PhilFAQS

I received feedback from some readers that indicated these posts on making a living in the Philippines are not as popular as my simple, first-person accounts of just plain daily life here in Marilao, Bulacan, Philippines.

So I certainly promise to focus in that direction in the coming year, but more than 70% of my readers come here from searches … and to sum up all the various searches in just one sentence, it would probably be ‘how to make a living in the Philippines?’.

Many are even more pointed in this direction, centering around ‘how to find a  job in the Philippines?’.

Since I do know quite a bit about living in the Philippines, and since I make a nontrivial income while living here in the Philippines, and since I know quite a bit about foreigners working in the Philippines, I really feel I need to answer these queries from time to time.

Also, since it’s very close to Christmas, I thought I would give every reader a free gift.  So here it is, short and sweet.

How to Find a Job in the Philippines: My answer to this is simple.  Don’t do it.  There are two general types of jobs here …. the normal, everyday type that are marketed to Filipino job candidates.  You don’t want to chaw3e these for several reasons:

• Pay is very low by Western standards
• Benefits are virtually non-existent.  Even in the most advanced industries like those centers around IT, companies typically hire through temp agencies and subcontractors just to make sure the benefits aren’t there.
• To get a work visa, and in some cases even for those who hold a permanent residency visa, you must show that a Filipino can not fill the job.  This is not only challenging in most cases but totally unfair … how many times do you hear a fellow American bitch about ‘foreigners’ coming to the US and ‘stealing’ jobs.  Turning the tables is hardly a decent solution.
• In the year 2009, a job is a bad investment, in any country.  You might want to read this essay on why you should never have a job. Today and tomorrow things are going to be tighter and tighter and more than ever a job is a bad investment of your time.  If you’re young you likely think you are going to live forever, but you aren’t.  You’re running out of time.
• Last but certainly not least.  In general across the entire would of industry and commerce there is one pretty consistent constant … whatever your salary you are making three times your salary for your employer.  Yes, that’s right, on average you make your boss three times whatever he thinks you are worth.  So are you so untalented that you should work for one third of your value?  I don’t think so

So if you aren’t going to find a job, then what’s my solution?  I’m sure we both like to eat.  The answer there is relatively simple … set up your own source of income.  Start your own business off line, or, the way I recommend most emphatically, set yourself up in one or more online income activities.  It’s simple (if you keep it simple), you can get started for little or no investment and it is the growth industry of the next decade.  It’s also highly portable … you can start wherever you live now, you can move your income with you to the Philippines, or you can travel and still maintain an income.  I’ve highlighted many ideas here in PhilFAQS before and I will in the future.  But I promised you a free gift, here it is:

Learn to effectively use the Internet.  And read what you find on line.  I’ve been writing about the Philippines, researching issues about living in the Philippines and advising, conversing with an even occasionally arguing with like-minded folks for more than 9 years now.  Know the single most common missing ingredient I’ve noted between those who know and do and those who sit in the sidelines asking plaintively ‘What about me’?”.

The ones who don’t get anywhere are the ones who don’t effectively use search, don’t search internally on sites they frequent, don’t keep bookmarks and notes for future reference, and don’t read the information people have already written.

It isn’t education, it isn’t having money in the bank, it isn’t some factor of luck, and (at least in my case), it surely isn’t being born smart … it’s a simple skill, search, read, and take notes.  If you want to move here to the Philippines, make your own plan and follow it.  If you want a job here … or back there in the US … search, read, take notes and then take action.  If you want to start your own business, on line or off, in any country, search, read, take notes, make a plan and take action.  Free Tools:

• Search: www.google,com
• Get news Every Day: www.google.com/reader
• Put all your Email in One Place: www.gmail.com
• Keep Notes: http://www.google.com/notebook
• Store Bookmarks: del.icio.us

Hope no one feels I have been to harsh here, I frequently get those kind of comments, but simple and direct is who I am.  Remember a famous saying of Henry Ford:  “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

I think you can.  Do you?

