I was born and grew up in Davao. Now I am in Manila living here for the past 5 years.
I still go to Davao very often to visit my family.
As other natives of Davao, I really love this place. I infact promote it to my friends and officemates and everytime they came back here in Manila from Davao they all have the same responses “Robert, you are right! It is such a wonderful place and need to go back there.”

The cabbies (taxi drivers) in Davao are generally honest. You will not feel paranoid that the taxi you get in might outsmart you by charging you more or deny you. They even give you change even if it is 1, 2 , 5 peso coins.

I was born in davao but half of my life was raise in manila, I have seen the big improvement of my homeland ( DAVAO CITY ) from the time we moved to manila with family. Now Davao city has lots of new arise buildings anywhere in the city proper. More bars and beautiful has been developed but the best thing I really like in Davao was the honest behaviour of the people specially the Taxi driver. Comparing to Cebu and Manila their taxi driver was really urge to cheat the meter for the fare charges but in the Davao they really not asking for any additional charge and even 50 cents they will geve it back to you. You can also call taxi by phone or txt to pick you up in your location without any additional charges. They are humble, honest and God fearing people.

How are you doing? Are there any ex-pats living in Davao. Do they have a club or meetings? Please let me know as I am thinking of retiring to Davao next year. Cheers

I am always told the Davao is the SAFE City on Mindanao.
But recently I have had several Filipino friends there get robbed of their mobile phones and other valuables on the Jeepney. In one instance, the robber even pulled a gun on my friends. They all said the Jeepney driver did nothing.

I think the Mayor of Davao should being doing more to assure that Locals and Visitor feel safe using the Jeepneys at late night. We all do not take the AirCon Taxi.
INGAT