Complete baso-cervical fracture, left femur... Gulp!

There are at least five or six more posts in store about my last diving adventure, but that all kind of went on hold when my mother-in-law broke her leg a few days ago. I was informed about this with the typical, “Oh no, she fell and broke her hip!”

After making the obligatory response, I think I said something like, “Oh, the poor thing! Where is she now? What did the doctor say?”

But my next response was not nearly so sympathetic, which if you know me is typical of me. I became downright accusatory, perhaps over harshly so, which is even MORE typical of me. For some reason I felt like trying to assign some blame as far as to the cause of this unfortunate event. My finger pointing may have been accurate, but admittedly, it was STILL out of line.

I'm ashamed to say that I said rather caustically, “You know, your mom has smoked for a LONG time, and with her being in her late 70s now, she was practically ASKING for osteoporosis. And by the way, I can guarantee you that she did NOT fall and break her hip. It was the other way around; she broke her hip and fell. People ALWAYS say that because they can’t imagine that someone could snap a leg or fracture a hip merely from standing on it, but you know what? Once the osteoporosis sets in and the bone mass disappears it’s ONLY a matter of time—bones WILL break! Man, I wish all these dummies I see smoking while they’re still young could SEE what’s in store for them, to SEE the damage they are subjecting themselves to after years of sucking in that nasty stuff. And osteoporosis is the least of what they do to themselves usually. ….And to think usually all these horrible conditions befall these smokers when they are too old to pay for the hospital treatment and to take care of themselves, just like your mom.”

Yes, I DO go on. I say these mean things and always feel bad after I say them, but knowing this almost never stops me. I tell myself that I should either find a more sensitive way to expound, but I rarely do. I’m an evil out of control know-it-all. I MUST be stopped.

My wife brought home the x-rays and report. The findings fully explained what actually happened to her mom:

Pelvis—anteroposterior lateral
Complete baso-cervical fracture, left femur, with marked disalignment of fragments
Soft tissue swelling is discernible
Visualized pelvic bones and right proximal femur appear intact
Lumbosacral spine-lateral
No demonstrable compression fracture, visualized lumbar vertebral bodies
Incidental finding of senile osteoporosis

(The xray photo above depicts a similar broken femur)

Another reason I shouldn’t be so hard on my wife’s mom is that she went through life not really understanding how much damage her smoking was doing to her body over the decades. To be even fairer, not even Americans, who should have no excuse for NOT knowing about the dangers of puffing away on cigs, would have known how smoking can lead to weak bones, since science didn’t make the connection until only about 20 years ago.

I tried to guess as to how smoking would lead to low density bone mass. Knowing that smoking causes restricted blood vessels, I conjectured that bad circulation would lead to malnourished bones. After all, bones grow from the inside out by way of the marrow which IS fed through the blood supply. It turns out I was close but no cigar.

From what I read on the internet, there are actually two reasons why an older woman would be more likely to develop osteoporosis from smoking:

The first reason applies to all genders—smoking leads to joint and connective tissue pain from degenerative joint disease so that mobility is lessened. It follows that a person then becomes less active which leads to low bone density. So, when it comes to bones, it’s true what they say, “use ‘em or lose ‘em.”

The second reason applies ONLY to older women—smoking not only causes a woman to go into menopause on average five years earlier than she otherwise would, but being post-menopausal itself tends to lead to osteoporosis due to low estrogen levels. Combined with smoking, the effects of menopause are a double whammy, because smoking reduces estrogen even more—low estrogen means low bone density. So there you go.

Anyway, she finally had the operation this morning—poor thing. It took some doing to talk her into it though, primarily because she felt guilty about the costs of it. There is nothing like Medicare here; few people have any kind of real coverage, and unless someone in the family comes through to cover it there would have been no operation. My wife came home “empty-handed” twice after being told both times by her mom that she didn’t want it done. Her mother said the operation was too expensive, and that she had lived long enough and it was better to just let it be. Finally, I explained that there was NO CHOICE; with her femur broken and splintered she would likely die of a long drawn out painful infection. I sent my wife back and told her to TELL her mom that she WOULD have the operation and it didn’t matter WHAT she said. At this, realizing that she could just relax and be the cared for dependent again, she bowed to our more aggressive insistence and relented.

The cost of putting her leg back together would be out of the question for the average Filipino—150,000 pesos, about $3500. Not so much by US medical cost standards, but it might as well be a million bucks for most folks here. Luckily I am not the only person in the family with at least some form of means, or at least access to getting a loan for it. One of my wife’s older sisters married an American more than 30 years ago and has a life in the states. They make fair money but they just put big bucks on a house in New Jersey and are as strapped as me. But, between the two of us we came up with it. It’s all part of marrying into the average family here—as a foreigner, you basically become the go-to-guy when these sorts of emergencies inevitably pop up. If you aren’t willing to step up and help out you shouldn’t even consider marrying one of these girls. Or maybe you can marry one that comes from a well-to-do family. Good luck with that.

A fellow expat recently required almost the exact same operation as my mother-in-law. Out of curiosity we found out what the same hospital was charging him for the same operation. Unbelievably, they charged him 400,000 pesos! That’s $9300, more than two and half times MORE than what they charged to do the same thing for my wife’s mom. It’s an unfair practice that bugs us expats to no end—to get charged so much more than the local rate. It SHOULD be illegal, but I guess it’s not. Pretty much anything goes when it comes to commerce it seems. There’s the Filipino price and then there is the foreigner price. It applies to almost everything. It’s why I NEVER go with my wife to the market. But there’s not much I can do about it if I’M the one requiring medical care—I can’t very well wear a disguise trying to fool ‘em into a local price, or COULD I?

Why all the recent raids and mayoral edicts concerning the bars in Angeles City?

I live in Angeles but do not indulge in going to any of the bars on Fields Avenue or Perimeter Road. Those of us living here, both bar goers or not, have been very curious about all the recent mayoral proclamations and recent raids. The article below from the internet (GMA TV News) written by a local journalist explains it all. The new US ambassador, surely due to instruction from his boss, our beloved president, has let it be known that this country had better crack down if it wants to continue to receive its quarter billion in US aid. From what I read in the article the US is insisting not just on flashy raids but on actual prosecutions and convictions. Whoa! Now THAT is frightening. No way will I go to any of these bars, or at least not until this stuff blows over, which it surely will since it has in the past. But until then, there's no way I want to risk getting caught up in this new anti-prostitution wave. I suggest that others take the same concerns under advisement when coming here. For now, stick to the beaches and diving folks! Anyway, you can still come to AC for the numerous malls and fairly inexpensive hotels and restaurants; and the coast is now only a few minutes away by way of the expressway.


DOJ chief: 268 trafficking victims rescued in Pampanga 09/16/2010 03:17 PM

Share20 (Updated 4:04 p.m.) Joint government operatives rescued about 268 human trafficking victims on Wednesday night in Pampanga, said Justice Secretary Leila De Lima, whose office supervises the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT).

De Lima said the rescue of the victims in Angeles City, Pampanga were made through the joint efforts of the Philippine National Police, the National Bureau of Investigation, the IACAT, and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

"They rescued last night more than 200 trafficked persons from 10 establishments. Many victims are minors. We dispatched state prosecutors in Angeles City to conduct inquest proceedings," she said at a news briefing Thursday.

In a separate text message, De Lima said that of the 268 victims, at least 15 were minors.

The victims were rescued from bars and night clubs identified as Camelot, Dirty Duck, and Forbidden City.

De Lima, who assumed office last July, had instructed the IACAT to step up efforts to combat human trafficking.

The Philippines is in danger of losing some $250-million in aid from the US State Department if it does not improve the prosecution of trafficking syndicates.

Of the hundreds of human trafficking cases Justice prosecutors filed before the courts since the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act was enacted in 2003, only 23 cases led to convictions.

The US State Department's 2010 human trafficking report retained the Philippines' "Tier 2 watch list" rank, indicating that the country "does not fully comply with, but is making significant efforts to meet" the agency's standards.

The US government recently earmarked $500,000 for a three-year project where an American federal prosecutor will be sent to the country to train Philippine prosecutors handling human trafficking cases. The project also entails a protection program for victims and witnesses. — Sophia Regina Dedace/KBK/RSJ, GMANews.TV

Mark Dizon's Murder Spree has definitely come to an end

By now, everyone following news of the Mark Dizon murder spree knows that he was captured with a slight struggle in the town square of San Fernando in the province of La Union. By bus, that’s about four hours north of here, Angeles City, where all the killing took place. Dizon’s father was afraid that his son would end up going down in a hail of gunfire and according to one account that is probably exactly what would have happened.

As previously arranged, the youthful looking killer came out into the San Fernando town square to meet his dad. Some news accounts state that Mark tried to pull a handgun once he realized that the meeting was a trick. Thankfully the police team was able to bring him under control before he could use it.

