Tim Cumper - Hospital Scams - Philippines

Tim Cumper -True Story

2009-09-08T21:53:00.149+01:00

WARNING - THIS WEBSITE (written by Tim Cumper) HAS BEEN CLONED *
Read how this whole adventure has migrated to become the responsibilty of a vindictive and hostile web-guru - who just cannot leave it alone.
* www.timcumper.com - domain name registered by NOEMI DADO - my site being cloned by JOHN PHILLIPS BENGERO aka JEPOYENG aka JEPOY of "GAME OPS" - QUEZON CITY - PHILIPPINES.
Any mention of this story, predominantly mentioning my name & not published directly by myself, will almost certainly be a part of the SEO campaign of hatred and hostility - organised by people WHO ARE ALL CONNECTED - one way or another, friends, family or colleagues - with the instigation and incitement of JOHN PHILLIPS BENGERO.

THEIR SITE WAS LAUNCHED TWO DAYS AFTER THE VIDEO EVIDENCE ON THIS PAGE WAS RELEASED ONLINE (see evidence below.)

Update - despite sending numerous requests for negotiation, to attempt a mutual & reciprocal dismantling of the machinery of this dispute - I have had no reply, and have not noticed any easing of this group's acitvities - they are still churning out links associated with my name. I have put much of the material (the alleged cause of their grievances) - in draft mode, placing it out of circulation - I wait to see if there is any reciprocal response from members of this group.
The central showpiece of their campaign "timcumper.com" - is inactive purely because the domain name has lapsed.

People often ask which came first – the chicken or the egg.

It is painfully clear in this instance, that the stinking egg of propaganda initiated my response – a response which was engineered to face frustrating restrictions and limitations - and which this same propaganda machine is now deceitfully electing as its raison d’etre - by labeling it as harassment or stalking.

It is strikingly obvious, therefore, that the egg has gradually altered its original smell.

The original aim of this propaganda (to which the site timcumper.com is merely a recent addition) was to distill or obscure the story here – a story containing incriminating speculation.

Rather than deal with the issue of incrimination in the normally expected manner – by directly supplying adequate proof of innocence – the decision was made to enlist the help of people, expert in manipulation of the media, to tackle the problematic issue of publicity head on - with an orchestrated campaign of propaganda.
The nature of the story being such that with suitable distortion of the facts, this propaganda would attract viral condemnation for the story's author – and achieve the original aim of obscuration, while conveniently masking the idea behind the campaign's launch - purely a strategic business decision – posing as the result of a moral outrage, which is how it will now appear to the naive reader.

I can assure every reader of this propaganda – that if they study the original story here – they will detect through all the copious detail – a strong thread of unexplained inconsistencies, coincidences, anomalies and behaviour – all of which contributed to the perfectly justified caution I adopted.

This simple caution has been twisted and misrepresented by the propaganda machine – as part of an obvious incitement, to garner support – allowing it to achieve the totally fake veneer of consensus.

It has been a total manipulation of the medium of the Internet – by those with the appropriate skills and networks for propaganda supremacy.

Due to the hideous amount of this devious propaganda being released, insisting - relentlessly and consistently that this story is no more than a hoax - by people with a commercial and corrupt vested interest in concealing the truth - I decided to release a short version of a video - that was recorded 29th September 2007 at 7:10am (PH time.)

The video, which I recorded secretly at that time, is of a girl in the Philippines, who in collaboration with a real estate company (she worked for the company & her boss had corroborated her story, stating that he had paid the deposit) - attempted to extort money from me for an emergency operation for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

To follow the story further - click the red cross under the title.

Click camera under the title for this page - showing the webcam video (below.)

THE VIDEO

A short extract from the original recording - which is safely stored away at various secret locations.
Apart from the looping - it is entirely untouched.
I recorded this from the monitor by using my webcam - to deliberately lower the quality.

The reason for my not displaying the original video has been questioned, some people even suspecting that I may have produced an edited (advantageously altered) version to display here.

These people do not seem to understand that it is not to my advantage to cheat myself out of the truth.

Although their argument is not logical, because I could therefore have performed the same editing on the original, these same people are in denial of the fact that the video I am displaying shows anything of consequence. However, the suggestion that it may have been edited contradicts their very own denial.

The reasons for my not posting the video previously are twofold.

1) Because the original, complete material is intimate in nature.

2) To prevent copies being made of a scar that is possibly previously unseen by them, being used (and this version has already been used to produce a lower quality video for propaganda) in the production of fake photographs for propaganda.

Better in full screen mode but not available here (Firefox users, try Ctrl + before you start the video) - don't blink or you'll miss it.

That's serendipity for you - this isn't a Hollywood production you know - (apart from the make-up) - what do you expect?
Of course - this is in real time - just as it appeared during transmission.
She could easily have got away with it - had it not been secretly recorded.

Watch closely when the girl's thumb is central - keep your eyes on the line of the scar - before and after she pulls down the waistband - watch the gap appear in the line.

Click on thumbnails for larger picture.

frame 469

frame 480

There are all sorts of smudges and blotches on the better resolution version I have.
In conjunction with the frames that reveal traces of a previously drawn scar - wiped off - what can we say?
It is certainly no artifact of camera or technology as this appears on later frames - although not as clearly.

& clearer still . . . (use ctrl + to magnify)

frame 83

You will not see anything at this magnification - & depending on the resolution here, it still might be hard to make out.
Here is a pdf - you will still need to magnify it within your pdf reader.

trialscarpdf

Another frame with altered colouration/contrast - showing the previous scar attempt very faintly - and two other smudges.

IF BLOGSPOT VIDEO UNAVAILABLE - HERE IS THE SAME AT YOUTUBE.

The rogue website was launched a mere two days after this video was publicly released.

The video here was released publicly on 30th August.

Let's follow the trail . . .

timcumper.com - registered on 1st September - 2 days later by eNom.

Let's look up eNom . . .

OK - let's look up protagonist.net back at WhoIs . . .

And next - some interesting email exchanges.

Throughout all my dealings with this event - I was made to feel more and more suspicious, by the procrastination, inconsistencies and excuses that were being made for why I could not deal directly with the hospital - in Paranaque, Philippines.

In my determination to eventually arrive at the truth of this matter, more & more people have become exposed to or involved with this story in various capacities - from casual readers - to energetic proponents of "The Hoax Propaganda" circulating the Internet.
I can assure the reader that all events and details were documented as they were happening - and facts, dates, names etc. have been meticulously checked for their accuracy.
It has never been to my advantage to cheat myself of the truth.

I have a list of all names involved - either directly or indirectly with this attempted scam.
Not that I have ever even remotely suggested that all the people named - would receive a pay-off - simply that their names are involved or that they had some small part to play - they knew what was going on and remained silent. Some were simply extras, part of the lure of the "reality" that was setting the scene during my visit.
This is exactly the manner in which organised crime functions - people are expected to play their parts, behind an innocent facade - a cover.
All under the umbrella of a master organisation - trickle feeding the coffers in their own way when the time comes.

The names of the doctors were given to me after I started insisting on proof - they may not be aware that their names are being used in this connection.

There was the name of a lawyer printed at the end of an emailed word file - allegedly from himself, on behalf of the hospital - after I had written to them complaining of the disgusting way that the hospital had not bothered to communicate with me - yet were increasing the bill daily, by keeping the patient hostage until it had been paid.
However - it would appear that the hospital were complicit to the attempted scam from the very first day - so their involvement cannot be excused by coercion - simply helping to provide legitimate looking material as proof of innocence after I started making serious enquiries.

The actress named is promoting and endorsing the real estate company in their advertising.
She was informed, along with her agent - that the firm she was endorsing were involved in these events.
However - like many other people - she chose to remain silent.

The other names in this story are those of the bloggers - most of them connected with each other in real life or online - who partook in an SEO campaign of propaganda and spiteful lies - orchestrated on behalf of the real estate company - by "Celebrity Bloggers" - suggesting that my story was no more than a hoax.

Information and comments regarding this blog can be sent to:

Armand Illigan tierramariauk@yahoo.co.uk
Or by using the link below.

CONTACTIFY

Click the red flags to read about all the alarm bells.

ARCHIVES - NAVIGATION - LINKS - STATISTICS - BELOW.

Tim Cumper - Hospital Scams - Philippines - TITLE PAGE

2009-02-11T23:47:00.087Z

WARNING - THIS WEBSITE (written by Tim Cumper) HAS BEEN CLONED

@ www.timcumper.com - domain name registered by NOEMI DADO - my site being cloned by JOHN PHILLIPS BENGERO aka JEPOYENG aka JEPOY of "GAME OPS" - QUEZON CITY - PHILIPPINES. In their distorted view - retaliation to an act of BULLYING is known as STALKING or HARASSMENT. They are busy POISONING THE INTERNET with defamation sites, in an effort to further disguise the truth. BE WARNED - BLOGROACHES ABOUT.

THEIR SITE WAS LAUNCHED TWO DAYS AFTER THE VIDEO EVIDENCE ON THIS PAGE WAS RELEASED ONLINE

Welcome to Hospital Scams - Philippines.

In order to find your way around here - understanding the Tierra Maria Estates Scam - I have assembled this title page for your navigation.

Just click on the red cross . . .

. . . to return to this page.

STOP PRESS! - Two years from the phone call from "the hospital" - conclusive proof finally arrives
& the video & still frames that proves it.

For the Hospital

For The Sales Office

ARTICLES BY TIM CUMPER IN PRIORITY FOR YOU TO READ.

Hospital Scams - Philippines - the journey itself.

Flag Day - all the causes for suspicion.

The Bloggers - an introduction to some of the characters, energetically denying this as a hoax.

Cyber - Bullies - the reaction from the Philippines.

You Are all Victims - makes you think.

The Final Nail - final & conclusive video evidence.

A Behavioural Analysis - a summing up in psychological terms.

Psychology of a Scam - mind bending methods.

Cover - Up - of one deception, with an even bigger one.

Save Our Skin - my reply to Noemi Dado & Jepoy Bengero's video.

Blood is Thicker - keep it in the family.

Horse Heads & Red Flags - on organised crime.

Is Hospitality a Myth? - fun at Filipina Images.

Comments - from some Filipino readers.

Settling Dust - the calm after the storm.

Filipina Image I Nation - join the group for responsible blogging.

Why All the Publicity - business as usual?

INDEX TO PARALLEL BLOGS BY TIM CUMPER

(See INDEX OF CHAPTERS - below - for navigation in this site - Hospital Scams - Philippines.)

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 2

Criticism
A look at options that were available & reasons.

The first hint of . . .
Don't expect a worm to turn.

A Final offer for peace
A video and final statement.

John Phillips Bengero's emails
Where he denies any wrong doing regarding his defamation site.

A True Story
The short extract from the video of the scar revelation.

A Revelation
A few low quality frames from the video of the "fake scar."

Buzz Without A Sting
A recent (August 2009) outburst - a death spasm from the supporters of the scam.

Behavioural Analysis
A frank analysis of the obvious.

Noemi Dado - Feeling The Pinch
Discussing Noemi's tactics - the "hospital photographs" displayed on her blog - why is she afraid?

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Cyber-Bullies
What it says on the tin - exploring the way they have collaborated - a feeding frenzy of hateful propaganda.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Flag Day
All the red flags - warning signs.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Horse Heads & Red Flags
Discussing the subject of organised crime.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Settling Dust
A brief respite - a pause to collect my thoughts.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Pull The Other One
A detailed analysis of Noemi Dado's contribution and methods.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 07/01/09
An update - when the gang linked to a possibly "bent" website - that had been involved very early on.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Grisly McGoo
My pet name for MrkGrismer - star of The World Of Filipinas - his contribution.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Still Hiding The Truth
The outburst at Christmas 2008 - Reyan Elena in disguise & his gang of tame cronies.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Response To Cath Cath
Cathy Black - a detailed response to her involvement.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - More Answers To Comments
I was getting mail, comments from all points of the compass - various people who featured in this whole escapade, took it very seriously and personally. A detailed look at their comments and my responses.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Answers, Suggestions
A close look at Southern Don's (Don Pinger) site - FilamForumReport - which had strong ties with The World Of Filipinas.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Let The Light Shine
A brief summing up - one year from the start.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Hollow Propaganda
Reyna Elena really went to town with an analysis of my personality, through his dissection of my story.
I went to equal lengths to prove it all hollow.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Understanding
A list of the main protagonists - and some questions for them.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Check List
A simple chronology - without all the "fluff."

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - SOS Save Our Skin
My response to the video interview, conducted by Noemi Dado & hoisted online as part of her wicked campaign.

Tierra Maria Estates - The Web
A side step into Noemi's daughter's territory - and a look at the complex web of Internet related commodification of the Filipina.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Alert JPB
Our dear freind - John Phillips Bengero - Jepoy - responses to his contribution and strenuous efforts.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - The Cowardly Queen
A response to the nepotistic Don Pinger.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - The Players
All the names of those involved or linked (by name) to the original scam attempt.

Tierra Maria UK

Souvenirs
Some souvenirs - memories - proofs that it really happened.

A True Story
A short extract from the video of the scar revelation.

Denial, Denial, Denial
They can't stop making excuses.

Proof Conclusive - At Last
The final nail in the box - for all those insisting that I am a hoaxer - & illuminating the corruption and deviousness of all those who put serious efforts and energy into attempting to rub out my story.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Under The Microscope
Examination of why I went to such great lengths.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Blood Is thicker
Of course, Noemi Dado involved all her friends - & most of her family in her unethical, unsubstantiated SEO campaign.
Her husband hastily removed any comments that I left on his website.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - You Are All Victims
A look at the emotive power of words - and how words have evoked pictures in all of our minds.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Comments
A selection of comments received - from people who actually could understand that what was going on was highly probable.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Some Questions
Again - a list of all those who jumped on the band-wagon of contempt - and some questions for them.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - Cover -Up
A bandage is a cover-up - for a wound (or supposed to be) - but all sorts of covering up was going on.
Faked photographs, a letter from a "lawyer," a falsified "bill" made up by the hospital . . .

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - The Psychology Of Extortion
Particularly using emotional manipulation - as was the case here. An exposition.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - The Latest From Conned By A Filipina
The title that Noemi Dado gave the piece that I posted on Filipina Images - & all the mysterious goings on there.

Barrio Fiesta UK

Licence Conditions
A look at how JOHN PHILLIPS BENGERO has revealed, yet again, that he has not any sense of decency - by his not abiding to anything required by the CC licence agreement - for copying material online.

Long Term
Watching the opposition self-destruct with every word they write.

Game Boy
A little light, melodramatic relief from Gay-Mops - sorry, force of habit - GameOPS.

A True Story
A short extract from the video of the scar revelation.

FaceBook
A group set up (twice) on FaceBook to hound me with defamation.

Filipina Image I Nation
A group against irresponsible blogging - Noemi Dado's activities in a nutshell.

Open Letter To Filipinos - Worldwide
Linked to the annual Barrio Fiesta in the UK (where I met Sir Francis while helping him - he invited me to set up a website in the UK for his business - which I did - briefly.)

Thank you - please leave your preconceptions outside.

Information and comments regarding this blog can be sent to:
Armand Illigan tierramariauk@yahoo.co.uk
Or by using the link below.

TIM CUMPER @ CONTACTIFY

Click the red flags to read about all the alarm bells.

ARCHIVES - NAVIGATION - LINKS - STATISTICS - BELOW.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 0 - Introduction

2008-10-02T16:18:00.093+01:00

Dear reader - welcome.

You have probably arrived here from one of a number of posts and blogs scattered about the Internet - some which belong to me - under the names Ellumbra, Philcorrupt, Nemesis, Capuccini.
Others - various Blogs, Forums and Bulletin Boards, copious amounts of ill-informed or biased comments - denouncing this story as a hoax, have been posted by a group of people - mainly from or still in the Philippines.
At first sight, these writings would appear to be random and unsolicited. But dig beneath the surface, quite easy to do by exploring social networking - and you will discover that this is not the case. Most of this counter material has been orchestrated and is written by groups and people who are known to each other, quite often being real-life friends or associates - trying to conceal their duplicity behind the anonymity afforded by the Internet.

It is patently apparent that this group of people have been mobilised - specifically instructed to distort & distill, denounce & disrupt my writings - in an effort to sweep my presence from the pages of the search engines - and generally to cast doubt over the sincerity of my words by the sheer volume of their retaliation.
All of this, to try and clear the name of the real estate company at the heart of the story.

(For a brief outline of the initial events - see here.)

Some of them - photographed on holiday together.

These people all emerged simultaneously - and started their hostile, bigoted and devious psychological attack around February 2008, as soon as it became clear that the influence of the girl, alone, was no longer having any effect - as I had finally cut all means of communication with her - leaving activity on the open seas of the Internet as their sole means of contact with me.
Their recent SEO campaign is having the desired effect - I am gradually being pushed from page one of google.

However, it would appear that they are possibly not the only people with a vested interest in how the Philippines is portrayed on the Internet.
The sex tourism industry - which has a variety of presences online - dating sites, pornography sites, "sex tours" to the Philippines, prostitution itself, massage parlours, club and bar owners - all have a share of interest - the largest slice of the pie doubtless being controlled by organised crime. The telephone & Internet companies will also be interested in the increased profits that this activity creates - and at the end of the line, any form of commerce that depends on western money being attracted to their shores.

A typical first response by the many Filipinos who will read this story is to dismiss it as racism.
Please think again.
Challenge yourself seriously on that point.
I harbour no hatred whatsoever - I detest only the actions and events that took place - not the people.
It is publicised here as a warning and as a challenge.
The story is a report of events between April 2007 and the present, which occurred in the Philippines.
It could have happened anywhere in the world - but this specific incident happened in the Philippines - which is the only reason for that country being mentioned.
The majority of people involved in the story are Filipinos.
That is the only reason for their frequent mention.
Neither of those aspects can turn this into an act of racism.
It is a true report, that is all.
The challenges it raises must be addressed by the vast majority of good citizens in and from that country - and those challenges are many and varied.
The report exposes behaviour which is to the detrement of that country's perception.
Namely the original deceitful events and the subsequent spread of propaganda in false denial - both of which can only flourish in an environment of inaction and apathy.
I urge all good citizens of that country to speak out openly in condemnation.
I have a deep love still for the country and the people, whereas this behaviour only reflects a sordid, short term, corrupt self-interest - with no genuine concern for establishing a meaningful and lasting reputation for their country.
It is superficial - purely a deceptive mask - it is ultimately insincere and will achieve more harm than good.

I have discovered that impartiality is rare. It is so easy to arrive with pre-formed or semi-formed opinions - most people reading this story will quite probably default to agreeing or disagreeing with my conclusions - without sparing the time to explore thoroughly all the intricacies and subtleties involved.
Conversely, I have been enveloped by these events every step of the way ever since April 2007. What appears in my journal as simply another date, is actually 24 long hours to sit through, urgently waiting for an appropriate response - the same long 24 hours that was available in the Philippines to make that response. That is why when nothing is done - in the urgency of the situation - it causes the alarm bells to start ringing.

Click the flags to read about all those alarm bells.

I have had to evaluate this seriously, from both sides - being torn between honouring my original intentions for the relationship and yet needing to know conclusively where my trust should be placed.

It is my sincere hope that you, as a reader, will respect the absent rights of all the people involved by resisting partiality and premature conclusions until you have a really clear picture of all the events surrounding this story.
For example - the counter material online includes a video interview with the girl here - Mayen's Story.
Please be sure to read my response to this video here - response to Love, Lies & Videotape.
In order to understand the duplicitous nature of the attempts to manipulate my attitude, please make sure you read Cover-up and also Psychology of a Scam.

The reason I have had to resort to this means at all, is because of the apathy and total silence from the real estate company.
Many times I have written to them asking for a civilized settlement - a resolution - with truth and honesty.
They have refused to answer - tacitly implying, perhaps, that they have done enough, or retreating into the vacuum of silence - resolutely evading any further involvement.
As a last resort, having threatened this action - I released my writings to the public, because my search for the truth was not over - and I needed some sort of leverage to continue communications - being the only possible way I was going to find anything out.

The counter-material online will insist on the innocence of all parties in the Philippines, but the truth of the matter is, that the writers profess to not being linked in any way to the real estate company or the girl - and are basing their attack, allegedly, purely on what they have deduced from my story.
How can this be?
How can they be so assured - so energetic in their concerted condemnation of my writings as no more than a hoax?
It would be hard to find my motive, were that true - whereas their motive is a universally recognised one - money.
Have they lost all power of discrimination in favour of a perfunctory national prejudice?
Or is there something more sinister going on?

If you examine their claims - you will find them totally hollow - devoid of facts - and exclusively employing the psychological tactics of confidence tricksters - simply trying to evoke in me guilt, shame & doubt.
Recently I have been responding, quite harshly - now it has deteriorated into posting ridiculous photographs - all in the hope that I will give up and disappear. But I stand firm in my resolve and my conclusions.
They are attempting to cover up one deception with an even greater one.

I can think of possible reasons for their total ignorance of justice, their complete blindness to the obvious and their unanimous disloyalty to any sense of truth and honesty.

1) They are connected to the organised crime network which depends on the Philippines having a good reputation online - to lure and attract western money.
2) Their natural tendency towards kinship, bayanihan spirit, looking after their own (noble traits in themselves - but it can produce a very biased and bigoted group to come up against.)
3) Some of them might be jumping on the bandwagon out of fear - fear of opposing the consensus of opinion - fear of the network of organised crime - remember some of these people live in the country - and don't want to cause trouble for themselves.
4) It coincides with the needs of a professional blogger - to pull traffic to their sites - a bit of controversy might increase their ratings - their revenue.
5) A strong sense of contempt for the west (fat white monkeys - I have heard us described.) They are doing it purely for entertainment value.
6) "Hiya" - their strong sense and loathing of shame - loss of face. Hiya means that the shame of being exposed is far greater than the shame of the actual crime itself - leading to constant denial - even in the face of really strong evidence, rather than facing the shame that this activity brings to their country and making a stand against it.

From foreign lands - what can they possibly know?

How can anyone in Philadelphia USA, for instance, know what did or did not happen in Paranaque during August 2007? Let alone people in Dubai, Canada, Germany, Australia or Norwich (UK.)

Yes - a certain female Doctor (gaining fame rapidly from various TV & radio coverage of her own story) was one of the first to put up a website (a dedicated posting on A Pinay In England) with the single aim of stirring up a response - with propaganda against myself & my story, only because she had been encouraged to do this - I very much doubt if it was her own idea.
Here's a screengrab of a comment very kindly left by one of the supporters of the scam, which will endorse the validity of this claim.

How likely can it possibly be that she (Dr. Joy) has the slightest grasp of what happened, living here in the UK?
She is merely annoyed that this portrait of some of her fellow countrymen and women is getting exposure.

I have written to her - with the anticipated response - silence.
I have recently left highly civilised comments on some of her numerous websites - of course they are deleted.
Highly selective censorship - which indicates a fear of the painful truth.

Every Saturday afternoon she broadcasts a radio show from Norwich.
The truth is that she is in league with the other blogging celebrities - Noemi Dado, Chuvaness, Reyna Elena. Many of them even guesting on her show - here's a post from Reyna Elena about being a guest on the Doctor's radio show, shortly after the time that the Doctor had decided it best to remove the offending web pages.

from reynaelena.com - articles about Chuvaness (real name Malen Ada) & Reyna on the Dr. Joy's programme.

Even the Philippine Ambassador in London was a guest on her show at about this time. Coincidentally - I had written to this gentleman about my concerns asking if they could be of assistance.
I doubt very much if this subject was discussed between them - who knows.
The truth is, even living in Norwich, she cannot conceal her contempt, her partiality - or decide that searching for the truth is more important - the typical attitude that I have encountered almost everywhere - because, without appearing bigotted, the facts are that the great majority of reaction has been exclusively from Filipinos - not really helping their own cause.
The knee-jerk reaction is one of defensiveness - caused when anyone touches the open wound in that nation's psyche - an unfortunate legacy of its history. Lack of self-esteem. A complex of inferiority. To be defended at all costs.
It is not at all about a concern for the truth.
The whitewash is painted on - but the brushstrokes are too broad - and mostly irrelevant when dealing with this specific event.

They will also insist, of course, that I have "no evidence" to prove my story - but it goes without saying that this scattered group have absolutely zero in the way of material evidence to support their own version of events - it is pure venom.

It is crucial to remember that in events like this - evidence of a scam does not appear in the shape of a footprint - or a fingerprint - the scammers are very careful not to give the game away - although they will only put the minimum amount of effort into creating their manufactured reality.
Why so little effort? Because any form of faked proof of their innocence carries a risk - it can be examined, verification can be sought - names, signatures are incriminating of involvement. Whereas absence creates a vacuum which can only be filled with doubt and uncertainty - distinctly to their advantage.
Conversely - there should be plenty of legitimate documentation about, if as they insist this was all about a genuine event - receipts, invoices etc. - and considering the effort that they have made to try and make this story appear a hoax - they must be incredibly stupid indeed, if innocent as they insist, not to have simply revealed this evidence to me at the earliest possible opportunity.
You see, it just does not add up at all.

This is how it has all been steered, by the people in the Philippines - I have been on the receiving end of it all - this is precicely how it has appeared to me.
Nothing was volunteered which in the normal course of events should have been forthcoming, and the emphasis in all communications was exclusively on collecting the money. I had to pointedly insist before anything was produced - doctors details, the email from the embassy, the letter from "the legal counsel," the showing of "the scar" - all occurred only because of my initiative - or as counter measures to my actions.
So, unfortunately, one cannot take these isolated details as any form of proof - it never happens like that - isolated details are cunningly crafted in the hope that they appear legitimate & genuine - just like the fake scar - but all details and eventualities interact with each other - the picture that is created, in its totality, ultimately vindicates my suspicion. How many rolls of the dice, all showing the same numbers - before it all starts to be improbable?

Yes - it is mainly all in hindsight - apart from that instinctive sense that was alerted early on.

But the voice of instinct is just a whisper - what followed on was an ever increasing crescendo of vindication.
That is why I have continued - to hear that voice loud and clear - only that voice had the power to evaporate my doubts completely - and dispell the guilt that I was being induced into feeling. That inducement was such an easy task for them - for I have never loved anyone as deeply before.
That is the reason why what they are doing is so evil, so ruthless, so deserving of being exposed - for they have mercilessly picked at that wounded heart - in their sadistic hope that it never be allowed to heal.

The game they are playing is a psychological and emotional one.
Therefore the evidence of a scam will usually only appear through an understanding of what should have happened, had the events been true, as they insist - by evaluating behaviour as appropriate or not - and there are plenty of those occasions to choose from. (Although in this case, hard evidence also appeared in the form of the recording of a fake scar.)
Remember that they are playing a game of bluff - trying to deceive - by painting an alternative reality - in the hope that I believe in it - and pay up - or now, capitulate and disappear.

There is plenty of evidence that points at devious goings on, right from the start - inconsistencies - inappropriate responses and timing - procrastination, excuses, proven lies - and finally, of course, the revelation of a fake scar - and later still, faked photographs.

Just consider how easy it is, with blind love working in their favour, to create a reality by telephone, to fake a document or a photograph - that is the sole means by which they hoped to succeed - not at first however, when absolutely nothing beyond their words was produced - only later on, in an effort to defend or pretend their innocence. The Philippines is particularly renowned for all the mimetic skills required - copying, forgery - and people have openly admitted as much in comments I have received.
But the scam merchants themselves are obviously not too aware that the truth can be discerned in many other, non-material ways.

(Please read Behaviour Analysis.)

