Going To Usa To Get Married

[Thomas]

There are some things that were said and done that I did not mention on here. As to what they were. I didn't hear a thing.

As I understood your text, your gf confronted proper, while the not demanding part of the family ONLY said "sorry", WITHOUT confronting the bad behaving aunt and sister. Corect?

I see it as it's the Filipin family's work to do what they CAN to keep their family members in order, and if they don't TRY they don't deserve support. Of course it's possible the aunt is more powerful in society, so the others can't stop her, but I would find it being very bad behaviour, if they don't try...

[Call me bubba]

Any ideas?

MOVE ..MOVE ,,,,,,FAR AWAY,

seems that this aunt is a danger to your personal welfare & pocket book.$$$

since your not married your not required to give these people a D. :508: ..M thing

cut off all contact w/them..

[Americano]

Update: 11/12/12

Confronted Rowena's family and found out what is going on.

First off my definition of Blackmail. When someone attempts to get money from another by way of threatening to cause harm to them.

Apparently this is not the first time this has happened.

It appears that Aunty has attempted blackmailing others in the past as well.

So far it has been with Pinoys only.

Her oldest sister was the first to find this out many years ago.

Older sister was living with a young pinoy and getting ready for their wedding when Aunty started her blackmail with his family. Ended the marriage and now older sister sneaks out to see her pinoy still. But lives at home. She now has 3 children by him. No money was recieved.

Her sister 1 year younger found this out as well.

Same as older sister only this one was pregnant. She moved back in with Mama and Papa and didn't get any money from her pinoy's family.

There is yet another sister who is in the process of getting married now to a pinoy and they are being subjected to similar blackmail as we are.

Rowena has 5 sisters. So far 4 have experienced the blackmail thing.

Aunty is trying to get money any way she can.

Aunty is the oldest of Papa's Siblings.

Her reasoning for attempting to blackmail us is to get money for her daughter who is a nurse at mactan hospital to become an OFW and go to America.

Mama and Papa claim to have no knowledge of all this. We don't believe them.

Found out that Aunty had sold property that belonged to all the siblings several months ago to pay for her son to become an OFW as well. She just didn't bother telling the rest of the family she was selling the property nor did she share the wealth. Now she is broke again. Most of Papa's Siblings live in the Manila area. None are happy with Aunty.

Found out that Aunty has been getting advice from a woman who claims to be an attorney. She is not tho. We confronted them all face to face last week. After consulting a real attorney who was suggested to us by the US Embassy.

Sound like some bad soap opera. It is. To me its sort of to be expected in a way here.

This is what we did.

First I emailed the US Embassy. Second I contacted my family here. ( have 4 generations of my fathers family including my father who have lived here. Some married and had children, 2 older generations of my mothers family, as well as my niece who married a pinoy 2 years ago.)

Third we went to the BI office and spoke to the director and showed him the Text messages.

US Embassy result. Email with a list of Amercano freindly attorneys here in Cebu.

BI office visit result. Was told to keep my Visa current and not worry. Also recieved my ACR-I card. Only waited for that since Aug. 28 two days before all this started. Seems the Card was there for several weeks at least waiting to be picked up. Altho they had said differently when I went in there the week before this.

Attorney visit results. While the laws do not say that I have to pay them any support at this time. The laws here are basically up to whatever judge we would see if we were to see a judge. However there is a process to be followed prior to that. And of course the assurance for us not to worry.

Result from contacting my family here. That may cost me more than just paying off her Aunt in the long run. However I do hate Blackmailers.

Then armed with the knowledge of the laws here and family by our side we confronted Rowena's Moma and Aunty and her wanna be attorney.

The result was interesting to say the least. Lots of name calling and threats to have me deported and file a complaint at the Consolate office here to stop the wedding unless we pay. Moma of course didn't say anything except that she was sorry and had no idea what was going on.

My response. I couldn't stop laughing. Why? This whole thing is so stupid I couldn't help myself.

My family's response. Well lets just say I had to drag the 4 of them out to their car. Fortunatly I am bigger then they are.

We then had a family sit down with Mama, Papa, Lolo and Sisters along with my family.

Result was we heard I am sorry about 50 times from her family. Except the second to youngest sister who found the whole thing extremely funny and laughed about it. Are they really sorry? Probably not.

Result from my family being there. Well lets just say they pursuaded her family to be a little more understanding. As well as informed them what would happen should any further misfortunes happen to us.

What did Rowena do? For a pint sized woman she sure is hard to hold back when she wants to hit someone. She was very hard on her family. To the point of trying to punch her Aunty.

Some on here may critisize her however one should remember that we can pick a lot of things we want in this life. Unfortunatly family is not one of those things. Loving ones parents and not liking them is common all around the world. Dealing with them can at times be complicated and dealing with ones emotions about that can be difficult as well.

