Forum	Title	Content	Member	Sex	Country	Date/Time
Philippines	Why was her answer considered a 'gaffe'?	i would've figured that she would've used her experience about being stripped of the Bb. Pilipinas title earlier this year and then explaining what she learned from it (which is don't lie)....would've probably gotten her better results. I didn't know about this. Nor did I follow Miss Universe. I don't really like the politically correct mamby-pamby stuff that you get in these things though. My wife showed me her statement and it was weak. I didn't realize she diverted it to a comment on her family. If she lied on a material fact in a contest and was stripped of a title - wow. What's she even doing there? Geez!	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-24 16:53:00
Philippines	Why was her answer considered a 'gaffe'?	Good on her. She retained her dignity instead of being a tool. Everyone likes to take their opportunity to cut down someone more beautiful and talented than themselves. Let's see the critics up on stage in a swimsuit. Ak! No, let's not!	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-24 11:01:00
Philippines	Should I Be Concerned ?	I'll need some pictures of your wife in a bikini and her cell number in order to make a determination on the prop. I am a little concerned she's underpowered. I have a 225 Johnson on mine but it has a jet unit so it can go in four inches of water up on step. What does your wife have under the hood?	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-22 14:47:00
Philippines	I-130 and rural addresses in the Philippines	Very good answers here, and it was an issue we were afraid of too. My wife's mailing address on Mindanao went as far as the Purok. Nobody in the Purok had house numbers. I think this might have been my first question on VisaJourney and nobody answered it. So we just waited and worried. I tried to get an answer out of the Philippines post office as to whether it was a legitimate address, and they didn't answer my email. I sent several letters and post cards through the mail to see what would happen. One out of four was delivered: a post card. Two letters did not arrive, and one post card did not arrive. I sent a package by Federal Express, and it arrived fine. The immigration documents and visa delivery all went fine.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-31 11:11:00
Philippines	Did I do wrong?	My question is : can she handle the age gap. What will happen when we go to the gym or dance class and she sees young couples having fun? Will she regrets? that is my fear. About me I care less what people think. You don't trust her. Previously you indicated that you lacked trust because she was cold and distant. There was something inside her you could not connect with. You had trouble talking with your fiance because she used her "puppy eyes" to thwart the discussion. So you talk to the sister four hours instead. You have a "feeling" that the fiance is upset, but not from direct, open, and honest communication. This has nothing to do with your age difference. It has nothing to do with talking to her sister. Manipulative people never want others to be talking outside of their control. They do not communicate openly and honestly. You have gut feelings conflicting with what's going on at the surface. There would be jealousy in normal circumstances in talking to the sister, but there is a larger context you have shared. I doubt the sister would say "She doesn't love you, but we're all depending on this so I'm going to help her by lying to you..." It looks like you are committed to the unsinkable titanic. I'll feel bad when it happens, and won't take sport in it. I've made bad decisions because of my own blindness, so I have some empathy for it.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-28 13:11:00
Philippines	I may want to divorce my Husband and go back to the PI	What a coincidence! Passive aggressive...much? Sometimes find it difficult to cope with someone having a different opinion than yours? Feel angry when your opinion is rejected? Here is a link that might help provide some insight........http://www.4degreez....isorder_test.mv Interesting site. Worth looking into. Thanks for posting it, whether the OP appreciates it or not.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-20 21:06:00
Philippines	I may want to divorce my Husband and go back to the PI	Sad truth is, the family back home still believes this, no matter how much my wive tells them it is not true. There is a very powerful psychological force working against us. People use whatever rationalization they can to excuse their bad behavior. There is an endless history of armed robbers saying they are stealing from banks or railroads, not from "the people" or serial killers saying their victims are "just prostitutes" and powerful countries commiting war crimes in the name of "saving" or "liberating" their victims, etc. Countless third-worlders use reprehensible tactics for money and hide behind rationalizations like "you are rich" and pretend that their three thousand days in a row of not working have resulted in an unexpected "emergency" every month when the electric bill, the rent, or whatever else is due. It isn't that they believe it so much as there is a compelling need to paint themselves as good people in contrast to the bad people who won't fork over money every time they ask for it. The tactic of "playing dumb" is classic manipulative behavior. (Duh - do people really have to work for money in the USA? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!) With such a person you can explain yourself to death to no avial because "understaning" it forces the admission that they are the bad people, not you.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-20 15:25:00
Philippines	I am wondering why the exchange is so bad?	It can be a mistake to post on subjects you have a publication record with in your profession. For one thing, you use terms of trade that have precise meanings, but they mean something else to non-practicioners. I'll try to avoid that problem It is very simple. All else the same, when dollars are printed at a faster rate than pesos, the Peso rises in value relative to dollars. That is by far the major determinant of changes in exchange rates between the dollar and peso, or the dollar and anything else. What is going on now with the international banks and corruption of our political systems worldwide disgusts me to the point where I can no longer watch. What the banks want is endless government borrowing, which the banks finance by literally printing the money. Ask yourself this question: If the law allowed you to print money in your basement, but imposed the strict condition that the only thing you could do with the freshly printed notes was loan it to the government - would this condition bother you very much? Instead of printing the money to buy your shoes, bread, and beer, you have to buy treasury bonds. Every quarter when you earn interest or every time a bond matures, you are free to spend that profit as you wish. It's just the money directly from your printing press you are not allowed to run to the store with. You can, however, print the money and buy a bond and then sell that right away to someone else. This cash you have now was not what you printed, so you can spend that cash as you like. That is the simple nature of the Federal Reserve Banking System in the USA. The "Federal Reserve" is just a printing press and a store-room for money. Look at the dollars in your wallet. They are "Federal Reserve Notes". The Federal Reserve is just that very printing press, and it is owned by all of the banks in the U.S. in proportion to their size. If bank X is twice as large as bank Y, it owns twice as much stock in the Federal Reserve. That is why the U.S. Debt is related to the value of the dollar. Because the Federal Reserve prints the money it loans to the government. When the government is doing a lot of borrowing, the Fed is generally doing a lot of printing. It is not an exact correspondence because the Federal Reserve is only one of many buyers of U.S. debt. It is entirely possible for U.S. Debt to rise without so much as one new dollar being printed if the Federal Reserve bought none of it and the Chinese or private investors bought all of it. This is why the international banks love wars. They are the greatest impetus to government borrowing. The loans are in multi-billion dollar packages and are the safest form of lending since the government collects its money with lethal force. Lots of tiny little mortgage loans with risk are much less attractive. The big picture is we have one giant war machine running that has very little to do with protecting us and mostly to do with banks profiting from lending money they print out of thin air, along with profits to the whole military-security complex. Simultaneously we have crackpot "ecomonic stimulus" borrowing that has mostly to do with directing government spending to financiers of political campaigns and other political horse-trading. But - we're in a race with other equally corrupt and murderously stupid regimes. So you have the Philippines government out there borrowing, printing, and spending its graft and cronyist mony too. That's why not much is really happening vis-a-vis the Philippines peso, but why both currencies are falling relative to gold, silver, copper, etc. - things you can't just print.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-11 13:29:00
