Choosing the contractor is the decision that determines how the rest of the project goes. It is also usually made with the least information, on the basis of a number and a good first meeting.
A few questions asked before signing will tell you more than any amount of following up afterwards.
Check the licensing
Contractors undertaking construction work in the Philippines are required to be licensed by the Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board, which sits under the Construction Industry Authority of the Philippines. Ask for the licence and its category.
Separately, the drawings for your permit have to be signed and sealed by PRC-licensed professionals. Those are two different things, and a contractor should be able to explain which applies to what without getting defensive about the question.
Ask for the estimate itemised
A single figure cannot be compared against another contractor's single figure, because you cannot see whether the two of you included the same work.
Ask for the estimate broken down by element, with assumptions and exclusions written on the same page. What a quotation leaves out is usually where two apparently different prices turn out to be the same price.
Find out how changes get priced
Every project changes. What matters is whether you learn what a change costs before it happens or after.
Ask how variations are quoted and approved. The answer you want is that the underlying material and labour cost is visible, that you approve it in writing before anyone starts, and that a change which removes work produces a credit on the same basis.
Look at the payment schedule
Payment should follow completed work, against stages agreed in the contract before signing. A schedule that front-loads a large payment before anything is built is asking you to carry the contractor's cash flow.
Large cash payments with no written record are a problem for you rather than for them, and they tend to accompany other things you would rather know about.
Ask who is on site
Find out who supervises day to day, how often they are physically there, and how you will hear about progress. Weekly written reporting with photographs is not a courtesy, it is what stops a three week slip becoming a surprise a month later.
Most disputes on a build are not about bad workmanship. They are about an owner finding out too late.
What good looks like
- A licence they produce without being chased
- An itemised estimate with its exclusions on the page
- Written variations approved before the work, not after
- Payment against completed stages
- A named supervisor and reporting you do not have to ask for
A contractor who answers all five plainly is not necessarily the cheapest quotation in front of you. They are the one whose price is most likely to be the price you actually pay.