Hi,
I am Douwe Henny from the Netherlands and I am currently doing an internship in Manila. I have been here now for 3 months and I have been enjoying myself here incredibly and I will tell you why…
First of all my internship. I am working at Headway Holding, a consultancy company that has been set up about 3 years ago. Headway Holding exists of 3 different departments, Headway Dynamics, Headway Business Logistics and Headway Business Services. I am working within Headway Business Services (HBS). HBS helps companies from abroad establishing a subsidiary in the Philippines. That means we help our clients with program management. Within 8 months we are able to set up a subsidiary from scratch to its operations. That involves registration at government agencies, finding an office space and providing designs, contracting suppliers and managing the build out. In the mean time we provide our clients with estimated cost calculations of the build out, timelines and we monitor the whole process.
At the moment HBS exists of 5 employees, including me. That is what makes my internship so interesting. The company is very small and I have great responsibilities. In bigger companies I would never have these responsibilities that I have now. Because there is a lot of work that needs to be done, I work at least from 9am till 7pm. I sometimes had working days of 14 hours, which is crazy, but nice to experience. Anyway, HBS is growing and it is good to see it gaining more clients. Despite that we are still very small, we experience that there is a great potential for HBS as investing in the Philippines is very popular.
Furthermore next to the internship, the Philippines itself is an awesome country! It exists of 7000 islands and you are able to travel easily by boot or by plane for only a few bucks. The nice thing here in my company is that as long as you do your thing and show a lot of effort, they will not make a problem giving you some days off. In these three months I have been to Boracay for 4 days, to Negros for a week (islands in the middle of the Philippines, called the Visayas) and I have made a trip to Indonesia for 4 days. And I am actually planning to travel more. Things you can see and do here are amazing: waterfalls, volcanos, rice terraces, beautiful white beaches, diving and a lot more!
Manila itself is a city of 10 million people. The city is very big en polluted and cars are driving without applying any rules. But more important, the nightlife in Manila…it is great! There are a lot of bars, hip and trendy nightclubs, and there are always parties during the whole week. I am going out about 3 times a week which I can still combine with work. Also what I have noticed is that there are a lot of international people living and working here. So I have been able to build up a network of both Filipino and international friends.
My overall impression is that the culture, the nightlife, the internship and the traveling possibilities make my stay here in the Philippines great! 
Greets from Manila,
Douwe Henny
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