Each day, thousands of Filipinos stream to the airport looking for a better future overseas. Heading the opposite way is a thin but growing trickle of foreigners who believe their future is in the Philippines.
The visitors, mainly from Japan, Korea, the US and Europe, want to grow old here. No problem, you might say; they have come to the right place. Drive in Manila during rush hour and they'll get white hairs soon enough. Actually, though, they have a more leisurely ageing process in mind. The expats are pensioners who want to retire here.
One reason, apparently, is the weather. I used to wonder how sunshine could play a major role in someone's decision to relocate. Having since spent weeks working in northwest Europe during winter, shivering through grey days and taking tentative steps on icy pavements, I've begun to see things in a new light.
Pensioners also cite the warmth of the people, and how Filipinos seem to always smile. Rigor mortis would be my first explanation but that's just me being glib. I can't deny that for all - or maybe because of - the tribulations we're put through, we Filipinos manage to appear happy. Then there's the cost of living. A pension of US$1,200 a month might not eke out much of an existence in the United States, but here it can support a lifestyle that could include maids and a driver. All these reasons, plus the fact that English is widely spoken, make the country a retirement paradise.
Most pensioners retire to the provinces, where costs are low and beaches are near. Last year, somebody in Hong Kong e-mailed me a long, loving video of the beach home he'd built on a quiet island in the Visayas. It made me feel like becoming a pensioner myself.
For more than 20 years now, the government has been running an expat retirement programme offering renewable one-year visas to foreigners who want to live here and can put up a deposit of US$50,000. There are between 4,000 and 10,000 retirees who have already done so.
