A response. The Philippines is in SE Asia. They offer the SRRV visa which is permanent residence for life. It requires a bit of annual maintenance by paying a fee, but that's it. So your conspiracy theory of how Asean nations view retired expats is interesting, it may or may not be true, and doesn't apply to all. On your general point that the doors are closing, I can only comment on retirement visas and also nations that offer non-retirement visa paths. NO! The doors are NOT closing. That is BS. It is true that there is a trend (though not universal) to raise financial requirements and in some cases adding some annoying non-money policy changes, by and large they can be explained by normal adjustments for cost of living and inflation. For example Nicaragua raised their requirement from 600 USD a month to 1000 a month. Then there is Panama which is very often on the top of international lists for their benefits packed retirement visa (PERMANENT RESIDENCE) offer. It sits at 1000 USD a month as it has been as long as I can remember. Which is a bit off as you can't really live a decent expat life there for 1000 USD. Yeah they'll likely raise it someday but not to a level that would filter out middle class people.
