Quote Originally Posted by Rock_Flock_of_Five View Post
I was there in 2005 and to be honest I had no awareness of the drug problem there at the time, probably because I was staying in a nice 4 star hotel in the business district.

Guns are quite common there and you can see the American culture influence, a lot of the men walk about without shirts on displaying their gang tattoos.

Those people who are lucky enough to have a good paying job will live in gated communities. I don't think I've ever seen so many armed private security guards in all my life, they are everywhere in Manila.

I’m back & forth to the Philippines on a regular basis, and I guess I’m probably somewhat immune by now to the various social problems out there.
Don’t know Manila that well, and I’ve always tended to stay in the Mall of Asia area when there.
However, know Davao (… and lots of Mindanao) pretty well, and I’ve always felt secure in that City, but you obviously need to keep your wits about you, and be sensitive to local customs…. (but you need to be cautious in the autonomous Muslim areas).

Davao is regarded as the safest city in the Philippines, due to the so-called “Death Squads” that operated there. Pretty criminals, drug dealers etc were supposedly given just one warning, “Stop or leave”. If the warning was ignored, summary “justice” was enforced, with an almost total lack of public outrage.
The City mayor most of this time was Duterte ….. altho’ there was no evidence to connect the police or Duterte with the killings.
He’s now the President.