Forum	Title	Content	Member	Sex	Country	Date/Time
Philippines	Philippine debt	That story is from the "Live in the Philippines" blog. Whenever a source like that doesn't report the name of the person, the place, or case, while asserting to have both done research and follow-up... there's a reason.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-07 16:12:00
Philippines	Philippine debt	I don't know if he is the only signer on the debt. Huge. Red. Flag. If you are being asked for money on a debt and the instrument is concealed from you - RUN the other direction. The FIRST thing you do is look at the paperwork. If it isn't shown to you then all you know is that this is bad news way beyond just owing money.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-06-19 14:42:00
Philippines	Name Change on Philippine Passport	I'm sure this has been answered in various forms. I just need a little more clarification. Here's the quick back story. Wife and I along with our soon to be 2 year old, is taking a vacation in May 2013 to the Philippines. I've already bought the tickets ($$$$$$wow!!!) and now we are on the next step of obtaining my son's passport and changing my wife's maiden name to her married name. I've read that she would need to make an appearance at the nearest Consulate. Ok. The nearest consulate in in Los Angelas. We live in Alaska. Round trip tickets are not cheap from Alaska. Is there anyway around making a personal appearance at the Philippine Consulate in Los Angelas? Or should I change her name on her airline tickets to reflect her Philippine passport. Also, am I supposed to notify the consulate of our marriage back in December of 2009? I followed the petition process to get her green card to a T, but never knew that we had to notify her consulate about our marriage together. I'm sorry for the rambling I hope that I'm making some sense here. Thanks for the help and I look forward to your replys. Jason, Charisse and Bren Bren We went to the Consulate Outreach up here when they rotated through, Outreach 2012 That was the 2012 schedule but if you start there you can probably find who to contact for the schedule in 2013. But you may not have enough time to get the passport back before you travel, even if it is early in 2013. It took months to get it sent up here. You surrender your existing passport when applying for the new one. So bear that in mind. We traveled with tickets bought in her maiden name, since that matched her passport, and had all kinds of documentation with us including marriage certificate, green card in married name, and had no trouble until we were coming back. The airline employee in Manila was giving us a hard time and we had to call her supervisor, who said no problem. We didn't get her passport until about a month ago and she's been here three years. We also didn't report the marriage to the consulate until they came up here this summer. Do them both at the same time when they are up here and you'll make sure to do them right because they won't take them until you have all 107 copies done exactly right. I don't know how far from Anchorage you are but we went through a year of hell trying to get a fingerprint appointment with them. You have to write an office in California that doesn't communicate with the office in Anchorage and they tell you through six successive requests that no appointments are available. We had to start a congressional investigation to get a fingerprint appointment. They did them wrong TWICE. 2,700 miles of driving for fingerprints. Others have flown in from Unalaska or whatever and had them screw up their fingerprints. The documentation says you must have a fingerprint appointment to go there, but when our congressman finally rattled their cage they told us to come down and they would make an appointment letter on the spot. Three times total, that is. On account of incompetence. Edited by rlogan, 13 November 2012 - 08:30 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-13 20:29:00
Philippines	Age Conflict?????	You've explained why you have underestimated the combined experience of over 100,000 members communicating at the speed of light in the information age. Thank you for not repeating your opinion yet again.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-04 19:54:00
Philippines	Age Conflict?????	No offense, but Hank, you have NO more inside knowledge of what cases are under increased scrutiny, and why if any, at the US Embassy than anyone else. The fact is, you have ZERO way to know. None of us do. Because it varies with each CO, each case, etc. You don't work there. You are not a CO. You have not interviewed, documented and done a scientific analysis of the different age groups and the questions and scrutiny they were under to draw that conclusion, right? I'm not saying you're right or wrong. I personally cannot believe that a 19 year old girl marrying a 44 year old man wouldn't be at least under a BIT more scrutiny. I could very well be wrong. So according to you, a 91 year old man, marrying an 18 year old girl, wouldn't set of ANY, not a SINGLE ONE, fraud flag at the embassy? Because according to you, age doesn't figure into this at all? It isn't "inside information". It is the public testimony by countless interviewees going through the process and reporting to us. For me, four years of innumerable threads on this subject here and data from countless marriages more than 20 years age difference, and fiances under 21. Nobody is reporting increased scrutiny. But because the majority of Fil-Am marriages are older Americanos with younger Filipinas the question is asked by new people joining the board. You've reversed the burdern of proof here. We have a guy totally talking through his hat, and he is obviously wrong about the fraud assertion by mere minutes of inspecting public indictments for fraud. So now after being proven wrong with that data, he comes up with a story about talking to an Embassy Offical. Oh really? Then NAME the Embassy official Mimi and Gary. Prediction: you can't. You will have an excuse. We cite our sources here instead of making them up. I cited public court indictments for visa fraud. Also the Effects of Major Changes fraud cases being discussed on this site. You can CHECK my sources. That is how you determine whether someone is telling the truth. This is ridiculous because Mimi and Gary has admitted numerous times that any couple submitting sufficient evidence of a relationship passes the embassy interview. I guess it is instructive that the person asking the question left the thread long ago and didn't listen to the trolling. It shows us that most people look at evidence - at facts and data - instead of baseless opinions.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-04 12:30:00
