Forum	Title	Content	Member	Sex	Country	Date/Time
Philippines	Cold feet	germophobia, your OCD with neatness and cleanliness, and Lord only knows what else. I'm such a retard. I missed this before. The three showers a night thing. The cat on the table thing - I guess now yea, I see that as part of the bigger picture. Alright. So we're officially off the reservation. I don't know the details on the sockpuppet thing but it isn't necessary. Crikey.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-07-02 01:53:00
Philippines	Cold feet	I was getting cold feet. It took seven pages before these five direct words were stated. But even then, the plain meaning of the words is twisted. Coincidentally, that is what manipulative people do - pose cryptic questions as bait, and then toy with respondents. Then say that you do not mean the plain meaning of what you said as bait. Someone asked why the fiance is not at this site. Coincidentally too, manipulative people keep their targets separated, and monopolize the information either one of them gets. Were she here, omission of key information, spin, being coy and dancing about the point etc. could be checked. It is imperitive for manipulators to keep their targets apart. How would a manipulative person pose VisaJourney to an immigrant? The best strategy is to conceal your membership. A back-up strategy is that if the existence of the site were known, to poison the well by saying that the site is venomous against her or Filipinas in general or age-differences, etc... make her not want to be here. I am not saying that is what jr has done. Those are the kinds of things the books say a manipulator will do.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-06-17 13:08:00
Philippines	understanding filipino dialect	I did not know that they have another facility outside of Gakona, Alaska. That one was constructed on the basis of decades of research at the HIPAS facility in my valley, run mostly by the University of California and the Navy. There's a book on it called "Angels don't play this HAARP". I knew the author back then but we have not spoken since an Alaska Independence Party convention many years ago. Nic Tesla's patents featured prominently in their research when I was looking into it. I was worried if their space gun was going to fry my airplane and me.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-03-25 16:17:00
Philippines	understanding filipino dialect	Dli = No pangabie ko = I do night shift 2log pko = I am still sleeping Off topic, but I live next to the old HAARP facility. I used to take off and land in a hayfield adjoining it, and always steered around their beam-gun or whatever you want to call that array of antennas. When they closed it I went to the auction and took my wife through the building housing all the electronics for the beam gun. Pretty amazing. Like Tesla's Lab. A friend of mine worked there in maintenance. They had a big pool of mercury that was a kind of receiver. The military was guarding that part of the building and wouldn't let us up there. But I could see down in there from the supercub. The roof opened up like a telescope observatory.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-03-25 14:37:00
Philippines	Beware if you travel alone to the Philippines	Insofar as the educational system, my experience is in the provinces and not the major metropolitan areas with significant foreign influence. It's appalling by comparison. I see this in many third world where there is a lot of emphasis on pomp and ceremony, ribbons and awards, parades, uniforms, and most reprehensibly all these stupid "projects" the kids are made to do that cost money and have almost no educational value whatsoever. I guess I should not be shocked that on Mindanao where the land conflict between indigenous Muslims and the immigrant Christans is the greatest, the kids are completely clueless as to why. One hour of instruction is all that it would take to impart the gist of the situation but the subject is not even discussed. Yet it is the most important social problem in existence there. More than a hundred thousand people have been killed in the wars, and the conflict is the biggest stumbling block to capital investment. So the kids are made to buy expensive materials, traveling to stores, constructing some pretentious display poster containing information that could be conveyed in less then ten seconds. With the money and time the kid could have purchased and read a book on an entire suject. I have called schools to ask what their admission requirements are or some other standard information that should be readily at hand, and after being shuffled from one office to the next been told that I have to come in person to get the information. There is a premium on wasting time and engaging in counterproductive pursuits. One of the most aggravating things I ever experienced there was trying to find out how to get a phone book. We made numerous calls to PLDT offices by cell phone, and actually had several different employees tell us nobody was allowed to have phone books. We had them hang up on us for asking. We absolutely failed despite relentless effort to learn how to get a phone book, from the very company that distributes them. yet when we got the phone line installed, we were given a free phone book. Well enough ranting.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-05-25 20:25:00
Philippines	Beware if you travel alone to the Philippines	I had used the term 'white guy' because that's generally the case but your absolutely right..it has nothing to do with skin color AND seldom ,if ever, does in 'so called' racial disputes. Its more about attitudes, culture and 'victim mentality' (imo) than anything else. For myself, I had no problem helping the family when needed and have MANY MANY times..but its the total lack of gratitude..that totally jaded me...and the screams of poverty fall on my now deaf ears..for example..I hired a cousin to do some concrete work..he was very good and I paid him more than he had EVER been paid..trouble was getting him to just show up to work...Sitting on the street corner "kicking it" with his Trike bros was more important than feeding his family! Because I needed the work done and he was costing ME money, I had no choice but to fire him. Of course I immediately was a 'kuripot puti lalaki'...I didn't understand "Pilipino culture"...blah blah blah...Three years here and I'm MORE than ready to go home.... There are things in many historic cultures that are not to be admired. Cannibalism. Incest. Physical abuse. Human sacrifice. Polygamy. (Well, that one might not be so bad ) - and in this case they can't have it both ways. You can't claim to want the good things about American culture without actually practicing the things that create it. Wealth is a function of industry, sacrifice, thrift, planning, etc. so don't give me that B.S. about you "being poor" and me "having money" as if it fell out of the sky on me by accident and not on you. There are plenty of Filipinos that work hard, sacrifice, and plan ahead. But they aren't the one's "kicking it" with the Trike bros. on the corner.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-05-16 19:03:00
