlers" do have some rights and protections under national law and cannot be summarily kicked off of the land on which they have established homes and / or businesses.

In terms of sheer numbers, the situation worsens year by year as poorer people have more children than better educated, wealthier segments of the population. The poor here have little access to family planning information, to birth control and to education, so the potential for human tragedy in the case of disasters increases together with a growing governmental capability for providing effective DRR services. In a sense then, many of the underlying causes are self-perpetuating.

Soapie, I did respond to your PM and sent you an email address which would allow us to continue the discussion.

GE.

[QUOTE=SoapySmith;2120712]And the electric and water utilities have been exploited by "syndicates." The redtape in dealing with Meralco and Maynilad Water--being able to show that you have a legal residence there, that you can provide proof of income to pay the bill regularly, and so on--often makes it attractive to get water and electricity from the syndicate. These private parties get an electrical service "drop" from Meralco, and then sublet electric service to the local residents--at elevated prices. Often squatters are "renting" from other "professional squatters." These are people with money who own property and live elsewhere but have established squatter claims, hold homes inside the squatter settlement, and then rent them to poor familes who are truly poor and landless. I have been shown squatter areas even on the campus of the University of the Philippines in Quezon City. I have a friend employed in a professional position at UP who rents from a professional squatter who has established apartments on the campus. He lives in fear that he, his wife, and twin daughters could be evicted if the university chooses to dislodge the professional squatter's claim.

I was once invited to observe as squatter families from alongside Diliman Creek near Tomas Morato Avenue in Quezon City were being relocated to a new housing development being bulit elsewhere in QC by Habitat for Humanity. The PNP provided buses to transport the people and a handful of deuce-and-a-half military trucks to transport their belongings. Diliman Creek in this area is like a gorge--which occasionally floods over its banks--and many of these homes were perched on ledges on the sidewalls of the gorge. But a protest broke out in which those who were relocating were blocked from moving their belongings to the trucks. The protesters were primarily "professional squatters" for whom the relocation represented a loss of income when these people moved out of the homes owned by the professionals. Eventually the police arrived and created a path out through the blockade. Some of the resistance, however, is from poor squatters who have established lean livelihoods as street vendors, tricycle drivers, or recycling scavengers and fear they will be unable to find new livelihood elsewhere. Others simply don't want to be separated from family and friends from their home provinces who live nearby.

In 2009 Typhoon Ondoy created dangerously high water in the Agno River in Benguet and Pangasinan Provinces. In order to protect several dams from breaching, including the huge San Roque Dam, the authorities decided on short notice to open the flood gates to release pressure on the dams. Unfortunately, there were weak or non-existent systems to warn about flooding downriver. Hundreds of people drowned downriver in Pangasinan Province, most of them squatters living precariously in the river flood plain. Sometimes life is very cheap in the Philippines.[/QUOTE]It is great to read some real knowledgeable detailed information here from you and from GE too.

A while back a girl living in Hensonville visited my hotel room in AC for LT. After the first session she asked for partial payment so she could go pay for her electric and water bill and she would come back. I said no problem, as a matter of fact we can go together to SM Mall, get a bite to eat and you can pay your bill at Hyper-mart. I asked her if she had the billing statements with her? She gave me this puzzled look and said she would go pay and come back. I thought it was odd that the amounts ended in zeros. She tried to explain to me that a number of homes were on the same billing, which I didn't understand nor could I understand why she was so scared to pay later. She had the look of dealing with the mafia! She went to pay and came back.

Another girl had once told me her E and W Bill was too high. I asked her what does the meter reading show on the bill? She looked at me like I was a space alien!

Soapy, thanks for the education, it really puts it in context what some of the things the poor have to go through. 5/6 is another killer! Kawawa.

[QUOTE=GoodEnough;2120763]Soapie, I did respond to your PM and sent you an email address which would allow us to continue the discussion. GE.[/QUOTE]I got your reply, then got buried in last minute Christmas shopping. I will email in a day or so. Soapy.

[QUOTE=Dg8787;2120783] 5/6 is another killer! Kawawa.[/QUOTE]5/6, for those who haven't heard of it, is a loan structure in which the borrower pays back six pesos for every five borrowed. Considering how short the loan term often is, those rates are truly usurious. These 5/6 systems are very widely accepted, and people sometimes use them when they want to avoid pawning personal property. I know these debts sometimes go unpaid, and one typical default is to simply return to the province. Barring lethal enforcement, these unpaid debts must put a lot of strain on relationships in the community, especially because urban poor communities usually have multiple neighbor and familial connections to most of the provinces.