Philippines	Age Conflict?????	Here's a sample of indictments in a Visa Immigration Fraud case called "Operation Knot So Fast": •Fayzullohuja Mavlonov, 32, of Denver, •Jessica Santiago, 35, of Orlando, •Marcelino Brizon, 41, of Orlando, •Idalia Gomez, 54, of Orlando, •Akmal S. Nosirov, 32, of Uzbekistan, •Brienn Marie Lasley, 27, of Orlando, •Mariya Baran, 26, Kansas City, Mo., •Eric Daniel Toro, 25, of Orlando, •Abubakir Khidirov, 27, of New Orleans, •Rosemary Torres Rosario, 26, of Kissimmee, Fla., •Marlon Jimenez, 43, of Norcross, Ga., •Edna Isabel Cosme, 41, of Kissimmee, •Recep Aksu, 50, of Daytona Beach, Fla., •Grisel Ortiz, of 40, Orlando, •Volkan Aksoy, 34, of Orlando, •Gisela Cora, 26, of Orlando, •Rustamhon Bahriddinov, 26, of Charleston, S.C., •Rachel Ruiz, 36, of Orlando, •Avazhon Jafarkhojaev, 31, of Charleston, and •Ixchell Bonilla, 28, of Orlando. These are include indictments of both Americanos and immigrants making scam marriages. The case is listed here: Operation Knot so Fast Indictments September 2012 At least some of these stem from 2008 immigrations, maybe even all of them but assuming that all of them are means there are only four names on this list of 21 people that would have been 23 or younger at the time. NONE age 20, NONE aged 19. ONE age 21, ONE age 22 and TWO age 23. But we don't know if these were the immigrants or the Americanos. Even assuming ALL of them are the immigrants it proves the MAJORITY are over age 23. I don't want to claim this as anything other than demonstrating how we have a poster making wild assertions with no evidence and giving advice on this forum to people depending on our advice. I don't know what the age distribution of scammers is, but the poster's assertion has no evidence backing it, and a few minutes' googling for indictments of visa fraud prove him wrong. The assertion is the underpinning of his argument that immigrants age 19-23 are going to have a tougher time in the Embassy interview because "90% of the visa fraud is age 19-23". Do not listen to this poster.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-03 21:12:00
Philippines	Age Conflict?????	No, that age group is more likely to be a party to visa fraud, or a victim of human trafficking. There are about 1000 K1/CR1 visa's reviewed at UMEM each month, only a very small number of those use this site. I am very surprised you don't know about the famous Manila marriage scams, there are 10 or 12 going on all the time, you know so much! I guess you also think all 1000 of those visa's each month are all people looking for love. He He. So the USEM don't need do anything to combat this? Wake up and smell the coffee. KABAYAN NOV 2012 Pinoys held in US for sham marriages scam By Leon Manaig MANILA — Several Filipinos were arrested in the United States for allegedly arranging sham marriages for Filipinos wanting to marry American citizens in exchange for $3,000 in a move to legalize their stay in the US and eventually get American citizenship. Maria Cruz, 49, a former Cook County traffic court employee, and five other people, arranged up to 15 fake marriages between 2003 and 2009. Cruz, formerly of Chicago and currently living in American Canyon, California, was arrested on an initial complaint in late August but was released on a $200,000 secured bond. Last week, Cruz and five other people accused in the scheme, including 53-year-old Chicago immigration lawyer Manny Aguja, two of his employees — his twin brother Marc Aguja and Celeste Ligutan-Lopez, were also arrested, the Philippine News reported. Federal authorities said court records unsealed on Nov. 23 showed that Cruz paid a fee for referrals to US citizens willing to enter into the fake marriages. According to authorities, Cruz allegedly promised the US citizens they would be paid about $3,000 upfront for the marriage and $300 to $350 for each month until the non-citizen got citizenship. “Cruz would even drive people to their purported weddings and take pictures before and after to make it appear that real ceremonies had taken place. She would also advise participants in the scam on how to make their marriages seem real to immigration officials,” according to federal authorities. In addition to the 15 false marriages, Cruz also allegedly tried to arrange two other marriages for undercover US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Cruz has been charged with 10 counts of marriage fraud while the Aguja brothers have been charged with “conspiracy to induce foreign nationals to reside illegally in the United States.” – PNS Who doesn't know about scammers? You think we're stupid. We are evidence-based, not opinion-based at this forum. He asked you for evidence that 90% of the scammers were 19-23. You responded with an article that says NOTHING about age. You've proven repeatedly that you make wild assumptions without evidence. Then contradict yourself. You don't even seem to grasp what constitutes evidence. I don't claim to know the age distribution of scammers because we don't have studies available on that. But if you look at the current distribution of scammers on the Effects of Major Changes page, there's four definite scammer stories on there right now. One is over 30. Another looks to be mid-20's, not sure about the others but nobody is a teenager. The sample there contradicts your assertion. Nobody should be over 23 if you are right. No animosity here. Someone has waded into a pretty informed group here thinking we're all idiots and will take someone's opinions as fact.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-03 20:36:00
Philippines	Age Conflict?????	We have posters with evidence. We have posters with opinions of prejudice. Bigotry, by definition. Prejudice/bigotry is always so #######-sure of itself: eg Of course a white/Asian marriage is a red flag. The important thing to learn from this thread is about bigots who hold prejudice: no amount of evidence can convince them their prejudice is wrong. Don't make the mistake of thinking a prejudicial bigot would not marry the object of his bigotry. You see people who think Asians are inferior who show that in the treatment of their wives. Or they treat their younger wife like a child. Their intention is not to marry an equal. They don't realize it is their own bigotry, not that of the law, shining through in these #######-sure statements.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-03 12:38:00
