Lanhawk's Blog of the Philippines

Week three wrap up finds us working on the support structure for the second floor.

This is the front of the house, living room on the left and dinning room on the right.

Here is a fuller view.

The septic tank was also completed, its about seven feet deep and cement blocks line the walls.

The electric company came by and wired us, so now we have power.

I mentioned earlier that by acquiring a lot on back wall of the subdivision you gain a little extra space. Here is a picture that shows the additional meter of room by using the back wall as the back wall of your house.

The column is the “blue print version” of the border of the back of the house but with this wall you get additional space to make the bedroom bigger.

Tags: House building philippines

Here in the Philippines with the population of Catholics placed at around 98 percent, Easter is the highpoint of the year on the church calendar, perhaps even higher than Christmas. The week long observation, involves stations of the Cross, many masses and a crack of dawn Easter service where the black veil of Mary is lifted and a white one placed on her head. We got up at 4:30 am for the service. I just let the pictures tell the story.. enjoy. First up is the Black Friday parade through the streets on these beautifully designed floats.

The next day is Holy Saturday where most stores are closed, then on Easter Sunday the unveiling of Mary takes place.

              It started raining a little, but at the bottom of the picture are the twelve apostles, even Judas was there.

The unveiling begins, Remy’s grand daughter has the honors of removing the black veil.

    Nice shot with the sun rising in the background.

  It was a really nice ceremony and the rain stopped early enough. Happy Easter …till next year.

We are building a house in the Philippines. After clearing the lot we began to build the first wall, as per building requirements, we must make a firewall on the left side of our lot thus that is the first one to be built.

The columns that are used to support the wall are hand made on site using steel bars and twisted together with wire.

The workers dig about four feet down then place an iron grid at the bottom of the whole

Gravel is poured in first then the column is placed on the grid and tied there by wire finally cement is added. I was told its good luck to throw coins in the mix when building the first column so I did.

After a few days the wall begins to take shape.

As I said previously, we give the workers an hour and half lunch time for eats and nap. We have a woman prepare the lunch each day and the workers look forward to it. The picture only shows rice but there was a chicken adobo to go with it, plus drink.

We are building a house in the Philippines. Once we paid our lot in full and obtained an official survey (about 4k), we went to the Talisay City Hall to obtain all the necessary permits, there was tons of paperwork and we actually paid an engineer to do the legwork. This was the best money spent and in about four weeks we had our permits. Here is the picture of the lot on the very first day we were actually allowed to build.

There are a several advantages to having a lot that is walled next to the subdivision boundary wall. First is you already have one side of your wall up, second is the wall sits about one meter beyond your boundary so technically you have an extra meter of lot to work with. Your blueprints must list your wall a meter from the boundary line but nobody enforces this. This will become more clearer once the hollow block walls come up. Goals for this week, clear lot, build supply hut, order supplies, and assign worker to stay overnight to guard supplies.

Lot is about cleared which is all done by hand, now to build the supply hut and temp. sleeping quarters. The hut servers as mess hall and a place to go out of the hot summer sun. The supply hut temporary sits on my neighbors lot to allow us more room. It pays to be one of the first ones to build as if we waited a few years I am not sure we would have this luxury.

The water district techs arrive to turn on the water to the lot, a major requirement for refreshing workers and mixing cement.

Our load of gravel arrives and is dumped on the site, actually dumped in the road.

First thing to dig was the trench that will be the fire wall that runs the length of the lot, required from each owner, usually located on the left side of the lot as you face it from the street.

And so ends the first day. Lots of activity and everybody was excited, we employed ten men full time and one woman who is in charge of providing a lunch and snack time for the workers. Lunch time is half an hour to eat and one hour nap time as the noon sun is so strong in the summer. Till next time.

