What’s the fuss about the race to No. 1? With so many e-wallets sprouting since the pandemic, the race seems on to try to get to first place.
PayMaya, the only fintech in the Philippines that runs a consumer e-wallet app, an enterprise payment processing business, and a remittance agent network with Smart Padala, admits that it may not be the number 1 e-wallet at the moment but says that its superior features make it #TooGoodToBeNo2.
Growing up disfigured has a huge impact on the lives of children. Just look at these statistics.
Every 3 minutes, a child with a cleft and lip palate is born. In the Philippines, 1 in 500 children born has a cleft and lip palate condition, a gap in the mouth that did not close during the early stages of pregnancy.
Every year, about 4,500 Filipino babies are born with this condition.
As a mother, I can already imagine how this will affect children with this deformity. Very low self-esteem. Huge possibility that the child will grow up being bullied. Malnutrition, due to the inability to eat well. Poor social interaction. Limited job opportunities.
Organizations like Operation Smile Philippines (OSP) have helped children with this condition since 1982 with medical missions participated in by doctors and other medical and non-medical volunteers. For the last nine years, Watsons Philippines has partnered with OSP and, in the process, transformed the lives of 1,986 patients. This year, Watsons once again partners with OSP as part of its mission to Look Good, Do Good, Feel Good.
Continue reading “Watsons continues to change lives — one smile at a time”
As I am publishing this article, the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) that was held in Glasgow just ended. Simultaneous with COP26, Pru Life UK released the results of an independent study on the impact of climate change to Filipinos’ health and wellbeing and financial security.
The paper was launched via a PRUWise Healthscape PH webinar, Pru Life UK’s banner multisectoral health dialogue platform. Planetary health expert, member of the National Panel of Technical Experts of the Philippine Climate Change Commission, Dr. Ramon Lorenzo “Renzo”’ R. Guinto, who is also the lead author of the study, entitled “How will climate change affect the health of Filipinos in the next decade?”, explained the key insights from the study.
Beko, a leading European brand that broke ground in the Philippines in 2020, is now preparing to give its customers its biggest promo yet this Christmas. A grand appliance showcase is up for grabs plus other exciting prizes, all worth PhP 1 million.
The idea of sharing a house with someone else, on the surface, seems like a great way to have your own home while not having to pay full price for it. Everything can be shared — the cost of the home, its maintenance, any mortgage payments — but you get to enjoy the full benefits of your own place. Plus, since costs are shared, both of you have more purchasing power to spend on other things. This idea can be very tempting especially for those who are tired of paying rent, knowing that all that rent money just goes down the drain. every month Besides, if you are buying a house together with your best friend, your business partner, a work colleague, or even a relative, what can go wrong?
Continue reading “Advice for buying a house with someone else”
Teleperformance Philippines recently announced its partnership with Project Inclusion Network (PIN), a non-profit organization that works towards realizing the potential of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) to actively participate in and productively contribute to society.
As part of the partnership, Teleperformance Philippines will assist PIN in identifying employable people with disabilities from their network of partner institutions, communities, and organizations that teach and train people with impairments. Moving forward, both organizations will be collaborating towards improving knowledge and comprehension of behavioral concepts and processes in the workplace, through increased productivity and integration.
I inherited my love for puzzles from my Mom. She was a crossword expert. I could only manage to solve crosswords of moderate difficulty but my Mom? She solved them all, including the expert levels. She also loved anagrams, logic puzzles, math puzzles, and word searches. We spent many occasions rummaging through secondhand bookstores, like Booksale, looking for these puzzle magazines (our favorite brand was Dell).
On special occasions, we gifted each other with these puzzle magazines. She taught me how to solve logic puzzles and eventually, it became my favorite type of puzzle. Whenever her crossword puzzles had logic puzzles, she would skip these, tear off the pages and send the puzzle to me. On my part, I would skip the expert crossword puzzles in my magazines and send these off to her. It was a symbiotic arrangement between mother and daughter!
Continue reading “Playing Solitaire and solving puzzles make me remember my Mom”
For several months now, I had been joining my voice with that of independent health experts in calling for scaling of COVID-19 testings and tracings as the economy opens up. Like them, I believe that prolonged lockdowns alone will not help us get back on our feet. Lockdowns are supposed to be temporary measures to give the healthcare system and workers some breathing space to “catch up” during major surges.
Recently, we have been seeing a decline in cases here in the National Capital Region. We are now at Level 3 and contemplating a possible Level 2 before the end of the year. However, knowing the nature of the “beast” that is COVID-19, we know that it is airborne and, with the dominant, highly contagious Delta variant in the country, can easily infect even those who are already vaccinated. So, we can let people out, have workers return to work…..BUT we need to have quick, easy, and affordable ways to test these people so that in case they turn out positive, they can be readily isolated to prevent further infections.
RT-PCRs are just too expensive at around P4,000 per test. Employers will not be able to afford these to test their returning workers on a regular basis. More affordable and easy-to-administer rapid antigen tests that can immediately yield results are what we need.
The good news is finally here. Starting today, October 25, 2021, select Watsons stores will carry FDA-certified COVID-19 antigen test kits with a price range of only PhP 399 – PhP 500. These will also be available in ALL Watsons stores nationwide by November 25.
Continue reading “Good news! Watsons now offers quality and affordable COVID-19 antigen test kits!”
Growing up, I already knew that hot water helped loosen stubborn stains and dirt on clothes. We did not have a washing machine then but I saw our helper pour hot water on our clothes and leave it soaking before washing them by hand. Many years later, when we already had a washing machine, we still soaked stained clothes in hot water before running them through the wash cycle.
Moms and single men and women are so lucky these days with appliances that make housework a whole lot easier. Doing the laundry with a feature-filled washing machine is one of them.
Beko recently launched its line of automatic washing machines. Its line of Beko SteamCure Hygiene+ automatic washing machines releases steam at the bottom of the drum even before the wash cycle starts.
Continue reading “Beko’s SteamCure Hygiene+ washing machine uses steam to loosen stains and dirt”
I’ll let you in on a little-known fact about me.
I was a good Tetris player. No, I was actually a VERY GOOD Tetris player. I played that game through Windows 95, Windows 98, and eventually, Windows XP. I racked up scores in the hundreds of thousands. Sadly, the original Tetris is one of those games now classified as abandonware (software no longer sold or supported by its creator).
At the office, my colleagues and I spent our breaks and free time playing these games. Those were the days when a PC’s RAM was only 256KB to 512KB so most of our games were stored in floppy diskettes that you had to feed into a diskette drive to upload. Our monitors were cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors, the music was electronically produced, and while the games had color, the variety of colors reminded me of Crayola crayons in 8 colors. By today’s standards of orchestra-level music, 3D animation, and millions of colors, it was pretty boring.
There were a few more games from the 1980s that I remember playing — Pinball, Lemmings (those cute little creatures that you have to lead to exits in every round), and the all-time classic, Solitaire.
Continue reading “The games of my youth (and more) are now on the web!”
