Buying land in the Philippines – Monkeywrench Your Life!

Water, Water Everywhere…

Well, that’s what I thought anyway. It’s the tropics. It rains a lot. Everywhere I go I see flooded rice fields. When we started the process of looking for land, I was told by numerous people to make sure the land doesn’t flood in the rainy season. So having an adequate supply of water was never on my radar as a possible issue.

When we bought our land, there were two hand-dug, shallow wells on the property, though we only knew of one of them. The property was very overgrown and the second well was buried in brush. The well we knew of is 18 feet deep, probably about a meter in diameter, and had 12 feet of water in it. That seemed like a lot of water. What I didn’t like about it is that the water was very cloudy, and being an open, shallow well, I’m sure there was a lot of surface contamination. Still, I thought yeah, there’s plenty of water here. But when my in-laws moved onto the property and started using the well every day, the pump quickly ran dry as the well was drawn down and the water level was not replenishing.

If you’ve been following my Facebook, you know that we’ve made a number of attempts to drill a well, and have failed spectacularly over and over. That sure does make me feel incompetent! So I figured I might as well try to lay out the whole story to date here. Note I said “to date” as we still don’t have a reliable source of water. The saga continues.

Our first attempt was hiring a tasok team recommended by the broker who helped us find our land. After agreeing on terms, they came out one bright and promising morning and started to work. They lasted about 3 hours. They hit a chunk of rock they couldn’t drill through or dislodge, and they quit; packed up their gear and went home.

Let’s pause and explain some terms, at least as I understand them. A tasok well is a well that is drilled by hand. There is a drilling rod with a drill bit on the end, and water is pumped into the top of the drilling rod. This is all just like the big truck-mounted drilling rigs used all over the world, just scaled down to be operated by human muscle. The drill rod is lifted up, slammed down, twisted, lifted up, slammed down, twisted, over and over, ad infinitum, all powered by the arms and backs of the tasok crew.

When I asked Inday what the literal meaning of tasok is, she thought for a moment but couldn’t come up with the English word. So she poked me in the ribs and asked “What’s that?” I told her she had poked me and she said “Yes, they poke a hole in the ground.”

So, our first attempt at getting a well drilled lasted only 3 hours and ended in failure. I used to do a lot of work at Harvard Business School back in my video production days, and one theme I heard over and over while working there is that it’s okay to fail, but you should fail fast. Check! We seem to have succeeded at failing fast. Time to regroup.

Our next attempt was another crew of tasok men. This time the crew was from Barotac Vieo, and was led by someone my in-laws know. They spent a couple of weeks living on the property and dug a total of 3 wells in various locations before hitting what they thought was sufficient water. They sunk a PVC well pipe and moved our hand pump over, and it did indeed produce decent water. Unfortunately it didn’t recharge quickly enough and the first time we connected an electric well pump to it, it ran dry in a matter of minutes.

So now I, the impatient American, am starting to lose it. I told Eden we need to quit screwing around and hire someone with a “real” drill rig and get the darned well drilled. I’m sure she could tell you about listening to me rant in frustration over how hard it is to get anything done here in the Philippines. Sweetie, thank you for your patience listening to me vent!

It was at this time that Nathan, Eden’s brother-in-law and the guy who managed the building of the water tower and my in-law’s house, said he had heard of a method of scanning the ground and locating the exact location of water, and suggested we let him investigate this for us. So, a few weeks later we had a couple out to the property with their equipment to do geo resistivity scanning. This is a process of putting electrodes into the ground, shooting an electrical current down into the subsurface, and measuring the resistivity of the various layers of materials. I don’t have any photos of them doing this as the equipment is apparently sensitive enough that they asked everyone to turn off their cell phones while they were doing the survey.

The result of this survey was to identify two spots on our property where there is good water about 60 meters / 200 feet down. One was the preferred spot as they survey showed much less dense material (rock) above the water. They put stakes in the ground at these two spots.

Okay! So now we know where the water is, all we have to do is go get it. To me, this seems like it should be easy. We’ve defined the problem. We need someone who can drill right here for 200 feet. We can even show them a picture of the ground they need to drill through.

