Before I answer this one, it is necessary to dispel a myth put around by disreputable online dating sites about Filipinas (and, for that matter, equally the women of China, Thailand, and the rest of South East Asia, Russia, various African, countries and every other developing country from where women seek unions with Western men). There is a tale peddled regularly that women of these countries are “more traditional and respectful” than Western women, that they want the opportunity to be an obedient wife, child-bearer-and-rearer, and housemaid. Men in the West often make the mistake of assuming that these more traditional women in the developing world will accept a much more 19th Century life than American, European et cetera women will, but in fact, most of these women are often looking to avoid men with that kind of attitude in their own countries and want to have a bite of the same liberated cherry that western women enjoy.
Filipino feminism is very different from that in other countries, the Philippine labour market (in certain industries at least) is much more equal than in some similar places, and women are a significant force in the workplace where they do have strong opportunities for promotion and personal development; this is largely due to necessity because the country has many economic issues, so even though women are not always treated well, they also don’t take much shit from the men in their lives, be they husbands, boyfriends or bosses. Erase from your mind any notion of subservient, obedient slaves - they expect respect.
Now, what is a Filipina really like?
The positive stereotypes are largely true. Friendly, yes, loyal, yes - as long as loyalty is well-reciprocated, kind, and helpful - definitely, and they do tend to be very accomplished at taking care of their figures.
DISCLAIMER: What follows are not, if you yourself are a decent human being, bad points; they are cultural differences that a Western guy needs to be aware of when entering into a relationship with a Filipina.
One important thing to be aware of culturally is that Filipino men and women can be very melodramatic in nature, and often appear to be making mountains out of molehills by our standards, so be prepared to either be patient or to have some blazing rows.
Filipinos are also very jealous people, which again I believe to be a symptom of the culture rather than a part of it. The Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country, and one that is second only to the Vatican itself in terms of is close adherence to dogma; however, the nation’s Catholic piety is a rather thin veil beneath which promiscuity and adultery are just as rife as they are elsewhere.
There is great pressure from Filipino society to marry and have families, which many do at young ages and often somewhat naively ignorant to the realities of a life partnership, making for a great many broken families - if you are becoming romantically involved with a Filipina, be aware of her status because she may have been married already, and even if separated for some time, still legally married. Divorce still is not a legal concept here, and annulment is a lengthy and expensive process mired in bureaucratic difficulty, and she won’t be able to get a visa to join you in your country without that annulment being done and dusted; and if you choose to live in the Philippines with your new partner, you would not get any legal status as her partner until you are able to marry, so you would need to comply with tourist visa rules and be fiscally self-sufficient, or work and keep up the potentially expensive process of maintaining an annual work permit - some employers might help you with this, but usually only if you fill a special need that they can’t find in the population at large.
Once in a relationship, and especially once married, you will learn that Filipino families stick together tightly, and you will be expected to help out from time to time. Make sure that you are comfortable with this from the outset, and set boundaries. Any good son-in-law will support his wife’s parents in bad times, and since you are Western and she is Filipino, they will have more bad times than you might be used to. Early in your relationship, you need to agree on what you are comfortable with in terms of how much you can afford to help (remembering, of course, that you have your own family too) and how much you are willing to help. Helping the parents is fine, but don’t allow yourself to become an ATM machine for your siblings-in-law or the extended family, both of you need to set and agree expectations from square one.
Trust is often an issue in relationships with Filipinas. Filipino men do not have to fear anything from the ‘child support’ that we have in the West, they can get a woman pregnant, walk away and never see her or the child again without fear that the government will dip their pockets; and so they often do. Your Filipina girlfriend or bride might come to you with a certain amount of relationship baggage, and might not find it too easy to totally trust you. With the exception of those who work in Western environments, like the call-centre industry, they will also be less familiar and certainly less comfortable with the fact that your friends are around fifty percent split along gender lines, be prepared for her to review your Facebook friends, Instagram and Twitter followers et cetera and frequently ask questions like “Who’s she? How long have you known her? How did you meet her? Have you dated her?”. If you are serious about your relationship with your Filipina partner, you will take some of this in your stride at first, assuming it to be the normal process of getting to know each other, but it's important to take control of this situation as soon as you notice it otherwise it does become emotionally draining. My own wife still sometimes asks “Who’s that” when she sees my Facebook or Instagram, but we’ve had long conversations about how hurtful the apparent lack of trust is, and she now makes the effort to ask me without the usual Filipino melodrama, and I meet her halfway by always explaining who the person is in detail - and I have made a special point of introducing her to my close and regular friends so that she knows them too.
One final thing you might have heard from other Westerners who have visited the Philippines, or even who live here. Filipinas are easy lays, right? Well, the answer to that question is both “yes” and “no”, and how much yes and no depends completely on what kind of human being you are. Let me remind you that the Philippines is a largely Catholic country, and the vast majority of its people profess deep religious views and care a lot about their public image. The concept of casual sex as we know it in the West is very rare in the Philippines. Yes, it might sometimes be easy to persuade a Filipina into bed, but she will have more on her mind than just tonight, and probably already sees a relationship developing with you, so if you are not a complete arsehole, you will make your intentions clear before going to bed if you don’t see the same thing.
There are, of course, people available on an hourly or nightly basis in certain areas, these will make themselves known (you will probably know anyway because you will be in a place where the light is metaphorically red); but there are also, in certain places frequented by foreigners, girls who blur the line between the prostitutes and those who hope to be brides - they might just have a romantic interest in you (such bonds are formed quickly here) and hope for the best, so spend a lot of time with you on your trip and enjoy your hospitality, maybe she does this regularly to supplement her income (even the very pious can have flexible limits when money is very tight), but be aware that you are swimming in rather murky waters. If you do meet a Filipina in this kind of circumstance, don’t assume that open-mindedness will continue once a relationship becomes ‘official’, it won’t. No Filipina will tolerate you being a bad boy within the confines of a full relationship.
Finally (really finally, this time), if you meet a Filipina online, it stands to reason that she has chatted online with other men just as you have no doubt chatted online with other guys. There is a very particular set of Western men that trawl the free dating sites and apps, and they are very similar to those men who come to the Philippines as sex tourists looking for cheap and temporary thrills, in other words, those looking for the particular brand of western casual, uncomplicated sex that doesn’t truly exist in Asia; and there is a very real chance that your girl has encountered a number of these. She may have even done things online that she isn’t proud of. This does not make her ‘easy’ just as I mentioned above when I talked about the apparent ease of getting some Filipinas into bed, it is more likely to mean that she has mistaken the behaviour of ‘those’ kinds of men online to be normal in the west and assumed that flashing one’s body or even putting on sex acts during video calls is the standard expectation.
I have written this lengthy answer for two purposes:
- To make men hoping to date and/or marry Filipinas aware of the cultural differences that you will encounter, in the hope that you will treat the women you encounter with the respect that they deserve - do this and your chances of finding a good wife are excellent.
- To get the message out to Filipinas that the behaviour that they encounter from some Western men, both those men making temporary visits to the Philippines and those prowling the free online dating sites and apps, is not real life as it usually occurs in the West, it is not “the norm”; and that when a western man tells you that western women are disrespectful, demanding or “gold-diggers”, what he means is that western women won’t tolerate his misogynist bullshit - so take good care of yourself in this arena, you may meet your handsome prince, but you’ll encounter many toads on the journey.
Ladies of the Philippines, if you truly want to date and marry a Western guy, find a dating website or app that is free to you but in which the Western guys pay a subscription. This isn’t a sure-fire way to avoid the toads, but it will make the chances of finding the princes statistically better.
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