Are we foreigners wasting our time trying to help our wive's families here?

I felt compelled to answer.

Before anything else, I would like to thank you for helping my fellow countrymen. You, sir, are a true gentleman.

I admire foreigners who help this poor country of mine, whatever that help may be, regardless of personal goal. Why? Because IMHO you have absolutely no obligation to lend us a hand. And that sir I find very noble.

In your case you're obviously helping through financial means but hey it's much more than that! Heck you are sending three different people to school and that my friend is the proverbial "teaching a man how to fish". Who knows, your niece might become the country's president, all thanks in part to you. People grow when they become educated, and the effect ripples long after you are gone.

Suffice it to say that this typical behavior happens not only to expats but to other Filipinos as well. You did great by choosing the people you help. The Holy Bible even says that "people who don't work should not eat". Rightly so!

People who just ask for money, don't work, and never pay debts are poisonous people, not only to you but to society as well. And like all diseased branches they must be cut off! Sad to say but you have to disassociate yourself to these kinds of people. I've seen them before... you show kindness but treat you with disrescpect, you are quiet yet they spread rumours about, you help them and they stab you back! Away with these people, evil doers!

I would like you to continue helping my country in your own meaningful way. With more restraint, may I add. Like if you want to send someone to school, tell that person that he or she has to prove it first, perhaps by passing the entrance exam of one of Manila's best universities. It's very easy to claim to be smart nowadays.

Your help is helping; you just need to help the right kinds of people.

Well you are quite right, we are wasting our time if we just give the money away!

However, you also mentioned working. If they will work for the money, it is not a waste of time at all.

I have found that there is always something that needs doing. Such as

- Maintenance on the family home - ie gardening, painting etc

- Maintenance on the family car

- Massage

- Work in the family business

- Building project

- Carer

- and more

Anyone who asks for money is told they have to work for it.

For all business proposals, I ask them to explain how it will make a profit which usually makes it easy for me to explain how it will not make a profit and politely decline the request.

I do give for emergencies but only my share. Others should give what they can too.

I have found that the best way to help the family is to support a bussines with reasonable chance of succces. We had several failed businesses until we finally hit gold with a furniture business.

The furniture business employs family who are paid per piece, not per hour. The business also does roof trusses, doors, door frames, window frames and aluminium windows for new houses and extensions. It also contacts for house painting.

This will give you an idea of how successful this has been.

When I met the family, they had a single small hollow block house with no bathroom, on a half hectare of land. No transport. Nanay had a stall in the fish market and Tatay had just been laid off.

Now the family house is on 3 levels, there are two other houses on the same block of land. They have a small piggery and the furniture business. They have land by the sea and another block of land by the river with a house they rent. They have a delivery truck, multicab, Pajero 4 wheel drive, 2 motor scooters and a moror bike used as a habal habal. Nanay no longer needs to work and Tatay is the Barangay Captain.

So in at least one case, help was not a waste of time.

Regards: Jim Sibbick

Actually the slaughter plant in Illinois is a Virginia owned company, the tax comment is incorrect. As far as the water waste problem they are still within their time limits to pay the fine. Their fine is also minimal to other big legal USA businesses. Goggle waste water fines and you'll see what I mean. They owe pennies. The USDA making a comment like "92.3% of these horses are young, healthy, re-trainable" is laughable. Very few have ever been around a live horse and how their mind works. They are not vet's or trainers. They inspect meat.

You are under no obligation to help your wife's family. You need your wife's help. However late this idea may be, she's the one who should stand by your door and tell all the moochers she has a shot gun that's ready to fire. Brother-in-law, sister-in-law, orphaned niece - you are overloaded with responsibility that shouldn't have been yours. On top of all your kindness to others, why is there American bashing? Are you serious? If you are, the only solution that comes to my mind is for you to say to everyone, "I've had enough. I'm packing my bags and return to the U.S. if this nonsense doesn't stop."

P.S. I really feel sorry for you. I hear the same story quite often. The victims are not only ex-pat American husbands but also Filipinos who've been successful overseas and had returned to the Philippines to take life easy. Instead they get into this mess.

One can see it all around. There are hard working Filipinos half of whom are in foreign lands the other half in Philippines earning money. Then there are those, you can see them sitting on their porches all day, or playing billiards, videoke, or whatnot. They have no urge to work, or to have a feeling of accomplishment.

Now, about supporting relatives... in the first place my wife knows how I feel, that you will not help people by throwing money at them, but rather by teaching them a way to earn money. In order to keep peace in the house I let my wife make the decision on who gets what (if anything). As a result, we have a lot of unhappy relatives, but we put two of their children through private school, and employ 2 housekeepers and a handyman who are all relatives.

But what the heck - Gloria says that the unemployment is only 7%. Of course that includes people who do things even without getting paid (like triking your kids to school). I have a hunch that if unemployment figures were not pulled out of thin air, the average Filipino salary would be much higher than published.