I've also observed some informal lending in which one person has capital to invest in loans, but employs intermediaries who have time on their hands and know people in the poor community better. The intermediary hands out loans with the investor's money under 5/6 terms to people they know and trust. The intermediary then becomes a collection agent and gets a cut of the interest repayment. But when a loan is defaulted, the intermediary is also on the hook for the debt. Since the intermediary's leverage is based entirely on personal trust that comes from knowing the borrowers and their families and province mates, these systems probably create even more stress in the community than direct 5/6 loans.

[QUOTE=PedroMorales;2120700]True but the poverty keeps the supply of cut price hookers huge. The challenge is not on the supply side but on what to do with the supply.[/QUOTE]A huge supply of cut-price hookers only exists in the bargain bin segment of the market. You can find an ample supply of readily available street meats in the 200-500 pisos range; but what you save on price you spend on medical fees, antibiotics, antiretroviral drugs, and delousing.

Apart from the discount street-meat markets, prices have continued to rise for online freelancers, bar girls, and knock shops. As for what to do with the growing supply of street meats for bareback consumption, the government may apply the same methods currently employed to cull the large population of drug addicts and dealers. Public health experts predicted that a tsunami of AIDS would hit the Philippines, and the rising number of infected Filipinos confirms their concerns. Within a decade, the virus will overwhelm an already overburdened public health system and the elite will demand draconian measures.

As automation reduces the need for OFWs abroad and wealthy countries tighten immigration restrictions, shrinking revenue from OFW remittances and growing unemployment will increase the number of Pinays engaging in risky survival sex further fueling the HIV epidemic. The desperation of poverty will only increase as the poor feel the wrath of more intense typhoons, droughts, declining fisheries, soil erosion, and environmental pollution. However, mongers from more fortunate countries will still be able to fly in for a week or two and shoot their loads into some penurious puss before skedaddling back to the safety and comfort of the developed world. The downside is that they will have a somewhat greater risk of returning home with something incurable.

[QUOTE=ChochaMonger;2121024]A huge supply of cut-price hookers only exists in the bargain bin segment of the market. You can find an ample supply of readily available street meats in the 200-500 pisos range; but what you save on price you spend on medical fees, antibiotics, antiretroviral drugs, and delousing.

Apart from the discount street-meat markets, prices have continued to rise for online freelancers, bar girls, and knock shops. As for what to do with the growing supply of street meats for bareback consumption, the government may apply the same methods currently employed to cull the large population of drug addicts and dealers. Public health experts predicted that a tsunami of AIDS would hit the Philippines, and the rising number of infected Filipinos confirms their concerns. Within a decade, the virus will overwhelm an already overburdened public health system and the elite will demand draconian measures..[/QUOTE]Although I admire your posts, laced as they are with wit and with experience, I have to pull you up on some things. Chief of these is the differentiation between street meat and packaged meat or, if you prefer, between the low and higher end of the markets. Most of these women come from the same backgrounds and I have known individual women who have flitted between all sections: call out, go go, bar girl, mall girl and street walker. . Some have better business sense than others and others are simply losers headed for the slag heap, the sort of crazies one sees wandering around Pattaya and Field and who get bits of rice and what not given to them by bar girls.

If one is sober, one can avoid the worst traps. On my last night in Angeles, I gave two friends I was banging about 50 condoms for future use. One of them, expecting her third child, gave them to her friend as she simply couldn't be bothered. As the three of us lay in bed, I asked the other, the one I liked, what her dreams and hopes were. They were less than modest and quite sad: to get back to see her daughter, to get an education and to get a semblance of a life.

I gave the hopeless one a bag as a tip (they were sharing one bag and one phone) but the other told me she would sell the bag for sure.

She rented a place for 2 k a month and bought charcoal to cook outdoors. They visited me mostly for handouts and would have no more than 12 pesos between them. The other, who lived with her daughter and two kids would gamble anything she was given and her kids would wander around half naked and always hungry. HIV was the least of her concerns.

I banged lots of bar girls too. One of them, in another double act, insisted on condoms.

Although there is good information in these pages, it is important to realise we will never get into their mind set. We go to the hospital to get our STIs sorted out. They don't.

The Philippines should have had a huge HIV outbreak years ago what with its sailors and armies of working girls. My own suspicion is it has it but it is unseen. Fool here who talk about tapping Filipinas are all drinking for the same well, the well where the plague probably is. Mot respectable Filipinas would not touch us with a 40 ft poll as they have their own ambitions and plans which do not involve renting 2 k apartments in Angeles.

On a different note, I like listening to African Catholic choirs. Big Mike Tyson and pretty ladies and nuns sing to Jesus, backed by simple instruments. I would imagine the big black lads would be none too happy with anyone, the priest excepted, messing with the ladies. The same would apply to very large swathes of Filipinas.

