The new Tax Exemption Law

MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE) President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has signed into law a bill that would exempt minimum wage earners from paying income tax and increasing personal exemptions for other employees.

Arroyo signed in Malacañang Tuesday Republic Act 9504 or an act amending Sections 22, 24, 34, 35, 51, and 79 of RA 8424 or the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997.

Senators Manuel Roxas, Francis Escudero, Juan Ponce Enrile, and Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Speaker Prospero Nograles were present during the signing.

The law aims “to provide financial relief to taxpayers in cognizance by the government of the hard times brought by multiple factors, including the current rice crisis, oil price hikes and the heightening inflationary pressure on commodities of all kinds and to help reduce the wide tax gap in the taxation of self-employed and professionals,” according to the five-page document released to media.

Senator Manuel Roxas, principal author of the measure, said the new law would “provide relief to our workers by increasing their take home pay.”

He added that the law would allow minimum wage earners to take home as much as P750 a month or from P33 to P35 a day.

"A worker in Metro Manila earning P7,900 a month will now have an additional P750 of take-home pay per month, or P34 per day. He can now spend this additional money for his needs or for his family's needs, such as food, medicine, and the tuition fee of his children, among other uses," Roxas said.

But apart from tax exemption for minimum wage earners, the law will also provide for an increase in the personal exemption of all taxpayers.

From the current P20,000 personal exemption for single taxpayers, P25,000 for head of family, and P32,000 for married individual, the tax exemption will be fixed at P50,000, Roxas said.

The additional exemption for dependents will increase from P8,000 to P25,000, he said.

The senator added that all holiday, night differential, hazard, and overtime pay would also be tax-exempt.

He added that the aim of both the House of Representatives and Senate was not only to increase tax exemption for workers but also to provide relief for minimum wage earners.

“The House focuses on increasing the exemption while I focus on minimum wage,” he said.

“We have fought for this for a long time. Many Labor Days have come and gone wherein we fought for this for our workers, and at last, income tax exemption of minimum wage earners is now a law,” said Roxas in an interview Monday.

For other salaried workers, the measure would allow an employee earning P455 per day or P10,010 per month to have an additional take-home pay of P472.59 per month or P5,671.02 per year if unmarried; P678.50 per month or P8,142.04 per year as head of the family; and P580.92 per month or P6,971.02 per year for those married with four children.

An employee earning P683 per day or P15,026 per month would have an additional take-home pay of P545.26 per month or P6,543.10 per year if unmarried; P1,307.18 per month or P15,686.20 per year as head of the family; and P1,190.52 per month or P14,286.20 per year for those married with four children.

Although the government is expected to lose around P14 billion a year with the new law, the government hopes to recover this through the optional standard deductions (OSD), which will “simplify the filing of income tax returns and benefits, in particular, professionals and medium, small, and micro entrepreneurs,” according to the law.

The OSD will rake in P15.03 billion tax revenues annually.

The law is said to take effect 15 days after its publication in a national newspaper.

INQUIRER.net
By Abigail Kwok
First Posted 11:23:00 06/17/2008

Nokia N7.65

CUSTOM MADE NOKIA Phone

NOW YOU CAN TAKE THAT CALL WHEN YOU'RE IN THE TRAIN , TAXI , JEEPNEY, BUS OR YOUR PRIVATE VEHICLE! Your days of being afraid to answer your phone in public are over!!!!

NOKIA 7.65 - CUSTOMIZED FOR PHILIPPINE CONDITIONS

Manila during the American Rule

I wish Manila could live up to it's colorful history. Manila was definitely beautiful way back then. :( Makes me wish we could do something to regenerate the city.

Miss Universe 2008

Miss Universe 2008, the 57th Miss Universe beauty pageant, will be held at the Crown Convention Center (Diamond Bay Resort) in Nha Trang, Vietnam on July 14, 2008^[2] where outgoing titleholder Riyo Mori will crown her successor. 80 contestants are expected to compete in the event^[3] which will be broadcast via NBC and Telemundo to TV outlets in more than 180 countries. The final presentation show is on July 8, the dress rehearsal on July 13 and the live telecast on July 14. Most activities are being held successively in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang, Ha Long and finally Nha Trang.

Fashion Manila

Guys do add this Yahoo Group if you are into Philippine Fashion

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fashionmanila/

Photography

I've always loved photography may it be just viewing them or taking some pictures myself. I've decided recently to push back my interest in learning photography to give way to other stuff but now I wanna pursue it. I'm in the process of picking out a good Digital SLR camera and I'm at a lost with so many brands and models to choose from.

