As you know from my previous posts that my wife is a dual citizen of the Philippines/US. Recently we received in the mail a ballot for the upcoming Presidential election. My wife was pleased that she could get the chance to vote because she didn’t expect it. I’m not sure if she voted prior to moving to the states but once again she is glad to be included in the voting process.

She pretty much knew who she wanted to vote for because of our recent trip to the Philippines where you couldn’t avoid the billboards, posters, and TV commercials for all the leading candidates. Even the kids got into it by shouting a certain candidate’s name all the time, probably taught to them by their parents.

I think since we finally got our house built over there and have lived in it for a little while she is getting more comfortable with getting involved in Filipino politics and current events. I’m sure since I’m a political junkie and news junkie I have helped her with that.

If you are a dual citizen or filipino citizen living in the states, did you get an absentee ballot in the mail? If not ,maybe you have moved and didn’t inform the Embassy of your current address. You may want to do that so you can get important information and papers such as the ballot.

Was just reading the headline article of Yahoo sports and it was concerning Manny Pacquiao and his run for Congress of the Philippines. The article talks about Pacman’s life before boxing and some of his earlier fights and what he is doing right now which is campaigning in the Philippines. There are some good quotes from him in this article including one where he talks about why he would be qualified for a political office. 

“I could just sit back and relax and not have anything to do with politics. I could just travel around and enjoy my life with my family,” Pacquiao told the crowd in San Miguel, a remote corn-farming village in Sarangani province in the southern Philippines. “But I came from a very poor family, and I cannot turn my back on the poor.”

This article is very well written and has some interesting points such as in the above quote where he says he could just sit back and relax and travel with his family. I might be mistaken but as a world class athlete aren’t you constantly in training so you can’t lose your edge. Does this mean he is retiring? I think Mayweather Jr would like that so he wouldn’t have any competition for the title.

Without revealing too much of what is in the article I want to leave you with a link so you can read the entire story. Just click on the following link: Boxer Pacquiao runs for office in Philippines

Recently while staying at our home in Macaleeng Anda in the province of Pangasinan we were honored to be invited by Governor Espino of Pangasinan  to visit for a day at the Provincial Capital of Lingayen. Lingayen was one of the great historical points during World War II and the birth place of President Fidel V. Ramos. And I learned that Lingayen is also considered as the “most romantic place in the Philippines”.

Our first stop was at the Sison Auditorium which was under construction at that time. The Sison Auditorium formerly known as the “Grand Provincial Auditorium” was built in 1927. It was later renamed in honor of the late Pangasinan Governor Teofilo Sison, the first Pangasinense to become secretary of National Defense. It is very beautiful there and I loved the chandelier that was imported from Italy.

I’ve included a video I took while we were inside below:

Next we visited the capital building. We got to visit many of the offices and meet some of the people working inside. Everyone was so nice and welcomed us and they represented the Philippines and Lingayen very well. I’ve included another short video of our time on the outside of the capital building due to a problem with my video inside. We also had lunch at the Capital Resort Hotel and ate very well while being entertained by our tour guide. She was a very good tour guide as well as singer. Sorry forgot her name but if someone knows her I would like to mention her on this site and in the video.

On the way back home we stopped in Manaoag and visited a beautiful church and did a little shopping. We got some very good deals. We took one more side trip to a resort in Bolinao which I plan on visiting the next time we are in Pangasinan. I’m sure to have more pictures of it to share with you all. In the next couple of days I’ll be setting up a photo sharing album of our day trip to Lingayen and will include the link to it. Until next time Thanks for reading my blog!

While checking my daily read of a very good blog from John Chow I discovered an article about Applegirl002. What this girl does is uses iphones to make music and then she sings to the popular tunes she creates. Just a little bit of interesting video that may inspire some of the karaoke fans out there to take this and run. Once again thanks to John Chow and his online money making blog for turning me on to Applegirl002 and her interesting videos. Watch and enjoy as she performs Poker Face by Lady Gaga.

Let me start this post off by saying I am not an expert on Philippines internet so if you have any corrections or suggestions I am willing to listen. A couple of years ago when I visited the Philippines I noticed a change in internet in the Philippines. Many people were moving away from the internet cafes and getting more personal computers in their homes and businesses. At that time I wasn’t fully involved with an internet business as I am now so I had little to judge about the chances of working a business on the internet in that country. I was more concerned with being able to check my email daily and I accomplished that by going to the internet cafe.

These days I am self employed and work online at least 8 hours a day so it was important that the last trip provided me with the knowledge I needed to set up my operations there. I did as much research as I could before I went, soI had a little idea on what to expect by talking with my niece who lives next store to me in Laguna. She assured me that she had wireless service and I could connect on to her network from my home. After I arrived in January it took me a couple  days or so to connect because of nothing more than not having the right password for her router. Before I figured the correct password I decided to purchase my own connection so I wouldn’t lose too much business time.

Smart Communications had a booth in the local mall and I inquired about their services and options and found I had three options. Option 1 Pre-Paid Wireless where I could purchase a flash drive type device for P1,000 ($20 US). This device is similar to the go anywhere internet many wireless companies offer. It used 3G technology and could be used anywhere that a signal could be reached. You had to prepay by buying a load much like the cell phones in the Philippines. You get about one hour for P20 with automatically a P300 credit. After that you can buy time just like on the cell phones but don’t let it run out of time completely or you will have to pay the thousand pesos again. This was the option I chose simply for the reason that the other two involved a wait for approval and a contract for a year. Since I wasn’t going to be there for a year straight it seemed the best. One of the other options was unlimited minutes and I think it cost P1,000 per month with a contract involved.

The speed of the prepaid wireless left something to be desired as I think the maximum I achived was 54Mbps compared to 130Mbps -140Mbps I curently am running  here in the states. But all in all not too bad unless you wanted to watch a video or look at a picture. I took this internet device as far back as you can go in the Philippines while staying in Pangasinan and it was patchy at best, but so wasn’t cell phone service.

When I move to the Philippines for good I will have a cable wireless connection like I have here. I connected to my neighbors wireless when possible and found that connection to be very close to the speed I experience in the U.S. Feel free to comment on your experiences with your Philippines internet connection because as I’ve stated I am not an expert and I really only dealt with one company.