Building a house in the Philippines is a common idea that comes to all foreigners eventually. Prices are usually a lot lower than in their original country. Remy and I have decided to build a house rather than continue to pay rent on a place. Currently we pay eight thousand pesos a month which does not include: water, electric, cable tv, or internet. Its a nice place with two bedroom, the one bedroom ( our room) has its own CR while another exists just off the kitchen. Its a standard philippine home, one floor, has a dirty laundry, and a gated driveway. By building a house we save on rent and get a bigger place, an investment and more importantly a place to call our own. I know there are numerous blogs on building a house in the Philippines and our way may not necessary be the best. Probably one of the first things you have to ask yourself is how well you know your asawa (wife) or girlfriend, how well do you trust her? Foreigners can not own land in the Phils, they can own houses but not the land so the title will go in her name. Feel uncomfortable with this? Many foreigners go the condo route, as you can own a condo in a building, but the price is high and the square meters is small, plus you might have to pay a monthly condo fee. Our 120 sq. meter lot cost 176K pesos and is in a new subdivision where you can build what you want. First thing is we went to several engineers to help us design a place with four bedrooms and three CRS on a two story home. Prices went from 2 mil pesos ( about 50K U.S) to 1.6 mil. After taking with my wife, we decided to build our own home ( she has experience in home construction) with a working budget of 800K ( about 20 K ). Over the next several months, I take pics and show how the process goes, what to do right and the things I did wrong. Ha ha ha

Upon landing in Manila airport and getting through customs, your passport is stamped with a 21 day tourist visa. Soon you are having fun, turning your currency into pesos, treating the entire family to thousand pesos lunches, just enjoying what this country has to offer. Time passes quickly and soon you find yourself a day before your visa expires wondering just what to do. If you have internet access you jump to Bureau of Immigration to get the low down on what to do. If you look at the FAQ you see that tourist can extended their visa date up to 24 months by applying for a visa waiver. Your first wavier will extend your 21 day stay to 59 days and will cost you about 3 thousand pesos. Here is the web page listing the fees: Visa Fees. Where to go? Well the main office is in Manila but there are satelite offices listed, find the one closest to where you are and plan the journey. Here is a shot of the BI office in Bacolod City

It was down like this alley way and was actually connected to the government building where basically the clerks would walk over to process your extension request. On a side note to enter any government building you are required to wear pants and collared shirt, ladies need pants ( jeans are okay) with a collared shirt and shoes. I have seen a few foreigners wearing shorts and they were allowed in, but why take the chance? Better to be on side of safe, as there are signs posted so they can refuse you entry. Here is a shot of the office, it had air con so it was a nice place to wait.

Here Is another shot with a copy of the dress code printed above the log book where you sign in when you arrive.

I tried to get a shot of the fees but I am not sure if you can make it out, but regardless they are posted so you know what you are suppose to pay and not get ripped offl in all it was a great visit and the clerks were very friendly and walked even a clown like me through the process. After your 59 day stay, if you want to extend then you will have to get an ARC (Alien Registration Card) so the next trip you will need to bring two passport head shots but for now you are done for another 38 days.

Tags: Extending visa

Its funny before you start a blog you think of all kinds of things to write about but when you actually put one online it seems the words evaporate like water on the sidewalk on a hot summer day. Even when you do think of something profound to say, does anyone even care to read it? Looking to the web for help and some hand holding, I found this website Lorelle WordPress no doubt about it, Lorelle VanFossen is the one of the experts in web design, content and all things WordPress. My advice is if you are using WordPress, her site should be in your browser’s favorites.  I would love to buy her book, but unfortunately I am in the Phils where all things involving mail never reach their intended address. Anyway check her site out and I know you’ll be impressed.

We can now move along with the posting since the issue of posting through Live Writer has been fixed. I now am going to try posting a picture of a display at the Government Center in Bacolod in honor of the Chinese New Year. Here is a picture of a dragon in front of the building.

Writer appears to be able to center the picture nicely, now to see how well it looks published.

It seems there is a problem with Live Writer and using XML-RPC requests to send posts. Joseph Cott has a workaround using a plug-in so I am going to try this now and see if it works. If it does he certainly deserves a shout-out, or a that a boy, or something.

pOkay now I am confused, I posted on my prior website with this theme and no html code characters showed up, now on this website it shows up, both with the same version of Windows Live Writer. This has got me scratching my head./p