Philippines, Equivalent to TV ?

[AAArdvark]

Does anyone know if there is an equivalent forum for the Philippines to ThaiVisa?

[CharlieH]

The South East Asia forum has many Philiipines topics.

 

https://forum.thaivisa.com/forum/123-southeast-asia-forum/

[AAArdvark]

That is helpful.  The problem is there aren't enough  blogs.  I found quite a few but they look very commercial.  There was even one place the list 10 or 15 blogs and actually gave how many posts per month. They were  all pretty sad with something like 5 10 posts a month.  With TV, if someone burps there will be several pages.

That was a start but I will continue my search.

[madmen]

There is no where near the amount of expats in the Philippines compared to Thailand and with good reason. You wont find anything close to TV

[baansgr]

Unlike Thailand, there are far better things to do in Philippines, hence why the blogs have very few posts. Married guys actually do things with their wives rather than sit on a terrace in Issan on a computer as they can communicate more than gin kow, bi talat or bi nai.

[BritManToo]

47 minutes ago, baansgr said:

Unlike Thailand, there are far better things to do in Philippines, hence why the blogs have very few posts. Married guys actually do things with their wives rather than sit on a terrace in Issan on a computer as they can communicate more than gin kow, bi talat or bi nai.

I spent most of my time with my Flip gf in bed, after she finished work she just wanted to eat, sleep, bang.

[baansgr]

41 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

I spent most of my time with my Flip gf in bed, after she finished work she just wanted to eat, sleep, bang.

Exactly, far better than trolling forums.

[AAArdvark]

18 hours ago, madmen said:

There is no where near the amount of expats in the Philippines compared to Thailand and with good reason. You wont find anything close to TV

Despite the food, overweight women and a couple of other things, the Philippines does have a simple, reasonably cheap and no hassle retirement visa SSRV.   So, I guess there would be far fewer people to blog about the latest visa changes.

[BritManToo]

9 minutes ago, AAArdvark said:

Despite the food, overweight women and a couple of other things, the Philippines does have a simple, reasonably cheap and no hassle retirement visa SSRV.   So, I guess there would be far fewer people to blog about the latest visa changes.

Their VISA is like their women, cheaper to pay by the month.

[AAArdvark]

5 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Their VISA is like their women, cheaper to pay by the month.

Sorry I missed your point there?  I have attached the rules for retirement:

 

 

SRRV-Info-Guide-04.14.15.pdf

[BritManToo]

7 minutes ago, AAArdvark said:

Sorry I missed your point there?  I have attached the rules for retirement:

 

 

SRRV-Info-Guide-04.14.15.pdf 1.52 MB · 0 downloads

The point being you can retire there much cheaper just by paying monthly/two monthly extensions on a tourist VISA.

It's three years before you need to leave, then repeat.

The SRRV costs far more, $360/year plus huge application fee, plus locking up $10k+.

 

Even better, if you're married to a local, free 1 year VISA and you can work.

Edited May 17, 2019 by BritManToo

[AAArdvark]

34 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

The point being you can retire there much cheaper just by paying monthly/two monthly extensions on a tourist VISA.

It's three years before you need to leave, then repeat.

The SRRV costs far more, $360/year plus huge application fee, plus locking up $10k+.

 

Even better, if you're married to a local, free 1 year VISA and you can work.

OK, now I understand.  I want simple with no extensions, no ARC cards and no leaving, unless I want.  Leaving the country qualities aside:

With the SRRV I will gladly pay $360/year (I am single but even better with dependents).  So to me, investing $10K plus a one time $1.4K compared to locking up $25K plus extension fees etc. in LOS is a good trade off. There are some decent benefits with SRRV also.

Edited May 17, 2019 by AAArdvark

[BritManToo]

37 minutes ago, AAArdvark said:

OK, now I understand.  I want simple with no extensions, no ARC cards and no leaving, unless I want.  Leaving the country qualities aside:

With the SRRV I will gladly pay $360/year (I am single but even better with dependents).  So to me, investing $10K plus a one time $1.4K compared to locking up $25K plus extension fees etc. in LOS is a good trade off. There are some decent benefits with SRRV also.

Fair enough, I was happy to leave my passport with an agent in the local high street, and just drop off another $60 every two months or so. It seemed a good deal to save me $1,400 and a $10k investment I didn't want to make.

And of course when I went to other countries, I didn't have to pay the extension fees, and got another 30 days free when I re-entered.

 

Lucky you're rich enough not to worry about saving a couple of thousand dollars, I'm on more of a budget than that, every little helps.

 

Most of my pals moved on to Cambodia (1 wanted a change after a year, 1 broke up with his local gf after 3 years), so lucky they didn't waste money on an SRRV, Cambodia $300 for a 1 year multi entry VISA, nearly the same country as Thailand but with less chilli and more peanuts in the food.

Edited May 17, 2019 by BritManToo

[Pib]

On 5/16/2019 at 4:52 PM, madmen said:

There is no where near the amount of expats in the Philippines compared to Thailand and with good reason. You wont find anything close to TV

I expect there are "more" expats in the Philippines than Thailand and the immigration challenges and day-to-day living in the Philippines is less challenging than Thailand since English is the second language in the P.I. and many expats are married to Filipinos.   There are around 220,000 American expats in the Philippines (many military veterans/retirees) and the US Embassy-Bangkok stated a few months ago that approx 75,000 Americans live in Thailand.   It's just there is no dominating website/blog/forum in the P.I. like Thaivisa.com in Thailand.

 

Quote

About four million people of Philippine ancestry live in the United States, one of its largest minorities, and about 220,000 Americans, many of them military veterans, live in the Philippines. An additional 650,000 visit each year, according to U.S. State Department figures.

 

[madmen]

 

Dream on.

Violence and typhoons rule. Have to have low iq to live there IMO

[AAArdvark]

2 hours ago, madmen said:

Dream on.

Violence and typhoons rule. Have to have low iq to live there IMO

Or a low IQ to make a statement like that.

[Pib]

11 hours ago, madmen said:

Dream on.

Violence and typhoons rule. Have to have low iq to live there IMO

Not saying it may be better or worst to live in the P.I......like I said earlier more expats live in the P.I. than Thailand....as mentioned before approx 220,000 Americans live in the P.I.....approx 75,000 in Thailand.

[brokenbone]

On 5/17/2019 at 12:14 PM, BritManToo said:

The point being you can retire there much cheaper just by paying monthly/two monthly extensions on a tourist VISA.

It's three years before you need to leave, then repeat.

The SRRV costs far more, $360/year plus huge application fee, plus locking up $10k+.

 

Even better, if you're married to a local, free 1 year VISA and you can work.

the 3 years without visa run resonated with me,

is there any place there that simply do not have power outs ?

[AAArdvark]

Actually I didn't mean for this to become a battle between Thailand and the Philippines, but here is 2 cents from me.

There is a kind of a medical benefit in the Philippines for those who are on US Medicare.  While Medicare still doesn't cover you there (like everywhere else), the Philippines is just a few hours and $200 away from Guam where it does.  Not good for a hangnail or emergency but for planned extensive care it is doable.  Long stay people can get on the basic Philippine government insurance.   

[Mike Teavee]

There is Philippine Addicts