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

The Philippines is really a country where Westerners should be patient or go home. In late November 2011, for the umpteenth time, my big Japanese auto voltage regulator (AVR) broke down sending from time to time 250-260 volts to the great dismay of my appliances and electronics. It is often in the morning when thawing my bread for breakfast that the abnormal noise from the microwave oven alerts me. I check with the voltmeter, it remains for me to run off the unit, and to connect directly to the power or almost since there is still a transformer upstream of the regulator.
Before returning to France in late November, I reported the problem again to the Polaris Company in charge of the maintenance of my electrical installations. However, they pulled out the device only on February 24, the eve of my arrival and it was only returned last Saturday March 31.
 

(The (AVR) auto voltage regulator is in the power house on the right and is on the left inside in grey)

Meanwhile on March 12, I finally receive from Manila my home theater's processor in after-sales service since November 30, 2011.
Aside from reading and listening to music, my main hobby in the evening is watching a DVD while sipping a beer or rather two. I do not even mention the Internet, as the connection is almost non-existent or zero like these last days.

Unfortunately, in the absence of my AVR, I had to wait until 8 or 9 pm to access my leisure because despite my transformer, the voltage was down to 205-210 volts at the time of high consumption around 7 pm before later increasing back to 220 volts, the minimum required.
 

(My den and my home theater)

I have a small TV in the lounge but the Satellite operator does not broadcast over the French channel TV5 for years. Moderately passionate about local programs or HBO and Star Movies, I watch essentially the world's news on CNN or better BBC World. It is also notable how little France and the French policy in particular interest the other countries. A recent exception, however, was the tragic events of Toulouse, where CNN was broadcasting the same images in a loop for hours.
Finally, now I can enjoy my home theater until the next failure of the regulator which I believe has a manufacturing defect and after six years of bad service, it deserves to be changed. Only it is a big expense of about 2000 € for this device of 30 KW as big as a low cupboard.
It is amusing to note how many people in my area make a living out of the deficiencies of public services and transportation.
For the power, the first thing needed is a transformer as without it the voltage can decrease as low as 160 volts at the peak hours.  Next, if you have sensitive domestic appliances or electronic equipments, you need a general regulator or several small ones.  In addition, a generator is practically essential because of frequent power cuts especially for light, and a fortiori the fridge and freezer. In 2009 and 2010, there were often brownouts of three hours every evening at rush hour. I even had several times brownouts lasting twenty-four hours and the record was thirty-six hours. Since 2011, the brownouts are less frequent but for maintenance purposes but there was still a power cut of ten hours last Sunday.
Now, my starter's generator does not work anymore but luckily, there is the cord to the start it up like a big lawnmower.
For water and I will stop here, there is in every city stores that produce and sell purified water because most often the tap water is not potable. My home water comes from an aquifer and all the villagers drink it but I would rather buy my purified water for fear of germs.
To return to the problems of the house, it is equipped with two septic tanks, one on each side and three times the one that is rarely used was full, which is not normal. Always before leaving late November, I informed Jay, my contractor, who promised to take steps to fix it during my absence.
Then there was the typhoon of December 17 and he only sent a team in early February.
Then shortly after I was back, it was the turn of the main septic tank to be full. The problem is that near the sea, the soil is wet at shallow depths and does not absorb liquids. It was therefore necessary in the two cases to add 18 meters of drainage pipes pierced with holes like a sieve in their lower part to a slow spreading. There is no danger to the environment because the pipes are about 1.50 meter deep and stops 40 meters from the seafront and are 50 meters downstream of the well.
Do not laugh because I have seen a septic tank less than 3 meters upstream of the well in the house of a 80 years old French assassinated since by 'burglars'. I do not know the results of the investigation but his girl friend did not inherit from him as he had promised. There was in his will, they say, an exclusion clause, which was his violent death.
Therefore, when he visited my home, Jay saw that an electricity post between the meter and the house had almost collapsed during the typhoon and the live wires were within reach of children. He promised to straighten it up after the work of the septic tank. Despite my phone call when I arrived, nothing was yet done on March 20. Therefore, because of the potential danger, I decided to ask my electrician to do the job as an emergency. His workers came two days later with vehicle to pull and put the pos upright again but they forgot the cement to rebuild the base. My housekeeper had to give them his own cement.
You can say: what a country! However, in France after the extreme cold of February, a water hose in our garage began to leak near the electric meter. I immediately called a plumber in Us, a village not far from home who promised to come that same day and I am still waiting.
Always during my absence, my housekeeper realized that termites had attacked a chipboard panel below the sink in the friends' bathroom. He asked the supervisor of Jay to get him another and the latter told him that the anti termite treatment done during the construction of the house nearly seven years, had to be renewed every three or four years.
Therefore, I contacted one of two companies specializing in Pest Control in the area. For the modest sum € 286 €, two technicians came for two days and gazed the house and grounds. They also dismantled the outlets to check and spray the product inside. That is how they saw that three of them were already infected and the wires' coating attacked by the nice little insects.
The spraying chemicals killed an impressive number of small lizards inside the house, but believe me; their boss does not provide any protective mask for his workers who simply put a T-shirt around their nose and mouth to protect themselves. he was more preoccupied to demand his money the day after the intervention and he noticed immediately that by mistake I handed him 15,700 pesos instead of 15 750 agreed.
We should send this bastard some French unionists. Still here annoying people, like lawyers, judges, journalists, businesspersons, trade unionists etc. Often find a violent end with the same modus operandi. A helmeted motorcyclist kills them at close range with a big caliber firearm and flees without ever being arrested. It will cost the sponsor only about 200 € for the job.
In a word, because of the damage on electrical wires, I did call again the Polaris Company to come and check all of my installations.
Two technicians arrived therefore Monday, March 26 and 10 days later are still there.
A large part of my electrical wires and lamps were grounded, especially outdoors and require replacement. Seven years after construction, termites, ants, humidity, sea air, heat and a poor quality of original material are responsible for that. I think my bill will amount to 30,000 pesos or about 550 €. Finally, the poor Filipinos would tell me that all this is a problem of rich.
 

