what money to take Philippines?

You can send money to yourself. You do not have to involve anyone else. Western Union are far from being the best outfit. Orbit Remit is the most inexpensive , apparently. A pal of mine swears by them. They have outlets everywhere.

as I have described cash should not be any problem as long as you are confident you are on top of it and can keep it under wraps.

but many people are nervous about carrying around largeish sums.

for them if opening a Filipino bank account is not possible or too difficult, using a remittance outfit like Orbit Remit has to be better than allowing the banks to stiff you for 2,500 pesos a month in commissions and fees and charges if your monthly expenditure is 60,000.

What banks, specifically, levy such charges - and kindly provide links to relevant websites in support of your claim? I have accounts here, Malta and the UK with HSBC and accounts with BPI: I pay no charges or fees whatsoever and don't maintain high balances in any of them. My wife additionally has an account with BDO and she's not charged either.

I will concede however that non-resident foreigners will be charged for banking facilities here but those charges cease immediately you produce a Residential ACR Card and the bank registers that. But as far as I'm aware those charges are nothing like the amount you suggest.

I believe uklove (to whom whipster was addressing his reply) IS a non-resident foreigner.

An interesting idea, and one I hadn't thought of before.

So, basically, if I go to Philippines and need more cash, I could send to myself online via, for example Western Union, and then go and collect it at an outlet.

Is this a better option than using an atm?

I also checked with my bank about how I could go about receiving the security code in the Phils, which they'd normally send to my UK phone, before transferring cash out of my UK bank account to WorldRemit, etc.

I'm not so sure you can initiate a Western Union transaction involving a UK-issued card from outside the UK. Unless they have relaxed their security, of course. The last time I sent via Western Union (in 2008-9), you had to start the process on their website and then telephone a low-call (freephone?) number which was answered in Ireland. They asked a few security-related questions and when satisfied with the answers then gave the go-ahead on the pending transaction.

The optimum solution is to open BPI accounts in the Philippines and UK, or HSBC accounts but that is initially a more expensive undertaking.

Why would you use a card ?

Is Western Union giving away money now?

The last time I used the service, I had to use a Visa/MasterCard debit or credit card. Maybe they only take bitcoins now, I wouldn't know.

Perhaps you'd like to bring yourself up to date then. It's now 2016 and lots of people (such as myself) use the simple bank transfer method. No cards involved.

You can use UK cards in the Philippines to send money using Western Union's website. From a Carcar internet cafe, I paid a 5000 peso hotel and bar bill that way just last month.

WorldRemit have a similar facility.

I use a "simple bank transfer" method too. It's immediate and I pay nothing for the service. And I get a preferential rate of exchange when I exchange Pounds to Pesos.

Yes you can.

• Sign into your account on the Western Union .UK website,
• Credit cards are already registered, or you can add a new one,
  
• Select a telephone number in case of query, they never call back.
• Click send.

Western Onion allow bank to bank with minimal fees, however when I checked it out it was via a German bank/finance company, and you needed to enter your UK banks UserID and Password into their website, big no no for me, and against most banks terms and conditions.

Likewise.

SOFORT is the scheme used. I don't know enough about banking security to comment on that aspect.

https://www.sofort.com/eng-GB/buyer/sb/direct-pay

I've mentioned this before but the PNB Global Filipino Card may be useful for some.
It can be secured by application at any PNB branch and will be immediately issued.
It's a pre-load atm card
Once registered with PNB in UK a quick phone call from anywhere and the GFC can be loaded via debit card and ready for use immediately.

it's a real nusiance that Traveller's Cheques are almost unusable in the Philippines. In Thailand they are really cheap - only 33 baht/45 pesos per cheque however high denomination the cheque is and incredibly easy to use. You also get a better rate there for TC's than you do for cash. And they are accepted at every single bank in the entire country. But when the Thais developed their tourist industry, they showed that they were serious about it. The Philippines showed that they weren't.