I would love to tell everyone I am an experienced traveller and have never been scammed in my life, but that would be an outrageous filthy lie and no one would believe me. Instead I would like to share some personal experiences and observations to prevent people getting caught out in trips to the Philippines.

For most people their initial port of entry is Manila, they then generally move out to the provincial areas for their holiday. As a scuba diver, the Philippines is my favourite diving destination and I frequently travel to this interesting country. There are plenty of hard-working and honest Filipinos whom I respect, but you need to be aware as there are so many traps for unsuspecting and trusting tourists.

Taxi drivers – I have frequent arguments with taxi drivers refusing to turn the meter on instead quoting an outrageous price. As soon as they see I’m white they see the opportunity to try to gouge me, I don’t mind an argument and like them, I\’m happy to make a scene.

The familiar face – in the morning, mostly Sundays when no one is around you get approached by a male (in my experience) who claims to work at the hotel you are staying. Wouldn’t you know it, he has a family issue that requires fast cash and since he works at the hotel you are staying he will get it back to you. While I should just walk off, sometimes I like to engage these guys in a little conversation and play along naming the hotel and getting them to agree, naturally you are staying at a different hotel but I just like to see the look on their faces when you expose them.

Porters – in a country with no social security system, it is pretty much every man for himself. There are plenty of poorly educated under-employed working age males touting for work and a porter is as good a job as any as there is a demand for their services. I don’t begrudge these guys trying to scrape out a living in difficult circumstances but when you pull into a bus station, ferry terminal or airport. These guys descend on you grabbing at your belongings with no intention of giving them back without a fee then I become a little less sympathetic to their plight. I might not be young anymore but I am still capable of carrying my own bags.

Taxi and bus touts – arriving at airports and ports, the touts try to direct you to non-metered taxi stands that gouge you, there are fixed price taxi stands at the airports and these touts will operate along side them to try to feed you into cramming taxi drivers. Question everything, even at the fixed charge stands they try to overcharge you, always check the fare printed on the board and argue everything. This can also crossover into bus touts and I have been caught out by one of these guys posing as a conductor on the bus. The conductor only ever asks for your destination once the bus is on route working his way from the front of the bus to the back and issuing a ticket. He then moves to the front again working his way back collecting fares based on the ticket he issued you.

Restaurant bill overcharging – this could happen by accident with a clerical error. However, experience tells me that the frequency that this happens at Manila restaurants is that either the whole city is financially illiterate or they are pulling a swifty. Check every charge, question everything and then demand a large discount or free meal in the future when you catch them out.

Card skimming – ATMs are the major point of contact for card skimmers with card readers attached to the card reader skimming details when the card is inserted into the machine. Small cameras are fixed to read your password when you enter your details so always check the card reader before inserting you card and always cover your hand when you enter your code.

Bar rip-offs – most bars allow you to run a tab so things can get away from you really quickly. This is especially true for people coming from areas that don’t run tabs. Always check the price of drinks before you order and enquire if you are beginning with a discount for the first drink. Even changing bars within the confines of a large hotel can come with nasty consequences as I found out the hard and expensive way.

Spiked drinks – this happens on a regular basis more often than one would think. This happens especially in the tourist district of Intramuros where a friendly woman approaches usually a single female, quickly strikes up a friendship and invites the person out to lunch where they are joined by friends including the alleged husband.

Drinks are spiked and the female is put in a taxi and driven around for a while before taken to an ATM and her account is emptied. As they are unconscious, they are vulnerable to sexual assault with a victim recounting to me where she began to regain consciousness with the alleged husband kissing her before passing out again. The police aren’t interested even though they know the identities of the perpetrators and they operate unhindered.

Fake goods – I see a lot of name brand designer stores and boutiques in Manila, the affluent clientele don’t seem to be as price conscious as other destinations and I have no issues with authentic goods here. Manila is pretty much built on enormous shopping malls so no concerns here but buyer beware in the smaller shabby malls targeting a totally different consumer group.

Kidnapping – whilst most of the kidnapping occurs on the southern island of Mindanao, these crime gangs sometimes move into an area, grad someone and then sneak out immediately. When you see a local get into a vehicle their first action is to lock all the doors – a good habit to emulate. Taxi drivers have been known to swipe people so I have seen locals, especially females take a shot of their licence displayed in the vehicle and send to a friend. This happens in the open and acts as a deterrent to seedy cab drivers.

The Rolex Oyster Perpetual is the entry-level Rolex model, incidentally it is my preferred model as I am not a fan of many Rolex features. I really don’t understand what people see in the Jubilee bracelet, fluted bezel or Mercedes hour hand.

