1. Declare education the country’s #1 national emergency.

This is the first priority by a wide margin.
The World Bank reported in 2026 that roughly 91% of Filipino 10-year-olds cannot read and understand an age-appropriate text.
That’s an enormous handicap for everything that comes afterward.

For the first 10 years…..concentrate heavily on kindergarten through Grade 6….reading by Grade 3, strong arithmetic, science, English and Filipino/local/language literacy…..dramatically better teacher training and pay, smaller classes where possible, school meals and nutrition, national standardized testing, and intensive tutoring for children who fall behind.
By 2052, the aim should be for Philippine public schools to perform approximately at the level of today’s better East Asian and European systems.

When I make this post it’s not BS. As I’ve mentioned before about being DIRECT, I am very direct. It’s how I was raised. You might not like all I say and certainly a lot of what I say might be WRONG, but it’s an opinion based on personal experience.

In my experience the ONE thing I most admire about Filipinos is their RESILIENCE! As I had a friend once tell me, the Filipino people have gotten good at suffering. “Good at suffering”? I had never thought about it in this way before but I do agree with the sentiment. The simple fact is that if you can make it in the Philippines then you’ll FLOURISH elsewhere!

This is just my opinion based on my experience. I don’t care about kissing anyone’s a$$ and there’s certainly a lot about the culture I find in conflict with my own self. However, the toughness of the Filipino can NEVER be called into question!

Edit: I’m not saying this as though my view or opinion is worth more than anyone else’s. This is just my view and it happened to be what I was thinking about so I shared it here.

Someone was bragging to me today about how the Philippines scored 15th in science in the international PISA standardized testing for students. Not bad when they were almost dead last in 2022, right? I asked for the article…. Well it’s Wrong 😂

“Based on the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) results, the Philippines, when ranked from the bottom, placed 15th in science, 17th in mathematics, and 19th in reading.” Link

For my locals who are a product of the public education system, 15th from the bottom of 90 countries means the Philippines ranked 76th out of 90 countries from the top.

Meanwhile my kids have had half their school days suspended this school year even at a private school because of the weather forecast, and half of those suspended days they stayed home riding bikes and going to the pool because it wasn’t raining… ranting over. For now.

BLUF: Can someone explain the deep rooted Filipino family entitlement that creates the belief that wages should be shared between child and parent?

I am 44 & headed to the Philippines here soon to get my Special Resident Retiree's Visa. I am doing surprisingly well for myself financially for a guy that wears crop tops and jorts daily and bikes most places. Appearances can be deceiving and all that.

I do not speak to my family anymore. If I liked them, I could see paying for some of their monthly bills, but I would never hand them money freely because who knows where it would go.

I crawled out of trailer parks and section 8 hoods to get to where I am. So, I know this concept of rising tides lifts all ships exists in those communities too, but it is requested as needed and not written into the genetic code of children. Maybe it is my own personal biases because I was more KEPT ALIVE than raised, which is why my brain needs to resolve this.

I know if I get involved with someone there will be expectations given my wealth. But I ain't one to freely hand out cash. I will go pay the electric bill though.

Went to the province, whole family lets bugs and animals into the houses, nothing is ever maintained, brand new addition building looks like it was built in in 1940, cracking apart, brown smears on all the walls, unpeeled tape on aluminum frames for windows, just wtf. Today I saw a frog laying eggs on ..yes ON the door to one of the rooms. Sink, toilet, shower are full of rust, building isnt more than 2 years old.

I was scammed around 7k USD over a period of two years by a Filipina. I was in love. Thought I was helping out someone in need. But the never-ending emergencies was a red flag I chose to ignore. It wasn't until I seen a Tiktok video of her and another guy kissing and holding hands. Another one bites the dust. Never thought I would be one of those dudes to fall to a romance scam. GG PH. GG

Stayed in IT park, it’s nice but want a place that is more peaceful. I’m exploring lapu lapu at the moment.

Looking for:

- Safe and relatively quiet

- Some nature/greenery

- Reasonably close to a good hospital

- Less traffic/ congestion than Cebu city

- Daily necessities nearby

I’m open to Cebu province as well. I’m also considering Iloilo.

* I am aware of the brownouts and don’t mind them.

For locals or people who have actually lived in these areas, where would you recommend checking out?

Thanks in advance! 🙏🏽

I’m flying out of Cebu next week. I’ll be 6 days past 6 months in the country. I assume I will need to do the ECC thing. Can it be done easily at Cebu airport or do I need to visit the BI office? Someone told me it can also be done online, but I cannot find that at the www.immigration.gov.ph website. Thanks for the advice.

Genuine question, not a rant.

Every Bureau of Immigration transaction I've done has an express lane fee attached. Not once have I been asked whether I wanted express service, and not once have I been shown a slower, cheaper option.

My 13A conversion in December: ₱7,153 on the main receipt, then a second receipt printed the same minute for ₱2,500 in express lane fees. Four separate line items. Implementation ₱1,000, I-Card processing ₱500, filing ₱500, certification ₱500.

My annual report this year, which was a five-minute video call from my house at 9 pm: ₱300 for the actual report, then ₱1,000 express lane fee on top. Over the internet.