Philippines	Specific details for I-129F	Hey everyone, I dont know how many of you have already completed getting your fiance from the Philippines to you but I was hoping to get some help. I will send my packet out soon. I was wondering if there is anything in specific that the Philippine consulate will be looking for? People say that they are really picky so any advice on what the are picky about or the things they are looking for when someone tries to get their fiance from the Philippines? They are "picky" about following every instruction to the last letter. I didn't rmember seeing that photos of us together had to be time-stamped so they rejected our photos. I had to send in the airline ticket stubs to prove I had been on Mindanao during the period we met.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-14 04:03:00
Philippines	I'm very nervous about my plane ride	Hello VJ people!I would be so grateful to hear any advice from you I'm so nervous about my plane ride, it's my first time to travel out of the country. I will be flying to the U.S next week. I'm really getting nervous now. I will be flying with delta alone to meet my fiance. Can anyone please share some experience when you were going to the U.S. Like your experience at the NAIA airport(I'm from Philippines BTW)and your experience stopping over to japan and your port of entry to the United States. My flight is from Manila to Japan then Japan to Detroit and to Chicago where my fiance is going to pick me up. My fiance ordered me a ticket online and he just gave me a confirmation number for it and told me to just give it when I'm already at the airport. And what about money, how much do you think I'm going to spend for it. and do i have to bring dollars too? Sorry i asked too much Thanks in advance for the reply, God bless you Zah NAIA is simple. It isn't that big and the Delta people will be very helpful, pointing out where you should go. I don't know how much you have flown, but practice looking on the boards up on the walls for the flight information. Japan is probably Narita. The little restaurants are expensive there, and so are the shops. You can use dollars. Gosh, I would bring a hundred bucks or have an ATM card. Everyone has a different level of risk they are comfortable with. Pesos won't do you any good after you leave Manila. The exchange rates are not good at the airports and the restaurants and shops don't take pesos. Narita is much bigger. Do not be afraid to ask where to go. There are very helpful people working there. Your flight info. will be on the boards too, but uniformed employees will help if you are nervous. Some people (like me) take antihistimines for two reasons. First, they clear your sinuses so you don't have your ears popping when the flight descends - I have chronic sinus problems and descending is really painful for me. But also, they knock you out. You'll sleep soundly and not even notice the guy next to you fondling your ... newspaper.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-27 00:44:00
Philippines	San Francisco, OUR NEW HOME!!!	Glad you are with your hubby. We're never apart. S.F. is an interesting city. Wow, expensive real estate. Your husband looks happy!	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-24 10:23:00
Philippines	Can some one translate this from tagalog	R, thanks so much for reading my comments and commenting on them. I am pretty sure you have read a lot of books. On my next story, I will tell you a story about the greatest boxer ever. A book that I read. You are welcome. Yes, I have read a lot of books and articles. I've corresponded with some of the authors. Dr. Simon in particular. We share a personal defect: too open, trusting, naiive, gullible - and we think others are just like us. All a bad person has to do is say "I love you" or "I'm trying to help", and it disables our ability to see what everyone else can see: they are using us. Taking advantage. Toying with us. We are nearly incapable of accepting other people relish hurting us, stealing from us, and making fun of our suffering. We would never do such things to other people, so bad people exploit that to manipulate us. I hate to see this being done to other people more than having it perpetrated upon me. If it is any consolation to you, the research is pretty clear on one thing: Manipulators are self-loathing cowards. They envy people who are innately happy and that's why they attack them. As cowards, they act underhandedly and covertly - never in the open. It's always an ambush, deceit, and hiding their true motivations. At the same time they believe themselves better than everyone else. Nobody else's feelings or desires matter in any of their calculations. This should seem inconsistent: Self-loathing vs. belief they are better than everyone else. That's right. Remember, they are not normal people. They have personality disorders. On the surface they can be glib, charming, and friendly. But underneath is seething, boiling hatred stemming all the way back into their childhood. It is learned behavior, and they have a lifetime of experience in camouflague and deception. They are bullies that pick on people with this weakness of ours. The most important thing to your life is zeroing in on your personality defect: admitting it and resolving yourself to fixing it. The defect is the inability to recognize and cope with manipulators. They can see you a mile away and are attracted to you like a magnet. Your life is far more dominated by their predations than you realize because they are actively seeking you out. Cheer up. Always darkest before the dawn. Get rid of her, and cease all contact because the only thing contact with her will do is allow her to prey upon your weakness.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-17 13:44:00
Philippines	Can some one translate this from tagalog	The first thing his wife said was "when you came from the phil. and showed us all the pictures, we approved your relation with her. But after we saw her FB and not one pix of you, we have double feeling about her ". The pile of sincere, honest people who have tried to tell you to call it off is huge and growing. Bringing her here is terribly bad advice. You've demonstrated little ability to understand or deal with manipulation. Bringing her here puts you directly in her manipulative clutches. She will be better able to isolate you from friends and family, use sex as a weapon, and prey upon your sympathy for having brought her here, invested the time and emotional energy, etc. It is lose, lose, lose: Lose more of your precious time. Lose more of your money. Lose the opportunity to meet and marry a decent woman. If I were mean-spirited and wanting to watch your demise, and I understood how easily you are manipulated, I would recommend you bring her here and pretend that was the best option for you. I would pretend there was no way to lose. A person giving such advice would be expected to elsewhere make fun of you, post pictures to taunt you, etc. Your inability to see when you are being toyed with makes it difficult for you to understand when "helpful advice" (not) is being given by someone who really enjoys watching other people suffer and likes to make fun of them.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-16 22:22:00
Philippines	Can some one translate this from tagalog	I saw the engaged but she did not put engaged to <name> I see that many places but she did not write my name. Also, she has pictures of every body in the universe except me ...cheers... This has been reading like a textbook of red flags for foreign marriages. One of the affectations about Filipinas I like is their romance. They splash pictures of their loved one all over their facebook along with quotes about how they can't live without them. They put music to it with love songs and pink background, etc. Not all of them of course. It is a general tendency, and that seems to be the kind of woman you would cherish. Instead you have one that doesn't put a single picture of you up on her site - everyone in the universe EXCEPT you. Talk about a slap in the face! It isn't just a matter of her not loving you. She dislikes you. There are numerous problems with trying to smuggle pictures of yourself onto her facebook indirectly. She isn't even acknowledging your presence and like a puppy dog you're jumping up on her trying to get attention. A person loses their dignity, their self-respect, and the respect of others this way. You deserve better, and it is never going to come from her. It will come from one of the millions of other Filipinas looking for a guy like you. Edited by rlogan, 16 September 2010 - 04:22 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-16 16:21:00
Philippines	Can some one translate this from tagalog	I understand what you saying but I surrounded for one way love. I think I can handle that as long that she respects my house. Just wow. If she doesn't love you then she certainly won't be happy nor respect you. I cannot imagine the depression and anguish you will face.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-15 05:04:00
