Credit Cards for OFWs
For OFWs looking for credit cards, I’ve found only two banks in the Philippines which are offering credit cards for OFWs — HSBC and BDO.
Based on our personal experience, BPI also offers credit cards to OFWs, but you wait for the bank to offer you one. BPI offers a credit card to an OFW who has maintained a BPI time deposit account for a couple of years. BPI also has investment accounts that offer a credit card account as incentive.
BDO
BDO issues secured credit cards for OFWs, meaning one must have a savings or checking account with BDO.
The required documents are:
- Valid IDs
- Employment contract or certificate of employment
-
Remittance receipts for the last 6 months or payslips for the last 3 months
The other requirements are:
- Minimum monthly income of 10,000 pesos
- At least 21 years old, not older than 65
- Must have a BDO checking or savings account or time deposit of at least 15,000 pesos or equivalent amount in dollars
- Must have 2 years continuous job contract
- Beneficiary or card administrator must be residing or working within 30 kms of a BDO branch
- Must have a home landline phone
You can call the following numbers for further inquiries:
Call 631-8000
(within Metro Manila)
1-800-10-6318000
(Libreng Tawag Outside Metro Manila)
(IAC)+800+6318000
(Libreng Tawag Outside of the Philippines)
Email: callcenter@bdo.com.ph
HSBC
For OFWs, the requirements are:
- Employment contract or certificate of employment
- Working visa or work permit or OFW card or certificate issued by POEA
- Proof of home address, such as the latest billing statement under the name of the applicant, with the address of the applicant.
- A valid ID, such as passport, driver’s license, PRC ID or SSS photocard
- TIN number
- SSS or GSIS number
- Proof of Income
- could be latest ITR or
- employer’s certificate of compensation or
- payslips for the last 3 months
The other requirements are:
- At least 21 years old, not older than 65
- Philippine resident
- Have a residential landline phone
- Must be living or working in Metro Manila, Bacolod, Baguio City, Batangas, Bulacan, Butuan, Cabanatuan City, Cagayan de Oro, Calasiao Pangasinan, Cavite, Cebu, Cotabato, Dagupan City, Davao City, Digos Davao del Sur, Dipolog, Dumaguete City, General Santos, Kalibo, Iloilo, Laguna, Laoag City, Legaspi, Lucena City, Naga, Olongapo City, Ormoc City, Pampanga, Panabo & Tagum Davao del Norte, Puerto Princesa, Subic, Rizal, Roxas, Tacloban, Tagbilaran City, Tarlac City, Tuguegarao, Urdaneta Pangasinan, Zamboanga City.
- Have at least a gross annual income of 150,000 pesos for the classic cards and at least 480,000 pesos for the gold cards
Related Articles, posted April 20, 2011:
Secured BPI Credit Cards for OFWs
BPI Credit Card Payment for College Tuition Fees
Email Address of Danvil Plans
After reading more comments about Danvil Plans not answering
emails, I tried to send my own inquiries to Danvil Plans at mypolicy@danvil.com.ph last Tuesday April 21.
I asked why Danvil Plans has not been answering emails when email is the most affordable way to contact them, especially for Danvil Plans planholders working hard abroad.
To my pleasant surprise, the next day Eleazer L. Francisco, Danvil Plans customer service supervisor, replied and here is part of the response:
Thank you for your e-mail of 21 April 2009.
Our record shows that your plan under policy number FPN401756 is already fully paid.
Thank you for deliberating your concern with us, rest assured that we are doing our best to serve our policy holders with their concerns. Blogs are open to all to post their opinions, and they are not filtered out even if it is true or not.
Please feel free to e-mail us again should you have anymore concerns.
Best regards,
Eleazer L. Francisco
Customer Service Supervisor
Customer Relation Group
Danvil Plans, Inc.
(632) 755-1521
I emailed back Mr. Francisco and asked him about Ms. Aurora Dino, the Danvil Plans executive I was communicating with last year about my own preneed plan. He said Ms. Dino is no longer with Danvil Plans.
So there, try sending your inquiries to Danvil Plans at
mypolicy@danvil.com.ph, and then kindly write about them here.
Prudentialife Plans — License to Sell Pre-need Plans Suspended
SEC Chairperson Fe Barin reported that SEC suspended the license of Prudentialife to sell new pre-need plans because its capital buildup plan did not pass the requirements of the SEC.
Prudentialife President Jose Alberto Alba has responded to the SEC’s suspension of its license to sell new pre-need plans by saying that the firm will continue to operate as a servicing firm for its preneed plans.
He said the firm will continue to pay benefits to planholders.
He also said Prudentialife Market Resource Corp. will continue to sell health plans, mutual funds and other insurance products and will continue to pursue new opportunities beyond the preneed industry.
I’m just bothered by the last statement in the article, saying that only 2 preneed firms submitted their capital build-up plans before the deadline of April 15 — Prudentialife and Cocoplans. Cocoplans’ proposal was approved while Prudentialife’s plan was not.
What about the other preneed firms? What are their capital build-up plans?
In a related article, SEC Chairperson Fe Barin was quoted as saying that planholders affected by the suspension of Prudentialife’s license to sell pre-need plans should go to the SEC for advice.
Source/Reference: Hannah L. Torregoza, author
SEC revokes license to sell of Prudential Life Plans, firm airs side
Manila Bulletin mb.com.ph
Update on the Lilian de Vera Case
Update on From Lilian de Vera (victim of the Paranaque shooting incident)
According to Nikko Dizon in the April 4, 2009 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer:
- All 17 members of the Highway Patrol Group involved in the so-called Paranaque shooting last December 5 attended the Commission on Human Rights’ hearing on April 3.
