I just arrived. For the first month I'm renting a private room in a shared 3 br apartment in a gated community in Taguig for 8000 php ($160) including bills and internet so I'm even below my budget. I couldn't resist that offer. Anyway, the room is super small, a queen sized bed could literally fill the whole room. The living room and kitchen are normal like Western standards. The community feels safe.
Quality of food in Phils seems to be really diverse. Had my first Filipino meal, rice with some really strangely prepared pork, in a small restaurant at the airport for 150-200 php and the meat was pretty much like you described street food but in a restaurant. Half of it wasn't fully cooked or bad parts of the meat and I got nausea for a second.
When I arrived at the place the Filipina host offered me some other rice meal with pork and other meats and it was really good.