What are we planning on doing now? Same as before. Not much differance really. Still planning on getting married. Have her paperwork ready just getting things taken care of with the US visa now is all. Who knows now that I have contacted my family here ( something I had wanted to avoid doing ) we might just marry here and stay. Ha Ha Ha.

What we did for her family. Just what we said we would do for them last month before the text messages. Helped pay their electric bill and bought them a couple bags of rice. We had already bought toys for Rowena's nieces and nephew for christmas this year ages from 3 to 6 back in November as well as for her two little brothers ages 10 and 15. So we will give them those this month. My family and I may help moma and papa out a little more this next month. Perhaps with starting a business there in Lapu Lapu and having them work for us.

For now we keep our gate locked and only tell the BI and the Embassy where we live. Other than that there is not a whole lot we can do.

For those who wonder why I am telling you all this the reason is simple. Not everyone knows what goes on here. Maybe I can help them to learn something. Maybe not.

My only question is why did you want to hold back Rowena from punching her aunte. You should have been giving her vitamins so she could hit her even harder. People like her aunte are no good and could even be evil.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Americano

[TexasRangersFan]

Simple solution is to change your phone number I would have thought.

Not sure what to do now. Leave country. Call police. File complaint ( with who I don't know) Any ideas? Rowena says that they are bad people and she wants nothing to do with them. I get the same feeling about them. I am thinking about contacting the US embassy ( just to let them know whats going on in case this gets worse) and perhaps the BI office as well in Manilla.

And tell them what? That your fiancee's relatives are threatening to go to some agency to complain about you?

Yes, You don't mention the important part. Go to some agency UNLESS I give them money.

The US Embassy has a wealth of information reguarding Expats living here in the Philippines.

What I got for contacting them :

1. Advized to contact an attorney ( given link to list of American Freindly Attorneys in my area ).

2. US Embassy is aware of the problem. While they can do NOTHING to help. They can contact my family in the USA in case of emergency from just a phone call by Rowena to them. They have all my information.

3. Advized to register with STEP. Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. Yes it is Big Brother watching me.

Update: 11/12/12

Confronted Rowena's family and found out what is going on......

For those who wonder why I am telling you all this the reason is simple. Not everyone knows what goes on here. Maybe I can help them to learn something. Maybe not.

We appreciate you revealing your personal situation dealing with extended family issues.

Wow, talk about Filipino drama or OA (over acting) and their ability to laugh it off, in spite

of all the unnecessary hardships suffered by the innocent parties. The guilty party would

rather save face than to simply apologize. And guess what, they will continue to spread

bad tsimis (gossip) about you.

Please re-evaluate your situation and put your foot down. Get away from ground zero!

Respectfully -- Jake

A rule I have always tried to live by. Walk softly and carry a big stick. As with most family difficulties it is better to be nice, find out the correct and legal answers then act.

That is what we have done.

Changing our cell number and moving and ceasing all contact with her family was and is our goal.

Any ideas?

MOVE ..MOVE ,,,,,,FAR AWAY,

seems that this aunt is a danger to your personal welfare & pocket book.$$$

since your not married your not required to give these people a D. :508: ..M thing

cut off all contact w/them..

As I have said previously that is our goal. To achieve that goal we have to make sure it does not come back and bite us in the butt.

[Call me bubba]

My only question is why did you want to hold back Rowena from punching her aunte.

. People like her aunte are no good and could even be evil.

......Under the circumstances,...punching her is a good option

it would put this aunte on notice NO MORE.

then if she wants to "file charges".

who would be a witness? :woohoo:

[TexasRangersFan]

Update; December 22, 2012

On the 1st of December we confronted her family in person. Eventually found out that this is a scam that her family members have been playing on both foriegners and Pinoys alike for many years. As far as I could tell it has never really worked but they keep trying. This however is just one of many types of scams they play. It gets a lot worse.

I am fully convinced that Rowena knew that her parents would try this with us. However I am also fully convinced that she wanted nothing to do with it and for us to leave the country immediatly. Since we met she has been begging me to take her out of the philippines to anywhere, malaysia, indonesia, hong kong, thailand, USA, canada, just anywhere, even willing to live on a boat outside of any country other than the philippines.

What we did after confronting family. We paid the electric bill for the past 2 months and 1 month in advance. Total cost 2500.00 pesos. Bought them rice for a month, 50 kilos, total cost 2000.00 pesos.

Why did we do this you may ask?