Philippines	Can some one translate this from tagalog	To whom dorz? Hahah..ageh 2nd ka na ds day..gnkkalsan ak iyo.. Hahah.. Well..congratz nla n advance dorz..heheh -- Thanks *translates* My wife says words are either abbreviated or misspelled but one possibility for the beginning part is ha ha ha again - second time in a day. (My wife thought the "h" might be a typo for an "n". Those keys are adjacent on a keyboard.) So that would for example be what one webchat scammer would say to another webchat scammer when laughing and congratulating them for duping another victim into a wedding engagement. I asked her to read this without saying much about it, and her first reaction was that it wasn't a "nice" message. Something wrong with it. If indeed it is a reaction to an engagement announcement (to whom?) - it is an odd thing to be laughing three times in such a short message. That is not how normal people react when learning a friend is engaged. gna Kasal is "someone you marry", so gnkkalsan bears some relation to that but again we are dealing with misspellings, abbreviations, or something. Dialect is a possibility but my wife is Visayan and my understanding was that your fiance is too (Leyte). It isn't Visayan. You've not given any kind of context for this, and that would help a great deal with translation. Knowing that you were recently engaged and that there were some big red flags, it is an interpretation that gains some credibility. Furthermore, the first thing I would do with any Philippine message is go to my wife with it. We did not hear that your fiance had trouble interpreting it and as a consequence you came here with it. Instead it was rather cryptic. I don't mean that unkindly - what I mean is that when we're happy about something we usually fill in the context like "I just won a lottery and the announcement came with this message..." When we are worried about something we tend to be cryptic. Also, when we obtain something covertly we tend to hide where it came from. When our wife hands it to us we say "my wife gave me this". When we hack into her email account then we aren't real excited about announcing that, so we ask for the translation without explaining where it came from. I am more than happy to admit I can be completely wrong about a lot of things, including this. But my feeling is that you came across this message in a way that caused you to seek interpretation outside your relationship and that it spells trouble with a capital "T". Nobody came up with an innocent and convincing interpretation (especially you) so until someone does - what else do we have to go on? I wish for you the best regardless. Edited by rlogan, 02 September 2010 - 02:44 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-02 14:42:00
Philippines	Visiting the Philippines	specially chocolate Wow, did my wife haul the chocolate home. I wondered why that big canvass bag was so heavy! We went back after eleven months. No parties. A baptismal for our son though. I did construction, and we spent a lot of time exploring Palawan. We're very simple, humble nobodies. No showing off or extravagent living. Just stayed at home minding our own business with our immediate family.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-19 00:37:00
Philippines	Self Expression: Believe in Yourself; Never Give up	Thank you for the very kind comments. Out of the hospital, Tahoma but Besame Mucho I will not be walking for at least a couple of months with this leg so badly crushed. Yes, Lira and I cut a new trail to the north into an area that we anticipated was a lock on her first moose - and then I broke my leg so badly all that work was for naught. No way can she handle a moose on her own. I am bed-ridden but sadly not for nookie. Pinay Wife the odd thing is after I produced an album and heard one of my songs on the radio I just walked away from the whole thing. I had sacrificed my life out here in the woods for getting home from the bars at 5 am, managing a band, hauling equipment all over the place, etc. I asked myself if I really wanted to go further with it, and it was a resounding "no". With the broken leg and my brain dysfunctional from these pills I did this little video to fill the time. Maybe I'll do more, but what I remember about the professional music performance scene was that it negated what I came up here to do in the first place. The only thing missing was a Filipina Unit, and she's here now so life could not be better. Thanks again and good luck to everyone. We are all capable of accomplishing whatever we set our minds to.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-22 05:44:00
Philippines	Self Expression: Believe in Yourself; Never Give up	I'm so retarded I just figured out how to do this:	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-20 19:01:00
Philippines	married my phillippine girl friend	How does she prove she did not intend to marry when she crossed? That isn't so much the issue. It is impossible to prove a negative. It is a matter of following the AOS procedures now that they are married. This is straightforward and many here have done so. She can file for Adjustment of Status and stay here while doing it. The fact she has applied for AOS demonstrates her effort to stay here legally. So even though she is out of status while applying, she is not going to get deported on that basis. If she leaves, she does not have an automatic right to re-enter just because she married. She would still have to go through the approval process. So for most, it makes better sense to stay with your husband or wife while adjusting status.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-24 17:28:00
Philippines	Sad question we hate to ask	I read and understood very well. I thank you for taking your time and writing on this subject. I think many of us can learn from your post. Specially those related to relationship problems. I am going to try one tactic today to see how she reacts. Actually, I have three in minds. [b]A good day for you and the rest of the team. Sadly, I suspect otherwise - because the decision to stay with her is the one that counts. You mentioned you had some tactics you were going to try. The books say to forget about trying to counter-manipulate a manipulator. They have far too much experience. Secondly, it is the acknowledgement you are in a war and this is an enemy you need to defeat instead of a loving life partner. Manipulators do understand black-and-white choices with enforceable consequences. The problem is they have no "off button". It is exhausting dealing with relentless, incessant psychological warfare. Why choose this? When people break free of their manipulator, it is enormously liberating for them. A huge weight is lifted off their shoulders. But as with alcoholism, until you have that "moment of clarity" you will keep stepping in front of the bus and getting flattened, irrationally expecting a different result each time. I've been there. It isn't a surprise to me that you keep making the wrong decision to stay with her.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-19 15:23:00
Philippines	Sad question we hate to ask	Speechless....some one actually hits the nail on the head. Some thought I was drunk other suggested me to spank the monkey (actually it was funny thanks for the laugh . ) If have to write my story all I need to do is cut and paste what you said no more no less. Back to her, always the same thing. Some times she leaves me in the dark, gives me the 1 hr mute treatment, then comes back to me. What do I do? I tell her it was my fault. I blame myself for things I know it is not my fault. I don't know how she does it? Then she says that I am not sweet and I don't know how to love her. What do I do? I do my best to make her happy again. But Deep inside I know I done nothing wrong... Generally the timeline for a manipulator is that they learned it in childhood - from one or both parents, siblings, or a lot of it learning by experience from having been abused. All their lives they practice on everyone, but they also target certain people to interact with because of their ease to manipulate. That is why I sent you the material by PM about yourself. Understanding manipulative people gives you a lot of insight into who they target. By the time she met you she had hundreds of people and a couple of decades experience of practice. You have manipulated no-one and are an easy mark. You don't stand a chance. Their method of interaction has nothing to do with morality, conscientiousness, empathy, or feelings. They are more like machines than humans. Her approach to you is better viewed as a war, not love. Every interaction is a battle. Every play she makes is a tactic. Crying, anger, pouting, flirting - everything is just a battle tactic. Winning is everything. They'll stop at nothing to win. The first phase of interaction with you is referred to as their "evaluation phase". They try various things on you to see what works. They put together different arsenals for different kinds of people. One might be succeptible to attacks on their manhood while another is more succeptible to accusations he is greedy, etc. You mentioned she leaves you in the dark, gives the silent treatment, and accuses you of not being sweet; not knowing how to love her. Every one of those is manipulative, and she's using them because they work. You are kicking yourself for allowing it, but it's still going to work on you every time because those are your personal weaknesses. By previous practice and through the evaluation phase with you, whole sequences of "moves" have been put into an ammunition belt. She can fire off ten rounds rat-a-tat-tat and quickly have you on the run emotionally every time. You are always at least three steps behind. I was living with a master manipulator and it was uncanny how he got the best of me every time. By writing down what he said to me I realized he had the same set of seven or more basic moves he used to avoid any important discussion I tried to initiate. His underlying strategy was to get me angry so that my anger became the issue. The tension level was always extremely high as a consequence of trying to force discussion of anything with him, and if you managed to keep your cool enough he would be stomping off out the door himself yelling about how unreasonable you were. But never, never, never did he allow your point to be discussed. The only thing you got were his pre-programmed lines and escalating drama. All were deeply personal insults: you are immature, stupid, selfish, unreasonable, irrational, hypocritical, immoral, etc. but delivered with such cunning and poise that it worked on me every