Antipolo, Pasig, Cainta, Marikina

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Typhoon Ketsana's devastation is the worst in the last 40 years in Metro Manila. My partner and I almost bought a 2 br condo unit in Pasig, Riverfront Residences. We're lucky we didn't.

Pasig was one of the most badly hit areas where flood waters reached up to 4ft in 6 hours on September 25, 2009. Antipolo, Cainta and Marikina are the other cities that were drastically damaged and submerged. If you were to buy property in the Philippines, do not buy in these areas. On top of sewage and drainage problems, these places are near rivers and dams. They are overly populated as well. It's quite disheartening that many new real estate developments were concentrated in these areas and many people bought new houses just recently.

The current death toll in Metro Manila is 246. Many people died in their own homes as they weren't able to escape in time. Nobody expected the surge of water. Local officials had to let water out of the dams, fearing they would burst. One person died inside his car as the waters buried the streets. Many countries have provided overwhelming donations to aid the Philippine government in their relief operations:

Australia - AUD $1 Million
USA - USD $10,000
Japan - USD $220,000 worth of goods
Vietnam - USD $208,000 worth of rice
Korea - USD $330,000

For more information about the flooding in Manila, click here.

Healthy job creation in the Philippines

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I have long believed that the Philippines will weather the current recession better than most countries. By any standard the Philippines is well-placed. The most important factors are:
1. Strong remittances - the recession has not greatly decreased remittances from abroad
2. Mining - Mineral prices have collapsed but they still offer attractive returns
3. Tourism - The Philippines is at the cheaper end of the market, so it is unlikely to suffer
4. Structural shift in employment - There is a structural shift in jobs from foreign call centres to the Philippines.
5. Population growth of 2% per annum in the Philippines
6. Healthy economy - the government is in pretty good shape. There is no huge overhang of public or private sector debt like the bad old days. For this reason I suggest the Philippines will be looking at a property boom like Thailand in a few years.

In recent times I've seen continued moves by western firms to shift some of their call centre activities to the Philippines. The latest is Vodafone Australia and about two months ago Telecom NZ were doing the same thing. Expect more of this type of behaviour, and it will increasingly involve smaller companies outsourcing call centre activities.