Any suggestions?

How Frank made Manila crazier!

Ok, so I'm referring to Tropical Depression Frank here. It was a Saturday and it was my first day to go to work on a Saturday! Explains the empty LRT1 coach which is usually busy with students and employees during rush hour. I already knew that there is a storm coming but there's just so many thing on my mind so I never really gave much thought about it. Work was as usual boring! Hehehe! Good thing I have my close friends at work to make life a little more interesting. A few hours before our shift ends me, Kweng, Brian, and Nori were in a conference chat while attending to each others customers. We started talking about work then about government and then Frank! We then realized that the storm has already arrived in Manila and when I had the chance to look outside the building, I could see the devastation everywhere. 6AM and we were told that it is unsafe to leave the office and the company will be providing shuttle service going to designated areas around the metro but it will take an hour to two hours for the buses to arrive. 10AM and still no buses! The rest already left and signed a waiver re our safety stating that the company will not be liable for any mishaps that could happen outside. Fine! Kweng and I decided to watch Incredible Hulk first since it's still raining hard and there still no way we can go home... we just don't wanna stay in the office I guess. We did some window shopping around Mall of Asia before watching the movie (which by the way is way better than the first HULK movie). While walking around the mall we passed by the toy store and saw this really nice Transformers mask! Yeah that's me!

Finally the rain stopped abit so we decided to try our luck. Kweng had a hard time going home since there's flooding everywhere. I even got an sms from her saying that she paid Php250 just to get home since the cab had to go around and take alternate routes. I on the other hand had the worst experience. Malabon is synonymous to flooding while Valenzuela is know for it's rivers... well rivers that overflow during heavy rains. You see Valenzuela, Malabon, Caloocan, and Navotas are low lying areas... cities below sea level surrounded by rivers. Go figure! All in all I'm still happy to be home safe and dry!

Witch Amusement

Ma Yoo Hee (Han Ga In) is the executive of an advertising company. She would never be caught dead wearing make-up and only dresses in black. Her hairstyle and glasses are very business like looks, her only enjoyment in life appears to be the times when she's criticising everything and anyone. All of her employees and co-workers fear her and she is constantly talked about when she's not around. Her stern and harsh nature has earned her the nickname 'witch' When it comes to romance she is hopeless. No matter how many blind dates she has, not one has ever led to a second. The reason for this is her negativity and her inability to loosen up and express herself. She is, however, completely oblivious of her faults and cannot comprehend why she is so bad when it comes to love.


Chae Mu-Ryong (Jae Hee) is an aspiring chef with a passion for French cuisine. He has an innate ability when it comes to taste and perfection. Every piece of food and every plate he prepares must be perfect. However this tends to get him into a lot of trouble because when working in a kitchen every moment counts and there is not possibly enough time to take so much care in preparation and decoration of meals. His criticism of a head chef's cooking causes him to lose his job. His parents have never really approved of his aspirations and dreams to be a famous chef and insist he return to medical school. He decides to enroll back into medical school but changes his mind at the last minute and decides not to.

Mu-Ryong discusses everything with his best friend and ends up going on a blind date to pretend to be someone else who backed out at the last minute. He declines at first since he already has a girlfriend, but his friend offers him money, and warns him however that the woman he will be meeting is rather different.

The woman he meets is Yoo Hee, and while under normal circumstances she would be rude, brash and boring, she tries to be nice and happy in an attempt to succeed on the date. However, her pretending is not very convincing and Mu-Ryong figures that it would be a matter of time before she loses it. The date ends when Mu-Ryong falls asleep for a moment, resulting in Yoo Hee throwing a glass of water at his face and calling him rude. He retorts back to her also, telling her to take care of her appearance the next time she goes on a blind date. The two then leave on bad terms.

While delivering food from his father's Chinese restaurant, Mu-Ryong becomes involved in a car accident, coincidentally with Yoo Hee. They exchange insurance information and Yoo Hee learns that he lied to her on their date, realizing that he is 1 year younger than her, and that he met her only as a favor to a friend.

Yoo Hee demands the money for the damage to her car to be paid within a week. However, Mu-Ryong doesn't have any money, and yet Yoo Hee is unwilling to compromise with him. He decides to use his school tuition, which was given to him by his parents, to pay for her car. However, he loses the money after being mugged on the way to pay her.