time. Once I was angry he'd point to that and say "just look at yourself", smiling with smug satisfaction. He'd have me apologizing to him. He would not say "you're stupid" directly you know - but instead he'd be patting me on the back saying "I thought you were smarter than that", with a pretence of concern that I was off my game. An insult disguised as a compliment. Once I wrote down the list it was enormously liberating. I put the list in front of him the next time I tried to raise the same subject he was relentless in avoiding. Every one of his responses came straight from the list. I was laughing hysterically at one point because he became this pathetic machine, with no other capability than repeating this list of insults. It had always worked for him in the past, and now I had his number. His eyes got big, the fear and trembling took ahold, and now he was no longer in control by pushing my buttons. Yet he could not help himself and kept calling me immature, stupid, selfish, etc. I had him cornered. The last words this person ever spoke to me were "Don't...Talk...to...me", and I saw in his eyes a rage - a deep black pit of hate that was frightening to behold. Underneath this phony mask of glib light-heartedness was a seething, boiling pit of rage. I had by that time read three books in rapid succession on manipulative people, specifically to deal with him. I had read other material before that too, but this set had him nailed. What those books told me was that I had to decide whether I wanted this person in my life or not, because dealing with him would take tremendous, continuous effort. So at that moment what I was doing was forcing him to see I was through being manipulated and that he had to admit to what he was doing and agree to change his behavior or else thirty years of friendship was over. He could either change or be kicked out of my life. That's what you are facing. You will lose every single skirmish with this woman 100-0. She will fight to the death rather than lose any individual battle. You just watch now. Once you try to call it off you are going to have everything thrown at you. One moment she is calling you stupid, ugly, and immature and the next moment you are the most intelligent, handsom, and mature man she has ever met. You are the best thing that ever happened to her, she would rather die than lose you, yadda yadda yadda. You will make the mistake of not just saying "goodbye, it's over, don't call or write". Instead you are going to roll out the carpet for her to manipulate you, and you'll hear all the things you want to hear so you might just as well stab yourself in the eye with a fire-iron. The ensuing damage will have been self-inflicted. Virtually everyone told you the minute you expressed your gut feelings about this woman to call it off. You didn't. Absolutely, they're right. But more importantly there is something you have to change about yourself. You have to admit that you have a personality that is too easily manipulated. You have to commit yourself to fixing that personal defect. Even if you manage to extricate yourself from this tar pit, you'll be right back in another one, especially if you do the foreign bride thing. There's just too many out there trolling for a green card that will make mincemeat out of you.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-15 02:04:00
Philippines	Sad question we hate to ask	I am trying to describe an event that it is taking place somewhere out-there. "Crapy", I can write or describe it any way I want. It is my story: If you don't think moving a truck is painful enough, go and check your heart. You need serious help. "How to move a truck" I joined the gym and doing some weight lifting. So I said to myself this time I will try to push the truck as hard as I can to get it going. I saw other people doing it and it worked why not me? So I tried again to push it and could not moved it. Hmm!!! strange!. I am feeling "tears" dropping off because I am using a lot of strength to get it going. So I stopped for a moment and relaxed a bit. Then listened to some love songs while holding a light Heineken on my hand. Suddenly, the answer arrived to the question why the truck wasn't moving at all. It was so simple. She never moved the truck's gear to neutral . She has it in PARKED all this time!!!!!!!! how blind was I? I was supposed to check myself. But I did not. . I did not think it was necessary. Anyway, time is running out with my gym subscription. I am planning to cancel it. No matter how strong I get, if you do not move the gear to NEUTRAL, I will never ever move truck. The truck itself is very heavy to move but if you don't put it in gear, it is more difficult for me to get it going. Don't tell me I did not try to push it. Alright. It's a cry for help. It's in a metaphor though and the problem with metaphors is that the people not party to the metaphor have to do guesswork, which seriously handicaps their ability to understand and help. If we could cut to the core here I think what you are saying is that one person in a relationship can struggle their hardest, working themselves to death, and yet all kinds of things still go wrong. You get nowhere. Other couples have relationships where it does not seem they are working very hard at all by comparison to you, and yet things are going wonderfully for them. When both people are trying, neither one has to work very hard. You have to work, yes. But without the other person trying then no amount of work alone will do it. The woman in your life has not shifted out of park. She isn't contributing in a way that allows for progress. It's really simple math here, jrmejia - if you are not happy, then you are in the wrong relationship. You can work like Hercules but unless your partner is genuinely committed to making you happy, you will be miserable. The sad thing is that it doesn't take very much effort to make a person like you happy. The smallest gesture can launch you into a giddy, beaming lighthouse of happiness. So it is all the more painful that such tiny morsels of effort on her part have caused you to spend so much energy on this immigration journey. Gosh, she would have to do so little to make you happy and this relationship work. But she doesn't. The science of manipulation is fascinating. All she has to do is enough effort to get what she wants out of you, and not one ounce more. Why should she try harder than that? Making you happy is not what she is all about. It's getting what she wants. Since the tiniest, microscopic efforts on her part gets her what she wants, then why work harder than that? So if you start to think of this like a manipulative person would, then you have to counter-manipulate. So for example you withhold submission of some document until she does something specific you want. A manipulator understands choices like that, when they undrerstand the threat of losing what they want is real. But you don't have that within you. We do things for people because we know it will make them happy, not because we are trying to manipulate them. If a person is driven to even contemplate having to live a life of manipulation with their spouse, then that is not a loving relationship. That is a war. Just about everyone told you to trust your gut instincts. You didn't listen for two reasons. First, you want really badly for this to work. But second, you are with a person who is actively manipulating you. She knows what works and she's pushing those buttons, possibly with the help of family and friends, and they have been very successful on you. You are in for a lot worse. When the going gets tough, a skilled manipulator can pull out all the stops and shower you with affection and flattery. You'll think that finally she has changed. It will be a mystery to you that these things are correlated with the wedding, the Adjustment of Status, and in short all the things she needs for successful immigration. Then the green card comes in the mail. Lo and behold, she has a change of heart. She no longer loves you. It is a huge surprise to everyone at VisaJourney, having never seen a story like that before. Everyone is completely baffled. Not!	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-14 18:37:00
Philippines	Sad question we hate to ask	Well, maybe it is an age difference: 24 vs 46. Irrelevant. But I find her so cold some times. I know she gets like that during her (monthly) but still. I have the strong sense that something is going..Some fine print about her that I cannot read. Another vote for Trust Your Instincts. Man, the literature I read is emphatic about this. Ask yourself how common it is to hear "My gut instinct said it was wrong, but it turned out instead to be the best decision I ever made..." You seem a bit baffled that the "baby face" she gives you defeats your intention to confront the issue. No mystery there. Think about it: you sense something is wrong with her being cold and distant. But when you want to talk about it, the "baby face" arrives to divert you. If that's the situation, then you are being manipulated. You need the exact opposite: You need warmth and closeness 24/7, and when you want to talk about something she should have radar and a demeanor that brings it out of you. Plenty of wonderful Filipinas who will love you from head to toe.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-13 03:36:00
