Yep. Pretty much all over the world....including USA. LOL.
My wife sat down on the couch next to me as I was flipping channels.
She asked, "What's on TV?"
I said, "Dust."
And then the fight started...
Posted on 12/27/2011 2:49:13 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Well, I’m not retiring to the Philippines, but there must be something about Filipinas. I recently attended a birthday party for one of my wife’s co-workers. The guy married a Filipina. At the party, I ran into two more ex-co-workers (I retired last month). They both had married Filipinas as well. The birthday boy’s Filipina wife had made some treats from the Islands. Pretty good chow.
Yeah. For my $$, he went on too long about the cheap booze and young women. Every now and then I read Expat profiles on various “retirement heavens”. The Phillipines is one. Some of the profiles echo what he says. But others talk about the fact that many Fillipinos hate Americans, the women are great—until you marry them, the healthcare is substandard, the streets are dirty and people think nothing of pissing in public. And lots of crime. Not too appealing.
I’ll take a pass on moving there.
Terrorist Groups in the Philippines
Philippine terrorists demand $22,000 for kidnapped Australian
Al Jacinto and Lindsay Murdoch
December 28, 2011
Kidnapped Australian Warren Rodwell.
Ransom: Warren Rodwell.
THE kidnappers of Australian adventurer Warren Rodwell in the Philippines have demanded an initial ransom of about $22,600 - but his family there say they do not have the money.
There are four major terrorist groups active in the Philippines today: The Moro National Liberation Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Abu Sayyaf and the New People’s Army. The first three are Islamic groups that operate primarily in the south of the nation, where most of the country’s Muslim minority live. The Communist New People’s Army operates in the northern Philippines.
Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)
Emerging in the early 1970s, the MNLF sought an independent Islamic nation in the Filipino islands with sizeable Muslim populations. In 1996, the MNLF signed a peace agreement with Manila that created the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), an area composed of two mainland provinces and three island provinces in which the predominantly Muslim population enjoys a degree of self-rule. MNLF chairman and founder Nur Misuari was installed as the region’s governor but his rule ended in violence when he led a failed uprising against the Philippines government in November 2001. He is currently in jail and MNLF leader Parouk Hussin took over as ARMM governor in 2002. Nur Misuari reportedly still has a small band of followers who remain actively opposed to the current arrangement.
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
The largest Islamic extremist group in the Philippines, the MILF split from the MNLF in 1977 and continues to wage war against Manila. Headed by Islamic cleric Salamat Hashim, the MILF seeks a separate Islamic state in the southern Philippines. Although it signed a peace agreement with Manila in 2001, MILF-sponsored violence has continued. Manila accuses the MILF of responsibility for the March 2003 Davao City airport bombing that killed 21 people, and for harboring members of the small militant Pentagon gang accused of kidnapping foreigners in recent years.
The MILF has an estimated strength of 12,000 members.
Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) The smallest, most active and most violent Islamic separatist group in the southern Philippines, Abu Sayyaf (Bearer of the Sword) emerged in 1991 as a splinter group of the MNLF. Its founder, Abdurajik Abubakar Janjalani, was a veteran of the Islamic mujahideen movement in Afghanistan and was killed in a clash with Philippine police in 1998. ASG’s current head is thought to be Janjalani’s younger brother Khadafi Janjalani.
Abu Sayyaf engages in kidnappings, bombings, assassinations and extortion from businesses and wealthy businessmen. Most of its activities are centered in the southern island of Mindanao, but in recent years, the group has broadened its reach. In April 2000, ASG kidnapped 21 people,including 10 foreign tourists, from a resort in Malaysia and in a separate incident, abducted several foreign journalists and an American citizen. In May 2001, Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 20 people from a resort island in the Philippines and murdered several of the hostages, including American citizen Guillermo Sobero. In June 2002, U.S.-trained Philippine commandos tried to rescue three hostages being held by Abu Sayyaf on Basilan island.Two of the hostages, including American citizen Martin Burnham, were killed in the resulting shootout. Philippine authorities believe that the ASG had a role in the October 2002 bombing near a Philippine military base in Zamboanga that killed three Filipinos and a U.S. serviceman.