Now, no matter how much an impatient autistic American is champing at the bit to get this thing done, nothing happens quickly in the Philippines. Things happen at their own pace. I don’t understand it, but I am (barely) starting to accept it. After some time, Nathan introduced us to a team of deep well drillers. We met and discussed the job in detail. I asked all the questions I could think of to ask, we agreed on a price, and the next week they showed up with their equipment and started to drill at the designated location.

After some days drilling, they hit some rock that for whatever reason they couldn’t get through. At this point, a decision was made, without consulting me, to move the drill spot about 10 meters west and start over. On our next visit to the property I was surprised to see they had changed the location without talking to me, but then I figured 1) they had seen the scan, 2) they’re the professionals and know a lot more about this than I do, and 3) they had discussed it with Nathan and he had approved, so I figured it made sense to go along.

I’m sure you see this coming: After a month of drilling, they finally finished the well, installed the casing and the submersible pump, and started to clear the well. And it failed. All we got was muddy water, and they repeatedly had to stop pumping as the well ran dry.

Now, unlike in America, where you pay drillers by the foot whether they hit water or not, drillers in the Philippines only get their full pay if they produce adequate water. But that doesn’t mean it’s free. The client had to pay all the expense; transportation, fuel, and a daily allowance for food for the crew. Over weeks and weeks of work, that adds up. And there was also a “mobilization fee” for them to start the job. So all these starts and stops with various crews has added up to a tidy sum of money. And we still don’t have a good supply of water. My in-laws will be moving into their new house in the next couple of weeks, but there will be no running water.

Once again, we are in search of a competent well driller who can actually do the job at hand. This time we’re going to see the equipment they intend to use before we agree to hire them. I really don’t think it should be necessary that I know everything there is to know about well drilling just to hire someone to drill a well, but apparently I’m wrong.

The saga continues…

Powering Up

Our property in Dueñas has a small house on it, and electricity of a sort. There is no proper connection at the transformer, rather there is a jury-rigged power line, held up on some flimsy bamboo poles, that actually terminates at a neighbors house, and is connected/disconnected there. This worked okay for the previous owners, as the neighbor is a relative of theirs.

So we need to remedy this, and get a proper, and safe, connection to the grid, and our own power bill. Of course, this is the Philippines*, so it’s not a simple matter of going online and ordering service from the power company. Inday has so far spent two half days at two different offices of ILECO, the electric utility that serves our area. We’re nowhere near done with the process, but she has gotten far enough that we have had the master electrician for the utility come to the property to do his site survey and to give us a breakdown of what needs to be done and the cost in order to get hooked up. As part of this we have to install two poles to carry the wire from where it will hook in to the existing power lines, to the house.

To my surprise, the electric utility doesn’t just sell you these poles and charge you for installation. That would be far too easy. Instead the master electrician gave us a list of materials to purchase, and we had to hire a welder to construct the poles from these materials, and a laborer to dig the holes and set the poles. So this past Saturday we set off to the local hardware store to purchase two 20-foot poles, some rebar to be used to construct the foothold for climbing the poles, a couple of insulators to be welded at the top of the poles, and concrete and sand for setting the poles.

There was no way I was going to try to transport these 20-foot poles and rebar in our truck with a 4 1/2 foot bed, so I asked if they could be delivered. In response Inday walked outside and flagged down a passing tricycle driver and asked if he would deliver them to Sawe for us. The driver and the hardware store staff loaded the materials through the middle of the side car, tied everything down securely, and off we went.

In the afternoon the welder and his helper came by and got to work. They cut and bent the rebar as needed, and built the two poles. Meanwhile the neighbor we hired had dug the holes for the two poles, and my father-in-law cut some bamboo poles to use to brace the poles and hold them in place while the concrete sets.

Once everything was ready everyone set off to set the poles. Cement and sand were mixed on a cleared spot on the road, water was added, the poles were set and braced upright, and concrete was shoveled into the hole. A simple form was made from a piece of metal roofing for the part of the concrete that is required to extend above ground level, and the last of the concrete was shoveled in and leveled.

All in, materials, transportation, and labor, the two poles cost us about $100 USD. But we’re not done yet! There are several more steps to be accomplished before they will actually come out, string the line, and hook us up to the grid. Bureaucracy is a beautiful thing!

