I received an email from the global leader in online payments, PayPal, this morning. It’s about withdrawing funds thru my Philippine bank account. That’s nice because it will be easier for me to access my PayPal funds. Here is the list of the major banks in the Philippines with their respective 9-digit bank codes:

Allied Banking Corp - 010320013
Asia United Bank - 011020011
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas - 010030015
Banco De Oro (& EPCIB) - 010530667
Bank of COmmerce - 010440016
Bank of the Philippine Islands -010040018
China Banking Corp. - 010100013
Citibank N.A. - 010070017
East West Bank - 010620014
Export & Industry Bank - 010860010
Land Bank of the Philippines - 010350025
Maybank of the Philippines - 010220016
Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. - 010269996
Philippine Bank of Communication - 010110016
Philippine Trust Company - 010090039
Philippine National Bank - 010080010
Prudential Bank - 010150018
Philippine Veterans Bank - 010330016
Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. - 010280014
Security Bank & Trust Co. - 010140015
United Coconut Planters Bank - 010299995
Union Bank of the Philippines - 010419995
United Overseas Bank - 010270189

Click here for the step by step tutorials on how to withdraw Paypal funds thru your bank account.

20 years old Novak Djokovic won the Australian Open men’s single last Sunday against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He became the Serbia’s first Grand Slam singles champion after his four-set win over frenchman Tsonga at Melbourne Park. Tsonga beat Federer while Djokovic beat Nadal in semi-finals. In women’s single, Maria Sharapova beat Ana Ivanovic in their two-set match. Sharapova has won three Grand Slam singles titles, first in Wimbledon (2004), second in U.S. Open (2006) and third is the Australian Open (2008).

While searching American Idol Season 7 in YouTube, I was surprised because there was a Filipino who joined the audition. He is Ronaldo Lapuz, 44-years old from Reno, Nevada who entered the American Idol audition in Dallas, Texas. Wearing a flashy silver cape, white adornments and white hat that had Simon written on it. Renaldo sung his original composition titled: We’re Brothers Forever and Simon Cowell was unimpressed at first but later on he waves his hands to him. Randy Jackson was so amused while Paula Abdul stood up from her seat and motioned.

Randy went up to Renaldo and belted out the lyrics: “I am your brother / your best friend forever / singing these songs / the music that you love / We’re brothers till the end of time / together or not, you’re always in my mind.” After that Simon gave his appraisal to Renaldo for his performance and said it’s going to be No but he told that it’s going to be a hit record.

While searching images for my press ad design, H my co-designer sent me the latest MacBook image thru Yahoo Messenger. I’m surprised about what I saw, the world’s thinnest notebook called MacBook Air. I visited the Apple website for it’s features and wow a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display that has a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution.

It weighs about 3 pounds, and sports a thickness of 0.16-0.76 inches. Its 12.8 inches wide and 8.95 inches deep. Beside that it has 1.8-inch hard disk drive with 80GB of storage, 2GB of 667MH DDR2 SDRAM and powered by Intel Core 2 Duo chip running at 1.6GHz.

I think MacBook Air will be a nice present for me this coming Christmas.

This story begins when I was a child: I was born poor. Often we hadn’t enough to eat. Whenever we had some food, Mother often gave me her portion of rice. While she was transferring her rice into my bowl, she would say “Eat this rice, son! I’m not hungry.” This was Mother’s First Lie.

As I grew, Mother gave up her spare time to fish in a river near our house; she hoped that from the fish she caught, she could give me a little bit more nutritious food for my growth. Once she had caught just two fish, she would make fish soup. While I was eating the soup, mother would sit beside me and eat the what was still left on the bone of the fish I had eaten, My heart was touched when I saw it. Once I gave the other fish to her on my chopstick but she immediately refused it and said, “Eat this fish, son! I don’t really like fish.” This was Mother’s Second Lie.

Then, in order to fund my education, Mother went to a Match Factory to bring home some used matchboxes which she filled with fresh matchsticks. This helped her get some money to cover our needs. One wintry night I awoke to find Mother filling the matchboxes by candlelight. So I said, “Mother, go to sleep; it’s late: you can continue working tomorrow morning.” Mother smiled and said “Go to sleep, son! I’m not tired.” This was Mother’s Third Lie

When I had to sit my Final Examination, Mother accompanied me. After dawn, Mother waited for me for hours in the heat of the sun. When the bell rang, I ran to meet her.. Mother embraced me and poured me a glass of tea that she had prepared in a thermos. The tea was not as strong as my Mother’s love, Seeing Mother covered with perspiration, I at once gave her my glass and asked her to drink too. Mother said “Drink, son! I’m not thirsty!”. This was Mother’s Fourth Lie.