It’s about time for an update on this ongoing series, don’t you think?  I’ve been having a great discussion on the subject of solar and commercial electric service over on Randy’s excellent blog, Journey to Samal.  I’m certainly going to be writing more on the subject, but I thought that today I might cover something that will help practical people both here in the Philippines or back there at home, trying to get yourself financially ready to move to the Philippines.

And, oh by the way, help save the planet (I know, I know not very popular in certain political circles, but hey, just because Al Gore might have made the movie does not make the facts go away).

I’m talking, of course, about what you drive.  here in the Philippines it’s completely practical in most areas to live for years without even owning a car.  There’s public transportation of some sort on virtually every street corner.  But I’m well aware that back in the USA it’s often impossible to live without a car.  And caring for and "feeding" a car is a big part of many a family’s budget.  The more you have to spend now, the longer it will take you to be ready to move to the Philippines and enjoy life, as I do, so that’s my Philippine connection for this article.

Tip One: Don’t drive so many vehicles.  Sounds simple, but I already hear all the naysayers out there coming up with the ‘"You don’t understand" comments.  Well, I do.  I’ve owned many cars and trucks, often more than one at a time.  I’ve also come to realize just how wasteful it is.  When my dear wife Mita and I first went to the US I had one vehicle, a Ford Ranger.  Mita got a job right away so, of course, we went out and bought her a car to get back and forth to work.  Everyone needs one for that, don’t they?  Turns out that the job and Mita’s’ love for driving didn’t exactly match up.  Guess what.  I changed my schedule by half an hour at work and became her driver for the rest of her employment.  One vehicle sat in the garage for months until she decided to work elsewhere.  We really needed that second vehicle.  Like a hole in the head, actually.  The majority of multi-vehicle households (especially if there are teenagers involved do not need a second (or third or fourth) vehicle either.  They just think they do.  What do you think?

Tip Two: Downsize what you’re driving.  Oh yes you can, you just say you can’t because sticking to the status quo is easier than making the tough choices.  Just a week or so ago I watched a great case study from Canada (all the smart energy shows here on cable come from Canada or Australia … wonder why that is?)  A fellow in eastern Canada earned his living as a carpenter.  he was driving what every carpenter/contractor needs, a huge Dodge Ram pick-up.  What was in the truck?  Hundreds of pounds of tools, some of which he used on any given day.  The truck was on lease and thus he was "stuck" with it, so might as well just bite the bullet and make the best of it.  His gasoline bills?  nearly $1200 a month!

So what did he do?  Bought one of these. (my current next car candidate by the way).  Even with parking the truck and continuing the lease payments and making the payments on the Prius he was several hundred dollars a month ahead of the game (not to mention that the truck payments will go away at the end of the lease when the dealer has to take the dinosaur back).

And the tools and all the reasons he had to have truck (manly carpenter dude, after all)?  Turns out that after cleaning the hundreds of pounds of tools (a big gas waste all on their own) out of the Dodge he was able to repackage and fit everything he needed on a daily basis into the Prius with room to spare to drop off kids at school on his way to the job site every morning.  The ‘dropping off kids’ was the main reason his wife "needed" another car as well.  How did the kids get home?  One of the other moms traded rides for her kids to school in the morning in return for bringing all the kids back from school in the afternoon … wow, actually sharing a car between families … how un-American is that? (oh. right, it’s some weird Canadians, after all).

Enough for today’s thoughts.  Let me hear your thoughts?  If you’d like, I could tell you how to turn any vehicle into 80% or so of a Prius using nothing more than a device you already have in your purse or pants pocket?

I wanted to start out today with an advertiser shout out for a couple of important sponsors here at www.philfaqs.com.  I promote various products for two different reasons … occasionally they make me a little money (Donald Trump is in no immediate danger from me).  More importantly, they offer services and products that I think will be of direct use to my readers.  Obviously I don’t/can’t know everyone who visits but since I have made the move to the Philippines and have been active in the ‘Live in the Philippines "space" for more than 8 years now, I feel I do know a few of the things people are interested in.  I welcome comments, pro and con about the sponsorship here.

