What It's REALLY Like In The Philippines / (The Truth About The Philippines)

Pea delivers part two of her unfiltered list of truths about daily life in the Philippines, covering everything from road hazards to shopping quirks to burial customs. She acknowledges getting angry comments from locals who think she should only talk about the good stuff, but doubles down on telling it like it is, arguing that acknowledging problems is necessary even when there's plenty to be proud of as a Filipina.

What's Covered ​

• Motorbike overloading and improvised cargo transport

  • Most Filipinos can't afford cars, so motorbikes are the default — same as in Vietnam and Thailand
  • Families routinely pile four, five, six people on a single motorbike, sometimes with babies and kids without helmets
  • Pea once saw seven people on one motorbike
  • People also haul construction materials, large items, even full-size televisions on motorbikes
  • Some cities have started ticketing riders without helmets, but overloading remains widespread in the provinces

• Drying rice on the road

  • Farmers lay tarps of unhusked rice directly on the concrete road to dry in the sun, raking it periodically
  • Once dry, the rice goes to a milling station
  • This creates a serious driving hazard — you can be speeding through the provinces and suddenly encounter a pile of rice, forcing you to either ruin someone's crop, slam the brakes, or swerve

• Trees and electrical posts growing in the middle of the road

  • During road widening projects, instead of removing trees or utility poles, workers sometimes just pour concrete around them
  • No flashing warning lights, no orange cones — just a full-size tree or post sticking out of the asphalt in your lane
  • Extremely dangerous at night when these pop up in front of you with no warning

• No speed traps, but it doesn't matter

  • Pea has never seen a speeding ticket issued in 30 years
  • No radar guns or speed enforcement exists
  • Average highway speed is around 20 km/h anyway because of trikes, motorbikes, pedicabs, and all the other obstructions

• Mall bomb checks are security theater

  • Every mall parking lot has a guard who sticks a mirror under your car and checks your trunk
  • They never look inside the car itself — not even the back seat
  • Pea jokes that a determined person could just put a bomb in the back seat under a blanket and no one would notice
  • Guards also make you remove hats, caps, and sunglasses upon entering (presumably for security cameras)
  • They check women's purses but don't bother checking men's bags — Pea and her friends joke about this being weirdly discriminatory

• Sugar is in everything; sugar-free options don't exist

  • Filipinos love sugar and everything is loaded with it
  • If you eat low-calorie or sugar-free food, good luck finding it in Philippine stores
  • Filipino-style spaghetti has sauce full of sugar (Pea personally doesn't eat it but most Filipinos love it)
  • Pea finds it amazing Filipinos aren't all overweight given the sugar consumption, but warns that could change

• Spam is a status symbol

  • The Filipino delicacy that signals wealth isn't caviar — it's Spam
  • If you serve Spam at a party, it's a status symbol suggesting you can afford the good stuff
  • Spam costs about four dollars a can in the Philippines, making it genuinely expensive for most families

• Knockoff and pirated everything

  • Store shelves are stocked with fake designer clothing and accessories — Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Fendi — all for a few hundred pesos
  • Pirated DVDs sold on the side of the road for about 50 pesos (around a dollar)
  • Piracy laws exist but nobody enforces them
  • If you see Ray-Bans for five bucks, you know why

• Hotels check for stolen towels before letting you leave

  • When checking out of a Philippine hotel, they hold you at the counter and send someone up to your room to verify all towels and bed sheets are still there
  • They want to make sure the TV didn't end up in your car trunk
  • You have to add extra minutes to your checkout for this process

• Most Filipino cats have broken or deformed tails

  • About 80% of cats in the Philippines have messed-up tails
  • Pea has four cats; three have broken tails — one bent at 90 degrees (Squeaks), one shaped like a corkscrew (Flokie), some look tied in knots
  • She researched it: it's due to inbreeding from cats that never travel far and end up mating with close relatives
  • Pea's joke: "Good thing we Filipinos don't have tails"

• Pay toilets that charge based on what you plan to do

  • Some public restrooms charge different amounts depending on whether you're doing number one or number two (e.g., one peso vs. two pesos)
  • You stand in line, reach a cashier, and declare your intentions in front of everyone
  • It's on the honor system — no inspectors checking your output
  • Pea jokes about being arrested or deported for failing to pay your "defecation fee"
  • She performs a comedy skit at the end where she negotiates with a bathroom cashier, including a "security deposit" for someone who ate at the all-you-can-eat Burrito Barn

• Almost no one has an oven or makes coffee properly

  • Very few Filipino households have ovens; baking at home is rare
  • No tradition of grandma's homemade cookies
  • Most Filipinos drink "three-in-one" instant coffee — a packet of instant coffee, creamer, and sugar mixed with boiled water
  • Ground coffee is expensive, coffee filters are hard to find (Pea once looked for filters at the grocery store and they were out of stock)
  • Coffee connoisseurs need to stock up on the good stuff themselves

• How the dead are buried — compartment rentals and bone extraction

  • The Philippines uses compartment-style burial: box-like spaces just big enough for a coffin, with a rental price paid to the government
  • When Pea's biological father died, her mother paid for a 10-year rental
  • After the rental expires, if you can't keep paying, the government extracts the bones and puts them in a mass grave
  • Pea's family extracted her father's bones and combined them with a relative's remains in the relative's compartment to save money
  • She says this sounds strange but is very common

• The "bahala na" mentality — the national philosophy of "come what may"

  • "Bahala na" translates roughly to "come what may" or "God will provide"
  • Pea sees it as often an excuse for not planning, not saving money, and not striving harder
  • Manifests in poverty situations: people complain about being poor but won't find jobs, saying "bahala na, God will provide"
  • Also applies to family planning — people have many babies without contraception, saying "bahala na"
  • Pea compares the frustration to Homer Simpson pulling his hair out
  • She wishes she could change this mentality, acknowledges that long-term expats have heard "bahala na" a million times
  • If your wife or girlfriend says it, "it'll probably make you want to pull your hair out"

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