Choice - living in the UK or Philippines?

[Ayjay]

I don't know any upper class Filipinos, I do know one middle class guy that works for ebay and earns a western style salary (still low but very good) I also know a number of very educated Filipinos who earn about 300 quid a month two of them lawyers and one a computer programmer and they are all very decent people, the rest are poor, some of them have motives for being friendly but many of them don't and are just good people.

Jim

There are many Filipinos that earn or have an income that would make your eyes water..

Our Filipino corporate lawer (Harvard educated) was paid a retainer of $100,000 USD per year, plus time, travel expenses etc when representing the company. And we were only one of this corporate clients.

I agree that provincial jobing lawers doing business under a mango tree would pull in about $500 per month.

In terms of expats working in the Phils for multinational corporations; these guys are normally seconded from other overseas business units for specific projects, for well defined time lines. Normally, their home based salaries are paid into their bank accounts in their home countries. An expat engineering manager or specialist would normally have an in country allowance of 200,000 Pesos (2001 levels), car, driver, accomodation, medical insurance, kids education, yearly family return air travel.. etc..etc..

Prime locations for these expats are, Manila, Baguio, Santa Rosa, Marivelles Bataan, Limay Bataan... and other locations.

AJ