Philippines	Age Conflict?????	The stage that the age difference will become an issue is at the embassy visa interview. You have REPEATEDLY stated there is an age difference issue, a big red flag. etc. We are not imagining that. We are QUOTING you. So don't tell us we are mistaking what you are saying. It is not a red flag. It is not something that brings on additional scrutiny. It is not an issue at the Embassy, period. We are not imagining you saying these totally off-base things. But thanks for the lesson in how someone who is caught saying things so completely wrong then has the gall to say others can't read.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-02 19:20:00
Philippines	Age Conflict?????	Post not about will the age gap cause a visa denial, it's about will the age gap cause a red flag, or course it will so start now and prepare your records to prove the legitimacy of the relationship. You have not posted a single example of anyone who was questioned over an age difference. Nor has anyone here who had a big age difference backed you up on your assertion. Those of us who had larger age differences than the OP have contradicted you. This is a topic of innumerable threads on visajourney and it is always the same: people with big age differences demonstrating it doesn't matter vs people with no evidence trying to scare others because that is a petty power trip for them. That tells us about YOU, not about the fiction you are peddling. It is not constructive to instill fear in people for a bogus reason. You are trying to get them defensive about something they have no reason being defensive about, and that makes people nervous in an interview if they fall for your misinformation. An interviewer picks up on the nervousness that people display, and they're going to think it is something else. You can play this petty little game with anything, and one of the other classics is all the people who insist the economic difference proves your fiance doesn't really love you - she's just a ####### for money. The racial difference. Educational difference. My fiance and I had every one of those including age and the only people who mentioned it were creepy malicious internet trolls. Had she gone into that interview listening to people like you she would have been a wreck. Instead she was perfectly composed because she knew the only thing that mattered was whether you had a genuine relationship, and that age, economic difference, race, education, religion, etc. have no bearing upon it.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-02 14:43:00
Philippines	Age Conflict?????	I was 30 years older than her, and she was 19 when we applied. She did not have any kind of parental consent. The embassy didn't ask about our age difference. It was plain as day to the embassy interviewer our relationship was a dirty old man with his young hottie Filipina, and it doesn't get more genuine than that.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-01 21:32:00
Philippines	dowry and rental car question	Set the ground rules for money going back home early and hold fast. There will always be some crisis. A niece that gets sick. A brother that breaks a leg. There is ALWAYS something. Be careful paying a "bride price." This can get touchy later under US Law. You can't buy people and they should not be for sale. While there are culturally acceptable things to do, if you end up in the USA with a bride you "paid for" and there are issues, you will have trouble defending her claim that she had to marry you because you paid for her and her family forced her to marry you. It can get very messy very quickly. If some DA wants to press charges they could throw on a human trafficking charge and you can end up as a registered sex offender because you bought the family a motorcycle and a bag of rice out of cultural obligation. If "bride price" is a serious issue in your relationship, odds are you are doomed. Walk away. And don’t drive in the PI. It is not unheard of for poor parents to throw their kids in front of a car so they get hit and can get money. Though this is certainly not common, you need to be aware of the fact that if you are a foreigner and behind the wheel of a car you might as well be walking around with 1000 php notes hanging out of your pocket. You are just begging people to pick you off. It may be a true accident, or it might be a motorcycle that passes you and then sees who you are only to turn in front of you creating a collision. This is misinformation. Bride price is common in a number of countries, some of which work out the marriage contract on paper listing out the assets being transferred explicitly, and there is no problems in immigration whatsoever. Look at some of the other regional sub-fora here and you will learn about this. That is one of the great hypocrisies in the whole "human trafficking" hysteria: bride price exists, it means exactly what it says, and it is legal. Some of these marriages are arranged, with or without bride price - with the bride doing what the parents tell her to do. Arranged marriages are also an accepted cultural fact. This is not to deny a person can be prosecuted for the purchase of a human into bondage against their will. But the "rescue industry" pirates are greedy, selfish purveyors of propaganda that is designed to line their pockets with government grants and foundation money by misinforming people about this. Number one to horrify people by exaggerating or distorting what different traditions do, and number two to make us think things like bride price are illegal. Driving - I've been driving in the Philippines for over a decade. Six different islands, thousands of miles. The more common probelm is cops and even just road officals trying to intimidate you into a bribe. They've stopped me and claimed my international driver's license is not valid. Claimed I was driving with an even numbered license plate when only odd numbers could drive that day, claimed I did not stop long enough at a stop sign. Every one of them I wrote down their name and asked where their local commander's office was - and they immediately started backpedaling and stammering. On the other hand we have avoided tickets they could have given us by doing what everyone else was doing - running stop signs or turning left when it wasn't allowed - with a little "tip". Traffic laws are largely ignored there, and you need to get accustomed to how people drive. Because they expect you to drive like they do, and if you don't it can cause an accident - ironically because you obeyed traffic laws. Edited by rlogan, 16 November 2012 - 06:10 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-16 18:08:00