They have proved, without doubt, that there is an organisation involved, a community, a network - all disguised behind innocuous facades.
But I am also acutely aware that these people only represent a fraction of those that have read the story, a small fraction who have a vested interest in being heard - whatever the motivation might be - a distorted sense of national pride, wishful thinking, defensiveness, contempt - or more sinisterly - a connection in some way to the Big Business interest - wilfully thwarting the course of truth.

I leave it to you, the reader, to come to your own conclusions.
The next chapter will give you a brief run down of events - followed by the chapters thereafter, which are a detailed journal of this adventure - from sweet beginnings - to the bitter end.

But it is a long journey, it is easy to get lost in the details, it is easy to be persuaded by the illusion of reality that is being painted - if one forgets that right from the outset - absolutely nothing was proved with any degree of conclusivity to have actually happened. One must understand that everything else which occurs is either in defence of, or opposition to that single proposition.
The only reason for the high profile is the energy and resources available to the Real Estate Company in conjunction with a whole network of Filipino bloggers and other related Internet businesses - intent on persuading public opinion, not mine. If it were exclusively my opinion that was the target here, then the Real Estate Company would be more concerned in revealing to me alone, the "conclusive evidence" - that they would undoubtedly possess - were their version of events the true one.

Finally - I will insist that you understand that although this story presents a bleak picture - it describes the environment in which this sort of activity can thrive - it is exclusively referring to a minority of people.
It is not racist - it is not generalising.
I am aware that there is fear which prevents innocent, good people from coming forward and protesting - leaving the stage empty for the villains of the piece to appear as if they are the voice of the Philippines.
I know this is not the case.

Please read on . . .

Thank you.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 1 - Preface

2008-10-01T22:26:00.034+01:00

Welcome to Hospital Scams - Philippines.

Please return to the . . .

Title Page

(For important information & links to damning video evidence)

Thank you - please leave your preconceptions outside . . .

. . . & on with the story . . .

This is not blind revenge - simply an effort to warn others and to make it difficult for this particular group, practicing emotional extortion, to continue their despicable trade.
Presented here, where that trade can propagate like a virus in a culture dish - the Internet.
When there is no fear of the law, or no law to fear - exposure is a solitary and powerful alternative.

We all lie - white lies - we all distort the truth from time to time, however the people incriminated in the following are of a different calibre.

This is professional racketeering by people suffering from the impoverished conditions that unfortunately befall the vast majority living in the Philippines, constantly alert for any way to make more money for themselves.
Morals don't seem to concern them.
Aware of the potential in the raw power of emotions - like an untapped natural resource - they resort to a type of suburban savagery, using modern technology to wreak their havoc - destroying lives in the process - as they consciously manipulate situations to be able to take advantage of people's sincere and deeply felt emotions - yes - people's love - for their own material gain.

I have found that they quite readily employ the concepts we regard as Holy, to try to endorse, add a sense of legitimacy to their evil endeavours - the name of God and His angels - swearing on The Almighty that the words they speak and write are the truth.

Revealing sociopathic behaviour, these pathological liars are utterly ruthless in their pursuit - with not a single care for the resulting devastation to their victims' lives - only the cold, single-minded intent of aquiring money.

Believe me when I tell you that evil is not too strong a word to describe them - masquerading behind the exquisite preciousness, the sacredness of love and the trust it naturally engenders - with their deceit, their cunning and their greed.

It is a lasting shame that the social and political conditions of the country contribute so much to cause this thriving underworld - and make it a breeding ground for racketeering - Tierra Mafia - although behaviour is always a matter of personal choice.

So many people have tried to explain all this away, tried to excuse it, by quoting cultural differences - but deceit, dishonesty, emotional manipulation are never acceptable - anywhere. It is true, the habit of scouring for financial hand-outs is hardwired into the psyche of many of these people. A certain contemptuous attitude (in many cases justified by the activities of "sex-tourism" but born on a tide of generalisation and lack of understanding) is commonly evident. This all contributes to make scamming seem acceptable to some of these people.

All the more reason for it to be eradicated - at its political roots.

Of course, I have a responsibility to bear in all of this - if it were not for people like me, this sort of behaviour, these activities could not possibly exist - my only defense is that I was totally genuine and honest in my pursuit of a loving relationship and marriage.

Love without trust is like a ship without water.
But the trust that developed in this case, as far as the girl was concerned, was for one sole purpose. As in all love affairs, a sense of trust is cultivated - here it was nutured and nourished, groomed by a fantasy lover, changing colour like a chameleon to obtain the maximum depth of feeling - merely so that it could ultimately be abused.

All requests for help from her have had four common denominators:

1) They were situations tailored to maximise the degree of emotionally conditioned response from me.
2) They all contained a large proportion of fiction.
3) They required that I send her some money.
4) The requests were never direct - but a clever (& in retrospect - blatantly obvious) squeezing process.

Here is a shortened version of the events that happened.
The full story, from A - Z with accompanying photographs, is available following on.
But just to ensure that you keep your eye on the ball - and don't lose sight of the wood (the obvious) for all the trees (the details) . . . here is a check list, simplified, uncluttered - and you will see that the profile exactly matches my story.

The year is 2007.

* April 14th. I join the DateInAsia site. Profile just completed, photograph still awaiting approval - "Curly Hair" contacts me. This is the start of the adventure. I discover her name is Mayen - she works for a real estate firm as a Property Consultant. She is very beautiful - and we appear to be hitting it off straight away. We return day after day to keep the flame burning.

* April 21st. Mayen writes ". . . but you know what, i do suggest tim that you will first visit in the phillipines and experience our culture . . . it would be an unforgetable experience you ever have . . . "

* April 27th. We arrange for me to visit in June - there is a Barrio Fiesta in her province and I will be able to meet her family.

This is our home for the first week and on our return from the province.

* June 18th. I fly to the Philippines - we meet - I have a wonderful, but expensive time. Mayen initiates our physical liason - and we live like lovers - continuing our plans for marriage, my emigration. I meet Sir Francis (her boss) - her work colleagues - and eventually, her family.

* June 29th. I fly back to the UK - I have a weeks work in Jersey before I arrive back home.

* July 8th. Chatting to Mayen - she requests I send her some money to help with her internet expenses - but the request transforms into money for a health check - suspected Dengue Fever. My suspicions are aroused - but my love is already too deep.

* July 13th. Mayen informs me that she is showing symptoms of being pregnant. I am scared, but delighted - but wondering if this is true - the situation is starting to show symptoms of being a classic "Honey Pot Trap."

* July 15th. I meet Sir Francis at the Barrio Fiesta in Hounslow UK. I suggest to Mayen that I give him an engagement ring to bring back for her. Mayen agrees, but insists that I do not tell him what the gift is.

* July 25th. Book another flight to the Philippines for 14th - 28th August.

* July 27th. Mayen supposed to return for another health check to confirm pregnancy - but she doesn't bother - she has already told me it was a false alarm.

* August 2nd. Receive another request and send more money - this time for new lodgings.

* August 8th. We have a long chat session - Mayen is visiting her sister in Quezon City.

* August 10th. Early in the morning I send an email to Mayen saying that I noticed her profile at DIA has just been hidden. 6.30 am - I receive a call from Mayen, moments after I log on to the Yahoo Messenger. She is in hospital - The Medical Center Paranaque - it transpires during the morning that she has to have an operation for an Ectopic Pregnancy. Would I send some money? I panic - completely ambivalent now - true or false. This is the perfect ruse for emotional extortion. I call Sir Francis who is there with Mayen - he has paid some deposits towards her hospitalisation. I speak to Mayen on her cellphone after the operation " . . . huhuhuh . . . no more babies . . . timmyboy . . . send the money . . ." I speak to my friend Jim on the phone - we are both convinced it is a scam - but are surprised at how many people are incriminated - it must be an organised crime setup.
I delete all Mayen's emails, block her email address, delete my profile at DIA, remove her from my Yahoo Messenger. The best thing to do is cut off all contact.

* August 11th. No sleep - what if it is true? This is absolute hell, I'm torn completely in half by love and doubt. I hear one word of a voice message on my phone - I can't handle hearing her voice. It's text, IM and email only from now on.

* August 12th. I establish contact again. Marivien, Mayen's work colleague and go between - has a chat session with me. Would I send 50,000 pesos via Western Union? I insist on dealing only directly with the hospital - besides I am due to arrive on the Wednesday (15th) - I need to know urgently what the hospital bill will be to assess if I can still afford the trip. I insist that they pass this on to the hospital.

* August 13th. A critical day - the last chance I have to draw the cash from the bank, get traveller's cheques if I decide to still fly.
Still no word from the hospital - at the last minute, I receive an email from the real estate office containing some figures.
The amount is verified by the hospital accounts dept. on the telephone.
I do decide to fly. Visit the bank, get traveller's cheques, visit the church for a blessing - I am scared stiff. Call in to see my friend Jim. I end up giving him my passport and traveller's cheques so that I cannot go - we both consider that it would be dangerous.

* August 14th. They think I'm somewhere in the air between UK and Manila - so I have a peaceful day.

* August 15th. Bang on the time my flight is landing the SMS and phone calls start. I do not reply. I'll keep them guessing for a while.

So to cut a very long, complicated story short - I decided to stay in the UK and face the virtually impossible task of finding out the truth - in some concrete way.

I tried to enlist help from all sorts of people, websites, government agencies, Embassies - with few exceptions the response was non existent - apart from my staunch friend Jim.
Here is a portion of the detailed email that I distributed - amongst those that didn't fail in delivery (all the government sites failed - they considered it as spam) - were the head of Tierra Maria Estates (highlighted) - but he has never, ever replied - and that stark silence only reinforced the impression that a conspiracy of silence was in place.

Together Jim and I set about forensically examining every little strand of information that we received - building up psychological patterns of the people we were dealing with 6,000 miles away. The burden of proof was theirs. Through their total incompetence - one way or the other - the result appeared an obvious scam - either incompetence in portraying the genuine truth to me - or incompetence in pulling off the scam without raising my suspicions. But still all we had was circumstantial. What we needed was unequivocal evidence.

I wrote a detailed journal of my visit to the Philippines to meet Mayen - it was an unforgetable experience.

What started out as a story of romance and hope takes a twisted turn - I decided to keep a record of everything as it unfolded - please read on if you care to share my feelings - day to day - as the whole episode unravelled - Journey Into My Heart.

I am aware that I am using this story to expose the particular people involved - but all that will eventually dissolve away into the Internet darkness.
However - the implications - for the Philippines, the people there - their relationship with the western world - and the questions raised for people like me - reach way beyond the boundaries of this journey - as recalled by just one person.
The main intention for revealing the intricate detail is to bring it to life - up close - for the reader to be awoken from their convenient slumber when confronted with these issues - and to learn a little of how it feels to be at the receiving end of a scam such as this - the confusion, bewilderment - the awful ambiguity, the torturous plagues of doubt and guilt - the devastation that it can bring - financially (well over £3,600.00 wasted - all under false pretences) physically and emotionally into a life - and to the other lives of those close by.
How disadvantage and stupidity is seized as a vulnerability - how love is used as a crowbar - to prize apart another life - to the advantage of those, seeking to gain - indiscriminately - through deceit and abuse of trust.

To be fair, in my eagerness to find a new beginning, in the blindness of my desire - I caused a great deal of pain myself - through my own deceit and abuse of trust - I am not pretending to be innocent - but simply recalling the events, as they happened.

God bless you all.

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 2 - Encounter

2008-08-31T22:25:00.023+01:00

Journey Into My Heart 1

Welcome.
The events that you will read in this blog are true and accurate.
However, you will see that I have drawn my own conclusions from the events that have happened.

The section from here (Journey Into My Heart 1) up until August 10th (Journey 16) is left - untouched - from when it was just a private blog - I was happy and proud of my miraculous romance.

It was originally started in July 2007 as a private photo-record of my diary, written during my journey to the Philippines - & it was hosted at first on MySpace. Tierra Maria Estates were made aware of my blog in August 2007, I had sent them the URL in an email - I was still keeping it updated on the unfolding story - as the events happened - but it was not always public. However after I wrote the evidence about the fake-scar in October and made the blog public - one hour later - the account was hacked and everything disappeared. MySpace, after security checking, were very helpful in eventually rescuing the files for me. I now keep them separately backed up.

MY JOURNAL

Some of you may view this as simply unashamed self-publicity, maybe as the trumpetings of a middle-aged man - finding some excitement during a mid-life crisis.
Please let me assure you that these poems, my diary of events, originally were thoroughly private affairs of my heart - they are only posted here to be read as such - and to give me something to do that keeps me close to the wonderful memories I have, while I wait for my situation to resolve itself.

It all started with a growing discontent - at the rut I was in.
My wife and I had been steadily drifting apart for too many years.
Happy in my work, but tired, really tired of being financially drained every month - life was seemingly going nowhere.
The mortgage hung around my neck like a slab of concrete - the house became a burden, not a home.

Out of the blue - cyberspace is blue you know - I received an invitation from a young Filipina to become friends on Friendster. She was very pretty, as indeed a great many of them are - we started an exchange of communication. Somehow, the forwardness of her admitted affections made them seem rather perfunctory - but it is all too easy to be swayed by the satisfaction this brings, the soothing massage to the ego. Before too long, I suspected that I was about to be scammed for money - she started to mention that her family could no longer afford her tuition fees as a trainee nurse - he, he - again, it all seemed far too business like - and stuck out like a red flag for what was supposed to be a developing relationship. Not particularly subtle at all. I've read and I'm sure you've heard tales of the sort of behaviour that goes on - so I cut off communication.

But a seed had been planted in my head. To be honest - hopefully you will have detected by now, it is not my intention to hide anything from you - I have always been attracted to an Eastern look, the dusky skin, the raven hair - I read a great deal on websites associated with the Philippines that they have great respect for the elder members of society (see where this is going?) - were not too particular about the physical appearance of their partner, appreciating more the attributes of loyalty and honesty - "God-fearing" - as they would say.
I will openly admit to my feelings and accept what my taste is - I see no cause for shame either - I am not intending to use force or deception. Provided that I find reciprocation and mutual understanding, I will stand by my particular attractions - free from any burden of guilt that some would wish to accompany them.
I am in search of the miraculous.
I was God-fearing, but now that fear has all but evaporated - replaced by an attitude of wonderment and love - sometimes overwhelmingly so, especially recently.

So I joined a website specifically designed for dating Asian women.

The process is standard - fill in a profile, submit a photo - search through the profiles and lodge messages of interest etc.
My first night, having only just completed my profile - photograph still subject to approval - I got a message back from a young girl in Manila - "Curly Hair."

"hi how are you doing? are you new here? do you have pic? wow musicia here you are! wana be my friend?"

She worked as a "Property Consultant" based in the Tierra Maria Estates sales office in Paranaque City. This was on April 14th 2007 - I remember it so clearly - the start of my adventure, my new life.

[Mayen was aware - right from the start, because I had mentioned my previous encounter, that I was extremely cautious - she admitted that there were a lot of fake people on these dating sites - but assured me that she was all genuine. My research had suggested that the girls on dating sites who lived in the large urban areas, such as Manila, were potentially more risky - in terms of finding a scammer - I was reassured, initially, by the fact that Mayen's profile indicated Southern Leyte as her home - it wasn't until later that I understood she was actually now in Manila.]

Profile picture from DIA

We both seemed to be excited at our new found friendship - indeed we returned day in, day out, to keep the torch burning - as it were - despite the difficulties of actually meeting in real time - due to the seven hour time difference.

[I was enthralled and fascinated also by the mystical charm of the Philippines and the culture there - exploring a new world that seemed to represent a perfect paradise for romance.]

I wrote of my feelings - often in poetry - for I was falling deeply, most surely, most ridiculously in love with this young girl - only 23 years old - what exactly does one feel across the internet - just one simple photograph - but within those eyes, I detected so much - a face that seemed to promise so much to me - way out into my future - I felt such a deep stirring in my heart - much deeper than a simple infatuation.

LOVE STONE

Tides never cease to come and go,
Or draw back with a sigh,
Nor stays the peace,
My spirits flow,
From sinking low,
To rising high.
My heart,
As if a pebble thrown,
Caught fast upon that sloping shore,
First rolling up,
Then tumbling down,
Polished,
Till a stone no more -
By waves that move too deep inside,
To ever understand,
But prove me brave
To never hide -
Just one
Of countless grains of sand.

I was very alert to the possible madness of what I was allowing to happen to myself - oh yes, I was wary, very wary . . .

Now we both must shed the veil,
And tear to shreds illusion's sail
That doubt or fear may no more find
Propulsion here of any kind.

. . . but instead of it fading - every day brought increased vigour to our relationship - we definitely saw each other as an answer to a long held secret prayer - and soon it came to the point of having to meet each other - to have continued, in this purely text-based world, with the depth of feeling that we both admitted to having, would have been impossible. We'd reached the end of all that words could do - so we had to prove it, finally, positively, by meeting person to person.

MIRACLE

As a shell, upon the ear
Close pressed, will bring the sea,
Within my heart, so faint, yet clear,
Is whispering to me
A voice, in kind, to silence near,
A zephyr, stirring constantly,
As soft as only I may hear,
Yet recognise with certainty.

Lucid, though no word be told,
Insistent, as a drum,
The burden of its message holds
A distant, sacred sum,
Another region of my soul
Is calling me to home,
For it be one, yet not the whole
Of all it may become.

How soon could this happen? I enquired when her holiday time was, not wanting her to be pre-occupied with her work while I was there.
Very soon, dates were suggested - confirmed - meeting with her first in Manila - then meeting with her family, seeing her environment - the province where she was born and brought up. I visited my mother - it was the first time she had heard about my domestic situation - she was very happy about my plans - not understanding much about the internet was puzzled as to how I could be in love with a girl I'd never met - but she gave me her blessing.
The next morning I got a call from my sister in Portugal "What's going on? Mum's had a dreadful dream - her guardian angel told her that you are in danger." I facetiously remarked that my phantom lover on the internet was maybe more real than my mother's guardian angel.

This all had to proceed very secretively - I was certain that my marriage had come to an end - I wanted to move on, release the capital that was tied up in the house - but I wasn't prepared to burn my bridges completely at this stage, so secrecy was imperative.
I sold some shares to raise the air fare, arranged for a dear friend to purchase the tickets online - all untraceable to my bank account - very devious goings on - and all the time, I was feeling so much love in my heart - praising God regularly for this miracle - yes, things even improved at home - well they do if you're feeling love in your heart, don't they.

The trip to the Philippines happened to fall on 10 days that were free - sandwiched between 2 visits to Jersey for work. I would simply extend my visit to Jersey to cover the gap - and to cover my traces.

Or so I thought.

12 hours on this - to Hong Kong - then a 3 hour wait - 2 more hours to Manila.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 3 - Preparations

2008-08-30T22:24:00.009+01:00

Journey 2

Flames? - oh, very yesterday,
Fire & brimstone? - so passé,
Old Nick has now a better way,
To torture souls (who go astray)

He sends them back to Terra Firma,
As far afield as France and Burma,
And once his players are on set,
He puts them on the internet.

"Sounds just fine" I hear you cry,
But wait - and here's the reason why,
Once they're sat there, up above,
He'll make damn sure they fall in love.

A definite landmark in this period came when she sent me her cellphone number, in an effort to quell my doubts and fears about who she really was - it is impossible across the internet to know for certain - and once faith and trust are put aside, even for a moment - it can all start to turn upside down.
I immediately phoned her up - I will never forget the sound of her golden voice - hearing it for the very first time - hearing the excitement that she was feeling - her wonderful bubbling laughter. The memory of that moment proved a positive lifeline as I started to become engulfed by an ocean of suspicion - unfortunately - the cost of phone calls and the often poor quality restricted, almost entirely, their use.

[Mayen sent me two new photographs of herself after I had pleaded with her to let me know more about her. She teased me on the phone, saying "What you want, sexy pictures?" The two pictures that did arrive were thankfully modest - but made me realise, with a shock, that I had been focussing my love around one solitary photograph - and that I did not really know Mayen at all.]

The intervening time was rather painful - on several fronts. I started to feel a dreadful ambiguity - on the one hand I really wanted this to be genuine, I prayed that it would turn out as it appeared to promise to my heart. But on the other hand, what if I arrived at Manila to find the whole thing a big scam - finding someone unrecognisable there meeting me? Compounding the horror of this dichotomy - no matter how much I tried, I could not communicate this fear any more strongly than the subtlest of hints - virtually undetectable hints - without it becoming very insulting. Trying to get to the truth across the internet is well nigh impossible - words are cheap and honesty is indistinguishable from deceit.
What brought this issue to a head was the fact that I was recommended a hotel that was newly built and had no internet presence. Best advice is always to leave word with a friend of where exactly one is staying when abroad, especially in circumstances like this - I could find no trace. I even went as far as contacting the British Embassy in Manila - they wrote back saying "We are unable to confirm the existence of this hotel."
"Great" I thought - "I'm walking right into a scam" - so I confronted the poor girl with my fears, spilling out all my doubts and suspicions - it was a great relief. After initially getting angry & upset at my wavering trust - she eventually saw the funny side - me fearing for my life - kidnapping - extortion - entrapment. Well it does happen you know.

[So it does exist after all - and very comfortable it was too. This was our home for the first week and our final night together.]

During a discussion about decorating the house - my wife discovers that I am planning on selling up - she immediately, intuitively jumps to the conclusion that I have met somebody else - wow! I cannot deny it, confess everything - except the proposed trip - shh! that's still a secret - well it was. Even that secret seems about to be exposed - due to a phone call that I received at Heathrow, the day I returned - waiting for my connecting flight back to Jersey.

I am so convinced that destiny is about to reveal someone very special - I float around for the remainder of the time before the trip.
I have managed some secret shopping on my previous visit to Jersey, so all that I'll need for the trip is over there - anti-malaria tablets, cool clothes, a new suitcase etc.
Hectic exchanges over the internet approaching d-day. My wife digs her claws in at my plans to sell the house - refuses to divorce, refuses to sell the house. All is doomed as far as I'm concerned - with no money to buy a property in the Philippines or start a business - both have been discussed - I might as well not bother going.

Things go dreadfully quiet and tension in me mounts for a couple of days - waiting to hear the verdict from afar and I am more than relieved to hear back that she is still interested in meeting me - despite my seeming poverty now.
The next day, things calm down a bit at home - we discuss the virtues of splitting up - and I think we both see the wisdom in doing so. But it is frightening to see how hope can paper over the cracks, cover up so many important, crucial details - or maybe it's a case of where there's a will, a way will come. The law of attraction at work.

Yes, I've been doing quite a bit of uplifting, inspirational reading recently - The Secret, Conversations With God, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari - all telling me the same thing, the same message. The world is abundant, have faith, create your own future by attracting it towards you - keep the thoughts clearly on target, be thankful - it so much makes sense - I am changing, day by day.

[My goodness - yes - some of my detractors are correct. Regarding my marriage, looking back, I can see now, I was being a selfish pig.
I am not going to attempt to excuse that behaviour.
I can only say I was certainly very unhappy & had been for a long time. I made a mistake with the marriage and considered further time spent in it, for either of us, was wasting the best we could bring to a relationship.
I am only now - over a year later - recovering from the effects of this adventure - reclaiming my life from being absorbed in the detail - and find myself right back where I was - with perhaps a little more insight - when it started.
I won't go into details here of why we are both unhappy - we have both been admitting it for years - here was perhaps the catalyst for change - that would set us both free again - allow us to both reset our lives. Divorce is not pleasant - and adultery as the grounds would not be on the cards (mutuality being a clue) - but separation - after 14 years - was not going to be without trauma - but there comes a time - such a time as this - when decisions have to be made.]

WILDERNESS

My heart has long since
Been restless,
Tethered and caged,
Enslaved in an artifice,
This human zoo.
Where concrete and glass
Confuse the sky,
And each day's passing
Sees my ancestors,
My roots,
My sense of belonging,
Become a distant memory,
Locked behind closed doors.
I want to tread, barefoot,
In my wilderness,
Cast off the grey shroud
Of a murky, out of focus world,
Step away from today,
Hang it up
Some place,
Like an old set of clothes.
I hear a voice calling me,
From my past, yet, within me still.
My inner nature, demands release,
To know that my heart shares
Its beating with the tide,
To know that my breath
Was born on the wind,
To know that within me,
There burns the sacred fire of life.
This dream arrives
From loving you.
You are my wilderness,
My proud, prowling lioness,
You, my inheritance,
My past, my blood,
My breath.
Let us bathe in each other's warm seas,
Let us roar to the same horizon,
Let us discover,
The wild,
The sun,
The moon,
This spinning orb,
The earth,
Our mother.
Our father
Of the spirit.
Becoming one
To create new life,
And let us not heed
The clamorous place,
Nor listen to the brazen voice
That lures us to its way.
I know a secret yesterday,
And want to live it once more,
With only you by my side.
My love,
This you bring to me.
Let our days spin,
Like the spokes of a wheel,
A perfect circle
Around its hub,
Two hearts,
Become one,
At our centre
Merging,
Fusing,
United in spirit,
Welded together
In a deep,
But silent
Communion,
An unspoken answer,
To a secret prayer.

So - the time arrives - first I have two days in Jersey, I fly back to Heathrow Sunday evening - I'm being hidden away at a friend's house while I wait for my flight late on Monday. Getting off the bus from the airport in my local town where my friend is to meet me - who should go sailing by in her car? Yes - my wife. Fortunately I had made myself invisible as I stepped off the bus.
Many messages to write before I go - last minute things. Flight day - final communication is via an internet terminal at Heathrow - then on to the plane, although I do manage a brief SMS message exchange with - I forgot, I haven't told you her name yet - Mayen - while waiting at Hong Kong.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 4 - Arrival

2008-08-29T22:23:00.009+01:00

Journey 3

I decided to keep a daily journal (my diary) of the adventure, as it was happening - as a detailed souvenir of this glorious first meeting.
So here is that journal, started on loose scraps of paper I found in my bag - accompanied by the photographs - and some of the poems written before we had met - but I assure you that these dreams are all coming true - and I do believe in miracles.

I knew in an instant,
When I first saw your face,
What more can time achieve?
I do not need that space -
It merely makes a place for fear,
For un-answerable questions.
I cannot get much closer here,
My heart knows its direction.
If all the pages
Of every book
Described you to perfection,
It still would only take one look
To win my soul's affection.

DAY ONE

The first flight was a struggle - keeping it together emotionally & physically - stuck in my seat for 12 hours - I felt at times like a force fed battery hen might feel - no excercise - I did little stretchy movements regularly and meditated, which dipped into sleep occasionally but kept me reasonably calm and centred - despite the whirlpool of thoughts circling around inside my head.

Mayen and I had a brief exchange of text messages while I was waiting at Hong Kong - until she realised that I was still "roaming" on my cellphone - they stopped abruptly.

The second flight introduced me to Philippine food for the first time and my neighbour on the plane - a Filipina returning home from Sweden.

Finally stepping off the plane in Manila - the heat, the humidity - just incredible - like walking in to a hot shower room. Gradually getting used to this - changing gear dramatically - collecting baggage and all the other airport formalities were painless. Through all this, despite surrendering to destiny, having tired of chasing my thoughts any more - there was one sole preoccupation throughout my entire being - meeting Mayen.

Eventually I find the airport arrivals greeting area - a cacophony of car horns and police whistles, crowds of people, straining at the barriers, bustling and shuffling to catch sight of their loved ones - the culture shock was immediate. Again that recurring phrase appeared in my mind "What am I doing?"

After a couple of cellphone calls and about an hour waiting, there is a flurry of girls approaching me - Mayen - chaperoned by two of her friends - just over two months since it all began - my first real glimpse - aware for the first time of her young, small frame and the vibrancy of her personality, smiling, gleaming from every pore - and that hair - that luxurious wavy hair.

