Info on location in Philippines and ease of long term residency visa

No worries, Jim. Admittedly, I've lived, studied and worked in Metro Manila (Pasig City) for the most part of my life and we occassionally visit family properties in Pto Princesa City - Palawan. At one point in time, my mum was also working for then Mayor Hagedorn as environmental consultant.

I've never really "lived" there although we kids visit several times in a year so we also call it our hometown. To my mind, Palawan is our version of Cairns and the Whitsundays here in Australia. I especially miss it as we have warm waters in Palawan as against the waters here in South Australia where its just too cold!

Have a nice weekend.

Puj

Sorry but I have to disagree with pujpujalte. If you google Typhoon paths for the Philippines there are several major typhoons that passed over Palawan in recent years.

Palawan is a very good choice... well I'm not objective as I live here since 2000! Regarding the typhoons, it's true that these past 3 years, some typhoons changed their route and tend to pass thru Northern Palawan, but usually the weather is fine even in rainy season. No fault line in Palawan. People are very nice if you want to live in a small village... no problem to find a remote place with no electricity as 2/3 of Palawan don't have access to the grid! I lived in a place with no electricity and no phone signal... It's more difficult in my opinion not to have means of communication than not to have regular electricity... Now I'm in Puerto suburb with solar panels and cellphone signal..
Regarding the visa, I stayed 6 years on a tourist visa renewing it every 2 months... you can apply for a retired visa. Have a look on the immigration website.
If you go to a remote place, you will need to learn fast some tagalog, english is not so widespread here when you leave the cities...
Hope you will find what you are looking for... good luck!

Thank you for that awinahe. Ids it still possible to renew every two months and if so how much is it and can it be done in Palawan? Also, all tourist visa applicants must show a return ticket to receive the visa. Is this true for all foreigners

I don't know the current price for a 2 months tourist visa as I don't renew it anymore with my permanent visa! Maybe you can find the price on their website... you will have to add 500 pesos for "express fee"!
I've never been asked for a return ticket when applying for the renewal of my tourist visa, and as I said I renewed it for 6 years every 2 months! The immigration people here in Puerto Princesa are very cool and helpful... never got any problem with them. I cannot say elsewhere in the Philippines if they will ask for a return ticket.
Regarding the language, I just gave my experience here in Palawan where I live... I do not know the remote places in the visayas... If I talk about the language it's because it was a problem for me the first 6 months as I had to deal with people in a remote place. I had a dispensary where I provided free health cares and free medicines for about 1000 patients coming from the mountains around so the language was very important! Out of my 1000 patients I had probably less than 50 people able to speak english but almost all of them were able to speak and understand tagalog.

This must have been the case of the people within "your" group as everywhere I have traveled the Filipinos love when a foreigner wants to learn there language. I have practiced with many Pilipinos they're very patient and almost excited when some one wants to take on the task of learning there language.

I encourage you not only to try to partake in learning the local language but divulging yourself into their culture it is incredibly humbling for them and they are some of the most kind and patient people.