Hi Everybody, I am a rookie

Welcome to the Philippines, Robben.

     I think most people would agree there is an evolution of attitudes toward the Philippines that people who settle here go through.   
     First there is a "honeymoon" period.    In this you think everybody is good and kind
and ready to help you out of the goodness of your heart.
     After you have been here a few years, you will probably change and, indeed, become jaded toward the "smiles" as you begin to be more accurate as what Philippinos want from you and how they really look at you.
      In the tourist areas, traveling the tourist trail, the smiles and glad-handedness will be there much of the time because these are expensive hospitality areas, inured to foreigners and their needs, and to travel that road takes some money.  If you have a good-paying job here you might have enough money to continue in that environment.     That, in my humble opinion, is not the real Philippines but just a very small
part of it.    However, that is a "fun" road to travel.
     If you live among Philippino people like I do, whether because of your budget or the need to stay close to your wife's relatives,  you'll see an entirely different side to Philippinos.   Generally they are an honest and amiable lot of regular Asian denizens.    And you as a fellow-Asian probably have much more in common with them than a person from a Western culture.   So I think your experience will be different than a "white man's " experience.
       I live where you don't see other foreigners but rarely.  If you go out alone, by yourself, Philippinos will yell things are you, like "Hey Joe" or make remarks near you like "Mabaho" (which means you stink)   But if you have your wife or girlfriend with you, they will say nothing.   
        The Philippinos were an abused, and colonized people for 450 years and a Whiteman is considered one of the outsiders who did this to their country.   He is suspect because Philippino's think "Why is he here?" and "What does he want?"           
         Philippinos are taught in their schools that they were exploited, used and stolen from during their colonial experience  and that when the Spanish and Americans were in charge the Philippinos had very little power.    Now, the shoe is on the other foot, they have the power and foreigners are considered little more than "passing through" and a source of income.     Do they like us?    Hmm.   Good Question.