Philippines	Fiancee may have a different purpose! - Pls. advise	and that she selected him on basis of physical location. USA is a big place. the odds of her finding a guy 10 minutes away from her family here are just too long. either way, it sounds like a scam. Good catch. It demonstrates conclusively to me the promise to live with him upon arrival was a premeditated lie. Once the visa was in hand, suddenly she wants to live with her family instead. I think reporting this immigration official is doubly important. It looks like an official sworn to uphold immigration law is instead conspiring to commit immigration fraud with a relative and amongst other things he tried to extort with threats of using his office for harassment. Report them.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-20 00:03:00
Philippines	Fiancee may have a different purpose! - Pls. advise	We have some reading-challenged members saying the problems are arose from and are simply name-change or other trivial issues. But she actually stays at her aunt & uncle's residence about 10 mins. away from my friend's house. (During the K1 process, it's been agreed & filed on the application that she'd be staying with him in his house, but she changed her mind after getting her visa. (She's supposed to be conservative and can't stay with him under one roof until they get married. My friend understands & he's ok with that) This was before the name change issue: She broke the agreement on living together. She is also a liar. She became "conservative" after she got the visa. She agreed to live with him before applying. Either way, a liar. she said "she's keeping her last name". she said it's her right not to use my friend's last name. Her main reason being it might affect her papers/documents, etc regarding her NLEX/nursing license Also a lie in light of all the other evidence (especially keeping her marriage secret). Countless millions change their names every year, no problem. My friend said that she even told him that "she doesnt love him that much anyway". How can people read that and say he is behaving strangely? Is this what your fiance told you too? Last night, my friend & the fiancee with each other's folks had a talk to resolve the issue. No resolution. The immigration officer uncle even threatened my friend that he's gonna do a background check on my him. Threats from family. See Hopps red flags pic. They're really stacking up. Anyway, i was thinking..what if the fiancee is indeed being brainwashed by her folks & decide not to leave the US despite not getting married, what are the consequences? Can my friend force her to leave the US? Can he report her to the UCIS for not leaving? Will my friend get in trouble for not marrying her cuz of that "last name" issue? All he has to do is refrain from the marriage. He could report to USCIS that there was no marriage, but she is not his responsibility. 1. the fiancee stays with her folks..& everytime my friend would pick her up, she has to take her home at a certain time. She has a curfew and she's already 25 years old..but my friend understand that since she's living with her folks This could be cultural but my suspicion is that if you investigate this 25 y.o.'s dating habits with other men the story will be different. 2. accdg to my friend, his fiancee a supposedly very private. Her coming to the US is known to her family only & NOT to others like friends, etc. He said that no one really knows that she came to the US. And that she has a Facebook account but keeps it to herself. She doesnt tell him nor add him to her friends list. It's just so weird to be that so private. Maybe she's hiding something. Maybe she really have a real boyfriend or something somewhere. What do you think? In conjunction with not changing her name, obviously she doesn't want people to know she is getting married. The secret face book account would be interesting. I hope im wrong but i think the fiancee and her uncle & aunt may have planned this all along; come to the US & find a way to fix things for her to stay legally, etc. We don't need to call Sherlock Holmes on this one.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-15 13:19:00
Philippines	Can A Filipina Really Be Taught How to Drive? A Car?	Then we came to the stop sign, The truck was not slowing down. I explained to her there is a stop sign and you must stop for it. This was repeated camly 4 times to no avail. At this point I am scarred out my pants cause the other road has the right of way. I finally screamed, There is a stop sign and you must stop now (Bad mistake on my part). Well, When I looked over at her she had done froze up and had a death grip on the steering wheel. YUP, we drove right through the stop sign and luckily no car hit us. We developed a game for this called the "obedience game". I could not just tell my wife what to do. She had to be convinced. So when a cement truck was coming down the road and I said "stop! stop! STOP!!!", she went straight through. It was a close call and a few feet further we would have been killed. She had an attitude about criticism and being told what to do. I've been a teacher of various things for almost 40 years. There was no way to teach her without first changing her attitude. We had to psychologically prepare ourselves for each lesson: your husband is not your enemy. Our lives are at stake. Safety means doing what he says. Yet still, we had to invent this game. So as we started any lesson, I would give her completely nonsensical instructions: touch your nose. Say "banana". I would have her stop the car for no reason so that she practiced stopping because I said "stop" instead of being stubborn and believing she had to be convinced. Another problem was communication. Through driving it became apparent how much communication we were NOT doing. I would say "slow down, slow down slow down, SLOW DOWN!" and she would not react. It was hard for me to believe, but she had difficulty perceiving speed, and what "slow down, meant. Since she never went too fast around a corner on a bicycle, the concept of going around a corner in a car too fast was beyond her. I agree with the peoople who have said there are things generally true about the philippines that make driving difficult to teach, like my wife not having a bicycle. She did not ride bumper cars at amusement parks. She rode jeepneys instead of growing up watching family members drive. That is a severe handicap relative to their american counterparts that do all these things. If you combine that with them now being prideful adults instead of kids more accepting of being instructed, it's a tough job. In my state the farm kids were driving various things at ten years old. The townies were driving at age 14. Most people of those ages are more inclined to follow what an adult tells them just because it is an adult speaking to them. When you are an adult, pride gets in the way. There are times when I have to say don't do anything: just keep driving. I want to talk to you about a situation that is going to arise in another mile. Otherwise the fact I have merely spoken causes her to react in panic. I have to get her to repeat back to me what it is I am saying correctly instead of having her say "Okay". "Okay" seems to be some kind of default answer that doesn't have any meaning. Lack of patience and focus was a problem. So again we had to commit to that at the start of lessons. Listening to an explanation of how to watch for a car approaching from behind while you are turning lanes takes more than two seconds. I am doing nothing wrong in requiring her to pay attention for more than two seconds. I would explain what the "blind spot" meant over and over again. But it is nothing she has experienced, and it takes more than two seconds to explain. So that took numerous attempts over two days. It wasn't until she could explain it back to me with good english that she really understood. So we practice that very thing: having her repeat back to me why we are doing things. Wow, I could not agree more as well with the amazing lack of geographical skills required for driving. My wife's school system sucked. She could not read a road or street map. She did not organize in her mind navigation by geography. She could not tell me the names of the major streets in her city. "north, south, east, and west" had no function for her. You get on the Tomas Cabili Jeepney. There is nothing else to know. So when you throw driving on top of learning directional geography for the first time, it compounds the stress. Good God the Filipinos also disobey most traffic rules. So stop signs, traffic lights, etc. are not going to sink in as rules to follow, whereas in the U.S. a passenger learns their meaning long before they ever become a driver.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-24 20:12:00