According to Rolex, the Oyster bracelet was first introduced in 1930, the three-piece brushed design is fitted with an Oysterclasp, the Rolex propriety clasp. The Oyster bracelet defines the style along with the uncluttered dial with index markers and the Rolex crown at the 12 o’clock position. The 3132 in-house movement is a pretty robust movement, Rolex are on the ball here. Whilst the movement isn’t highly finished like a Vacheron Constantin or a A. Lange & Söhne, the specifications cannot be faulted.

Some of the dial colours leave a little to be desired, I can see what Rolex is trying to do, they are trying to create a fun concept but at this price point, you don’t want fun – you want serious. If you want fun, you buy a Swatch, a Rolex is an old man’s watch that generally doesn’t follow trends. That being said, they still have black, blue and silver dials to offer some sensibility. I really like the look of the 2020 Oyster Perpetual – I would own one of these. The reference 124300 maintains the baton hands and hour index markers, that is a clean combination.

Xi Jinping became the president of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012 ushering a new era of Chinese authoritarianism and assertiveness. This has not been a positive interaction for both the region or the world.

Xi Jinping joined the communist party back in 1974, he is the son of one of the party’s founders who was expelled from the party in the 1962 purge. Xi Jinping was then sent to the country for some hard labour and re-education while his father was imprisoned. Xi Jinping is no stranger to political purges, launching a series of actions to expel members and shore up his support base. But what Jinping is unable to do is free the party from corruption, nepotism and incompetence instead reinforcing such behaviours.

The Coronavirus pandemic unleashed on the world is very much of Jinping’s actions. His rule has created both distrust and disorganisation in the CCP, the inability of the CCP to contain Covid-19 within Chinese borders is on Xi Jinping. During Chinese new years celebrations the CCP allowed their citizens to roam the world taking the Chinavirus with them. There were fears this would be the catalyst that this would spread the virus around the globe and this is unfortunately what happened.

The Chinese new year is the largest movement of people in the world and the concerns that the spread of the virus would be accelerated across both the region and continents has been realised. Now we all face restrictions, loss of incomes and devaluation of our wealth and retirement savings all while Xi Jinping consolidates his position within the CCP. The incompetence of the CCP and their failure to maintain control in their country has had negative worldwide effects and we all pay.

China has to clean up its act, this pandemic that it has unleashed upon the world is a direct result of their inability to manage their own country. Instead, their attempts to implicate the actions of other countries are a feeble attempt to divert worldwide scrutiny from their failures.

Their wet markets are not the first time pandemics have been unleashed upon the world. Their recklessness has cost people their jobs, their livelihoods and people’s lives. The hotspots are Europe and the United States, pretty much the developed world. What happens when the Chinavirus gains a foothold in developing nations in Africa, South-East Asia, Central Asia and South America? They don’t have the medical systems of the developed world, people don’t have access to ventilators and sophisticated medical supplies.

They live in close quarters, they live in squalid conditions and a conventional lock-down doesn’t work. Their governments don’t have the resources to tackle the problems apart from maintaining power. I think we might escape the worst of it in Australia but I fear for those living in developing countries. As it turns out, the developed world was hit the hardest with Europe and the United States leading infections and deaths. Brazil, India and Russia lead developing world infections with the Philippines and Indonesia leading Southeast Asian nations.

Singapore started well for a developed nation before succumbing to infections stemming from immigrant housing. This damaged their reputation, Hong Kong was going fantastic until China saw the opportunity to shut them down and Taiwan stared China down. China has once again screwed over the world and their arrogance is breathtaking. They are using this pandemic to further their national interests in an unethical manner. The world needs to decouple from China so their only allies are Russia and North Korea.

Microlearning is a modern approach to learning based on short concise lessons delivered to learners at a convenient time. Microlearning predominantly deals with relatively small learning chunks aligned to short-term learning activities.

Microlearning is a holistic approach utilising short-term strategies seeking skills based training solutions. Whilst microlearning was pioneered as computer based training, the acceptance of smartphones and tablets allowed microlearning that are generally based around short videos of the two to five minute duration.

Microlearning is considered an agile method of delivering short bursts of training content that is self-paced. Active learning allows learners to engage with content instead of passively attending lectures, methodologies such as problem-based learning allows learners to actively engage with action learning projects increasing knowledge retention.

This Covid-19 pandemic couldn’t have come at a worse time for me, I had just completed an international assignment and was looking to the next placement. Well, the worldwide pandemic killed that, the work offers dried up pretty quick.

I first came into contact with Masa Takashima not that long after completing my instructor examination, I had done some courses already so wasn’t far off my Master Scuba Diver Trainer certification.