I did a search engine check using “Mark Dizon capture” and was amazed to see how worldwide the interest in this case has become. News groups from Australia, to Hong Kong, To England, to the US, to everywhere in between are reporting on the killings and on the capture of the killer. Its interesting to see how so many headlines are trumpeting how the Angeles City police were able to use Dizon’s Facebook account to identify him and his connections with the daughter of one of the men killed. It's as if Facebook singlehandedly brought a killer to justice. Sensational stuff.

I’ve got to give the AC cops some real credit for how they developed and followed their leads right to the killer. For the most part we who live here tend to think and say negative things about law enforcement. So far though, the way this case has progressed, its gone a long way in beginning to reverse some of that negativity.

In fact, I was so pleased with the outcome of the manhunt that I sent a congratulatory message to the mayor by way of his Facebook. I thought that was apropo considering Facebook is how they were able to crack the case wide open. Either the mayor or one of his staff even sent a response blurb:

Fil Spare July 28 at 12:03pm
Amazing job on the apprehension of Mark Dizon. Not just the foreign community, but everyone living here breathes a collective sigh of relief. Thanks Mayor!

Ed Pamintuan July 28 at 12:47pm Report
Mark dizon has been charged before the court with 5 counts of murder and robbery in angeles city. a separate case of illegal possession of firearms will soon be filed in san fernando city, la union. we did this because of the collective efforts of the city administration, the local police units and the local community, both locals and expats. with this kind of cooperation, angeles city will soon become a haven for foreigners, tourists, residents, retirees or visitors alike. thank you. let's continue to be vigilant.

I was actually quite impressed with Mayor Pamintuan’s response. The way he spreads the credit around to all who helped in bringing in the murderer, including his police, locals and expats shows real leadership. A horrible tragedy took place because of a narcissistic killer but perhaps something good can come out of the way we all came together to bring him to heel.
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I was shocked to see all the views of my blog post displaying the photos of the perpetrator. I don’t check my sitemeter all that often, but I decided to see if anyone was paying any attention to this particular post, and boy oh boy, are they ever!

I went to the sitemeter page showing the referral sites, and it’s obvious where all the traffic is coming from. The “PhilippinesPhil Mark Dizon photo spread” has been linked in the CNN world news site, The Huffington Post as well as in several popular blogs and other news sites from around the globe. With the way search engines work, which is to rack and stack by numbers of hits, after a site begins to build up a head of steam the hits become more and more. In other words, the more hits you get, the more hits you get.

To get an idea of this take a look at this graph from sitemeter showing page views for the month of July up until today, July 28, 2010:

As you can see, normally, I have a very small viewership, which is fine by me; I’m satisfied with the few readers that happen to come across my almost 400 posts. Over the last two days though, since posting Mark Dizon’s photos, which were sent to me by an anonymous source, the PhilippinesPhil site has received an unheard of number of viewer hits.

It will be nice if some of you who happened by my site this way continue to come back and read a few of my other posts, future and past. I think I have a unique way of describing what it is like to live here as a foreigner. Come on back and see.

Angeles City killer, his photos are EVERYWHERE now, including here

According to Harry the Horse the AC police are totally convinced that there is a single killer on the loose for all the multitudes of recent murders in AC Town. His name is Mark Dizon; and now, EVERYONE knows his name and what he looks like. There are posters all over the place with a head shot cropped from this photo, which is the one I mentioned in my last post "Unexpected Death."According to Harry the Horse the police are on high alert, all of them wearing protective vests in case they immediately have to swing into cap busting action if a sighting of Dizon is reported. Some pictures of the serial killer surfaced by anonymous source and have gone "viral" on the internet, mostly by email attachment. The American expat community is ensuring that everyone possible has seen them, including me. Harry even posted a few on his site.The poster I saw today that was delivered to my home, probably by subdivision security, states that there is a 100,000 peso reward leading to his capture. At the current rate that's almost $2200; big money for the average resident of this place.
I've also heard rumors that the reward may even be as high as 500,000 pesos. Now THAT just may bring some results; although, I'll believe when I see it.

In the photo above, now THAT looks like a heck of scope on a pretty powerful rifle. If this man is as psycho as claimed we will be lucky if he doesn't just get desperate and start plinking randomly at innocent passersby. We can only hope not.
When I first saw all these photos it was a bit of a hit to the gut. WHERE and HOW did this guy GET all these guns! Surely his family knew? With that wispy "teen" moustache and the "hard" look he effects in all the gun toting shots, in no way does he resemble the smiling fellow holding the baby. Truthfully though, looking at the way he mugs it up in these photos, he just seems like a wannabe to me, and after what he's done, he's turned out to be a desperate one at that. The photo above is particularly chilling since he's probably brandishing the gun and silencer that he used to kill Al Mitchell and four of the other souls that happened to be in his house that day.

This looks like an M-16 or an AR-15; regardless, its an assault weapon. Again, what is he doing with it? According to Harry, the police now have all these photos as well and when they saw them they took great interest in them. Did ONE man really have access to ALL these deadly weapons?! Supposedly its widely known that he was "deranged" in an aggressive way; why then was he allowed access to them? All rhetorical questions of course.
None of the folks that I've communicated with know yet much of the personal background on this guy, other than he claimed to be a computer repairman. In some of the photos such as the one above he poses in a very large garage with some relatively nice automobiles. Makes you wonder if they belong to his family or to his friends. I'm quite sure the police have noted the types of cars and probably already know where this was taken, because of course, the owner would know necessarily about the guns as well. I'm pretty sure that they are illegal for most people to own assault weapons.
Some of these cars are pretty cool and probably very unique as far as around here anyway. Geez, if these are his and or his family's cars, why would he want to get involved with all this gangster killer stuff? In some of the emails flying about and in the local reporting its been reported that he pawned a lot of items. That would indicate money problems. Is all this killing simply about money?
And yet another type of gun...

... and yet another! How DID this guy get like this?

This little miniature would sound like a loud popgun going off, and aimed pointblank directly into the head will kill just as lethally as a magnum or a baretta. Was this the gun he used to kill innocent people without neighbors noticing?
Interesting how the moustache shaved, a smaller smile and a slight change in hairstyle can make him look like an entirely different dude. All ye who live here, take note, take heed.
Here is a profile photo of him. In some of the reporting and mad emails furiously flying about its said he was offering himself out as a bodyguard. Was he trying to make a name for himself, is that why all the killing? Did he watch too many gangstah movies? I will bet that he has a grandiose concept of himself, a total narcissist. I wonder why no tattoos though? Anymore, especially in the US, guys are plastering themselves with those ridiculous things to show how tough and intimidating they are. Then again, tats aren't really that big over here yet. Anyway, the word is that his family is negotiating with the police for his surrender. I hope that is true and they aren't stalling for time while he makes a getaway to some distant province. As my buddy just emailed me: "Let's just wait and see how it pans out."

To shoot at least 9 unsuspecting people in the head takes a man without normal human empathy, in other words, a soulless monster. Remember that if you see him on the street.

New Years View from My Tower; Not Bad...

What a show! I knew it was going to be loud, but the level of snap, crack, pow, boom, bang, pop, whistle, whizzz, and crump was even more than I expected.

I'm trying to upload the first video I've ever tried to load to my blog. Once I get it loaded, if I do, if you watch the three minutes of it you'll hear more of what's going on than see it. The sheer volume of fireworks going off at once for miles around was stunning. We must have seen tens of millions of pesos worth of "kaboom boom" go off tonight. Incredible! There are definitely some folks around here with some disposable income. I'll watch 'em fire it off, but I'll be danged if I'm going to spend my money on that stuff. (Ok, got it on YouTube; click on the pic or right here and watch and HEAR the Angeles City 2009 "New Years firefight").

I grabbed a drink and headed up into the tree tops a little after 11 pm. Fireworks had been going off sporadically since before sundown; heck, even throughout the day for that matter.

I don't know, I outgrew my fascination for blowing things up with firecrackers sometime back, when I was about 12. I don't think anyone outgrows it out here; they absolutely adore the booms, whistles, cracks and bangs. I'm told its a Chinese tradition where all the noise and flash is supposed to frighten off evil spirits. Of course I don't buy any of that malarkey, and I don't think anybody else around here does either. Nope, they just like the racket. For the last ten days I've been wishing that they liked it ONLY for the hour or two leading up to New Years, but alas, that is definitely NOT the case. Even now, at almost 2 am I can still hear the occasional crack and distant boom. I suppose they figure they bought the stuff, so they darn well are going to fire it all off. From past experience I know they'll be setting it off every so often from now through the first week of January or so. Oh joy!