Philippines	Beware if you travel alone to the Philippines	Giving money to beggars is illegal too in some places here. In the city of Manila, at least, I know it is. I think it must be a city ordinance. Thanks for pointing that out. One of the things that really aggravates me is being poked relentlessly by them. It's one thing to beg, but another to harass me by poking me in the back over and over again while I am standing in line at the pharmacy. I definitely do not give money to people who do that to me. I learned that telling them to stop was not enough. But if you start poking them in return, they're so shocked they run away. If it's illegal I can just start calling for the cops. Some Old Guy- Don't worry. That won't stop them from asking for even more money when you come to marry your rich Kano. Don't expect any gratitude then either, as you will be just doing your duty as a good daughter: "Don't forget us when you go to America!" Yea, one of the most depressing things for a lot of people caught up in this manipulation is that no matter how much you give, you are made to feel bad. No sooner have you handed over the money for school supplies and some other emergency happens. If you give money for one person, then you are made to feel guilty for not giving the same amount to the other 38 relatives. Showing gratitude would be the manipulator admitting that you have done something that is not your obligation to do. The game is to perpetually keep you in a position of feeling obligated. It's a profession manipluators learn, and there's nothing you can do except say "no". You can exhaust yourself trying to reason with them, but they know better than you do that what they are doing is wrong. They know money does not grow on trees here. They only pretend so because admitting you work for money means they do not deserve it. So just don't waste your energy. Say "no", and that's the end of it.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-05-16 15:26:00
Philippines	Learning my fiancee 's culture	How about you learn Tagalog so you can even the score with us. Because that is a childish view of "evening the score" without logical foundation for allocating our time, which is limited. What is "even" in our world is the effort we put into the marriage. Rationally, since we live here, since english is the language, and since there would be nobody to speak with in visayan except my wife it would be irrational to take time away from my work or other pursuits to study Visayan. When in Mindanao I pick up enough to get along in the marketplace, but the fact is I don't even need to do that since English is a school subject for them from grade school all the way through high school. To pretend it is "evening the score" when I am starting from zero Visayan and she is starting from more than ten years of structured english study, a lifetime of television programming and movies in English, etc. is absurd. My wife knows better than that and so she has never suggested it. My principle concern with her language skills has to do with how merciless so many ignorant and bigoted Americans are. The more ignorant and bigoted they are, the less tolerance they have for other cultures and idiosyncracies of language. But she has to deal with them - the bureaucrat she needs a piece of paper from, the store clerk, the fast food employee, the person on the phone, etc. Down the road if she wanst to work her perfection of English is critical. I notice how I can understand my wife perfectly well whereas a lifelong Americano is asking her to repeat herself. The meanest and most ignorant, speaking no language but English (whereas my wife speaks three) - has stated she "barely speaks English". That was a put-down that was untrue of course, but the world is full of people who take every opportunity to be a bully. Immigrants can be an easy target. So perfecting her English is a rational use of our time whereas learning more than the most rudimentary Visayan for me is more than enough. In the most remote places on Mindanao I get that ignorant and bigoted bullying. Just going down the street you get relentless "Hey Joe, Hey Joe" taunting and incessant attempts at seeing what they can put over on the foreigner. You don't get that at a shopping mall in Cagayan de Oro. But walking up to an open market stall in a remote area stating "gusto ko itlog" to someone with a 3rd grade education they'll mock you no matter how good your Visayan is. Unless of course she is a single young lady in which case she will be falling all over herself flirting with you. So neither of our cultures is free of this.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-12 22:18:00
Philippines	Learning my fiancee 's culture	The way we avoid trouble is by speaking in complete sentences. My wife was very lazy about communication with a lot of one-word responses or even just grunts. The OP asked his filipina a poorly worded question where the opportunity for "yes/no" confusion was high. I wasn't doing that. Even in cases where I specifically structured questions to avoid that my wife seemed to be able to make ambiguous responses. Clarity of communication just wasn't important to her. You find that in a lot of third world countries with lower education, poverty, and nothing to do with their time. But if the response is "Yes, I do not have enough money to go to the movies" or "No, I do not have enough money to go to the movies" then the complete sentence ensures there is no misunderstanding. It might be cute in the beginning but a 24/7 communication problem where you can't even figure out what "yes" or "no" means quickly devolves into resentment and not communicating at all. Personally, I found it extremely annoying and if she hadn't knocked it off and started speaking in complete sentences then I would have found someone else who felt I was worth the effort.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-11 11:57:00
Philippines	Maguindanao Massacre Update	The Maguindanao Massacre on Mindanao is but a symptom of a grave political situation in many provinces of Mindanao. My wife is from Mindanao, on the border of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, and we built a house there. (Iligan City where Americano Steve Kindy was executed by Maranos in a Jeepney recently.) We have seen a bridge near our house bombed, the stores where we shop bombed, and an entire crew of work cohorts of her father murdered with machetes. One year ago, a massacre of around 50 unarmed people – most of them women and journalists – occurred in Maguindanao. It is important to understand how savage and premeditated this act was, and how it reflects upon the regional political realities. It should not be viewed as some isolated bizarre out-of-context event, but rather the culmination of and quintessential nature of a long history that has led to it. In Maguindanao, the Ampatuan Clan has ruled for decades. Andal Ampatuan Sr. was governor for three terms, running unopposed (!), and numerous towns have had mayors from the same clan. Because of term limits, Andal Ampatuan Sr. was being replaced by his son