Philippines	dowry and rental car question	I'm always impressed at how much research people do into the lives and culture of their prospective wives. There was one here, I think his name was Darren, who went so far as to learn the name of the village she was from.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-16 13:39:00
Philippines	Zero American Pride!!!!	When you have a culture with servitude and docility as a principal component it is no surprise that you like their "service" better. Consider the fact that many foreign airlines impose restrictions on how old their attendants can be and even whether or not they can be married. While you may balk and blame "unions," consider also the corresponding rights and freedoms the employees of US carriers have and the abuses that foreign employees often endure. FWIW - Delta has always been fine with me. *yawn* Don't justify bad attitude with drivel like this. In commerce, the customer is king. You obviously don't run a business. You know what's great? Getting someone fired for making you angry. I mean it too - we call managers, we write letters and we do it for outstanding good employees as well as outstanding bad employees. The managers are always glad to hear from us, but most especially when we are letting them know how good their crew is. We get free food, coupons, gift certificates etc. for doing it too. Get on websites that review places too. Hammer the bad ones mercilessly and give good recommendations for the companies that put out good service. That's how you get rid of arrogant union employees: their companies go bankrupt because of their lazy arrogance and the assets are bought by people who care about the customer.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-16 21:39:00
Philippines	Zero American Pride!!!!	We like Korean Air. And yeah, it's worth paying extra to avoid arrogant union employees. I don't care if they're Americans. Same goes for wives.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-16 02:04:00
Philippines	AOS in Alaska: First thing to do, get married or get SSN?	Don Youn'gs office is doing an investigation into the Anchorage office right now. USCIS is so incompetent they have listed a nonexistent Fairbanks office for ten years in a row on their website. Desperate people just like us have gone to the airport this whole time looking for that office - and they are directed to a customs window by the Airport Manager. Customs is tired of people coming to them to ask for the nonexistent office the last ten years. Anchorage USCIS refuses to list its phone number because they would rather have desperate people fly in from Unalaska or Barrow at $1000 just to ask a question. You can't mail them, and the California office you send requests to does not talk to the Anchorage office. The guy who runs the office is a manipulative bureaucrat that will smile happily on your third trip for one set of fingerprints and say how lucky you are the weather is so nice for your third seven hour drive. Oh, we screwed up your fingerprints again? Just come on down again tommorrow. Oh, you have a job? Just take two days off work again. See how easy this is?And if we screw them up again, just get certified police reports from everywhere you have lived the last five years. "Just, just, just..." Well how about listing the correct address, your phone number, and doing your job correctly in the first place?!	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-18 19:12:00
Philippines	AOS in Alaska: First thing to do, get married or get SSN?	They are not too clever in anchorage either! To answer the fellow's question about civil surgeon, no - I don't know of one. I didn't go to the SS office in Anchorage but when we FINALLY got our social security number in Fairbanks it was because a brand new employee, a Russian Immigrant, simply put the instructions in front of herself and followed them. The senior employee who had smirked while demanding from us things we did not need before tried to stop her from giving us the SS #. The Russian girl stood her ground, showed her the instructions, and did the paperwork. Before that they had an employee that did it wrong THREE TIMES. Lost our file, then when they found the file tried to get us to commit a felony by changing her I-94 stamp. They gave us one proof-of-receipt letter the first time we came in proving we had applied in time - and then sent us a letter that said we had applied too late. Our Sentator was of no use. What changed everything was having this Russian immigrant who wanted to help us. Because she was an immigrant herself. My wife already had a green card by then but we had trouble getting a bank account, she could not get Alaska ID without a SS #- it was a nightmare. The USCIS service center in Anchorage failed to take her fingerprints correctly TWICE after putting us through a year of hell just to get a fingerprint appointment. Letter after letter we were told there were no appointments. It took Congressman Don Young's office opening an investigation just to get a fingerprint appointment. Three trips to Anchorage, 2,700 miles of driving. My advice is you have to know the law better than they do when you go in there and you have to insist on a supervisor if they try to stop you, and you absolutely cannot assume they are trying to help you. They want to get rid of you. They do not want you in their office, and they do not want to work.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-18 13:12:00
Philippines	AOS in Alaska: First thing to do, get married or get SSN?	I hope you are not in the Fairbanks area. The social security office there is staffed with idiots and one very VERY malicious employee that will do her best to keep you from getting a SS#. It would be worth doing it in Anchorage instead of going through what we did. It took more than a year.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-18 02:51:00
