Ah, I am still in a bad mood after the annulment news.

1) The one thing that is cheap in the Philippines is manual labour. This has a knock on effect on things that are produced in the country. Anything that has to be imported or relies on natural resources is about as expensive as in the West. Property is not cheap, at least not in or near the cities.
Sorry to disagree with this comment. It may depend where you live but for me living in UK, property in Philippines is comparatively very cheap. I would imagine that for anyone thinking of retiring in the philippines the cost of buying property or indeed renting would be very much lower than in almost every western country. Just my experience.

3) How do you pay for health services? Do you sign up with a private health insurance in the Phils, or do some UK services pay for medical services in the Phils? I imagine that a private health insurance for a retiree would be VERY expensive.
Depends what you mean by "VERY expensive". To be honest the article didn't focus on cost, it actually highlighted that the Philippines can offer high quality medical services, which is mainly so.
It also mentions care-quality, which is also good.
Look, a decent medical policy from UK would probably cost between £1500-£3500 per year generally, but don't forget that would also depend on pre-existing conditions and age etc etc etc.(there's a lot of etc's)
Many people actually "self-insure" for medical emergencies. Most older retirees are more concerned with support care and domicillary care as they get older.
Their wives can only be expected to do so much. But look, as you say yourself, labour costs are cheap. Means you can hire the care you want, even a full time fully qualified nurse if you need.
In the UK this is the biggest problem and most costly part of growing older. Think about it, but not too long or you'll get depressed and want to retire in Philippines.

I also noticed that there are more and more "retirement villages" in development which also seem to offer some great all round benefits and at comparative good costings too. Well worth it for some folks.

The practical issues of Medical and healthcare in the philippines is probably a topic worthy of it's own thread as there are so many important issue to consider.

Life is what you make of it.