An awful lot depends on whom you rent from!
Two examples - a friend who was the doyen of the British community, having arrived in Manila in 1950, never owned property but rented a beautiful house (next door to Juan Ponce Enrile!) in Urdaneta Village, Makati, until he died in the late 90's.
Another friend, 20 years in the Philippines, rents a smaller but also very nice house from a prominent Chinese family - very nice people - in a very nice place. The trick lies in knowing your landlord - both in the sense of choosing a good one and in the sense of being on social terms with him or her.
Remember that a foreigner can always be thrown off land that he thinks he owns, anyway.