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Ok, speaking of paying bills, this is supposed to be about energy.  If you recall back in the last installment we talked about refrigeration … the single largest non-discretionary cost you are going to find in most electric bills (there’s a convenient table of contents up there at the start of this article in case you missed previous installments).  The second most costly part of your electric bill that is hardly optional is lighting.  yes you can use candles or oil lamps but they are dirty and inefficient, let’s face it, here in the Philippines the night is almost always 12 hours long and very few of us want to go to bed at 6 pm and stay there until 6 am .. so need lights.

Conventional (incandescent) bulbs are out.  When we moved into our rental house here in Marilao almost every bulb was incandescent … now, not a single one is.  We have changed everything over to cold fluorescents (CFL) and it’s no coincidence that month for month every electric bill is less than the corresponding month for the previous tear.  But long term, I don’t think CFL’s are the way to go.  Even though they go by the name ‘cold’ they aren’t and I don’t want to introduce even more heat.  Also, commercial grade CFL’s use mercury in their process and properly disposing of them after they finally do burn out is going to be a hassle, if done properly.  So where am I going to make my next investment?

LEDs.  Light emitting diode lamps.  LEDS are mainly composed of silicon and some trace ‘doping’ elements.  They don’t contain a reservoir of poisonous mercury.  They produce less heat.  They have no fragile tube to worry about getting broken.  And their life is already very long and getting longer everyday.

LED technology itself is quiet old in electronic terms.  LEDs were one of the first common commercial products in the semiconductor world.  However until quite recently, no one had developed a reliable and efficient white LED.  Reds, greens, other colors , easy an cheap, but no white.

Today there are all sizes and shapes of white LEDs coming on the market.  I’m actively looking at the market here in the Philippines and I’ll report, in detail, on sources as they come online.  In the meantime, here’s a couple sites where you can get an idea of the scope of the market already available and learn a little more about LED lamps and LED light bulbs replacements, the true wave of the future … or so I opine.

http://www.ledlightbulb.net

http://www.ledlightbulb.net/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4_6&sort=20a&page=2

I haven living with ADD (or ADHD) isn’t as easy as some people think … nor is living with an Internet Service Provider who thinks that providing little or no service 12 or 14 hours a day is acceptable.  (I’d be totally up to speed if I get up at three am every day, the service really "sings" about 0400 … but then around 8 am or so it switches to Japanese and then says, "Sayonara".  But hey, that’s  life in the Philippines and right now life is indeed good.

This idea of exploring energy costs and savings could not have come at a better time …right after the holidays we are probably starting on a house building project and since I will be the major decision-maker/risk taker, I am going to make an effort to do it right this time around.

Now there are a lot of alternative sources for electricity but I am not going to bore you with them.  Also, there is only one that I am familiar with and which is easily useable anywhere in the Philippines, and that is solar.  There are some places in the Philippines you might be able to use wind generation and some locations that geothermal would be practical (the Philippines is a world-leader in commercial geothermal energy production) but in general the average family is going to want to look at solar to solve most of their needs,

Let me take al closer look at a very interesting question that Ellen posed a few weeks back.  She wondered how a house that would need 4 or 5,000 Watts of power could be set up on solar, in practical terms.  The answer, in today’s world is, unless you are a very rich person, it can’t.  The solar collectors (Photovoltaic or PV) panels and the amount of batteries needed to provide that much power during the night would easily run $30 or $40,000 USD.  Of course, if you want to live somewhere where there is no commercial power then this might be an alternative.  But I think it’s unconscionable to build a house that consumes that much, no matter what’s in your bank account.

I have seen lots of people giving advice for things like portable generators and advising people to by 5 or 8 or even 10 kilowatt units.  I think the ‘thumbnail’ engineering involved in these thoughts revolves around looking at facts such as the average American house having what’s typically called "100 Amp service" (which, at 110 volts would be approximately 10 kilowatts).  But the cheapest, "bestest", fastest way to save money doesn’t involve solar cells at all … it involves adjusting you needs to fit a decent, but non-US life style.