By 1130 pm the time between explosions big and small was pretty much nonexistent. There was no let up from then all the way past midnight, and for more than a half hour after that.

I made a quick visit downstairs to tell the girls to come on up to get ready for "the show." At street level I noticed that the noise level was much less down there than what I was exposed to from 50 feet up. Interesting phenomena that, the fact that much of the explosive sound is apparently blocked by houses and trees. From up above though, we got the full effect!

By 1140 the sky was no longer clear enough to see anything past a half mile. Thousands of individual explosions, from sparklers to Roman candles, all the way up to the full fledged fireworks displays, had filled the air with a pall of whitish smoke. When I'd first gone up I could see bottle rockets going up from many miles away, but no more. Only the exceptionally big "boom booms" were visible now from more than a mile away. By midnight the smoke was so thick that visibility was less than 500 meters. The fireworks fog doesn't really show up on the video I notice.

Being the anal fellow that I can be I could not help but to think of all those "pyrotechnic amateurs" out there firing off some very large and dangerous pyrotechnics. I wondered the number of fingers mangled, hands burned, and eyes blown out tonight. Surely there were casualties.

At midnight, explosions of all types and sizes were steady and deafening. It looked something like Baghdad in 1991 when Hussein's boys fired all those anti-aircraft tracers skyward. With hundreds of bottle rockets and fireworks of every persuasion going up nonstop in every direction you would easily believe that a war was going on right here. It was loud to the point of deafening, but this year, with that fantastic 360 degree view, I actually enjoyed myself. Here's the YouTube site of my video.

Christmas Explosion

We just came in from watching Angeles City bring in Christmas with a bang, or more like a series of them, plus a bunch of mighty booms and a lot of pipsqueak pops.

From way up on the tower platform in my backyard, Janine, my 12 year old step daughter, asked me if we did it like this back in the States. Of course I told her no.

“Where I come from, Christmas is all about “Silent Night, Holy Night”, not “Boom Bang Pow Night.”

I suppose though that I can sort of see the rationale behind all the fireworks here on Christmas Eve—celebrating the birth of Jesus is as good a reason as any to pull out the stops and shoot off scads of heavyweight bottlerockets and Roman candles. Regardless, it’s pretty cool being above the trees and roof tops and getting a 360 degree bird’s eye view of all the celebratory action.

In fact, we didn’t know which way to look for the best displays. From that height there’s a lot of area to try to cover visually; so, Divine, Janine, Jenalyn and I scanned our own sectors and called out whenever a particularly good series of rocket propelled pyrotechnics were being set off. It’s a good system and will serve us well next week when the REAL show happens on New Year’s Eve.

Last year, I sat and stewed in my room trying to watch TV, and mostly just cursed the intrusive explosions going off all around the house for most of an hour leading up to midnight and for a good half hour and more afterwards. I admit that it’s much better being outside and feeling a part of it all. Some might say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” but I’m not exactly joining in, just observing it from 50 feet up.

It was nice, almost comes close to being a thrill, especially when some of the big boomer bottlerockets explode just a few feet away from our perch. Deliciously scary, and FUN!

Crackdown "Fun" on Fields Avenue

Every so often I like to write about the bar scene here in “Sin City,” and from what I’m seeing and hearing, that bar scene might be on its last legs, at least in it’s present form.

I haven’t been much of a bar hopper myself since my best friend was most assuredly run down like a dog coming out of Doctor Holmes, a bar on Perimeter Road, at 2 a.m. about six months ago. He's still in the middle of a long hard recovery. Just the same, its still fun to hear about and report on all the latest chitchat about Fields Avenue and Perimeter Road.

If you’ve ever been to or lived in Angeles City, all those above place names make perfect sense, so I won’t go into specifics on what is where. Anyway, none of that is really important for this post, which is all about the latest gossip.

The big news hitting the streets about two weeks ago is that a crack down on the bars is going on. Six bars on Fields were all hit the same night, and a few more over the next few days. The word is that a law, or more likely an edict, was just passed by some local authority stating that the concept of the “bar fine” was at that moment considered to be illegal.

Anyone paying a barfine or something that resembles a barfine, any girl accepting money called a barfine, and any bar involved with the transaction of said barfines, it’s all considered a jailable offense. Of course, we all know around here that what that really means is a big fine will have to be paid to get out of jail.

Talking to other fellows who have been here even longer than my five years, one old hand said that he remembered the exact same thing has happened once or twice before. He said it was just the local powers deciding it was time to shake the "bar scene tree" for a while and see what kind of money fell out. He claims that eventually, it always blows over.

Another fellow “in the know” said that officially, the term barfine hasn’t even been in use for years due to these past shakedowns. The term has been “early work release” or EWR for quite some time.

Now, due to this latest decree, even EWRs are considered illegal. In fact, supposedly any currency paid by a patron to or for a girl in a bar that results in her leaving the bar with that paying customer is basically considered sex for money or prostitution. Of course, that is a bit of a stretch since theoretically the girl is not obliged to go to the patron’s room. She doesn’t even have to go with him at all, if she doesn’t want to. That’s the premise anyway.

A lot of expats and tourists out on the streets are just plain confused. A buddy told me that a lot of bar owners, mama-sans and managers are defecating bricks. No one really knows where any of this is going, and some of the bar owners have a lot of money tied up in those establishments.

I’ve even heard that the pressure to “clean up” Fields Avenue and even the Perimeter Road bars is coming down from GMA herself. One of my gym pals said that the president is on record as being “embarrassed” by what’s going on down there; and now that it looks like The Clark Airport will soon explode with more overseas air traffic, the word is that the powers that be want more of “the appearance” of a family spot. What that means is that this place is in for some transition as far as the barhopping scene goes.

People have scorned the very idea that the end of “the bars” could be in store for Fields Avenue and company. I say they should remember what happened about 20 years ago in Manila when the mayor shut down the bars in Mabini. No one believed it could happen there either, and it darn well did. Of course, they just shifted the bars and the girls out to Pasay; but the point is they closed Mabini—the so called “impossible” did indeed happen.

Lots of folks have plaintively said the following: “But, what about all the big hotels going up all over the place around here? Why would they invest millions only to let it all go to waste? It just doesn’t make any sense. The only reason all these tourists really come here anyway is to meet girls. Angeles City is in the middle of no where. Why else would people come here?”

All of the above are lucid points, but I’ve also heard this intriguing rebuttal: “Those hotels are being built not so much for European, American and Australian tourists, but for Chinese, and other “big pocket” Asians, hopefully coming here in droves from places like Hong Kong, China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. These new gigantic hotels are also casinos, and everyone knows from being around them that the Chinese LOVE to gamble. And let’s not forget that there are a lot of Chinese these days with a WHOLE lot of money."

The “explanation” continues: "The girls will still be available for these big spender gamblers, but not in the way they are now. In effect, Caucasian tourists will become the minority here, while the big spending Chinese will be the real targeted customers."

As for me, I knew the handwriting was on the wall when the Clark Development Corporation (CDC) upgraded and developed the park area in front of the Main Gate area. I just couldn’t see why they would build a children’s playground and amusement center right next to a bunch of bars. Now, from what I’m hearing and seeing, I think the old ways from the old days are numbered.

This is a very conflicted society anyway—a very religious place that is at the same time very corrupt. There are people highly placed in government that are under a lot of pressure from very religious relatives that WANT very badly the closure of all the bars. At the same time, a lot of money is paid in fines and taxes to certain government officials. It’s a bit of a “push me pull you” situation.

So, currently, the bars are open and there are still customers in them, but no one is allowed to pay to have a girl leave with them—right? Wrong! Where there is a will, there’s a way. I’m hearing now that once a customer buys at least ten drinks for a lady working in the bar that she is then allowed to leave. Does that mean then that she leaves with the guy that happens to buy those ten drinks? Don’t ask me. How would I know for sure? I don’t know.

Now here’s an interesting bit of rumor. I heard that there are four or five foreigners working with the cops, their task being to barhop and entrap a girl and the bar she works out of into a situation that is illegal. Namely, to con one of these unsophisticated ladies into admitting that her job is to go with them for the purpose of having sex based on the money paid in the bar for the transaction.

With that in mind, the word is that many of the bars will not even allow their girls to leave the bar after the ten drinks are paid for if it’s felt that the customer might not be above-board. What a mess. The bar owners and managers know that they are trying to walk the chalk and if they get caught, it’s in the klink for them and a hefty amount of money will then have to be forked over to get out. All I can say is there must be a whole lot of profit considering the risk involved. Not me boyo! That’s a headache I want NO part of.

Then again, maybe all this is just a momentary bump in the road. Why? Well, another recent buzz is that the new head of city hall—or perhaps it’s just a highly placed policeman—wants a bigger cut of those big EWR profits. I couldn’t tell you what the current “cut” is, but one bit of gossip called out 300 pesos from each EWR as the demanded “new cut.” Someone told me that a EWR these days is around 1300 pesos. Speculation is that this new “tax” will probably drive “barfines” up to at least 1500 pesos and higher.