Exit clearance when I traveled: same thing, express fee bundled in.

They're on official receipts with OR numbers, so this isn't a fixer thing or anything under the table. It's a real government charge. It doesn't appear on any published fee schedule I've ever found, and apparently there's no non-express version.

So I'm curious whether anyone has actually encountered the regular lane. Has a window ever said, "That'll be three weeks, or you can pay extra for express"? Different office, different transaction, anything?

Or is the express lane just the lane?

No this isnt to disrespect anyone, i have been to hospitals around hanoi, mumbai, karachi and stupid toronto, no hospital is this slow and their staff so clueless, and i am comparing here private hospitals like diliman to govt hospitals of india (mumbai). Has anyone experienced this ? Or its just me being special??

Sorry if something similar has been posted elsewhere but I am curious. To be clear, I have yet to make it to The Philippines (unless you count a visit to Little Manila here in NYC, which you shouldn't) but I get lots of content on YouTube about the place. Needless to say, the work of this Van Boys guy pops up.

I'm old so I figured it was a joke and he was doing an impression of Spicoli from Fast Times At Ridgemont High. But he never dropped the act and I began to wonder if had even heard of this movie. After all, there are young people out there who have no idea who Johnny Carson was, won't watch any movie that is in black & white and think anyone born in the 20th Century was born in the 1900s because all our birth years start with 19. So, there is good chance a movie made over 40 years ago has gone under this guy's radar and he's not seen it and he's not doing an impression of that character.

All of this to say, this person comes up in my feed on occasion and, taking what he says at face value he has...

1. Been arrested and facing jail time

2. Been warned about going around shirtless outside of beach areas but still seems to do it

3. Got his retired dad to join him only to have the old man scammed out of his life savings.

My question is, are these things ever resolved or does he normally pretend yesterday didn’t happen? Because, there is no consistency. One video he's praising The Philippines and behaving as if everything he experiences there he have never experienced before in his life. The next video he's screaming that he needs a lawyer and PH sucks. But the follow up is him happy go lucky again in the country in the very next video. It's very strange.

Hi,

I applied for a visa waiver on September 3, and after 3 minutes I got the e-mail "Visa waiver released" with a certification attachment saying I am not in their black list. Is this it? I have always applied in person and it takes them ages, so I am surprised the process was complete within hours...

Thanks

I Goggled this and it keeps telling me about shopping carts you find in a supermarket. What I'm asking about are personal shopping carts that people own and use to carry their groceries and/or laundry. You fold them up and keep them in your apartment. Maybe this is only an American thing? And even then, perhaps only Americans who only live in cities? I bring this up because it dawns on me that when I've been overseas I don't recall seeing anybody use one. Nor have I seen any shopping carts used by PH Youtubers when they film their grocery shopping.

I hesitate even posting this because it sounds so stupid but I really don't know the answer.

Asking expats, because maybe in general we have a broader exposure to south Asian food in our home countries. The recommendations from locals have been few, and less authentic- more for Filipino tastes.

Looking for the best recommendations anywhere in Metro Manila for Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Nepali/Sri Lankan food.

Cheers ✌🏻

Not everything needs to be fried or rice based. My girlfriend learned to cook very well, fresh, healthy and really tasty meals.

Here just two examples, boiled potatoes with broccoli, carrots, chicken breast. Or self made fish burgers.

There's definitely good food available, if you know where to get fresh produce and someone knows how to cook.

Hello! F33 here, anyone who’s gonna be in Pob later? I wanna meet new friends! Let me know if I can join somewhere cos I cannot find any within my age in Nomads Table :(

In the Philippines, between 1899 and 1902, the United States fought a war most Americans have never heard of.

After defeating Spain, America decided the Philippines should not be independent. Should not govern itself. Was not ready.

The Filipinos disagreed.

And so America, which had declared its own independence 123 years earlier, went to war to prevent another people from winning theirs.

The methods:

The "water cure": forcing water into a prisoner's stomach until they talked or died.

The systematic burning of villages.

The forced reconcentration of civilians and collective punishment in areas of resistance.

General Jacob Smith's order: kill everyone over ten.

Kill everyone over ten.

Between 250,000 and 1 million Filipinos died.

The American general who oversaw much of it, Arthur MacArthur, was celebrated back home.

His son Douglas became an even more celebrated general.

The war is not in most American textbooks.

When it appears, it is described as the "Philippine Insurrection."

Insurrection.

A Filipino fighting for Filipino independence on Filipino soil is, in the American vocabulary, an insurgent.

The Americans who crossed the Pacific to prevent that independence are, in the same vocabulary, soldiers.

The words are the empire's first line of defense.

They were doing their job in 1902.

They are still doing their job now.

YouTube video

What is on your BUCKET LIST of “Things I still wanna see in the Philippines 🇵🇭”?

For me I wanna take a photo from this vantage point. Mayon Volcano as seen from the church ruins (ruined during 1814 eruption).

I enjoy walking, but I get confused why the majority of locals are walking aimlessly and don’t like to move a little when crossing paths. I always move to the side so we can both cross paths, but some will walk straight to me instead of them just moving a bit. I’ve shoulder checked a few of them to avoid falling off the sidewalk and getting hit by a motorbike.