First of all the single highest consumer of power in your US house today, on an every day of the year basis is your refrigerator.  This is also the appliance you are least likely to be able to do without.  So how would you handle refrigeration for your Philippine home if commercial power is a big concern price-wise … or if you want to live where the "grid" doesn’t yet exist?  Well there are three quick answers which come to mind and here are just a couple examples to set your mind thinking out of the US "it can’t be done" mind set.

• Solar Powered refrigerator:  You likely though NASA simply burned off money on space explorations, didn’t you?  I was looking for what was available in conventional solar ref systems which would normally require a ‘box’, a solar panel and batteries to provide the ‘cool’ when the sun wasn’t there.  But here’s one that is totally solar powered, no batteries required (up to 7 sunless days (try finding that in the Philippines)) and is already commercially available.  A quick price check showed them in the $1300 USD range, which, if you’ve bought any conventional "power sponge" refrigerators lately is not all that far out of line.
• RV-Marine style 3-way refrigerators:  This was my first thought before I found out how many fully solar refs were available today.  The link goes to just one sample of hundreds of different manufacturers/models.  The 3-way refers to using standard household "grid" power, 12 volts from a battery (recharged by a solar panel array) or LP (stove) gas.  I lived with an older, less efficient box like this for several camping summers in Colorado … the box ran almost exclusively on my trailer’s propane tank (usually the ref was on from memorial Day until after Labor Day), and with refrigerator, stove and water heater in use for several weeks total out of the summer I never used more than one 30 pound Propane tank. 
• Gas and Propane Refrigerators:  This will likely be the least familiar category to most of my American readers, but totally familiar to those who hail from countries like Australia where huge sections of the landscape have no grid and are unlikely to ever have one … the Outback in other words.  Also known as ammonia absorption machines, these boxes have been keeping the milk fresh and the beer cold on remote cattle stations for more than a hundred years.

Wow … I was wondering if I could make blog post out of refrigerators alone … turns out I could and more so.  Let’s look at where we are in my overall plan of showing you how you can use alternative energy to live well in the Philippines:

• Space Heating:  Not needed
• Water heating:  See my earlier article here.  There’s really no excuse of not going 100% solar on this in the Philippines.  No need for electric (commercial or solar) or any fossil fuel use. Use of electricity to heat domestic hot water in the Philippines … yes those ubiquitous little flash heaters next to the faucets, is one of the most wasteful and inefficient things I have seen.  Why it is so hard to sell economical and so easy to sell wasteful products here I will never know…
• Electric Consumption: Today we looked at refrigeration, tomorrow I’ll show you how little you really need for lighting.  After that we’ll tackle the big one … air conditioning.

Happy conserving!

OK, OK, I know, terrible pun, but it’s the start of my weekend, I’m feeling silly and besides, it’s all Ellen’s fault … I’m innocent, I swear.  Faithful reader Ellen just left this comment:

Already happened to me :). Btw, have you experienced this difference in hz also - like 50 hz and 60 hz? I don’t understand what it is myself, but I think it is 60 hz here and 50 hz there (Canada/US). I was told that even with a transformer, eventually this difference in hz will destroy the equipment. Is this true?

and it occurred to me that I could be facilitating someone else having one of those "Aw Shoot" moments if I weren’t more careful, so it would be wise to spend a few ore minutes on electricity, just so people don’t get the idea it’s always as simple as a 600 peso rewinding job.  This also ties in directly to the next installment about saving and/or producing electric power, so all is certainly not lost by taking a little tangent (ever notice how in English we say someone is off on a tangent if they get "off track" yet on a railroad a "tangent" is a straight track between two curves and thus the absolute shortest distance between two points?  Funny language, in my book.  But, I digress.

There are three important things to consider regarding household appliances and what you plug them into, voltage, amperage and frequency.  There is often a wide tolerance for some of these requirements but in other cases there is no room for error at all, so it pays to think things through before plugging in.

