Life in the Philippines pt 1 | A Foreigner's Perspective

hello world I'm in the Philippines but it's not for the reason many foreigners visit which is to hit up the beaches and have a nice vacation instead I wanted to get a glimpse of the everyday lives of Filipinos and finally many locals offer to tour me around and I experienced so much from the multitude of shops in the Divisoria market to the incredible commute in Manila to escape in the city and heading out to the provinces before I get into it I'd like to remind you that I'm just a person that went to the Philippines for 11 days while I met with many different locals and did a bit of research what I present is only my experience and taking from the perspective of someone who has lived in Canada and Japan I'm going to start my trip with my number one worry which was safety despite looking Filipino to some I am in fact not Filipino but I figured with my 5 foot 4 height okay five foot three and a half down my short stature black hair and tan complexion would enable me to blend in a bit better than your average Westerner why was I worried about safety because countless Filipinos told me to watch out for scammers and pickpockets and the first scam to watch out for was taxi drivers so I installed grab fun fact uber used to be in the Philippines but they decided to exit the Southeast Asian market and leave it to grab but in exchange they owned part of grab so in a sense they're still here now grab seemed good but this lineup for the grab booth at the airport did not I was kind of confused because I thought the app was supposed to negate having to lineup so I was conflicted because the Japanese resident part of me said respect the line but on the other hand I had been waiting for 15 minutes without much movement so I did something bold and decided to actually use the app and what do you know the driver came and I was safely riding on my way to my Airbnb I had asked my Grob driver if it was okay to film outside the window while driving and while on the highway he let me do this but when we got into the streets it was eager to get the window closed as he said you never know who might pop by and snatch my camera now the Airbnb was a private residence in a condo tower on the edge of Makati so like many of these places there were security guards somehow the gun and checkpoints weren't making me feel safer interestingly mall security guards are required to carry guns I've heard the word security theater tossed around and if you haven't heard that word before it's used to describe a situation where feels like the security is keeping you safe but in fact they're really not on numerous occasions I was let through without any inspection and with every inspection the checks were cursory I didn't hide anything dangerous in my camera bay but if I had not one of the security guards would have found anything and then there were places where one entrance was guarded but a side entrance was not there are also times where I just negotiated my way through things if you walk the walk or talk the talk you can be given a pass so I don't know I've got to believe that most Filipinos know that these guards aren't doing much in terms of security but perhaps they've been part of the landscape so long that they've become accustomed to it and hey maybe the are deterring some types of crimes with their presence I don't know one morning I had from locals was to wear my backpack in front of me as there are lots of thieves in Manila indeed I saw the locals were following it this advice if you've lived in or visited the Philippines what do you think out in the provinces when he went to someone's local but ungai my local tour guides seemed to ease up on their dire safety warnings but ungai by the way is the smallest local government unit there are over 42,000 but on guy in the Philippines which means on average there is one per every two and a half thousand Filipinos so you'll find barangay halls which can but don't always look like this all over the place the people living in a button guy will let that barangay captain this level of government is empowered to enforce all laws and ordinances from Pollution Control and the protection of the environment to eradicating drug and child abuse whether or not this happens in an barangay is a different story what's different than Japan or Canada is that these very local governmental units exist within bigger governmental units like municipalities and cities in this barangay they do have someone managing waste and there are waste bins around although while everything is supposed to be separated it's in fact a jumbled mess and I don't know what happens to everything that's collected from this point on if it's anything like waste management systems in Japan or Canada just because something that can be recycled is collected it doesn't mean it's recycled in the local stream nearby it's clearly not free of trash and the waters gray from pollution beyond the issue of water quality debris in waterways can clog up storm drains and in the rainy season exacerbate flooding using the waterways as trash dumps is partly due to garbage collection issues waste management is supposed to be managed at the barangay level but not all but on guys have the same system in place even if they're supposed to for example over here a business and some residents have to manage waste on their own this garbage is waiting to go to the dump and is collected once a month for the plastic bottles these are recyclable and a little money can be made and these ducks they'll produce some eggs over here which looks like it has many informal settlements it's more half hazard they're simply waste lying around everywhere because of hauling fees and accessibility issues burning are simply throwing trash into the waterways is a common occurrence what surprised me was that in this private cemetery there were also burning garbage being private the place was kept in relatively good order however another surprise was the Roosters at the entrance there were some but inside was where the more prized ones were kept this is the Philippines so there were roosters everywhere they were hanging out by the garbage dump they were in someone's yard and outside of a nice condominium unit this felt so sad that I just had to wait around and see nice one but back to the cemetery there are basically three levels of burials available one is in the ground are just above ground for the wealthiest there are mausoleums with some of them even having toilets inside and for the poorest there's apartment tombs a few minutes walk away was where the public cemetery was located and while they had the same types of tombs the contrast between them was dark like like here they put a tarp right over that little area and that's where they're gonna live day to day lives and