Philippines	Is this impossible? Tourist visa to the USA for my wife	Because the risk is too great. To economic stability and national security. America needs to be assured that we know who is here, where they are, and that our nation is secure. Paying a small bond to give free passage to a citizen from a nation known for crime, fraud, and terrorism is NOT a good trade off. These laws are here to protect America. Don't like it? Then leave. This is the delusion of people who cannot see the tens of millions of illegal immigrants that are here just since the last amnesty act in 1986. The government does not have their names, their addresses, or their criminal backgrounds. That's something delusional people convince themselves of in spite of the facts. It is the also the delusion of people who cannot see that 9/11 was perpetrated by people who not only came over on "legal" visas, but the plot was run by the uncle (khalid Mohammed) of the fist world trade center bomber (Ramzi Youseff) and their plot (then called Bojinka) was taken off their computer hard drive when their apartment in the Philippines caught fire from the explosives they were preparing. Your government is that stupid, hypocritical, and deceitful enough to lie about it and say they had no idea of any hijacking plot. The Philippines National Police gave them that hard drive, gave them Ramzi Youseff, and let them know Khalid Monammed had escaped. Straight to Osama Bin Laden, who financed the completion of the plot. As a 28 year pilot I can tell you how ludicrous the airport security is - a huge show for the public and major inconvenience/expense to travelers but just like immigration some men with box cuttrers can kill thousands because of the incompetence and ineffectiveness of it all. People like you who operate on the basis of delusions give our government all it needs: All they have to do is lie to you and you are blind to the facts right in front of your face. The people who founded this country had intelligence enough to think for themselves instead of swallowing whatever propaganda their King peddled. Now it is populated by a lot of blind dupes.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-18 12:59:00
Philippines	Multiple Stop	My stopover was Narita, Japan too & I didn't have Japan Transit Visa. Nor did we, multiple trips through Narita both ways. Some people buy tickets that have them leaving the transit area, which is a mistake in planning. A change in carriers might do it or an especially long layover maybe. The employees are really helpful for people that are first time travelers and confused about what to do. For those doing it the first time, never be afraid to ask. They aren't like unionized employees from the USA.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-20 16:20:00
Philippines	Philippine Catholic Religion. Is it a sin to change Beliefs	I found studying the actual history of 1st-5th century far more fascinating than reading the fairy tales consolidated into what they dall the New Testament. The most important insight for me was the correspondence between Pliny the Younger and the Roman Emperor Trajan when Christianity was first entered into any historical record in 112 CE. The Chiristians had no historical person named Jesus. There was no literature - no gospels, no letters of Paul, and what they did was meet in secret in people's houses for a pre-dawn communal meal. They pledged to be honest in all their affairs. By around 130 CE it looks like the Gospel of Mark had been written, but the first version ends with the women fleeing the cave and no resurrection. A fellow named Marcion, a shipping tycoon on the Black Sea, fabricated the original letters of the nonexistent Paul, which was the first Christian "Bible" in existence. Various factions in the Empire were eventually all forced to consolidate beginning in 325 CE under the Emperor Constantine, who saw that as a way to exercise complete control over the population. There were a series of Ecumenical Councils over that century, the first of which was the most important at Nicea. The purpose of that council was to solve the disagreement over whether Jesus was a historical person, God himself, or a spirit. As with all political problems the solution was a compromise: to make him all three. So the Nicean Creed was the result of that first meeting in 325 CE: the Trinity. It never made sense to me why this big deal was made about the trinity and finally by studying the history it made sense. The Trinity is a political settlement between different superstitions that believed very different things about the nature of Christ. There were a large number of Christian books like the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary or Judas, etc. which represented minority factions of Christianity and had radical inconsistencies with other books. So constructing a single Canon required destroying those and persecuting people who tried to follow them. The most important person in this respect was Emperor Constantine's right hand man Bishop Eusebius. Constantine had Eusebius write a book called History of the Church. Only books consistent with that History were allowed into Canon. So the ones that had Jesus living to old age, having children, riding on a Phoenix and etc. were excluded. Gospel of Thomas was excluded because there wasn't even a historical person. Just a bunch of sayings, the most important of which was that the Kingdom of God was at hand. So no second coming, not even a first coming. Roman Catholicism is the result of that mandatory state religion imposed by Emperor Constantine and subsequent Emperors. It was brought to Philippines by the Spanish, and forced upon the population except in the south where the Moro and others fought the Spanish to the end. Various other factions have survived or arisen since then with somewhat differing beliefs and one is free to follow any of these superstitions one wants. The most important thing is faith. Because there isn't any scientific evidence for any of it so that's what faith is: belief without evidence. The upshot of all of it is that your own faith dictates what the rules are, not anyone else. These superstitions all made up their own dogma so you are free to make up your own too. You'll never "prove" one as better than the other using logic or science because they are faith-based not evidence-based. That is why the question of whether it is a "sin" to re-baptise or not is indeterminant because it is circular logic: you have to first establish what your faith is before you can determine whether it is a "sin". Edited by rlogan, 22 November 2012 - 02:35 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-22 14:27:00
