My move to the Philippines

[Backfromthedead]

Do they still shoot people for smoking weed over there?

 

[Jexnell]

Do they still shoot people for smoking weed over there?

Not so sure about shoot, but it is majorly illegal. If arrested they can UA you and if in your system, fines or jail time. No form of it is legal, medical or otherwise.

 

[Backfromthedead]

Not so sure about shoot, but it is majorly illegal. If arrested they can UA you and if in your system, fines or jail time. No form of it is legal, medical or otherwise.

Not a dealbreaker i suppose, but geez i wish they would lighten up a bit. I'll bet theres a decent reason they are so hard on drugs in general though.

 

[Jexnell]

Any of the Panamanian or Costa Rican Amatitlania, or related cichlids should be OK with 80s year round.
But I would think a Philippine biotope tank could be quite interesting.
I'll bet the fish market might be an interesting source of ideas.
If you google fresh water fish of the Philippines fish base has a great list.
The 1st fish on the list below cracked me up.
And if you scroll down, there is a snakehead there, said to reach only about 8"

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...sQFnoECEYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Pw6mQBzaW7XZgCsebrfut

That's the thing, having a Filipina wife, she will eat any of the local fish. Looked up native fish, found a neat one, Maya Maya. Asked her if I had it in our tank would she eat it and it was a most definite YES!

So I think I will stick to something non native, for the fishes sake.

 

[Jexnell]

Not a dealbreaker i suppose, but geez i wish they would lighten up a bit. I'll bet theres a decent reason they are so hard on drugs in general though.

It was Duarte, when he was president he was very hard on drugs and smoking cigarettes. A westerner was smoking in a restaurant before it was illegal and he said to him smoke the cigarette or smoke this bullet, your choice.

 

[Backfromthedead]

It was Duarte, when he was president he was very hard on drugs and smoking cigarettes. A westerner was smoking in a restaurant before it was illegal and he said to him smoke the cigarette or smoke this bullet, your choice.

Yes its always been storied here that there were vigilantes that would execute people in the streets on behalf of law enforcement, hence my earlier query.

 

[Jexnell]

Yes its always been storied here that there were vigilantes that would execute people in the streets on behalf of law enforcement, hence my earlier query.

It's not like that now. Here in Davao you have the military everywhere. So it's actually one of the safest cities in the Philippines now. And yes they are armed with m-16s ready to stop anything out of line. Nice enough though, they always return greetings but always have the eagle eyes looking for trouble.

 

[Jexnell]

It's quite weird in a way. Every store, restaurant has an armed guard at the door. Opening it for the customers, to make thier presence know I am guessing.

 

[Milingu]

It's quite weird in a way. Every store, restaurant has an armed guard at the door. Opening it for the customers, to make thier presence know I am guessing.

From what i have seen there is also a lot of competition for guard jobs. Do you want to keep your job as a guard? Better be as useful to the employer as possible. Opening the door is just an extra service.

 

[dogofwar]

I have a friend who retired to Colombia (Medellin) and after a couple of years moved to Uruguay about a year and a half ago. He really likes both but found the tax and healthcare situation in Uruguay better...although Uruguay is significantly more expensive. The key is living pretty simply: no car, small apartment and live (mostly) like a local.

Here in Panama, we gringo men are not considered exotics, but when compared to the average Panamanian, we are fairly well off.
And because most gringos move here to retire, we are just a temporary bump in the road for women half our age.

When I was considering countries to move to, beyond the economics, and warm weather, I was equally concerned with the fish I could collect, and since Im basically a one trick pony as far as cichlids go, the southern new world was the easiest option,
I visited Mexico ( a little sketchy these days), Costa Rica (a bit expensive) so my favorite other spots were
Madagascar, Uruguay, and Panama and turned out to be my preferred options.
Madagascar was a bit too remote for my sense of adventure, and the language barrier seemed it might be a major obstacle.

This left Panama and Uruguay, because I had had some rudimentary spanish way back when.
After taking a few trips to Panama, Taboga seemed to hold the most promise.

And because Panama also uses the US dollar as currency, and the Jubilado perks also helped, a normal ATM is user friendly here.

I still want to check out Uruguay at some point, but as my odometer continues to turn over, time and its ravages may become more and more, of an issue.
View attachment 1540155