what you know looking at articles it is indeed a thing so these apartment tombs they are rented on a five-year basis but because of overcrowding some don't allow the renewal of the space and the bones are broken out at this point if the family doesn't claim the bones they may get left in a rice bag if the family does have a bit of money they can rent a smaller bone box which is not much bigger than a large shoebox the thing about these apartment tombs is that there's no way to get up unless you climb sort of pay respect to a loved one you need to literally climb atop the graves of others as with many things during my trip this visit to the cemetery wasn't planned it was simply a place we happen to stroll by and I inquired about so let's just randomly move on to a charrier place of gathering the when I asked the residents of Manila what a popular activity to do outside of work was the mall was probably the number one answer unlike any place I had to get through security first I honestly didn't spend much more time than I had to in the malls beyond my growing dislike of malls and shopping I just found them to be fairly similar to what I can find in North America granted there are shops you won't find elsewhere and they do have goods that are Filipino I mean what could be more Filipino than this place and on this out of the mall I don't know if there is one foodcourt restaurant I recognized well except for that Pizza Hut and here even though we're in a grocery store there's a bunch of these little food stalls I mean I've seen something kind of like this in North America but just not so many booths and check out this walkway music as I soon found out finding quiet places in Metro Manila would prove challenging although if you went to the much higher end you could find a bit more calm like in greenbelt mall in fact I interviewed a couple people here due to it being one of the quiet areas I could find an equally posh shopping area I visited was Bonifacio High Street if I had to choose any place I visited in Metro Manila that reminded me of something in Vancouver our Tokyo be this place like in Tokyo we have those places where people line up forever just to get some bubble tea how long yet the wait for the melody one hour oh my goodness I rather liked all the green space for people of all ages and even their pets could enjoy this whole area actually used to be US military land that was then redeveloped this is also of course one of the wealthiest areas in the Philippines so I'm not surprised it's a nice place and couldn't recognize all the Filipinos that love to look at my camera is it good yeah it was a mix of hard stares and playfulness I never knew what I was going to get [Music] unlike the malls the markets felt very non North American to me in Canada there are markets but they are more upscale Affairs in comparison the Passaic in Divisoria markets I went to these are places that you could go to find a deal I'm told that many small businesses will come here then go up to the provinces and resell the goods and in comparison to Japanese markets these ones in Metro Manila are way more chaotic there's stuff everywhere whether it's goods to buy from the stalls people are just stuff on the ground [Music] in Divisoria there's just blocks and blocks of stuff both outdoors and indoors the indoor parts somewhat reminded me of Akihabara where you'd find a bunch of little shops like this inside of a building now a word of warning if you don't like seeing animals being butchered skip ahead about sixty Seconds to get to safety and here we go while in Pasig market I followed along with Nicole and her father as they picked up ingredients for some home-cooked meals we have today to tell you the truth the markets felt like the Wild West to me there was a pig head waiting to be made into sisig blood in the buckets and on the floor the merchants though playful as always sorry yeah you can find the feet on the floor yeah in passing you can find it on the table alright the butchering meat section is over so you can open up your eyes again if you had them closed [Applause] [Music] negotiability bargain you can get anything from the market one of our stops was to pick up some oil [Music] another stop was to get past a Lubang or souvenirs for my kids thanks Nicole [Music] what what airline a little bit and of course we have to pick up some fruits which are abundant in the Philippines [Music] we divide with all those bananas like what the creamy lastly we stopped by to grab some vegetables for the dishes that Nicole would be cooking between busy times some vendors like to take a bit of a break [Music] back in Divisoria we happen by a parade with a bunch of jesus' which as i was to find out could be found everywhere this big one is something santo nino we had a feast yesterday and we celebrated his birth yeah and we had a lot of candies oh wait my children's candy yeah is this so is this baby Jesus yeah it was the hand of God and then this is when he's King the cross and then the Holy Family so Mary Joseph and Jesus yeah and then this is oh this is davina Australia we have also Immaculate Conception and then there's Perpetual health and all different kinds of virgin mary's and then every Holy Week she gets all dressed up and then she gets on a doddle the Philippines is the only majority Christian nation in Asia around 80 percent of the people are Catholic I was located in the north which is mostly Catholic but in the South there is a significant amount of Muslims who reside there Catholicism of course was brought to the Philippines by the Spanish when Magellan first arrived in 1521 although after going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole for a couple hours I discovered that Magellan was in fact Portuguese but sailing for Spain after quarreling with the king of Portugal he also never left what was to become the Philippines as he died fighting against the chieftain of Mactan Island lapu-lapu just one month after his arrival on June 12 1898 right here at his home in Coweta future first President of the Philippines Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence both the Spanish and the Americans never recognized this and instead Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States on December 10th 1898 this wasn't good news for nalddo since it was the Americans who brought him out of Excel from Hong Kong with the promise of an independent Philippines once Spain was defeated although it was him who chose exile after Spain paid him and his top revolutionary compatriots to do so in exchange for ceasing their revolution anyhow I spent another couple hours trying to figure out the true history of Aguinaldo and whether he's a hero or a traitor and I give up he is a controversial figure what I can tell you though is that his home the Aguinaldo shrine