Filipino workers abroad say they have survived far worse than a headline, including their employers
OFW Buyers Unbothered by Cebu Panic, Ask Only About Aircon
Filipino workers abroad say they have survived far worse than a headline, including their employers
DUBAI – At 11:40 p.m. on a Friday, after a twelve-hour shift at a hotel in Deira, a Filipino housekeeper named Maribel Santillan, 44, sat on the edge of her bunk bed in a staff dormitory and opened her phone to buy a condominium in Cebu.
She had read the news. She had read the stories about brokers and stigma and notarized alibis. Her response, delivered to her cousin over a video call, was five words long.
“Does it have aircon? Yes? Okay.”
The Buyers Who Did Not Flinch
While foreign retirees have been agonizing over whether to buy in Cebu, the other half of the market, the overseas Filipino workers who send money home, has barely noticed. Manila News reported that the buyers who keep signing are Filipinos, many funded by overseas workers, and brokers confirmed this week that OFW buyers asked just three things about their prospective neighbors: Is there parking, is there water, and does the landlord answer his phone.
Philippine authorities are examining allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, according to GMA News. No charges have been filed. The allegations are unproven. Santillan says she hopes the investigation is thorough and fair. “Protect the children,” she said. “That is first. After that, aircon.”
Her cousin, Josefina, who works in a clinic in Doha, was blunter. “I have worked for a man who wanted me to call him ‘Sir Fahad the Magnificent’ for six years,” she said. “A headline about a retired foreigner is not going to scare me.”
The OFW Buyer’s Checklist
According to a spreadsheet compiled by a Cebu broker who works with overseas clients, OFW buyers evaluate a unit using the following criteria, in this order:
- Aircon in the bedroom. Anything else is a rumor.
- A water supply that does not depend on prayer.
- A landlord or association that answers a call before the third ring.
- A guard, ideally named Mang Pedring or something close.
- A view, “if the budget allows. If not, a window.”
- Neighbors, “who may be anyone, as long as they stop the karaoke by nine.”
The broker added that the word “stigma” appeared nowhere on the form, and that one buyer had asked for a refund when a pop-up window used it.
The Foreign Press Notices
The contrast has not escaped the foreign press. The London Prat reported on British pensioners in Cebu supplying referees and vicars, and Santillan, shown the article at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/, laughed for a full minute. “A vicar,” she said. “I once had to get a letter from my employer to prove I existed. He wrote ‘Maribel.’ That was all. It worked.”
American buyers were also amusing. Bohiney reported that an Ohio realtor in Mactan finds her open houses running two hours, mostly because buyers are explaining themselves. Santillan’s cousin Josefina said she had never spent two hours explaining herself to anyone. “I spent two hours in a queue at the embassy,” she said. “That’s the Filipino version of an alibi.”
Comics From the Gulf
The story has become a staple in the Filipino comedy circuit in the Gulf, where shows are held in hotel function rooms on the only night of the week performers are free.
- Kuya Bong: “The foreign retirees are scared of a headline. The OFWs have survived a camel, a kafala, a seven-hour layover and a boss who thinks WhatsApp is a verb for work. A headline? It is a bedtime story.”
- Ate Cheng: “I bought a condo in Cebu from Dubai. The agent asked if I wanted a character reference. I said, sir, I have been a character in someone else’s house for fifteen years. I think I’m covered.”
- Dong Pacquiao-Reyes: “Filipinos abroad send home billions. Retired foreigners in the Philippines send home complaints about the breakfast. Both are remittances. One of them pays for a house.”
- Mama Lyn: “A condo is not a place to live. It is a place to receive a delivery. After twelve years in a hotel in Riyadh, that is a very satisfying thing.”
The Money Does Not Care About the Mood
The market data support the OFWs’ confidence. Colliers described the Visayas and Mindanao as a key property investment hotspot in July, and Cebu remains the region’s leading hub. Under the Condominium Act, foreigners may own units but not land, with a 40 percent cap on any project. Filipinos, of course, face no such cap, which is why remittances have been quietly filling the towers.
The same market reflex that unsettles foreign buyers has a name. The availability heuristic, described by Tversky and Kahneman in 1973, explains that people judge frequency by the ease of picturing an example. Santillan’s variation, she says, is simpler: “If the rent is paid, I do not picture anything.”
The Booking
By the end of the call, Santillan had selected a one-bedroom unit on the seventh floor of a Mactan tower for P4.8 million, with a down payment of P240,000, saved over fourteen months of overtime. She transferred the deposit from her phone. The broker sent a photograph of the unit, with a ceiling fan and an air conditioner both visible in the frame.
She looked at it for a long time. Then she asked a final question.
“Is there a guard?”
“Yes, ma’am. His name is Mang Pedring.”
“Does he have a goat?”
“Not officially.”
She smiled, closed the app and went to bed. The saga continues at The London Prat and Bohiney, and for the British view of anyone who works too hard, NewsThump has an opinion. For the background on why an aircon question is funny, see this guide to being funny in the Philippines.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/