Andal Ampatuan Jr. to run unopposed in the next so-called “election”. But a rival clan leader, Esmael Mangudatu, did the unthinkable: he announced his candidacy to oppose him. Because of death threats against him, a convoy of vehicles was sent to register his candidacy, filled with women, journalists, and supporters that should have been off-limits to warlord assassination. But as the pictures show, the Ampatuan Clan – with police, their private army, and Ampatuan Jr. himself – stopped them at a checkpoint with a pre-dug mass grave to fill with their dead bodies. This recent news article from the trial indicates that Ampatuan Jr. personally massacred about 40 of the innocent and unarmed people. He lined the first group up, executed them in cold blood, and then proceeded to assassinate the remainder screaming for mercy in the vans. Those who tried to escape were shot by police and militiamen. That’s right – shot by police. Among the 50 people currently on trial – 28 of them are police: Trial Testimony - Ampatuan Massacre How could this shockingly horrific act be perpetrated by the regional political leadership and police? Maguindanao is one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines. The largest source of wealth by far is the “Internal Revenue Allotment” (they are part of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao), roughly between half a billion and a billion pesos annually in the last half decade. In addition to that are all the political patronage job appointments that come with political power. In addition to that are all the graft, corruption, and criminal syndicate revenues. These vary from road block extortion money, kidnapping, business extortion, land theft, marijuana/shabu production and sales, etc. The political class lives in mansions and is escorted by convoys of SUV’s and trucks with machine guns mounted in the beds. When they come through with the sirens blaring: get out of the way or be crushed. There is plenty of money for massive and ornate government administration buildings, their sparkling parades of SUV’s and their armies – but not for education, where the majority of people are beneath the poverty line income and the majority has 6th grade education or less. In short, Maguindanao has been run by a crime syndicate in control of the political money and employment machine in addition to the “businesses” normally thought of as the province of criminal gangsters. This source of wealth and power is worth killing for. If you think the massacre pictured above is shocking, read some of the citations at the end where torture and execution of live people with chain saws are discussed. The rulers of this dynasty were sheltered by the Arroyo Administration in Manila because they delivered the votes for her. In some districts, by “magic” not a single vote was cast against her. In the 2004 election, every senate candidate she backed won in the ARMM. Again, numerous districts cast statistically impossible votes. After that election, local school administrator Musa Dimasidsing told a national commission on electoral fraud that he'd personally witnessed ballot stuffing. He was murdered with a shot to the head soon after, and his murder remains unsolved. Interviews with journalists or government investigations result in your execution. So people remain silent in the face of the most brazen corruption. Despite the constitutional prohibition against private armies, Arroyo “legalized” them with an executive order for Mindanao under the auspices of the war with insurgents. The Ampatuan clan is fighting with the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) in this region. The MILF is a secessionist group that among other things charges the leadership of the ARMM with political corruption and cronyism - and regardless of whether one opposes the MILF, they certainly are right about that charge. Andal Ampatuan Sr. came to prominence and favor with the national government by running a paramilitary force aligned with the 6th Infantry Division of the Philippine National Army. Why? The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao had been established in 1990 as a negotiated end to the bloody conflict between the national government and the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) that killed more than 100,000 people. The break-away MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) disagreed with that settlement, essentially accusing the MNLF of selling out in the quest for liberation in order to obtain the benefits of corrupt crony power within the confines of an unjust national government administration of Moro land and peoples. So the conflict is ongoing between the MILF and the national government. Regional political authorities benefit from the money and power flowing from alignment with the national government. That sets the MILF against both the national and regional governments – the Ampatuan Clan being one of them. The long history since Magellan landed in the 1500’s is that the indigenous people of Mindanao have violently fought outside rule and resource pillage. They, largely Muslim, fought the Spanish, then the Americans, and now the Philippine national government. The massive immigration of Christian Filipinos from Luzon and Visayas after the 1950’s, (being offered free land by the National Government), in one generation rendered the Muslims a minority in a land they had previously been 98% in the majority. In the areas predominantly “Christian” – i.e. comprised mostly of these recent immigrants – you do not see so much of these kinds of bloody conflicts. Where they remain in the majority – as in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao – there still remains ghastly conflict as the Maguindanao Massacre attests. As a retired professor of Economics and Political Economy in particular I cannot help but remark upon the distinctive difference between these settings. In one setting, the primary source of wealth is the private sector economy where people run merchant businesses, farms, factories, fisheries and etc. In that setting one becomes wealthy by making shrewd business decisions, working hard, being honest with your trade and customers, saving money and investing. You also see the younger generation looking up to the adults for guidance in trade and industry, in school and in employment. In the other setting wealth derives from brute force at the end of a gun barrel and political control over others. It is a top-down economic power structure rather than bottom-up. There is also a very good article on how the mercenary armies are filled with youths that have the elder generation living in fear of their juniors. Replacement of one political oligarchy with another doesn’t have great prospects for reform in that kind of situation. The commoners will sit and tremble at the feet of whichever oligarchy is in power. The ancient maxim that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is seen in full force with the Maguindanao Massacre. A clan in control of both corrupt political and criminal syndicates was willing to mass-assassinate anyone daring to challenge their control of it – and so will the next. A few more articles: CS Monitor on Ampatuan Clan pcijorg article on Ampatuan Clan Young Guns and Terror	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-14 19:35:00