In February 2004, Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility for a Philippine ferry fire, but at this writing, Philippine authorities doubted the claim.
The group finances its operations primarily through robbery, piracy and ransom kidnappings. Both the MNLF and MILF condemn Abu Sayyaf’s activities. Philippine forces have apprehended a number of Abu Sayyaf terrorists. Most recently, in December 2003, Philippine soldiers captured senior Abu Sayyaf commander Ghalib Andang, a.k.a. Commander Robot. Andang is suspected of involvement in the April 2000 kidnapping of Western tourists in Malaysia.
Today, Abu Sayyaf is composed of several semi-autonomous factions with an estimated cadre of several hundred active fighters and about 1,000 supporters.
New People’s Army (NPA)
The NPA is the military wing of the Communist People’s Party of the Philippines (CPP). Founded in 1969 with the aim of overthrowing the Philippines government through guerrilla warfare, the NPA strongly opposes the U.S. military presence in the Philippines and publicly expressed its intent to target U.S. personnel in the Philippines in January 2002, warning that any American troops who enter their stronghold areas will be considered “legitimate targets.” The NPA primarily targets Philippine security forces, politicians, judges, government informers and former NPA rebels. The NPA’s founder, Jose Maria Sison, lives in self-imposed exile in the Netherlands and reportedly directs operations from there.
Manila is committed to a negotiated peace settlement with the NPA but peace talks between the CPP and the Philippine government stalled in June 2001, after the NPA admitted killing a Filipino congressman. In September 2002, the NPA claimed responsibility for assassinating a mayor, attacking a police station and killing the police chief, and blowing up a mobile telecommunications transmission station.
The NPA derives most of its funding from supporters in the Philippines and Europe and from so-called revolutionary taxes extorted from local businesses. Together, the CPP/NPA has an estimated strength of over 10,000 members. have links with international terrorism, particularly with Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda. The MILF is suspected of training JI members at MILF training camps in the southern Philippines.
It is suspected that early funding and organizational support of Abu Sayyaf was provided by Osama Bin Laden associate and brother-in- law Muhammad Jamal Khalifa. In 1997, the U.S. State Department designated Abu Sayyaf a foreign terrorist organization.
In January 2002, Filipino police arrested Indonesian Islamic extremist Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, 31, a self-confessed member of Jemaah Islamiyah and an Al Qaeda explosives expert. Following his arrest, Ghozi led Filipino authorities to a large cache of arms and explosives in Mindanao and told a Filipino court that he planned to use the explosives for jihad attacks in Asia. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison. In July 2003, Al-Ghozi escaped from prison and in October 2003, Philippine forces tracked him down and killed him. In November 2003, the Philippines arrested Taufik Rifki, who reportedly admitted he was the financier for a Jemaah Islamiyah training camp in the southern Philippines.
Most recently, in February 2004, Filipino Jaybe Ofrasio, 31, was arrested in Belfast,Northern Ireland, and charged with funneling money to JI.
The U.S. designated the CPP/NPA a foreign terrorist organization in August 2002, and listed NPA founder Jose Maria Sison as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). Authorities in the Netherlands froze assets in his bank accounts there and cut off his social benefits.
My daughter, Seaman-Gunner Anoreth USCG, has been to several “popular” Asian and Latin American locales over the past couple of years. They could be summarized as hot, humid, unsanitary, crime-ridden, bug-infested, dangerous, and malodorous, with digressions into enormous and weird shopping malls and food poisoning.
However, booze was cheap, and for those who wanted Asian women (or something that looked like women), those were cheap, too, as long as your life is also cheap. (In Thailand and Indonesia, her shipmates relied on her to identify the not-female.)
The only place she really liked was Singapore, which has a large English-language naval presence, and Panama was okay.
Dude says that the gets a lot of good stuff for not much money but he says that that’s not the main reason that he’s happy. His biggest win is finding a culture that he can feel comfortable fitting in with. I take him at his word and I say good for him. However, the fallacy contained herein, if there is one, is that some other person would find the culture an equally good fit. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t.
Yep. Pretty much all over the world....including USA. LOL.
