[GraceG]

My Advice...

1. Learn Spanish
2. Stay in the Northern Philippians to avoid the crazy muzzies that live in the south.

That is all I know at the moment

[katana]

Tagalog would serve better than Spanish. It's an odd mix of the original Malay (more formally "Austronesian") dialects, Spanish, and the frequent and surprising entire phrase in English thrown in. Anyone there with a decent education (the percentage of Filipinos with college degrees is astonishing) can speak a fair amount of English.

The people there are incredibly warm and friendly. But there are parts of Manila where Caucasians simply should not venture without locals to accompany them. And the south of the country is where they have the major problems with Muslim guerrillas and terror groups.