Philippines	Heartbroken and deceived---need help/advice	Congratulations on this important step to healing. It was a terrible blow but you have turned the corner. Your day of sunshine will come. These threads have value to others. There are many reading that do not post. Many who have these same experiences are too afraid of ridicule to share them. So thank you. I most applaud your stance against rage. It does no good to scream and shout, let alone to slap them. The people warning about VAWA are right to do so. It is incredible how cruel people can be, but the world is full of them and we have to protect ourselves. One of the important things for others to see is how wonderful it seemed to you right up to the point where she cut you off in a "snap". Usually these stories have some red flags. The only one you mentioned was her cutting off communications for six days or so in the early going. It is interesting to note her explanation though - she used "projection": that is the manipulator's tactic of accusing you of the very thing they are doing themselves. She was playing you, but claimed she thought you were playing her. It worked perfectly. I'm sure you were emphaticly insisting to her that you were not using her. So see how it worked? She was the one with suspicious behavior and the result is you end up being the one on the defensive. One has to ask themselves: If I loved someone, would I go six days without communicating with them when texting, email, phone, webchat and all are so readily available? With respect to jrmejia - yes of course it's like watching a slow train about to ram a compact car stuck on the tracks. What we learn though is how blind we can be. Everyone has their weakness. It might be obesity, it might be alcohol, a bad investment we can't let go of or whatever - we need to ask ourselves if we are being this blind about something in our own lives.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-22 17:48:00
Philippines	Fillow up the release of marriage contract	Have you consummated yet?	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-24 01:05:00
Philippines	Helping your filipina adjust to life in the US/not get too homesick	he he he is there anything that she really doesn't like? to do or to eat or whatever. You know, we just like to be together 100% of the time - that's the main thing. She likes american food and I've always liked filipino food so no problems there. I used to run coast to coast for the military when i had my freightliner FLD it only had 10 forward gears but ya you really have to know what your doing. Yea, you have to know the sweet spots on the rpm going up or down. my wife wants to grow a bunch of stuff (vegtables i guess) i'll get a rear tiller for my tractor & let her plant whatever she wants Yes yes! Funny thing, the Filipinas in my wife's circly hardly eat any vegetables at all. But I garden and show her how. she is really a homebody so i'll have to find lots of things for her to do/help me with. Then I think your life will be WONDERFUL. PS: does your wife always lug wood while wearing a dress? No, she wears her nightie too. This is her climbing into the tree fort about a mile from the cabin, and a stiff hike up a steep hill: What am I going to do? Kick a hottie out of my moose stand for wearing a nightie?	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-24 01:54:00
Philippines	Helping your filipina adjust to life in the US/not get too homesick	wow she is a real worker !!! that is a big pile of wood. I only put up about 5 cord here in New Hampshire. That's about half of one pile (spruce). There's another pile of birch by the door. Twelve cords total if I work a lot in the shop through the winter and use the hot tub often. Cabin, Shop, and outdoor hot tub all have wood heat. At fifty or sixty below zero we fly through wood. how has your wife been in the cold? mine thinks 70f is cold She's more of a man than most men, and a hottie to boot. I bought her an expedition weight polar outfit from Apocalypse design for a thousand dollars. It's what the dog mushers wear for races like the Yukon Quest and Iditarod. Bunny boots of course. She's never cold because she's sensible. We've broken down on the snow machine trail seven miles from the cabin and had to walk back at thirty below zero at night. No problem. She was eight months pregnant. i'll start my wife out driving the lawn tractor & the put her on my old 40 horse farmall. after that i guess it will be the old corolla that i have. & if she can drive all of those i'll see how she does on one of my old toyota pickups, they are tough as nails so i'm not worried about her hurting them. I take one to the scrap yard once a month with about 2500lbs of brake rotors piled up in the bed, I would haul more but i don't want to overload the old thing The only thing I haven't had her drive is the 55,000 lb dump truck. It's 15 gears and you have to be really on top of it. I don't let her too close to the cabin with the 'dozer. I love my Filipina. PS: does your wife still wear flip flops in Alaska? mine thinks she will wear them here but i think most of the time it will be too cold for those. she has about 30 pair of them Hahahaha! I had to watch her the first summer. Look what she's wearing in that picture! I bought her steel-toed hiking boots. Ten miles out in the wilderness on the four-wheeler. Jump off to do some off-trail hiking in some really gnarly stuff. What's she wearing? Flip flops!	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-23 00:01:00
Philippines	Helping your filipina adjust to life in the US/not get too homesick	I would also like to add the following 6) teach her to split firewood 7) teach her how to stack that firewood She's definitely not bored. Drives stick-shift vehicles, snowmachines, four-wheelers, bobcat, 'dozer too. I would second the caution about making "friends" with other Filipinos. Make friends on the basis of character, not their nationality. Mine never got homesick despite being the most family-centric person I have ever met. She does webchat, email, facebook, and phone when the internet is down at the cabin. I think the main thing is to set goals and plan together. People get depressed when they drift around aimlessly. You do all this work to get her here and suddenly it's over. So the license, education or work, cultivating skills - every day has purpose when you set some goals.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-22 18:43:00
Philippines	sending packages to the philippines	Its extremely difficult no matter who you pick. Here is why, Fedex might just give you an extremely hard time, fedex told me I needed a permit to ship a cell phone to the philippines (lies) especially when it was a nokia phone that they all have there. Wow, that's pretty crazy! I wonder if that's just some weird employee. I sent a cell phone FedEx no problem. I am not sure on customs but it's pretty clear why computers are more expensive in the philippines than here for similar models: import duties. So yeah, I'd say better to take it over with you. Postal service is worse than people here suggest, which is bad enough. As an experiment I sent four things: two letters in simple envelopes and two post cards. One post card made it. I wouldn't send anything, not even a picture, by mail. Fed Ex/LBC has been 100% reliable for us.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-27 22:28:00