Her Moma and Papa as well as her Sisters, while they are indeed, vicious, vindictive, minipulative, decietful, dishonest, theiving, lieing, ungreatful, treasurous, evil people they lack the intelligence to mastermind this scam all by themselves. Therefore their must be someone giving them information on what to do and how to do it. Also we needed to find out all those involved. We did. We got the names and addresses of each one. Which includes a woman by the name of Agnes who is the mastermind along with her brother in law who is from the UK. We also found out the names of others who have been Victims of these and many other scams. We also found out that thanks to the new laws being implimented here such as the anti-fixer, anti-corruption laws these people have been drastically weakened in their ability to pay their way out.

We paid for two reasons.

1. Time. We needed time to gather all the correct information and find out who the appropriate authorities are and how to contact them.

2. Always keep the reciepts. A threat to harm someone here is a small matter according to the police that must be filed within 60 days and punishable by up to six months in jail. However extortion with proof of payment is far more serious a crime.

Did it give us more time? Yes and No. It gave us a little more than 2 weeks before the text messages started again. As you may or may not know things here in the Philippines can take a long time.

On the advice of our new attorney curtousy of the US Embassy ( paid for by me recommended by them ) we took action.

We went to the Police department in the area where her family and these others live and had all the incidents placed on the blotter using the evidence we had ( the text messages) along with all the names of those involved. We then went to the Police in our area and did the same. Total cost was 70 pesos for the copies of the reports. We then went to the BI office and showed the director the copies of the blotter so if anything should happen in the future he is aware of what is going on. We then went to the Consulate office and did the same there. We also sent a copy of these documents to the US Embassy. We also gave a copy to our attorney. Then we turned off the phone with all the text messages on it and put it in a safe place. We have other phones they do not have the numbers to so we still have good working cells.

You may ask why do all this?

Here's the reason.

The Laws here like most laws that were originally written with good intentions which may seem confusing and in my opionon poorly written were passed into law in order to assist the family.

As my grand dad used to say. The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

So its best to know what the laws really are before taking action.

The laws state that under the age of 25, moma and papa have a lot of rights and control over what their children do and where they go and with whom the go. So much so that they do in fact have the right to file charges against their child and whomever she or he may be with. Above the age of 25 the control stops. However the accusations can still continue. Causing time and money with law enforcement and the court system here.

A child ,by law. must help support her family connected by blood ( family is Moma,Papa, Brothers, Sisters only ) as long as she or he has an income. And yes. Once you marry half your income becomes her income. As well as if you have a child you become a blood relative. Unless that family has taught or attempted to teach their child to commit illigal acts. ( something that can be very hard to prove ).

You may ask why do all this when we are planning to leave the country? The answer is simple. WHY SHOULD WE HAVE TO LEAVE? WHAT HAPPENS IF WE DO LEAVE AND COME BACK?

These things should never be allowed to continue.

I will right more later.

[Americano]

If Blackmail attempts have been going on for a long time in Rowena's family she should have told you before you found out the hard way. Probably she was afraid of loosing you so she just wanted to run away before the sh@t hit the fan. A Filipino can't run away to another country if they don't have a NSO Birth Certificate or Passport. Rowena should have known this and told you the truth about her family so both of you could have been better prepared and have a plan of action. If you knew what was coming you could have moved far away and changed your cell numbers before the Blackmail attempts started. You can still do it now, but look how much problems it caused you. Therefore I would place some of the blame on Rowena for not being completely honest with you, but everyone makes mistakes so don't be too hard on her. Maybe she is sorry that she didn't tell you about her Blackmailing family when you first met.

No Jake, that's not what I meant by being too hard on her, hehe.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Americano

[Thomas]

A child ,by law. must help support her family connected by blood ( family is Moma,Papa, Brothers, Sisters only ) as long as she or he has an income. And yes. Once you marry half your income becomes her income. As well as if you have a child you become a blood relative. Unless that family has taught or attempted to teach their child to commit illigal acts. ( something that can be very hard to prove ).

Isn't that only when they are to old/disabled to work?

Otherwice I could stop work. and THEY have to support me too, I suppose :mocking:

What do you mean with the last sentence?

[Americano]

There's a Bill which requires an adult to support her parents and grand parents but that Bill has not been signed into law. I imagine the rich people are against the Bill because they would be required to support their parents and grand parents and they would be required to let them live with them if they don't have a home or go to prison for 6 years.

[Thomas]

There's a Bill which requires an adult to support her parents and grand parents but that Bill has not been signed into law. I imagine the rich people are against the Bill because they would be required to support their parents and grand parents and they would be required to let them live with them if they don't have a home or go to prison for 6 years.

I find it OK to support Filipin family, who are to old or ill to work themselves,

BUT big problem if they have any live-in lazy family member trying to take part of my support, I'm much against supporting anyone in work age not doing their best.