Just yesterday the latest hearsay from one of my chatty sources is that the whole thing is about to end, because the cop running the show on this latest shakedown was just fired or moved to another position somewhere else. So you can see that no one truly knows anything.

If you plan on coming to Angeles City to barhop and barfine the lovelies working in the various 100 or so establishments here, my advice to you is not to come here until all this works itself out. A lot of emphasis these days is coming down from organizations like the UN for nations like the Philippines and Thailand to clamp down on human trafficking, in other words, the sex industry. It could very well be that what is happening now is ONLY the beginning.

My personal preference is that the bars be shut down. I have to believe that their presence has encouraged the present high new levels of criminality and thuggery, while also inspiring even more corruption in the police who just cannot seem to resist the temptation to cull the tourist herd.

It USED to be Paradise; now....?

There’s a trend going on in these parts, and it’s not a good one if you plan on living here on a modest military pension consisting of U.S. dollars. And For those of us ALREADY living here in what USED to be paradise, well, we are thinking of changing it's moniker from paradise to purgatory, as in “for all ye who enter, beware,” at least for a while anyway.

Over the last year, in several posts, I’ve complained of the increased local criminality, but at least with robbers and pickpockets you can take precautions and guard against them. However, there’s nothing to be done about the double edged sword of the falling dollar and the rising cost of living.

Another concern is medical care, especially for American military retirees. When I first arrived five years ago, medical availability was impressive. Tricare paid for everything and life was good, certainly for those of us who needed lots of treatment and medication. Unfortunately, that’s mostly finished. Now, except for a few hospitals, we pretty much pay as we go and send the receipts to Wisconsin for payment. This means its best to have at least a healthy credit card to pay your medical bills up front, or better yet, have a hefty savings account balance. Either way will work, although I know a lot of folks who have neither. Woe is them.

So, the depressing trend I referred to at the top of this post is the negative buzz I’m hearing from a lot of my fellow expatriate retirees trying to live here among all these bad developments. In the last couple of days I’ve spoken to 10 retirees, and 7 told me they are seriously thinking of leaving Angeles City, either to go back to the US, or to try to find a more suitable place here in-country. One confirmed that he will be leaving as soon as the VA in Manila finishes adjudicating his claim for disability compensation. Only one of the ten mentioned nothing about leaving and he happens to be well-to-do.

Just today I spoke to a fellow Air Force retiree who cited the typical difficulties. His problem is that he only has his retirement, with no social security or VA disability to help him meet his living requirements. He got out as an E7 with 23 years of service, which provided a decent living back when the dollar was getting upwards of 50 to 58 pesos. Now it’s only worth just over 40 and from what we can see, the actions of the federal government will do nothing to help those of us living overseas. If anything, we expect the dollar to become even weaker right up into next year’s general election. Gulp!

The cost of living is soaring. Gas and transport prices have gone through the roof just as they have all around the world, but housing is what has really hurt quite a few of us. For instance, rent for a 3-bedroom house now goes from P25,000 and up, mostly up. In 2002, the year I got here, even 4-bedrooms went for much less, perhaps starting at P10,000 to P12,000. Of course, back then the dollar was getting close to P55, so decrease that by the 25% to 30% that the dollar has lost in value since then. Combine the higher costs with the lower dollar and you might as well rent a house back in the USA. From what I’m seeing, its cheaper to rent a nice place in Jacksonville, Arkansas where my kids live than it does to rent one here in Angeles City, Pampanga.

A lot of what’s driving up the housing market is the influx of Koreans. For some reason the word has gotten out up there that this is the place to start a Little Korea.

My only complaint about Koreans before was that they had driven many of us off the local golf courses. They come down by the score and deluge the couple of courses we have here, which should be no problem if they were normal players. But they are not normal. Most of them do not know how to play by the accepted rules and they are too arrogant to learn. They do stupid things like tee off the fairway, and play in groups of 5 and more, and generally clog the courses up. There are no marshals to keep them moving and the caddies do nothing to threaten whatever little tip they might get. I know several guys who decided to simply stop playing when it started to take 6 hours to play 18 holes. I am one of them.

But aside from the Korean penchant to mess up golf course play, the real damage they have done is to the housing market. As I said, the costs have skyrocketed. Generally Koreans are harmless and they keep to themselves. Most of them even bring their own women and families. I don’t blame them for coming here, but here they are, and with their numbers going up daily so does the cost of housing. I shrug as I write it.

I get a lot of hits from folks looking at the cost of living in the Philippines, from military retirees and other pensioner types looking to live here. To you folks, I say that if you can come up with at least $2300 a month and have about $15,000 to spend on getting a household started, you SHOULD be okay to live here in AC. That is unless the dollar continues to slide, in which case you should increase the above figures accordingly. It all depends on what living standard you want to exist in. The numbers I quote above are to live like an enlisted person is used to. Keep in mind that the average Filipino lives on much less, but most Americans I know wouldn’t want to live the way they do.

A final note is that I am speaking of life here in Angeles City. My best friend, who through good investments is independently wealthy, told me just today that he is thinking of moving to Cebu City. He says costs are lower there than here. Personally, I have no idea. I plan to stick it out here for a while. My income and investments have kept me somewhat above the fray, but if things continue, I might just consider getting out of here myself. If only it weren’t so darned cold in Michigan!

‘Anyway, at least I’M still breathing!'

A strange yet unfortunately familiar incident occurred today.

My MP3 was cranked up to drown out the disgusting hip-hop playing on the gym’s loudspeakers when Roland, an 80-year-old Chinese-Irish-American retiree, who had just arrived for a workout, stood directly in front of me. His lips were moving so I knew he was probably speaking to me. Ronald Reaganesquely, I pointed to my earphones to beg deafness, but he insisted on continuing to get me to converse. The old fellow was not going to leave me alone, so I relented and took my earphones out. Normally he leaves me alone when I’m “not in the mood,” as signified by my wearing of earphone inserts.

“What’s up Roland?” I asked him.

“Heya Phil. You know Michael Barrett don’t you?”

“Maybe,” I responded. “What’s he look like?”

“You know; the older guy who walks with the bad limp.”

“Oh yeah. He drives that old brown Filipino-made jeep, and he always has a bit of body odor about him.”

“A little!?” Roland exclaimed.

“Well, you know,” I explained. “Sometimes I like to understate, especially because other than his stale smell, he seems like a nice guy.”

My old gym pal continued: “Well, the day before yesterday, he was in a barbershop getting his haircut…”

About then, I thought Roland was going to continue on with the body odor theme. He knows how much I hate to smell other people’s pits. I figured maybe Roland was about to tell me that the barber had a rude comment or something to say about Mr. Barrett’s BO. After all, Filipinos are as sensitive as I am about smelly unwashed armpit odor. I listened on.

“…So anyway, he fell out of the barber chair dead as a doornail!”

Immediately, I stopped doing my wimpy chest presses and cocked my head at Roland. “Roland! You jerk! Why the hell did you let me start talking sh*t about a guy that you KNEW just died?” Feigning anger, I raised my voice at him, “I don’t think I’m going to forgive you for that.”

Roland just grinned. “That’s okay. I thought it would increase the drama of what I was about to tell you.”

Then changing emotional gears on me, he reminisced, “You know, I was the only guy who called him Doctor Mike.”

I raised my head up from where I had been looking at the floor in disgust with Roland’s cute little ruse to make me look bad, while considering the old, now dead guy with the pronounced limp. I saw him in the gym virtually every day I’ve ever been in there. Unlike me, I doubt if he had ever missed even a day. Now, he was gone. In spite of myself, I had an image of him lying in his coffin, still and quiet. No more limping for him.

I asked Roland, “Why did you call him doctor? Don’t tell me he was a doctor!”

“Oh yeah, big time. He was a cosmetic surgeon for all the rich and famous jerks of Europe. In fact, he practiced out of Monte Carlo.”

“You’re kidding! I always took him for some ordinary pensioner out of Australia. He looked more like a sheep farmer than a physician.”

“Nope. Doctor Michael Barrett was a plastic surgeon and he was English.”

“I never would have guessed that. I don’t think I actually ever said anything to him, but if we passed and I had even a hint of a grin going he’d respond with a crooked smile of his own and a friendly nod. I never would have thought him a doctor, especially one that probably made a lot of bucks in his life. I mean, what the heck is he doing living here Roland?”

Roland laughed like the joker he always is, “Why are you here? Why am I here? Why are any of us here! I think you KNOW why!”

“How old was he?” I changed the subject. Roland can be irritating at times.

“Only 71.”