*This is becoming an oft-repeated refrain accompanying life here. When I ask silly questions like why we have to do all the work when we’re paying for some service to be provided to us, Inday replies with some version of “Sweetie, it’s the Philippines!”

Did Somebody Say Dragons?

Our search for our little piece of paradise has been ongoing for a long time and now, finally, we are a step away from the finish line…

Do you like Dragon Fruit? I do.

They’re rather expensive; more so in the West than here, but even here they’re pricey. If things go as planned — and, you know, life always goes as planned — we will soon be the owners of a dragon fruit plantation. Not that I know a damned thing about growing dragon fruit, but I can learn.

Our search for our little piece of paradise has been ongoing for a long time and now, finally, we are a step away from the finish line. It’s not a done deal until money has changed hands and papers have been signed, but we’re that close now. We have the money sitting in the bank account, and our attorney is drawing up the Transfer of Title document. Hopefully we will soon be sitting down with the seller and the attorney to execute the transfer.

Camilo discussing the property with Inday

The key here, I think, is that we finally found an agent who listened to us and worked to find us the kind of property we wanted. We lucked into finding Camilo Pagurayan. We spent two days with him looking at properties before we found this one.

The property is about an hour outside of Iloilo City, in the municipality of Dueñas. One of the first things Inday mentioned to me when we learned we were heading to Dueñas is that the town is famous for aswangs (witches)! You might chuckle, but many Filipinos take such things very seriously.

The property is 1.68 hectares, or just over 4 acres. Much of it is sloping, forming a small valley which has recently been planted with dragon fruit trees. There is a well on the property, and electricity. I’ve no idea how reliable the electricity is out there. We might have to explore solar options to avoid the annoyance of brownouts.

There is a very nice, high, level spot where there is currently a bahay kubo and a small sugar cane field. This is where we plan to build our house. There is also another elevated, level spot at the other end of the property, and this is where Eden’s parents will build their house. They’ll be close, but not so close that we’ll be in each other’s way, and Eden and her parents can work together on the agricultural part of the enterprise. There is already the dragon fruit trees, and Eden has been talking about building a fish pond and developing a bit of the valley bottom as rice land. And of course a garden for vegetables, and chickens for eggs and meat, and maybe a carabao to help with the work.

Geez, I guess we’re going to need a name for our little farm! Any suggestions? Maybe The Garden Of Eden?

The way things look right now, we may be able to close on the property next week. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that all goes smoothly!

Here are a few photos of the land:

A Quick Update

I am long overdue in writing this update, but I just haven’t felt motivated or organized enough to do so. So this will be very short.

The lot in Barotac Viejo we were on the verge of purchasing didn’t work out. Everything was fine with the two lots we were going to purchase, but there ended up being a possible issue with access. We needed a right-of-way across another lot purportedly owned by the seller, but on investigation it turned out that another family was contesting ownership of that lot. I know that sounds unusual to my western readers, but nothing here is as cut and dried as it is in the West. You really have to check out every detail on your own.

So, we’re back looking for lots. Meanwhile, we moved out of the condo and into a small rented house in the Savannah subdivision. The house was mostly selected because it has a yard, which is not usual in subdivisions here. There is also a vacant lot next door which we are also renting for Inday’s garden. Inday is a farmer at heart, and she needs to grow things. She has room to do that here.

The condo was fully furnished, right down to linens and kitchen stuff. The house was rented empty. That means we had to buy a houseful of furniture and linens and cooking stuff and plates and cups and silverware and appliances. That took a good bit of time and attention. After looking at the cheap particle board stuff in the furniture stores, we found a custom furniture maker and met with him and told him exactly what we wanted. It took about six weeks, but we ended up with everything custom built, delivered, and installed.

Then, of course, there was Christmas and New Years and all the activities those holidays bring. And now it’s finally 2025, and we are back to our hunt for a place to build the house where I will live for the rest of my life. The best news is that we’ve finally found an agent who we feel comfortable working with, and we might, just might, have found our place. We looked at it yesterday and liked it very much. Now comes the process of checking everything out and making sure there are no issues with the lot, the title, access, etc. Reagan said “trust, but verify.” When it comes to real estate in the Philippines, don’t trust anything anybody tells you, you have to verify absolutely everything.

Okay, that’s all for now. More later.