What is it like to live in Manila?

 

Zain Hoda

AlphaHat.com

In some ways this is a very difficult question to answer because your experience will differ drastically depending on how much money you have. I'll give you my experience with the caveat that it is by no means representative of most people who live there. Although if you're a foreigner who's coming to live in Manila, this probably is representative.

I was born in Manila in 1984 and lived there until I left for college. However, I am not Filipino. My family is Pakistani and I inherited their citizenship since the Philippines does not grant citizenship based on birth in their territory.

My father worked for the Asian Development Bank, which is headquartered in Manila.

These are some of my thoughts from living there. Some of these are not necessarily specific to Manila but the Philippines in general.

• Filipinos are some of the friendliest people in the world.
• Almost everyone speaks English, though to varying degrees. I lived there for 18 years and I only learned Filipino by watching local television (I still remember watching Noli De Castro saying "Magandang Gabi.... Bayan"). However, when we got cable TV in 1992, I stopped watching local channels and my knowledge of the language has steadily declined since. Talking to taxi drivers or going to local shops does not require knowledge of Filipino.
• The traffic is terrible. Home to school was only 12 km but it took 30-45 minutes by car. If there was heavy rain? Forget about it. It would sometimes take hours if there was flooding.
• There are various methods of transportation available. Taxis are quite common in the business districts. Buses are everywhere. There are also Jeepneys, which operate fixed routes like buses and usually have very cheap fares. There is a light rail system but it's not comprehensive. It only goes down a few of the main roads. You can rent a car and generally rental cars come with drivers. If you buy a car, be aware that to reduce traffic, based on your license plate number, you cannot drive on certain days of the week during rush hour. If you're renting a car, the rental car company will send you a car that has the correct license plate for that day.
• Malls are everywhere. Every few years it would seem that a gigantic new mall was built that would rival the last gigantic mall.
• These days electricity is very reliable. In the mid 90s brownouts were very common but these days brownouts are very rare.
• Compared to the US, the wealth disparity is very extreme. However, there is a much more robust middle class than what I saw in Pakistan.
• Poverty, however, is very visible and heartbreaking. If you drive around you will generally see street children begging or selling items on the road.
• If you have access to housing, generally you will either live in a "village" or a condominium. A "village" is perhaps most analogous to a "gated community" in the US. However, depending on which village you live in, there may be extremely heavy security. In order to get in to any of the villages, you need to have a sticker on your car that shows that you live in that village. If you don't, you have to stop at the gate and you have to tell the guard where you're going and leave your license at the gate. The exception is that if you live in one of the Makati villages that are part of the Makati Village Association, your sticker is interoperable with any other Makati Village.
• Foreigners cannot buy property in the Philippines. However, you can buy a condominium unit so long as Filipinos own at least 50% of the condominium units in the building.
• Armed security guards are everywhere. You'll find them at villages, offices, malls, and yes, at corner 7-11s. Most of this security is just a deterrent. You don't typically hear about security guards actually discharging their weapons. In fact, I'm pretty sure that many of the weapons aren't even loaded.
• Labor in the Philippines is relatively cheap so you'll see a lot of jobs done by people that would be mechanized elsewhere.
• If you live in a house in a village, generally you're going to have domestic helpers. In the first house we lived in, we had 3 maids, a driver, and a gardener. Our neighbors had 10 (10!) maids.
• When you go to a big department store like SM, the sales staff are friendly but not particularly useful. I'm not sure if there are perpetual supply chain issues or if this is just a cultural tendency but 90% of the responses I've gotten from sales staff are "Out of stock, sir."
• Expect to be called "Sir" if you're a man or "Ma'am" if you're a woman.
• Basketball is huge
• There is a lot of good food and good restaurants
• There's a ton of stuff to do at various price ranges so you can never really be bored.
• I loved the weather, about mid-80 degrees all year round. Not everyone finds this comfortable.
• Government services more or less work. If you need to get a driver's license or have some other interaction with the government it's possible to do so without having to pay any bribes. This is unlike a lot of other countries where it's necessary to pay bribes.
• Pretty much everything that is available in the US is available in the Philippines.
• BEWARE OF THE VOLTAGE! The Philippines plug system is very deceptive. Every outlet will have two types of plug points. It will have one flat plug point (that is 220 V) and it will have one round plug (that is 110 V). Beware of this because US appliances are 110 V and have the flat plug, so if you stick that into an outlet that fits in the Philippines, that appliance is going to go bust.
• Mosquitos are very common. All windows usually have screens on them so that you can open the window without letting bugs in.
• If you look like you're of Chinese origin, you have to be careful about kidnap-for-ransom. Just be sensible.
• I went to International School Manila, which is the main international school. The curriculum is American until high school and then you can pretty much choose to be on an AP track or an IB track. From what I've seen of US schools, ISM beats most of them.