I kidded "old" Roland, “Whoa! He was WAY too young, wasn't he? How old are you now again, 80 is it? Heh. Heh.”

He laughed me off, “I hear you. Me and my one lung have at least a few years left. As long as I have my 19-year-old girlfriend to keep me happy, and as long as Pfizer stays in business, I’ll be around to make them BOTH a lot of money!”

“Good point old man... Oh well, I guess it’s just the end of another era. Seems like “another era” ends just about once a week around here anymore.”

I put my earphones back in and continued my workout.

Sighing, I thought, ‘Anyway, at least I’M still breathing! ...for now.'
xxxx

Crash! Just Like the Movie...

People are funny, and mean, and moody, and mad, and hateful, and sometimes, downright stupid and ornery...

The premise of the movie "Crash" is that people move through their modern lives like cars in heavy traffic, so many all together and yet so isolated from meaningful human contact that, on occasion, they purposefully crash into one another just for the sake of the interaction—supposedly it makes the crashees feel more alive and vital. That MIGHT be true in the USA where people probably ARE more remote from one another, where human contact IS less likely to be meaningful; but in no way would that CRASH premise fly in this place. No, when people “crash” here, it’s more likely to be because of culture or frustration, or like today, both!

Today, for example, I witnessed a “little crash” between an Englishman and a Filipino. Once again, it was in the gym. It seems most of the “fun” things that happen to me and around me happens there.

A few minutes before “the collision” I was on the curling machine when I noticed a Josh Groban song being played on the stereo. I love that guy. He’s great. I was thrilled and excited to hear it. Then, a second Groban song came on, and I realized they were playing one of his albums. Awesome! I finished my current set of reps, and while I shook them off getting ready for the next set, I took a step over to the counter and asked the girl about the music. Right away she got defensive. She’s new and I have this reputation for asking the music to be changed forthwith if, and only if mind you, rap is being played.

“Oh, you don’t like this sir?” She almost looked scared.

“No. This is Josh Groban right? He’s wonderful! I love all music EXCEPT rap. Cos you know why?”

“No, why sir?”

“Cos rap is crap! And when I hear it, I just want to SLAP the SAP out of the person who plays THAT PAP!”

She laughed.

I said also laughing. “See, I told you rap sucks. Now do you believe me? Hey, thanks for playing this album. Where did it come from?”

“That guy over there in the corner,” she said pointing.

I went back to my machine to finish my reps and an older (than me) shaven headed bespectacled Filipino was standing there looking impatient. He asked me, “Are you still using this?”

“Yes sir. Almost done. I’ll give you the high sign when I’m finished.” I said respectfully.

He gave me an annoyed look, which is very un-Filipino and therefore I got the sense that he wasn’t from around here. Him doing that was very uncharacteristic of a local. Besides, his accent, what little I heard of it, sounded a bit American too.

A few minutes later and I found myself next to the fellow foreigner who provided the Groban music. I thanked him for bringing it in and we both agreed how utterly talented the man is. From his accent I took him to be from Great Britain and he verified that when he mentioned how much cheaper it was to buy a Josh Groban CD here in the Philippines than in the UK. He had just bought his newest one in one of the big shopping centers in Angeles City.

Not 15 minutes later and I was by the water cooler and introducing myself to the impatient American-acting older Filipino. Sure enough, he told me he had just arrived from the US two weeks ago where he had been living for many years. His name is Eddy.

I remarked, “Eddy, I knew immediately that you were NOT a local. I kind of pride myself on my observations and you even carry yourself more like an American than a Filipino.”

“Oh really?” he responded warily; “Is that good or bad?”

“It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just an observation. Of course, if you don’t like that I spotted your Americanisms within 20 seconds, then I guess that would be bad, wouldn’t it?” I kidded him. He grinned back, so I knew he got the humor.

About then I heard an angry English voice. It was my fellow Josh Groban fan and he was mad hot.

He came over to me fuming, “Some other guy working out in here doesn’t like my music and made her stop playing it,” he told me angrily.

“What! No way! Who?” I craned my head toward the counter. I couldn’t believe anyone would hate such righteous tunes to the point that they needed it yanked off the stereo; especially considering the rap crap that I’ve had to suffer through in there before.

The irate Limey pointed furiously at a younger Filipino fellow, maybe in his late 20s or early 30s. It’s hard to tell ages over here.

I shook my head feeling myself getting upset and maybe slightly enraged as well, although not nearly as hot as this guy was. I informed him, “No way buddy. The rule is that they HAVE to play out the whole CD if you request that they play it. I’ve had to suffer through crappy rap music before and THAT is what I was told then. THAT’S the rule!”

That was a mistake if I was looking to cool the dude down, because now he charged back to the counter loaded for bear.

I stood and watched the ongoing crash while Eddy spoke up to me, “You know, you guys really shouldn’t be like that. This isn’t your country. Why do you want to piss off the local Filipinos like that? It’s a huge mistake. They are NOT going to like it.”

I turned my attention to him. “Dude, I’ve been here a long time and I know exactly what you are saying. I’ve already been through similar situations where I was expected not to confront a local because I was in HIS country, and besides, I’m ALSO supposed to fear what they can do to me when my back is turned. That IS what you’re talking about, right?”

He nodded wryly.

I went on, “Okay, rationally, I know that you are right. But for many of us, a moment comes along where you just say, “NO WAY! I AIN’T TAKING THIS!” and I’m sensing that that fellow over there is having a moment like that. And besides, this gym is owned by a foreigner, a majority of the people that come in here are foreigners, and we don’t think we should have to keep kissing local ass even in here! This is supposed to be an international place, you know?”

I could tell Eddy wasn’t convinced by my tirade, and all the while I’m talking to him I’m watching the English fellow get even more riled up. He got right in the face of the Groban-hating Filipino fellow and things got so heated that the two gym boys, both big muscled fellows, were now playing the role of physical peacemakers. I’ve seen dozens of fights and I’ve seen hundreds of confrontations that seemed about to erupt into fights and I knew straight away that this one was NOT going to involve fisticuffs. They were just growling and snapping, neither really interested in tangling.

So, instead of a CRASH! it was more of a piddling fender-bender; interesting to see, but nothing worth calling the cops and ambulance over.

Just another day in “paradise...”

Kids play

Jonathan,

This one is at your askance. You asked about activities for preschoolers or for young kids on summer vacation.

You’re right. You won’t find here a whole lot of parks or libraries like those back home, especially not up to the same standards of safety and quality that you are used to. Of course I’m speaking generally and there are probably some towns and cities where you CAN find some nice playgrounds. I’m not sure where you plan on visiting, but its best to contact someone there and get the local scoop before you show up with your kids.

I just asked my wife about the subject as it applies to this area. We live in Angeles City and there are probably more places here to keep kids busy than in other spots in the country. I can think of three offhand, and I asked my wife about all three.

There is a playground park over by the Air Force City area on Clark that is grassy and has slides and swings. My wife says that is a fairly safe place to take kids so that’s one option.

A few years back the CDC (Clark Development Corp.) also built a pretty nice municipal style park in the huge open rectangular area in front of the main gate. At first it was an okay place to take your kids, but according to the wife, not so anymore. The “hold uppers,” as she calls them, have made that area not so family-safe these days. You will hear a chorus of “not so’s!,” but believe me, neither she or any of her friends will take their children there. You could try to go and act as security, but it’s just not worth the risk. Purse-snatchers, pickpockets, and gun-toting muggers use that area all the time.

She says the best place to take your kids to play is to the SM Mall located just inside the Clark Main Gate. My wife says the security is very good in the mall’s enclosed play area and she takes our two girls there all the time. Even so, watch your wallet and belongings.

There is a water park on Clark as well. I’ve never been to it, but my best buddy has taken his 10-year-old daughter there several times and he says it’s not bad. So that’s another option. Pretty much anything on Clark is safe. Once you leave the confines however, you MUST keep your wits about you.

Its Christmas time, and as my wife just reminded me, the muggers and robbers are working overtime to get money to buy presents for their loved ones. (Isn’t that sweet?) Along those lines, she just told me a “lovely” little story about what happened to her girlfriend a couple weeks back. The lady drove to her bank on Macarthur Boulevard to withdraw from her dollar account. Her next move was to drive up Main Gate Boulevard towards Checkpoint to exchange her bucks for pesos at Norma’s Money Exchange. She'd just pulled off Main Gate drag to make her way over to Field’s Avenue when a motorcyclist pulled in front of her, blocking her way. Another guy, also on a motorcycle, pulled up next to her window and fired one round from his handgun past her head to demonstrate that he meant business before aiming it at her face. He told her two things: “Give me the money you just got from the bank,” and two, “If you tell anyone about this I will kill you and your family.” She handed him the whole wad, and taking him at his word, never reported that she’d been mugged. And mind you, it all happened in broad daylight.

