Foreigners' Feelings on La Filipinas

Because of the Shanghai trip, it was inevitable that we would be working with non-Filipinos (duh!). These weren't just the Shanghai Chinese who've been in China all there lives, but also white guys assigned to the company and Chinese how have been to the Philippines a few years back.

Believe me, the things that we rant about online, they also experience it. The white guy, for example, he's been in the Philippines long enough to get ticked off at the corruption under the benevolent gaze of the Empress. And he's not even Filipino! He acknowledges that there are levels of corruption everywhere. For example, back in his native land, there were investigations for suppliers taking out clients for dinner and games. If you were a Filipino reading this, you'd know that this is one of the mildest forms of pay-offs, people do worse things, and nobody gets caught for anything.

As for the Chinese guy who's been here, he recognizes that being Chinese in Manila can make you a target for kidnappings, that the white guys in Manila are usually poor while the Filipino Chinese are either the rich or the very rich. He was also appalled by all the guys carrying guns around, down to the security guns having 12 gauge shotguns. I've noticed here in Shanghai that not even the police carry guns; I have yet to see a member of the PLA, but overall, no guns around here.

It seems like a common occurrence when Filipinos are talking about our country to foreigners, that we tend to highlight all the bad things, like the crime, the poverty, the corruption, the weather, and what have you. I don’t know if it's because they're seeing something better (either through speaking to the foreigner or living in a foreign land or both), but stuff that a Filipino would take for granted at home would suddenly find release as long as an interested foreigner is willing to listen.

It's rather sad that only the foreigners seem to enjoy the republic of bananas, since whatever they have to go through (the traffic, the weather, the occasional harassment, etc.), their exchange rate is more than enough to compensate for their troubles and to actually bypass some of the worse aspects of living here (cramped and expensive homes, poor water, little healthcare). As for the rest of us living on Filipino income, we have to go through the whole experience, so it's pretty hard to enjoy the good life at times.