Philippines	educate me, please!	Communication is key when it comes to this touchy subject. As a Filipina, my wife is all about her family. However, she has assured me that she has no desire to support her family once she is here. We discussed this very subject at length, so neither of us is surprised when she steps off the plane. Alot of people will say that when you marry a Filipina, you marry the family. This is very true in many ways. I have only met her family once, but feel as though I have been a part of their family my entire life. Her family has asked for help occasionally, but my wife has no problem telling them what we can and cannot do. Communication between you, your wife-to-be and her family is soooo important! So nicely written. Well done. A lot of others made nice contributions too. Best of luck to you MikelanNida - you can help the family without it resulting in manipulative behavior on their part. Our long, long run solution is that we are sending one of the sons to Merchant Marine school with the explicit agreement that when the parents are too old to work anymore he is the one taking care of them. It is only about 22,000 pesos a year for three years and then a year of apprenticeship. They were amongst the poorest of the poor before. I got her father a job and he's been working continuously for over two years now, and the son will be going to college with excellent career prospects. Edited by rlogan, 29 November 2010 - 01:50 AM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-29 01:45:00
Philippines	Blog Sites	I haven't happened to notice threads created for the purpose of linking to a blog. I don't read every thread though, could have easily missed out. Hi Kevin. I think they deleted the threads or locked them. There were two or three of them going on the first page of this Philippine subforum when he decided to do something about it. That's kind of intrusive, and that was with only one person doing it. So you can see what would happen if everyone could post threads about their blogs. I happen to know quite a bit about how advertising and money-making works over the internet. It's incredibly unlikely that anyone who's blog is linked on this forum is earning even enough money to cover the cost of the blog hosting if they're not using a free host/blog service. If they are using a free blog service, then the ads are very possibly being placed by the service provider and not the blogger. You know a lot more than I do I'm sure. I'm going to ask you something by PM, so look for that. In our case we have to fight off these dastardly programmers that try all manner of ways to smuggle ads onto our stupid little blog. God I hate those guys. The main way is to offer "free" movies from the Philippines or games and such - but they secretly commandeer your blog, change your home page, and all manner of other evil things. We have to use google to figure out how to kill them. Hypotheticals... [Snip for brevity] I think the place to talk these things over is on the page for site administration/ideas/suggestions or whatever its called. They're pretty good about responding to ideas.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-06 22:20:00
Philippines	INTERVIEW PROBLEM TOMORROW!!	Well, personally this is what I would do - He can give you power of attorney to sign for him. If you wanted to go to the trouble of having him fax you a signed copy of his permission to do it, you could, and bring that to the interview just in case. But if he gives you power of attorney and you sign for him, there wouldn't be any reason for it to even come up at the interview. It's nice when people respond with kindness and encouragement instead of being judgemental and cruel, isn't it? Something to think about...	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-09 02:51:00
Philippines	Does your wife think the US is too cold ?	... I wasn't too concerned with fashion. All I want is comfort... Full bonus points awarded. I don't know what to say with David's opinion doing some interference in our only operative principle - warmth. The low is -39F today here. Fashion will get your toes removed by a surgeon. dluke77 - her core got pretty cold if her feet were cold that long. She definitely needs better gear.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-09 16:33:00
Philippines	Does your wife think the US is too cold ?	We broke down seven miles by snowmachine trail from the cabin at -30F here last year. About -70 F with wind chill on the snowmachine. You can see how worried we are: She was eight months pregnant. We were over ten miles from the cabin the way we came, but the "short cut" was seven miles, so long as we took the right trails, everything was cool. It's a bit of a maze where we broke down and not an area I use much. So the only thing I was worried about was getting lost. The moon was covered by clouds so I couldn't use moon and stars to navigate. Look how dark it is. Headlamp all the way. She walked home no problem. Toasty warm in that parka and snow pants. They're from Apocalypse Design, a professional custom outfit for dog mushers, trappers, etc. in Alaska. She's been in raw temperatures of -50F and wind chills around -100F. No problem. We don't have an electric blanket, and at the moment we need to keep the bedroom window open at night to stay cool enough to sleep comfortably. A few tips on cold weather gear: Forget about fashion. Do you want to be warm or flirt with other boys? Insulated undies made out of polypropelyne. Get ones that zip up the neck. Poly pro or wool socks. Polar fleece is pretty good for a middle layer or around-the-cabin wear. Coats absolutely must extend well down below your butt. Hoods are important, and a hooded sweatshirt underneath gives you two hoods plus your hat. If your hands and feet are cold it is most likely because you are not keeping your core or head warm enough. Layers, layers, layers, and more layers. Then put your snow pants and parka on. If you look like a round ball, you have enough clothes on. Boots - well, nobody uses anything but "bunny boots" around here made by Bata corp. But down there you can probably wear sorels or something like that. But one trick in extreme cold is to put plastic bags over your socks before you put your boots on - this makes a vapor barrier that keeps the boot insulation from getting wet and losing its insulation value. This little trick is way more important than you might think. Dry boots are far warmer.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-24 15:40:00
