Tax for Freelancers in Philippines

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uhm., there is really nothing to say except that Freelancers in Philippines are exempted! Heard that correctly — we really don’t need to pay anything. This is according to a personnel in the BIR office in San Fernando City, Pampanga(I visited their office just this August 2009). That person pointed out that if we are not an employee of a legitimate company nor do we have business permit approved by DTI then we don’t have to pay anything. So I guess I should not be guilty of not paying at all. Works for me!

Some people asks me why the hell do I want to pay my tax?? I guess for dumb reason that I want to contribute to the government so some government officials can buy new clothes, houses and cars for their own profit AND to get a proof that I am a good paying citizen. I know, crazy reason but atleast it was already confirmed that I am not oblige of anything and nor any freelancers out there. Ain’t that cool??

PHP Roadshow visits St. Paul QC

Another successful PHP Roadshow was held last August 1 in St. Paul QC. The usual gang are present which makes the roadshow more enjoyable. I discussed my usual stuff, my undying love for cakephp! (wahaha drama). This one I guess was the happiest leg so far (I have only attended 3 legs) because the students were so participative and I had so much fun with the jokes and tease to Mr. Landline and ofcourse the FREE Tarot Reading from Sir Jeff and his GF. I hope next time I can join again. For the meantime, here are some pictures I got from Ridvan.

Topics from the Gang:
Introduction to the PHP Roadshow and PHP User Group Philippines (Jeffrey R. Seracarpio)
Introduction to PHP (Ridvan Baluyos)
Introduction to MySQL (Chean Domingo)
Introduction to CakePHP (Rachel Jaro – ME)
CMS / Joomla (Eric Bangug)
Careers in IT (Jonathan Yap)

PHP Roadshow is an outreach to college students with the goal of reaching the same level of programming competency of our counterparts (Filipino and non-Filipino) outside of the country (including standardizations and value of work).

This is an initiated project of PHP User Group Philippines, Inc. (PHPUGPH), in support of the organization’s mission of advocating and disseminating the use of PHP (Hypertext Pre-processor) as well as Open Source technologies in schools and companies in the Philippines.

I’m excited!

Just this week I posted in my YM status “I’m excited” and a lot of people asked me what was I am excited of. No one actually got the right answer. I was excited because finally my design for my latest web design project is done! (OA no? haha)

It’s quite an achievement for me because I finally was able to design something on my own. I implemented the things I learned in reading design blogs such as spacing and typography. I took me a lot of rearranging and mimicking ideas from other websites (I admit – I’m a second rate trying hard copycat! hehe.. not too ashamed, it’s just the way I start brainstorming ). I also asked a friend to do some of the images and logo and I also spent a lot of time in istockphoto. It took me 5 iterations to finally come up with something I am happy.

After seeing the converted design to HTML, it felt awesomeness to the max! I’m pretty much happy about it(I bet you can tell). I guess when I turn to my 30′s I’ll shift to design!

I guess the most important thing that made me happy about this project is because I had a goal beforehand. I knew who it was for, what basic elements and blocks that should be included and I knew why the project exist. I had several attempts to come up with any design in the past but I always failed. I think even you’re equipped with a lot of know-how but there is no a real value or goal in a design project or any project, it will always fail. Failure in the sense of your not able to satisfy something. Is it just me or am I not alone? Do you always have that great idea pop up out of nowhere? I’m interested to hear.

Understand the language (of business)

A business partner came to me yesterday excited to share his solutions in our current problem. It’s a rare scenario because he talked about leveraging! Before, I can hardly open up the idea of using others money or effort so we could grow the business. Not that he is closed to the idea but I could not explain it the way it was explained in the book. I also lack the credibility and the sufficient knowledge to explain it. When I joined the ca2020 community and attended the wealth course, I found it to be a great resource and I dragged him along afterwards. I’m bearing the fruit of that course little by little now.

Education on business and investments should really be part of the system of aspiring entrepreneurs. And I mean not only yourself but also your partners. You can generate more ideas and decide wisely if you and your partners speak the same language.

House Escapo

Working at home can sometimes get boring and it makes me crazy. I have been thinking of going out of the house but my problem is the place to stay and the cost. I have been looking for a place with free wifi in our area but I haven’t found one except for Starbucks but they charge PHP100.00/hour. That’s too much for me considering that I have to buy atleast anything from them. That’s why I really hate reasoning myself when I want to do something because eventually I will end up not doing it. But I was a little crazy today and ignored my other self and thankfully I did!

I did not find any place with free wifi but I found at least a quite place to stay at Vienna Cafe in SM City San Fernando. I did not have an internet for 4 hours but I was still able to work – thanks to the coffee! I love the coffee though it’s expensive(super!). I will most likely do this again and seek for another place to stay. How about you – what do you do when bored?

Doing something different this year

I was meaning to write a post about some entrepreneurial plans I have for this year until I read Cal Evans post on entreprenureship which gave me a little boost of confidence. I also have a lot of ideas throwing out to people around me. Few were approved, most weren’t. Some ideas that I think are good but just thinking of what to do next scares me. Most ideas were denied because someone already have done it. But I believe in what others have said in Cal Evan’s post, the power is in the execution. The amount of things that I will learn in this experience might be more valuable than the lost I could get. I might fail now but I can use that for the next set of ideas.

