PAG-IBIG Fund now mandatory for OFWs

I learned that Overseas Filipino Workers are now required to pay P100 monthly to their PAG-IBIG Fund.  This bit of news reminded me of the time my wife and I withdrew our PAG-IBIG Fund early this year because we have migrated to a new country.  Even as employees in the Philippines, we did not find much value as PAG-IBIG Fund members.  SSS was ok because we were able to take out a loan, but the primary service we knew of PAG-IBIG is that it can be used for a housing loan.  But with salaries just enough to get by every month, there wasn't really much left to pay for a housing loan.  So we were comforting ourselves with the fact that the company we work for sets aside money for our PAG-IBIG Fund which we can use someday.

My kind of tagging

"Tagging" is the local term in New Zealand for vandalism.  This is a prevalent problem here, and a number of measures have been taken to curb this, such as imposing an age limit to those who buy spray paint, and meting punishment to those caught in the act.

There is, however, another form of tagging that's eliciting more positive than negative responses, and it involves yarn.  They call it graffiti knitting.  Instead of defacing public property with paint spray (and getting the general ire of the public), graffiti knitting is given a lot more thought to how the knitted pattern is made and placed.  In a sense it's still defacing public property, but in a cute and fun sort of way.

How to sponsor a visitor to New Zealand

We have recently received word that my mother-in-law's Visitor Visa has been approved.  If you are also thinking of sponsoring your relative based in the Philippines for a visit here in New Zealand and you are looking for information, I hope our experience will be of some use to you.

What we did was we accomplished the papers here in Wellington, then had these papers delivered to my mother-in-law, who then affixed her ID photo and signature where applicable and then sent these off to the Manila Branch of NZ Immigration.  There is a provision in the Application Form for this where you declare that you are assisting the applicant in filling out the documents, so this is legal.