Philippine green passport validity and expiration date
January 30, 2009
Earlier this week, we wrote about getting the new, maroon-colored machine readable passports (MRP) because the old green passports will soon become unusable.
There are a lot of rumors going on about the validity date of the current green passports (including the email currently circulating saying by January 2010, they cannot anymore be used) but unfortunately, we have not heard any official word yet from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
I asked my friend working at the DFA to confirm, once and for all, what the actual rule is. I also called the DFA office in Manila and this is what we found out:
Job losses in the Philippines
January 29, 2009
More than 2.6 million jobs in the US disappeared in 2008 and around 11 million Americans are now unemployed, according to this news report. The grim scenario is not yet over as companies last week announced more than 126,000 job cuts worldwide in the coming months.
The Philippines is not also spared from the effects of this economic crisis. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported that since October 2008, a total of 23,485 Filipinos here and abroad have lost their jobs as a direct result of the global economic crisis.
126,000 more workers worldwide to lose jobs
January 29, 2009
More than 126,000 workers worldwide are expected to go unemployed in the next few months, based on several company announcements made last week alone.
We compiled news reports published on Yahoo News, Inquirer.net and Bloomberg from January 21 to 28 and summarized below the information about the jobs cuts companies are planning to implement as a result of the economic recession.
In just that one-week period, expected job layoffs, according to company announcements, totaled 126,000. That is a really scary figure but what’s more scary is the fact that these announcements were made in just the first month of the year. We’re almost certain more companies will announce layoffs in the coming months.
Brace yourselves.
List of biggest bankrupt companies in 2008
January 26, 2009
Aside from the words “subprime,” “financial recession,” and “job layoffs,” “bankruptcy” seems to be a popular, infamous word these days. Bankruptcy is simply the inability of an individual or company to pay its creditors. At present we hear news reports almost everyday about a certain company filing for bankruptcy.
What were the major bankruptcies in 2008? The list below identifies companies with the biggest assets involved in a bankruptcy filing last year.
Getting Philippine ePassport or Machine Readable Passports (MRP)
January 25, 2009
Maroon is the new green. For Philippine passports, that is.
The new maroon-colored passport is machine-readable, in compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s requirement. Green passports, however, will still be valid until their validity date according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), but there might be a catch.
Read it here: Green passports OK until validity date but…
Performance of Philippine Mutual Funds in 2008
January 16, 2009
What a turbulent year it has been.
The year 2008 ended with most mutual funds experiencing severe declines in value, wiping out gains they earned in 2007. Even supposedly low-risk investments such as bond or money market funds suffered from the economic crunch that hit global markets last year.
Summarized below is the full-year performance of Philippine mutual funds, side by side with their return during the preceding year and ranked based on their performance.
Asia Century a scam?
January 13, 2009
Last year we wrote about Asia Century, a Philippine-based “make money online” program similar to Google Adsense and Commission Junction. As an affiliate of Asia Century, a publisher gets to earn whenever a click, lead, or sale was generated through the site.
But as shared by Paul of the blog www.paulandrewpisig.com, getting paid by Asia Century is far from this.
Paul emailed us about Asia Century and how they are allegedly not paying him the earnings he had already earned. An excerpt of his letter goes:
Don’t fall for this Western Union scam
January 12, 2009
Suppose you receive an email from an unknown sender telling you an outrageously huge amount of cash is waiting to be picked up by you in Western Union, what do you do?
a. Pray and thank God for this windfall gain
b. Rush to a Western Union branch to pick up your money
c. Delete the email
If you answered letter c, congratulations! You won’t be victimized by these Western Union scammers.
Here’s a copy of the email I received yesterday about this Western Union scam, a variation of the infamous 419 or Nigerian scam.
PDIC updates on Rural Bank of Paranaque (RBoP)
January 8, 2009
PMT Forum member tacamonchi recently shared some useful updates about the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (PDIC) takeover of the Rural Bank of Paranaque (Banco Paranaque) in the thread Legacy Financial Group’s rural banks.
Early this week, he visited RBoP’s Ortigas branch and was able to talk to a Ms. Hermie from the PDIC who graciously answered all his questions. Here are what he have gathered from the conversation.
New Adsense format: Image Gallery ads
January 5, 2009
Update! Today, January 10, I saw a variation of this new Image Gallery ad format.
Instead of thumbnail images and left and right arrow buttons, the ad contains a prettier version of the left and right scrollbars and a Slideshow button that, well, plays a slideshow of the images being advertised.
Here’s a Youtube video of this new Adsense ad format in action.