is not only some nice digs but also has some great mango trees from which you can get free mangos and if you don't mind and oh yeah finally in 1946 the world recognized Philippines independence this was after Japan's defeat in World War two when America finally came through on that whole independence promise given 48 years before you can see the influence of those foreign countries as you travel around the Philippines for example Intramuros the old historic part of Manila is Spanish for within the walls it was constructed by the Spanish during their colonization period the name of the Philippines comes from the king of Spain philip ii this fridge over here it's Japanese surplus it needs this power converter to adapt it to the 220 volt electricity in the Philippines these trains their Japanese trains as well although looking at this PNR train from the outside you never know and these cabinets and these jeepneys they're based off of u.s. jeeps left over from World War 2 this generation of GT though probably has a surplus Japanese engine under the hood English that's spoken due to former American rule and education what surprised me was that the Philippines felt a lot more like Canada than it did Japan despite of being located in Southeast Asia like if you went into a 7-eleven or Family Mart both Japanese companies they don't have a Japanese feel at all and all the chain restaurant choices they're more what you'd find in North America than Japan especially the Japanese fast-food places so my guess is that the North American visitor would be way more at home in the Philippines than the Japanese visitor ok so I know this video is getting long but I still have so much from my visit to the Philippines to talk about so for those big topics like family food oh f WS income inequality and tourism I'll save it for the next one because there's no way I'll have time to cover it all in this video what I'll do right now is do something I'll call side notes which is just a bunch of my random observations which I guess you could argue as this whole video ok side notes for me in Manila it was noisy everywhere in the streets with the vehicles in the malls with the music in the restaurants and convenience stores with music pretty much any indoor place with the music [Music] even the parks had music [Music] and even in small villages it could be quite noisy by the streets I did find though that the more upscale places seem to have lower noise levels and if you got more out into nature there was less noise see that's because my drone doesn't record audio I don't remember capturing footage of this but I did have it happen several times where a Filipino would burst out into song that's a good type of noise though one thing I knew coming in was that I shouldn't drink the water so I ended up buying a fairly large bottle I had to constantly remind myself to not use the tap to fill up my water bottle I did manage to avoid getting a case of the runs for the most part I did have a half day where things were iffy but it could have been worse I stayed on the top floor of a 25 story condo which was my Airbnb while in Manila it was built as pristine but the dirty tables and shower said otherwise being located in Makati and looking nice on the outside I was not expecting the cheap construction like the light wooden door used for the main entrance the kind of door that's usually used for bedroom doors in Canada safety is totally different for example this guy in the pole all by himself using a ladder that's openly exposed to the street like this it would never happen in Japan this glass on the wall along a small pathway between houses seems like a big safety risk especially for the kids traveling around here but perhaps not as big of a risk as the barbed wires which are right at kid height and little kids on motorbikes Bell helmets also a common sight coming from Japan the standard of cleanliness there's a huge gap one thing I noticed was that in the streets of Manila you'd end up with this kind of greasy smell that permeates your clothing it's not just the smell though because when I wash my clothes in the sink with soap it was gray afterwards kind of like this water luckily I devised a makeshift trying system one thing that Japan and the Philippines seemed to share is pass a lube on which is the practice of bringing back a gift when you travel somewhere in Japan it's called owe me a guy I know in Canada we have the concept of souvenirs but it's just not to the same level of pervasiveness everywhere I went Filipinos were giving me gifts to bring back home to my family I had so much stuff I had to give half of it away to the guards I've had no room in my suitcase it was really nice of them by the way even though I worried about safety while out and about with my gear I was totally fine whether through being smart or through dumb luck I don't know while in the Philippines I had to make use of public Wi-Fi like at the airport and at my accommodations because they were open networks there was a possibility that people could snoop in on my data to protect myself against that I used a VPN which encrypts all data coming in and out of my device for example I have to book a place to stay for my spontaneous trip to el nido that's in the next video so please be patient and that VPN connection made sure my personal and credit card information was as safe as possible I've used several VPNs over the years but the thing I like the most about my current provider expressvpn this is actually two things one it's so simple to use I click connect and seconds later I'm good too it's fast I ran some tests and weather connected or not the speeds were roughly the same you can sign up for expressvpn for less than $7 a month with a 30-day money-back guarantee [Music] take back your internet privacy today and find out how you can get three months free by clicking the link in the description box expressvpn comm slash life where I'm from take back your privacy today with expressvpn I have so much more to talk about I really don't know if I'll be able to fit it all into one more video we'll see oh and in case you missed it this is actually my second video about the Philippines my first was about what commuting in Manila was like so check it out if you haven't seen it yet extra special thanks to all those that showed me around the Philippines I couldn't have done it without all of you thanks for watching see you next time bye if you've traveled to a country that was quite different than yours what was your experience like [Music]

Channel: Life Where I'm From

Views: 770,731

Rating: 4.7741418 out of 5

Keywords: Philippines, philippines documentary, philippines travel, philippines vlog, philippines vlog manila, travel vlog philippines

Id: __LydKSvvBg

Length: 25min 3sec (1503 seconds)

Published: Sat May 18 2019