I also use PinayLove etc a lot and I make the most outrageous suggestions to the women I chat to. It is seldom a problem with them.

The Philippines is, in essence, a business model of the various families and Chinese gangs who run it. The women we screw are only of importance in so far as they pass money up the chain.

[QUOTE=PedroMorales;2121239]Although I admire your posts, laced as they are with wit and with experience, I have to pull you up on some things. Chief of these is the differentiation between street meat and packaged meat or, if you prefer, between the low and higher end of the markets. Most of these women come from the same backgrounds and I have known individual women who have flitted between all sections: call out, go go, bar girl, mall girl and street walker. . Some have better business sense than others and others are simply losers headed for the slag heap, the sort of crazies one sees wandering around Pattaya and Field and who get bits of rice and what not given to them by bar girls ....[/QUOTE]You make very good points. I am not disputing the source of street meats and packaged meat being the same, either one can be farm fresh from rural areas or urban farmed in a squatter camp. Some even work as salesgirls at Watsons and other mall retailers on six months contracts and then sell puss for the other six months of the year until they are eligible for another six-month contract with the store. The six-month contract employment cycle is the result of employers circumventing labor laws with temporary contract labor. It allows large corporations to avoid paying benefits to long-term employees who qualify after six months of work.

However, while all meats come from the same source and the same meat may be offered for consumption to mongers unpackaged at some times and packaged during others. The unpackaged meat undergoes no inspection process. It is essentially "hot meat" on offer from street vendors. Packaged meat on offer in bars at least undergo initial and periodic inspections at social hygiene centers before being certified safe for public consumption. Of course, the inspection process does not rule out every possible illness that mongers may contract from eating meat but it lowers the risk somewhat compared to the unpackaged street variety.

Of course, I am aware that some meat distribution centers are unethical and allow tainted meat to be sold to tourists. However, social hygiene centers have resources to clean up tainted meat detected during the inspection process. As you pointed out, on their own, the girls would never get their STIs sorted out at the hospital. Since the ones working in bars are obligated to undergo inspection, they are more likely to discover their STIs and receive treatment for it. Social hygiene clinics stock a variety of free and subsidized antibiotics for most of the common STIs. Therefore, they are likely to leave the clinic already started on a treatment plan with a supply of medication. The fact that they have to return for re-inspection before being cleared to continue working at the bar provides some motivation to take the medication. Meanwhile, she may work through her sick leave from the bar by selling her "hot meat" unpackaged on the street or in discos. Hence, the consumer of unpackaged hot street-meat may be at greater risk of consuming meat that does not agree with his health.

A monger has the right to consume meat how he likes it served, his health and his risks. Some say, the dirtier the better. They take pride in hunting the roughest meanest street meats and pounding them raw in all holes, in the most squalid roach motels down dark alleys. That is fine too. No one comes to the Philippines expecting high levels of sanitation and a disease-free population. However, a betting man would say that the odds of boarding one's flight home with a case of crotch crickets are much greater after riding feral alley cats compared to declawed bar felines.

[QUOTE=ChochaMonger;2121024]A huge supply of cut-price hookers only exists in the bargain bin segment of the market. You can find an ample supply of readily available street meats in the 200-500 pisos range; but what you save on price you spend on medical fees, antibiotics, antiretroviral drugs, and delousing.

Apart from the discount street-meat markets, prices have continued to rise for online freelancers, bar girls, and knock shops. As for what to do with the growing supply of street meats for bareback consumption, the government may apply the same methods currently employed to cull the large population of drug addicts and dealers. Public health experts predicted that a tsunami of AIDS would hit the Philippines, and the rising number of infected Filipinos confirms their concerns. Within a decade, the virus will overwhelm an already overburdened public health system and the elite will demand draconian measures.

As automation reduces the need for OFWs abroad and wealthy countries tighten immigration restrictions, shrinking revenue from OFW remittances and growing unemployment will increase the number of Pinays engaging in risky survival sex further fueling the HIV epidemic. The desperation of poverty will only increase as the poor feel the wrath of more intense typhoons, droughts, declining fisheries, soil erosion, and environmental pollution. However, mongers from more fortunate countries will still be able to fly in for a week or two and shoot their loads into some penurious puss before skedaddling back to the safety and comfort of the developed world. The downside is that they will have a somewhat greater risk of returning home with something incurable.[/QUOTE]You are exaggerating as usual and it really gets annoying. It's true there's an increase in the number of new infections, but (I quote from the link below): 83 percent of new HIV cases occurred among males who have sex with males and transgender women who have sex with males.

[URL]https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/philippines-has-highest-hiv-growth-rate-asia-pacific-n788496[/URL]

What do I do when one of my contacts wants to meet one of MY cousins.