Philippines	Is it wise to teach a 41 year old Filipina to drive?	When people that old say they lie and steal because they are poor, the appropriate response is that they have it backwards: they are poor because they lie and steal. With the driving, it is an individual thing. But with the Filipinas it isn't just that they lack driving. Many of them have never ridden a bicycle, done bumper-cars, or even ridden in many private cars for that matter. There's many more things besides driving that help with the driving experience. In my state we could drive the farm equipment and trucks I think at any age, or at least we did anyways and who is going to stop you on a county road with a tractor... So it may take longer.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-09 02:42:00
Philippines	Question for those who have approved Visa's or greencards.	Yeah, it is absurd that photos must be timestamped. Nowhere in the DOS' instructions does it mention that as a requirement. I couldn't agree with you more. We were angry about that, naturally. But what can you do? These people tell you what to do and you just do it. They said furthermore that the photographs would only be "secondary" evidence, even if the film was dated and that if we did not produce copies of an airline itinerary or the passport that they could reject us for not having met in the last two years. I'd spent almost five months there total in the previous year. So we had that information, but I'm just reporting to you guys what they did to us. They were pretty mean about it too.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-11 22:37:00
Philippines	Question for those who have approved Visa's or greencards.	Thank you everyone for your responses. The info is helping to not to worry so much about it. I just want to get things right the first time around. I'm going to use a digital and I'll get some throw aways. I found a place that develops the pictures and puts a time stamp on the back of when they are developed. I don't have a camera that I can time stamp on the front of the photo, but by what most of you are saying here is that doesn't matter. Also I've heard that can be tampered with anyways. All I know is that there's going to be a lot of picture taking. We might hire a photographer; just kidding. But some of her relatives will be glad to help us. Thanks again everyone. Mike That sucks. So what did you do to get around this problem? We had the airline itinerary and my passport stamps to show I had travelled there. Isn't that stupid? They would rather have an itinerary and no pictures. I could marry anyone in the Philippines with that approach. They were not very nice about it either. We didn't see anywhere in the instructions that said they had to be time-stamped. We had a LOT of pictures that you would have to be a complete retard to not see it was the Philippines. Not sure how to fake Maria Christina falls and the power plant there or Tinago Falls, Timuga, Iligan City, etc. I don't doubt what other people are saying. It depends on who is evaluating your file, Godzilla or Prince Charming.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-10 20:25:00
Philippines	Question for those who have approved Visa's or greencards.	Our photos were rejected because they weren't time-stamped. Sooooo... just make sure they are.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-10 00:46:00
Philippines	Have we gotten lazy?	Filipinas are the hottest babes on the planet. One thing I have some compassion for on the Pinay side of things is the interminable bureacracy they have to go through for things like birth certificates. I can get them in the mail, whereas my wife had to wait in a long line at that stupid office. Then that ridiculous seminar she had to take, as if an adult can't be responsible for themselves in marriage. To each his own, y'know. We could do a thread about who does the dishes or who is on top most of the time, and it comes down to individual circumstances and preferences. We do about 50-50.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-09 17:53:00
Philippines	Married Filipinos who send money to family back in Philippines	They never ask me for money. I told my wife I would give her $250 a month to spend on whatever she likes, extra clothes etc. I said this is your extra spending money from our budget and you can do whatever you like with it. You can send to your family but that's up to you. I told her this because I want her to feel she has her "own" money she can do with as she likes without asking me. She chose to send all to her family each month and I feel that is her fair choice to do so. I do the same thing. It's more, but the same idea. She has not sent money in a while because I broke my leg and have a lot of bills, I can't work as much, and we have a second baby coming. There are two men working in our family's household now too, whereas nobody was working when we met. To the housewives here, it is a bona-fide job if you ask me. It's worth a lot of money and you are a hero in my eyes. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you are "just" a housewife. Taking care of the children, the house, your man - yeah! Talk about gold! I know some people think she should work and only be allowed to send that money home, but I think that is only justified if there are no kids and she does not pull enough weight around the house. Yea, Kevin - I could live on $1500 a month with a wife, family, and mistress over there.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-05 17:18:00
Philippines	Married Filipinos who send money to family back in Philippines	Hello, I just stumbled across this forum when searching for a specific topic. My fiancée is Filipino and I met her here in Michigan about 3 years ago. She came here to the US around 17 years ago on an H-1B work visa, she is a nurse and naturalized citizen. We live together and are engaged to be married. She is really great but we have some issues regarding her family back in the Philippines. They are constantly requesting money from us for “emergencies”. Typical emergencies include: money for medication, money for hospital bills and money to repair home damages from tropical storms. If she doesn’t send money for Birthdays/holidays they get really upset and refuse to talk to her. They constantly “hint” about how broke they are and how they don’t have money for this or that. She has three siblings there, all of which have college degrees but don’t work. Her mother and father “retired” as soon as she arrived in the US but have no savings. We were typically sending about $1500 (US) per month there. Previously sending this much per month was not an issue because we both made good money, she being an RN and I being an engineer. Well, we both decided I need to change careers so I quit my job and applied to med school. So she is now the only provider. Now that I am in school full-time we are broke, medical school is really expensive. Last month we didn’t even have money for food. We literally had 16 dollars in our bank account! I am borrowing money from my parents just to survive. Even in the dire situation we are in, she still feels compelled to send them money-money we don’t have. They have managed to brain wash her into thinking its her responsibility to support the entire family. I can no longer take it. What can I do, I need advice….Please help. Your family