Philippines	Another foreigner killed.	There is also something going on with U.S. forces in the heart of the Autonomous Resgion of Muslim Mindanao that U.S. citizens traveling there should be aware of. After 9/11 the U.S. military returned to the Philippines after being successfully ousted by the citizens of the Philippines in the early 90's. One of the things we have done is establish both overt and covert operations in the heart of the capital city of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. This has naturally angered the muslim population. Back in 2008 the city council of the capital - Marawi - and its mayor issued a unanimous protest against U.S. military operations there: Marawi Protest But the operations have continued and there are some dark things going on. For example, a Philippine National named Gregan Cardeno had been hired to work for U.S. troops ostensibly as a translator in Cotabato in early 2010. But he was taken instead to Marawi City where he immediately made distress calls and texts to his family. He expressed both fear for his life and dismay over what he was clandestinely hired to do. But within two days of being hired – he was dead. His family is charging the U.S. military with a heinous murder while the U.S. is claiming suicide, and refusing to cooperate with the investigation. In July of this year the Philippine Court of Appeals ordered four U.S. troops and others in the Joint Special Operations Command to answer a “Writ of Amparo”, while the Supreme Court issued a Habeas Data Petition the month before: Court Orders Cooperation Some of the things we have become accustomed to with U.S. operations is that the family's inquiries found the official story failed to address “Gregan’s enlarged #######, the enlarged opening of his #######, and injuries on his head.” : Murder or Suicide? There were other injuries too. I don't know where this has gone since then but the upshot is this: U.S. military forces are engaged in both covert and overt operations on Mindanao that have and will continue to have the logical result of inciting reprisals by the most violent elements of seperatist factions there. We are probably assassinating people like we are everywhere else, doing "enhanced interrogation" etc. The larger picture on Mindanao is three-fold, really, and they are all inter-related. First is the ground troop presence and covert operations. Second, the largest fruit and vegetable company in the world owns vast acreage there operated by Dole Philippines, a subsidiary of the Murdock conglomorate, a U.S. California company. Some of the unrest in Cotobato region and elsewhere has to do with resentment against these enormous landholdings and worker's rights claims. Murdock of course likes both the U.S. and Philippines military to enforce his property holdings and since he never goes there himself there isn't much risk he faces from it. The third issue has to do with the U.S. Naval presence and the desire to re-establish a navy base to confront China over the Spratley Islands in the South China Sea. The U.S. navy has been giving money to the Philippines government for naval construction on Mindanao and landing ships there, doing exercises etc. Some of it is in that bay west of Davao. Some of it is over in Zamboanga. All of this has been protested by various groups and not just the rebels and seperatists. Women's groups, student groups and others. They aren't going to kill you for it, but the MILF, Abu Sayyaf, and others will. You can't be an ignorant fool when traveling on Mindanao. You need to understand the nature of anti-american sentiment and what regions in particular to avoid. We have added Iligan to our list of non-travel for now despite having a home there.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-10-24 09:57:00
Philippines	Another foreigner killed.	First, to Jimmynug I must concede that as a possibility. Yes. There just wasn't enough information in the story to say that. Apparently he cared about the poverty there and wanted to help. But human nature being what it is, there is still the possibility that a local felt he "stole" their girlfriend or made some kind of social offense. All I did once was smile at a young girl in a bright new dress that had gotten on a jeepney. In the USA the custom would be to smile and say hello. But she was muslim and wearing a veil. I suddenly reaized her father was looking at me with extremely hostile intent. I immediately yelled "lugar lang" (stop here) and got off. I had dropped my guard and was not paying attention. I made a social offense by looking at the daughter. What you say is true rlogan and to expand on it,you can't say that all of Mindanao is bad and the rest of the Philippines is all ok which is what a lot of people do. I don't mean you yourself but people in general. Filipinos at my work had a fuzzy notion of Mindanao with them calling it either Davao or the place where Muslims live. I actually know more about Mindanao then they do now. I felt as safe in Butuan as I did anywhere in the Philippines. But I am leery of visiting any of the rural areas on any of the islands. I used to travel through Mexico a lot and had the same feelings there. So what are your plans for the house in Iligan? Would this incident cause to consider possible options if it turns out to be a random attack on an American? Not so much this incident because in the time I have been married to my wife and built the house they have blown up the Maria Christina bridge, Jerry's Market, Unicity, and several times themselves by accident, all within a few kilometers of our house. The Maguindinao Massacre of 50 people was at the end of last year. Prior to that was the Superferry bombing killing 116 people. It has been yet more recently that I have come to understand how it was the group Abu-Sayyef of Mindinao that was most responsible for planning both the first and second attacks on the World Trade Center. The first was by Ramsey Youseff, who drove the truck and detonated the bomb in 1990. The second was masterminded by his Uncle Mohammed. The only thing Bin Laden did was provide funding and men. The nephew was captured in the Philippines when their explosives caught fire and burned their apartment down. Uncle Shiehk Khalid Mohammed fled to Afghanistan and posed the unfinished plot to Bin Laden. At the time it was called the Bojinka Plot. The nephew and Uncle had successfully blown up an explosive on a Japan Airline flight and were preparing to hijack 12 planes, running some into buildings and blowing others up. Their first attempt at the WTC in 1990 had not brought the towers down so they committed themselves to finishing that but with more spectacular add-ons. This is completely unknown to most Americans. But if you can point to a group that has been relentless about blowing up the WTC, it is Abu-Sayyef of Mindinao and not Bin Laden's Al Qaeda you should point to. All of this convinced me to look elsewhere for the long term in the Philippines. We spent a month on Palawan this year looking. I've been to Leite, Cebu, Mindinao, Palawan, Samar and before that all over Luzon by motorcycle and auto. I cannot find so far the right combination of things. Even in places I was told there wasn't much to worry about there were still dangers that do not make national news like this. In the Mountain Province and Kalinga Province of Luzon for example you still have "NPA" (New People's Army) operating and the same is true of many other places in the Philippines - Abu Sayyef, MILF, MNLF, NPA, XYZ - they're all over the place. Very true about the comparison to Mexico and many other third world countries. Edited by rlogan, 24 September 2010 - 09:07 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-24 21:06:00
Philippines	Another foreigner killed.	Iligan is where I built my house, and apparently where this killing took place. There's too little information to go on from this story. But there is a mixture of people there. Some feel very positively towards americans. Some hate them to the core. The ARMM (Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindinao) is nearby and there is a four-hundred year history of fighting against outside occupiers by the Moro people in particlular. There was a war fought by the U.S. against the Philippinos who wanted independence after the Spanish-American war. It was called the Philippines-American war (appx 1899-1902). The USA thought it could just take the Philippines as a right of military victory over the Spanish. Up to a million Filipino casualties in that war - some say more. The Moro people of Mindinao fought to at least 1913, and after that more or less fought continuously against the Philippine government. So with the Philippine government and American government now allies, that makes both the enemy of the independence-minded Moro people of Mindinao. At the same time other Filipinos faught alongside General Douglass MacArthur against the Japanese on Mindinao and remember the Americans for that. So in the Iligan area you have at the same time streets named after General Aguinaldo who fought against the Americans and for General MacArthur who fought with them against the Japanese. The Iligan area also has some of the most extreme poverty in the Philippines. You have stupid thuggery and blind ignorant bigotry to deal with at the same time you have a city with more than five colleges and a major university. There is heavy indistry alongside grinding rural subsistence poverty. The largest steel plant in SE asia, cement plant, food processing, a port - and people living in huts working for two dollars a day. You simply cannot make a sweeping statement about Filipinos being "friendly" or not, and most especially on Mindinao and specifically the Iligan area. The opinion of the Muslim Moro is opposite to the Catholic Nationalist Filipinos. It is an absolute necessity to know a lot about the area and to be around people who are going to look out for you in such a place. From one street to the next things can turn from being Mr. Popularity to Mr. Dead. Edited by rlogan, 24 September 2010 - 05:16 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-24 17:12:00
Philippines	CHEAP WAY TO SEND $$$ MONTHLY BACK HOME	Nice to know that, thanks. My wife is spending $7.50 with BPI remittance. Not sure what premium checking costs but we'll look into it. There is a Wells-Fargo in Fairbanks.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-10-24 08:35:00