Our mutual delight was still evident, although mixed with other feelings - relief, overbearing excitement and the surreal - meeting someone you feel so close to although you have never met physically. It was holding hands, lots of wonderful smiles and kisses, gripping me tight and leading me like a blind man to our driver "dadda" - Marivien and Miss Ann sharing the passenger seat in the front - my heart was pumping with love and desire for Mayen - I was engulfed with such strong, natural love for this girl - there was no ice to break between us - it was all instantly melted to water - I felt what I have felt all along for Mayen - now she was right next to me, my arm around her shoulder in the back of a cab - as we all danced through the late night traffic - looking for a money changer - something I had overlooked at the airport in my eagerness - despite the offer from a couple of security guards to change my money. [Yeah - into thin air probably.]

We arrived at the hotel and I checked in - unsure of what was going to happen for the rest of the night, although it was very late by this time - my flight had landed at 10:30 pm. I photographed the exterior of the hotel while Mayen, with her friends, viewed the rooms for me, kindly choosing one that was away from the traffic noise. We arranged to meet in the reception next morning - deciding that it would be a good idea to get some rest - we hugged, said a farewell and Mayen left the hotel with her friends and went back to her room - suddenly - I was on my own.
At the end of day one I slept like a log.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 5 - In her hands

2008-08-28T22:22:00.008+01:00

Journey 4

DAY TWO

I wake, shower and go down stairs for breakfast. Mayen appears shortly afterwards - this is strange - we didn't talk much last night in all the excitement.
I am completely in her hands at the moment - not knowing a thing about this new land - but we are happy people - about to have our first whole day together.

We spend most of today tasting a variety of transportation - taxi cabs, metered/unmetered, with or without air-con, jeepneys, motorised tricycles - in an effort to find somewhere to change my traveller's cheques. Ended up going to Makati - trusty, fiesty Mayen by my side, holding the money for the cabs - negotiating good deals - getting more and more exasperated at her fellow countrymen - treating "foreigner" here like the Golden Goose - the penultimate taxi driver typifying the bad deal - unmetered, no air-con, challenging us for a healthy tip even before we start - he took a "short cut" through shanty town, the squatters in the fishermens village - crowded, narrow, rust coloured streets - we made sure the doors were locked - the cab showing more and more signs of something terminally wrong with it - eventually giving up completely in a gas station - the driver pouring buckets of water over the engine to cool it down - hood up - we were told to find another cab. I don't think we gave him his healthy tip.

[Here again, my detractors have really tried to make a meal out of me using "Golden Goose" - an innocent enough phrase - surely preferable to the phrase I hear later in this adventure "Fat White Monkey."
Unfortunately, it is an inescapable reality - it is not a posture one has to assume - it is presumed by many who see "foreigner" - that here is an opportunity to "up" the going rate. It is an undeniable truth - proving anyone who cares to argue this point has either never been to the Philippines - or that they are a liar - trying to conceal the truth behind their words.]

During the day I broke a tooth on some hard pork we had for lunch [I had heard that the Filipinos loved their food - what an understatement!] We shopped for a SIM card for my cellphone to lessen the expense of texting. Sat outside in the new and enormous Mall of Asia, on the Baywalk - drinking coffee.

We go to Mayen's room in the early evening - she takes a shower - a simple room, rented for her by the firm she works for, and shared with her work colleagues occasionally - a bed, a water cooler, electric fan, rice cooker, basic kitchen utensils, clothes neatly folded in a large suitcase type bag, a bed for guests folded alongside the dining table and chairs. This is a small, hot room. I go outside for a cigarette while Mayen showers - waiting on the stairs as I prepare my roll up - the door of the room at the bottom of the stairs opens - out steps a girl dressed in just a slip carrying some freshly washed item of clothing to hang on the drying rails - seeing me lurking there on the stairwell, she apologises and - embarrassed, disappears straight back inside her room. I go out beyond the gate for a smoke. A grubby and almost skinny white cat of Siamese variety lounges on top of the perimeter wall - the security guard lounges on a plastic chair just inside the entrance to this little compound.
We then go to Mayen's "homebase" as she calls it - the sales office and greet her friends and colleagues.

Our first full day together - hand in hand - as close as two bodies can be - growing, expanding in our love and trust for each other. We all went for a meal together at East 19 [I think it was called] overlooking Victoriana housing project, with lightning flashing all around on the horizon - but a fresh breeze blowing.

My cellphone doesn't like the heat. I love Mayen so completely, so deeply - I am changing.

Unto the four winds did I shout your name,
And kept alight that sacred flame
Before the altars of Sun and Moon,

Underneath a vault of stars,
I offered prayer, that Oh, so soon,
Our eyes could share and know the same.

So simple, yet, now plain to see,
I know no more, no less of thee
Than I imagine, stars of me,

Who dwell a hundred lifetimes hence,
Who's light and sight I only sense
From long ago, when present tense.

Accuse me of idolatry,
Of worshipping a beam,
My faith, alone for company,

To temper, so would seem,
The steel of my temerity,
The colour of my dream,

All is unknowing, no consolation,
Save for the glowing
Of a new constellation.

After this first full day together, I get a bad case of the blues - having to say goodnight - I give Mayen the perfume that I bought her. After she had left me, I sent her a text saying that I wished I was her teddy bear - I spotted it earlier on her bed in her room.
Flick through the channels on the TV. I am growing to detest the world as it is portrayed in the media - so unreal. I doze off in bed for a few hours - but I am disturbed by a dream - cannot sleep any more - so I dress and go outside the hotel for a cigarette.
I rolled one for the security guard - he'd never tried a roll up with liquorice paper - he enjoyed it. I was surprised at the activity on the highway - colourful jeepneys, plying their trade.

Crammed with, amongst others, many immaculately uniformed schoolchildren, dilligently, serenely and with great humility - boarding to get to school on time. Now this was 4.30 in the morning! Schools open at 6.30 - yes there are different "shifts" so to speak - but go on until 4.00pm. That's a ten hour day.

I sometimes feel ashamed at the respect, near to reverence that I am shown by these sweet people, so beautiful [but I am reminded later - in fact Sir Francis uses these very words - that there are many "snakes" as well.] Me, lurking, trapped behind the disguise of money - courtesy of the exchange rate and appalling standard of living here. The illusion of wealth is all fake - I don't do anything consciously - it is assumed for me by those who see "foreigner."

I awoke this morning from a vivid dream. A black man, doing some menial labour had developed a deformed foot from the constant repetition of his task with the appliance provided for him - he pleaded with his boss for a moments rest. The boss, unseen, just a voice - but distinctly an unsavoury type of person replied "That's one less bone for you then!"
In my dream I was moved to such depths of pity for the man's suffering, I reached into my soul and found healing powers, felt God running through my fingertips as I massaged the man's foot back into shape - to the amazement of us both.
[At this point in writing, everything welled up inside of me, all the relief, the love, the emotions of this dream - I could not continue writing and broke down into a great sobbing in my hotel room.]

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 6 - Taal Lake

2008-08-27T22:21:00.009+01:00

Journey 5

DAY THREE

When I meet you
Face to face,
For a moment or two,
I'll shut my eyes,
Breath deeply
Into my heart,
The knowing,
The comfort,
The love
That lives there,
Flick through memories,
And paint my eyes
With the colours
I have seen you wear,
Dip into the
Refreshing waters
Of a pool
Already overflowing.
Our company
Already shared,
To love you
I've already dared.
I've come to meet
You from without,
Yet reach you still
Within.
And soul will greet
Another soul,
As close
As they have always been.

Not sleeping too well after my strange dream - I was woken by the phone - Mayen was obviously already in reception - we had arranged to meet for breakfast.
My goodness, I was so pleased to see Mayen again - we greeted like old friends, close lovers. After breakfast we retired to room 304 - I had a shower - and we just hung around in the room - I had the occasional doze.

The latter end of the morning - via tricycle - jeepney - we found an air-con van that would drive us to Tagaytay and Taal lake - the site of a volcano.
The driver, Elmer, after all the other passengers had left the van, was ours for the rest of the day - all the Tagalog chat that had taken place between him and Mayen was her negotiating a fee.
As we approached the high ground - essentially the rim of the giant crater - it started to rain, very heavily - and any good views down to the lake disappeared in mist, so we stopped at a small roadside cafeteria for food and rest.

First we were persuaded, by a street seller who had followed us inside, to buy and taste Espasol - a sort of powder covered jelly, made from coconuts and rolled in paper wraps - hmm - a little tasty, but disappointing really - next, a large pot of Bula - a big joint of pork in soup. After a strangely sweet cup of coffee, the rain seems to be stopping - back into the van - climbing up again, we find - a Starbucks - yeah!

A very good view of the lake, the top deck of the place is open - good - a smoke and coffee with chocolate cake - with the woman I love and am going to marry - perfect.

Many text messages going on - back and forth - I get to speak to Mayen's boss on the phone - Sir Francis. He's very kindly offered us his services for a day out - he'll take us to see the Tierra Maria Farm Estate housing project and maybe a beach if we'd like - we agree that will be Saturday.

How kind, I thank him very much - Mayen and I do much talking. She really appreciates having such a "kind, humble man" for a boss.

Picking up Elmer and the van we drive back to Manila - en route stopping for some Buko pie [again from coconuts - again very disappointing] some fresh mangos and pineapples. We put them in the fridge at homebase and go out for an evening meal after showering at the hotel - together.

The chinese restaurant was just in the process of closing up for the night, but they served us - we did not finish the food and it was wrapped up in plastic bags for us to take away - Mayen - ever thoughtful - wanted to take it for her work colleagues (her closest friends really) to eat the next day.

Now - this morning, walking to catch the tricycle, Mayen looked at me and said, quite simply "Timmy, I will sleep with you tonight - I missed you last night," quite matter of fact.
Needless to say, the effect those words had on my heart, mind and body were immediate and very pronounced - I had to adjust my shoulder bag to continue walking without embarrassment.

I had not anticipated, nor had I any expectations of physical love - slumbering dreams yes, that I had dared not awaken - but I had never dwelt on the thoughts. We had never discussed this, nor, I hope, will we - it flows from the soul - it accompanies my love for her - a deep and intrinsic part of the whole of my feelings for her - and completes the perfection of finding my soulmate.

I shan't go into details here - we showered before bed - very gently, supremely tenderly, my whole being overflowing with joy - we let our passions slowly rise and rise - deeper and deeper we reached into our hearts - I had come home - I cannot express how wonderful it was to be living my dream - to perfectly act out the scenes etched upon my heart. It was a long, hot night - continually returning to drink from each other's tenderness.
My heart wide open.
Never before in my entire life have I experienced such utter bliss, such a fullness of being human. Eventually after a light sleep, we rose for breakfast.

Like a church, a quiet place,
To you, my heart fondly returns,
To where I feel that flow of Grace,
The peace my soul so dearly yearns,
A comfort, an oasis found
Upon life's choking, dusty road,
Where waters cool and clear abound,
And disappears my heavy load.

For Adults

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 7 - Shopping

2008-08-26T22:20:00.009+01:00

Journey 6

DAY FOUR

Lips close around a lover's seal,
Much more than just a kiss,
And doors in hearts
Swing open wide,
Secure and safe in this,
Souls escape and flying high,
Free as birds inside the breath,
They rise to meet,
In a long moment of play
With their own reflection,
Absorbing the warmth of another sun,
Sharing, knowing another love.
Two spirits, dancing as one,
Lost in the clouds of ecstasy.
To some, maybe, it's just a kiss.
But you and me, I pray,
Such bliss.

We went shopping - Mayen wanted to buy presents for her family - we were going to fly south to her province later in the week.

OK, before we go into the "golden goose" theory - I know all about that - and now I have seen, first hand, the desperate poverty here as well - it is cruel - really hard for people. Mayen, on our first day, calmly walked into a shoe shop and bought herself some new slippers [posh flip-flops] with my money - I'd given her control of it - hadn't worked out quite what it was worth - she enjoyed the feeling of having money for a change - I enjoyed the feeling of generosity - what is mine is hers. Making a peso here and there is as instinctive as breathing. Amidst all the religious slogans pasted everywhere, their faith is a sugar coating for the very bitter pill they consume daily, just scratching a living.
But - with exceptions of course - they are wonderful, sweet and joyful - bahala na - they would say - I love the country and the people - Mayen I would die for. I didn't enjoy feeling like the golden goose, nor did I wallow about in my new found role as benefactor, courtesy of the exchange rate - I am all too well aware of my own struggle back in the UK - all relationships are a trade off in some respect - I don't mind this one tiny bit - I am hopelessly, divinely in love and Mayen is a wonderful, kind, bright, humorous girl, full of joy despite her struggles - and I don't doubt the genuine love she has for me - it's just in her terms, through her eyes - as much as she is the answer to my prayer, I am the answer to hers.

Shopping here is an unbelievable experience. Due to the struggle for employment and the horrendously low minimum wage [£3.00 per day!] stores are hopelessly overstaffed - by devoted, conscientious and stunningly beautiful and courteous employees - desperate to cling on to their jobs. Nothing is too much trouble - everything is folded, packed in a meticulous way - and all with such a genuine smile - it's amazing.

We bought baby socks for a new family addition - baby shoes - there's a baptism happening, but poor Mayen will miss it - accompanying me back to Manila - she has to resume her work. Chocolate - very expensive - lots of chocolate, T shirts for a brother's birthday. I already had some gifts for mum and dad - some perfume and cologne.
I was touched earlier to see Mayen, in her room, sort through all of her clothes - hard earned - to find what she no longer needed - to pass on to her sisters or nieces.

Bought a new battery for my cellphone - you can probably get anything in Manila - every nook and cranny outside the big SM malls is crammed with every conceivable type of shop, work shop, repair shop - everyone scratching a living in their own little niche market - and working hard as well.

We had lunch in the open air on a deck of the mall - Gerry's - it was the franchise owner's birthday - some of the staff were partying outside as well - I made the mistake of ordering a "western" dish - a club sandwich - it was awful compared to the succulent, fresh food that Mayen ordered - of course there was enough to go round - a delicious Buko Pandan - lime jelly, condensed milk and scrapings of fresh Buko (young coconut flesh) Masarap! a word I think I got to use more than any other - delicious!.

Did I hand you the key to my heart?
Or, maybe you saw it lying there -
Mostly buried in the mud?
One lucky reflection,
Shiny serendipity,
Glinting in the sun light,
Catching your eye.
Or have you always owned that key?
Just how old is destiny?
To me, an eternal mystery.
And just what is it I feel
As my heart begins to open?
A burning desire -
To love you,
A desire I allow
To consume me
With it's heat,
A flame to be protected
But never fully enclosed,
Never denied liberty,
The oxygen
That keeps it bright.
Hope -
To dream with
Through the night,
Hope -
That rises
With every new dawn.
Faith -
That lock and key
Together should be.
Faith -
That one is you,
The other - me.
But wisdom reminds me -
There are no guarantees
That do not extinguish,
There is no security
That does not dim,
No mechanism
That might not seize,
A grape may shrivel
On the vine.
For love is alive -
It breaths -
It moves -
And glitters with
Ever changing brilliance -
It fascinates -
It lures -
It listens -
As free as the wind -
It does not like restrictions -
To be clothed in
Anything smaller
Than its universal size.
Gentle yet strong,
Master yet servant,
Free yet full of need,
Destination and journey.

No pictures from this day - in the afternoon we travelled north to Quezon City to visit Mayen's sister there (she has sisters in a lot of other places as well.) We used the MRT [Manila Metro Rail Transit System.] Very hot, humid - noisy - we strayed into an area of the platform reserved for children, women, disabled, or aged - the guard blew his whistle at us and we toed the yellow line waiting for the train - which was air-conditioned. It was a relief to get on board. Travelling almost the entire length of the route we got out at Quezon City and hailed a cab to take us to the house.

The sister, Adelaide, embarrassed and giggly - with two children - Precious and Vincent, ushered me in to the house to sit down. I was privately bewildered and amazed to see an array of all sorts of general household goods hanging around, as if on display - cards full of small shampoo sachets, plastic tubs full of lolipops, cans of this, packets of that. Were they into smalltime crime I wondered, lightheartedly? Shoplifting?
Then I became aware of a plastic chicken wire grill covering the window facing the street.
The explanation for all these goods - this was some sort of shop. A concept I had not come across before is that every street has its sari-sari store - it means "almost anything" - where the children come for the treat of some sweets and the neighbourhood can get all the things that you run out of at inconvenient moments.

I chatted to the neighbour from across the road, who was just emerging from the enclosure in which his prize fighting-cock was held. They're into that in a big way - but mercifully I didn't see any of the fights - just heard and saw the cockerels - especially hearing them in the mornings - it was like a call to prayer - crowing near and far - summoning people into the day. We sat ouside the store front under the awning - in the warmth of the early evening. Dusk happens very early here - it can be dark by 7.30 pm even in July. The neighbour told me that he had a Baldwin piano in his house - nowadays it wasn't played and it was rather the worse for wear because of the rats.
He knew Mayen well as she had lived here with her sister for a while when she first arrived in Manila seeking work - he confided in me that she came from a good family - she was a good girl. Travelling the 2 hour route we had just taken became too much and so Mayen left here and moved into her present room.

As we ate our delicious evening meal that the sister had prepared - a chicken stew and rice - masarap - the husband, Audie, returned home from work. He was an "FX" driver - [a chunky four wheel drive vehicle for hire as a taxi cab.]
We chatted briefly and then, after his day of exsertion at the wheel, very kindly offered to drive us both back to the MRT station.

Exiting the railway system at Magallanes (Manila) we immediately became embroiled in the evening rush hour - this was about 9.00 pm - the traffic was horrendous - fumes filling the air, stinging the eyes and throat, car horns creating a wall of sound - chaos - but the daily chaos here - a long line of busses blocking the traffic as they waited to fill up with passengers - jeepneys, tricycles all stopping and starting as they passed us - hoping to pick up the foreigner - we eventually got into an air-con cab and sat out the traffic in relative comfort.

That evening, already fed, we retire early to the hotel room - both feeling rather tired from the days travelling about. We wrap ourselves around each other in the heat - with the room air-con left on all night - a sound that reminded me of the ocean.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 8 - Day with Sir F

2008-08-25T22:19:00.009+01:00

Journey 7

DAY FIVE

We meet Sir Francis after our breakfast - breakfast is a strange affair - "Korean or American?" we are asked, "Coffee or juice?"
Korean is - rice, an assortment of fishy things, a salad - I tended to go for American, which was - rice, a sausage or leg of cold chicken on alternating days, a salad, a fried egg. But the staff at the hotel [part of a Korean chain of hotels] are so respectful - bowing to us upon our appearance - always a cheerful smile.

We meet at the homebase - I meet his colleague George Mendoza - [responsible for the edited photograph of Mayen - which appeared on her profile at DIA] - a big time broker and we all discuss the possibility of me setting up a website in the UK as an outlet for Tierra Maria Estates - strangely echoing thoughts I had much earlier when contemplating Mayen coming to the UK.

After a couple of hours drive in Sir Francis's 4 x 4 we arrive at Lipa City, the town just outside which is the housing project.

It took me a while to understand all this project business - and it was kindly explained to me on the journey as we listened to a double CD of Cliff Richard - the simple lyrics tugging at my heart strings. I was missing being close to Mayen - she was only on the back seat - and occasionally I would reach around behind my seat to give her a gentle foot massage - often turning round and blowing kisses.

The Americans redistributed the land after Spanish colonisation. It was broken up into subdivisions of titled property lots - mostly farm or agricultural land. Roads were built and houses, shops, churches, motor repairs etc. sprang up alongside these roads, mainly in a single line, behind which is agricultural land or forest.

The Islands are split up into Provinces, regions, Cities & Municipalities, which in turn are split up into Barangays or Barrios and houses are built upon subdivisions of land within these areas. Housing projects are springing up all over the place as the Philippines undergoes a rapid transformation and development. They consist of lots of land - cleared or uncleared of forest - laid out with roads and utilities such as water, electricity and telephone.

The purchasers usually make their own arrangements to have a house built to their specification upon the land, conforming to the guidlines of that particular project. The newer projects are often very pronounced affairs, enclosed behind perimeter walls with grand entrance gates, security, sometimes with a clubhouse and communal pool.

The Tierra Maria Estate is slightly different in that it is designed to appeal to those who are interested in residential or backyard farming - fruit, vegetables or aquaculture and as such it is a stipulation that each individual house may only occupy up to 25% of the total lot area. The land is thick with coconut palms, some very old trees and coffee trees producing a special coffee only grown there.

As we drove around to a commentary from Sir Francis - I fired off many questions - and sat with a board on my lap - a large map of the whole site, with coloured pins marking the sold or unsold lots.

The site's developer, a cousin of Sir Francis, is a very religious man - hence the name of the project - Ground of Maria - Mary's Ground - and statues of the Virgin Mary are erected in the grounds. There is a meditation park - it's all very lush, fresh and peaceful. Marketed towards retiring people, or as second homes or investment.

tierra maria website

After the tour we go into the town for lunch. Sir Francis thinks I will enjoy Crispy Pata - he was right - masarap! - a delicious meal of a large, deep fried knuckle of pork with crispy skin - with rice - a buko shake - followed by a coffee. Lots of good conversation - so good in fact - we go outside for a smoke and then climb in the car preparing to drive off - until Mayen shouts from the back, seeing the waiter come running after us waving the bill.

Should destiny thus intertwine
To rise as one, like tree and vine,
So tightly coiled in life's embrace
That even death may not efface,
Willingly I, at heaven's door,
Would surrender my fear,
Seeing clear once more
That fate and my heart,
For many a year
Held too far apart,
Now, at last, may keep apace,
And seek together the sky above,
Seeing forever through eyes of love.

We drive off to a rather exclusive and secluded beach resort -

Sir Francis with Mayen at the Virgin Beach Resort.

virgin beach resort website

We arrive at the resort after driving for about an hour - security let us through the makeshift barrier and park up. Wow - photographs - what a scene - tranquil - idylic - white sand, sea, mountains in the background behind us.

Tasteful but simple constructions - a bar - parasols along the beach [wooden hutches, roofs of coconut matting, mosquito netting for the walls - to spend a peaceful night in.] The entrance fee is waived - we only want to sit and relax and refresh for a couple of hours. Paradise just gets better and better - the generosity of Sir Francis, to spend the whole day with us - so kind - he is a good man.

Driving back to Manila, we are both tired - I am not so talkative and we both manage to doze off at some point or other. It's Saturday so the traffic is not at all bad - but it's already dark by the time we arrive.

We visit Mayen's home base, say a farewell to Sir Francis, thanking him for his splendid generosity and meet up with Marivien, Alberto and later on Miss Ann joins us for a giant pizza -

followed by the pineapples purchased on the way back from Taal lake - which I was taught by Alberto how to prepare.

You may be wondering, like I did, why we seem to spend so much time at their place of work - the home base. The answer is quite simple.
To enjoy the comfort of air-conditioning.

Suddenly it occurs to us that we really should start thinking about booking our flight to Tacloban, the capital city of Leyte - another Island. [Mayen's province, Pintuyan, lies on Panaon island at the very southern tip of Southern Leyte. Actually, Pintuyan is a Municipality within the Province of Southern Leyte - but the word province is also used to mean - in the countryside - outside of the big metropolitan areas like Manila.]

Good job we do - thanks to Miss Ann who mans the telephone and makes enquiries at Cebu Pacific Airlines - we learn that the only flight not fully booked for the entire week is tomorrow [Sunday.] Miss Ann books us onto the Sunday afternoon flight - she is very organised and competent - and we start to discuss all the preparations we need to make. We return to the hotel and start to pack our bags - only what we will need in the province.

After missing each other the whole day - not being physically close - our reunion in the hotel room is warm and passionate. We sleep early - ahead of a busy day.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 9 - To Leyte

2008-08-24T22:18:00.006+01:00

Journey 8

DAY SIX

Light and shadow, equally,
Can show how much I feel for thee -
Love's just begun,
But there is pain -
One brings the sun,
The other, rain,
Yet both allow my heart to see
How precious you've become to me.

A busy day - I'll keep it all brief. Breakfast - taxi driver doesn't show up, despite Mayen texting him the night before, so we hail one from the kerbside. Tata - the beginning of quite a morning with Tata - we have to be at the Cebu Pacific office before ten o'clock to collect and pay for the tickets.

Queue - we are number 19 - the counter is showing No 82 a long wait ahead - a kind man holding a young child gives us his ticket that he no longer needs for some reason - No 6 - aha - things are looking up. Later on Mayen gives our old ticket to a latecomer in the queue. Mayen is besotted by a beautiful little girl sitting astride her father's shoulders - maternal instincts coming right to the surface - we keep seeing this couple for the rest of the day. Collect the ticket - rejoin Tata who takes us to the duty free shopping mall.
Quite a lot of security - we buy some Fundador brandy for Mayen's father - I get some tobacco - the brand is called Domingo - and it's Sunday today - we look at some rings - I said I'd buy Mayen a ring - a token - there are not too many to choose from but we both like one depicting two intertwining hearts - but I've not enough cash and can't draw any more - so that idea gets put aside for a while.

Tata drives us back to the hotel - we check out [I've already booked the room again for Thursday night - our last night together - I don't want to think about that] - load our bags.
The other taxi driver shows up out of the shadows and really annoys Mayen by insisting on being paid for waiting for us - cheek - to get rid of him Mayen pays him - she is really upset to observe again her fellow countrymen trying their hardest to squeeze every peso out of her when they see her with me, presuming that I am rich - well it's only the exchange rate that makes me rich over here - I am not rich, only lucky - so lucky - in that sense I'm rich beyond imagination.

Tata drives us to the Festival Shopping Mall, in the same compound as the duty free shop - but first we drive via Mayen's room - deposit all we don't need for the trip - take some clothes to the laundry right alongside - and deposit Mayen's keys back at homebase for the other girls to be able to use the room. Tata crawls along back to the main road as we are still looking for a jewellery shop. No luck - we head off for lunch.
Tata joins us - noodles, banana shake - Masarap! - then off to the airport.

The experience of Manila Airport - the domestic terminal - it's hot and crowded - queue to get inside - first security check - queue to check in - queue to pay terminal fee - queue for second security check - the brandy is not allowed in our hand luggage - Argh!
What do we do? Sell it to one of the staff? No, we head back to the check in going straight to the front of the queue - they take it in the hold with all the chocolates - I hope they survive the journey - back for another security check with "Haven't I seen you before?" looks from the guards and into the waiting lounge. A chance to cool off in the only area so far with adequate air-con.
Great teams of airline support girls chat away behind their desks - again - overstaffing - but it's still a gentle chaos. The flight is twenty minutes late - but eventually we land in the relative peace on the Island of Leyte at Tacloban airport.
Very small scale compared to Manila. The chocolate and brandy have survived.

We are greeted by an airport taxi driver, employed by Cathay Pacific airline - there are no cabs in the city - only tricycles and jeepneys. The girl sitting next to Mayen on the flight suggested we try the Manhattan Hotel in Tacloban so we ask the driver, Ado, to take us there. All across the Philippines there are 3 main dialects as well as Tagalog, the language that is trying to establish itself from Manila outwards as a national language. Here of course, on the Island where Mayen was born, Ado speaks the same dialect - to her delight. The city outskirts are more open than Manila - there are some green spaces evident and it is generally more tranquil.

The Manhattan dates from around the 1930's and has not been kept in good condition. There are no lifts and the marble staircase contains a trick step, which gets you going both up or down if you forget that it is larger than any of the other steps. Funny how we quickly adapt to the rhythm of climbing equally spaced steps.

