Makati, as one of the twelve defined cities that form Metro Manila, is the largest financial and economic hub of the metropolitan area.

Story 1:
Taxi fare from Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to Makati City is PHP440. That’s roughly around RM32 per way. One thing I don’t like about NAIA is that the airport taxi booth is still an old-school service. They don’t accept credit card hence I can’t charge my travel fare to the company card. I had to pay cash and later on claim. That is fine. After all company pays but paying in cash invites manipulation by the cabbie.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I handed out 500 pesos. Rightfully, he would’ve returned 60pesos balance but guess what his answer to me was? “No change sir. Thank you for tip.” I mean, 60pesos is nothing much. That’s around RM4 but the issue here is, the cabbie has no integrity at all. Instead of returning the balance (which I intended to tip him anyways) he claimed he didn’t have loose change.

Story 2:
On returning trip, picking up a metered taxi from our Philippines office to NAIA normally would cost me around PHP150 to PHP250 depending on traffic snare. On the contrary, hiring a hotel taxi to NAIA would fare slightly more i.e. around PHP400.

During my recent visit, my last day in the Philippines was announced as a public holiday. It was the funeral day for the late President Aquino or warmly known as Tita (auntie) Cory among the Filipinos. I checked out from the hotel a bit earlier that I would normally do just in case of traffic jam caused by the funeral procession. I took a public taxi instead of the hotel’s.

On a side note, as a frequent traveller I’m allocated USD20K of travelling budget per annum. It’s not much but a fairly decent amount to cover travelling costs around the Asia Pacific region. It is therefore, my obligation to try to save the company some money by being frugal with my travel budget.

The driver was a friendly person and the moment I entered he started being chatty. I quickly sensed that the ending part of my journey would sum up frustrating. I noticed the taxi meter was not turned on. Along the way, he talked about the Philippines, about Tita Cory and her late husband Ninoy. He shared the presidential history. How People Power 1 had brought down Marcos and People Power 2 had forced Estrada to step down. Then he started talking about his life. How living in Manila is so difficult. Although he was born and raised in Manila, he had to relocate his family of three daughters and a wife to San Juan because of the economic difficulties. He had to rent a room for PHP4000 per month (~RM300) and share common amenities with 12 other tenants. The cabbie started to talk about his sad life and how he missed his daughters. He picked up a pink teddy bear on the front passenger’s seat and told me that he only managed to buy one for the time being. He is still saving some money to buy his two other daughters the same present.

I just listened and responded unwillingly to his plight as I had already guessed what’s up on his sleeves. My thoughts was more on the oncoming teleconference with the Oman folks that I’ve to dial in upon checking at the departure hall. Roughly 20 minutes later, we arrived at NAIA. Traffic was surprisingly smooth. The funeral procession apparently was at the opposite direction of my journey.

When the cabbie dropped me at the departure gate, I asked him “How much is it?”. He politely answered, “It’s up to you sir, how much you want to give.”

To test his honesty, I took out three hundred pesos and asked him, “Is this ok?”

He stared at the notes and looked at me. “Actually sir, the fare is six hundred pesos.” I reluctantly paid but I did not argue as I was in a hurry to check in but I knew this was coming the moment he started being chatty. Furthermore, I felt wrong to have argued with him after the sad stories he’s been telling me and the supposedly “pleasant” journey we had.

For a 20 minutes ride, where the traffic was a breeze the fare could have been less than PHP200. Topped up with his history buzz and sad life stories as a value added service, the fare was tripled. I was ripped in the naked daylight. Just a week before I flew to Manila, a Filipino friend warned me to be careful with the locals nowadays as they tend to be taking advantage from outsiders by ripping them off. It became worst with the current economic situation. My friend was right all the way.

Lesson learnt. Be careful when travelling during this hard times. Carry some loose change as addition to the big notes.