The Things We Don't Tell You (About Life In The Philippines)

Pea sits outside with her evening coffee for a casual, unscripted rundown of things about daily life in the Philippines that catch foreigners off guard. She covers everything from trash disposal and tangled power lines to armed fast-food guards and banks interrogating you about your own money. The video is part one of her "real Philippines" series and invites veteran expats to add their own observations in the comments.

What's Covered ​

• Trash is everywhere and nobody uses trash cans

  • Trash litters the streets and spaces between houses across the Philippines
  • People don't grasp the consequences of improper disposal — they think trash magically disappears once thrown
  • Proper disposal is taught in schools, but in Pea's opinion, people just don't care
  • In the provinces, people burn their trash or dump it in the river
  • In cities (even smaller ones like Dumaguete), garbage collectors come weekly
  • Trash cans are sold in stores but Filipino households rarely have them inside the home
  • Public trash cans on streets are largely nonexistent
  • Filipinos are frugal — they reuse plastic shopping bags as bins, then burn or river-dump them when full
  • When eating candy on the street, most people just throw wrappers on the ground

• Tangled power lines cause constant outages

  • Western countries might have three or four cables per pole; the Philippines has what looks like a hundred, all tangled together
  • Vegetation near electric posts plus heavy rain or wind causes frequent power outages
  • When something breaks, the repair philosophy is "good enough" rather than fixing it properly — Pea wishes they'd just fix the lines right the first time

• Stray animals are everywhere because nobody spays or neuters

  • Filipinos don't spay or neuter pets — they just let them breed and roam the neighborhood
  • There's a law against animal cruelty and the government offers free spaying, neutering, and rabies vaccination, but most people don't use these services
  • Result: packs of stray dogs and cats in the streets (plus rats), though the dogs are friendly — they'll sniff you but won't attack
  • Pea is personally passionate about animals and says if she weren't doing YouTube, she'd volunteer at a shelter
  • Not much other wildlife besides dogs, cats, and rats

• Armed guards at every store, including 7-Eleven and McDonald's

  • Guards carry loaded guns — not just batons
  • Purpose is not only to deter robbers and shoplifters but also to monitor employees
  • Pea recalls working at McDonald's where a guard checked her bag to make sure she wasn't stealing burgers and chicken
  • Shoplifting and robberies aren't actually very common (more so in bigger cities)
  • The upside: guards are usually friendly, great for information, memorize the store layout and merchandise, always open doors and greet customers

• Self-appointed parking attendants are everywhere

  • Either self-employed or government-employed, they stand outside establishments and help you find parking and back out into traffic
  • They stop traffic for you when pulling out, which is genuinely helpful
  • Most of the time you don't really need their help, but everyone's got to make a living
  • They expect a tip of 5-10 pesos
  • Some people find them annoying and feel it's like begging, but Pea says they're generally very helpful

• Politically incorrect car signs and discriminatory hiring

  • Cars display signs like "Warning: Lady Driver" — in the Philippines this isn't meant as sexist; it's actually the female drivers themselves putting up the signs as a polite heads-up that they're still learning
  • Pea didn't do this herself because she didn't want to announce her driving skills might not be great
  • Job postings openly specify "18 to 26, attractive female with pleasing personality only"
  • This would be illegal in the West but is standard practice in the Philippines
  • Good-looking people have an edge in hiring over those who aren't conventionally attractive
  • Older women (late 20s and up) face severe disadvantage in both employment and finding partners
  • Fresh college graduates get hired easily; people who land a job tend to stay because opportunities are scarce

• No traffic lights and no road safety infrastructure in Dumaguete

  • The entire city of Dumaguete has no traffic lights
  • Drivers negotiate intersections through some unspoken communication system — "somehow they have a way to communicate in their heads"
  • No warning signs for road construction, no closed-lane indicators, no orange cones
  • Roads are shared with pedestrians, animals lying down, cars driving the wrong way, and "tambay" (unemployed men hanging around drinking on the roadside)
  • Tambay are looked down upon by most Filipinos for being jobless and wasting time
  • Pea warns: be careful not to run over the tambay

• Water vending machines with communal bags

  • Street water vending machines dispense purified water for one peso
  • Plastic bags are provided at the machine — you fill the bag and drink straight from it
  • Pea notes the hygiene concern: you're grabbing a bag that who-knows-how-many people have handled, which is especially risky during the pandemic
  • Bringing your own water bottle is the smarter move

• Public urination is technically illegal but completely unenforced

  • Laws against public urination exist in major cities but are never enforced
  • Men pee on walls, trees, and roadsides freely — taxi drivers will randomly stop mid-ride to relieve themselves
  • In the West, you'd be listed as a sex offender for touching your zipper in public; in the Philippines, it's just Tuesday
  • Pea shares a personal story: she was on a bus, desperately needed to pee, had to stop the bus and go far from the road because "we females don't have the equipment to just pee anywhere"
  • She advises foreign men against doing this publicly because they'll stand out like a "sore thumb," even though locals get away with it

• Stores close whenever they feel like it

  • A store listed as open until 8 PM might start turning off lights and turning people away at 6 PM
  • Pea finds this counterintuitive for a developing country where you'd think people would want to work longer hours

• Everything electronic gets tested before you buy it

  • Stores unbox and test every electronic item before sale — light bulbs are checked, TVs are powered on
  • The real reason: there's essentially no return policy, so both sides need to confirm the product works before the sale is final

• Catholic prayer freezes stop all commerce

  • At scheduled prayer times (noon, 3 PM, or 6 PM), everyone in a store stops what they're doing for Catholic prayer
  • As a customer, you're frozen in a twilight zone until the prayer ends
  • It's completely normal and expected in this Catholic country

• No street addresses — hand-drawn maps for deliveries

  • Many areas lack proper street names or addresses
  • When you buy something that needs delivery (mattress, fridge), the delivery person gives you paper and pen to draw a map
  • Directions are landmark-based: "turn left at the basketball court, straight to the acacia tree, behind the church turn left"

• Cash-only economy and banking absurdity

  • Most smaller stores don't accept credit cards — carry cash at all times
  • Most Filipinos don't have credit cards or bank accounts because: (1) they lack the IDs required to open accounts, and (2) many don't trust banking institutions
  • If you try to withdraw a large amount of your own money over the counter, the bank teller interrogates you about why you need it
  • You have to give a reason that satisfies the bank before they'll release your own money
  • The stated reason is anti-money-laundering enforcement, but the experience feels absurd
  • Pea performs a comedy skit at the end: a woman trying to withdraw money gets interrogated, gives increasingly frustrated answers, and finally claims the money is for breast augmentation surgery — which the teller immediately approves, saying "it's obvious you're telling the truth"

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