Finding your Filipina girl
How do I find my future wife in the Philippines?
Finding your girl! Sounds scary, eh?
The good news is that there are 98 million people in the Philippines. And at least half of them are women. And a sizable proportion are unmarried. And you will soon discover there are a lot of very pretty and very sweet ladies there. Lovely girls wherever you look! And there's definitely something very special about them. Petite ladies. Fine features. Beautiful skin. Usually slim and trim. Dainty and graceful. And a sea of smiling faces with happy and positive dispositions. Friendly, warm and kind.
So there's a very good chance you'll find someone.
Are the girls in the Philippines only after you for your money? Some are. Most definitely. We'll cover this more in the next page, but yes you need to be aware that you are comparatively richer than probably 95% of the population. And of course there are those who will be unprincipled and will only want you for your money. Remember that there are (please forgive me for a dreadful cliche) "plenty of fish in the sea". If the girl is wrong wrong for you, then walk away. Use your brains, and think with the larger head (the one on your shoulders).
Another pearl of wisdom: When you are in the "dating" stage, both of you are on your best behaviour. You are trying your hardest to be as charming as you can, and so is she. Two points from this!
1. Anybody can be nice whilst writing letters, and most can be nice during a 1 week visit. More reason to take your time over your decision. Many people spend more time researching and choosing a new car than they do in choosing a wife! Crazy stuff! Don't feel you've "failed" if you don't pop the question during your first visit and come back engaged. If you're not sure, go back home and sleep on it for as long as it takes.
2. If she does things that annoy you, bother you or worry you when you're in the dating stage, it won't get better later. It will get worse! Don't ever kid yourself into thinking that once she gets to Australia and has experienced your wisdom and guidance that she will suddenly become all that you want her to be. It doesn't work! Bite the bullet, and finish it. Start again. You'll be a wiser man with a keener sense of what you need and what you don't need.
Methods?
The old fashioned method was by writing letters. Often a man in Australia would be "fixed up" by the wife of a friend, who has a relative or friend in the Philippines whom they had matched him up with. And there's a lot to be said for writing letters! Yes, it takes time. And many men have lost (or never developed) the art of writing a letter. But compared to "chat", it gives time to mull over your thoughts and to put some depth and feeling into what you put on paper. I met my wife via an ad on a website, but we wrote dozens of letters. And what it meant was that I got to know the person I was writing to, and the distractions of "the other head" didn't come into play. So try to add at least SOME letters to your communication.
The modern method is via emails, yahoo chat, websites with chat modules, interspersed with text messages and phonecalls. Anything wrong with it? Not in itself. Just be aware that light-hearted banter and "chat" can lack depth very easily, especially if it's flirtatious. And the speed of transmission means that you can swap 100 emails and countless hours of chat-time in a month. And that can allow romances to develop in a dizzying timeframe. Don't rush! Yes, you can fall in love in a month. But if it's real, she won't mind waiting for the relationship to mature before you commit to something.
There are plenty of websites out there which can provide you with a large number of girls to consider. And an advantage is that you'll tend to get a broader range of girls from all walks of life than you will on chat programs and in chat rooms. And you each have a bit more time to consider whom the person is from the bio-data. If you want to know, then this would be our method-of-choice.
The "other method"
The other "well tried" method is to go to the Philippines, and either head for the shopping malls, or to head for the red-light districts. Some feel that they need to meet the girl in person to see if there's "chemistry". Sorry! I don't agree! Attraction like that is far more BIOCHEMISTRY (ie. hormones!) than anything else! Don't confuse horniness with love!
Firstly, Filipinas are shy and demure by nature. And the NICE girls are old-fashioned. Allowing themselves to be chatted-up by a charming Aussie with smooth pick-up lines is NOT the way a nice girl behaves. And by and large, it's those old-fashioned values that attracted you to the Philippines in the first place. These are not short, darker-skinned Aussie girls. These are Filipinas. And you have a serious challenge meeting your future-wife this way.
And secondly, whilst anything is theoretically and occasionally actual, bar girls are a different kettle of fish altogether. I've seen (as a hotel guest....not as a customer) Filipina bar girls give the most wonderful and convincing "girlfriend" impersonations the world has ever seen, to the point that you would swear she loved the bloke. And the next night she's doing the same thing with a different one. Becoming a bar girl is such a quantum fall-from-grace for a Filipina, most never recover from this. You can take the girl out of the bar, but it's very hard to take the bar out of the girl. Please be aware of this. Heading to the bars is NOT the best way to find a nice girl.
(Having said that, I know that I risk upsetting a few people. Of COURSE there will be the possibility of a bar girl falling in love and leaving the old lifestyle behind, especially if she hasn't been working there very long. And I suspect that the average bar girl is dreaming of the day when the special one sweeps her off her feet and takes her away from it all. Many of the girls in Angeles City come from very poor places like Samar, where there only other option is to leave school at 12 and start planting rice by hand. But I think that even those who are happily married to ex-bargirls will admit that the average success-rate is not very high. To those who's met that way and made it? Then I take my hat off to you.)
Is she "free to marry"??
Let's open another can of worms!
There is no simple, straight-forward practice of "no-fault" divorce in the Philippines, as has existed in Australia since the early 1970's. The Philippines is a Catholic country, and marriage-for-life is the expectation. The Family Code of the Philippines 1987, Article 1 says:
"Marriage is a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered into in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life. It is the foundation of the family and an inviolable social institution whose nature, consequences, and incidents are governed by law and not subject to stipulation, except that marriage settlements may fix the property relations during the marriage within the limits provided by this Code."
Marriage is seen as "the foundation of the family and an inviolable social institution". Strong words! Marriages may be annulled under some circumstances, such as proving that one party in the marriage was psychologically incapable of meeting their marital obligations. In other words, it's not a simple process of two people (or one party) deciding it's time for a change.
Therefore, if you're at the looking-stage and you haven't fallen head-over-heels for a girl, save yourself some headaches and find out if she was ever married before. I know this sounds harsh, but the reality is that falling for a lady who is still legally married means that you will have extra time and expenses ahead of you before you can get together.
However, wise men say that only fools rush in, and the heart has its own agenda once unleashed. If you've already fallen for her and gone beyond the point of no return, then you already know you have no choice other than to see this one through. And you already know that SHE doesn't have the money to pay for it, therefore it's over to you sir! Be aware that a standard annulment is going to take 1 - 2 years, and cost P200,000 to P300,000. And there is many a lawyer in the Philippines who will drag it out and pad it out if he knows there's a "foreigner" footing the bill. So try to keep yourself unobtrusive in the process!
If you need to know more about the process of turning your still-married lady into a free-to-marry lady, feel free to CONTACT US. We know some good lawyers and we know some useful strategies that may be helpful to you!
