I lived in the Philippines nearly 4 years, and traveled around this country on a motorcycle. When I first arrived, I thought: If this is the Philippines, this country is not for me.
The village or city where I arrived was Puerto Galera, on Mindoro Island, I remember having to step over dead animals more than I enjoyed.
It was noisy, polluted, crowded, and dirty…….and the beaches weren’t even spectacular.
Then after my culture shock and jet lag had subsided, I decided to move and travel through the country, first by public transport, later I got my drivers license and I bought a motorcycle and travelled along the Pan Filipino Highway and later whole of the Visayas area.
I learned to love the country, the people, and understand the culture, and once away from the overrated American hotspots and tourist areas I saw the real Philippines. Which I appreciated much more.
With the change of the president, after the elections, things deteriorated fast in the countryside. Although he (Duterte) promised work, salary increase and better living conditions, I saw nothing of that. Mismanagement, corruption and shootings became frequent happenings and the hatred towards foreigners started to grow under the President's love and hate towards the US.
What also increased were the amounts of SUV in pure road rage and the amount of karaoke machines in open-air bars going on 24/7.
I lived on a small island, that got swamped by Chinese developers that bought all the beaches and made the private property. Frequent brownouts due to lack of power when all the tourists switched on the water heater and aircon, and lack of water because hotels came first over locals in all supplies and infrastructure. This grew worse and worse. (remember the closing of Boracay Island? To finally reinforce its infra because it was failing?)
I did a visa run to Kuala Lumpur, and I had a culture shock all over again. I realized how easily I had adapted to the poverty, the lack of choice in good fresh food, the international cuisine which is lacking in the Philippins unless you live in tourist areas or big cities. The intolerance…….the greed.
It was a shock realizing that I, who wanted to move to paradise and live a happy life filled with beaches, sunset and better quality than I could afford in the Netherlands had scaled down so much. So incredibly much without realizing. I mean, by lack of good proper clothing in my size and to my liking I even bought Ukay Ukay.
That visa-run opened my eyes.
Needless to say I left the country where children still die because of the lack of clean water, where people nod yes as they say no, where rats are part of daily life and every dog seems to have scabies. Where children have no future and the middle class (WHO DOES EXSISTS!!) get more greedy every day even at the cost of their own poor people. The endless polutions and commerce not recognizing that they created the problem by producing everything in 1 person packages that literally where everywhere in nature as garbage, including the lost flip-flops, empty bottles and dirty diapers. The country where companies like Del Monte make profit over the backs of hard working poor people. The country where I had to burn my own garbage most of the time.
The Philippines for me was a confusing country, that I grew to love and to dislike.
Now I live in Mexico, I sometimes miss the Philippines, I guess we are wired to forget what annoyed us and remember what we loved. And that is how I want to remember the Philippines. As a country where the pace was slow, the people friendly (most of the time) nature is gorgeous and abundant, with the most gorgeous sunrises and sunsets I have ever seen.
You either love it or hate it……..
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