My wife sat down on the couch next to me as I was flipping channels.
She asked, "What's on TV?"
I said, "Dust."
And then the fight started...
I hate humidity, which is why I can't imagine moving to Florida or other humid locations, despite that my husband and I have quite a few family members living there, as well as Georgia.
So because of 9/11, the shoe bomber, Black Panthers, eco-terrorism, the DC shooters, Fast & Furious, domestic violence, high crime in many cities and Mexican cartels, no one should think about re-locating to the United States?
Being happy here is all in attitude and ability to adjust
to third world life.
It is not for everyone, and as with most tropical “paradises” is rarely equal to the travel brochures.
January will start my fourth year here on Cebu (NOT THE CITY)
I would never consider living in a large city here, and not even on Luzon.
True, one can live on less then $1000 per month, and still have creature comforts such as A/C, satellite TV, DSL or cable internet, and western style features.
Keep in mind, non-citizens can not work or own property here, so the expat population is mostly older people with a pension. I live on my social security which comes by direct deposit to my bank here.
If you are young and wealthy, all the better.
When I left the USA in 2004 to become an international person, I left with nothing more then a suitcase, leaving behind not just a house, but an entire two story school building full of possessions and plenty of junk.
I really do not miss any of it.
I started out in central Europe for the first five years, but after a one month exploratory trip to the Philippines in August 2008, and spending that month with each of four young ladies, I decided this would be for me and my senior years.
I now live on a beach, in a fine small town, with a sweet lady and our 10 month old baby boy.
www.dalaguete.gov.ph
Is he bullsh*tting in the article or does it seem pretty realistic to you? Of course, everyone’s mileage will vary, he’s in a bit of a different place than some other person, etc, etc. Maybe expound on medical care and food for us. Thanks!
I’m not a tropical-climate person, myself, and I especially don’t like large bugs. (You can have lizards to eat the bugs, but the lizards poop, attracting other bugs ...)
Anoreth said an American in Panama offered to sell her an AK-47 cheap because she was the cutest redhead in Panama City ;-). Flattering, I suppose, but not exactly your “peaceful daily life” sort of setting.
There are seven references in this article to living like a “king.”
This guy was just lonely and tired of working. And he resented that his years of labor didn’t make him rich, only comfortable. He was looking for a way to quit early — yet he STILL wanted to be rich — a ‘king.’
Since he couldn’t get rich and find a young hottie to marry him here, he’s moved to the Third World — the Valley of the Blind, where the one-eyed man is king.
Americans who don’t realize they’ve already won life’s lottery by being born here don’t deserve to be here. And we don’t need them.
Good. Riddance.
Good. Riddance.
I then considered the Phillipines and some central american countries but I am addicted to senior softball and volleyball and none of those countries have such a thing.........
So, for now, I'm stuck here in the cold, snowy S.E. Michigan
I haven't seen Anoreth lately. How is the cutest redhead in Panama City doing? :)
>>Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
AHAHAHAHAH!
They are a big problem. We have units (US SF) working with the Phillipine Army in counter-terrorism - one-in-a-while it makes the papers over here, so it's probably ten times worse.
Hanging around home with the greyhound (see tagline) until the end of this week, when she’ll be heading up to Cape May to do something with her newly-minted Gunner’s Mate rating. Can’t have a dog in base quarters, but if she puts a dish of food on her doorstep, she’ll soon have catz ;-).
She’ll miss the new baby, which isn’t due for another couple of weeks.
Shakeys still exists somewhere in this world?
Your description of the author’s motivation for moving may be accurate - I don’t know. Having said that, I suggest you are not giving some ex-Pats due credit. Many are leaving because they have seen the destruction of what was once a great nation, and they choose to fight that battle from afar (which can be done now thanks to technology).
Many of the things that made America great are now more abundant elsewhere.
“no one should think about re-locating to the United States?”
I can carry a firearm outside of my home in the U.S.
Phillipines
PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 1866
Section 3. Authority of private individuals to carry firearms outside of residence.
a. As a rule, persons who are lawful holders of firearms (regular license, special permit, certificate of registration or MR) are prohibited from carrying their firearms outside of residence.
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