After she has been scrolling my FB feed, she sets her eyes on a single young western male and wants to 'meet' him.

He's 26. He's a younger cousin. He's between gfs. His type are the reason that I have to travel to Philippines to score with 21 year olds. It brought home to me how wrong it must be for a middle-aged guy like me to bring a 21 GF back to my country.

He's in his home country, she is in Philippines.

Brain trust, do I introduce them?

BD.

[QUOTE=ChochaMonger;2121024]As automation reduces the need for OFWs abroad and wealthy countries tighten immigration restrictions, shrinking revenue from OFW remittances and growing unemployment will increase the number of Pinays engaging in risky survival sex further fueling the HIV epidemic. The desperation of poverty will only increase as the poor feel the wrath of more intense typhoons, droughts, declining fisheries, soil erosion, and environmental pollution. However, mongers from more fortunate countries will still be able to fly in for a week or two and shoot their loads into some penurious puss before skedaddling back to the safety and comfort of the developed world. The downside is that they will have a somewhat greater risk of returning home with something incurable.[/QUOTE]I think you could bring the argument one step further. If wealthier countries' immigration restrictions include building walls to keep out undesirable foreigners, and if the under-developed world contains all these disease-ridden temptations, why not propose a two-way wall to keep desperate nationals at home and away from the threat of diseased pussies?

Considering how imaginative your writing is, haven't you ever considered that your talents are wasted here? I mean, you could be getting paid for this stuff. With just a little redirection, your ideas would seem to have a particularly good fit at Breitbart News:

[URL]http://www.breitbart.com/[/URL]

Another outlet with high potential for a creative African-American writer is Infowars:

[URL]https://www.infowars.com/[/URL]

In order to make your writing more accessible to these outlets' readers, however, you might need to minimize the plot twists and unpack your dense paragraphs. Two rules of thumb: one idea per paragraph; one basic conspiracy per article.

[QUOTE=BrainDrain;2121782]Brain trust, do I introduce them? BD.[/QUOTE]At my advanced age I make no claims about brain power or trustworthiness, but, yes.

Like me, I suspect many others in the forum wish they'd had the good sense to sew more wild oats in their 20's and 30's. Many would argue that we ought not knock marriage until we've tried it. But if this is so, the same should be said for sewing wild oats. And if you need to put them in proper sequence, it seems to make sense to sew wild oats before marriage. Then, if marriage doesn't work, a later return to sewing oats benefits from lessons learned in the earlier go-round.

Just give him lots of advice, introduce him to this forum and some of its members. And maybe consider changing your username to conceal some of your incriminating posts. Especially, impress on him the strong desire of young Pinays to make babies with Westerners, and caution him to avoid doing it.

For the benefit of young men like your cousin, I have for some time wondered that, aside from semi-permanent vasectomies, the condom is the only readily available means of male contraception. I read a while back that there are some chemical approaches still in development, but none of them are anywhere near approval for widespread use. For some time I've wondered why there isn't a small valve that could be implanted under the skin on each vas deferens. At initial implantation the valves are set at the "off" position. Then the guy goes in every couple years to have the valves flushed and make sure the swimmers can still get through. When the guy is ready to have kids and take a hiatus from sewing wild oats, the doctor sets the valves to the "on" position. Maybe we need a forum on male contraception, or is there one?

[QUOTE=BrainDrain;2121782]What do I do when one of my contacts wants to meet one of MY cousins.

After she has been scrolling my FB feed, she sets her eyes on a single young western male and wants to 'meet' him.

He's 26. He's a younger cousin. He's between gfs. His type are the reason that I have to travel to Philippines to score with 21 year olds. It brought home to me how wrong it must be for a middle-aged guy like me to bring a 21 GF back to my country.

He's in his home country, she is in Philippines.

Brain trust, do I introduce them?

BD.[/QUOTE]Personally I compartmentize my life and keep it separate. I would tell her he is taken or gay.

[QUOTE=Dg8787;2121805]Personally I compartmentize my life and keep it separate. I would tell her he is taken or gay.[/QUOTE]Also good advice, but if she's already seen him on your FB page, compartmentalization may be difficult if she "friends" him on her own. Then your recourse is to advise him one way or the other offline.

[QUOTE=SoapySmith;2121806]Also good advice, but if she's already seen him on your FB page, compartmentalization may be difficult if she "friends" him on her own. Then your recourse is to advise him one way or the other offline.[/QUOTE]Very true. That's why I don't accept many friend requests. I just use messenger. Some have asked me why I have not accepted their request and I tell them I have a very jealous friend! That has worked. Otherwise I would have a separate page.

It is strange when I see some of my friends who have accepted the girls friend request. Ugh, I might get exposed as the monger I am!