Masa was a Japanese fellow who had lived in Perth a fair amount of time, he came to Australia from Japan, loved the place and decided to move here permanently. He had worked for a fairly high profile dive operation in Fremantle before deciding to branch out on his own – an astute decision in my view.

This was about the time the Japanese tourism market was expanding, Perth was a must-see destination for the Japanese back then. Masa was able to capitalise on this growing market, it is fair to say he was the right guy in the right place. Masa was a big picture guy, he didn’t care much for the details – that’s where I came in. I am an operational guy, or I was back then anyway. I was the operations manager of his business, Masa came up with the ideas and I implemented the plans.

That’s not to say I didn’t have any input; however, the general trend was Masa was the ideas man and I was the operations guy. Masa gave me pretty much a free reign, if the courses and tours we were running were making money then he was happy. I had calculated the break-even points so I was well aware of minimum numbers so the courses and tours we run spilled into the next program so those people filled the next program with new-comers joining and creating extra profit.

Masa had his limitations, but was that a problem? Well no, as long as you identified them, then there is no issues, you just work around them. Some of his ideas were really bizarre and I had to shut them down. Some of his ideas were brilliant, even if I didn’t see it at the time, I soon worked it out. This was a good time in my life, I was really enjoying my life, my dog was alive and my world couldn’t be better, my time working with Masa coincided with significant life milestones. Life was good, it could always get better, but I was pretty happy working together with Masa.

In what might be a return to Reds under the Bed, Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane has been raided by ASIO officers and the Australian Federal Police. Whilst he had his NSW Labor Party membership suspended during the Federal Police investigation, he has had his membership reinstated at the completion of the Federal Police investigation although the Corruption Commission investigation is ongoing. Whilst this isn’t concerning, he has been very vocal in support for the Chinese handling of the coronavirus. At time of writing, there was a confirmed 21 million infections worldwide with 750,000 deaths, at the very least, this guy should be arrested for being a fuckhead.

How the fuck could that be considered successfully containing the virus? What, this is a good outcome, it could have been much worse, China has tanked the world economy, infected millions and it isn’t anywhere near finished yet. Moselmane has openly praised China, he has also received free trips to China whilst selling Australian interests down the toilet. As he is an elected official, this guy is dangerous and his actions are counter to Australian interests – he needs a lengthy term of imprisonment.

China cannot be allowed to financially benefit from the worldwide disaster they created. Worldwide governments, not just the Australian government, need to ensure Chinese companies flush with cash from the Chinese government do not swoop in and purchase distressed companies in Australia and around the world.

The economies of the world have been compromised from the actions of China, their unsanitary conditions, their lack of regulation and their lack of ability to contain the coronavirus in Wuhan was the cause of this disaster occurring in the first place. The last thing the world needs is Chinese companies flush with cash from the CCP purchase companies and distort capital markets. China has distorted manufacturing and supply chains fed by Western nations intent on offshoring manufacturing.

The opportunity for Western companies was access to the vast Chinese market that never eventuated and this experiment needs to end. The Western world along with central Asian and Asian-Pacific countries now needs to form trading partnerships with nations to isolate Chinese influence and create a level playing field.

I hope that nations with democratic governments can come together and decouple from China, they need to relocate supply chains away from China. The Japanese government is offering tax incentives for their companies to return to Japan, other democratic governments should be looking at their model.

I deal with haters every day, this is a prerequisite of working in the government. The haters work against you, this is the government way; they don’t assist, they don’t create value and they certainly don’t serve the business.

I have been advised the term haters stands for having anger towards everyone reaching success, this isn’t a bad analogy and I cannot claim it as my creation. My attitude of haters is they are jealous of success, but this is really based on their failures. I have also been told that “I have never seen a hater doing better than me” and once again, this isn’t my creation and sums it up well. Based on my years in the government and their cultural voids, bullying type behaviour is rampant so a high performing individual requires strategies to counter the haters.

My view is never get involved in a direct confrontation with a hater, this is the situation they crave, you need to out maneuver them and not accommodate them. Firstly, ignoring them is easy, only speak to them if they initiate a direct conversation where an answer is required. Always be polite to them, they try to bait you and the more restraint you display, the more it irritates them. Naturally, never initiate a conversation, they are not your friend although they may attempt to be exactly that. They will try to take credit for your accomplishments so be on guard, be ready to act and call them out and embarrass them in group situations.

This is about them, this isn’t about you and one suspects their life is miserable, hence – their actions. You have two choices, you either reach out to them or ignore them, but since they are the ones who are attacking you, the better option is to neutralise their influence by mocking them subversively. Still, never let these fools get to you, their main role is to motivate you, you out-perform them, you receive the promotions they never earn. Despite stealing your work, they don’t have much to offer and despite their noise, informed people see straight through them. If they don’t – then they are idiots.