Jim Sibbick first visited the Philippines in September 1994 and immediately fell in love with the culture and the people. He lives in Cebu City for part of the year and Australia for part of the year. While traveling to various areas of the Philippines, he shoots videos to bring a bit of the Philippines to those who have never visited or seen this wonderful country. He has more than 100 short videos of the Philippines currently hosted on two websites and available for you to download for free. Follow this site as he discusses his thoughts on the Philippines, new videos available for download and how some of the videos came into being.
What are you afraid of?
Recently, I tried to visit an American friend at his home in the province.
When I arrived, I was told he had moved.
I contacted my friend to find out why.
He had moved because he was afraid.
Afraid of his neigbours!!!
This was something in need of investigation!
The town where my friend was living is low crime. No foreigners harmed in recent times and probably no foreigners harmed since the second world war when the Japanese were turned away by hand to hand combat and heavy bombing from the Americans.
Why was he afraid?
Apparently his neighbours would drink and get noisy and sometimes keep him awak until 2am. Nothing new there. That could happen anywhere.
What had really happened?
Apparently one night, there was a Filipino looking in his window during one of the drinking sessions and when he rang the police, they would not come.
Why would the police not come?
There was no crime being committed!
If anyone has ever tried to get the police in the Philippines, you will know that it is hard enough to get a policeman to come, even if a crime is being committed.
I questioned friends about the neighbourhood. Apparently the neighbours would get drunk and noisy from time to time before my American friend moved in, continued while he was living there and are still doing it now. They have never harmed anyone! They had even invited my American friend to join them.
I questioned my friend about the Filipino looking in the window. On reflection, he thought the Filipino may have just been using the window as a mirror.
So what was the best solution here? For me, I would have drank with the neigbours. Not every time but sometimes. I am sure we could all be friends and there would never be a need to ring the police.
So!
What are you afraid of?
One Response to 'What are you afraid of?'
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on January 2nd, 2010 at 10:34 am
Hi there,
This is my first post to your group. I have been reading some of the posts in the past but this time I had to comment. I will comment on the previous post on being afraid.
I have been here now for more than 6 months, and have never had any thoughts or feelings of insecurity.I go all the places I want to, even to the heart of Manila and Q.C.. Never has anyone been threatening to me or us. But as one of the posts stated, I do talk and hang out with the locals at least once a month. Drink some play cards some, just stop and talk to them on occasion.