First off, I personally like you. You seem to be a better breed of kano than most of your expat peers living there.

Secondly, I do not think that people here "bash" on kanos any more deservedly than they bash other nationalities or even their own. Maybe it just seems that way because kanos (along with Aussies and pinoys have stronger tendencies to get drunk and say and do stupid, boastful things than other nationalities which will haunt them later.) For the record, I myself am an equal opportunity "basher".

Now on to the question. No one should be forcing or obligating you with paying off your wife's relatives every time they come begging. It is not a requirement on your visa. The relationship between expats with local wives and the their wives' "relatives" is simply a co-dependent one.

Meaning, it takes two to tango. They beg and and YOU are the enabler by subsequently providing. That simple. You stop the enabling, they stop coming to you--eventually.

But here's the catch. The reason you hold out your hand to these folks is not because you primarily want to help them, but because you don't want to piss off your wife, so please don't give us that "or do [Filipinos] appreciate what we do to help" line, because admittedly your reasons for helping pertains to preserving the state of your marriage more so than from a pure need to help the less fortunate. Yes, I know so and I suspect deep down you know this as well. It's the universal rule of thumb for married couples.

And yes, how can you really be helping anyone you send money if the money is not used to heal them or teach them a marketable skill? It doesn't.

I notice 1 reply mentioned the drunk, the gambler etc.

This too is my problem that I cannot understand.

We constantly are asked for financial assistance when the Father's of the nieces and nephews are not working.

They need this that and the other.

But there is never a shortage for Tanduay,Red Horse, cigarettes and cards to gamble with????????

The Cock fights are always the priority, not the Rice and Fish for the family.

My wife is fanatic in sending the money and now I dont even have a say in it as it has gone on for so many years it is habit.

We have two kids ourselves and I ask myself why I am supporting these free loaders at the expense of extras or just the betterment for my own children?

I know I do not--have --to help, but when it is given as freely as I do, should I not expect it is for the things that matter instead of allowing grown men to be able to drink, smoke and gamble?

No-one sends me free money to allow me to do that.

To be honest, it has now become a real problem and causes serious arguements between my wife and myself. I want to stop it but she insists on sending the money like clockwork every month and plenty of extra amounts in between.

My reply to her is---how then do Filipinos without relatives like me overseas live?They seem to survive with no outside help. Why then are the families of western husbands the exception that work is something they cannot do and handouts from us are the only way THEY can live?

I DO feel like a walking ATM and am close to putting my foot down and telling my wife--enough is enough.

For the last 12 or 13 years we have basically provided a living for her 3 sister's families --the husbands are lazy, never worked in all that time and I now believe it is because thier attitude is--sister overseas can support us.

Well, sorry, get off your lazy behind and get a job!

I agree with you and understand your frustration. Friday I received an email "You are a bad foreigner. I hate you. I come visit tomorrow and beg you to help me again. If you do not I hope you die." This is from a man that I helped. He is a government approved High School teacher. He was working at a private school and decided he wanted to teach in public school for better benefits. You read in the papers how desperate the public schools are for teachers, but I am told the government has not released the money to pay him. Last school year he worked about 3 months as a substitute. I told him I could not continue to give them 8000 pesos a month and he needed to get a job at the Mall. His reply, "I am a licensed teacher I am not working at a Mall." That is when the help STOPPED. In his mind I am bad and I have found many in the Philippines have the same mindset. I came here as a missionary over six years ago and just last night I was praying "God why did you bring me here. I cannot see anything I have accomplished."

I am a Filipina,married to an American.I have a good job & so my husband.Thank God,I dont have to support my family back in the Phil.If they ever ask for a support.I will decline.I work hard to be an independent & to reach my goal.They have to do the same.Money does not grow on trees,that we in America just pick it up & sent it to them.Where as those people are just sitting around & waiting for handouts.

I will never support them,if they ask...except if it is Life or death situation...But sending to school,that is the parents

responsibilities.My parents sent me to college,without any help from her siblings.The Pilipinos should know that money is not easy to get.

Sometimes it is sad to think,that some Filipina married American men

so they can help their big families.This women also have to think of their own family & responsiblities.

the problem is that city-living Filipinos who haven't been around the country that much are quick to generalize Americans in the Philippines as philanders who chose to be here because they couldn't handle life in their own country.

i've been living in and out of Clark for the past two years where i see decent-living Americans everyday who are far from the stereotype that some of us Filipinos made up. Americans are the nicest foreigners in the country and the American bashing is unfair to people like yourself who just want to help.

to be honest, you don't have to ask us if your "help" is actually helping. just ask yourself what your wife, your wife's sister, your brother in law, and your orphaned niece would be like without you. i don't know if "helping" is true for every other American here, but you're doing what you can.

just don't mind the American bashers, they're just adolescent teens stuck in front of their computers often and asking money from their parents too much. join my bandwagon and let's bash Koreans instead. ;-)