in the Philippines is using emotional blackmail. It is malicious and cruel. Every day of the week they rise from their lazy beds and consciously think about their plans for blackmailing money out of you instead of working. It takes maturity to acknowledge bad behavior on the part of your family. Parents who allow their kids to steal, get drunk, skip school, etc. are teaching them to be bad people. Likewise your wife is teaching them to be bad people. My God, if you were sending $1500 a month they should have a fortune saved up. If she gives you ####### about "culture" or tradition demands subsidizing laziness and bad character then the response is just that: there's lots from cultures all over the world not worth keeping like slavery, head-hunting, child rape, piracy, etc. The point of marrying outside of a culture in poverty is to adopt the things that make you wealthier and not to do the opposite: impose laziness, shiftlessness, and bad character on the culture of industry, thrift, and wise planning. If you cannot discuss it with your wife then you need a counsellor to act as an impartial refereee so that her refusal to be reasonable can be called for what it is. Otherwise, you need a new wife.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-04 19:04:00
Philippines	Married Filipinos who send money to family back in Philippines	QUOTE (Hopp @ Nov 20 2009, 07:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> We dont really understand what you are saying! Sorry. I thought she was catching flak for calling it "her money". And I could have misred what is going on in this exchange completely. And if I did, no big deal. Just ignore. I can be retarded just as easy as the next guy. But I thought my wife, in calling it "her money" was similar to what she was saying. And if the criticism of that is she has now become americanized by calling it "her money" then it could just have been a matter of wording that was misunderstood. Mine calls it her money and really it is our money and she acknowledges so. There can be nuances to the wording that matter.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2009-11-20 23:43:00
Philippines	Married Filipinos who send money to family back in Philippines	QUOTE (lilajean @ Nov 20 2009, 04:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> maybe just poor words? we agree that while i go to school, i get small "allowance" from hubby. i can spend on school supplies, clothes, hair cut, gas for the car, small things. i cannot spend more than what is in my allowance. hubby has what he says he spend on food and electric/gas before me, i must pay if we use more electricity. if there is money left over from allowance, i can give to my family. but if i don't, doesn't matter how bad of emergency my family has, we pay nothing. and it will be because of me. that is not my money, it is his money, but it is the money he lets me spend. he says "that's your money to do with it what you will". Of course at first i made quite a few mistakes with this . soon i will have a job and then my paycheck goes to him to control, of course, but i will still get an allowance of money. I feel badly and think you have been misred. My wife is 8 months pregnant. She has been a housewife for the most part. It is an enormous blessing to me and hard to put a price on because I was living like a cave man before. So what if my work is in the marketplace. She pulls serious weight around here and it would be criminal of me to pretend I am the only economicly productive worker. She deserves to have a value on that. It's easiest for me to assign some rental income to her. It isn't much. She deserves more. But we are not wealthy. We call it her salary. Not an allowance. Wife, mother, and keeper of cave man salary. She does do a little in the business too, and I pay her for that. Now, we call that "her money". Which is absurd because its all "our" money but talking about it that way means she should not have to worry what I am going to say about how she spends it. Nevertheless, she still asks me. Because she wants my opinion. I've had to borrow from her. Her rates are way too high.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2009-11-20 23:17:00
Philippines	Married Filipinos who send money to family back in Philippines	When I met her their family lived in a 7-foot by 11-foot shack made out of scraps they picked up off the street, like a lot of very poor Filipinos. The father had not worked in years. She was sending money home for over a year and a half as a housekeeper/child caretaker. She had just taken on a new job that made more when we met, but I had her quit and go back home to prepare for immigration. I can't remember what the housekeeper thing paid, but it was mostly just room and board. When I arrived there, the seven of them slept with four on one side and three on the other. It was a sleeping shelter, with about one-foot between the two scrapwood beds. I have lived really, really poor. Like people here cannot imagine. I lived with them too, as I was building a house next to the shack. They didn't want me to stay there because they thought I couldn't stand for it. But I'm thinking this is really cool. Like camping. I hope they learned about Americanos there. Because I can live like that and build a house, and if everyone there was like me then they would all be living in houses too. It didn't take much cash to buy sand and gravel, hollow block, steel, etc. The heat killed me. The house is there because I built it, with her father, not because I "had money". The neighborhood sat on their butts. I said some hard things to my wife. But there were conditions prior to marriage. I was going to help - but not make them wards. I was going to try to help them better themselves. There are varying degrees of initiative in her family. What we are doing is not perfect, and is evloving. But they have to work. I employed the father on the house, and then got him a job. He went from that job to a better paying one. There are two really inspiring siblings still at home. We help with school, which seems more like extortion really. They do these stupid projects that cost money, and I know because when I lived there we ran around buying materials and putting together idiotic things. Here is a family without enough rice and they are saying if you do not pay 600 pesos to manufacture a paper-machet tribute to the Filipino presidents of history, you do not graduate. Ludicrous. Why not give them a history exam? There is one bum. A brother. Being clever about never being around when it looks like work is going to happen. Quit school under the theory he was going to do a trade. But the result is no school, and no trade. He will make himself a problem for my wife. Like many Filipinos taking advantage of Americano money. The thing he is most expert at is avoiding looking me in the eyes. He has never done it. In two years. It's not because he's Filipino. It's because he's a bum. He will have to be thrown out. It is the only way to better him.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2009-11-20 15:28:00