Our room 316 is a very odd shape - and seems to be occupied already - by a large family of ants. The room is on the corner of the hotel building and overlooks a busy crossroad. The shower works - but is more of a gush than a sprinkle - it reminded me of a female elephant having a piss. One of the lights doesn't work - the shaving socket and sink are in the shower cubicle when the curtain is drawn - the towels are thread bare and a dismal grey colour - but once they were white. We take it all in our stride - the other hotels in town are fully booked - the same reason that the flights were all booked - there is a big Fiesta in the area and many people have headed home from their places of work to attend it next weekend. I draw the curtain back to peer through the dirty window - dirty glass in iron framed sections - stained glass - by many years of grime.
Just about to take a photo of the busy street scene outside and the curtain rail topples down, smothering Mayen and me in the curtain. The room boy, still in attendance procures a quick fix and I get to take my photo as he turns on the ancient air-con unit.

Two single beds - we will only use the one. We shower in turn behind the elephant and emerge into the street in search of some food stuffs to take with us to the province - Mayen is very concerned about what I will eat - I'm still very vague as to what I shall find down there - I know it is very remote and Mayen has warned me that it will be different from anything I expect.

We hail a tricycle. You never have to wait long at all for a motor-tricycle. Sitting in the covered side-car, either forward facing - or sometimes there are extra seats at the rear, facing backwards - or sat side-saddle behind the rider - or sometimes all occupied at once - it is quite thrilling - the engine rasping away alongside - it's very snug - and you're at just the correct height above the ground to help clean up some of the traffic fumes - by breathing them in.

It starts to rain and we wander into what must be a first generation department store - no way could you really call it a mall, although it passes as such here in Tacloban. There is a strange smell that bites at the back of the throat.
The cause soon becomes apparent - again - overstaffing at work. In an effort to keep the linoleum floors clean for their customers - 3 boys are shuffling around the narrow aisles between the tightly packed shelves, sprinkling bleached water - from a pail each is carrying - onto the floors using their hands - it's all highly rhythmic and choreographed - followed by another three boys - swooshing along with mops - to join the dance - followed by another three boys wafting it dry with great sheets of cardboard.
This procession gradually snakes its way around the store as we decide to leave and go for something to eat.

Mayen really misses the food of her province and now she has arrived here on the island of Leyte is determined to make up for lost time.

She orders a stunning array of local food - a seashell soup, seaweed salad, crab, mangos, buko shakes - masarap!
Unfortunately this all gives me a very dodgy tummy in the night - some Imodium needed first thing in the morning - but the food is delicious and leaves you feeling good - as if you've just done your body a favour - all be it a brief one in my case.

Back to the hotel - another shower and sleep.
Both of us high on the spirit of adventure - somehow - we are entering the old Philippines now - and it is so irrepressible - so intoxicating. We decide on the bed near to the window. It's a noisy night - tricycles, jeepneys - a procession band in the early hours of the morning waking us up. Passion follows in the din, the air-con droning away - quite ineffectually - and we just lie there listening to the world waking up - so happy, laughing at the oddity of the hotel compared to the luxury we were used to at the Grami, back in Manila.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 10 - To the Barrio

2008-08-23T22:17:00.015+01:00

Journey 9

DAY SEVEN

The first thing after my shower I go to the Mercury Drugstore just across the road for some Imodium for my stomach.
They sell tablets individually - not everyone can afford to buy complete packets - so I bought four - and some fresh milk. I noticed as I was weaving through the traffic crossing the road that Mayen, with a towel wrapped around her head, was peeping out of the hotel window at me to see if I was safe - I waved at her. Had a cigarette outside the hotel soaking up the hubbub of the hot morning.

We checked out of the hotel.
I thought that our original plan was to get a cab to the bus terminal and find a bus that would take us as far as Mayen's province - but all the dialect going on in the cab was Mayen negotiating with Ado to drive us all the way - and she had arranged for him to come and pick us up and return us to the airport on the Thursday. So we loaded our bags into Ado's cab and he drove us off to the Tacloban branch of McDonalds - McDoh as they call it - for breakfast.

Still rather cautious of how my stomach was feeling I ordered something safe - rice, egg, Longganisa (or something vaguely meaty) and coffee.

We purchased some oranges and Fuji apples outside on the steps - drove off to visit a grocery store for water and provisions for our stay.

After this we headed off for the very south of the Island - first taking a slight detour to see the San Juanico bridge - a very long structure that joins the island of Samar to the island of Leyte.

The journey to Pintuyan takes us about three hours with stops for photos. We wind through the small villages and communities scattered about the mountainous terrain, travelling south - always lush with some stunning scenery.

We eventually cross the small Wawa bridge connecting mainland Southern Leyte to Panaon Island - a small island of only four municipalities: Lilo-an, Pintuyan, San Ricardo and San Fransisco.
The island suffered dreadfully in recent years with whole barrios being swept away by severe landslides with great loss of life.
There is now a new road that sweeps over the bridge and continues down the island - almost finished - but ever improvising - the hot white concrete surface is already used to dry coconuts for the copra trade - every so often we had to drive around a great swathe of drying coconut halves.

The view from Wawa bridge, named after the serious whirlpools that occur in the channel between - Panaon Island on the left - Southern Leyte on the right.

Mayen on the Wawa bridge - behind her is Southern Leyte. There are no taxis here on the island - hardly any cars - the transport is motorcycle - or habal-habal - a motorcycle with an extended rear seat. Our first port of call is at Mayen's sister's house where we will be staying.

We are greeted by Susana, Mayen's mother - I notice the local greeting - bringing the offered hand up to touch the forehead - and the many members of Mayen's close and extended family - though not all - some are at the baringay - we are in the municipality of Pintuyan at the moment - some are travelling from other islands to arrive later - and one brother, I learn, is still missing at sea - now for 3 or 4 years - he failed to return home after a storm as he was out fishing on his own at night - leaving behind a wife and two children - both girls, who live in the baringay in Mayen's family house together with two other brothers, one who is "bakla" - gay - and walks around the house with a padded bra [I think] and a dress - it is just accepted here that some are born to be "bakla" - Mayen tells me she was the first to notice this when he would always prefer to play with her dolls - altogether, a confusing multitude of people - I will take a long time to learn who is who and even longer to become familiar with their names.
I am quizzed briefly by Mayen's mother about my intentions for her daughter - have I any children? - she is eventually happy, satisfying herself that I am a good man - I am to stay good.

Once we had settled in, said adios to Ado, we were driven 3 up on a motorcycle to the barangay - to the family house, where I met Mayen's father, we were joined by his only brother, Mayen's uncle, the widow of the lost brother, another brother and Mayen's sister in law and a variety of children, suckling babies, a bewildering assortment of family members.

I am being stared at constantly - veiwed as an oddity, a celebrity even - & worryingly - a source of money. They are so poor here but have peace, abundant food - coconuts, papayas, mangos, bananas, fish - a veritable harvest from the ocean - and a way of life, uncomplicated and unchanged for many years - apart from superficially.

We visit another house, a few doors along the road, where Mayen's grandmother lives and then we take ourselves off for a walk down through coconut groves to the sea as it starts to rain gently.

We bring with us a fan from the house and eventually find shelter in a hollow underneath the roots of a coconut tree on the shore. Mayen, concerned that I get my shorts dirty on the rock I was about to sit on, as it was covered in ash from a recent fire that someone had lit there, placed the fan down for me to sit on. Of course, we left it behind when we went back to the house.

We talk and talk about our future - Mayen is noticeably happier now she's back at home.

Returning to the family house for the evening meal, I am shocked - considering I had been asked to pay for the feast - that I was only served a meagre chicken wing and a small spoonful of rice - while the others piled in - mostly eating with their hands - to helping after helping - I was frightened by the spectre of the golden goose again - later rationalising that I had just been offered a taster, in case I found it disagreeable. I awaited an invitation for more - as my rapidly emptied plate was signalling a very obvious message - but none came. I soon got the hang of things at meal times - just piling into the food - it was delicious - it was a celebration - a wonderful happy gathering of the tribe, the clan.

A thunderous storm was breaking - the most torrential rain and the loudest booming I had ever heard echoing around the hills.
There is an electronic keyboard tucked up against the wall in the room - really the house is just the one main room - kitchen at one end, dining space in the middle and lounge seating at the entrance by the front door. Other small rooms all adjoin this one, with just a curtain for privacy. The windows have no glass and electric fans try their hardest to cool us.

I decide to ask if I can play the keyboard and discover that Mayen's sister in law is a singer - she used to sing in bars in Manila - so we got going with one or two songs - he, he. I think Mayen was impressed - she likes to sing as well. Oh my goodness how I love that girl.

The storm passes in time for our motorbike ride back to where we are staying - and a mercifully refreshing ride it is, to be blasted and buffeted by the air as we are driven along through the night - dogs asleep on the still warm road surface don't flinch or move out of the way.

We shower before we retire - outside the house I enquire of Mayen if we are sharing the same bed - yes is the answer - but we must keep silent with our passions.
The shower was an open plastic dustbin filled with water at those times of day when it's available - a small plastic saucepan with which to dowse oneself - simple but effective - I notice no toilet paper is available - so it's dowsing all round then - I'll soon get the hang of this.

I help Mayen's mother erect the mosquito net around our bed "Only in the Philippines" she said repeatedly - in an amused tone - we chuckled together. I think that generally there was a feeling of embarrassment, for their skills at speaking English, for the unfinished build quality of their homes and by an overall concern that I would be comparing it all to the "luxurious" standards of the western world.
Well, to be quite honest, we are spoilt rotten - we don't know half the hardships these people have, we take things so much for granted - all our amenities and facilities and we still are so ready to complain.
This is a really refreshing change - the sort of feeling you get when camping - making do, making the most out of things - they're only superficial things after all - life is about happiness, babies and food - only in the Philippines. Mayen and I get tearful in bed - contemplating that final hour when we have to say goodbye - it is too unbearable - we refuse to think about it - it will just happen in its own present - bahala na.

THE LOVING CUP

I hold a fragile cup in trembling hands,
Its content, this life's greatest treasure,
Fearful lest one drop be spilled,
The loving cup, once passed, demands
Of care and trust, beyond all measure,
Until each thirsting heart is filled.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 11 - Picnic

2008-08-22T22:16:00.006+01:00

Journey 10

DAY EIGHT

Today, after breakfast, a few of us ventured into the Municipality (the town) - just a short walk to where the shops are.

Tasted the local bread in town - there are lots of varieties to choose from - the ones I ate looked like yellowish scones and tasted sweet - masarap!
Walk down to the quay and take a couple of photos.

We were overcharged for the vegetables - Mayen gets upset when we get home - the first time I have seen her cry - I, conceitedly, think that she is upset about us having to part at the end of the week - and try to comfort her - blah, blah - she 's actually fed up with some of her family members trying to fleece the golden goose.

At lunchtime, the nephews and nieces all return home from the local school for an hour and a half - some of them will be absent from school this afternoon.

Mayen had promised that I would get to try a local delicacy - one of her favourite foods - sea urchin - fresh from the sea. I had no idea how fresh - the family had previously arranged with, and paid, a fisherman to collect a great pile of sea urchins, which was strewn amongst the rocks down on the seashore. We were going to have a picnic - Filipino style.

We all trooped off, carrying plastic containers of rice, noodles, a variety of banana which had been baked [tasted more like potato - not sweet at all, just a starchy carbohydrate] and walked down to where the fisherman had deposited the harvest from the sea.

To eat a sea urchin - they were all still alive - their little black spines bristling away - you smash open the top, remove virtually all of the inside leaving behind the strange, sponge like, buff coloured ribs that are lining the inside of the shell. This is the edible part. The whole process stains the fingers a deep red. The taste is unlike anything else - full of Iodine - it tastes very medicinal, slightly salty of course. I tasted the chewy part of a clam that had also been collected - got stuck in, as by now I had learnt to, noodles, rice - the bananas.

All the time out in the hot sun - ignorant of the fact that my feet were gradually getting extremely sunburnt. Mayen hadn't noticed, but advised me to go and sit in the shade - suggesting that I don't sit directly under any of the coconut trees, for obvious reasons. I just got on with photographing the whole happy scene.
I would regret not heeding her advice for the remainder of my trip as my feet got very swollen - at times making it difficult to walk - and attracting even more unusual stares from passers by. "It's alright" I would say "All Englishmen have big, bright red feet."

I didn't write much about today - so I'll let the photographs tell their own story.

I play a little more on the keyboard later on in the day.
After the evening meal, Mayen and I walk down to the sea again - she tells me the story of the night her brother disappeared at sea - she was at school at the time, on another Island when she heard the news - and the valiant attempts of her father, hiring a local pump boat and crew at great expense to scour the coastal regions for any traces.
We just sat there listening to the gentle sound of the ocean.
Back to the house to get our rest and "make babies" - in silence.

There once was a time,
Quite how long ago
I just can't recall.
There once was a man,
And who was he?
I don't know at all.
Some say it was me,
Before I knew you.
All this could be true,
But it escapes me now.
For I cannot imagine,
Or think of how,
There once were days
Without your trace,
A heart without hope,
A dream with no face.
This brand new world's
A far happier place,
And I'm learning to walk,
Hand in hand with Grace.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 12 - Sister arrives

2008-08-21T22:14:00.007+01:00

Journey 11

DAY NINE

First thing in the morning, after a shower and breakfast, Mayen and I walk down to the seashore to buy a fish to be prepared for the family later on in the day.
I regret not bringing my camera when I see the big fish, a maja-maja, dead eyes staring at me, mouth open wide, as it is chopped up by the fisherman on a crude table outside.
We return to the house carrying the pieces of fish in a plastic carrier bag, one of its eyes pressed up against the inside of the bag. At least I'll get a photo of this when back at the house, I thought to myself.

While reloading my camera with film - there's some activity going on in the kitchen - Mayen, realising my wish to have taken a photo of the fish has asked the fisherman to come up to the house - there he is, busily reconstructing the pieces of fish on a plate by the kitchen sink. How amenable is that?

After a while we go back to the shore, to the same spot - Mayen's sister, who she stayed with while schooling - was arriving with five of her six children from the island of Mindanao - from the town Surigao, right on the north of the island, not too far away - arriving soon at the quay here by pump boat [a small passenger ferry] travelling over, apparantly, one of the deepest stretches of ocean in the world.

Mayen takes a beautiful photo with my cellphone of two yellow flowers we find lying on the shore - I will find a means to post it here sometime.

[Here it is - having lived inside my phone for 3 years]

We chat and watch armies of termites crawling over the tree above us. Eventually the ferry comes in to view and we head back to the house - this time I have my camera and I pause to take a shot of the fisherman's table.

By the time we arrive back on the road, Mayen spots her sister, Christy, and family already walking past and rushes excitedly to greet them.
I am introduced, my red feet explained, and we walk back to the house with much laughter and happiness.

Wherever Mayen and I go in the Municipality we cause great amusement and arouse the curiosity in the many children we meet and often they just stop and stare at us - we take the liberty of play acting in front of them - dancing in the street - singing.

We arrive back at the house to find "bakla" brother having a pedicure in preparation for his big night from a local woman. She has a busy time, after about three hours solid, sprucing up various family members she suddenly fell to the floor, having a fit. After coming round, having the abrasion on her face tended to and a glass of water, she collected her things and a few pesos for her work and left - staggering and spitting as she disappeared down the road.

It was a fishy day altogether today - at some point in the morning Mayen's father appeared, carrying a small tuna fish.

The clamour of the day, subsided,
I'm surrounded by my own space,
And time stretching out before me.
A crescent moon tonight,
Rising in the western sky,
Needle sharp at each end,
Pricks my mind,
Causing me again to think of you,
Devotion now lies to the east,
My heart, in supplication,
Turns and remembers,
I offer a secret, whispered prayer.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 13 - Bakla basketball

2008-08-20T22:13:00.006+01:00

Journey 12

DAY NINE (cont'd)

The magic in your hands,
Bestowed upon you -
A gift that flooded in
With the sunlight
The day you were born -
An abundance of Grace,
That follows your days,
Comforts your nights -
Giving you, you alone -
The power to strip away
My falsehood -
All that is in me
That is not life -
Of life and for life.
You expose my very soul
To the elements of God,
The raging torrent of love,
Cyclones of passion,
Soft clouds,
Billows of tenderness,
All of nature's urgent rainbow,
Heaven's living miracle.
I see new depths,
New pinnacles,
They reveal to me
Your astonishing touch,
You have kissed me
With reality
And shown it to be Divine -
Oh how sure is my prayer,
For you to soon be mine?
Let us light a fire in this world,
A beacon, in a high place,
That others may see,
An everlasting mercy,
How blesséd we may be,
With truth - at last,
Out of disguise,
Life, standing naked
Before us,
Her fragrance, alone
We breath - not masked
By swirls of heady incence -
True riches -
More precious even than gold -
To feel that pulse,
Life's beating heart,
To know and share,
His supremest art within ourselves.
Only the Almighty hand
Could create such a wonder as this,
Finding you,
Joining you,
Becoming one
With only you,
I become one with eternity.

This evening, postponed from an earlier night due to heavy rain - we are to be entertained.
The weekend sees the Barrio Fiesta - when the local saint is honoured and great festivities happen - it is localised to the baringay, the particular area [like a parish] in which the family house is.

Already, along the roadside outside the house, stalls are being set up - and the whole atmosphere is lifting in anticipation. Tonight, Mayen's "bakla" brother has organised a "bakla" basketball tournament in the playground of the small school just down the road, next to the small local chapel. This will be followed by a talent contest - featuring the singing talent of the locals - one of Mayen's nieces is to take part.

I take some photos from outside the chapel where a service is being held, having been attracted there by the singing.

Mayen joins me, accompanied by two of her newly arrived nieces and ushers me in to sit at the back of the chapel for the rest of the service.
We sit down on broken plastic chairs - Mayen invites me to make a donation to the church. I try my best to join in with the Tagalog words projected on to a screen as hymns are sung, but I don't recognise the tunes either. Someone at the front, who I can't see, is playing the accompaniment on an electric guitar - rather well.

After emerging from the service, the whole street is buzzing - I take some photos of children playing in the school playground - they are so happy just entertaining themselves - playing a variety of different games - a delight to watch.

Just outside Mayen's family house a woman has set up a makeshift barbecue out of breeze blocks - I taste the skewered pigs intestine - curiously curly, like a pigs tail - covered in a sweet sauce - it is delicious - very like liver.

We go inside the family house - the three men who were conducting the mass in the chapel are sat down, feasting at the table - underneath a picture of the last supper made from glittery coloured tinfoil, hanging on the wall.
It is local protocol - families take their turn to feed the churchmen.

We sit and wait by the open door for the family meal being prepared in the kitchen - when suddenly the power cuts out - left in darkness - and much muttering - oil lamps and candles are hunted by the light of cellphones - it happens regularly - often during the day when it is shut down for repairs on the line.
The last supper continues by candle light and we go back outside - the festivities won't happen if there is no power - but soon there is a great cheer as the lights all come flooding back on again.

Most of the family is rounded up for a photograph around the dining table.

The basket ball match is arranged to start at 9.00pm. It's dark at around 7.30pm and we usually take our rest around 10.30pm - which is rare for me back home in the UK - and equally rarely - we have been rising with the roosters crowing far and wide soon after dawn.
A natural rhythm - that I would be only too pleased to adopt - sleeping with my loved one - rising to a refreshing shower - I could live here most definitely.

The meal is masarap - a sweet and sour pork dish - with liver, sauces, rice of course - followed by pineapple.

Shortly after the meal we go and take our seats around the edge of the playground - now transformed into a mini stadium - complete with PA system (a sound system borrowed from the house) a karaoke microphone - well it's certainly loud enough to do the job. Music is playing.

Soon the two teams are announced - the individual members parading themselves, with much posing, causing uproarious laughter among the crowd.

My feet are starting to swell up badly - I notice that my ankles have all but disappeared. From the lower shins downwards the look is remarkably like Elephant Man. There is genuine concern from the family.

The basketball itself was hilarious - the high heels of some of the players soon being abandoned - it was taken very seriously indeed by the teams. I learned afterwards that some prize money had been donated by a local sponsor - all arranged by the "bakla" brother - one of the other brothers was referee for the match - they are obviously very involved with their community.

After a long setting up time, the talent contest got under way - the contestants performing on an outdoor stage adjoining the playground - the judges seated themselves on the playground in front.

First there are four junior contestants - including Mayen's niece - then there are four senior contestants.
Mayen's niece sings really well and has a certain "X" factor in her personal charm - I was captivated by her beauty when I first saw her.

She wins the contest I find out the next day - her mum is the singer.
Quite late at night we are driven back by motorcycle to take our rest under the mosquito netting. Our penultimate night together.

From the invisible,
The silence,
From nothing,
The word,
The thought
Gave birth
To this world.
From no place,
Not even darkness,
It sprung,
Not even before.
Then came
A beginning,
For time,
For space.

We are creators,
From the invisible,
From nothing,
Not even before,
We came
To one place,
Together.
Our words,
Our thoughts,
Slowly growing,
Unified,
Our dreams
Of each other,
Tied,
By a knot
Of love.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 14 - To Manila

2008-08-19T22:09:00.009+01:00

Journey 13

DAY TEN

Up early - we go for a swim at the place where we bought the fish. The sea is glorious - clear - fish swimming around us - and incredibly warm - the sun still below the crests of the coconut palms.

We cuddle, swim, lots of kissing in the water - we discuss ideas for starting up a business - right here in Pintuyan - it is so beautiful and Mayen would be close to her family - and this beloved place she misses so much, having to work in Manila.

We return to the house - very happy people indeed.

I shower and we pack our bags. Ado arrives from Tacloban after a really early start and we are driven with "mum" in the front passenger seat, in the air-con comfort of the cab to the barrio, where we start the farewell process - Mayen's uncle, her grandmother, the newly arrived sister - we are ushered into the chapel by Mayen's mother where we light candles - she told me to say a prayer to ask that I be allowed to return here. What else could have been in my heart at that moment?

I waited in the shade of a tree for a while, where the cab was parked and chatted and smoked with Ado - we talk about cars, crocodiles - he practiced his English & I roll him one of my liquorice paper cigarettes.

The family adults all gather for a meal -

Mayen has already started discussing our ideas for a business - one of our ideas that we talked about during our swim was to open an air-conditioned supermarket. My initial concern was that we should not be responsible for putting out of business any of the small shops already there - many of which already seemed to be stocking the same sort of goods.

Later on Mayen tells me that she has been discussing business ideas with her father - he suggested to her that one of the better business opportunities in that area is in coconut farming - for the copra business, perhaps I could buy some land for him to administer?
This conversation took place without me being present.

The idea was to purchase a few lots of land, very cheap in this area, they are already populated by mature trees - little upkeep - nature renews the stock every four or five months - little in the way of labour costs for harvesting. Mayen told me that when landowners get into financial difficulties, a loan of money to them - nowhere near the worth of the land - against the title to the property, in default of repayment of the loan within a specified period of time - can mean that sometimes land can be aquired very cheaply indeed.
I must admit - it sounded extremely risky.

I sent some astrology readings to Mayen after our first night of contact - they suggested quite strongly that we would make good business partners - and I see that quite clearly now - Mayen does seem to have a very astute mind for business.

Outside again - I am introduced to a cheerful lady - Lisa - she played the guitar in the chapel yesterday - I shake her hand and tell her how much I enjoyed her playing. We all had a great laugh when I asked if she also did heavy metal or grunge.

After quite an emotional farewell to most of the adults - particularly Mayen's parents - I officially state my intentions to Mayen's father and thank her mother for the welcoming hospitality.

We set off in the taxi - I hear a voice from the front of the cab - I think at first that it is Ado talking in a very strange way but soon realise that it is Mayen's slightly built sister-in-law sitting, completely concealed in front of me. She's getting a lift as far as San Fransisco [I think] - travelling along the road built by the company she presently works for - a Thai-Italian construction consortium. She wants to collect her final wage packet - the road is almost completed and she must find another work contract somewhere.

After dropping her off, the discussion turns seriously to talk of business again - in particular the copra trade - I mention the cost of living back in the UK to try to put any capital that I get from the sale of the house in perspective - it wouldn't go very far there at all -whereas, over here, it could possibly set us up with home and business - with some to spare.

Mayen sleeps across my lap - eventually Ado pulls over - we are a few kilometers from Tacloban - under the shade of a large tree alongside the ocean - the island of Samar on the horizon.
My feet are dreadful - I cover them with two giant leaves that have fallen off the tree, to stop Mayen from staring at them, but soon kick them off as I see an infestation of termites about to transfer from leaf to leg.
After a smoke - no more photos - I'm out of film - we drive on for a short while, stopping for lunch at Adoko's - a local "fast" food chain - for chow mein, rice and a roast chicken that takes an age to arrive. We notice the staff furiously fanning the charcoal embers in an effort to bring the chicken up to the regulation temperature. There are lots of flies around.

Then the last leg to the airport - we check in and Ado then drives us to a nearby store to purchase Pasalubong [coming home presents] of local delicacies for Alberto, Marivien and Miss Ann.
We taste them as we wait - Mayen getting rather tearful - in the airport lounge.

[Looking back, I remember again thinking, she's pretending. Mayen had buried her face in the bag on my lap and made crying movements with her shoulders. I don't actually remember seeing any moist eyes.]

Mayen has trouble with her ears as we descend into Manila - but soon we are back in the hustle and bustle - stuck in the traffic as we are driven back to the Grami Hotel.
We check in and are greeted as old friends by the respectful staff - a little glad to be back in civilisation, air-con and proper showers - although the peace and joy of the barrio makes almost any hardship bearable - and it felt so good to be woken up from my western laziness.
We are both a little confused in our mood - trying to be joyful, but the closeness of our farewell is so painfully obvious - we don't know how we are going to handle it after 10 days of being virtually inseparable.

Collecting our belongings from Mayen's room - we collect the laundry that we deposited before the trip to the province.
I think they do a good job - it's all neatly pressed and folded - nice and fresh - apart from a few accidental blemishes that appear on some of Mayen's clothes to her annoyance - and the fact that one of her previously white blouses had been turned a light grey.
I don't know quite how she is feeling - so brave - courageously facing her life - away from her family again - and about to be faced with me flying off into the sunset as well. She has good friends at work thank goodness.

Our last evening together.
We go for a meal - very good - splendid menu - the waiter and one of the customers have incredibly infectious laughs - it amuses me. Mayen gets a call from her brother - a seaman - in Manila on his way to the province - I want him to come and meet Mayen - I say hi on the phone - no good - his flight is at 4.00 am - and it's a dreadful journey from where he is - with Adelaide in Quezon City, to where we are.

Back to the hotel - we separate our bits and pieces - it's very hard - we've been living like man and wife for the last 9 days - so close - well maybe not like man and wife - more like new lovers. I want to keep Mayen's handkerchief - something with her smell on it - and her tears from Tacloban airport - I don't - Mayen doesn't like the idea. Gifts of handkerchieves are taboo - because of the association with sadness & funerals.
We shower and bed - tenderness - no making babies - we save that for the morning.

I shall run,
No,
I shall fly now,
Until I have no more breath,
And beyond,
Until I find the long swaying grass,
The green, lush, safe place,
And nestle there,
In that comfortable hollow
That we made,
Me and my love,
The paradise we found together
In those early days
Before . . .
I shan't look up . . .
Listen to the babbling stream,
The air, singing sweet with birds,
The warmth of the breeze,
The whispering of the grasses,
The long drawn out sighing of the ocean,
This is where I belong,
There is no other.
I shall sleep,
I shall hold on to your hand,
We will live, waiting in each other's dream,
Till the day comes
For us to open our eyes
And see,
Open our hearts
And know.

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 15 - Last moments

2008-08-18T22:07:00.009+01:00

Journey 14

DAY ELEVEN

TEN THOUSAND

A face that hides ten thousand secrets,
Eyes that reach as many miles
Into the corners of my soul,

Lips to kiss ten thousand times,
And paint upon ten thousand smiles
From whence those secrets will be told.

