BLOGGED PHILIPPINES

Good news to all government employees! President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo approved the proposal to make Wednesday, March 31, 2010 to be a half working day to all government employees . The purpose of this is to allow the employees to prepare for the activities during the long weekend of the Holy Week. For those working in private companies, you will have a normal working day tomorrow. The next holiday will be on next week Friday, April 9. It will be the celebration of the Day of Valor (Araw ng Kagitingan).

Yes, you heard it right. After they announced their desire to hold their Initial Public Offering (IPO), Cebu Pacific Air Lines has finally got PSE’s approval. The said approval was done the PSE board directors last Wednesday. The listing of Cebu Pacific into the PSE bourse is tentatively set on May 4 this year. Cebu Pacific Air, a unit of conglomerate JG Summit Holdings Inc will be offering 125.25 Million shares at the maximum price of 95 pesos. Cebu Pacific Air’s primary targets were international investors but will also offer shares for the local ones. Funds that will be generated by the IPO will be used in their further expansion. Currently, with a fleet of 29 aircrafts, Cebu pacific is now serving 50 domestic and 21 international destinations. The numbers are expected to increase as the market for air travel is expected to grow in the coming years. Cebu Pacific initially planned the IPO way back in 2008 but the unexpected economic downturn during that year prompted the compa

Get as low as 1500 pesos, one way ticket to the capital city of Thailand, Bangkok as the Philippine’s leading airline, Cebu Pacific announced its Thailand Seat Sale Promo today. Booking of tickets starts now and will last until Sunday, March 28, 2010. Valid travel period is from June 1 to August 31, 2010. You can book your tickets at www.cebupacificair.com or at any Cebu pacific ticketing office. Phone reservations are also accommodated by calling Cebu Pacific call center hotlines shown below. Manila: 63-2-702 0888 Cebu:   63-32-230 888

It happened at last! Google finally break out from the Chinese command to censor web results. Yes, as they have said in January 12 that they will stop censoring search results in mainland China, they did it Monday this week. Google is now redirecting search queries from on Google.cn to their Hong Kong servers at Google.com.hk , where censoring is not implemented. Chinese regulators, on the other hand criticized Google for breaking their promise to the Chinese government. They also accused Google of connivance with US government with information imperialism. Image by Wikipedia Commons Google has been censoring search results in mainland China for several years now. But in January, after the alleged hacker attacks from China on Google’s infrastructure causing Google to lose some intellectual properties, the company has broken its silence. They announced that they will be stopping the filtering of search results of Google.cn and will just leave it to the regulators. They said that

The Philippine Social Security System (SSS) reported that they sued 1133 employers last year (2009) mostly due to failure to remit the contributions of their employees. Of the 1133 cases, 600 of them are in the National Capital Region (NCR). The number also includes employers who failed to submit company records or failed to register their businesses. According to the original report, the unremitted contributions amount to 478.22 Million pesos including the penalties. This intensified legal action against delinquent employers is set to continue until this year 2010. The Social Security Act of 1997 penalizes employers who are delinquent in remitting their employees contributions. The penalty is imprisonment of six to 12 years with maximum fine of 20 000 pesos. Amnesty Program Meanwhile, SSS recently announced an amnesty program allowing delinquent employers to settle their long-overdue obligations without paying the penalties. They can pay in full or in installment basis. Insta

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in their effort to increase the awareness and interest of the Filipinos in inverting in equities or stocks will hold a FREE seminar in Cebu and Davao. The seminar is entitled, “Building Wealth with Stocks: Investing Guide for Beginners” . It will be held on Monday, March 22, 1-5PM at the Waterfront Hotel in Lahug, Cebu City. The seminar will also be held on the same time slot in March 24 at Royal Mandaya Hotel in Davao City. Another seminar entitled, “Alternative Funding-Financing through the Equities Market" will be conducted by the PSE to the members of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry in March 23, 9AM-12NN in Waterfront Hotel, Lahug, Cebu City. Topics to be discussed in the mentioned seminars includes the following: basics of investing, online stock trading, investing in mutual funds, and listing in the PSE.

Forbes magazine recently released this year’s result of their annual ranking of the world’s richest person. This year, it’s not anymore an American who has the top spot. Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu took the top spot with total net worth of $53.5 Billion. He overtook William Bill Gates by only 500 Million to claim the top of the 2010 list. The list of the top ten are shown below. 1. Carlos Slim Helu and Family Nationality: Mexican Age: 70 Net Worth: $53.5 Billion 2. William Gates III Nationality: American Age: 54 Net Worth: $53 Billion 3. Warren Buffett Nationality: American Age: 79 Net Worth: $47 Billion 4. Mukesh Ambani Nationality: Indian Age: 52 Net Worth: $29 Billion 5. Lakshmi Mittal Nationality: Indian Age: 59 Net Worth: $28.7 Billion

Have you heard the latest news on Cebu Pacific? It’s not about their latest promo of cheap air fares. It was all about Cebu Pacific’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) Cebu Pacific’s IPO Cebu Pacific is planning to offer 125.25 Million stocks worth 12 Billion pesos. It means that the price per stock is around 95 pesos. Although they will be listed on the local stock market, the company targets institutional and international investors for their initial offering. The company originally planned the IPO in 2008 but postponed it due to the global economic crisis that occurred on the 4th quarter of that year. They said that the funds will be used to further their expansion in the ever growing market of air travel. The company has not yet revealed the exact date of their initial offering. Cebu Pacific has been gaining strength in the previous years, beating their rival Philippine Airlines (PAL) in the domestic market. It also trimmed the market share of shipping industries by

As part of their continuous efforts to improve customer experience, Cebu Pacific, Philippine's leading airline company introduces its new website yesterday. The new website features improved looks and user interface. Online booking procedure was also modified to make it fast and user- friendly. Below is the list of noticeable changes in www.cebupacificair.com. Cebu Pacific new homepage featuring a "cleaner" and more user-friendly design. 1. Improved theme and user interface It was the same yellow-themed Cebu Pacific Air website but the homepage features a much simpler design with highly noticeable menus and options. It is "cleaner" compared to the previous version.

Official Google Blog: Google welcomes Picnik Search engine giant Google announced its acquisition Picnik, a web photo editing service that enables you to edit your photos online without leaving your browser. Picnick is working in a cloud computing technique that enables a user to do computing processes in the internet without installing software in the user’s computer. Picnik’s acquisition is another expansion of Google’s ever-growing cloud. Picnik will join other cloud services like Google Docs. Google also said in its official announcement that they will be rolling out several changes including new features to Picnik. Most of these changes are due to its integration to other Google services. Also, they will still continue support current Picnik partners to allow current users to continue to share their photos with other websites. It is interesting to note about this announcement is that Yahoo owned Flickr is one of Picnik’s current partner sites. Google said in its statement