Voltage:  This is often taught in basic electronics classes using the analogy of water flowing through a pipe … or wind blowing past the blades of a windmill.  The higher the voltage the stronger the pressure.  Refer again to this handy site when you are comparing compatibility between countries.  The US almost always uses 110 Volts (dryers, stoves, some water heaters, etc. are exceptions).  Plug a 110 Volt only device into 220 Volts and typically twice as much actual current will flow through it and the Wattage (a measure of the work being done) will go up which produces more and more heat … and you get that expensive burning smell when wires or insulation melts.  The label (that should be near where the power cord goes into the device) or the owner’s manual is the ‘bible’ on this requirement.  Today, many devices sold for world-wide use can take almost any power … the laptop I am writing this on is specced for 100 to 240 volts, so it is happy in any country shown on that list.  One of my desktop computers is also rated for 110 to 240, the other (Japanese branded, interestingly enough) is god only for 100 through 120, so you have to know rather than guess.  My television is 100 through 240 but the DVD player on the shelf underneath it is only good for 100 through 120.  No way to tell just making an assumption, even very similar devices may differ widely.

Voltage differences are easy to fix.  especially here in the Philippines there are a brad assortment of transformers in any well-equipped hardware store that will convert the Philippine-standard 220 Volts to 100 or 110 Volts for equipment that requires that.  Devices like irons, electric blankets (oh, guess we won’t be needing them much here) and the like that are for heating only can be used on a transformer but would be very wasteful, better to spring for a 220 volts replacement.

Amperage or Current:  If voltage is like the pressure in a pipe, current is like the amount of water that flows through the pipe … the more amperage the bigger the pipe, the higher the flow, the more "work" (heat) gets produced.  It’s a lot easier to deal with this factor when moving from one standard to another for Americans, because we catch a break.  A 10 Amp device on 110 Volts (a pretty heavy duty appliance indeed, let’s say a commercial grade shop vacuum or a table saw only draws 5 Amps on 220 Volts, so from the standpoint of current, basically anything you can plug into a wall outlet in your home country you can plug into an outlet in the Philippines (if the voltage is correct or made correct with a transformer).  Mita has a nice wall oven for baking that we bought here in the Philippines that can plug into any outlet in the house, in the US it would draw 22 Amps and need a special power point to work.

Frequency (specified in Hertz or Cycles per Second):   This is the one Ellen asked about specifically and the one with the most complicated answer.  Household power world-wide is AC or alternating current.  This means the electricity changes it’s direction of flow back and forth a certain number of time per second.  In almost all countries this is either 50 times per second (50 hertz), prime examples being the UK, EU, Australia, et al, and 60 times a second (60 hertz) prime examples being the US and the Philippines. The answer to the question "will this destroy the equipment"? is unequivocally yes, no, or maybe.

Things that you can plug into a household power point come in three basic "flavors".  Resistive loads, Inductive loads and devices that depend upon the power line for timing.  This subject is actually much more complex but I’m making a try at simplifying it a bit because you do not have to be an electrical engineer to run your house here, really.

Resistive loads would basically be things that get hot to do their job. An iron.  An incandescent (conventional) light bulb.  A water heater.  An electric hot plate and so on.  For practical purposes these devices do not care a bit about Hertz.  So a toaster from England will run just as many years on Philippine power as it will on British power, it literally could not care less.

Inductive load examples would be things with a motor.  A vacuum sweeper, an electric mixer,  a "Fly-Mo" hovercraft electric lawn mower, a hedge trimmer, a plug-in electric drill and so on.  These devices turn at a speed proportional to the power line cycles per second so technically they do "care" about the Hertz but for practical purposes the"care" can be ignored.  I had a 50Hz British "hovercraft" vacuum cleaner that I used on 60 Hz US power for years .. technically the motor should have turned 20% faster in the US than in the UK (60 divided by 50 is 1.2) but it didn’t seem to know the difference and I’d probably still have it except I gave it to a friend who was moving to the UK.  If you have an expensive, high-power piece of equipment that you are really worried about I’d seek guidance from the manufacturer or a qualified electrical engineer … but again, in practical terms the motor will turn a bit faster but I doubt it will make any difference in the life of the equipment.  Typically electric motors wear most and even burn out when they get loaded down and run very slowly so the slight extra speed from 60 Hertz might even make them last longer … hard to say.