The project

I really wanted to go ecommerce for the longest time. I have already 1 failed project on this last year because my partners and I were not ready yet for the challenge. So this year, a related idea came up. If I can’t have my shop, then I’ll help others who has the system but lacks the information needed to go online. It is targeted to small and medium enterprises who are interested or probably will get interested in putting up their businesses online. I’ve been involved in web development for almost 4 years now and I know how profitable the internet can be to anyone who would passionately learn it.

I took the first step and wrote some ideas, refined, refined and refined. I tried to create a business plan but I just failed in the sense that it is not that formal for a business plan – it’s too boring, But I did create a plan and that’s good enough for me. I ended up with my first task which is quite not what I wanted to. I did more research but that paid of with the information I was able to gather.

The next step was to start talking about it – writing a blog. A friend told me, no matter how good your product is, if you don’t market it’s useless. So I created a blogger account and called it SME Talk which tackles how a small and medium enterprise could start their online business. This is more of a help on the technical aspects since that is my forte. I have scheduled a twice a week post for this so good luck to me and to my future readers.

The future

I plan to do more on evangelizing my kababayan about internet and online opportunities. This could be an online and offline affair so I’ll probably be out more. Though I still expect a few things will probably change the plan for this year, some things are quite unstable and undecided but for as long as I am here this will be the BIG plan.

Summer at Puerto Galera

Before I forget about summer due to heavy rains this past few days, I finally found the urge to update my blog! Yay! Last April 4 – 5, my employer treated all its employees to an overnight stay in Puerto Galera. Luckily we are allowed to bring any number of friends or families so the company outing became a family outing too.. hehe..

Going to Galera was soooo long and tiring. We left the house at 1:00AM and arrived at the Batangas Port at 6AM. Then we had to wait for a few comrades and more passengers and left the port at 8AM. Another 45minutes was spent in a boat going to the island. It was a long time since I rode a boat so I got a little sick.

We arrived at the island around 9AM. I expected to see a white beach when I arrived because of some reviews but I was a little disappointed though it it a lot better that than our beaches in Olongapo because of its cleanliness. Shops are all over the place and the prices are much cheaper compared to Boracay. When we arrived, it was really sooooo hot and everyone were tired so we went straight to the hotel. We had to walk for another 10-15minutes I think although according to the website of the hotel was only a 5minute walk!

Anyway, we still enjoyed a lot. I shopped here and there. And our family became C2 endorsers in no time! Haha.

The weather wasn’t that friendly to us then, it was slightly cloudy and the water was really cold. The happiest I experienced was when I did kayaking (I love this part because my brother did all the work at the back! haha!)

I had a full body massage but I felt I was battered, I felt like she was using wood and sand over me! But I think that helped in someways, I only had slight muscle ache the next morning. And then the next day, the group decided to go snorkeling. I enjoyed that a lot.

That ends our 2 day journey to Puerto Galera. We left the island at 1PM.

A question about sickness and death

My uncle Bert, Roberto David, died last March 9, 2009 due to diabetes, cancer and more complications I do not know. We are not close but their family is a role model to us. They are a rugs to riches story and they raised their children very well, very down to earth and respectful children. One unforgettable moment during the wake was when his youngest son told the story of how he died.

For more than 13 years, my uncle Bert suffered from diabetes and then his kidney was attacked. He lost 2 legs. They spent millions due to his illness. They have to sell most of their properties and they have to work harder. Their family was even more tested. We have always thought that he cannot accept what had happened to him that’s why he waited this long. But we’ve thought it wrong. All those years, he was doing it for his children. He was holding on just to be able to watch over his children. He was silently fighting the pain and hardship so not to make his family worry about him to much. This is what his children found out during his last 2 days. No one accepted of their father’s faith until then. He died 3 times that day for only a couple of hours and finally they accepted and hopefully my uncle also did.

From this story it made me think. At times like that it is really hard to judge people on what actions they will take. My mother and I had a discussion that if we ever faced the same situation, we will opt for the easy death, no more long suffering. But in times that you think you or your family have not yet accepted the fact, how can we tell which decision is better? Which one would you prefer: Fight and suffer for some reasons or rest in peace quickly?

Implementing Release early, Release often in the Offline World

I don’t know what to say and how to introduce it but here it is — we opened up a Digital printing service! Yey!

With background in web development, we have been tremendously influenced by the terms and practices here. We applied the concept of release early, release often in the business. Last 2 weeks ago, we opened up with only the basic services — printing of digital pictures, creating photo ID’s, visa ID’s and the like. We decided to do so because every day that we do not open up, we are losing precious customers. After a few days of getting used to the new system, we explored on selling products based on customer’s requests. For the last 2 weeks, our expectations were exceeded!

In the very near future we will deliver your printed images to your homes with only a few clicks. You do not have to come to our office because we will come to you. Actually, you can try our alpha version and be the first to try that out! I can give you big discount for trying it first. Just send your images to me via email and some instructions if you have. Contact me at rachel (at) petixe.com. I also welcome questions or suggestions, I’m sure you have. By the way, we only ship within the Philippine territory, obviously because of the cost

CSS Font Size and Family Cheatsheet

Here is a cheatsheet for Conversion from Points to Pixels (and Ems and %) and List of Web Safe Fonts. I did not create them, I got them from other sites and the original links are included for reference. It’s just handy when I have to convert PSD designs to HTML.

Download cheatsheet