Philippines	TSA Approved luggage padlocks	If you are smart enough to open a lock you are over-qualified for a TSA position.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-25 17:13:00
Philippines	Problems with Family....need advice	I should have told the family earlier. In my previous relationships and marriage...everyone told me the person I was with was wrong for me and they were ultimately right. I was very nervous on how they would react to me having a relationship with a filipina. I did tell everyone about her after my first trip and it went very badly, and everytime I would bring up the subject it would end up with an argument...so I stopped talking about it. I see. So two things going on, but one of them is definitely them being bigots about people from other countries. One bit of advice: never let them put you on the defensive and try to justify your relationship with another because ultimately it is nobody's business. You can tell them "this is what I am doing." That's the end of it. Whenever someone tries to get you to justify, you can't win with them because there will be another attack, and another, and another, and another. You end that cycle by either not responding or asking them to explain who made them the Queen. What right do they have to make you justify who you are with. I was tired of fighting and every argument would become worse. As a matter of fact, the last argument ended up with everyone giving me an "intervention"...saying I needed therapy!!! I was livid!! They acted as though I was a drug addict!! My brother actually told me in so many words I could not see his kids again unless I saw a therapist!! Oh my God.....I realize they are in their own way trying to look out for me, but they are really going about it the wrong way. We seemed to be getting along better when I did not talk about it, so for the sake of getting along I stopped talking abut it...I knew I would have to bring it up and they knew a year ago she was coming to the US this year so I hoped over time at least they would be willing to meet her. Not the case. It is still pretty obvious they have an issue with my marrying someone outside the country. Never be surprised how insane bigotry, jealousy, and envy can be. We actually had malicious internet stalkers make complaints not only to USCIS, but various government agencies, posing themselves as "protecting" my child bride against me, sold by her parents against her will. Just insane, delusional stuff. See how they are posing as "helping" you? This is called playing the servant role in manipulative literature: causing harm to you but under the pretense of helping. So you distance yourself from them, as you have done, but leave the door open for them being reasonable. There cannot be anything more important than your wife, and you must not let them ever come between you. I did have one friend and business associate that was completely out of his mind about this until the day he met her. Then suddenly she was a beautiful, charming young lady because he was no longer operating under this weird racist view. It started with him saying I had "given up". I was baffled by what he meant and I kept asking him to say ####### he meant by "giving up". I had selected the most beautiful girl on earth and was on cloud 9, so I had no idea what he meant. After a long, bizarre argument it finally dawned on me - she wasn't white. He just couldn't bring himself to say that. You defeat that kind of racism by just doing it and going about your business. Once I brought her by, in under one minute it was over.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-26 22:58:00
Philippines	Problems with Family....need advice	I came home and showed pictures of my trip to my brother, his wife and his three daughters...but, unknown to the parents, I asked the girls not to tell anyone that I was engaged.....the parents found out and they were livid!! They teach thier kids not to have secrets..and I had them talk to my girl on the phone....they were even more upset about that...they made it seem I was introducing them to a seriel killer! But never being a parent, I guess I did not know better...I have apologized and I thought they got over it....I don't think they have gotten over it..I have not mentioned her to anyone until now. ... but I do want them to meet her sooner than later... Jaystone Jaystone, you blew it. This is a little confusing, but for sure you kept your fiance a secret which is the exact opposite of what we do with fiances. The fiance is front and center to your family and friends. We don't have the reason for you needing to hide her, but the fact you did it is an important slight to her, let alone your family. "I'm so proud of you honey that I'm going to hide the fact I'm involved with you..." After the initial slight to both the fiance and the family, and the drama over revealing this secret, apparently she was put back in the closet again for a year and brought out again just recently. You do recognize that "part of it" was your fault, good. We can't know what is behind the games with the family but this is not normal behavior. Could you maybe explain why you felt it important to hide her from people? What was the reasoning? You could finish this sentence for example - "I asked the girls not to tell anyone I was engaged BECAUSE..." If you answer that it is going to provide a little better insight into what is going on.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-23 23:37:00
Philippines	she's getting on theplane in 12 hours HELP	Looks like the Aunt still has a perfect record.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-11-30 22:00:00
Philippines	Super Typhoon Bopha/Pablo	We just called and they're in the direct path in Iligan getting battered. The women were evacuated to the high ground and the men are staying to prevent looting. The house next door has been destroyed but the seawall we built is protecting our house. Good thing we took action to build the sea wall instead of relying on prayer.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-04 01:23:00