Philippines	Learning my fiancee 's culture	Thanks for the well-wishes. It isn't my first broken bone. Over twenty years of combat sports has left me with a lot of them. This one is just a really bad set of commudal fractures on both tibia and fibia. The thing that I miss is hiking in the forest and all the wildlife. It is a little baffling finding the necessity to point out that the risks one assumes in Mindanao or anywhere for that matter vary considerably depending on which specific area one is talking about, how you conduct yourself, what events are transpiring at the time, etc. Even within a city there are vastly different micro-cultures, and again that would be true even within a U.S. City. Regardless, doing research before you go is paramount not just to your safety but also to your enjoyment and to the understanding of the people you will meet. There are a surprising variety of cultures, even on individual islands with different ethnic groups and languages. Sometimes the influence of the Spanish rule is dominant, and in some places like ARMM is is nonexistant. Some places view the U.S. as a dear friend, and others a mortal enemy - especially in areas of the heaviest fighting during the Phipippine-American War. The Moro people for centuries fought the spanish, the americans, the philippine government, and were never conquered by anyone. They have their own autonomous region on Mindano (the ARMM). Someone may have brought up the "quack doctors" already. I did a lot of jungle expeditions in South America and Asia where historically the shamans actually did have substantive knowledge of the healing powers in various plants and herbs. They had some very interesting hallucinogenic potions as well. But I have not found that to be true of the "quack doctors" I have encountered on the philippines. My wife's family has had them do some things I figure are harmless, and you need to choose your cultural battles wisely. So if they want to put a piece of lint on my son's forehead, well - so be it. I couldn't figure out where that was coming from at first. I removed it a couple of times before I saw my mother-in-law putting it back up there again. They were actually right about the medical profession being incapable of diagnosing or treating my wife's migraines. But their belief in the quack doctors was equally in vain. Ultimately our own research led us to the right diagnosis and treatment. Maybe there was a time when the quack doctors had substantive knowledge. My experience so far has been that it is the right name for them.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-18 02:10:00
Philippines	Learning my fiancee 's culture	You are reaching there, I think you might be a Conspiracy Theroy lover. You are not as skilled a manipulator as you believe yourself to be. You went through a lot of material and finally thought you might have a put-down to work with here if you could convince people I said something that I did not. In fact, you are pretending that the doubt I expressed is something you need to teach me. You are hoping to divert people's attention from the fact it is you that has very little knowledge of Abu-Sayeff, MILF, and other terrorist groups operating out of Mindanao and that Mindanao in particular is a place the State Department has very dire warnings about. Here is a travel ban news release for U.S. citizens on parts of Mindanao: http://www.abs-cbnne...-parts-mindanao The US State Department on Tuesday barred US citizens from traveling to the central and western portions of Mindanao as well as in the islands of the Sulu archipelago... The advisory said US government employees must seek special permission for travel to Mindanao or the Sulu Archipelago because of the heightened threat of kidnap-for-ransom gangs. It said some foreigners who reside in or visit Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago hire their own security. The advisory noted that a state of emergency remains in effect in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat, as well as Cotabato City, following the November 23 Maguindanao massacre. It said travelers should be aware of heightened police activity and significant military presence in these areas. “They should carefully research restrictions imposed upon travel and follow the instructions of government officials with regard to limitations on movement,” it said. I realize how much effort you are willing to expend in trying to stay in a one-up position on everyone. I would ignore it, but you've crossed a line where that has led to recommending suicidal actions to other people. If we combine posts of yours it is the recommendation to punch people in the face for some trivial slight on the island of Mindanao as if Americanos were invincible supermen there. There is a very long history here people need to be aware of including the inability of anyone - the Spanish, the Americans, the Philippine government - from subjugating the Moro people of Mindanao. An ignorant Americano following your advice may be unaware of this centuries-old armed conflict, but they aren't. When they see an Americano, they see something their fathers, their grandfathers, and their great-grandfathers from time immemorial have fought against violently - and prevailed. Experience gained from chasing bar girls in relatively safe enclaves is no substitute for serious study of history, or even a short read of state department travel advisories for that matter. You need to stop pouring so much of your resources into attempting a put-down on me. What was important to me here was how the blustering impacts people who may travel to Mindanao in the future, where the U.S. State Department has travel bans and dire travel advisories out for kindap-for-ransom gangs, terrorist bombings, and ongoing military battles with the Philippine government. There is also little doubt in my mind you know a lot less about the Oklahoma City bombing too, but your attempt to divert all of the attention there now is a product of the incessant need to try putting yourself in a one-up position with everyone. I'm not allowing that diversion. Mindanao is a very dangerous place for Americanos, and the degree of danger depends on where and also on how you conduct yourself. The U.S. State Department says Americans should keep a low profile and exercise extreme caution.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-16 14:48:00
Philippines	Learning my fiancee 's culture	Davao is nothing like huge swaths of Mindanao. The fact is both attacks on the WTC, the second on September 11, can be tied directly to Abu Sayyef, operating out of Mindanao. The ARMM, Zamboanga, and many other parts of Mindanao are extremely dangerous for foreigners. We go through five active military checkpoints just to go to the market where our house is. The guerillas blew up the Maria Christina bridge, which we cross, Jerry's market where we buy a lot of our canned goods, Unicity, and other places. Sometimes they blow themselves up instead of the target. In November of last year there was a massacre of 46 people, known as the Ampatuan Massacre in Maguindanao - that included journalists specifically targeted because of support for a politician running against the incumbent. There are at least three criminal kidnap-for-ransom gangs in operation on Mindanao: Abu-Sayyaf, MILF, and MNLF remnants - and this isn't all of them, nor are they operated with enough cohesion to put into effect permanent defeat of any of them. The old MNLF is what eventually successfully established the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) but it has not ended the violence by any means, and just like the IRA you have independent operators just calling themselves splinter-groups for convenience. Abu-Sayyaf blew up a superferry in 2004 killing 116 passengers because the owners refused to pay extortion. Abu-Sayyaf's most famous member was Ramsey Youseff - he bombed the WTC in 1990. By that I mean he drove the truck and detonated the bomb personally. There have been two bombings if the WTC. The first was this one by Ramsey Youseff in 1990. The second was masterminded by his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on September 11, 2001. Both nephew and uncle were responsible for planning what became the September 11 attacks on the WTC. At the time it was called the Bojinka Plot. They successfully blew up an explosive on a Japanese airliner as a trial run, but their apartment caught fire when some explosives got out of hand. Youseff was captured and imprisoned for the bombing of the WTC at that time. Uncle Khalid Mohammed fled to Afghanistan where he met with Osama Bin Laden of Al Qaeda to request funding for completion of the Bojinka Plot that had been interrupted. The Philippines National Police forwarded all of the computer files seized to the U.S., and anyone who has studied this knows the assertion there was no forewarning is complete poppycock. Bin Laden merely financed the completion of what Abu-Sayyaf had been doing for over a decade. The upshot is that the kind of people running the terrorist groups on Mindanao physically bombed the U.S. World Trade Center twice. They sink ships. They massacre political opposition. They blow up bridges, stores, easter parades, and sometimes themselves. They kidnap for ransom. They murder, extort, seize property, intimidate, etc. A common response to facts and sober analysis by blustering fools is that they don't have time for it. That isn't much of an answer. Some have pushed a link between the Oklahoma City bombing and Abu-Sayyaf too. Personally, there isn't enough in there for me to say. It is true that Terry Nichols went many times to Mindanao and was there when Ramsey Youseff was. This research came to light on account of the intense initial search for "John Doe Number Two" who was supposedly of Middle Eastern complexion, that was seen in the Ryder Truck with Tim McVeigh by multiple witnesses. Nichols helped McVeigh build the truck bomb. He got life in prison. Nichols had visited Philippines where Ramsey Youseff of Abu Sayyaf was operating - and he was a bomb construction expert. The witnesses seeing the "Middle Eastern" looking man with McVeigh then tied together a speculation that McVeigh, who had no bomb training or expertise, received help from Abu-Sayyef and Ramsey Youseff in particular in the Oklahoma City bombing. I'm just a nobody. But I strongly advise researching carefully anything you plan to do on Mindanao, or for that matter anywhere in the Philippines. Mindanao is the most heavily populated by terrorist groups. Traveling in some areas is suicidal. Sure, there are others that are far safer and Davao is one of them. But do not be talked into thinking Davao is "Mindanao" or base any of your expectations on other areas by what you find there. It is very foolish.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-16 01:23:00