Philippines	Who are the Filipinas here that received money before getting married to their foreign fiance and sending money when they got here in US?	It seems like money (root of all evil) is the hot discussion in this forum. One clarification, but I think worth pointing out. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil. You often see it misquoted as "money is the root of all evil". Don't take this as a disagreement. Just clarification.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-15 12:18:00
Philippines	Who are the Filipinas here that received money before getting married to their foreign fiance and sending money when they got here in US?	We met over there and I was away from her less than a month before I went back to build a house and stay a few months more before applying K-1. We would have gone four months without sending any money here recently, but it was my idea to send $100 for Christmas. So there was a lot of money initially, building the house, then furnishing it, and then a sea-wall. Then it tapered off as her father and brother got working full-time. We're sending one to college next year. It's amazingly cheap compared to here, and he'll have a good career. We made an agreement that he takes care of the parents in retirement. Money is not an issue for us. In the beginning, we had some issues but with honest communication and decisive planning we have things working well.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-13 22:32:00
Philippines	I get to eat at Jolibee now.	Mr. Beefy Burger all the way, baby. Way cheaper.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-16 16:10:00
Philippines	new xoom code	We fell for Xoom's lie about transferring money "instantly", and tried their offer for the first transfer free. They confirmed when I was done and said "your money is on its way". So on the strength of two lies in a row, I told our family in the Philippines the money had been sent. Then we got an email that said the money would not be there for at least four business days. I knew they were making money from the exchange rate too, and I didn't mind that so much as the lies. Our family had already left for the day and we couldn't stop them from making the trip in vain. I don't know if that is the normal length of time it takes to send money with Xoom, but I don't like being lied to, and they lied to us.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-21 01:01:00
Philippines	How to cancel a k1 visa petition	Maxx121 There might be a lot of reasons. I had mine quit work and go back to college, so the money she had been giving to her family was cut off and her cost of living went up at the same time. We did the opposite - we're sending less now than in the beginning, and it's what I am sending because I feel like it. She isn't sending any right now. Stoney2010- she broke up because of that now i probally could have got her back but if 2 people are fighting alot about money how much more is it gonna be after married so hell with that i know there is good girls in the philippines that would have respect for a man that does what i do...... Way to go. It's her loss.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-22 16:30:00
Philippines	Met a rude fellow Pinay	Hi Ginalisa, It is sad isnt it? I am also a Filipina and moved here in the states from australia. I have 6 close filipina friends in Australia but none here in the states. The attitudes of most filipino's that I know here in the states are not in my liking that I just stay away from them. You do not need friends like that. I do hope you will find fellow filipino friends that are good and kind. Yup. A lot of them seem to be overly materialistic and like gossiping. There's good ones too. I have friends who were also friends with the ex-wife, including female, and they have been very kind to my wife. It isn't automatic that people who knew or were friends with her will automatically be rude to the more beautiful, loving, and younger wife. People of strong character are not like that. Ginalisa, I would be open with this to your husband too. If I thought for a second someone was being rude to my wife it would either be confronted and ended or the association would cease. You are the wife. You are number one.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-27 19:03:00
Philippines	Filipinos and saving money for retirement	i would have to agree and disagree with you on this one.. i agree the we support are our parents when they're old.. BUT i disagree to call it dependency.. i think you can call it dependency when abuse comes to the scene, like they ask you for more than you can give or more than what they need.. i would like to call it more of a "responsibility".. we filipinos support our parents when they're old because we believe that we owe so much to them.. our parents raised us, fed us, sent us to school, etc etc.. so when they're old, it's our time to take care of them.. kind of a payback time.. in the philippines, we dont send our parents to the nursing homes or assisted living facilities because we feel and we know that it's our own responsibility to take care of our parents.. We're in agreement. No problem. As someone noted, "dependency" does not have a negative connotation unless the context is constructed to mean that. What you did was emphasize the reciprocal nature of the arrangement, and yes I agree with that too. One of the reasons I found Filipinas attractive was their committment to family. It didn't hurt that they were generally scorching hot beautiful. Edited by rlogan, 15 December 2010 - 12:07 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-15 12:06:00
Philippines	Filipinos and saving money for retirement	The Filipinos do have a culture of dependency upon the children to support them when older. I'm not interested in making value judgements. That's just something different about their culture. For some it seems to work well enough. Some jobs have pensions, in the professional classes that is somewhat common whereas in the laboring occupations it is not. Their is a social security system there I don't know much about other than a lot of occupations do not participate in it. Then there is Phil-Health. My goodness yes it is much less expensive to live there, although some import items are actually more expensive. Fish is just a fraction of the cost up here. I live like a king on orange roughy and other really awesome seafood while there. We built a house for very, very little money. We do our dental work there because it is just a fraction of the cost here. A quack doctor is only a couple of bucks and every bit as good as a horoscope or palm reading.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-13 22:14:00
Philippines	Maybe retireing in the Philippines, I have some questions	Someone has mentioned it is automatically a year when you come in with your spouse, but you can also get extensions by going to an immigration office. Not sure how far you can stretch it out. If you aren't keen on investing there, you can do it that way. You'll fly out of the country now and then to start the clock over. Bring the money over when you want to lay permanent roots.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-01-11 04:23:00