Timing issues.  Now that we have spent a thousand plus words with the simple part, we come to the difficult section.  Devices that need a specific frequency for timing.  This is indeed the hardest art of Ellen’s question to answer because ‘it depends".  Here’s a simple example.  A plug in electric clock.  these are cheap, simple motor power devices that keep very good time because the frequency of the power mains is very consistent.  If you bring a wall clock from say, Australia (a 220 Volt 50 Hertz country) and plug it into 220 Volt 60 hertz Philippine power the life of the clock will not be affected much at all.  It will be electrically as happy as a clam and run for years and years … but it won’t be of much value as a clock .. because that 1.2 times faster cycles per second means each clock hour is going to be only 50 real minutes … so except for a situation when you have dinner guests who you would like to leave sooner rather than later the clock is unlikely to be worth the power it consumes.  Many washing machines use an electric motor to drive the timer that controls the wash cycles as well … it might make wash day go by faster, but unlike a clock,this might or might not be something you can live with …you could set the timer for a longer wash than normal and still get the same amount of washing time.

See what I mean about ‘it depends?  It is possible that connecting a 50 Hz device to 60 hz might actually damage the device, but I expect those would be few and far between.  However, these few examples should show that mixing 50 Hz and 60 Hz is not a ‘cut and dried’ thing.  It varies from impossible, through undesirable to ‘don’t even care’.

I was just going to type "there is no practical way to convert 50 hz to 60 Hz or vice versa" but in today’s’ solid state and alternative power-aware world that may not be a true statement.  You can’t convert with a hardware store transformer, as you can voltage, but maybe, as we work through some of these issues we can find a way.  meanwhile?  read the power label on the appliance and make a rational judgment from what you see there.

Ok I promised a lot here.  trying to organize in my mind how I will put this series together and I don’t know if I have it figured out right … but times a wasting so I will take my best shot.  For anyone who feels I am being too simplistic, feel free to comment, but be a little patient with those who need some catch-up information.  For anyone who feels I am going over your head, feel free to holler, I’ll explain more.  I also, by necessity have to aim this series mainly at fellow Americans because you are the majority of my readership.  I’ll add in tidbits that I know based on living in other countries, as well as some interesting things I have learned recently from Australia … who I find has a TV industry who is refreshingly energy conscious … would that the US networks would wake up someday soon.

First of all you are going to have to accept a fact or two.  Essentially you have \been lied to for generations by both government and industry.  Perhaps not always lied to directly, but certainly brain-washed and misinformed.

The US runs on oil and coal (a lot more coal than many people realize, too).  Wyoming and Colorado coal travels all winter long in mile-long purpose built coal trains from California to Arizona to New Orleans to Florida to Chicago and all points in between.  The Navajo Indian Nation owns a huge mine and gigantic, haze producing generating station almost on the edge of the Grand Canyon that’s’ feeding the grid from Arizona to northern California (conveniently, as a semi-sovereign nation they don’t have to follow the same environmental rules as the USA … and the air quality shows.)

A few areas of the US are heavily hydro-electrified … much of the Pacific northwest (why Google and others are building huge server plants next to dams in Washington state … cheap power to essentially waste).  Parts of the southeast burn hydro power from the network of TC\VA dams.  A few nuclear plants are capable of producing more than they consume and an even smaller number of successful wind generation farms and one commercially-viable geothermal plant that I know of are on grid … but all these are a drop in the bucket compared to fossil-generated sources. 

And fossil fuel is where the money is.  We’ve had essentially 20 years of presidents with with either no energy policy or a big ‘drill we must’ big oil policy.  I don’t want this to sound like a conspiracy theory, because it isn’t that intelligent.  It is just what we are used to since childhood, and what we are taught in schools,especially colleges funded heavily by energy-based business is what we believe to be the norm.