Philippines	Weather	We don't have a thermostat. At forty below zero & colder I feed the fire three times through the night if I want her to be toasty warm upstairs. Anything you want to keep cold just put on the kitchen floor. Put it outside if you want it frozen. People talk about the cold but the real adjustment is the darkness and cabin fever, AKA "Seasonal Affective Disorder". You need to always be conscious of it and manage it becasuse it can affect your relationship if you don't.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-05 15:14:00
Philippines	Weather	It's been forty below zero for three days here. We'll take the snowmachine down to the mailbox today, and to the post office to pick up Christmas presents. At 30 mph that will be 80 below zero wind chill. That's 150 degrees colder than Hank. No big deal.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-04 17:02:00
Philippines	Phil/Am Christmas Parties	They're easier to tell apart with their clothes off. Just a helpful tip.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-09 17:22:00
Philippines	Report of Marriage - Return postage amount?	No, the weeding is the test drives you take before selecting the model you are taking home. We had the same question on passports along with other questions and just gave up and waited for the consular outreach to come here. We did report of wedding, births, and passport all at the same time. Plus it was nice seeing all those hot little Filipinas in the same place at one time.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-15 17:49:00
Philippines	Second Wedding for Her Family	Ya Constantine could spin a good yarn for sure.... I see you know your history. Good man. Council of Nicea, baby. 325 CE. Bishop Eusebius at the right hand of Emperor Constantine fabricates an official church history. Forces a single canon on everyone, and the most absurd thing of all - make Jesus a trinity since neither of the three points of view could agree. A political settlement! The trinity never made sense to me until I read that history. There were some other very interesting rulings at Nicea. Like you could be a Eunich as long as someone else cut off your working parts. If you cut them off yourself then it didn't count. If one wants to know what the original christians were like, check out the correspondence between Pliny the Younger and Emperor Trajan in 112 CE. They seemed like pretty decent people. But there was no Jesus in their religion at that time.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-16 20:00:00
Philippines	Second Wedding for Her Family	OK you will have to explain how you are planning that one! If Mary can do it then so can anyone else. So we had two kids by immaculate conception. Plus I've been dead twice and come back to life. Jesus can keep the change.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-16 14:45:00
Philippines	Second Wedding for Her Family	Initially we approacehd a couple of priests because her mom is superstitious, but we got way too much attitude, as if they thought they held some kind of power over us. We didn't want to be married by child molesters and their administrative enablers just because they are superstitious and ignorant of science anyway. So we rented a pavilion at a water park and did our own ceremony with traditional Visayan vows. Her father married us. We actually did this before we applied K-1. The official wedding was almost a year later once she immigrated. That did, however, require holding off on sex until after we had children.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-15 19:16:00
Philippines	How did you filipina wife change after you married her and took her to your home country?	The driving instructor we hired told her "Stop means StoP" and the rolling stops ended. Why couldn't I just say that? It won't matter what you say. The driving instructor is viewed as an authority, so they obey. The husband is just a husband. They dismiss what the husband says as the default rule, and replace it with what they think themselves until they are convinced otherwise. Here's one: to keep the car going straight, make the steering wheel straight. Instead of looking at the road, look at the steering wheel! You don't even know what kind of bizarre premises she's working with that are replacing what you are trying to teach. Another extremely annoying habit to break her of: if asked a question, throw out any old answer and read the husband's face to see if it is the right answer instead of thinking it through. RunHerschelRun - exactly so. They will disobey, then get angry at you for raising your voice. When my wife finally admitted the entire problem was her bad attitude, all of that stopped. What choice do you have if when you successively say "slow down, slow down!!, slow down!!!" They're endangering your lives out of sheer stubborness, and have no right to be angry. This explodes the myth you hear about Filipinas being "submissive". They're very cooperative when they WANT to be. But just try teaching them to drive and you'll quickly see how stubborn they are. That's a good point kev_n_jena - a small automatic passenger car is much better for them to learn in.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-20 15:00:00
Philippines	How did you filipina wife change after you married her and took her to your home country?	Its a big jump to go from being husband and wife to being teacher and pupil. My wife doesn't use yes the way your wife does, instead she gives a little "huh" grunt. If its important I ask if thats a yes, if not I'll just make the sound right back, or use our sound un uh "no" sound which she can't for the life her distinguish from our un huh "yes" word I've been a teacher and coach professionally for almost forty years. This was one of the most frustrating experiences of that entire span, although once I figured out the problems it went much better. Kevo mentions "natural" driving ability. Americans like me were biking at six, driving rigs on the farm when we were twelve years old and before that sitting in Dad's lap with the steering wheel. Driving as a passenger facing forward - getting accustomed to it instead mindlessly riding in a jeepney looking out the sides and not paying attention to anything. So there's a lot of training they don't have - some have