Ten thousand silkworms spun the hair,
Who's colour, darkest night gave style.
The stars, within her hand she holds

To cast, with love, to whom she cares.
I think one fell to me awhile,
So I return, ten thousand fold.

Up at a reasonable hour - 9 ish - head straight to the drug store after breakfast in the hotel for Anti-histamine tablets and Amoxycillin for my feet - these in combination with my anti-malaria tablets make me feel all woozy as we head for the SM mall to eat and buy Mayen a new cellphone - her old one is giving up - I could never successfully phone her from the UK.
We have a good brunch at Max's - choose the cellphone and head to a small coffee booth on the ground floor where we sit - I smoke, drink coffee as we sort out the SIM card and enter a few important numbers. The SMS soon start to flow.

Back at the hotel we have more coffee in the reception area.
All around us preparations for a Filipino wedding - a posh one at that - men wielding great chunky video cameras film the bride as she glides down the stairs - followed by her mother - then her father. A long white mercedes parked outside, with a large bouquet attached to the radiator grill, gave the game away as we approached the hotel. I can see Mayen's thoughts whirring - and to be honest - my imagination is working overtime as well.

We keep strong - it's time to go to the airport.
I check in and meet Mayen for a final fifteen minutes in a restaurant. It's all quite bearable as long as we are together - we can do anything.

The time comes - I see Mayen off in a taxi cab, watching her being whisked off to continue with her life, that I knew so little about. It was a strangely unemotional farewell - very business like and swift.

I feel dreadfully alone as I wander through the milling crowds through security and in to the waiting lounge.
I receive an SMS from Mayen while sat in the lounge - but cannot reply for some reason. I hunt down a payphone and using my last pieces of Filipino coinage manage to speak to her. That was the last time I heard her voice - just before boarding the plane to Hong Kong.

I ask my neighbour on the plane to translate some of the other SMS messages that have arrived on my phone for Mayen who had been using it all the time - nothing critical - but there still was the important one from her - in English - saying that she loved me - and that she would wait.

[I wrote the following passage at Hong Kong airport.]

My world is strangely silent now - and suddenly spinning on its own orbit - no longer two bodies in a dance of attraction - pulled together around the sun of a mutual love.
Like a dream just gone - I feel the sharp focus of my memories beginning to blur - the intricate detail becoming fuzzy, receding fast, speeding away into the past.
But I know that same speed is pulling me towards a future - the adventure continues - I still find myself in two worlds - the world of faith, surrender to love's destiny - and less often now - the frightening world of doubt, of fear - and I feel I know which of those two worlds is the true one. Yet the disguise, the illusion is at times so convincingly deceptive.
What have I just been through? The amazing, kaleidoscopic - fairground world of Manila - hustling, bustling - all the time alive - sometimes disgustingly so - having to breath those eye stinging exhaust fumes. I see the less positive side of their inheritance from the years under the control of America - the glittering "fools gold" of capitalism. The stark contrast between the towering Bali-high-rise promises of the Makati skyline - and the rusty, dirty, grubby poverty - that frames so many sparkling eyes. The scratching for a living - making everything conceivable an opportunity to earn a few pesos. That enormous gulf I find, turns my stomach - I feel it as profoundly as in my dream. Yet there is always the strength, the warmth, the humanity - bahala na Manila - bahala na.
I don't care that Mayen managed to drain me of all my money - I gave her all that was left over - anyway - "mine" is an illusion - an attitude that denies abundance. I was a willing participant - fighting poverty is as instinctive as eating - support and respect of the family is the first concern - I wouldn't even say it was selfish - but life does revolve around family.
I don't care at all - relationships are all based on need - there is always a trade off. I am certain beneath it all we have a strong, genuine love - I've no idea how it would be were I poor and pennyless - but as it is - it works - and it works beautifully.
I hate the feeling of being the Big White King - the Golden Goose - being fleeced for all they can get - I loathe the undue respect that the exchange rate affords me. I will never be one of them - even when I marry - I will always be the outsider - they will always put blood before paper - but I do want to be a part of that world - a part of Mayen's life - I want to share her paradise - for that is how it is, in her province - unspoilt as it has been for years.
"Progress" may be slow in coming - but it will come eventually - at the moment there is no internet there, hardly even a telephone line - water supply is crude, power intermittent and unreliable - but the important aspects of life they have in abundance - such a wealth of spirit, of joy - a natural happiness.
I want to start a business there with my beloved - start a family.

SALT

Should you near the sea today,
And chance to feel the softest spray
Fall light upon your lips,
The salty taste may well display
The like as on my fingertips,
For they have freshly caught a tear
From dropping to the floor,
That formed as I came fraught with fear
At thoughts of you, but you no more.

Then it's just airports, planes - it's raining at Heathrow - high security - there's just been an attack on Glasgow airport that morning. I have to wait here all day.
My phone is completely drained - but after a long hunt - I discover a secret power outlet just inside the entrance. I innocently sit alongside my phone - concealed behind my suitcase, as it charges up - I have loads of time - I change over the SIM card.

I receive a call from a work colleague enquiring after a contact number - I can't really help, I tell him, I'm at Heathrow airport waiting to go to Jersey.
I didn't realise, but he had also left a message on the answer machine at my home which was intercepted by my wife. I don't know what she's been thinking - my last contact was a text message - sent as a last resort really, just before I flew to Manila - telling her that I would not be home until 7th July (a fortnight later than she had expected) and that my phone would be off - I needed time to think. She could make of that what she would - hopefully just presume that I was staying on in Jersey for the entire three weeks.
She decides to reply to the answer phone message telling him I'm away - "It's OK" she learns "I've managed to speak to Tim at Heathrow - he's just on his way to the Channel Islands."

Of course - I don't know any of this - until I return home, a week later.

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 16 - Waiting

2008-08-17T22:06:00.007+01:00

Journey 15

A MONTH ON

Photographs have the unfortunate habit of usurping feelings, replacing them with something purely visual, in a reference that is only courtesy of the camera lens.
They give me the same sensation as walking through a waxworks.
What is crucial for me to remember is exactly how I was feeling when these photographs were taken.
Memory is an ephemeral, fragile thing - however my feelings exist at such a deep place inside me - I am never going to forget the power those moments had to change the thrust of my life.

Mayen and I are still regularly keeping in touch - via the humble means at our disposal.

I have planned another trip in August - mainly because I am desperate to be with her again - and to sort out various plans and explore in more detail ideas for our future. Progress seems laboriously slow on the home front - there is so much to be done - and my guilt at keeping poor Mayen waiting - so patiently, bless her - adds to the overall discomfort.

I am faced with poisonous attitudes from some of those people around me - which at times have encouraged, reconstituted my own early fears and doubts. I have battled willfully against this - my faith being victorious - I am now so resolute that, no matter what, no matter when - I will marry Mayen - we will live a happy, prosperous life together in the Philippines.

We will not be defeated by time or space - we are as close as ever - and constantly growing in trust and respect - excited and full of wonder, as always, by our seemingly miraculous happiness.

Ours will be no shooting star
To burn up soon,
Without a trace,
Or like the moon,
That shines afar,
No smile upon her face,
But as the sun,
So warm, so bright,
Our days are spun
With rays of light,
Threads of fire,
Woven gold,
Young love's desire
While hearts grow old.

God bless you all.

I have another very strange dream - riding in a horse drawn carriage I arrive in the forecourt of a large, sombre castle.
As the carriage crunches across the gravel and makes a turn to the left I look up - standing behind the castellated boundary - up on the roof - two hooded figures - both women - I know them to be members of Mayen's family.
One of them points out and I hear "Mayen is here - she's waiting for you."
In the dream my cellphone rings - it's Mayen. I don't get to hear what the call is about - for at that point I wake up.

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 17 - Hindsight

2008-08-16T22:05:00.012+01:00

Journey 16

Poverty is cruel.

I suggest that impoverishment is more cruel.
To be living in the outfall of corruption, the moral pollution that spills out and all around - impoverishment is the effect on the human soul.
To be like a child in the shadow of a parent who has turned away, turned their back.

Only an impoverished soul could employ love as a means to satisfy the complete opposite - and I don't mean simply hatred - but lovelessness, avarice, contempt.
Only a soul that was starved of the experience, the possibility of genuine love would attempt such a devious disguise with full conscience.

Each country walks its own unique path through history - the path trodden by the Philippines has been cruelly twisted.*

They wish to come to the table - they are reaching out a hand to the rest of the world.
But what of the table manners that this cruel path, including the present day, has taught the Philippines?
We welcome the beautiful Philippines and their wonderful people to the table, but we must take their hand - and with the assistance of our governments - stamp out one or two deviations in manners - that at the moment seem to suggest, to a few, that they can hide under the table - and share the meal.

* Please read this to understand just how cruel.

Okay - now please remove the rose tinted spectacles, crush them under your feet and put on the brown pair.
Almost as hard for me to believe as it is to bear - this has come to an abrupt end.
I admit to being carried along on a cloud of self-delusion, which my ego found very agreeable, to which I ascribed the word love.
As we shall see - things cannot be so.

I will leave the previous chapters in this journey completely untouched - so they may be read for what they are - the musings of a big fish - caught upon a dirty hook - believing that he was about to be lifted into paradise pond, when in reality - all the time - he was secretly being prepared for someone else's feast.
So here are all the bits I left out - plus a few that I left in - but their selection will show you that there are always two sides to every coin.

I was virtually immediately snapped up to take part in these adventures - remember - my first night - my picture not even on display, only the tag "new" and she was there, waiting.

Her picture, by the way, had been edited - Mayen openly told me this - once in one of her rare longish emails - & again in the back of a taxi cab, making a point of showing me her ID card. It was then she told me that it had been taken for her ID badge - but she had used it on the dating site.
I think it much more likely that it was the other way round.

The age range selected for her interest was suitably vast.

I admit to playing perfectly into her skillful hands - yes - putty indeed - the unhappy marriage - the burgeoning hope for new horizons - the poetry - ha!
I think my contribution to our overall communication must stand at least as high as 80%.
No matter how long were my messages to her on the dating site, or my emails to her - apart from two occasions when I emphatically supplied a heading to my message - "Here is your questionnaire" - and bulleted and numbered the questions - only very, very rarely was any comment made by her upon the content of these messages - she explained . . .

Hello my dearest tim,
I know that your intention to me is true and pure..I can sense it.. im
so glad sometimes flattered about you. I know also that everytime i
wrote shortly here or even in DIA seems you disappointing coz you
wanna know everything and every little details about me and yet you
can't discover it through those short message.. Im so sorry about that
honey..Sometimes im just so tired, coz of my work.. I feel pressured
and sometimes i wanna quit.. Im so tired of this life..The load im
carying now seems so heavy..But writng you very shortly doesnt mean
im pakipot [playing hard to get] or even mysterious.. Its just me..
And i hope you understand me in everyway. . .

Despite numerous requests for her to be more illuminating about herself - all that followed were harmless, day to day remarks - generally positive - to keep the wheel spinning - as it were, (although, as you will see, Mayen starts to write at much greater length - when the emotionally twisting emails - and the emails trying to persuade me that she was somewhere that she wasn't - start arriving.)

Not the kind of communication one would expect from someone with a serious interest in a relationship - but certainly the sort of behaviour that suits deception - a vacuum of knowledge - soon filled by the imagination - and usually that picture is painted mostly in the glowing colours of hope and wishful thinking.
I offered the hand - she was able to fashion the glove - a perfect fit - every time.
A contemporary metamorphosis of the fabled Oriental pliability.
I really greased the slipway when it came to the subject of the visit - picking up her subtlest hints - and obligingly carrying them to fulfilment by myself.

Quite often, during pauses in our chat sessions, Mayen would ask me "Are you chatting to other?" as if she knew that it was possible, as if she knew the ropes and half expected me to be "playing the field" - I wasn't - I was hopelessly devoted to only her.

The rest of the journey is already written - just one or two details to add - one or two moments when I felt a very menacing spectre cast it's cold shadow over me - no - not quite the fluffy pantomime image of the golden goose - something tangibly more sinister.
But - being ever the cock-eyed optimist - perhaps a good choice of phrase in the circumstances, not simply for its musical theatre location, I managed to blind my vision at the time.

The first occasion my blood ran cold - a portent of how wrong things could have gone - came after a cellphone call that Mayen received in our hotel room.
I remember seeing a transformation - suddenly, there was a switch to a cold, hard, completely impersonal attitude to me - as if she was hiding her self behind a barrier - extremely business like.
The call was from her sister, apparently, passing on the instructions that Mayen was being expected to pay for the family festivities soon to happen in the Barrio Fiesta - purchase all the food in other words.

Now we are talking about only a small amount of money - perhaps less than a days wages here in the UK.
But morals do not have an exchange rate - they are universal - and this blatant taking advantage of my perceived riches was the first warning of how low the graph can sink.
This was the first direct request for money - and I could see her physically and mentally detaching herself - steeling herself for an awkward reception from me - which of course didn't happen.
I suppose I had anticipated the odd squeeze for some money - the decision was handed to me - now it appeared that if I didn't oblige I was being mean - instead of confronting the situation there and then, who knows what might have been the result of that - I found it easier to just go with the flow - not make a fuss.
Besides, it was a confusing and unusual situation for me to find myself in.
It was perfectly apparent, however, that this was all part of the plan, part of the reason for my being there.
I really think that everything else was just a sweetener

I saw a distinctly aggresive side to Mayen one day when climbing into a tricycle beside her, I accidentally banged into the top of her shoulder.
There was an immediacy of rage in her eyes and voice that would have not seemed out of place in a bad humoured terrier.

I have alluded already to the manner in which she decided, completely for herself, to buy the new shoes - again - and I must stress this point - it is not the amount of money that is the issue here - it touches on trust and moral behaviour and shows a very unfamiliar angle to them.

Also mentioned was the first night's meal with the family - again that fearful shadow - I was in very different company. I glossed over this in the journey - but in fact I ate no more than I was originally offered that night - waiting to see if my prematurely empty plate would catch anyone's attention, or an invitation to more.
But I sat there, deeply disturbed when neither of those things happened, not a single word was spoken to me - and all those around me just carried on - obliviously - like a family of crabs in a feeding frenzy.
I have tried to rationalise what was happening - but I know what I felt at the time - there are areas of perception that are not fooled at all.

While on the picnic at the seashore - again - in a perfectly graphic depiction of what was happening - I felt the deep fear pass over me once more. On all of these ocassions, it was as if I were being warned - as if a cloud was deliberately put in front of the blinding light of my love - to show me what was really going on. But they were fleeting clouds, which my eagerness and my desire soon brushed aside.

Sat alongside a small fishing boat on the ground - Mayen sat on board - as a friend of mine pointed out - quite possibly letting her triumph show rather too eagerly than was tactful. She set about showing me the various fisherman's implements that were stowed on the boat - a catch net - a cleft stick for picking up the urchins - and a giant gaff hook which she posed with - me the big fish and her the successful fisherman. She drew the rest of the family's attention to this and muttered some Tagalog - to which they all erupted in laughter which I detected as mocking - and extremely unsettling.

I noticed towards the end of our time together that it was only the top price dishes that Mayen ever chose for herself in restaurants.

Yes - we did have great fun - and it was very much a holiday - and we were both very generous with the budget, although with hindsight it is possible to see why.

Mayen had originally told me that the hotel room would be P800 per night - I had forgotten this detail - but on checking in, the price I was quoted per night was P1,800.
The long return journey by taxi from Tacloban to Pintuyan - I was not privy to the negotiations - it was all in dialect.
I'm sure that from the moment I stepped off the plane Mayen was probably earning herself percentages of all the deals she struck with these people - who themselves were only too happy to make more than the going rate - all at my expense.

OK - a little respite - does this sound like sour grapes? Read on - you may grasp exactly how tart that fruit can taste.

How much of her behaviour had been simply a charade?
How much had it been disguising a far less amorous motive - just giving dear Hansel sufficient sweets to lure him in?

From this moment - from this point onwards - it is important to realise that the events I am reporting as "real" are simply me repeating what was told to me, or written to me - by telephone, text message, IM or email. I have no way whatsoever of verifying that any of it is true or false.

It will reveal to you the convincing power of words, of documents, of false testimony - but too much faith was invested in that power - at the expense of ignoring other dimensions of communication - through which truth can be discerned.
When there is a determination to deceive, the illusion is very easy to achieve in communicated material alone - depending on its perception - which the scammers believe has been preconditioned - emotionally - by love - to accept that everything can only be how it appears.

Remember also how it feels - to be insanely in love.

You may well find yourself being lulled into believing the words - but stay alert - read between the lines - ask yourself constantly - is this an appropriate response?

I am reminded of the lines by Kahlil Gibran.

"The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you.
Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say."

Bear in mind that in the Philippines, as no doubt in other areas of the world subject to poverty, some people will sell their integrity, compromise their honesty - "truth" can be purchased - by threat, by favour or by pesos.
I am no longer prepared to accept what information I am given as true. Viewing the history of our relationship with this same suspicion throws absolutely everything into the shadow of doubt - how does one decide where to draw the line between fantasy and reality - once complete trust has gone - it is probably gone for good - the boy who cried wolf was never believed again.

Let me please emphasize something crucial here - this is not an issue about money - far from it - it is all about trust, honesty, respect and integrity - essential ingredients, surely, for me to concern myself with - planning, as I was, to spend the rest of my life with this girl.

What is perfectly clear to me is that love and the sort of activity I am starting to suspect, do not go hand in hand.

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 18 - Squeezing

2008-08-15T22:03:00.020+01:00

Journey 17

Since my return to the UK there have been occasions when I have been asked to send money - of course - the expected route - via Western Union - untraceable.
My interest has been encouraged also in a variety of "business opportunities" - purchasing some land available in Mayen's province - land that is for sale cheaply because the owner needs some money, according to the method outlined in a previous chapter - land that Mayen's father would administer for the Copra trade - interest has been stirred for purchasing condominiums, a franchise in a restaurant chain - requiring a 3 million pesos deposit - not quite my league.

I recall now, looking back, on at least a couple of occasions, Mayen quizzed me on why I had no children (if they were to try a scam & I had had a vasectomy, for instance - it would blow the whole thing wide open. Important for this detail to be discovered.)

The honey trap was set for me - I ate the honey . . .

I was surprised, as I expressed in the journey, when out of the blue the relationship with Mayen became physical.
That night I asked her if she was at all concerned about becoming pregnant - should I use contraception, to which she replied that she wasn't bothered and that she thought I would prefer not to - distinctly giving me the impression that our love was to include the possibility of children - whether sooner or later - which was precisely how I felt at the time - desiring passionately to bring new life through our union.
I was not rational at all - not thinking of complications, implications - merely being carried along on a tide of love.

I was equally surprised that while staying at the family house, after the briefest of inquisitions from Mayen's mother, we were permitted to share the same bed - it seemed to be contrary to the strictly Catholic morality that I had understood ran so deeply in these people.

Now I realise that my feet are starting to feel sticky . . .

Back in the UK - back from my final week in Jersey - my first day at home, just over a week since leaving Mayen in the taxi at Manila airport. I am busy sending the photos of the journey to her via email.

Soon, we are online - chatting - Mayen requests some money to help with the expense of internet cafes, as I am expecting her to chat to me daily if possible.

However - Mayen is not feeling well - fever - a stiff neck - very soon the request transforms into a need for money for a health check. Her friend's brother has been hospitalised with Dengue Fever and she is worried that she might have contracted that, although personally, my perception is that there is something else going on here. The following day I send the money - not an enormous amount for me - but a large amount for her to receive.
I learn later that Mayen and her colleagues all ate well on one occasion after collecting the money.

Having now discovered that I'm willing to play ball with her requests . . .

Friday 13th of July - ominous sounding date already - I learn from Mayen that she has had the check up - but she thinks that she is showing symptoms of pregnancy - I knew it - and has to go for another checkup . . .

"Timmy, I have to go back to the doctor this day coz i felt something unusual.. my fever is gone and stiff neck but i lose my appetite and i keep on vomiting..feel so weak and im delayed, im suspecting that im pregnant huhuhuhu.. but to make sure have to go for check up again.. i'll just let you know the details after the check up.. I love you..and i mis you a lot my timmyboy.."

. . . certainly the list of symptoms sounds suitably convincing - but it is too early to be positive and she is under medical supervision until the 27th. But the email is curiously brief and to the point - considering the monumentous news it contains - as if it were simply ticking a box in a checklist of procedures. After this I get the occasional report of morning sickness - loss of appetite.

But later in an email she tells me . . .

"my monthly period was came and i told you im not pregnant coz i have a monthly period.. but i was wondering why its too early.. i know i have it every 2nd week or 3rd week of a month.. i thought it was just changing cycle.."

Here we have an admission that her menstruation is usually the 2nd or 3rd week of a month (8th - 21st) - yet in the previous email she thinks she is already "delayed" around the 13th of the month.
Not only that but according to her, the menstruation which confirmed the false alarm must have happened between the 13th & 21st July - coinciding with her regular time.

That doesn't add up.

And stickier . . .

On the Monday 16th July Mayen informs me that she is "spotting." Unsure of what this implies I do a google search - we are still online chatting - and discover that one of the causes could be infection with some types of STD in early pregnancy.

Now - this gets very personal at this point - but in the interests of authenticity I will include the details.

I had discovered what I thought had been early signs of a boil or a spot - squeezed and medicated the area and thought no more about it - until now. Putting those two pieces of information together - alarm bells rang like crazy in my head. Herpes was the number one contender in this case - although the symptoms are varied and sometimes unnoticed - but the major implication was for the health of the suspected baby.
So I passed all this news and information to Mayen. I should go for a check up. We chat on into the early morning - a 5 hour session in all - and my brain is completely fried when we say "bye for now."

I have a complete breakdown - early in the morning - after the chat session - I can do nothing but lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling - there is no one I can talk to who sees and feels both sides of this as strongly as I do.

I am on my own - contemplating that I have made an enormous mistake in my life - I felt about to be entering a living hell - the cold, menacing spectre descends on me again - this time it doesn't go away - I'm throwing away my marriage, my house - destroying any vestiges of trust I had with my wife - I've possibly contracted an incurable STD - a pregnant girlfriend whom I love so deeply on the other side of the world - was she lying? Is this all true? I shall have to go underground - change my identity - I envisioned a horde of machette wielding Filipino men coming after me to avenge their family honour.
Working through it all I am left with the strongest feeling - that I would never desert Mayen - carrying our child.

The next day, Mayen denies having an STD - telling me her sexual history - last time was a year ago. Now - hold on a minute - she had told me that she last had a boyfriend two years ago - inconsistency - more alarm bells. (She had told me as well that she met with him in Manila a year ago, by chance - not imagining that she'd had a sexual liason at this time - I had forgotten this detail - but Mayen confessed to having had sex with him a year ago at the Barrio Fiesta in her province & explained away the discrepency of dates.)
The implications that I had even dared to think that Mayen was a "dirty woman" - of loose morals - infected with an STD - resulted in her disappearing into the bathroom - in floods of tears - and there she remained - refusing to answer her cellphone - her colleague, Miss Ann, took over the chat session - and made me feel completely ashamed for my suspicions - telling me "You should love her with heart, mind and soul - she's too young to be hurt like this . . . " - always the emotional twisting - never any attempt at calm rationality - in other words - trust your faith in her - blindly.

Miss Ann

The outcome of this particular sub-plot was that I went for a check up - nothing confirmed - but that's the nature of the disease - I'd left it too late for a positive diagnosis. Although blood tests can confirm the presence of anti-bodies there is no way to distinguish between the two varieties of Herpes.

To accurately diagnose genital Herpes a swab from the infected site has to be collected - and collecting a suitable swab depends on the time of presentation. Maybe it was just a spot - but I'm in the clear for anything else - relief.

I realise that the knife in my heart gets a severe twisting - and Mayen knows it - going overtly overboard in her crying - I am certain now that it is just part of the charade.

We are proceeding at home with visits from estate agents - plans are moving slowly.
A friend of mine had suggested that I go for another visit - now things are out in the open at home - I might view the whole situation differently. I remember telling Mayen that now would be a good chance for me to visit again as I still had some of the money from a bank loan in my account - she seems thrilled at the news.

An extract from my email to Mayen July 16th . . .

 . . . Please can you try to get from your father some facts and figures regarding the Copra trade - I have an idea that Copra will feature strongly as a commodity, as it is now required (or some processed form of coconut oil) for additives to diesel fuel, yah?

We will need all sorts of figures eventually, average profit/expense forecasts per hectare, plus some form of legal assistance - someone who is aware of business laws, requirements, stipulations regarding foreign/national investors, tax relief, taxation itself, labour laws (insurance etc.) property transfers - the list is endless - my goodness - help!

As many useful, trustworthy contacts as possible - to assist with things like immigration, investment - I want to protect our investment from the hands of anyone who might take advantage - I'm sure you understand exactly what I mean.

You have my implicit trust, Mayen - we are working as a team in this from start to finish, yah?

But all this is fundamentally to protect our love, our happiness - not our investment - so that we can live comfortably and enjoy a safe and secure future for us and our family. Once we're up and running and established in a home - we can start to share and enjoy the fruits of it all . . .

I have mentioned to Mayen already that I am thinking of going to see her again in August - and my email to her of 19th July shows that I am still under the impression that she is pregnant . . .

. . . then there is the news that we might be expecting a baby . . .

A couple of my posts from Filipino UK site that I joined at this time - seeking information for my proposed emigration, but which also go to prove that my story was already written up (so far) and was not entirely done out of revenge.

Here is part of my email to her on the 21st July . . .

. . . I want to try to get things moving as much as I can
before August - as I said on YM - I plan on flying on
the 14th (to arrive 15th) and leave again (huhuhuh) on
the 28th. I don't really care what we do in that time
- but I will ask you to keep a tight control on the
budget, yah? It would be wonderful to perhaps have a
look at a selection of condo appartments that you
choose to be suitable - and make some appointments for
me to discuss all the protocols with one of the
agents. I will not be making any payments yet as that
is premature - but it will get us a lot closer to a
realistic idea of things - time scales, budgets,
running costs etc. . .

My diary entry for Monday 21st July reads that concerns for the pregnancy have vanished - it appears to have been a false alarm. So around the time I have announced my definite plans to visit again, the pregnancy disappears.

Time marches forward - regular chats on the internet to Mayen - which definitely are growing longer each day - Mayen devoting a lot of time to me - often at the Internet cafe myself because of regular interruptions and scenes at home, threats of personal damage and damage to my property - the computers. It's all getting very complicated and messy.

And stickier still . . .

Mayen informs me that her boss has decided that all 3 girls should now share Mayen's small room, although later on he denies knowledge of this.
Of course, I have seen the old room - it is decidedly small.
Mayen wants to find an alternative place to live. Will I pay?
Shall she have the one with air-con?
No - she chooses the other one - it's cheaper.

August 2nd - The end result is me sending another £160.00 for deposit and 2 months rent.
Of course - to keep my concern - it is in a very seedy part of town - the squatters area - and a few days later the room floods in the rain and Mayen has a row with her "new" landlady about fixing it. Although in a later chat Mayen doesn't seem to remember what I'm talking about when I refer to "Ten buckets of water . . ."
Also - I have discovered these conflicting stories from our chats on these two days:

7th August

mayen: tomorrow i will vivit my sister
tim: yah Adelaide?
mayen: in novaliches
mayen: yes
mayen: she invited me

8th August

mayen: yes and the drainage in the terrace
mayen: is not worki9ng
mayen: that's why the whole unit was fiiled with water
mayen: hhuhuhuhu
tim: not good
mayen: i just discovered it all last night
mayen: really get mad
mayen: i fixed one hour
tim: you fix it?
mayen: filled the water in the pale
mayen: huhuhu
mayen: 10 pales of water
mayen: the drainage in the terrace is not working
mayen: really trouble
mayen: hehehe
tim: yah - huhuhuhuhuh
mayen: that's why i left the unit
mayen: and visit my sister
tim: yah - to your sister's?