Mu-Ryong tells Yoo Hee he doesn't have the money but is willing to work it off, no matter how long it takes or what he must do for her to pay her back. Yoo Hee decides that Mu-Ryong could repay her by working as her house keeper, since she continuously looses her previous keepers.

Meanwhile, Mu-Ryongs girlfriend Seung Mi, who works at her father's restaurant, is expecting a new head chef: Johnny Kruger, a world renowned chef, who also happens to be Mu-Ryong's idol and an acquaintance of Yoo Hee as well.

Johnny Kruger (Dennis Oh), is a famous French Chef from New York. He despises that his stardom overshadows his cooking and concentrates only on his cooking in Korea. Yoo Hee and Johnny are close friends from way back but thanks to Mu-Ryong, Johnny is now considering the possibility of having a deeper relationship with Yoo Hee but will he succeed?






Yoo Joon Ha (Kim Jung Hoon) is an ambitious surgeon with whom Ma Yoo Hee has been in love with for a long time. Yoo Joon Ha is a cold-hearted character who is capable of betraying his most precious love for success. Though he is an ambitious two-faced character, he is a bad guy in the sense that his weakness stems from his strong desire for success.





Nam Sung Mi (Jeon Hye Bin) is the beautiful, kind, clever and ernest girlfriend of Chae Moo Ryong who, unlike Ma Yoo Hee, puts marriage in the first place. Nam Sung Mi is placed in this situation where she has to compete for the attention of his man with his work and his personal relationship with his boss Yoo Hee.

Sex and the City, a Top Grosser?

Here is the latest update regarding how our favorite foursome Carrie Bradshaw, Charlotte York, Samantha Jones and Miranda Hobbes did in the Box Office:

Domestic Total as of Jun. 18, 2008: $124,319,097

Distributor: New Line Release Date: May 30, 2008
Genre: Romantic Comedy Running Time: 2 hrs. 15 min.
MPAA Rating: R Production Budget: $65 million

TOTAL LIFETIME GROSSES
Domestic:$124,319,097 47.2% + Foreign: $138,800,577 52.8% = Worldwide: $263,119,674

Unfortunately the film didn't score that much compared to the Monstrous hits like Spiderman, Shrek, Transformers. I have read some reviews like from The Tribune and most of the official reviews that I have read are not really good. Mostly were not captivated with the story like it did when it was shown at HBO.

So much for wishing a second part of the movie. I think this is not the best way to cap a historical series like Sex and the City. But still, the Sex and the City girls will be remembered as someone we have shared our lives with. Laughed, cried, fall in love with.

This is a re-post from my friend's blog about the SATC the Movie. I don't really feel bad that the movie didn't make as much as those other movies he mentioned because SATC has a captured audience (Adults) and those other movies are for General Viewing. I still love SATC and it made me laugh so hard when I watched it. I guess those who gave a not so favorable review on the movie are either fanatics of the SATC TV series expecting more or just plain clueless what the movie is about. Anyway I still think this movie is one of the best this year... Congrats SATC gang!

BLACKOUT

If you are also going let me know... got this message from Ash Castro just the other day. The details are below...

KB TEAM PRESENTS BLACKOUT
OPEN FOR EVERYBODY. HAPPENING ON JUNE 28 AT INDIOS BRAVOS STUDIO, MAKATI CITY. TO REGISTER PLS PM YOUR NAME, EMAIL, AND NUMBER TO KAIYE AT http://jennykaiye.multiply.com/ or email her at jennykaiye@yahoo.com. ALSO VISIT OUR SITE http://blackoutexperience.multiply.com/

THANK YOU ;)


ON PHOTOS ABOVE

MODELS : CRIS LOMOTAN, DIANA SANTOS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ASH CASTRO
MAKE-UP BY GERARD DADUYA
HAIR BY THIRD OCTAVIO
POSTER LAYOUT BY DEAN IBAY

You Don't Mess With the Zohan

Really funny!

An Israeli agent fakes his death and moves to New York to become a hair stylist.

Starring Adam Sandler, Emmanuel Chriqui, Rob Schneider, Mariah Carey, Henry Winkler

Btw the movie also features two Filipino actors based in the US.

• Alec Mapa as Claude
• Rob Schneider as Salim Husaamdiyaa

Top 100 most powerful Celebs

NEW YORK - Talk show host Oprah Winfrey is the world's most powerful celebrity for the second straight year and for the fifth time ever, according to the 2008 Forbes Celebrity 100 Power List released on Wednesday.