Much violent crime goes unreported here, especially that done to Filipino victims. People are easily cowed in these parts and their fear causes them to shrug off their outrage. I guess I can’t blame them. I could move away if I want, but most locals have no place to go. As for me, I’d rather die than give in to threats. Of course, if anyone ever threatened my kids I’d probably try to use my resources to track down those making the threats and try to kill them first, but that’s not the way the average person here thinks where fear is indeed the watchword.

No one EVER thinks it can happen to them, but eventually, it does. I’ve told my wife to have a “mugger’s purse” available with only a couple hundred pesos in it to hand over just in case; and even though she’s been held up at gunpoint herself once, she STILL has no fake purse. I can only tell her right? But that’s the way to go. Best advice: If a man points a gun at you give him what he wants—just don’t give him your REAL wallet or purse.

That reminds me:

Two years after I got here I got a call to get my ass over to the hospital. A fellow veteran had just been shot and needed my relatively rare O negative blood because his was all but gone. He and his wife had pulled into a quiet subdivision in Dau and were just getting out of their van when he heard her cry out. She did so at the sight of a gun being pushed into her face. The veteran rushed around the side of his van to her aid. The robber snapped off a round into the big American’s thigh and rushed off with his wife’s purse. The stricken navy vet, only about 6 months retired, made a tourniquet from his belt, and his wife was barely able to get him back into the van to drive him to a nearby small hospital. They took one look and turned her away. She then took him to the then PIH (Philippine Int’l Hospital) about 20 minutes away. I ran into the emergency room and begged them to take my blood but they shook their heads. I knew at that point he was gone. The wife, her jeans soaked in her husband’s blood, waited downstairs in our Veterans Service Office. Lucky for us, she had a good friend there to catch and console her when we told her that her husband didn’t make it.

Sorry for the doom and gloom, but that’s the way of it. It’s just that I see so many expats here that run around this place taking their safety for granted and that’s a huge mistake. Be paranoid, be wary, be ready for the worst-case scenario and keep your family and yourself safe.

Oh, I just thought of another possibility as far as activities for your kids—swimming. There are a lot of hotels that will allow you and your family to use their pool. Some, like the Clarkton will charge you a pretty stiff fee, but others will welcome you for your food and drink business. I believe the Swagman Hotel still falls into the latter category and it’s a good kids pool because it has a water slide.

And speaking of water, you can never go wrong with just spending a lot of time at one of the hundreds of seaside resorts in the country. I’ve been to Puerto Galera several times and my girls love it. I don’t know of any kid that doesn’t like playing on the beach. Just bring plenty of sun block.

For the most part, my girls stay pretty close to home. We live at the end of a quiet dead-end street and they ride their bikes with their little friends out in front of the house where we keep an eagle eye on them. I also put a little swing set and slide out in our yard, which they and their playmates also frequent.

Then again, if you are ever in the area you are welcome to stop by. We can chat and have libations while the kids play…
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Playing at Nepo Mall

Scooter Stop; just when you think you KNOW people...

Over the years, I’ve spoken a lot of disparaging words about the local gendarmes, mostly speaking to my bitterness towards their apparent dislike and resentment for us foreigners. But, sometimes I run into one or two that seem okay. I must emphasize, “seem,” because you just never know.

Late yesterday afternoon I was on my Chinese-made scooter chugging home up the back road towards my subdivision. I was just about to the gate when I saw a bevy of my favorite boys in blue situated on both sides of the street prominently carrying shotguns and assault rifles.

Immediately, I slowed down knowing that I was doubly in their sights; first, I was a foreigner and therefore an excellent shakedown candidate, and second, I was riding a cycle and cycles seem to be their preferred victim when it comes to checking for proper documentation.

Sure enough, when I was within 100 feet, one of the Philippine National Policemen put his hand up and waved me over with as much severe authority as he could muster. By that I mean glaring at me as if he was already convinced that I was a reprehensible criminal fit only for shooting on sight.

I’ve learned to suppress any sense of irritation at this continuous harassment, and that’s exactly what it is—a form of persecution. They rarely pull over cars, especially expensive cars with dark mirrored windows. No, they mostly go after cycles and scooters because they can easily see the operators. In other words, they don’t mess with people who might have “connections” and power. Those kinds of people don’t put up with the harassment, and with every bit of haughtiness that comes so easily to folks with power in these parts, they just throw it right back at the police who stopped them.

A large part of my irritation is that the same cops pull me over all the time. After all these years, I know that they know me, and they know I’m good to go. I always am, yet stop me they always do. I don’t know, maybe they just “like” me, or perhaps they just enjoy employing their power over me.

Years ago—only hours after the first time I was stopped—a different set of police pulled me over yet again. At the time, I hadn’t quite come to grips with how routine this process was going to be. In fact, if I had 5 bucks for every time I’ve been pulled over by either the PNP or LTO agents, I’d have a lot of 5-dollar bills for sure—dozens of them.

Anyway, that was then and I was irked, and unfortunately for me, I allowed my annoyance to come blazing through with a marked sullenness. Big mistake. The policemen counteracted my overt display of grouchiness with their own unconcealed exhibition of antagonistic power. I don’t know what I thought I was going to achieve acting surly, but I soon learned it was counterproductive.

From then on I’ve been the most respectful “yes sir, no sir saying” SOB possible. And yesterday afternoon, as soon as I knew I was visible and saw the officer’s wave down, I nodded my head exaggeratedly to acknowledge his authority and that I was indeed ready and willing to be pulled over. To complete my obsequious posture I put the biggest smile I could possibly fake onto my face, which for me looks like a smirky toothy grin. Nevertheless, I did my best to look completely agreeable.

“Good evening Sir!” I intoned cheerily, as if I could think of nothing better than to be stopped by this man.

He seemed a bit taken aback by my joyfulness and was immediately disarmed. Now fully into my “part” I asked him with total sincerity how he was doing that evening. In no time we were both into the “act,” with him asking questions and me answering his every question in sentences all ending in “sir.”

He took a quick look at my license plate and remarked that since it had a 2007 sticker he’d only need to see my drivers’ license. As he examined it he asked what country I was from and then what service branch I had “resigned from.”

“I was a marine for 5 years and then did 22 more with the Air Force,” I told him.

He asked me if I knew a fellow, giving me his name, since that guy had also been in the marines and was his brother-in-law by the way. I told him I didn’t recognize the name, but I wasn’t all that well connected with the other retired marines.

Soon, we were talking as equals. As he released me to move on, he introduced himself as a sergeant from the police post just up the street and told me that I should stop by anytime. In fact, he invited me to come out to the firing range and he would get approval for me to fire with them when they practiced out there.

“Are you serious!” I asked incredulous. “That would be great. I’ll probably take you up on that Sir.”

We ended our tête-à-tête with him telling me, “Sir, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope you will come by the post and visit us whenever you have the time.”

I hate that. Just when you think you know people, one of them is nice to you and ruins it.

A Permanent Resident Soon to Fly Home

In less than two weeks I fly back to the states for a three-week visit. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been home now. Let’s see, it’s been over two years, not since the whole family and I went home for my father’s bypass.

This time I’m going back solo, mostly because the girls are in school. In 2005 when we made the trip home with the entire family my wife had paid all the fees and taxes that we Philippine permanent residents “get” to pay.

I’m glad she did pay them then, otherwise it might have ruined the first leg to Japan for me on that Northwest Airlines 747. The reason I say that is because as a holder of an ACRI (permanent resident) card, when you fly out of here you have to take a bucket full of money with you to the airport, and I’d really had no idea.

My little rude awakening occurred a couple days ago when I stopped by the Angeles International Travel Center to ask Danny for a few tips on what I needed to do for a smooth trip. If you have travel or immigration questions or needs, by all means, go see him. He’s a great guy, charges fairly for his services, and won’t let you down. Everyone in the office is like that, but Donny is the “go to guy,” especially for immigration questions and problems. When it comes to that stuff, Donny “knows” people. In this country THAT’S the thing.

I have only ONE problem these days with Angeles Int'l Travel Center, which is in the white building directly "on the point" of that "slice of pie" shaped corner just down from the Petron Station on Perimeter Road. At the moment they’ve stopped taking credit cards. Danny said that it’s a matter of taxes or problems with card payments or some vague thing. He was sort of evasive when he answered the question so I doubt I got a straight answer—it was the typical “avoidance” method commonly used in these parts to get around uncomfortable questions.

Anyhow, I complained that no one in their right mind in this country walks around with the kind of cash needed to pay for international travel, at least not without a bodyguard. I told him I didn’t quite understand how they expected to do business that way. Paying with anything but a credit card is so 40 years ago!