So Mayen has now been separated from any connection Tierra Maria Estates had by providing the original room.
Well - the room that I was shown - did she actually live there - perhaps that was a set-piece, with the emphasis on being miserably small and hot - that the girls used when it was their turn to entertain a foreigner - place a different photograph on the table - bring in a bag of clothes - a toothbrush.
This move would also distance Mayen that little bit more from the "paternal" protection that she seems to have hinted at from Sir Francis.
The stage is being set - perhaps . . .

And I'm stuck fast . . .

Friday 10th August.

I send Mayen an email saying, amongst other things, that I have just noticed that her profile on Date In Asia has been set to hidden.

Little contact with Mayen the last couple of days, since our last, long chat on the 8th August - she is staying with her sister, Adelaide, in Quezon City.
I recall now, thinking back to just before my first visit in June, Mayen visited her sister Adelaide - last minute details to discuss?

Early Friday morning, 6:30 am after a long discussion with my wife about my fears, I check online to see if there are any messages - I might have a date to keep at the internet cafe at 10:00 am - I can't use the computer at home for chats - too many interruptions.

A couple of minutes after I log on to the Messenger (something that they can observe discretely by signing in themselves as invisible) I get a call on my cellphone from Mayen - very unusual in itself - what with the cost of international calls.
"Timmy - it's Mayen - I'm in hospital - call me back on this number, bad reception on my phone . . . "
I try to call the number from my house phone - the line is dreadful - breaking up in a very strange distorted way - I just about manage to hear Mayen who sounds annoyed that the phone is so bad, I can remember thinking that Mayen was unaware that I was even on the other end still. Stressing, but in a very business like way, I hear her say . . .
"It's not working . . ." so I abandon the call.
The first call was from a cellphone - I traced it later - it belongs to Mayen's landlady - ate Glo - good enough reception on her phone for the first call, in the same room as Mayen. I try Mayen's own cellphone - reception is fine - Mayen - suspected apendicitis or something - waiting for an examination - send money . . . the call is disturbed by my wife who screams abuse down the telephone at Mayen . . . I hang up saying I'll be in touch again really soon.

At home - imagine the scene - my wife attacking me - she overheard my loving sympathy on the telephone to Mayen - this provokes a great rage and a fit of violence towards me - she baracades herself in my studio - the computer room.
I try to barge in - my tobacco is in there - I'm desperate for a smoke - my wife threatens to phone the police - go ahead, I say, I've not done anything to you. She does . . . !
I send a quick SMS to Mayen "Be in touch later, my wife has called the police - the police are here now."
They had just arrived - keeping cool - my wife has hidden my tobacco somewhere - we are separately interviewed - it lasts about an hour - there is nothing they can do - much to my wife's chagrin - as she wanted me locked up there and then and the key thrown away.

I take myself out to the park and call Mayen on my cellphone.
"It's an Ectopic Pregnancy . . ." I'm passed to someone else, I'm reminded later on that this was "Dra. Leonardo" who explains in a very detailed way what I already knew about Ectopic Pregnancies - back to Mayen - "send some money . . . Sir Francis has paid a P10,000 deposit . . . groans and sobbing . . . speak to Sir Francis."

I dash home - in a panic - pick up a business card that Sir Francis gave me - back to the park - I call him up.
"I was just going to ring you" he says "Mayen has given me her phone . . . her sister is coming soon . . . Mayen has no insurance. . ."
We discuss things - my visit - Mayen's condition - what hospital is she in? Should I try to move my flight earlier?

I am in a whirl - what the hell do I do? Sir Francis sends an SMS:

SMS from Sir F. Sent Aug 10 18:55
Hi tim, mayen wil b out of recovery rm n a whyl.
She's ok - wil need to stay n hosptal 2 to 3 days.
Vien wil stay wth her til her sis arives.
Wil vsit agen late tom wen bak frm tme.

My first instinct - go to the bank draw some money - try to change the flight - or buy a one way ticket and go to Manila.
But I am worried - somehow - an Ectopic Pregnancy is just too perfect, exactly the right vehicle for extortion from a loving boyfriend - and worth quite a bit of money if it comes off.
I am very worried - I do go to town - sit and have a coffee - banks aren't open yet - and phone my supportive friend.
He is just amazed by this latest twist - tells me to hold on and be rational - he'd suspected all along that I might be being scammed (and so had I) but this latest event just revealed the magnitude of the scam - they were all in on it.

I get home - discover the website for the hospital - Medical Center Paranaque - phone up the hospital saying I am the fiancee - (perhaps I should say financier) I am passed up to the nurse station - a man who I presume is a nurse hands the phone to Chots - one of Mayen's work colleagues - we chat.
"I have Mayen's cellphone here . . . just given it to her . . . you can call her on that."
I take myself outside and phone Mayen from my cellphone.
"Oh Timmy . . . no more babies . . . huhuhuhuh . . . send me the money . . ." in a nutshell is all that was said.

So, what was I supposed to do at this point? Phone up the hospital accounts department, I expect - and enquire as to the exact amount of the bill - send the money over via Western Union?
One thing's for sure - there is a certain amount of preparation to do for a scam such as this - people to brief, facts to organise.

But the long list of coincidences & indescrepencies that I am being expected to believe, is growing.

* Mayen's behaviour regarding money during my trip and since.
* Her initiating our physical liason.
* Her denial of having an STD is later proved a lie.
* Mayen's confusion over the dates suggesting to her that she was pregnant.
* The pregnancy itself. (Not everyone gets lucky - 1st time round.)
* The rarity of Ectopic Pregnancies.
* The time scale of the Emergency operation - pains at 4.00am - operation at 3.45pm.
* Ruptures of Ampullary Ectopic Pregnancies normally occur at 8 to 12 weeks. This is 6 weeks, 6 days from the earliest possible date of conception, 23rd June - very early. Read HERE page 267.
* The Fallopian tube was not removed - very unusual after a rupture.
* Mayen is only expected to be in hospital for 2 to 3 days.
* That this is happening just 5 days prior to my scheduled visit.

Convinced more than ever it is a scam - I phone my friend again - are they all in on it? - hiding behind the Real Estate business - teams of girls - luring Westerners into parting with their money - small amounts by our standards - but multiply that by the amount of girls involved and the amount of potential "clients" they can each have at any one time - and it adds up to quite a business. Maybe the odd big windfall when the result is a sale of property - remember I was prepared to do all this - buy a condominium - maybe even another one to rent out. They must all be in on the scam - Mayen, Sir Francis, Marivien, Miss Ann, Chots, Adelaide and the people at the hospital.
One of the tell tale signs is the purchase of a new cell phone - remember - so that she knows who is calling.

My only course of action is to completely - from this point of time - cut off all communication.
That night I deleted all her emails, addresses, my profile on the dating site, Mayen's addition to my Messenger - the only way to get in touch with me that was still available was my cell phone.
I received several calls - I didn't answer them - voice messages left simply said "Timmy - call me - on my cellphone."

I was resolute - I was firm - for a whole day. Fortunately I spent the whole day, Saturday, working at a theatre and was busy until late evening. I'd told Mayen of this in an email - so my lack of communication was obviously expected - and mysteriously, despite the "seriousness" of Mayen's plight, I received nothing from her either.

Saturday night - I just can't sleep - what if it is true?
I am more interested to try to know the truth - more so than my relationship with Mayen now.

Sunday 12th August
More calls on my cellphone - I weaken - I send an SMS - simply saying "I know, I know, I know." which had become Mayen's catchphrase every time I told her how much I loved her. Clever - ambiguous - I thought - perhaps she'll be confused now - am I on to them?
I weaken again - this time answering a live call - Mayen asks me what's going on - I turn the question around - "You tell me " I said "I'm worried."
This continued without her giving me any information - until she upped the action " What are you doing to me . . ? " and burst into tears - uncontrolably - her sister Adelaide takes over the phone (perhaps Mayen's visit to her was to rehearse the script) - a brief exchange - the phone goes dead.

I cannot talk to Mayen on the phone - a distinctly unfair advantage to her is the effect the sound of her voice has on me - she knows this. I send an SMS saying I would only deal with this by SMS, email or chatting on the messenger.
Mayen sends an SMS back - she has given Marivien her Yahoo password.

SMS from Mayen Aug 12 Sent 19:49
ok, i wil let marivien access my email pls send me email .. love you

In our first chat after the "hospital" incident - Mayen is confused over these details - suggesting that she had given Marivien my email address and the password to her account on the Friday.
Mayen also states that Marivien had sent me an email using her account, but had received a failed to deliver notification - thinking that my blocking Mayen's address would have this result. Not true - blocking an email address simply results in its deletion - no failure notice is issued - reinforcing the fact that no prior email was sent - and that they were waiting to use the immediacy and intimacy of Yahoo Messenger - I might not have read or responded to an email straight away - and they knew I was working all day on Saturday - so they waited until they could use YM on the Sunday - no webcam - easy for Marivien to pretend that Mayen was not there - easy for Mayen to write the "Hi Timmy?" email herself - just using each others accounts.

So - on the Sunday I get an invitation to add Marivien on the messenger - she has sent me an email, using Mayen's account - I hastily add Mayen again to my list of email addresses and take her name from the block list - reply to Marivien asking her to resend it.

Subject: Blood transfusion Sat 11 Aug 2007 18:48 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Timmy?
Good day?
I just got your email now!
This is Marivien Friend of Mayen.
She ask me to check her email & to inform you also that she have blood transfusion yesterday.
She ask me to inform you that she need money for hospitalization & medicine.
Please call at her celphone ASAp.
Thanks & godbless,
Marivien Jalos

Marivien

Marivien and I have a chat session - Mayen is conveniently in touch with her via cellphone.
Apart from the small talk - remember I am trying to find out what is going on - without spoiling my patch with Mayen if it does all unfortunately turn out to be true - these events are really happening - and they're all really nice people.
I say that I can't talk to Mayen on the phone - it is too distressing.
I need to know what the hospital bill will be before I can assess whether I can still afford the visit in 3 days time - I have the plane ticket already but there is spending money for a fortnight to consider.

Here is an extract from our chat, Mayen is allegedly in hospital - but I think it's plain to see that Marivien is trying to cover the fact that Mayen is actually right beside her.

v: okey.tim mayen txt me right now that she need money for the hospitalization.please rely it to you she said
v: mayen ask if your at home or at the internet cafee?
[Curious - if this is a casual remark, is it the sort of thing that anyone would bother texting? If it was important - why? To ascertain whether or not I needed to proceed in secrecy at home, opening a door for blackmail?]
t: thank you - I need to know the total amount due - not just the deposit or the blood transfusion - please can you get that information?
t: I am at home
t: I got really scared that what my friends were telling me might be true - just a week after me paying for Mayen's new lodgings.
v: okey tim mayen call me right now more or less
v: P50,000 thousand pesos i dont know the exact amout due beacause im at the office right now.
t: OK - thank you - how shall this be sent?
t: or can it wait until I see if I can still bring it in person on Wednesday?
v: I understand what u said but i know Mayen loves you very much tim
t: tell her "mWaaaaaaaaah"
t: can you tell me how I get the money to the hospital?
v: mayen call me please sent it tru Western Union you can send it to my name because mayen cant go claim
t: and you will take it to the hospital?
v: Yap
t: ok - be careful
t: you will get a receipt from them please?
v: okey thanks tim .This is my Complete name Mxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx.celphone number xxxx-xxxxxxx
v: yap i will do it.Thanks for the trust
t: thank you Marivien.
t: but if i send it Monday when the WU office is next open - you won't gwt it untill Wednesday
v: later afternoon if sir Francis visit to the hospital we ask a favor to barrow his laptop so that mayen & you can chat
t: there is a 36 hour hold on money to the Philippines
v: ah okey
t: I might as well bring it myself
v: ah okey i ask mayen about that .okey [What possible objection can there be?]
t: ok - thank you
v: okey you very much welcome tim
t: Ask the hospital to send me an invoice by email - mailto:xxxxxxxxx@ - then I can send it to them Monday by eloctronic transfer straight to their account - the quickest way - yah?
v: okey tim i txt mayen regarding that [What possible objection, again?]
t: will Mayen still be at the hospital on Wednesday?
v: i dont know yet tim.i ask him or talk her doctor after out @ the office
t: thank you - ask who?Sir Francis? [Why is he the authority?]
v: your welcome
t: So will you please do that Marivien - sorry to burden you with all this - please tell the hospital that they must send me an invoice via email. I will get the money transferrd electronically to their account.
v: okey
t: you have my email there anyway in Mayen's mail application - he, he
v: okey i add you also om my email list .okey il email you any updates dont worry
v: hehhe
t: I read your email now - please pass on my love to Mayen - thank you so much for the time Marivien - hope to see you on Wednesday if I can still afford the trip.
v: lets pray for early recovery of mayen.
v: okey

That is how things remain at the moment - I got my point across about dealing with the hospital, but hopefully in a way that was not too accusative or revealing my suspicions.
I can cut off contact at any time - for my own peace of mind though - I need to try to find out, with as much certainty as possible - the truth about what is going on.
I am most concerned that I may be skuttling under the shield of my own and other people's cynicism - hiding away from my responsibility in its shadow - an act of cowardice.

But what a dilemma - wanting to have faith in the love I felt, but now suspecting that very same love to have been groomed from the start for the purpose of this scam. If I succumbed to blind faith - not listening to caution - that would be playing right into their hands - but is that also what true love would do? The whole of our planned future depended on me finding out the truth and I had very little time before my flight.

What had just occurred revealed how the plan was supposed to have unfolded - but now they realise that I am asking for proof, to deal with this through the proper channels - I haven't swallowed the bait, hook, line & sinker.

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

ARCHIVES - NAVIGATION - LINKS - STATISTICS - BELOW.

Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 19 - Decision time

2008-08-14T22:01:00.010+01:00

Journey 18

Monday 13th August

No sleep for me Sunday night - heavy discussions here at home - my wife being thoroughly wonderful throughout - understanding the emotional pressure I am now under - even offering to help pay for some of this from her own savings.

Things kick off again internationally - early in the morning - remember they are seven hours ahead of UK time.

At 5:34 am UK time, I send two emails marked URGENT to the hospital.

They have never been replied to.

I'm certain that at first this was intended to be just a simple and quick scam for money - but it had started to go wrong for them.

Here is an extract from a chat - the last one we had before the hospital incident. We were making arrangements for my visit the following week. I think Mayen has to do some quick covering up - the fact that she is friends with the money changer in BF Homes (where her old room was) after only 2 occasions that I had sent her money via WU.

tim: I'll try to change my money at the airport
mayen: why?
tim: save us having to go into Makati
mayen: is there any travellers check in iarport
mayen: money changer?
tim: I don't know - but as it's only for the flight - I might just bring British Pounds
tim: I'm sure there are money changers there
mayen: we will still go in makati
tim: yah?
mayen: i have friend in a money changer
mayen: in Bf
tim: we know where to go now
mayen: YES I HAVE THE ADDRESS
tim: he he
mayen: in makati
mayen: and i have friend also in bf
mayen: money changer
tim: but not for traveller's cheques?
mayen: they have western union there
tim: yah?
mayen: no traveller's check
tim: nope
mayen: i usually get your money their in western union that's why we are freinds
mayen: hehehe

That last remark and then the usual nervous laughter reveals a certain anxiety about what she had told me.

I hadn't seen it clearly at the time - I was about to become blinded by my own cloud of dust - if I had either walked away or payed up - which is probably what most people would do in this situation - the gang would have not had to go to such extreme lengths to fabricate their own innocence, by producing the evidence of legitimacy that I insisted on seeing.

It was only the depth of my love for Mayen, hoping still for a future together and the absolute necessity I felt to discover the truth - one way or the other - to find out once and for all if I should invest any more trust in Mayen - resolve my guilt - or to face up to my obligations - that kept me forging ahead on this painful trail.
My love, all be it for a phantom that was becoming more and more unreal, was not going to vanish overnight.

Yes - above all - this was about a human relationship - two people - professing a deep love - who had shared that love.
How could any further hellos or even a final goodbye happen until the truth were found?
Everything was in suspension - time, evolution for this love, was now standing still.
This was not so much about recriminations or blame - as far as I was concerned - it was about finding that true peace of the soul again - either way - a hello or a goodbye - words of understanding, forgiveness or of a most sincere and regretful apology could only be spoken when that truth was finally, unquestionably found.

Marivien appears on the messenger. She wants me to write an email to Mayen which she will print out and deliver to the hospital - I pass over my flight details - which Mayen had already received but Marivien needed to know as she was going to meet me at the airport.

13/08/07 03:54 am

v: Hi tim!
v: Good day?
tim: hi there marivien - what's the news?
v: Mayen ask when is your flight from UK? What is the exact time arrival her in philippines so that she get taxi for you & i be the one wait for you at the airport.please let me know
tim: I don't know yet if I can still afford to come marivien - I have this large hospital bill to pay - I will have no spending money
v: Mayen getting better but she still transfer 1bag of blood
tim: We need to get the hospital businees dealt with as a matter of priority - today - before I can know what I can do.
v: please email me your message for mayen so that i cant print it
tim: So please get them to send me an invoice - today - it is urgent.
tim: ok - I'll do that Marivien - I send you a message to Mayen.
v: okey for now dont have the exact bills because i came late evening yesterday
tim: They need to be sent to me from the hospital - directly to me via email - today please.
v: i dont know yet the exact bills because i know yet when the exact date she out for the hospital.
v: okey
tim: It is the last day I have to do anything before my flight on Tuesday morning.
v: okey email me all your message for mayen il print it then bring to the hospital so that she can read it
tim: See if Mayen has kept the email I sent her with all the flight details
tim: if not I'll resend it to you.
v: okey send it to me il print it now.
v: thanks
tim: ok - hold on a moment
v: okey
tim: It is now confirmed as GULF AIR - all the way - via Bahrain.
Flight GF2 to Bahrain. Flight GF154 Arrive Manila WEDNESDAY 15th August 10:35 am
return flight Flight GF157 departs Manila TUESDAY 28th August 18:25 pm.
v: GULF AIR?
tim: So I am leaving UK very early Tuesday morning - have to be at the airport at about 7:30 am
tim: yah Gulf Air
tim: why?
tim: you ask?
v: GULF air?what that?
tim: an airline
tim: Arabian Airline
v: okey.tim mayen call just right now asking if your okey she worried why you din't call her
tim: I will send you a message for Mayen
tim: I need the invoice from the hospital
tim: today - please
v: okey il print it .il go at the hospital before lunch .its near at GRami hotel thats why i can go there hehe
tim: yah - I remember seeing the hospital when I was there
tim: I'll get on with the email then - thanks again for your time Marivien.
v: okey so email your message i will print it now as soon as i recieve.okey
v: welcome my friend
tim: Marivien - are you religious?
v: yap
v: why?
v: mY mother is a religion teacher?
tim: can you swear to me before The Almighty that this is not simply an elaborate scam for money?
v: that what?dont send long message tim because i use old YM i cant read it all
tim: can you swear before The Almighty
tim: that this is not simply
tim: an elaborate scam for money?
v: oh i swear the money is for the mayen bills tim
tim: I am very, very worried
tim: very, very worried indeed
tim: not only if it's true
tim: but if it's not true
tim: I am worried on both counts
tim: you see - it is all down to trust
v: oh i understand what you feel
tim: yah - all trust?
tim: these sort of things do go on - yah?
v: okey its a big trials i pray that god has a great plan for both of you
tim: I find it hard to believe - having met you all
tim: you are all nice people
tim: but by implication if it is a scam
tim: you are all involved
tim: Adelaide, Chots, yourself, Sir Francis - the hospital
tim: it's hard to believe
v: Thanks tim, no its not. hope you could come her so that you could see mayen at the hospital
tim: but that doesn't prove anything
[Slightly confused at this point - thinking of a laparoscopy.]
tim: the operation doesn't leave any scars
tim: and by that time I will already be over there - completely at you mercy
tim: I am so, so worried Marivien - I have faith
tim: it's easy to say - trust, have faith
tim: but in the face of all this
tim: it is a very severe test
tim: and Ectopic Pregnancy is the perfect vehicle for extortion - yah?
tim: are you still there Marivien?
v: yap sorry there someone call me
v: at the phone
tim: ok
v: i cant see a scarrs beacuese there a bandage
tim: and even so - I won't be able to see either
v: okey
tim: and if it is only a small incision anyway - a Laparoscopy
tim: so how can it be proved to me that it is not a set up?
tim: Marivien - I am so worried - and so mixed up
tim: I really really love Mayen
v: no tim its not a set up much better if you could come so that you can see the situation of mayen
tim: we were planning to marry
tim: I don't know if I can afford to come though now
tim: I have very little money until my house is sold
v: okey so please email all your messages for mayen.okey I will print it all so that she can read it
v: okey i know i & understand tim that you love mayen .
v: she love you also very much that why she cried every now in then when the baby lost
tim: It is so difficult for me to talk with her on the phone
tim: I am so confused
tim: I will only upset her more
tim: I will send you an email when we finish - but please try
tim: to prove that it is true to me, please try
tim: although if it is a scam - even you are involved
v: okey tim il just do this for mayen because i know she need me beacuse all of her family is in the province so please dont think negative
v: she called me right now ask me to call you on her celphone or on the hospital she cried tim please call her
tim: I cannot talk to her - it will make things worse -
tim: she is upset already - my heart is twisted into a knot
v: okey.so please email your message for mayen.She cried when she call me i said dont cry because its not good for her situation
v: okey.i will open it & print before i go at the hospital before lunch.
tim: ok marivien - I will do it now - thank you for the time
v: okey thanks you tim
v: bye for now
tim: I am sorry I feel like I do - please understand my situation
v: okey i understand tim.dont think any negative gods know all that are true.
tim: yah - I wish He would come and tell me - he, he
v: yah.
tim: talaga
v: talaga
tim: totoo
v: totoo lahat sinasabi ko
tim: ?
tim: my Tagalaog isn't that good, he, he
v: means all i said to you is true
tim: aha - thank you - and likewise
v: okey i understand
tim: ok - I write to Mayen - bye for now - xxx
v: okey your welcome
tim: your email address . . . ?
v: okey il wait
tim: v*********@yahoo.com
v: v********@yahoo.com
tim: yah - salamat po

A text message arrive from Sir Francis . . .

SMS from Sir F sent 11:25 Aug 13
Hi tim, wil b n hosptal abt 3pm to c f we can take out mayen. I hope we can talk
latr wen evrythng s settld.

Another two arrive shortly after:

SMS from Sir F. Aug13 11:48
Tim, thx 4 ur email.I hope all wil end wel. If u r ariving tom,
fine-u can personaly settle mayen's bil. F not arivng soon, u can either
deal with hospital direct thru email & settle with them drekly
then pay me my advances latr ordposit to my hsbc $ savngs acct
no.19087736437 £968 whch s d total hospital statemnt plus my advances.Ur
dcision.

SMS from Sir F Sent 11:48 Aug 13
I'm trying to understand d situation but I'm slowly getting d facts right.Many
things hav occured dat i didn't knw abt.
Anyway, i hope i don't get left hold* some text missing* [holding the baby? - not very tactful.]

So - in response to the knowledge that I have insisted on dealing with the Hospital directly - Sir Francis joins in to reassure me of the legitimacy of it all - in fact as early as this Monday morning - he already has precise knowledge of the amount owed to the hospital and tries to be casual about the method of payment - unusual to include his own bank account details though.
So they've had this information all day - but sit on it until the last moment possible to send the figures to me - while I still have time to visit the bank.

I get a call on my cellphone from Sir Francis.
He has a very paternal air, saying that this is a wake up call for both Mayen and myself - he knew nothing about Ectopic Pregnancy before all of this - Mayen was one of his favourite girls - a bit young, hot-headed - but tenacious and ambitious - her family were being no help, they couldn't even inform the hospital of Mayen's blood group - he told me there were several things going on that he hadn't known before - he wasn't aware of the fact that I was not yet divorced - he wasn't aware that Mayen had asked me to pay for her new room.
He said something about how the girls aren't used to seeing such a lot of money and go a bit out of control.
He is obviously concerned about the payment of the hospital bill - he has paid certain moneys as deposit - I tell him that I initially was expected to send the money via Western Union to be picked up by Marivien - he said "Oh that is a stupid idea."
He is probably more concerned because now I insist on dealing directly with the hospital - no photocopies - no scanned images - I want the hospital accounts department to deal with me via my email which I had instructed Marivien to pass on to them.
He tells me that my suspicions are very insulting to anyone from the Philippines - but I say that he surely must understand my cause for suspicion - this sort of thing does happen - and this is showing all the classic signs.

There was no attempt to quell my fears rationally. I said "I have already met all of you and can't believe that any of you were capable of such a thing" - but then - that is the nature of a confidence trick - they are expert at gaining my trust and confidence - something they had implicitly up until this point.
Well - to be honest - I gave Mayen the benefit of the doubt - I have had my suspicions about her, which have grown apace with my hopes - in almost equal proportions. In fact my vacillation has been due to both possibilities being in equal balance - genuine relationship or scam - the slightest change of conditions could send my mind from believing one to being convinced in the other.

I had replied to Sir Francis in a long email stating my reasonable suspicions again, also I emphasised that I was absolutely willing to honour my moral obligation, providing I could be convinced I wasn't being cheated or lied to, but that I had met them all and found it hard to believe - and ended up by saying I should come and see for myself.
He replied with:

Mon 13 Aug 2007 16:37 - 0700 (PDT)

I agree Tim, come & see for yourself what is going on here. I was with Mayen,
her brother & Vien in the hospital last night- you should be here to as soon as
possible to solve the problem.

Also I send one to Mayen via Marivien - including the following poem hopefully expressing my total confusion. I had written it in an earlier period of doubt but had thought twice about sending it - but right now - it seemed perfectly appropriate.

The mighty kampilan
Has cleft me through,
Clean from head to toe,
The keenest edge,
Both swift and sure,
Has sliced me up
With single blow.
A fair duality now there lies,
For once a mind and soul unties
Each will walk alone.

Two roving eyes
That don't combine
Impaired in vision,
Out of line.
This pair of me
Cannot unite,
Despairing in their lack of sight,
Colours fade and disappear,
The world, unclear,
If black or white.

My email to Mayen asked her to stop the emotional hyperbole - quit cursing me and accusing me of deserting her - for heaven's sake I still have a flight booked - try and evaporate my fears a bit more rationally please. Was I to prove to her that I was stupid? Did she want to marry someone who could be rash and irresponsibly blinded by his love?

I said that we were not the guilty ones but were suffering from the acts of people who did these despicable things.
In answer to her pleas for me to "Just trust me as I trust you" I said that trust is perhaps a lot easier (for her) when there is no serious risk or financial obligation attached.
The emotional risk - presumably - we both shared equally - wasn't it therefore in our mutual interest to sort this out speedily & civilly?
I also repeated that I would only deal with the hospital directly - I knew by now that the whole team were trying to keep track of each communication I made.
I think they were all quite confident that I would fly out there - maybe that explains the lack of urgency in their response - providing that I had the cash with me when I arrived - everything else could be handled, they thought, as it arose.

Marivien was to deliver the email to Mayen at lunch time - I knew that Sir Francis was visiting the hospital at 3:00pm (PH time.)

Despite me having given Marivien the information the previous day - that I would only deal directly with the hospital - nothing was done until the last minute - I felt that me wanting to deal only with the hospital was somehow awkward for them.

