Where Are The Addresses
I live in a subdivision outside Davao City. Technically it’s still Davao City, as Davao is geographically the largest city in the Philippines it encompasses a wide area. I think of it more like a suburb though. It’s probably a good thing that PhilPost rarely delivers here, because there aren’t any addresses in my subdivision.
I found the same to be true for most businesses that I tried to find. I started to realize that Google Maps had almost no chance of being accurate if the business was on a long street. Especially one without a cross street nearby. “Center the marker and call it good”, seems to be the rule about 50% of the time.
The locator that is used in identifying a house in our subdivision is the Phase (our subdivision was built in three phases), the Block Number, and the Lot Number. Similar to what you might have back in the States for the identification of the lot of your home. For good measure we occasionally add a street to the address, for mail and bills, but I am not certain if that is made up or real. There is no indication that is our street name, and no one seems to follow that for direction purposes. We just give the phase, block and lot number for directions.
For businesses what I see most commonly is the listing of the street they are on, and then the nearest cross street. A building is also listed, if that is applicable. I suppose this worked well when Davao was a small, little town, but that’s not true anymore. This is a good sized city that is growing rapidly. If you are a smaller business, it is not going to be easy to find you in many cases. I know I’ve had a difficult time knowing Where to Find It in Davao. It would be a great help to have a specific, definite address to locate.
I don’t know if PhilPost has given up trying to figure it out, or if it’s the other way around. Maybe no one cares about addresses, as mail is unlikely to arrive, so much so that many businesses, Davao Light for instance, have their bills hand delivered. But even then, they need to know where to deliver it, too. I suppose in their case they deliver it to the meter.
We got mail last week for what I believe was the first time since I’ve moved here. The two pieces were post marked at our local office two months prior. I’ve yet to determine if there is something we need to be doing differently to receive our mail in more timely fashion, but it’s on my list of things to do. I know it’s not me being a foreigner, as these were addressed to my asawa.
I can’t really think of any good reason not to establish street addresses, and to start using them. Maybe it won’t improve the mail delivery, but it could have a positive effect on locating something. Isn’t that the idea, to have your business located?
Living in the Philippines shares that endearing? quality of no rational street numbers with Japan. It’s even a little screwier in Japan becuase, being Japanese, they have a very orderly number scheme … orderly, but exasperating … each house or commercial building gets assigned a umber by the city in the order in which the building permit was applied for. So it’s very possible for number 56 Tama Road to be n4ext door to number 29 or number 632 (on along street). Completely rational, yet totally exasperating for finding one’s way.
Don’t forget the other endearing trait of the Philippines … renaming streets. Many streets in metro Manila at least are on their second or even third name and your guess is as good as anyone else s as to what name locals might be using for a particular street,it this year or next.
In some cases, it’s political. A major thoroughfare through the port of Manila district is the President Marcos Highway. I am sure Imelda, BongBong, Imee and whatever the other Marcos family members still being elected to office love to call the road by its proper name, but the couple hundred thousand who were jailed during Marcos” reign of terror likely don’t choose to use the dictator’s name.
It’s more fun in the Philippines
We share the same “interesting” liberal usage of renaming of streets here. Very confusing to the newcomer, as even though it may have a new name, sometimes the streets signs have not been changed. C.M. Recto is now Claveria. You’ll see Claveria on the jeepneys, but not on the street signs. Even more entertaining is that this becomes J.P. Laurel at some point, which continues on and merges with R. Castillo, but is still called J.P. Laurel.
People tell me that it’s easy to get around Davao because it is so simple. My brain hasn’t been rewired yet to this kind of simple, but I’m working on it. Give me time.
Agree with you Randy, Philpost are really slow in giving mails because they have less support from the government. It is bad but true..
Well since then we’ve received mail twice. So it’s gotten better, that is as far as I know. I don’t know what’s not making it here.