Here's another interesting clip that Shuji Oku sent me through email pertaining to the opportunities that the aging Japanese population provide the Philippine's rich low-cost and highly-skilled medical care practitioners. With the opening of the Japanese market for our medical professionals, sooner or later, Filipinos will start trooping for Japan.

In a spacious room at the Rose Princes Home, a nursing facility on the outskirts of Manila, a caregiver feeds an 81-year-old partially paralyzed Japanese man.

Caregiver Jocelyn Capuno feeds a partially paralyzed Japanese man at Rose Princes Home, a nursing facility on the outskirts of Manila.

The man moved to the Philippines five years ago, after his wife died. Beside his bed are a Buddhist altar and mementos of his wife.

After becoming a resident at the facility, the man suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak. He has been taken care of by the nursing home staff ever since.

"It's worth doing because there are people requiring our help," the caregiver, Jocelyn Capuno, 36, says of her job.

Capuno, or Josie as she is called, took a job at the Rose Princess Home in 2004 after seeing a help-wanted ad. Her two sons were old enough to look after themselves, so she got some training and hired on.

"I was sick and tired of a life merely waiting for the return of my husband," she said with a mischievous smile.

The Philippine government has actively sought to attract elderly Japanese to the island nation as a retirement haven. It offers perpetual summer to retirees, while generating foreign exchange for the Philippines. The country's main selling point is a skilled work force, including caregivers, nurses and maids, available at relatively low cost.

The Rose Princes Home charges a lump-sum entrance fee to residents of about 2 million yen, one-tenth the cost of such fees in Japan. Monthly costs, including nursing care, are less than 100,000 yen. Since opening in 1995, more than 20 middle-aged and elderly Japanese have signed contracts with the facility.

Capuno grew up on Marinduque Island, south of Luzon, the third of 12 children. In such a huge family, looking after grandfather and grandmother comes with the territory. "I do not hate taking care of the aged," she said.

On their birthdays, Filipino staff celebrate with the residents and their families, but "there are Japanese who don't even telephone their family members here," Capuno said.

To help residents feel more at home, she has started learning some basic Japanese.

The Philippines is not the only country looking to tap into the lucrative Japanese elderly care market. Thailand and Malaysia are also building retirement facilities ahead of the massive wave of baby boomers in Japan who will begin retiring around 2007.

The Philippines Retirement Agency, which issues resident visas for foreign retirees, has created an office exclusively for Japanese.

So far, more than 1,000 Japanese have obtained visas, with about 100 new applications annually, double the number a decade earlier.

The Philippines saw major battles during World War II and Capuno grew up listening to stories from her grandfather, who was held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese. He was in the infamous Bataan Death March, in which thousands died on a forced march to a prison camp in the Philippines in 1942.

Capuno said her grandfather told her the prisoners weren't given water or food, and those who asked to rest were killed by soldiers. He told her never to go to Japan.

But, said Capuno, "The (era) is different now."

She makes about 15,000 yen a month as a caregiver, although she would like to go to Japan if she could earn more. "But I want to die in my country. I want to be with my family," she said.

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