Flurries of SMS messages from Mayen - trying to find out if I was still coming, but also playing heavily on my guilt, my responsibility - the only means she had at her disposal - to ensure as much as she could that I did "come home." But remember they all want to know this - if there is a crime going on here - it's a highly organised one.

SMS from Mayen Sent 12:35 Aug 13

timmy pls believe me, f u luv me pls be here, y dnt u do th!s to me . . this d
moment dat i nid u but u turn away.
and ds s so hard 4 me.
...................

SMS from Mayen Sent 15:20 Aug 13

timy pls be home, im tired, dn't knw wat to do.pls dnt do th1s to me.
...................

SMS from Mayen Sent 16:04 Aug 13

timy juz wait, marivien s thr n d acountimg to get d invoive. . its stil in the
acounting
..................

SMS from Mayen Sent16:47 Aug 13

ds s d worst th!ng dat ever hapend 2 me, and it hurts, coz u stil hav doubts in me..
sir f loves me coz he nvr leave me.. but ur r turning away.
..................

SMS from Mayen Sent 16:50 Aug 13

he is here, we talked and i feel ashamed, coz hes not supposed to be involved in
ds situation coz ds s our problem.
im sufering with al ds.
..................

SMS from Mayen Sent 17:09 Aug 13

they are gone now, they got d bil and email it to u right now ...im alone in ds
rom huhu.heartaches, pain i feel ryt now.
..................

SMS from Mayen Sent 17:20 Aug 13

i cnt help but cry evrytime i think dat u stil dont trust me.f u luv u shud
trust. like wat i do 2u.
pls be home timmyboy i need u.
..................

SMS from Mayen Sent 17:44 Aug 13

u tel me f ur coming home coz sir francis ask me coz of d hospital bil. but pls
i want u 2 come home, please i nid u. i luv u.
..................

SMS from Mayen Sent 17:59 Aug 13

timy sir f wants 2 knw, coz if u cnt come he wil deal d bil first.coz he wil
setle h!s budget also.pls tel me..
or tel sir f as son as posible

[There's a solution - but it never gets mentioned again though]
..................

SMS from Mayen Sent 18:20 Aug 13

timy i ask d nurse the original copy is in d acounting. the xerox s with
marivien, coz she wil email u.. is it not enough?
i ask also d billing section 2 email it 2 u, but close already. maybe tomorrow i
wil try

[That explains why they were delaying - yeah - send it tomorrow when I'm
already on the plane.]
.................

SMS from Mayen Sent 18:23 Aug 13

timy.. pls be home, marivien wil be email u d bil. pls trust me..im telin u d
truth swear to GOD..
its already 630 pm here. please believe me.
.................

SMS from Mayen Sent 18:57 Aug 13

she took rest, my brother seaman is here with me now.nursing with me..jaz arivd
frm d province..

So - here we have Mayen, her brother, her sister, Sir Francis, Marivien - all at the hospital - all knowing the urgency of my request that I deal only with the hospital - none of them able to convince the hospital to send me an email? Something really strange is going on.

I notice now that there is no mention at all of the future excuse that they are to use - that the hospital doesn't trust me & is refusing to deal with me, or the matter of confidentiality.

I told them that I wasn't sure if I could afford the trip as well as fulfilling my obligation to pay the hospital bill - I needed to know the amount involved before I could assess that - and I needed to know before the banks closed in the afternoon as I was flying out there early the following morning.
I sent another SMS to Marivien saying "No photocopies, no scanned images" - I needed to verify as much as possible that this was all actually true.
I realised that here I had a bit of leverage over the situation - if this was a scam, they obviously wanted me to arrive with cash - but I needed the information urgently - not really much time for them to prepare a convincing "bogus" invoice.

At around the time that the hospital was closing down office business for the day I get an email from Marivien containing the details of the hospital invoice. This is it - as I received it - not very convincing is it? - and as has been pointed out to me - they need a better accountant.

August 13,2007
Medical Center Paranaque
Sucat Paranaque
Tel.No.(s);(632)825-6911-15
Email:mcptri-isys.com

Tim,I seem to have problem scanning the bills I got from Medical Center Paranaque but hereunder is the summary;

1) Deposit made by FMJ******* Aug. 10, 2007 - P10,000.00
2) Advances made by FMJ******* Aug. 11 & 12
for blood & day to day expenses - 4,500.00
3) Doctor's fees 40,000.00
Anesthetiologist 16,000.00
other doctors 1,552.00
4) Hospital bills of P27,061.39 less P10,000dep &
P375.70 pd. in cash by Mayen 16,685.69
P88,737.69

I'll do best to have the hospital email you directly the billings. Please note that if the P74,237.69 balance as of today is not settled, it will be hard to have Mayen released.
Thanks
Marivien

I immediately phone the hospital using the information I had found on their website.
I spoke to the duty nurse - emphasizing discretion - that I suspected I was being scammed into paying a bill - could she verify that there was such a patient there and that these figures were correct.
She kindly offered to check with the accounts dept. Oh - there's someone still there then? I was to phone back in 15 minutes.
I prayed that this would bring it all to a conclusion - that she would tell me that there was no such patient - no such invoice had been raised.

I phone her back - she confirms it all - the patient - the figures on my email all tally.
So - again I swing back to having to believe it all - I am facing my responsibility - I'm going to have to fly the next day - drain my bank account - the amount is near to £1,000.00 - plus some spending money - I don't care - it is my obligation - my duty.
I send an SMS to Mayen asking if she still wanted me to come. Sir Francis had told me that Mayen might discharge herself prematurely - so I insisted to her that she stay there until I arrived.

Her replies:

SMS from Mayen Sent 19:50 Aug 13

yes i want to see u. please come home..we wil fix th!s th!ngs..i luv u so
much.il wait 4 u here in d hospital. ok mwaah

.....................

SMS from Mayen Sent 20:43 Aug 13

timmyboy i wil sleep now, so stressed this day. i luv u so much. be home soon,
mwaah.
il be waiting 4 u okay.let me know d flight details..be safe

I try to think of ways to raise some money, some support and most importantly, some company for when I arrive at Manila - I phone the Sun newspaper - a human interest story - but no interest from them and the phone very tersely slammed down on me after a brief explanation.

I phone another "sell-your-story" contact - ask her to read the story so far on this blog. She is interested but cannot help financially at such short notice.

Now I am becoming extremely worried about my security when I arrive in Manila - if this is a scam - they are all in on it - including some people at the hospital - they already know that I'm suspicious - and determined to deal with the hospital through the proper channels - who will in fact meet me at the airport, where will I be taken?

I had already been prepared for Mayen wanting to discharge herself prematurely - I had already been told that Sir Francis wanted to settle up. I imagined a scenario on my arrival - Mayen nowhere to be found - my having to deal with a debt to Sir Francis - and being prevented from going anywhere near the hospital - unable to check the authenticity of anything - or the accuracy - and carrying a big bundle of cash.
That's why Sir Francis had to be involved - he was the only person in the gang able to pay the hospital fees and deposits - to lend it credibility.

Again I phone around for some help - the Philippine Embassy in London - lovely music for half an hour - not much help really.
I phone the tourism branch of the Foreign Office - more helpful - suggest I phone the British Embassy in Manila - I have - but it's night time over there - no response.
They did have an emergency out of hours cellphone number however - so I ring that - speak to an English girl - thank goodness - I feel that I can trust her.
I explain the situation - she understands the danger - can't really help - it's my decision whether to go or not.
As if I didn't realise - the weight of this decision - an absolutely critical point in my life.
I post a couple of urgent messages to online "Internet scam" sites - obviously - although they did reply very quickly, it wasn't in time to help with this decision.

Girding my loins, gritting my teeth - my love for Mayen wins the day - I head off to town - draw the money from the bank - get the traveller's cheques.

No sleep for days - I am in need of some help - essentially from someone who can sympathise with both sides of my situation. I call at the church where I was married - a warden gives me the phone number for the vicar - and I ring him up telling him that I am in urgent need of spiritual guidance, a bit of confession and hopefully a blessing for my journey.
He drives down to meet me in the church office.
I am extremely emotional and fight to hold back my tears - the pressure is immense inside of me.
I start to explain the scenario - my cellphone rings - it's my wife - "Have I drawn out all the money - am I still going?"
I continue explaining things to the vicar telling him that from my point of view my relationship with Mayen has been miraculous - I find him wonderfully comforting - he is totally sympathetic and seriously understands my predicament and my concern over personal security. "The heart has its own reasons" he tells me.
He suggests various options - but the cost of another air fare at a later date is out of the question and I don't want to keep Mayen on her own in this time of need.
So I am not to venture outside the security of the airport - seek assistance immediately and get taken to the British Embassy in Manila - don't proceed with any transactions without an unbiased witness - only deal with the hospital.
He says a wonderful prayer for me and asks me to visit him when I return.

I head off for an appointment at the hospital - the last in a series of travel injections & to pick up the tablets for my suspected Herpes.
I leave - full of resolve - perfectly calm and inspired - feeling brave yet cautious - once again treading the path of love.

There has to be one path or another - in order to proceed - it is impossible to follow both at once - fear or love.

So before going home I visit my dear friend who has offered me so much wisdom and support throughout.
I am going to say to him, despite his best advice to me - "I am going to fly to Manila in the early morning" - I'm going to say " Thank you for your help - but farewell."

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 20 - A friend indeed

2008-08-13T22:02:00.007+01:00

Journey 19

Let me introduce you to my friend - Jim.
It was his suggestion that I revisit the Philippines - for a second opinion, convinced that the beautiful picture of romance that I had been painting for him would start to show a few cracks.
Jim has first hand experience - previous encounters with racketeers - the Mafia.
Perhaps not on such a global scale as the Mafia - in downtown Manila - but we are essentially dealing with the same sort of underworld. A cocktail of prostitution, money laundering and extortion.

We examined the whole of my journey so far with a forensic eye for detail - and it is clear that not only have we discovered and fulfilled the criteria for guilt in Civil Law - "In the balance of probability" - but also those for Criminal Law "Beyond reasonable doubt."

Unwittingly - in complete ignorance - I have stumbled into a nest of vipers.
It would seem to us that we have the boss man - Sir Francis - with his teams of girls, trawling the internet from dating sites - luring folk into parting with their money on all sorts of false pretences.

The only reason this is so successful is because the men have been duped, fooled into thinking that there was a genuine relationship happening - and are therefore highly emotionally involved - feeling great responsibility to the girls of their dreams.

Starting out with requests for small amounts - to prime the pump, as it were - and test the willingness of their victim - gradually escalating to larger and larger sums - who knows where it could end - how much it could net for these fraudsters - all neatly tied in to a real estate business.
Indeed - in my plans with Mayen we had discussed the purchasing of property - I had been shown condominiums, either already built or "off plan." I know that some, if not all of these, were directly connected to her business.

Considering that the law prohibits foreigners owning land, the alliance between a real estate business and dating sites seems like a marriage made in heaven.
Who knows what devious ways they would have found to rid me of more and more money - real estate purchasing in the Philippines is a mine-field of potential hazards for the unwary even with a legitimate business. Now we have uncovered the possible association between Tierra Maria (certainly the Marketing Manager) and racketeering - the credentials of this particular company are not looking enticing at all.

I had met up again with Sir Francis in Hounslow UK in July, at a Barrio Fiesta - thinking at the time that Mayen was pregnant - anticipating my next visit to see her. He was there representing Tierra Maria Estates. I discovered him sitting inside a tent with various other real estate companies from the Philippines. I had set up a web site at Sir Francis's invitation - to expand the marketing exposure into the UK - and went along to pick up the latest specifications and prices.
It is so hard for me to believe that this man, who I had a lot of respect for, was pulling such a big confidence trick on me.

Click here for the psychology of scammers.

Click here for behaviour analysis.

Jim and I talk well into the night - and I end up by handing him my passport and traveller's cheques - to prevent myself from going. I know that the pendulum will swing back to the love I have for Mayen - but I am scared. After all - they know my flight details - they are expecting me to arrive in Manila carrying a wad of cash - I don't know who would have met me at the airport - where I might have been taken - Mayen probably nowhere to be found - me with a private debt to Sir Francis, who no doubt would try to prevent me from verifying anything with the hospital - or if I did, I would just be following a paper trail of falsehood.

I decide to remain here in the UK - still confused - all we have is circumstantial - scam or genuine? How can we find proof positive? Will I be tortured by doubt for the rest of my days? I truly love Mayen - if I have deserted her in her hour of need - I shall live haunted with regrets. A love as beautiful as this has been - surely will not visit me again?

Now the big question for me is - who is the real Mayen? What sort of personality has she really?
I am certain now that with me, Mayen was plotting, working towards this final scam, as far back perhaps as day one.

On her own - with her friends - I'm sure she is as charming as I found her to be.
I saw her in her work environment - amongst her co-conspirators.
I saw her in her home environment, where she showed me off as a trophy - and her family seemed happy at every opportunity for me to be the provider.
Judging from the attitude of the family towards me, there is no excuse here that Mayen had been seduced into this lifestyle under duress - far from it - her association with Sir Francis seemed to lend her an inflated sense of status - work that she undertook with relish, completely ignoring any consequences to me.

I quote from The Lonely Planet.

"Filipino families protect their own, the public good be damned. This explains many things that observers often cite as "wrong" with the country; it explains why rich, powerful clans are content to build huge fortunes while turning a blind eye to shocking poverty . . . and it explains why the best qualified are passed over in favour of the well connected when applying for jobs."

Does it explain lies or extortion? What can I believe about Mayen?

I heard stories from her tragic past - her struggle to be honourable to her family - how did she end up in this situation - part of this set up?
How can people become so impoverished, financially - emotionally - ethically - that this is even seen as an option by a young, bright, zestful and attractive girl?
For she is all that - but those things are immediate - on the surface - what is going on at a deeper level - in her heart?
Is love a luxury she simply cannot afford herself to indulge in?

In a very true sense - she was selling her body, her emotions - condemming them both to become merely tools of her trade - no longer essential parts of her personal liberty - but plain prostitution has more honour than extortion by these means.
To carry out such a scam as this with her obvious relish and enthusiasm - reveals sociopathic behaviour - in the full knowledge of how devastating the results can be - financially - and the cruel price that is paid emotionally.
The level of conscious, manipulative deception is something that really shocks me - and I was deceived - truly - by the sweetest, tastiest honey.

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 21 - Non-arrival

2008-08-12T22:01:00.010+01:00

Journey 20

On the Tuesday - although I am not peaceful at all within myself - I get no disturbing messages or emails from the Philippines.
They think I'm in the air somewhere between Heathrow and Manila.
I am expected to land in Manila airport - precisely 4 months, almost to the hour since I first met Mayen online in April.

Wednesday morning, at exactly the time my plane was due to land, I get a barrage of SMS on my phone from Mayen - unwittingly I hear one word of a voice message that she leaves - one word was enough - I delete the message.
The sound of her voice renders me incapable of rational thought - and perhaps I need a great deal of that from now on.

Possibly they don't know whether I was on the flight or not - I decide to keep them guessing - maybe they'll think that I'm lurking in Manila somewhere - checking things out - secretly - in which case Mayen may well be tucked up and tightly bandaged, in a bed provided by the hospital.
Up until now, they have been quite content to be the go-betweens for me and Mayen, never once suggesting that I contact the hospital directly, only Mayen - on her cellphone.
I expect that the original phone calls might well have come from them in the hospital on the Friday - they would have been sure that I would want to phone the hospital on that day for verification. The hospital staff obviously have been told exactly what to say to me should I phone again.

Today, however, they are expecting me to show up - I suspect that Mayen might actually be there again. She told me that her seaman brother was there with her on Monday - just arrived from the province - Sir Francis told me on the Monday that he was with Mayen and her seaman brother the previous night. Later on - in an email - he tells me that Mayen's seaman brother has been with her in the hospital since Wednesday. Now they start encouraging me to phone the hospital.

I receive two emails from Sir Francis, sent early morning PH time, Thursday 16th August - the tone of both are insulting and vaguely threatening. The first one was CC'd to Mayen.

Hi Tim,

Everybody was expecting you to arrive yesterday. As of now, I understand that Mayen is still stuck in the hospital & you have not showed up. Where do we go from here? I hope there is a good explanation for your delay. I'm told that your celphone does not answer either. I'm still hoping that there will be a happy ending to this episode.

Tim,
Mayen now thinking that you might never come. Please advise what we are to do
now?
If there is no logical explanation for your delay and unfounded suspicions, then
I think you are an animal of the worst kind.

Thursday I get the following offline message from Marivien on Yahoo Messenger.

vhienne (8/16/2007 11:07:38 AM): tim good day?
vhienne: mayen still at the hospital right now?
vhienne: please directly comunicate with here or to the hospital .She's waiting for you?
She needs you right plese call here.
vhienne: She always cried because she expect you come to see here.
vhienne: Please call here
vhienne: Thanks so much.

So I reply - still pretending that I might be in Manila - and also implying that I might not be alone. Still between a rock and a really hard place - I don't want to lose Mayen - if this all turns out tragically to be true.

Tim: The money is no problem - I need a genuine invoice from the hospital.
Tim: *Invoice No.
Tim: *Patient ID
Tim: *Doctor's name & licence No.
Tim: *Anesthetiologist's name & licence No.
Tim: My email to the hospital has not been answered.
Tim: I have the cash - up to P100,000 - I can't get any more - I have no credit card.
Tim: When all these conditions are met we will surface.
Tim: The invoice should be a numbered invoice on hospital headed paper - in other words legitimate.
Tim: It must be sent to me by the hospital - directly.
Tim: You have had my email address since Sunday.
Tim: Please send all my love to Mayen - and say "Better safe than sorry - mWaaaaaaaaaah"
Tim: The invoice will itemise all medications, drugs, treatments etc

Marivien replies - more excuses for why nothing can be done about the hospital getting directly in touch with me.

vhienne: okey il tell all of that to mayen
vhienne: i ask here before to tell the hospital to send all the invoice of the bills she had a copy of this
vhienne: i will print all of your offline messages & emails then give to mayen
vhienne: il give it to maye tomorrow because theres a typhoo here i cant go there coz of flood
vhienne: commuicate directly to mayen she in the hospital she waiting for you.
vhienne: I email to your here messages.
vhienne: She txt me right now that the admin of the hospital half day today because of super typhoon.so please call mayen she is i the hospital.please she waiting for your call.
vhienne: thanks
vhienne: Mayen is waiting for your call please call here i cant visit here now to the hospital coz of super typhoon
vhienne: okey hope you call here .thanks
vhienne: if you love my friend seriously call here directly or call & communicate directly to the hospital...
vhienne: thanks

We checked the local weather in Manila - nothing was mentioned about a Super Typhoon - it looked perfectly normal.
I leave an offline message for Marivien - not using my email - they can trace my whereabouts from the IP address.

Tim: Marivien - hi - please answer the following questions.
Tim: Where is Sir Francis Jalbuena?
Tim: Could you ask him to provide me with:
Tim: Mayen's patient ID.
Tim: The Surgeon's name & licence number.
Tim: The anesthetiologist's name.
Tim: The anesthetiologist's licence number.
Tim: The surgeon's email address.
Tim: The anesthetiologist's email address.
Tim: Also please ask him - why is Mayen still in the hospital?
Tim: We need to know why the hospital have not yet communicated directly with me.

Late Thursday night I have a chat session with Marivien.

vhienne: Mayen dont have money to pay for the hospital bills thats why she cant go out of the hospital.

[Didn't Mayen say that Sir Francis wanted to know if I was coming - something about settling up his account? He must have forgotten - poor Mayen - stuck in hospital - and Sir Francis - who "loves her" - is now refusing to help.]

Tim: They are keeping her in?
vhienne: il tell all you need to mayen yesterday to email directly to you.you communicate directly to mayen @ to the hospital .
You call to the hospital so that the answer to your questions will be answerd im at the office right now
vhienne: yap she is still in the hospital right now please call here
vhienne: or call directly to the hospital.i visit mayen early morning because she has a letter to you.i send to your email right now
Tim: I have written to Sir Francis emails to 2 addresses. I would like him to comply with my simple requests.
Tim: I have no animosity towards you at all.
Tim: mWaaaaaaaaaah
Tim: tell Mayen - I can't stop thinking about her.
vhienne: okey.Communicate direct to mayen & to the hospital .Please call here now.She waiting for your call.
Tim: The hospital must communicate with me - directly - via email - with all the details that I have requested.
vhienne: To erase the doubt in your heart direct communicate to mayen & to the hospital now.Thanks
Tim: I repeat - the hospital must directly communicate with me vis email - with all the details that I have requested.
vhienne: yap.i ask that already to mayen before.I have work thats why i cant talkd to her doctor i visit her after office and the the doctor is already out
vhienne: okey
Tim: I'm sorry Marivien - we need those explicit details - from the hospital directly - via email.
Tim: And I have written to Sir Francis asking him to deal with it - so I am expecting an answer from him very soon.
vhienne: okey.mayen said that mybe the hospital email by tuesday cos saturday & sunday dont have admin office then monday its a holiday her in philippines
vhienne: okey.thanks for the time
Tim: thank you Marivien - bye for now - please pass on my love to Mayen - tell her to enjoy the rest.

Still no mention of the "patient confidentiality" that is to feature so heavily in all of their excuses later on.

So it looks as if the hospital are planning on extending Mayen's stay until the bill is payed, despite hints that Sir Francis might have wanted to settle up. This was normal practice in the Philippines across the board until recently - as you can see from - Republic Act 9439 - now, however, even since the passing of this Act, it still does not apply to private rooms.
It seems very odd that there should be this distinction between the public hospitals and the private ones - which are run as businesses. If the Act were genuinely in the interests of the patients - I would have expected to see it applicable to both - but that's the Philippines for you - I envisage a scene where the advocates of the Act are being lobbied - or bribed - by the private health care businesses - to include a caveat excluding private rooms - to allow them to continue cashing in - detaining patients - making them prisoners until their hospital bills are paid - such an easy source of extra income.
However - this might not have been a component of the gang's "Plan A" - when I was expected to arrive on the Wednesday - but they're busily working on "Plan B" right now. I'll try and help them exhaust the whole alphabet of plans before I'm through with this.
OK - now couple this with the fact that some Doctors & hospitals have even been defrauding their own Government - claiming subsidies, grants etc. for ghost patients - article - and it makes it, potentially, more lucrative still.

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 22 - Try the Embassy

2008-08-11T22:00:00.013+01:00

Journey 2

I receive an email from Mayen on the Friday - now a whole week since she was admitted to hospital. The email was physically written by Marivien, using Mayen's email account. No - I didn't send them my address.

August 18,2007
Timmy,
Im worry free now knowing that you're alright. Marivien told me that you left an
offline messages to her.
All i can say is that i have to wait for office days coz the admin of the
hospital is off during saturdays and sundays and this coming monday i doubt if they have o office because its holiday. I tried my best to talked to them but i do nothing.
Timmy the main reason why i never do it the other day because i thought that you
have verified it already.
You are the one who sent me the SMS and you told also that you will come this
wednesday.
I was expecting you but even your shadow never came. Now you are claiming that
your an honourable man, so tell me where is your word of honor.
I have here all the receipts and invoices they are all numbered and legitimate. I
will send it to you through DHL or fast pak.
This is the least i could do while waiting for the office day to open.So please
give me your address.
Timmy, why is this happening to us? Why you let this happen? Why you let other
people motivate you instead of yourself?
Try to examine yourself. No doubt why your not happy with your married life, this
is because you are weak and coward.
Sorry to tell you this but i have to. Now please dont do it to us,dont do it to
our love and to our relationship.
This is the time i needed you most and the time to prove how strong we are. I
want you to be strong and brave.
You are the one who told that we will work as a team. So, where is it now? We
promised we will be honest and respect each other and we will trust,now where is it? Timmyboy, I let you enter my life, open my world to you.
We had a good memories during your first visit. I introduced to you to my family
and to my friends and collegues for you to know me more. I want you to remember them all as i reminisce them. Please dont be blind, dont be deaf, we are destined to be happy the both of us. Why you let yourself live insuspicions and doubts? Are you happy with it?
I swear to God and to the angels in heaven I never lie to you. And Im always be
your bukobaby. I want forget you. All my life i will remember you the scar in my tummy during the operation reminds me of you and to our first angel.
I still love you and trying to understand you. I never change my timmyboy. I hope
it will end well.
Thanks to Marivien the bearer.
Love,
Mayen

I wrote an email to Sir Francis at two of his email addresses - determined that someone get the message that I needed something legitimate from the hospital. I got the impression that the first "quick scam" had gone seriously wrong from their point of view and they were now busying about trying to procure "fake" evidence - trying to fabricate their innocence - because I knew a lot about these people - and it was now apparant to them that I was not going to give up trying to get to the truth - by any means open to me.
I expect they just wished I would disappear.

Friday 17th August

To Marketing Manager, Tierra Maria Estates.
Dear Sir Francis Jalbuena,
We understand that you have kindly made some monetary deposits on behalf of Mr.Timothy Ellis Cumper.
Please would you supply the following information regarding the recent operation on Ma.Ana Samson Betita to relieve an Ectopic Pregnancy at 7 weeks gestation.
1) The name, licence number & email address of the operating surgeon.
2) The name, licence number & email address of the anesthetiologist.
3) The patient ID number for Ma.Ana Samson Betita.
4) The reasons for the above patient still being detained by the Medical Center
Paranaque.
5) A reason for the above hospital failing to make contact with us via email.
6) An estimation of costs to date 17/08/07.
Thanking you in anticipation of a prompt reply.

Sir Francis replied - forgetting conveniently that at first he had suggested that I could deal with the hospital via email. I noticed that the email had been CC'd to Marivien and Mayen and seems to convey an air of relief to begin with - now that they're sure I'm still in the UK, then Sir Francis sinks his teeth in, with an attempt to get even more money from me - Mayen's "lodgings advance" - which disappears in the 2nd email.
Curiously - my email that Sir Francis refers to, in which he deduces that I am in the UK - said nothing about that whatsoever - but the email for help that I had sent that very morning to the British Embassy in Manila, did mention that I was still in the UK - also it hinted that my phone calls to the hospital were possibly being intercepted. An hour later, I receive this email from Sir Francis.
Notice he suggests that I try contacting the British Embassy in Manila.

18th August 7.22 am

Tim,
I't crossed my mind that something terrible happened to you as the reason for
your not being in contact for several days. [Several days? Where does that come from? I was communicating with Marivien on the 16th - the day after I should have landed.]
As I told you, we were expecting you Wednesday so that you can have a good understanding of the problem you and Mayen got yourselves into. Your email now makes me believe you want to settle your obligations long distance, am I right? [How does he know I'm not in Manila? Has he checked my IP address?]
Anyway, the first thing I want to do is to advise you that the Philippines is a
third world country so don't expect things to be done here as efficiently as they are done in the UK.
As per the requests you have enumerated, I have dispatched Vien again to the
hospital for the nth time to get your requests no. 1 to 3. [So - he has heard from Marivien, about my requests - but not about my contact?] I had similar requests since last weekend but up to now it seems to have fallen in deaf ears of the hospital staff [a perfect opportunity to tell me that the hospital are refusing to cooperate, because of patient confidentiality, but no - it's because they are deaf] and the ones helping Mayen and Mayen herself- maybe they can't relate to your actuations and it seems that they have fallen into a belief and have faith that you will appear and be the Knight in shining armor helping the lady in distress.
The reason for no. 4 is that nobody here is capable, readily and/or willing to help Mayen pay your obligations and at the same time she has no health insurance- even if she had, her situation will not be covered by the regular health insurance. [I'm not expecting anyone else to pay it - I just want proof from the hospital. So why does he not continue and answer my QUESTION No. 5?]
The nature of her employment does require insurance either and she did not get
one for herself same as in more than 90% of those not covered by local laws for the emloyer to insure their emplyees. Mayen earns on a commission basis and thru my voluntary help was getting food, transpo and lodging allowances.
Mayen has a seaman brother with her now since wednesday in the hospital and I
have advised him to do the ff:

1) transfer to a cheaper room so as to save abt P400/day until problem is
resolved. [This never happened.]
2) Bargain with the doctors about their high fees. [This never happened.]
3) Talk to Hospital about deferring payment of hospital bills and fees against
his future salary
(very hard & long shot to be able to do though). [This never happened.]