I would have had Angeles Travel book my tickets, but seeings how the travel agency wouldn’t take my MasterCard I bought mine online through Expedia. I think I paid too much at $1350 for the round trip, but what the heck. Next time, I’ll try another site and see if I can’t do any better. After playing around a little it looks like Mobissimo offers some cheaper fares.

I also wanted to ask Donny about my E-ticket. I printed out what I thought was the Expedia E-ticket, but it wasn’t clear that that’s what it was and I wanted to make sure. He looked it over and told one of the travel agents working the counter to print me out a good one, which she did free of charge.

Still needing to know what to expect at the airport terminal using my “new” ACRI card, Danny filled me in on the unkind details. He said to go to the right after checking through with my luggage and pay what I believe he called a travel tax, which only we permanent residents are required to pay. That one runs about 1700 pesos.

After checking in the luggage and entering the immigration area Donny told me to look for a ACRI CARD holder window. There, I will pay my exit/entry fee that goes for a cool 2750 pesos or so.

Finally, there’s the terminal tax, which goes for a comparatively tiny 750 pesos.

I guess its not all that bad, in dollars its not even 100 bucks, but if I were taking both girls and the wife home it would add up to a pretty substantial amount.

My other significant travel expense is paying for the 2-½ to 3-½ hour trip to the airport from here. The van service I use is now charging about 3000 pesos, and it costs the same amount to get home.

We went through a lot to get our permanent residence status and I was considering for a short time—as it turns out, a very short time—giving it up and just doing what many of my buds do, and just go through the hassle of living here as a tourist. But, after talking on the phone just now to one of these fellows I think I’ll just hold on to my present status as a permanent resident. From talking to him I can see that the Philippines really makes residing here as a tourist a total pain in the neck. I still think I have the slightly better deal, but not by much.

He told me that as a tourist it’s costing him about 9000 pesos a year in fees, which he has to pay at the immigration office here in town every three or four months after his first 21 days in-country is up. After 21 days you live from extension to extension. Supposedly, tourists no longer have to leave the country once a year and can stay for two years, although he said he wasn’t sure how that was possible since an onward ticket is required and there are none that are good past 1 year. My pal likes his trips to Thailand though, so he just goes and comes the way the bogus system has always forced him to do. In his case, he flies to Pattaya three times a year claiming it’s a refreshing change of pace.

A lot of American military retirees have chosen Thailand over the Philippines, but most of the guys who enjoy both places and yet have chosen to live here say the primary reason to live here are the women. (That’s right Kat, the WOMEN!) It doesn’t surprise me; I’ve heard it many times over the years. (Filipinas communicate better, they are sweeter, and don't eat HOT food!)

But everyone claims that what IS superior in Thailand are the medical and dental care. The costs are comparable to here, but the expertise and care are purportedly better in Thailand. There must be something to it, because I know at least a dozen guys who go to Thailand every year just to get their annual checkups done. They swear by it.

When I was online checking prices to the US, I checked out fares to Thailand too. It looks like Cebu Air has the lowest tickets going—they run from $250 to $450 roundtrip, and they fly direct from Manila. Not bad.

Oh before I forget, one last thing on ACRI cards. It took us more than two years from the day we paid for and applied for ours before we finally got them issued to us. My wife called the Philippine Immigration Office in Manila and asked why no cards so long after we’d paid for them. Both times she called she spoke to snooty bureaucrats who simply blew her off. We’d gone to the VFW more than two years before when the immigration people had come to Angeles City on an outreach. At the time we were very grateful, as it was a marvelous thing to do for those of us with small children who didn’t want to make the trip to Manila. Jim Boyd, the local US Embassy Warden had arranged it.

We’d completely given up on ever getting those darn things until I asked Danny at the Angeles Int'l Travel Ctr about them. He said he could have them for me in a matter of two or three days; all I had to do was pay him about $50(?) for his time and he’d take care of it. Sure enough, after fighting with those officious unresponsive ninnies for months, we had our long awaited permanent residence cards. Like I said, Donny KNOWS people!

When he handed me ours I asked him how long before we were going to have to go through all this all over again. The “all-knowing” Donny has “heard” from his “contacts” that the cards will probably be good for 5 years. Man, I sure hope so!


If you need to contact him, Donny's number and email address are here at the ANGELES INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL CENTER website.

Part 6 of "Broken and in Pieces, the Story of Mike"

More than a month has passed since my buddy’s lower leg was shattered in an “accident.” For him, it’s been sheer hell. He’s normally a very active fellow; in fact he’s hyperactive, so this forced inactivity is driving him nuts.

(To see how this mess started, here are parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

His orthopedist has been a godsend. By chance, we had found the good doctor just a few weeks before the mishap in our continuous search for local physicians wily enough to help us out as we assist veterans looking for decent medical consultations.

Most of the doctors hereabouts don’t write well, at least not in English, so finding this guy was great. The fact that he writes brilliantly AND he’s a brilliant orthopedic surgeon is pure bonus.

For my friend and his shattered leg the first three weeks or so was all hospital time. He had to wait for the battered tissue to reduce swelling enough for the first operation, which was devoted to pushing and pulling all the bone splinters and fragments back into the semblance of what was once a straight and intact tibia.

Two surgeons spent 5 hours getting that done using a heavy stainless steel cage called a fixator and a whole lot of X-rays to make sure the pins were going in correctly. I hear that the latest fixators are made of lightweight materials, but not so over here. Currently, my friend has about 25 pounds of metal dragging down his right leg. Or at least it drags on it when he tries to get up, which is not very often, just when he goes to the head or takes a few minutes to check his email on his PC.

He’s had to return to the hospital twice now, in fact, he’s there now, this last time because of a serious infection. The way I see it, around here, all infections are serious. In this tropical climate with the environment so laden with bacteria, those lurking nasties await the smallest chink in our bodily defenses to attack us.

In my friend’s case, he has more than a half-dozen metal pins pushed through the flesh of his leg into the bone, all designed to “fixate” the lower leg to allow proper alignment during the healing process.

Every couple of days, using a brush and a solution of hydrogen peroxide, the doctor scrubs away the clotted material from around the pins penetrating his leg. I guess it’s a form of débridement. The holes have to be kept open until its time to remove them. As far as my friend is concerned, that day can NOT come too soon. He tells me he’s been dreaming of the day a normal cast will replace the current cage-like monstrosity.

Last week, a few days before he reentered the hospital for his current round of IV administered antibiotics, I was deeply concerned because his leg was throbbing from the inside in an area that had not hurt all that much before. I also noticed his foot seemed a bit discolored and extra swollen. Right away, I knew it was probably the onset of a serious infection. The doctor thought so too, and a laboratory analysis proved us right.

I don’t know how he doesn’t have infections ALL the time considering he’s got those pins providing an out-and-out super hi-way right into the depths of his leg.

Infections scare me because they remind me of Mike, a fellow American veteran whom I once “assisted” with VA claims advice at least once or twice a week. To get my broke-legged buddy to listen carefully to his doctor’s instructions to get into a hospital for another round of heavy-duty antibiotics, and better yet, to do so IMMEDIATELY, I told him the story of Mike.

Up until his death about two years ago Mike was a fixture on Fields Avenue, which should be called “Party Avenue.” Usually from the early afternoon on you could catch him tooling about in his battery powered wheelchair scooter, and almost always he was skunk drunk by 2 p.m.

Once he had his daily buzz going he’d find a spot to park along the street and just sit there like an inebriated Buddha in the sun. He’d talk, mostly in an incoherent mumble, to anyone and everyone he happened to know or thought he knew.

Indeed, he looked like a suntanned Buddha-bum with his completely shaven baldhead and round, deeply browned tummy poking out prominently from his wide-open unbuttoned cotton shirt.

Mike didn’t sit on his chair so much as he perched up there, mostly because he had no legs, since not even the stumps of them were left. The good thing about Mike was it didn’t take much drinking to get him drunk since he was missing most of the bulk of his body.

When Mike first came to see me for help with his VA and Social Security claims I had assumed that he’d lost his legs to diabetes or to some grievous war wound, but in time I learned that his leglessness had not happened due to disease at all.

Mike had only nominal service with the navy back in the late 50s between wars, so he didn’t qualify for any veterans benefits. His only income was a small amount from social security. If not for the help he received with filling out applications from the veterans groups here in town he probably would not have received even that. In fact, that powered scooter of his was a donation from those same groups.

He had come to the Philippines for the same reasons many have come here over the years—for the low cost of living and the wonderful women. In the end, the Philippines killed him; or more like it, he offed himself, using the Philippines as the means.

The beginnings of his woes started off ordinary enough—one day he was a passenger in a trike when another vehicle struck it. Mike’s legs were injured; I’m not sure how badly, maybe some broken bones and lacerations. If he’d been anywhere back home it would have been no big deal. He would have been taken to an emergency room where they would have patched him up, indigent or not, but that’s not what happens here.

