by Rosario Buenaflor

Created on: March 13, 2011   Last Updated: June 24, 2011

The Philippines is a country of contradictions, and as such, Philippine society is perceived internationally as a friendly but a dangerous place to live in.  As a tourist destination, the Philippines indeed has pros and cons enough to make its own people debate about it incessantly. Some of the contradictions derived from its historical past, having been ruled for about 400 years in total by the Spaniards, Japanese and Americans.  Filipinos have a strong sense of relationships and being so the influence of their former rulers is still very much a part of their psyche and reasoning.  Being of largely Indo-Malay origin, Filipinos are exceedingly trusting, hard-working, and jovial people.  These characteristics have made many of them do well in the entertainment industry.  Filipinos are also known to be competent and trustworthy skilled and professional workers.  Nowadays, the average Filipino is a mix of east and west influences.  They have retained conservative Catholicism views but is equally influenced by western media especially coming from America and the Internet community.  This makes the people of the Philippines really easy to warm to and like.

The Philippines is never short of human resources as it has a population of over 97 million.  So manual and skilled labor that tourism industry survives on are cheap.  This makes local water sports activities such as scuba diving, snorkeling, rafting, surfboarding, easy on your pocket.  This is also true for other activities like mountaineering, cycling, and hiking to name but a few.  Night time entertainment such as nightclubbing, watching live bands, sing-along karaoke and the like, are vibrant, modern, and upbeat.  Filipinos are great party buddies.  Even if you’re travelling on your own, you would not feel alone as you will always be treated as a valued guest if not their buddy.  As a general rule,  the more something cost, the better it will be.  However, friendliness and warmth are just the natural qualities of everyone regardless of what you can afford.

Customer service, though, slightly lacking in professional presentation has a very thorough approach, always with utmost politeness that it is almost timid.  Unfortunately, this is sometimes wrongly interpreted as arrogance or poor customer service by visitors.   English is widely used in business and schools.  Though, majority of Filipinos can speak

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>