I have extended my capacity to help and it has been more than enough.
It seems that I will just have to be the last if ever to be paid even if you and
Mayen get out of this hole you have placed yourselves in.
I doubt if the hospital has the capacity to do business via email or long
distance. [Well they have - as proved later & as he had first suggested. Is that supposed to answer question No 5?]
I have requested Vien to try and find out as I did last thursday- I will also
try again myself and I have talked to Mayen's brother about it.
[Here's the answer to question No 6] I helped Vien email you a running balance of Mayen's hospital balance a few days ago, it will be more or less the same except that P950/day for the room will be added. [What about the cheaper room then?]
According to Vien you have acknowledged receipt of this and even inquired about the advances that I have made.

We will again give you a running balance ASAP. It appears to me that you think
the only thing we do is help you with your problems- please be more considerate. On top of my P14,500 advances, Mayen still owes me another P9,000 more or less in cash advances and lodging deposit which she has not yet refunded. If you have intentions of helping, please do it soon. If not, please disappear from our lives and don't create more havoc by giving us false hope.
You have already destroyed the life of Mayen who will be forever scarred in her
life.
Both of you made your bed, it is turning out to be made of nails rather than
roses.
Why don't you instead request the British Embassy to help you.
I have every intention to make them know about the incident if it is not
resolved soon.

************

No answer to my question No 5 - noticeable for its absence - he answers question No 6, but not as identified with the number, amidst all the waffle and distraction where logically, the answer to question No 5 would be.

So - in short - his message contains one flippant sentence about my most urgent request - to deal with the hospital - and even this brief answer is in direct contradiction to advice given earlier in his SMS message - the remainder is defensive, accusative & hostile.

Have I said anything about not paying?

Would I have been able to arrive in time for "emotional support" during the "operation?" No, that was always a physical impossibility, it was an "emergency."

Would I have been expected to fly over, even if my ticket had not already been booked - my trip not been planned suspiciously at this very same time?

There are a lot of significant factors which point at the precise date of the "emergency."

Is not Mayen in the best place for her care - a hospital?

So this is all, entirely about paying the money - which if you remember was supposed to have been done via Western Union.

Am I not entitled to proof, in these circumstances, that it is all legitimate?

And another charming reply from Sir Francis - supposed to be a running balance sent ASAP, but it's simply a copy of the first email from Tierra Maria office.

Sat 18 Aug 2007 03:43 -0700 (PDT)
Tim,
I am forwarding email of Vien to you that she sent Aug. 13, 2007.
As I said, the billings will be the same except for the additional room billings
that accrued due to Mayen's overstay in the hospital. Vien had success in seeing the doctor who will cooperate in sending you requests no. 1 to 3 and the bills accrued by Mayen but by tuesday yet as monday will be a holiday. [That never happened.]
As far as my advances is concerned, you already have the figures I sent you
earlier- It is P14,500 for the hospital alone. I don't know advances made by others but I know the landlady had a few hundred pesos advanced also. I don't want to be brutal about it but consider our celphone conversations ( about 60 minutes) [Ha! 15 minutes, tops - the 1st call was from me to him] my time spent for this incident ( which you can't afford anyway), and the time spent by my people to help Mayen whom I have paid as a blessing.
Again, please settle immediately.

**********

Still nothing about why I cannot deal directly with the hospital, and yet they manage to get "details" from the doctors about themselves - that seems odd.

However, on Saturday 18th August 6.28 am I had already sent a first plea for help to the British Embassy in Manila - and received the following reply.

Monday 20th August
Mr. Cumper,
Your email did not state what specific assistance you are seeking from the
British Embassy. If the subject of your request is to help your
girlfriend who is a Philippine national, we are sorry the British Embassy
cannot assist. We suggest you contact the Consular Services of either the
Philippine Embassy in London or the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) in
Manila.

On the Sunday I was starting to lose my patience with the incompetence of these people in the Philippines - apparantly unable to get any legitimate information to me from the hospital - so I sent the following email to Sir Francis - subject - Time Is Up - and attached a really long list of Philippine Government Agencies, some email addresses of his business associates - indicating that I was about to start sending out emails to these people - outlining my suspicions.
They were also aware that the whole story was being written up and publicly displayed on my MySpace blog - I had sent them all the URL.
After this email was sent - things started to move a little - I started to get some results - all be it undoubtedly fake, fabricated material to try and throw me off the scent of their fraud.

Dear Sir Francis,
This intolerable situation has gone on long enough.
I find complete incompetence in complying with my simple requests to instruct the hospital to communicate directly with me via email about this matter.
For all your sympathy for Mayen it has not amounted to a single jot of real help.
I receive emails that are solely intent on extorting money - there is absolutely no genuine concern for poor Mayen.
I receive emails with cowardly veiled threats - which I suppose is about as far as you dare go.
I have access to the following - via direct email contact - despite the Philippines being, as you say, a third world country.
Perhaps someone, one honest, caring soul among them, may take a grasp of the situation and show me some action.
I resort to contacting them directly because they are apparantly unknown to you.

On Monday 20th Sir Francis replies with -

??? What do you want me to do? Your problem with Mayen can only be solved by yourself and her. I have advanced money, I have requested the hospital to get directly in touch with you, Vien and myself have given you all the facts of the case, I don't understand this particular email.
You said you were coming and you did not. Your best bet is to get in touch with the doctor to help you. I am not in a position to help you any further.

On Sunday 19th August I receive the following information from Sir Francis - and reply to him that I am dealing with it urgently.

Tim,

Hereunder are the answers to your first three requests:
1) Dra. Leonor Leonardo, physician no.******, CP **********, email- *****@*******
2) Dr. Reynaldo S. Dizon, anesthesiologist *****, email- *****@******
3) Ma. Ana Samson Betita, patient no. 51546-2007

Dra. Leonardo, per Vien and Mayen is the main cooperator to your requirements (I understand she was the source of above answers) and is willing to help facilitate your requests 6 and maybe give more answers to your questions 4 & 5. I'm copy furnishing both doctors with your email and this reply of mine.

We discover that the two doctors named appear to be resident at the Medical Center Paranaque - on the hospital website it is possible to access a further page of details for a few names on the list.
Seeing as we were being pointed towards Dr Leonardo - we decided to write to Dr Dizon - another reason for this was that we discovered an alternative email address for Dr Dizon - so the plan was to send our email to the address provided by Sir Francis and ask for confirmation using the email address that we had found.
A good plan - but the confirmation email was bounced back - failed to deliver.
We sent the same list of questions to Dr Leonardo - but have never had a reply - and no failure to deliver message either.
I have written to her again since - still no reply.
Dr Dizon did reply however - although, in our opinion, very unprofessionally - and a lot of the questions we asked were left unanswered.

It is very strange if (as suggested by one commentator) Dr Leonardo didn't get her own, current email address correct - as she was the person who allegedly supplied the information - "the main cooperator to your requirements" - as Sir Francis puts it.

Sunday 19th August
Dear Dr. Reynaldo S. Dizon,
My name is Tim Cumper - I understand that you will be expecting an enquiry from me regarding the operation for an Ectopic Pregnancy at 7 weeks gestation - which was performed at the Medical Center Paranaque on Friday 10th August at some time in the afternoon.
I am being held responsible for paying the patient's bill.
I am more than willing to meet my obligation in this matter.
However because of the very strange procrastination that has been taking place around the method of payment I am suspecting that I have become involved in an organised fraud.
My reasons for writing to you are to ask you please to confirm the following information.
* You are Dr. Reynaldo S. Dizon.
* Your licence number is 57066.
* You were the anesthesiologist for the above operation.
* You have submitted an invoice for your work and the amount corresponds with that shown below.
* Would you please transmit to us a copy of the above invoice?
* You assisted Dra. Leonor Leonardo as the operating surgeon for the above.
* The patient's name was Ma.Ana Samson Betita.
* By which name is the patient referred to by her friends?
* The patient's Hospital ID number is 51546-2007.
* The patient is still being detained in the hospital subject to her hospital bill being paid.
* Is the patient being detained for any other reason?
* Why has the hospital not yet contacted me at all?
* Which surgical or medical procedure was used in the operation? eg. Laporoscopy etc.
* Had the Fallopian Tube ruptured?
* From the patient's perspective - was it the left or the right Fallopian?
* What is your relationship to Francis M. Jalbuena?
* Could you provide an estimate of costs to the present time?
Please can I stress the urgent nature of these enquiries and humbly ask you for a rapid reply.
Thanking you kindly in anticipation.
Yours sincerely.
Mr Timothy Ellis Cumper
UK

His reply arrived promptly on Monday 20th August - this is all that was said.

Yes,I am the anesthesiologist of Ma.Ana Samson Betita.She was brought to the operating room in severe pain.She was sedated and was given analgesics thru IV.Inducted under regional anesthesia at around 3:45 pm with nurse E.Caballero as surgical nurse and N.Orobia as instrument nurse.On opening up,hemoperitoneum(blood in the peritoneal cavity)more than a liter was suctioned.Operative findigs was ruptured ampulla of the Left fallopian tube.Operation ended at around 4:50 pm.Patient tolerated the procedure well.

Perfectly anonymous and non-incriminating. The IP address for this email came from an untraceable source - named only "Blackhole."As stated before, a litre of blood is a considerable amount.

Ruptures of the ampullary section of the fallopian tube are generally between 8 to 12 weeks gestation. This was six weeks, six days - very early. Anyone can find the sort of information quoted in the email on the Internet, almost word for word. CLICK HERE.

or HERE.

A great deal of this communication is revealing more and more to me at each reading - however, at the time it was happening - I was generally in a blind panic - my heart racing as I received each of them - and still acutely aware of - and haunted by - the onerous possibility that it all might have been true.

Click the flags to read about all the alarm bells.

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Tierra Maria Estates Scam - 23 - Bill arrives

2008-08-10T21:59:00.020+01:00

Journey 22

On Tuesday 21st August - finally - now 11 days since Mayen was admitted to hospital I receive the first notification from the Medical Center Paranaque.

As an attachment to the letter there was a photocopy of a hospital bill.
On thorough examination we noticed a few suspicious details.

* The figures for Professional Fees had been creatively altered, but added up to the same total as the original figures sent from the Tierra Maria office on Monday 13th August, as had the two small amounts of credit from the cash Mayen said she had paid. The sort of thing that is done to make round figures appear more arbitrary. There is no other possible explanation.
* There is no mention of the money ate Glo is alleged to have paid for laboratory and other fees - appearing as a "credit."
* The patient's ID number was different from the one Sir Francis had given me.
* The accounts manager had signed his name over the "Prepared by" field at the bottom of the bill, obscuring the fact that it said "null," indicating that only one person had been involved.

The accompanying text also confirms that my requests to Sir Francis had been passed on & complied with - I am supplied with the doctors details.

Now - the significance of this arriving are nothing to do with the details contained in it - for certain, this was produced by the Accounts manager at the hospital, and he knew what he was doing. It is the fact when it arrived - I was informed by email on Monday 13th August that they were having trouble "scanning the bill from the hospital" - by Tierra Maria Estates - so they allegedly had a bill of some sort in their possession at this time.

Nothing further was sent to me however, not until after I had started circulating emails, outlining my suspicions to various locations, including Tierra Maria Estates owner, Tony Montinola.
At this time I also revealed my blog to them, although it was still being kept private.
Mayen is about to tell me (next chapter) that she had allegedly already arranged, several days previously, to have the account payed by "selling the inherited property" - despite this, I am sent this JPG of the bill.

Why? If settling the account has already been arranged - the only reason must surely be to get me off their backs, by trying to prove their innocence.

This is from Medical Center Parañaque, Inc.. We have a patient in the name of Ms. Ma. Ana Samson Betita who was admitted last August 10, 2007, but still with us due to none payment of Hospital Bill and Professional Fees.
Her Attending doctors are as follows:
Dr. Reynaldo S. Dizon
email Address: ****@***.net
License no.: ******
Dr. Leonor Leonardo
email address: *******@*****.com.ph
Licence no: ******
Attached is the Statement of Account of the above patient.
The said statement of account is as of to date only. Daily room rate is P950.00.
Thank you.
From,
Mr. Jaime Landico
Accounting Manager
MEDICAL CENTER PARAÑAQUE, INC.
Dr. A. Santos Avenue, Sucat Road, Parañaque City
Philippines
825-6911 to 15 loc 197
Direct Line: 826-2121
email address: ******@******.com

We noticed that Dr Dizon's licence number is different from that quoted by Sir Francis and that the accounting manager has mis-spelt his own name.

Also, whether significant or not, the accounts manager does not signify that the surgeon was a woman by using the abbreviation, Dra. for the Spanish - Doctora, the feminine of Doctor.

I send a reply to the accounting manager.

To: Medical Center Paranaque.
22/08/07
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your two emails and attached photo-copies.
The current matter is still under investigation.
In the interim - would you please:
* Kindly suggest to us how you require these moneys to be paid.
* Please confirm to us that your signature is to be found on the photo-copy.
* Is your name Mr.Jamie Landico?
* Who is to be found on Direct Line 826 - 2121?
* Please could you supply us with the Direct Line telephone numbers for:
Dr. Virgilio Oblepias - Chairman of The Board of Directors.
Dr. Renato Bernabe - President of The Board of Directors.
Dr. Humberto Villareal - Hospital Director.
We have already contacted the two Doctors allegedly concerned.
We have only had a reply from one of them.
The answers to our questions were not comprehensive.
We stress the serious nature of the allegations being made about this event, implicating quite a few people.
We count on your integrity and honesty to supply us with the answers to our queries.
Yours sincerely.
Mr. T.E.Cumper
UK

He replies with -

Dear Sir,
answered to your query.
* Kindly suggest to us how you require these moneys to be paid.
- You can remit thru our depository bank under
Account : *****
Equitable PCI Bank
Dr. A. Santos or St. James Branch
* Please confirm to us that your signature is to be found on the photo-copy.
- Yes, that is my signature
* Is your name Mr.Jamie Landico?
- My name is Mr. Jaime M. Landicho
* Who is to be found on Direct Line 826 - 2121?
- Either me or Ms. Josephine Jimenez, Billing Supervisor
*Please could you supply us with the Direct Line telephone numbers for:
Dr. Virgilio Oblepias - Chairman of The Board of Directors.
Dr. Renato Bernabe - President of The Board of Directors.
Dr. Humberto Villareal - Hospital Director.
- You can reach the officers mentioned at 825-6911 and ask for their extension.
However, they are busy persons to look for your concern. Furthermore, please be informed that the documents sent you are all authenticated. A certain Mr. Carlos Tampengko of the Bristish Embassy has also called us and inquire the hospital bill of Ma. Ana Samson Betita.
Respectfully yours,
Mr. Jaime M. Landicho
Accounting Manager
MEDICAL CENTER PARAÑAQUE, INC.

Notice that he states that the British Embassy in Manila had been in touch with the hospital - it is odd to me that the accounts office seems to be dealing with all enquiries - it seems to be the hub of the hospital - at the end of the only email address - and where my emails had been disappearing without trace.
Notice also that he says that the enquiry from the Embassy was about the bill - although their reply to me later on tries to paint in a few details to add realism - and excusing the phone system - bear in mind that all this information has come from the same source - ie. the accounts department at the hospital. Despite the apparent weight of authority that originating from the British Embassy was supposed to lend this reply - it only adds further suspicion.
Since I sent out my circular dossier email (as I like to call it) with attachments on Wednesday 22nd August 4.02 am the British Embassy are now showing willing - rather too willing in my opinion.
Interesting also that Sir Francis had suggested to me that I contact the Embassy for help - just one hour after my first email to the Embassy.

Here are the rapid fire communications between me and the British Embassy from the same day Wednesday 22nd August. This was a "live" exchange, proving that someone was actively involved on this case and considering the general apathy in replying to my emails, a rare occurrance indeed.

06:27
Mr. Cumper,
Thank you for your lengthy email with attachments. Let me state first that the assistance you asked is purely personal and is not something we normally get involved with because the subject of your enquiry is a foreign national.
Having said that however, I made few enquiries and found out the following:
1) That Betita still remains at private Room 137 of Medical Centre Parañaque awaiting your remittance to pay her hospital bills. She has been given discharge order but unable to leave the hospital without payment.
2) Her total bill as of today is Php 83,262.69. Her daily room and board in a private room is Php 950.
This amount will add to the total as the day progresses. The room does not have a telephone but if you wish to speak to Betita, you can call the hospital switchboard on 0632 825 6911 to 15 and ask the operator to connect you to Nurse Station 3. Betita is four rooms away from the station. Also to warn you that the telephone system is not efficient - reception is noisy and connection to local number takes sometime and can be disconnected from time to time.
3) Payments may be deposited directly to Medical Center Parañaque at Equitable PCI Bank, Dr. A. Santos Avenue Branch under A/C number ******. I checked this account number with the bank manager who confirmed the account number belongs to the hospital.
Hope the above information helps.

Dear Sir, thank you very much for making those enquiries on my behalf.
May I please enquire as from who the information you have aquired originated?
As this is absolutely critical to my enquiries.
Awaiting, humbly, your urgent response.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Timothy Ellis Cumper

06:42
This was your original email. [They had pasted a copy of my dossier email below.]

Dear Sir,
I am sorry, my question referred to who at the hospital did you speak to with your kind enquiry on my behalf?
Mr Timothy E Cumper

06:45
Did you mean the source of information?
Hospital: Mr. Landicho - Accounts Manager
Bank: Mr. Louie Domingo

06:46
The original email request came from you. Did it not? I deleted your original long email.

06:48
Billing Supervisor Josephine Jimenez and Jaime Landicho, Jimenez's Accounting manager.

Now - considering that the reply bears all the authority of the British Embassy, there are no caveats at all about caution - unusual - as my email to them outlined my suspicions.
There is no mention that the information that they were given from the accounts department is actually true - no investigation - just word of mouth.
In fact they are simply echoing information that I already knew - to what purpose?

Considering that they knew all about my concerns - the tone of their reply seems extremely biased - leaning towards the side of the "Foreign Nationals" rather than the British subject who contacted them initially - trying to excuse and defuse my suspicions about the telephone system.

Surely they are aware, just as everybody else is, that scamming does go on over there - Hospital bills being one of the preferred means?

My dossier email was also sent to a close business associate of Sir Francis - she had given me her card when I met her at the Fiesta in Hounslow.
I figured that Sir Francis would get to hear of what I'd done as all the email addresses that I'd sent it to were CC'd. The dossier email to the Embassy was sent separately however and was not included in these CC's.
The close business associate corresponded with me, briefly, about the whole affair - I expect Sir Francis was using her to spy on my emotional state - which I honestly revealed in my last email to her - but then heard no more from her.

Wednesday 22nd August - 11:49 BST
God bless you ****** even the British Embassy have been in touch with the hospital - spoken to the accounts dept - the bank manager - confirming it all.
I have tried to be impartial about this all -
but had I been entirely on my own and asked myself about these points . . .
* My feelings for Mayen in no way imply that it is reciprocal.
* Only what I believe - remember on one level - from my visit.
* I am on my own as to proving whether or not I am a moral coward.
* Take responsibility.
* Am I escaping into purely specious territory when I ask myself "Which has a higher ethical value - honouring the love that only I may be feeling - or - searching for the truth?"
* But I find myself wanting to believe that there is a deceit going on - because it now seems to me to be the easy way out - and that is biasing my efforts, my searching - it seems to be pushing me into a corner, coupled with the fact that I have absolutely no idea how Mayen feels for me - purely selfish I know - why not just run away and hide, if the relationship is destroyed anyway?
* Maybe that's what it has been all along - pure selfishness under the disguise of love - in which case - this is a very just outcome.
* The only answer I can find is that I am a moral coward - the proof of that is only in the choices I have made and will make.
* Surely the facts of this episode read either way - which ever perspective one looks at it from? Suspicion - or - truth.
* Just like I did with Mayen from the beginning - we fill in all the missing pieces ourselves - supposition.
* Or have we further to go - more "facts" to uncover?
* Like has been pointed out to me by Sir F "We made our own bed . . ." I should really come to a decision.
* If the British Embassy Manila can't convince me of the truth - who on earth can?
* I still believe that God is love & love is God - somehow my love is involved in this - that is my only base at the moment - my faith in that.
* What is Sir Francis's base at the moment? - he's obviously been stirring up a response - covering his base.
* Does my base need covering?
* As long as I remain impartial - not misguided by my cowardice - I will steer in the correct direction. I need have no fear. God is love.
* But I cannot hide behind spiritual love and ignore the love of a human in distress - Mayen - no matter what she may or may not have done - this is still my responsibility.
* But if I speak to her - I know that it will wrench my heart in only one direction.
. . . I don't know where I'd be now.
Thank you
Tim

In response to my "dossier email" sent to her previously, I received a reply - allegedly from her.

Hi tim:

This is sad. Please let me know if you are still visisting Manila so I can connect you to the right persons. ty

***

This was from the IP address which I have since tracked to be where Sir Francis has opened recent emails sent to him.

Here is a schedule of all emails sent and received between myself, the British Embassy, Sir Francis & his close business associate.

*1st email to Embassy - outlining my suspicions (but not sent to Carlos Tampinco's seperate email address.)
Sat. 18 August 2007 - 06:28:11 BST

* email from Sir Francis - Sat. 18 Aug 2007 07:22:35 BST (1 hour later.)
"Why don't you instead request the British Embassy to help you."

* 1st reply from Carlos Tampinco - (drew a blank)
Mon. 20 Aug 2007 04:03:05 BST

* Ist reply after Dossier letter was sent to her - from close business associate - "Hi tim: This is sad. Please let me know if you are still visisting Manila so I can connect you to the right persons."
Tue. 21 Aug 2007 23:09:05 BST (from Sir Francis's IP address.)

* Sent dossier letter Wed. 22 Aug 2007 03:27:45 BST
To the owner of Tierra Maria Estates & CC'd to many other government agencies in the Philippines - (many of the others failed, treated as spam.)

* Sent dossier letter Wed. 22 Aug 2007 04:02:38 BST
To Carlos Tampinco - no CC's.

*2nd reply from Carlos Tampinco - (All the details)
Wed. 22 Aug 2007 06:27:25 BST

* Email sent Wed 22 Aug 2007 06:52:03 BST
To close business associate.
"Hi ****** thank you for your reply - I am desperate - I don't know who to trust.
I have sent out so many emails to all sorts of organisations.
I'm sorry - but the implications contained in the documents I sent you - might be upsetting - I can hardly believe this myself - having met most of the people concerned.
I certainly won't be returning to the Philippines until this situation is resolved - and my relationship with Mayen is surely doomed by all of this.
The circumstances are so suspicious to me.
I hope that you are well - and business is good.
Yours sincerely "

* 2nd reply from close business associate - "I will pray for you."
Wed. 22 Aug 2007 08:38:15 BST
(Different IP address from previous reply.)

* Sent long email to business associate - Wed. 22 August - 10:49 BST

"God bless you ****** even the British Embassy have been in touch with the hospital . . ."

* No further replies received.

Here is a copy of one email sent to my MP which will explain my thoughts on this aspect of the situation - the matter had been passed over to the Foreign Office for investigation.

Friday, 21 December, 2007

Dear ****,

Firstly may I thank you for your help in presenting my issue of concern to the relevent authorities and for your recent letter which enclosed a copy of their response.

Please forward the content of this email to **** at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

I will argue the point that I was being steered to pay the hospital costs - for the email I received from the British Embassy in Manila was perceived as an endorsement of the information it contained.

I will argue the point that I did not request that the Embassy obtain information from the local authorities - I requested validation that the information I had already received was beyond suspicion.

The critical point, central to my concern is not the specific situation that I became involved with - and has not been suitably addressed.

It is to do with implementing a policy, within the protocol of the British Embassy, that would prevent a recurrence.

The suspicions contained in my first & second emails to the Embassy were ignored by Mr Carlos Tampinco.

By communicating to me using the authority of the British Embassy - and particularly with the omission of any caveat advising caution or further vigilance - the inference was that the information contained in his response to my second email was legitimate - and had been thoroughly checked and verified as true.

However, the information that I received from him in this case was no more than the suspect information I had already obtained - and had indeed been supplied by one of the very same sources.

Furthermore - the specific information regarding the telephone system at the hospital appeared to be providing an explanation for my suspicions - information which, in the absence of a thorough investigation, must have been conveyed by the very same suspect source at the hospital itself.

My concern was not to simply obtain echoes of what I already knew - but was specifically an endeavour to try to illuminate the truth.

The predominant content of my emails to Mr Tampinco, together with the attachments, was of my suspicion- and evidential support of that suspicion - all be it arbitrary and incomplete at that time - due to my distress.

The Embassy in the Philippines surely had "a duty of care" in this situation - either to thoroughly investigate - and report to me the conclusion of that investigation - or to advise that caution and due vigilance be taken - in the light of the evidence for my suspicion and the certain knowledge of the proliferation of this sort of activity in that country. Or to remain consistent with the policy of non-involvement shown in its reply to my first email.

I am privy to the background of this event - I have kept detailed records - there are so many discrepancies, lies, cover-ups - it is continuing to this day - with efforts to manipulate me into removing my incriminating writings from the Internet.

I have conclusive proof of lying - and a recording from web cam, of the revelation of a fake scar - all done in efforts to both extort more money from me -and force me to retract my allegations.

All of the above leads me to one firm and singular conclusion - that from beginning to end - this whole business has been faked - and yet consistently, the deceit has been corroborated by people in positions of authority.

We do not know precisely how exceptional was Mr Tampinco's second response to my circumstances - he certainly did not address my key concern, but by his own admission - the British Embassy do not normally involve themselves in the business of foreign nationals.

However - it seems to me that the interest of the foreign nationals concerned in this instance, have been given priority of support.

The crux of the matter is this - if, as I would expect, the Embassy desires to be - and appear to be - impartial, then the implied authority perceived within its message to me should have been counterbalanced with a caveat advising precaution - particularly in the light of my suspicions, which were made perfectly clear.

If this impartiality is absent - the strong implication is that the response has been influenced in some way.

Co-incidentaly, I received an email from one of the main suspects - steering me towards making an appeal to the British Emabassy in Manila for help - an hour after sending my first email to the Embassy.

To help prevent any further occurrence - the apparent endorsement by the Embassy of entirely unverified facts - from potentially assisting criminals in achieving their goals - I would like to see evidence of an addition to, or reinforcement of, the Embassy protocol in dealing with similar situations - a caveat advising caution and due vigilance - when disseminating unverified information of this nature.

Unfortunately - as the recent press bears witness, with tragedies occurring in the Philippines - this advice is particularly pertinent for visitors to those shores - becoming increasingly notorious for their corruption and lawlessness.

I cannot expect the British Government to assist me in what is a purely personal matter - discovering and revealing more of the truth of the episode that I was particularly involved in.

However - in the matter of ensuring that protocols within the British Embassy are suitably comprehensive and robustly adhered to, on occasions that demand strict ethics and impartiality - I think you will agree with my insistence that these protective measures be securely in place.

May I take this opportunity to thank you again - and to wish you and all of your staff a very happy Christmas and successful new year.

Yours sincerely,

Timothy E Cumper

Maidenhead

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