Here, if you get hurt and you can’t pay for antibiotics, or surgery, well, you don’t get them. Mike lay with in his bloody bandages in a bed in a public hospital in a large room with a bunch of other people who could not afford quality care, and his legs slowly rotted off his body. Gangrene set in and he lost them.

Luckily he didn’t die, although it’s a miracle he didn’t. I’m not sure, but I think some local Americans finally learned of his situation and chipped in to help him survive the amputations. Once out of the hospital he lived under some cardboard in someone’s carport for months, when once again, some of his fellow expats stepped in and got him some help from social security. After that, he could afford to pay a small rent and still had money enough for utilities, and more importantly to him, enough to keep him drunk for most of the day.

When I met him he was already dying. His heart was barely pumping enough blood to keep him alive and his internals were already so damaged from the drinking that it was just a matter of time before he croaked. He had a number of serious conditions that he should have been taking at least a half-dozen medications to control, but he spent all of his small income on his drug of choice—his booze.

The local embassy warden tried to convince him to let the United States fly him home to some kind of sanatorium in the States, but Mike knew he’d never be able to have his “fun” there and refused to go. In time, I learned that he had finally died.

So, okay, it wasn’t JUST infections that ended Mike’s life, but if left unchecked, those microscopic flesh-destroying bacterium WILL do a number on you. The good thing is once I told my little yarn about Mike to my friend it seemed to get him off the pot and he was back in the hospital the next morning.

Mission accomplished…

Part 4 of "Broken and in Pieces" in Angeles City

My friend’s leg is coming along slowly; for him, this last 10 days has been the longest year of his life. It’s been just a week since two orthopedic surgeons spent about 5 hours of surgery pushing and pulling the splinters of his shattered lower leg back into line. They used a fixator, which is a cylindrical metal cage from which metal pins are affixed and pushed through the flesh of the leg and screwed into the various key pieces of bone. This cage keeps his lower leg bones still and fixed so as to promote proper healing, hopefully. (To see how this mess started, here are parts 1, 2, 3).

The doctor says it takes about 6 weeks for bones to reunite. After that, we’ll see how many of the shattered individual pieces of bone have survived. X-rays show several small floating shards that will probably have to be removed and replaced with bone grafts from the hip, another very painful procedure.

In the meantime, he’s lying there and thinking about the rats that did this to him. We are quite sure it was a put up job of assault made to look like an accident. The fact that the cops drove past twice and would not stop at the accident says a lot. Not to mention that their “investigation” did not even include speaking to the victim, or as they were want to claim, “the perpetrator,” NOR to the one real witness who saw the entire event start to end. AND, we still don’t know if charges will be filed. Fact is, the driver of the lightless jeepney who veered directly into my friend’s path SHOULD be the one in trouble, but we all know that “its ALWAYS the foreigner’s fault” in these here parts.

Another outrage is what is happening to his motorbike. It was picked up and “stored” in a “secure area.” My bedridden buddy has sent one of his pals to look at it and take pictures of it every few days or so. At first it was chained up with another bike that was supposed to have been the bike he caused to crash, something we know never happened. Well, that one has now disappeared. The outrageous part, or one of many, is that his scooter is slowly being taken apart and disappearing. Lights, running boards—you name it—the pieces are “migrating” away somewhere.

We are still worried about possible retribution from the people who did this. It looks like a bodyguard or some other form of security might be in order. At this point, he says he knows he can do nothing about the people who did this; he just wants to get better and move on, and probably move away. As one of my buddies just told me today, “It’s a foreigner’s word against the locals', and we all understand what that means.”

I know one person who understands the above concept implicitly, Lance Corporal Daniel Smith, still falsely accused and unjustly convicted of rape, and now continuing to languish in the US embassy during the slow motion appeals process.

It’s oddly pathetic the reaction I get from many of the local expats that I’ve told my friend’s story to in the interest of warning them. Most want to know “what did he do to attract that kind of attack?” It pisses me off to no end; it’s like blaming an attractive girl for being raped. No one wants to believe that this can happen to them. Funny thing is, I know for certain that if I had warned my broken legged friend two weeks ago that this could happen to him, he would have argued bitterly against ANY such possibility.

I can hear him now, what he would have proclaimed. Very adamantly, he would have protested, “No way. Not me! I take way too many precautions and I’m MUCH too careful. Maybe it could happen to some ignorant tourist just passing through, but NEVER to me!”

XXX

Famous last words, and for how many more of us? ...continue to part 5...

Part 3 of "Broken and in Pieces" in Angeles City

If you've been following this story, well, it’s worse than we thought. It turns out that the entire accident was staged; it was a set-up from before the word go. I just got off the phone with my friend, and he says in a combination of disgust, anger and trepidation that he will probably pull out of the Philippines as soon as he recovers. This is from a man who loves this country more than his own. He might change his mind, but what faith he had had in the people here is now shaken to the core.

His buddy, the man who saw the entire thing unfold, evidently put a kink in their evil plans by being there and messing up their scheme. They wondered why the police SUV continued to pass the scene back and forth at least three times without stopping, and its only now that the reason is starting to gel.

At the hospital emergency room one of the supposed investigating officers came up to them with a sketch of the accident scenario. It was an entirely made up thing, in complete defiance of reality. It showed my friend coming out of a side street on his scooter, a street he did NOT come out of, and it showed a nonexistent motorcycle that is supposed to have struck him before veering off and running into some vendors stands. The sketch also showed debris and broken vendors stands.

Upon looking at the faked sketch, my friend’s witness-buddy spoke out loudly in protest, stating that it was nothing like that at all. He stridently proclaimed with complete assuredness that there had been no motorcycle and no one and nothing else was involved in the collision, other than the murderous jeepney and driver and his nearly killed friend on his scooter.

So, two things happened to counter their nefarious plan that they hadn’t counted on: 1) my friend didn’t die in the head-on collision, and 2) the witness wasn’t supposed to be there to see so exactly what really happened.

The witness-buddy immediately went back to the scene in a trike to check on the scooter and confirmed that indeed there was NO debris, and NO wrecked vendor’s stands. In fact, there was no scooter there anymore, since the police had confiscated it.

He also approached the doorman of the bar where the whole thing started from and spoke to him to feel out what he saw. Turns out he too is part of the scheme. He said smiling, “Oh yeah, your friend pulled out in front of the motorcycle.”

Uh oh! We now realize that this is getting ugly and dangerous, because it’s obvious that a policeman or two is involved in this as well as the doorman, and who knows who else. As soon as I heard this news I told him urgently that his life is now in immediate danger. I told him to take precautions and NOW, because the cops involved will not hesitate to kill to protect themselves by covering their tracks. He got quiet when he realized I was right.

So he has now moved to a new hospital in a different town and is there under an assumed name. I asked him not to tell me the name of the hospital. That’s right people; these are the precautions one must take here—it’s a sickening fact.

We also learned that inexplicably there appears to be no blotter on the accident. It seems that the “inconvenience” of a foreigner witness who could not “be got to” or paid off, may well have frightened off the perpetrators of this foulness. I told him that we could look to contact a good cop or politician in as high a position as possible to seek protection, or we can wait and see if the crooked men running this scheme are going to just let it go. I told him the latter might be better than the former. Sometimes it’s better to leave the snake alone after it’s missed with its first strike and let it move on to another quarry.

I was considering no longer writing about this subject, especially now that it seems that its more than just a drunken local who caused a potentially deadly accident, or even more than just some con-men looking for a quick payoff from a foreigner. Nope, it is much worse than that. This is seriously frightening business because of WHO exactly is involved.

I decided to go ahead and write this as a warning to people who are already in Angeles City and who came here as I did in good faith, as well as to people considering moving here. Please listen: This is a very dangerous place. The pitfalls are many. You can try with all your might to avoid them by keeping a low profile and following all the rules, such as they are, but once the local predators get you in their sights there is no escape. It might well take many years of running with the “foreigner herd,” but eventually you WILL get culled out. Once that happens there is very little you can do about it unless you are good friends with the mayor or the police chief.

My friend has either lived here or has been coming here for over 20 years; he LOVED this place. So much so that I was shocked to hear him say today that he thinks its time to go. It could just be the throbbing pain in his shattered leg causing his despondence, but I don’t think so.

As for me, as soon as I finish my GI Bill benefits, I’m out of Angeles City. I really don’t feel like waiting for my turn in the slaughter pen. Its one thing to shear us or milk us, but its an entirely different animal when you learn that people are willing to wantonly kill us for a few bucks.

I’m sure there are other places in this country that a foreigner can live with his family without constantly having to worry about this stuff. It’s time to seriously start looking for a plan B. (see part 4)