The annual list also included two couples among its top 10. Actress Angelina Jolie came in at No. 3 and her partner Brad Pitt nabbed No. 10, while music mogul newlyweds, Beyonce Knowles and Jay-Z were fourth and seventh.

Golfer Tiger Woods remained No. 2 and soccer player David Beckham was No. 5, while actor Johnny Depp took sixth. Music group The Police nabbed No. 8 after reuniting for a successful world tour and British author J.K. Rowling was No. 9 after the release of the seventh and final Harry Potter book.

"It's not surprising that Oprah Winfrey and Tiger Woods remain at the top this year -- they're certainly some of the biggest earners," said Matthew
Miller of Forbes magazine.

The rankings give the most weight to earnings over the past year but also factors in such things as Internet presence, press clippings, magazine covers and mentions on TV and radio.

During the past year Winfrey made $275 million, Woods, $115 million, Knowles $80 million, Beckham $50 million, Depp $72 million, Jay-Z $82 million,
and The Police $115 million.

While Jolie's earnings of $14 million and Pitt's salary of $20 million pale in comparison, the popularity of the couple, who have four children and
twins on the way, and their constant presence in magazines saw their power soar.

"Had (Jolie) made a couple of millions dollars more she probably would have been close to topping the list because the number of magazine covers that she was on, the number of stories she was mentioned in, far surpassed anyone else on the list," Miller said.

And it was Beckham's move to Los Angeles with former Spice Girl wife Victoria and their three sons in a blaze of publicity that helped propel him into the top 10 for the first time.

In contrast, Rowling earned $300 million in the past 12 months, more than Winfrey, but is a reluctant celebrity.

The 2008 top 100 is made up of 20 film actors, 20 athletes, 10 musicians, 10 talk show hosts, 10 TV actors, five "tween" stars, five directors/producers, five celebrity personalities, four authors, four hip-hop impresarios, four chefs and three models.

The "tween" category, a marketing term that usually refers to an audience ages 9 to 12, is new, Forbes said, with "Hannah Montana" star Miley Cyrus making her debut in the top 100 at No. 35 "following a sold-out concert tour, a hit 3-D movie, and a controversial photo shoot that had the press buzzing."

Among those dropping from the list are Tom Hanks, Jessica Alba, Hayden Panettiere, Adam Sandler and Scarlett Johansson, The Rolling Stones, Elton John and Jessica Simpson.

The full list can be seen at http://www.forbes.com/celebrities

110th Philippine Independence Day

I was on my way home this morning from work and had a hard time getting a ride home when I reached Monumento in Caloocan City. I didn't realize that today is June 12 and that it is Idependence Day. It's sad because there was no celebration or anything special to commemorate this event in the office. They're more focused on Father's Day coming up this June 15th. Not that it's not an important day as well. I don't know, maybe it's just me but I think everyone should celebrate our independence though I must admit that up until now there are still some parts of this country that freedom is still a priced commodity. We may no longer be under foreign rule but the colonial mentality is still strong. Freedom from poverty, freedom to self-expression, freedom from corruption, freedom from human abuse, and the list goes on and on. But hey, it's just me... Happy 110th Independence Day Kababayan!

Rihanna - Take a bow

http://www.kiisfm.com/main.html

4 RP sites in TOP 10

Hot off the press! Four of the country’s top tourist spots have made it to the Top 10 list in the worldwide search for the “Seven Wonders of Nature.”

As of yesterday, Tubbataha Reef in Palawan was in second place, followed by Chocolate Hills in Bohol (fourth place), Puerto Princesa Subterranean River, also in Palawan (sixth) and Mayon Volcano in Bicol (10th).

The list of nominees and the mechanics for voting are posted on the poll’s official website http://www.new7wonders.com/ while the live rankings can be viewed at http://www.new7wonders.com/nature/en/liveranking.

Filipinos can still vote online for the Philippine bets until Dec. 31, after which the Top 77 nominees will be submitted to a panel of experts that will put together a shortlist of 21 finalists by January 2009.

A second round of popular voting for the 21 finalists will then follow until the end of 2009, with the Top Seven nominees being officially declared the new “Seven Wonders of Nature” by year 2010.

Source: Philippine Star

My first day at the gym

I woke up pretty early than usual today... woke up around 2PM and decided to grab something to eat (technically that's was my breakfast). Slept really late last night (3AM) coming from Enchanted Kingdom. Check out my previous blog here.