Philippines	Learning my fiancee 's culture	Can't take a joke? What I can take is all the childishness you care to dish out. You left out "nya nya nya", but all the same level of maturity is there without it. I realize how vitally important it is in your world to self-declare these huge put-down victories. But most of the rest of us are engaged in adult conversation. That includes humor, but at a level rising above an elementary school playground. So yeah, I can take it. But as a little helpful advice - it isn't me who has to worry much about this kind of post.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-15 04:12:00
Philippines	Learning my fiancee 's culture	If that ever happen to me I would turn around and knock the dog$hit out of the person. You have to be pro active in Philippines. What I was taught if you are an American in Philippines and someone comes up to you and trys to start $hit with you, or they are acting funny. Then you need to immediately punch the person in the face as hard as you can. That's pretty retarded, frankly. I was a state wrestling champion and all-american when younger. I have black belts in both Judo and Tae Kwon Do, won a lot of state and regional titles in those, qualifying for nationals in both of them, and ran a business teaching them for my main income many years. I was also a state boxing finalist in two different states. In coaching I had three national records at the same time our team had the nation's longest winning streak. You may behave in whatever reckless manner you choose. But recommending it to others is where you cross a line I have to disagree with professionally. Professionally the problem with your approach is that one never knows where the knife, the gun, or the posse might be just waiting on your assault. All the other person did was harass you. You propose responding with violence - punching them in the face as hard as you can. Their (them, a friend, their posse) next response with fatal violence is justified, and you are a foreigner living in their country. We learn to always be aware of our surroundings in martial arts, and we learn to avoid rather than to strike out with pre-emptive violence. We learn to control our pride because it can kill us. The five tenets of Tae Kwon Do are: Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverence, Self-Control, and Indomitable Spirit. There is no place for the kind of reaction you are promoting, and my God it would be one thing for me to take on a street thug but another thing for Average Joe with absolutely no training. This is a professional approach and one I ran a business of, including an entire division within he PE department at the University of Iowa. My main training partner was Ned Ashton back then. He runs the program I started there now, both for the University and the club I founded. I am just a guy living off in a cabin in the woods now. There are times when you have to stand up to bullies. But the way you stand up to them is highly circumstantial and furthermore is rarely with the kind of response you have recommended. I've had to knock people out cold with a spinning backfist and I have had to simply endure harassment in order to buy my fish and go on about my business. The times I have responded with violence, and it is extremely rare, is when I was in a position of having no other choice. I had over 20 years competing against highly trained athletes. I have nothing to prove and plenty to lose by whacking a drunk. The kinds of threats I face on Mindanao are quite serious because our house is built very close to the border of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Dealing with that problem in the way you have described is literally suicidal. I keep a very low profile, and there have been times I have gotten off the Jeepney because my mere presence was offensive to a whole group of Muslims stepping on the Jeepney as it stopped in the Muslim section of Iligan. I cannot recommend strongly enough against what you have said. If it had been attended with something suggestive of humor, I would have ignored it. But it wasn't, and you have a strong theme of super-cocky talk running through your posting history. It may very well be a post you merely thought you could bait and needle people with. That's the whole point of toying with people. Their feelings and time are of zero value, annoying them is fun, and they deserve it because they are not as smart and sophisticated as your highness. But people on this forum are going to be over there and in the chance someone has read such things and takes them seriously then there is real risk of serious harm coming to them by adopting the attitude you are suggesting. Edited by rlogan, 14 September 2010 - 05:45 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-14 17:44:00
Philippines	Learning my fiancee 's culture	Thank you Tahoma and Pinay Wife. This is a great forum. It isn't excusable for me to be out of line with bad attitude. It is actually being a friend to me in pointing out when my attitude needs to be checked. The pain, drugs, and lack of sleep isn't an excuse but more of an explanation of why I am a little more in need of those kind of friends right now. "Hey Joe, Hey Joe" is a compliment if you are an American. If you were a German or from Italy or Hungry then I can see it would be a insult. Reading challenged. I did write very clearly I was speaking about taunting and bullying, which are never compliments. This is the incessant "hello Joe" stalking from an unemployed street thug who is following behind you yelling it loud enough for eveyone on the street to hear him, which is why he's selected such extreme volume. If you are with a family member they are very angrily telling him to leave you alone. If you step into a donut shop the manager chases the guy away. When you tell such a person "Ako Si Bob" they do not start calling you Bob. They just keep taunting you with "hey Joe, hey Joe" and continue stalking you. If you say "Maayong Buntag" they repeat it back two or three times in a derisive, mocking tone.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-13 19:57:00
Philippines	Learning my fiancee 's culture	Geez Robert...I thought Pinay Wife's post deserved a chuckle rather than a sermon. If nothing else, the devil emoticon at the end should have been a dead giveaway. My right leg was crushed and broken in multiple places, both the tibia and fibia. Two operations over two days, the first three and a half hours. The second an hour and a half. Bone grafts, plates, screws - I'm barely functioning, and don't mind admitting that. A lot of pain, a lot of pills, and not anything I can do except lay here. But the most I have slept in eight days is maybe an hour at most. So I apologize. I'm probably completely incoherent, but am trying to do something to make the time pass. Pretty miserable situation, but not a reaszon to impose on others...	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-09-13 03:33:00
Philippines	Getting married twice!!!!!!!!!!!!!	[/quote] Well since the time I oroginally started this.. she and I have talked this out and she now understands that once we register our marriage with the phillipine embassy here in the US then our marriage will then be recognized there as well.. and she is good with that.. btw thanks for your input.. and I totally agree! [/quote] Glad to hear you went this way. We couldn't get a Catholic Priest to do a non-official wedding in her city. We went to a bunch of them and they all said the same thing. We had not applied for the K-1 visa yet and told them that was our intention. To do the official marriage in the USA. But I lived three months with her in the Philippines beforehand. So we wanted to live together without the neighborhood being all abuzz that we weren't married in the eyes of God. So we went to three priests. Of the Catholic superstition. Nothing against superstitions in general. Just labellling accurately. And all of them said no. I can't say there aren't any priests that will "marry" fiance's and have them still be legally fiance's - but we went to three. They would do official wedding ceremonies only, with signing of licenses, which we were not going to do on account of it would require us to lie on the k-1 visa. We weren't going to do that. Sounds like BRB is getting more or less the same thing done that we wanted to do - an unofficial wedding but in a church. But his is after-the-fact and maybe that matters in this particular superstition. Is it the sex before official marriage that's the problem? So... since three Priests in a row said no, we had our own Visayan ceremony with her father officiating. In Visayan form and language. But not in a church.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2009-11-10 01:18:00
Philippines	I got Pink Last Night	QUOTE (Pinay Wife @ Nov 9 2009, 03:58 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Am I the only one who didn't get the joke here? C'mon guys, let us in on the joke. What's so funny about getting the pink last night? I'll be waiting..... You get this from people that know some petty acronym or code-word the "in" crowd has command over, but you don't. Like it is some great accomplishment of theirs. Whatever.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2009-11-10 00:18:00