(The back and the front of the house. The lot is 90 meters long and the perimeter fence has electrical wires in it)

This gives me the opportunity to talk about the rising cost of living in this beautiful country and the relative poverty of foreigners living there.
Particularly in Negros Oriental where I reside, they are mostly Anglo-Saxon and German speaking peoples. With few exceptions, they have a pension income as a retiree or a rented property in their country or as many Americans had invested their money in shares or pension funds. The real rich are Filipinos here.
Since the end of the construction of our house of Mag-abo end of September 2005, the price of land has increased by at least three times and the construction by two. This means that my wife and I could no longer offer us our tropical home nowadays. Its market value has been multiplied by at least 250%. We can say it is a good investment. However, not so sure, because we would have to still find a buyer. During this same period, the real local real inflation was 2-digit and major foreign currencies devalued. Thus, the U.S. dollar decreased from 50-55 to 42-43 pesos, the British pound from 90-100 to 60 and the Euro from 70 or 75 to 54-55. Only do well the Swiss, the Norwegians and some Asian currencies. This means that the purchasing power for many has declined by at least 50% in six years and some have preferred to go home.
Gone are the days when big cars or 4x4 belonged to foreigners, where practically only they could afford good restaurants or domestic flights. It is now the turn of Filipinos and other Asians to show off their wealth ostentatiously.

This is certainly good for the country but it would be to forget that the poor continue unabated and that nothing changes for them except the number of dependent children.
Last week I went to spend two days in Cebu City and as my osteoarthritis in knees ached, I went to Chong Hua Hospital probably one of the best of the Philippines. It happened that on Wednesday, the three rheumatologists were absent but before leaving, I took the opportunity to look at the room rates. At an average of 100 € the room per day to which must be added the fees of doctors, anesthetists, surgeons and medicines. It is still a dream for the majority of Filipinos.
In Dumaguete, a housemaid well paid and fed-housed earns 55 € per month. Worse off she makes only 40 € and will not eat the same food as his bosses
Returning Thursday, March 29, from Cebu, I went to the supermarket parking lot where I had entrusted my Pajero to the custody of these poor wretches who for a coin help customers operate their vehicles. Seeing no one, I left without leaving the attendant the usual tip. It is only two days later that he told me he had been absent because he went to the funeral of a thirty years old colleague who died of typhoid fever. I think that if we are well cared we do not die of Typhoid anymore but he surely did not have the money to even go to Public Hospital. The deceased kept my 4x4 during my stay in Leyte last September.
I hardly had much time to travel in March as there was also the maintenance of my old Pajero and a little paint left on a rock during a U-turn.

Nevertheless, I made a road trip to Basay 100 km south of the house.

I went also again to Balanan Lake and Tombobo and of course my two days in Cebu last week.

(Basay, the Fantasea Resort in the middle of nowhere)

Once there I took the opportunity to visit for the first time that the Mactan Shrine, a place chosen by the explorer Magellan to be killed by the warrior Lapu Lapu he had the misfortune to underestimate.

(From top to bottom, the statue of the warrior Lapu lapu, part of the fresco showing the explorator Magellan being killed, the commemorative plaque of the event)

I then went to the hills of Busay where one has a superb mountain view of Cebu City and Mactan Island when the weather is clear.

(Mountain view of Cebu from basay)

The next day I took the bus towards the southern tip of Cebu Island to go back to my house and my two dogs.

(Zarah and Gordon, my dogs)