As a result, the US has been essentially on a free energy ride for the past century-plus.  We are only now starting to feel a bit of the gas and diesel costs that others have paid for years, and electric costs are so low that we have developed a hugely wasteful way of building houses and become used to burning energy in our homes as if it were free.

Welcome to the Philippines.  Here we have the second highest electricity costs in the world … only Japan trumps us, and the system itself is broken.  Much of the infrastructure is antiquated, much of the generation comes from coal (in the most recent request for bids on coal exactly no suppliers responded) and in general I’d say the future doesn’t look bright.

So the first thing I am going to cover regarding electricity costs and ways to save on electricity here in the Philippines is to give you a homework assignment.  Find out how much electricity you have consumed in the past year (if you don’t save your bills you utility company will probably provide you a nice little printout that shows consumption and costs for free), figure out what consuming devices you have today that you are going to need in the Philippines and see what you can do to determine what the ones that are ‘keepers’ are costing you today. 

I’ll give some hints on this next time and also tell you about an eye-opening series I have been watching on ABC that can teach us all a lot (That’s an ‘A’ for Australia in the ABC, not American).

My posting schedule on my usual living in the Philippines subjects has been a bit spares lately … in a few hours it should improve … like Major League baseball I have been on the All Star break, but the game kicks off, live, in just a couple minutes (8 am Philippine Time on Wednesday).

I’ve also been honored to be added to the staff of my friend Bob’s Philippine Living Magazine and I’ll be writing a regular column there: http://www.liveinthephilippines.com/dstarr/

I’ve decided to write one of my multi-part articles here about energy saving and self-sufficiency, here in the Philippines and (in many cases) no matter where you live.

It’s a really hot topic today, with oil prices as they are, and I see a tremendous amount of misinformation floating around out there, especially online.  perhaps I can shed a little light on the obvious scams as well as offer some positive suggestions.

I’ll give you a good example of something that is both hot and stupid right now … I was looking at some statistics regarding a fellow I know who makes a significant living selling products for others on-line .. commissioned sales or more commonly, affiliate marketing.  This guy is currently earning something like $15,000 a week, so you can be sure I snooped around to see what in the world he was promoting.  Anyone hazard a guess?]

Three different eBook on "how to add a gizmo to your fuel line that will run your car on water".

Folks, even if certain people in the US can suspend the Constitution, no one can suspend the laws of physics and thermodynamics.  You can’t add a gizmo to your gas line that converts water to hydrogen and runs your car ‘free’.  But you square as the dickens can find thousands and thousands of people who were thinking baseball or football during their science classes who will rush out and buy a book to let them think they can suspend those laws.

In my energy series I hope to dispel those myths … and propose a few suggestions that will make life a little easier as well.

Here’s the high-level outline I am going to cover:

Living in the Philippines and reducing your:

• Electricity Costs
• Fossil Fuel Costs
• Water Consumption
• Waste Production

Those are four biggies that are all well within the average person’s capability to influence meaningfully, and all will have a direct impact on our personal and world well-being … so stay tuned.

A few weeks back I mentioned a number of ways to get yourself set up on line in the Philippines so that you could call the US or friends and family back home could call you for very little or even zero cost.

One of the faithful here, Marshall who hails from California bought a solution I had not mentioned and today he took the time to have a test conversation with me via my "Skype Out" service and his new "MagicJack" VOIP system.

You know the first time I heard of the MagicJack I got the idea this was one of those "too good to be true" Internet scam sort of offerings but now that I have had a report from someone who has purchased and used it, and I have dialed into their system and talked over it myself (on a Sunday morning, my time, when my ‘net usually runs pretty slow", I think I can say this is a good deal.  That’s right, friends, handy-andy, jim-dandy, two-toned, steam-heated, chrome-plated De-Lux telephone plug-in gizmo! Guaranteed not to rust, bust, collect dust, erode, corrode, or explode! Further warranted not to rend, rip, burst or tear asunder!

Seriously, at about $40 for the device and your first year of service, $20 a year there after and 100% free calls this gizmo is hard to beat.  I’m going to order one and have it sent to me in the next Alabaman box … I like my Skype service but this one seems better, faster and cheaper, despite their somewhat "hype-Sy" looking web site.  Recommended

Using the phone?  What kind of a subject is that, Dave?