- All didn’t testify; they invoked their right to remain silent.
- Two witnesses affirmed the testimony of one witness in the January hearing that only police operatives were in the area when the shooting happened.
- These two witnesses also disputed the claim that robbers in a Revo van shot the De Veras.
- One witness said he saw men wearing vests with the Regional Special Action Force letters.
- Another witness testified he heard the police operatives saying they had killed the driver of the vehicle, who later turned out to be Lilian’s husband Alfonso
Cops in shootout invoke right to stay silent
Nikko Dizon
Philippine Daily Inquirer
OFW Parents, Know Your Daughter More Through MyLot
One of many things missed by OFW parents is everyday interaction with their children, including what their children are thinking about various things.
Well, yes, even non-OFW parents have difficulties in getting into the inner thoughts and feelings of their children.
One way for OFW and non-OFW parents to know more their children, especially teenagers is to encourage them to join the online site MyLot.
MyLot is free to join. Your daughter or son must be at least 16 years old. If your child has been using Friendster, then this is a very easy site for your child to explore.
Simply, MyLot is an easy-to-use question and answer site. Your child can post a question, or she or he can answer questions. Don’t worry about pornography or online violence; it is prohibited by MyLot.
I just recently discovered this “knowing more our children” as one of the benefits of MyLot when my teenager daughter joined the site. At first, she just joined because she heard she can earn money from it. Later, she found out she can also improve her English writing skills on the site.
Your children can develop confidence writing on MyLot because many of the young people and adults writing are non-native English speakers. I’ve observed that many of our children can write better than many of those writing on the site.
This early, my daughter has attracted a lot of online friends because of her writing.
But the benefit to us, parents, is knowing their inner thoughts. You don’t have to know you daughter’s password to be able to read her thoughts, as MyLot is open to everyone. In my case, I discovered feelings and assumptions that I never thought my daughter has, such as her dream of having her own room and her fears about our family losing our house to foreclosure, just like what happened to her close friend.
Your child can also earn income as she posts and answers questions. It is not much, but if she has lots of interest in it, she can reach the $10 minimum payout faster. She can be paid through Paypal, but if she’s younger than 18, she can use your Paypal. There’s an article here about Paypal, if you like to know more about Paypal.
Lastly, as you introduce MyLot to your children, advise them not to reveal personal information, such as home address and telephone number, and not to join anything that asks for payment. Since the Internet is becoming a big part of our lives, you might as well capitalize on it or make them ready for it.
You can visit MyLot now and explore.
Related Articles:
OFW Jobs and Children: A Suicide Stirs a Neighborhood
OFW Parents Take Advantage of Free Internet Banking to Manage Your Childrens Weekly
Some of the Best Freeware, Free Advice You Can Use for Your Website
1. Wordweb
You need a combined thesaurus and dictionary to help you with your writing some of the time. And of course, you want an easy-to-use, complete, current and accessible one. WordWeb is it. You will be glad you discovered it. The free version is as good as any dictionary on the Internet. You can download it and then put a shortcut on your desktop. For freelance writers like me, this is an amazing gift.
2. Blogger
Not only you can use Blogger.com to host your sites, you can also use it to easily compose your posts or articles for other sites. For example, you’re writing for Squidoo which doesn’t have an automatic html feature, or you’re composing something for your Wordpress sidebar, and you need to put links or you need to put some words in colors or in better fonts, you just go to the Create New Post of your blogger.com account, click Compose and then create your posts or short notes. After you finish, click Edit Html, and then you have it, your short notes in Html format. Of course, Wordpress has a more sophisticated writing interface, but I’ve found that blogger.com loads and responds very fast for short posts and notes for my Wordpress sidebars.
3. Fotoflexer
This is one of the easiest free online editing photo editors I’ve found. You don’t even have to register before using it. Just upload your photo from your PC, or get it from other online photo hosts such as picasaweb, and then you can start editing your photo. Fotoflexer is good for non-Photoshop experts like me because it has an Undo feature that you can click many times. It also has Apply and Cancel buttons. When you try the tools such as Effects and Beautify, you can try clicking all options and then click Cancel if you don’t like the result.
4. Webmasterlabor
If you’re a freelance writer, you would like to make sure that your article is not exactly the same as any other article on the Internet. Surely, you wouldn’t like anyone to think of even just a taint of plagiarism when they read your article. Even if you know you wrote it on your own, it pays to check it. Just paste your article on the box, click Compare with Google, copy the number shown, click Compare and then wait for a few minutes until a new page appears. Click New and then you’d see if some of your phrases have duplicates on the internet. Of course, if you have the paid Copyscape service, you don’t need this. There are other tests, which I would describe in another article.
As of May 2009, this site has stopped its plagiarism checking service. As a substitute, I recommend PlagiarismDetect.com This needs registration and accomplishment of a short usage survey.
5. Create your Own Widget-Ready Footer in Wordpress
help-developer.com/index.php/2008/07/creating-a-widget-ready-footer-in-wordpress
This article is specially mentioned, although there are lots of helps across the internet, because it was really helpful to me. It was just Copy and Paste, and some little tweaks in the CSS after. If you’re using a Wordpress theme that has no footer “sidebar”, and you like to have one, here’s a set of instructions very easy to follow. Just copy and paste. There is just one instruction there that you need to change– the codes that you need to paste on your footer.php. Just download the files the author is asking you to download. Open the footer.php in Word and then copy the subfooter block. This is the one you need to copy and paste on your footer.php. Perhaps the author just wants us to think a little and not just copy and paste and then sleep.
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