not even had a bicycle. She seemed to have no concept at all of speed, so cornering was extremely frightening. I had to pull the emergency brake sometimes. I'm appalled at the eductational system there that inculcated a lack of initiative and critical thinking. If I used terms she did not understand she would not ask me to define them, which is just incredible to me. Abstract thinking was difficult, so if I said "Blind Spot" and then explained it the problem was I still had to go out of the car and stand in the blind spot and ask if she could see me. She's a bright girl, but went through a horrible education system. Never saw a map, or a 3-D representation of objects. And with the sounds - yeah. This was a sore spot between us in the beginning: being extremely lazy about not speaking in complete sentences. She's broken of that habit and gets frustrated with her own family for it now. In the Philippines it seems they don't have that relentless drive to follow through with things and instead take any excuse to give up. If they call a bureaucrat to get a question answered and the bureaucrat says they don't know - that's the end of it. "I called and he said his department does not answer that question". Well get back on the phone honey and ask him what department DOES answer the question. Then don't stop there: call that department and get the answer. Sheesh! Get the question answered. God Almighty though the most difficult thing of all was thinking ahead. Looking down the road half a mile and planning instead of realizing the car has now slowed down to ten miles an hour because you have been on a steep hill for half a mile. Ten miles an hour up the hill. Eighty miles an hour down the other side. That is from having no experience in cars whatsoever before coming here. Edited by rlogan, 18 December 2012 - 10:03 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-18 21:59:00
Philippines	How did you filipina wife change after you married her and took her to your home country?	Hopefully mine will change by becoming a better driver. Tried to teach her a few times when we lived together for a year. Scary! I found that making her repeat the instructions back to me broke through their annoying and deadly habit of pretending to be listening while ignoring you. Saying "yes" is their way of mindlessly pretending to be agreeable while being stubborn and prideful in truth. So before every lesson she had to promise to put her attitude away. Then I gave an instruction that made no sense like "stop" in a place where there was no reason to stop. If she didn't immediately follow the instruction then the lesson was over for the day. Before that I would say stop, stop, stop, to the point of screaming at her and she would not even react. Smiling away while heading through an intersection, about to get t-boned by a cement truck at highway speed. I grabbed the wheel and put us in the ditch that time. After that we put on the regimen about checking her attitude and repeating back instructions. If she can't repeat them back, then she is blocking you out instead of listening.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-18 14:35:00
Philippines	How did you filipina wife change after you married her and took her to your home country?	One of the reasons people are saying to know their culture is that people think they change when they get here when what's really happened is the guy never understood her in the first place. Most here seem to have met online and the drawback to that is not seeing them in their home environment with family, friends, neighbors, boyfriend (oops!), etc. You can try your best to learn, but there's no substitute for being there and if she is a scammer it will be impossible to hide. We have no information on how you met, what kind of experience you have with her, or what your spefific concerns are. I had been all over the Philippines, long trips over many years before meeting mine and knew more about the history of Mindanao than she did. It wasn't a matter of meeting her and needing to learn about her culture afterwards. I learned about her culture and decided that it was the ideal place to choose a wife from. So the first day we met, I told her that I understood what was important to her and what she wanted out of life. Talk about kryptonite. The other important thing is working hard to ensure they understand what the environment is going to be like for them here. Who knows what their expectations are but some are working with the premise that money grows on trees and their family is set for life if they marry a foreigner. We've had posters who acted like the big time sugar daddy in the beginning, establishing unrealistic expectations and if you do that then ultimately you have to deal with trouble when reality sets in.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-16 16:59:00
Philippines	How did you filipina wife change after you married her and took her to your home country?	of course she's more mature. Yeah, mine too. A great mom. Like B_J - mine is now in love with this really fat guy, and he's five years older than I was when I met her. It's obscene, I tell ya. Edited by rlogan, 15 December 2012 - 05:57 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-15 17:57:00
Philippines	Texas DL	You can get an international driver's license by just photocopying your license and sending it to a number of places that make these. I get mine renewed every five years. it doesn't cost much. I've never had any trouble when stopped and produced that license. There is a treaty that Philippines is a part of which means they need to honor the US license, but to avoid needing to fight it in court, just acquire the international license. It will list all the countries party to the treaty in the license. I've used mine in more than a dozen countries. Google "International Driver's License" and shop around. Edited by rlogan, 22 December 2012 - 07:16 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-22 19:15:00
Philippines	What's everyone doing on 12/21/12?	Looking forward to the end of chirping idiots too stupid to look up for themselves that the Mayans never claimed the world would end. The fact they could put forward an accurate calendar that far in advance shows how much smarter they were than the morons who swallow this pathetic new-age misrepresentation.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2012-12-20 16:18:00