Opinion - Philippines

Retirement in the Philippines

      by Byron Bales

While all countries have their pros and cons regarding retirement, the Philippines arguably has far more cons. It's necessary to know the people and the nation's history in order to understand why things are so screwed up in this archipelago of 7,107 islands.

The Filipinos, Malay descendants, were dominated by the Spanish alongside the Holy Roman Catholic and the ever-usurping friars, for 300 years before America kicked them out in 1898, following the brief Spanish-American War. The friars were promptly run off the farms, large land grants given by the Spanish conquerors.

Before and since that time, the Filipino has been regionalist minded. They are not nationalistic as one might think, and have a history of regional conflicts which even today accounts for autonomous regions having been established throughout the largest of the country's two islands; Luzon and Mindanao.

The Philippines, being one of America's few colonial experiences, was set for Independence by America in 1946. World War Two did little to interrupt those plans, but Manila was ravaged by the Battle of Manila in which the Japanese forces were expelled in 1944-45. (America had declared Manila an open city in 1942, similar to the French with Paris, to spare it from destruction, choosing to evacuate to the Bataan Peninsula.

The Japanese provided no such courtesy, but systematically destroyed Manila block-by-block, murdering Filipinos wholesale as they retreated from the city. Manila, once called the Pearl of the Orient, was leveled.

Before the Americans came in 1898, the Spaniards had mistreated the Filipino horribly and several insurrections during the nineteenth century failed. Many Filipinos believe that they are Spanish descendants despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary; the Spanish had labeled many Filipinos with Spanish names for the purpose of identifying their regional origins during times of insurrection.

Hence, an Abello hailed from Luzon, while an Adello hailed from Mindanao. If a Filipino was caught out of his region, he became immediately suspect. Many Filipinos in that day and most Filipinos today don't understand that and insist that Spanish blood flows through their veins. This unfortunate history is mentioned with one object; the Filipino will put the best possible spin on any aspect of their life and seem blinded to negatives.

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