Well, number one perhaps a break from some of my over technical posts.  Number two, I find it’s something a lot of people have a big problem with … especially calling the Philippines from overseas, which is what I’ll focus on here.

What Time Is It?   Anyone ever made a phone call and then found out it was three in the morning in the Philippines, when the recipient’s phone just rang and rang and rang?  I have.  It’s as easy error to make.  An easy rule of thumb for those in the coming up in thePhilippines … on the next calendar day, of course.

If you’re familiar with shift work, our ‘day shift’ here is the same as the US ’swing shift’ or ‘evening shift’.  When you’re ready to leave the office, Filipino office workers are coming into work.  This, of course, varies a bit by the US time zone you are in … the Philippines has only one time zone …GMT +8, same as Hong Kong, and the Philippines doesn’t subscribe to the nonsense of Daylight Savings time.. it gets light here a little before 6 am and gets dark at about 6 pm, summer or winter. 

A very useful tool if you use Fire Fox for your browser … and you should … is to install the tool called "Fox Clocks".  This let’s you keep as many time zones as you wish in your status bar at the bottom of the screen, out of the way, but always there to remind you what time it is.

I find the web site www.Timeanddate.com very useful.  Not only can you find the time at any city in the world, they offer a very neat "Meeting Planner" tool that lets you pre-plan online meetings or conference calls in as many as 5 time zones … handy for families with members scattered indifferent countries.

How Do I Dial?  From any standard phone simply press 011 … this sets you up for a direct international dial and then 63 … the country code for the Philippines.  Some cell phones are also set up for international dialing, some carriers don’t offer it.  I recommend you  Click here to get $5 in FREE CALLS! Call Philippines 9¢. if you don’t already have an overseas calling plan.  You can also find lots of discount phone cards in any Filipino store … some of these are very god and some are total rip offs, so make sure you check their service before you invest.

After the IDD prefix and the country code you need the city code.  Typically we call it a city code here in the Philippines although it is not always referenced to a city.  Manila is ‘2′, Cebu is ‘32′, a complete list is here or on the PhilFAQS Links Page.

Unlike the US (where Area Codes are becoming scarce) the Philippines along with most other advanced mobile phone countries don’t try to give cell phone an ‘area code’ specific to their owner’s residence.  Kind of silly to do it that way, if you think about it … they do call them ‘Mobile Phones’, do they not?

Each mobile phone carrier here gets their own area code(s) as required and that way there is essentially an infinite supply of numbers for the future.  A mobile phone number here normally looks like mine: 0919-231-5625.  The 919 is one of the codes assigned to my mobile carrier, Smart.  Others, like 918, 927, etc. denote other operators.

That’s the trickiest thing about the whole process … the part you just breezed over.

You dial phone numbers differently within the Philippines than from outside … there’s just one zero to keep in mind, but it is probably the largest issue I have seen people have with phones in the eight-plus years I have been dealing with the Philippines.

To dial any toll call here in the Philippines you dial a ‘0′ (the number zero, there are no letter ‘O’s in phone numbers.  Thus to dial a landline here in Bulacan a person in the Philippines would dial 044-xxx-yyyy (xxx is the exchange, yyyy is the subscriber’s number and 44 is the City Code for Bulacan.

To dial me on my cell phone, wherever I am the person would dial 0919-231-5625 … The )919 tells the phone system to send the call to Smart’s phone network which then ‘finds’ me and rings my phone.

But these numbers will not work from "Outside’.

To call a number in the Philippines from another country, dial the ‘63′ country code for the Philippines and then look and see if the number you want to reach has a leading zero.  If it does, omit … leave it off … don’t dial it.  If you dial 011-63-919-231-5625 from an internationally enabled phone there in the US, my phone will ring.  If you leave the ‘0′ in, it won’t.  All other zeros that may be in the number of course, "count" and should be dialed, but just remember to leave off the zero in front of the City or carrier Code and you’ll be fine.