Reversal of plan - now thinking of living in the Philippines

The original plan was that Corina and Kieran the stepsprog were going to join me in the UK.

However, my UK job is now looking less secure than it once did, and I have tentatively been offered a job in the Philippines, with a company that I worked for in Manila in the 90's, but now in Subic Bay.

So we may now reverse tracks and I become the immigrant...

I'd agree with the above sentiment.

Personally speaking I would jump at the chance to have paid employment in the Paradise Islands :wave:

I quite "like the look of" Subic; I can mess about in boats, which is what I mainly like to do, and there is a Brent International School there.There are also good shops and even good restuarants.

I would recommend you look for housing in either Binictican, Kalayaan or Cubi. These are all within Subic Bay Freeport Zone which is the former US Naval Base. Binictican was were enlisted men lived and it is mainly four-plexes, Kalayaan housed the officers in mostly duplex houses and Cubi, a much smaller village, was for Navy pilots and is closest to the ocean. Of the three, Binictican is probably the nicest and very safe and well-organised. Expect to pay around Php35,000 pcm for an unrenovated duplex unit and Php45,000 and up for renovated - some of the houses in Binictican have been converted into single dwellings and are enormous. However all the housing was constructed to US standards and should be in good order and relatively well insulated.

One of the things you must do before leaving the UK is obtain a Police Clearance Certificate which is now required for all settlement visas - including work visas. And please remember to have it authenticated by the Philippine Embassy. You can apply for this at any main Police Station where they'll hand you a form to complete and take payment (about 40 quid); you should receive it in the post in less than a fortnight.

Now here's a thought for you. Why not arrange to meet Corina in Hong Kong and marry there - you can have a church blessing in Phils afterwards and a party the family and everyone else in the barangay. This means you will receive a Balikbayan Privilege on entry to the Philippines but you'll need to be in HK long enough to allow Corina to process the paperwork with the Phils Embassy for the very necessary NSO Mariage Cert. In our case, Mae was able to do everything inside a day. You can then process the 13(a) in your own time, but I would strongly advise that you start the process no later than the beginning of month 4. Section 13 Visas take, on average, 2 months to process and if you delay the application much longer, further requirements are demanded. If you want more info on getting married in HK, let me know .

One of the gotchas has to be the every increasing value of the Peso which is currently at 59 to the Pound (the Peso against the Dollar and the Euro is also rising at about the same rate). It's all artificial, of course, but it means that the Philippine Treasury has a large stash of foreign currency it obtained cheaply with which to buy essential commodities such as oil.

If you have time when in the UK,I would apply for the 13a visa via the UK Phil embassy..This visa allows you to work in the R.P.
The visa you obtain there (UK) will be permanent.(Apply here in P.I and its temporary for one year)
If you are in the Phils now then get a chest Xray and the medical requirements done here as they can be expensive in the UK.
I believe the Police clearance in the UK is the Criminal Records Bureau CRB but may now be called Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
It took them 4 months to get mine from them!!

There are a number of organisations from whom you can obtain CRB-like information including Disclosures UK, CRB and also the Police themselves. It is the Police Certificate that the Philippine Bureau of Immigration requires and you will find further information and an application form on the Association of Chief Police Officers' Criminal Records Office site.

I wouldn't suggest that it is easy to get a job in the Philippines that pays anything like its counterpart in the UK etc. If I could then I might consider it myself. A Pinay friend of my wife's, her husband is just off to Papua New Guinea for about a 5 week tour of duty before returning here to the UK where he and his wife live. They have elected to live in the UK (and are in fact moving to the Isle of Man in the near future for tax reasons amongst others). He is fortunate that he can earn a great wage in PNG which of course is a stones throw from the Phils. Until about a year ago he lived in the Philippines for about 15 years.

If I'm honest, there are quite a few places within very reasonable travel time (and cost) where I would prefer to be based.
But, you know, family connections and family support netwoks are quite an important factor for us both.
Althoughy recently we have had a change of direction in terms of actual location with the Philippines.
The more we consider it the stronger we feel we are right in our thinkin to have a little distance from family. Just enough so that visits will be largely by invitation only

Understood!

Corina keeps a distance of six hundred miles between herself and her family (she lives in Bulacan; her family are in Zamboanga del Sur) and is quite keen on maintaining that separation - as she says, "You know how it is in the provinces - invite fifteen and cook for fifty!"

It's not that she isn't a dutiful daughter; she is (well, she is nowadays, we will gloss over the seven years of not speaking to her father...) it is just that she likes her own space and likes to do what she likes.

Subic Bay achieves the same result...

I take you've been to Subic recently? From when I first went there in the early 90's I've seen quite a big change and to be honest from my point of view quite a bit of it hasn't been for the better but thats just my opinion and I'm probably looking through rose tinted glasses. I always said I'd like to live in Olongapo 10 years ago. Now where did I put that ime machine.......

Like you, I first went there in the early 90's when the Yanks had just pulled out and it was a quiet as the grave. Robert had hired a Cessna 172 for the day and we decided on the spur of the moment to go there - called the tower - no answer - landed on about a third of the runway and hitched a lift into town.

I was last there three weeks ago. The new Ayala Mall is pretty nice, the supermarkets are OK I think. The Hanjin shipyard has given the place a certain Korean flavour.

My plans revolve around either living "on base" or possibly on a boat in the yacht club marina. I have never much liked the Barrio Barretto side of things.

My previous experience of living in the Philippines was in Pasay (hated it) and in an apartment in Makati (liked it) but that was in the 90's and things have changed a good deal - the Internet and cable TV being two such changes.

Oh. That's a very interesting idea.

Time for some serious research I think.

Regular super typhoons at that...the five most devastating typhoons recorded in the Philippines have occurred since 1990, affecting 23 million people. Extreme weather has become the new normal.

It is very much a question of whether the marina is located inside what, in Hong Kong, would be called a "typhoon shelter".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_shelter

My assessment of the marina in Subic Bay is that it is indeed located inside a breakwater and does resemble a Hong Kong typhoon shelter; I lived and sailed in Hong Kong for some years.

It is "considered typhoon safe":

http://www.pgyc.org/philippine-yacht-clubs.php

The attraction of course is that a foreigner cannot own land, but he or she can own a boat!

I had my eye on a very suitable boat, but she was sold last week... there will be more, given the recession... There are good boatyards in Subic...

Oh, and can I say Thank You to everyone who has posted to this thread.

Very interesting.
Keep it coming