Living in the City

Filipino workers who dream of one day saying Oui, mademoiselle, Oui mossieur, or those ima gining to drink that uppity and classy Bordeaux wines, or perhaps saliva ting on escargot as in French haute cuis ine--- time to make a landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport. And start brushing up on your French. Because Paris h ere we come. Whopee! How you say? French Ambassador to the Philippin es confirmed that France is easing up their immigration rules to accommodate more Filip ino IT and nursing professionals. It’s been quite a process but finally signing of the formal agreement will happen this year between count ry representatives. Fact is, Filipino professionals are known to be on e of the most outstanding workers worldwide. Be it an IT line of work, engineering, acc ountancy, customer service, the fine arts, health care I must say we are among the best. And what country wouldn’t want such type of workers? Fra nce is a country where the words, liberty, eq...

Marikina recently launched access to its online city ordinances to provide residents like myself delivery of basic government services right to my doorstep. Through the 'Virtual Ordinance Library', Marikina is really up to its promise of providing only the best in public governance. I have not really tried these services but I am confident that it works. I asked around. I have friends in Calumpang. Take note, since last year, Marikina , established City Hall a Wi-fi spot. This I have to try personally. One of these days I will bring our laptop and see if I could do some blogging there. Maybe I can teach some matured citizens how to blog. Why not? Additionally, the City also installed personal computers with Internet connections in barangay halls and health centers. I wonder exactly how many barangays were able to take advantage? See the full story here . And what's more, the City government, through its Management Information System (MIS) also launched the first Marikina ...

After I resigned from my corporate job, I was forced to take on the management of our family’s business. It was a business held by my Mom as a sort of a hobby. She wasn’t really much in a beauty kind of endeavor. She was really more of a restaurant operator. . . but after having been in the food business for more than 25 years and only after contracting glaucoma, she decided to go easy and instead venture to a beauty salon business. Which wasn’t too taxing. Having said that, let me state, she started the business good and she passed it on to me, better than ever. Reluctantly, oookeyyy? When I assumed management my first question was, are we going to maintain salon operations like it was just a hobby as usual, or were we going full blast and offer the works, so to speak? And what new equipment did we need? Did we need business loans ? Business was actually doing well, considered ‘hot’, even. The customers are all over because my Mom had great PR, public relations, you see. She als...

I think lack of understanding about personal finances is a large source of family problems now a days. Very few people are willing to openly talk about their finances or debts. This, I think lead to financial illiteracy, big time. I realize t his as I was making a research on the different styles of personal financial management. What stucked like a sore thumb to me, was a site called Debtors Anonymous (DA). DA works in much the same way as Alcoholics Anonymous, dealing with people who are essentially compulsive debtors and helping them get over their “addiction”. DA helps debt addicts recover from this malady called overspending. Compulsive spending - is it an illness? I need not talk about its psychological implications here, a professional counsellor would be required to do that. One thing sure though, it needs to be addressed. If you believe you know someone close who is in this difficult life situation, I am sure you will recognize the following lifestyle or pr...

What does it take to save enough money for something? After years of frugal living, you believe that you finally have what it takes to buy your much coveted home. You now have some savings. You are about to take the home acquisition plunge. The prospect of owning your first home is within reach. But what kind of a home would you want and where shall it be located? Decisions, decisions. Additionally, other significant items must be studied like affordability, is it of fair market value, what methods of acquisition are available, would it be cash or cash plus mortgage payments, what are the down payment options, interest rates, property taxes, etc. Is this what the Brits need to evaluate at this point? If you have saved enough and find yourself much like the rest of UK residents, who according to a study spent a “combined £1.9 billion” for luxury items instead of going into the housing market, then what gives? Unconfirmed apprehensions draw people away from their o...

My high school classmate was back recently from the United States . She invited me for chit chat the other week. We were so pleased to see each other, both saying that not much really changed except for some grey hair and additional pounds on her end and less on mine. She's been a U.S. resident for almost 10 years now. Between sip s of our favorite coffee drinks, she announced that she and the husband was planning to move back to the country. She's been displaying the symptoms of a hypertensive and would not want to exacerbate the condition. One reason she says, is her home mortgage. The possibility of a foreclosure seems inevitable. At this point, her initial happy aura slowly turned to gloom. Two to three years ago she was on a roll. She was heavy into investments, buying a new car even when the old ones were still usable, buying a new home, travels, signing up with 2-3 credit card companies. Only because her co-teachers in a California middle school were doing it. Sudde...

And how are the Americans doing about this thing called recycling ? Here are some of the possible answers: 1. 650 pounds of paper are used annually. If successfully recycled, 100 million tons of wood would b e saved every year. 2. 80% of what’s thrown away in American households are recyclable. 3. 2.5 MILLION plastic bottles are used every hour and not recycled. 4. enormous numbers of glass bottles and jars are thrown every day enough to fill a building like Sears Towers in Chicago . Think - all these jars are recyclable. 5. over 1,000,000 sea creatures are lost yearly due to plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean. Think Great Pacific Garbage Patch . It's twice the size of Texas and is floating somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii . It's also 80 percent plastic, and weighs 3.5 million tons. Whoa! 6. recycling one ton or about 2,000 pounds of paper can save 17 trees, 2 barrels of oil which is enough to run the average car for 1,26...