Caring for parents in the Philippines. Sending money home. The condo, the paperwork, the plan to return. Practical guides and calculators for the family life that spans an ocean.
Free: the Emergency Plan Checklist for families with parents in the Philippines
Printable, practical, and the first thing we send every new subscriber.
Caring for aging parents in the Philippines — from thousands of miles away.
Remittances, family support, and pensions — without the guilt or the guesswork.
The condo, the lot, the ancestral house — managed from abroad.
Dual citizenship, retirement, and moving a parent — the paperwork and the plan.
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US memory care runs $6,000–$8,000 a month. Compare it, line by line, with hiring trained caregivers in Manila, Cebu, or Davao — salaries, benefits, and the real total.
Compare care costs →Dear Viva
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Send yours — money, siblings, aging parents, the guilt of living far away. We answer them here, anonymously if you prefer. Questions that need a licence go to the Ask an Expert columns: Philippine law, US immigration, taxes on both sides, property, elder care, repatriation.
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Condos and houses in Cebu, Manila, Davao and beyond, offered by Filipino owners living in the States. Someone you can actually call, in your own time zone.
RA 9225 lets natural-born Filipinos who became US citizens get Philippine citizenship back — and keep both. The process, costs, documents, and what dual citizenship actually changes.
How to sell a Philippine condo, house, or lot without flying home: the SPA, the taxes, the timeline, and the scams to avoid — in the order they actually happen.
The honest playbook for long-distance condo landlording: finding tenants, property managers, taxes, association dues, and whether it's worth it at all.
A sustainable system for supporting aging parents from abroad — realistic budgets, sibling cost-sharing, PhilHealth and SSS, and boundaries that keep love intact.
Fees are only half the story — the FX margin is where remittance services quietly take their cut. How to compare Wise, Remitly, Xoom, and Western Union honestly.
When the 3 a.m. call comes, the families who cope are the ones with a plan. Build yours in one afternoon: contacts, documents, hospital, money, and who decides.