I left the house around 5PM to go to Pan Pacific Hotel at Slimmers World International Adriatico Gym. I would have left earlier than that if my sister didn't ask me to help her with her pets (Gold Fishes). It was a good 1 hour travel from Valenzuela to Manila but traffic wasn't that congested today. I guess everyone's in the provinces for the holiday. Slimmers is on the 6th Floor of the hotel just 5 minutes walk from Pedro Gil's LRT station. I got there and talked to Ms. Agnes who at that time I think was already to step out of the gym but still was very accommodating and ushered me into the changing room while she takes care of my files. After I changed into my gym clothes I went back to the reception area but unfortunately Ms. Agnes already stepped out. The receptionist was very helpful though and referred me to one of the Gym Instructors by the name of Jeff. Well Jeff was nice and there's something about him that says he's all business and serious with his job. He started telling me what to do and I guess he noticed that it wasn't my first time to go to the gym so he told me if the weights are a little to light for me to feel free and add more. Surprisingly my first day at the gym was great. There were some small details though that they need to work on. There are only two shower rooms in the male's locker room. Not that it was a problem a while ago since there was hardly a dozen of us working out that time. The locker that they had me use was old and the lock was not working. Good thing I have my own padlock. Other than that everything was cool with me. The staff seem to be alot friendlier than the other Fitness clubs that I've been too. I'm looking forward to going back to the gym and having my free massage and facial that comes with the package I got. :)

The Magic Stays

I remember asking my parents to take me to Echanted Kingdom when I was a kid. Back then Enchanted Kingdom was the premiere theme park in the Philippines. It is located in Santa Rosa City, Laguna, about 26 kilometers (16.1 miles) from Manila. With a land area of 17 hectares (41 acres) it promises an experience worth the travel. Recently, one of the rides, the infamous "Space Shuttle" was on the news after it stalled / stopped dead on its tracks with 25 passengers got suspended in mid-air. This happened first on June 20, 2004 and again December 12, 2007.

I still took my chance and went on the "Space Shuttle"... why? Well for one it's already a tradition that I ride it whenever I go there. Another is because it's the best ride in the park aside from the Go Cart and the Rapids. I enjoyed the diving show that they have this summer with foreign divers performing really neat tricks on the diving board. Check out more pics here.

Driving more traffic to your blog

I recently had the chance to go back to my blogging. Been looking around the internet for information on the new technologies and strategies to get more page views on my site. I guess I got really perked up with the idea of people getting really high page visits per month. I stumbled upon this website www.problogger.net. This website basically gives suggestions on how you can get more traffic to your blog and I found this really cool tool that makes it work really well called CrazyEgg that basically lets you know what you're readers are clicking on your website. Pretty useful stuff especially for people like me who doesn't have a captured audience yet. I mean, I've been blogging since 2004 but I never really got the chance to blog about something that I know my visitors would love to read about. Another tool that I'm using now that makes my work a lot easier is called ScribeFire it's really a cool tool that allows you to blog even without logging manually into Blogger. Saves me alot of time and energy. Well that's it for now... Will post more articles soon. :)

Narnia - Prince Caspian

Looking forward to watching this movie tomorrow. Will post my review once I see it. For now just watch the trailer that premiered online last Dec 5 2007.

Sex and the City

Definitely one of the best movies this year so far. It's a memorable movie for me, because for one I watched it in Festival Mall, which is really far from where I live. My first attempt to watch it failed... after trying to get a ticket at Greenbelt 3 and being disappointed finding out that the tickets are all sold out an hour before I even got there straight from work. So much for that... I'm not really a avid fan of Sex and the City unlike some people I know. I did watch the last few episodes of the famous TV Series before watching it just to get an idea where it left off. My only disappointment was the fact that there were a lot of scenes that were cut off from the movie. I guess it's because they were trying to get the R13 rating. I guess I'd have to wait for the DVD to come out for the uncut version.

I passed!

After 7 weeks of rigorous technical, networking, computer hardware and software training, me and my colleagues took our Tech Lab Exam yesterday and we all passed!

Today we told our Resolution Expert Exam and I passed again! Hehehe!

Got the results right after the exam and it says that I successfully demonstrated an overall level of understanding required of an Advanced Resolution Expert! How cool is that!

View pictures here.

Bleeding love - Leona Lewis