Photos et lettres des Philippines, de France et d'ailleurs

At the beginning of January 2002, I am back in Dumaguete where I gradually acquire a better knowledge of the small French-speaking community and start to meet residents of other nationalities.

OK pensions house has become my place of residence and I will stay there in the same room until the completion of our house in September 2005. For my meals, I take them in various restaurants but for the breakfast I remain faithful to Why Not because of the breadbasket provided and the smiling reception of the waitresses. It is at my hotel and during these breakfasts that I will meet many people whom some will become good friends. I also continue to go to the reunion of the French-speaking community every Tuesday.

While observing how they live, visiting their residences and discussing, an idea gradually germinate in my mind: Why not me? I already imagine myself living here by the seaside at least half of the year.

One week before going back to France, a Filipino broker asks me if I could be interested in a beach lot located in Dauin, 19 km south of Dumaguete. That's how I meet the owner, Hans an Austrian married to Filipina, who is selling it due to reverses of fortune. It is a lot of about 5000 sqm, of a pyramidal form with its base of 45 m on the seaside. Apo Island, the famous diving spot and marine reserve, can be seen on the right side and the site immediately carries me away. Alas I do not have the 3 million pesos asked for it. Furthermore at the beginning of 2002 the exchange rate of our new currency was only 45 pesos for 1 euro. Hans tells me that he will ask his wife if she agrees to divide the property into 2 lots thus the price would be about 1.5 million that is to say approximately 33,500 euros plus the legal expenses and attorney's fees.

I thus return in France with the head full dreams and almost ready to cross the borderline without having seen other properties for sale to compare. Moreover I preferred to ignore the bad condition of the last part of the access lane and most important the fact that once the property shared in two pieces, each lot would then become a long corridor with a beach front of only 22 meters.

Once back I tell my wife about my project and the least I can say that she wasn't at all enthusiastic about my exotic project and she advised me to rent a house each time I wanted to stay there but ignoring her piece of advice, I ask her to take 15 days off in June and to accompany me to acquire the coveted beach lot. How naive I was and unaware of the customs in the Philippines! 15 days to buy a property in the Philippines was an impossible mission in most of the cases. Nevertheless I call Charly so that he asks his attorney who will become mine thereafter, to check all documents and the title. Charly and another friend Raymond advise me to cool down me and take my time. To let fall down the foam in the beer tankard like one says in the north of France.

Once returned in Dumaguete where Charly awaited us, we pay Hans a visit who thanks us for asking his title to be verified because he so discovered that something was wrong with the papers and the regularization will require time and a lot of money so it is the end of the story.

Undoubtedly a chance for me but now we should find another land if I still want my dream carried out. Real estate agents start to exist today but in 2002, one could buy a property only in direct with the owner or through more or less dubious and avid brokers, many of them not hesitating to add 30 to 50% on top of the owner's price whereas a normal commission was 5 to 6%. Although the said owners themselves seeing foreigners often increased their tariffs in identical proportions.

So my wife and I started the search of a beach lot. A course filled with difficulties and disillusions. A land at a correct price is presented to us at San Miguel, ten kilometers in the south of Dumaguete. My wife is not exactly carried away with it because just on the right side there is an ammonium nitrate factory spiting yellow fumes and its wharf spoiling the seaside as well. We then make our small investigation with the oceanography Department of Silliman University. They told us that the factory doesn't pollute the seawater but how about the atmosphere and the risks of explosions? We still have in memory the accident of the AZF plant in Toulouse and why travel 12.000 kilometers to build a house near such a potential danger? In addition our attorney discovers that the right of way is not legalized and that before all the protagonists agree to sell their piece of way, it will take time and he thus advises us to give up.