After Father’s death, Mother had to play the role of a single parent. She held on to her former job; she had to fund our needs alone. Our family’s life was more complicated. We suffered from starvation. Seeing our family’s condition worsening, my kind Uncle who lived near my house came to help us solve our problems big and small. Our other neighbors saw that we were poverty stricken so they often advised my mother to marry again. But Mother refused to remarry saying “I don’t need love.” This was Mother’s Fifth Lie.

After I had finished my studies and gotten a job, it was time for my old Mother to retire but she carried on going to the market every morning just to sell a few vegetables. I kept sending her money but she was steadfast and even sent the money back to me. She said, “I have enough money.” That was Mother’s Sixth Lie.

I continued my part-time studies for my Master’s Degree. Funded by the American Corporation for which I worked, I succeeded in my studies. With a big jump in my salary, I decided to bring Mother to enjoy life in America but Mother didn’t want to bother her son; she said to me “I’m not used to do high living.” That was Mother’s Seventh Lie

In her dotage, Mother was attacked by cancer and had to be hospitalized. Now living far across the ocean, I went home to visit Mother who was bedridden after an operation. Mother tried to smile but I was heartbroken because she was so thin and feeble but Mother said, “Don’t cry, son! I’m not in pain.” That was Mother’s Eighth Lie.

Telling me this, her eighth lie, she died. YES, MOTHER WAS AN ANGEL!

M - O - T - H - E - R
“M” is for the Million things she gave me,
“O” means Only that she’s growing old,
“T” is for the Tears she shed to save me,
“H” is for her Heart of gold,
“E” is for her Eyes with love-light shining in them,
“R” means Right, and right she’ll always be, Put them all together, they spell “MOTHER” a word that means the world to me.

For those of you who are lucky to be still blessed with your Mom’s presence on Earth, this story is beautiful. For those who aren’t so blessed, this is even more beautiful.

Casio release their EX-S10 digital camera which is to be the world’s thinnest and slimmest 10 megapixels resolution. It has the powerful functionality such as high pixel count, zoom functionality, 2.7-inch wide and bright LCD, photo functions and much more. EX-S10 has auto shutter function that records automatically the moment of smie and moving when hand shake ceases. which utilizes the AAC audio codec widely enjoyed in Apple’s iPod, etc.

Many devotees from different places of Philippines come to visit Quiapo Church for the feast of Black Nazarene. Evey 9th day of January, people gather here to join the procession accompanying the life-sized, dark-skinned statue of Jesus Christ. It is usually the single largest festival of the year in the Philippines. Today the number of devotees who joined the procession swelled to 80,000 in Quiapo, Manila.

There was a little boy visiting his grandparents on their farm. He was given a slingshot to play with out in the woods. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit the target. Getting a little discouraged, he headed back for dinner. As he was walking back he saw Grandma’s pet duck. Just out of impulse, he let the slingshot fly, hit the duck square in the head and killed it. He was shocked and grieved! In a panic, he hid the dead duck in the wood pile; only to see his sister watching! Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing. After lunch the next day Grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.” But Sally said, “Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen.” Then she whispered to him, “Remember the duck?” So Johnny did the dishes. Later that day, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing and Grandma said, “I’m sorry but I need Sally to help make supper.” Sally just smiled and said, “Well that’s all right because Johnny told me he wanted to help.” She whispered again, “Remember the duck?” So Sally went fishing and Johnny stayed to help. After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally’s; he finally couldn’t stand it any longer. He came to Grandma and confessed that he had killed the duck. Grandma knelt down, gave him a hug and said, “Sweetheart, I know. You see, I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing, but because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.” Thought for the day and every day thereafter? Whatever is in your past, whatever you have done…and the devil keeps throwing it up in your face (lying, cheating, debt, fear, bad habits, hatred, anger, bitterness, etc.)…whatever it is…You need to know that God was standing at the window and He saw the whole thing. He has seen your whole life. He wants you to know that He loves you and that you are forgiven. He’s just wondering how long you will let the devil make a slave of you. The great thing about God is that when you ask for forgiveness; He not only forgives you, but He forgets. It is by God’s grace and mercy that we are saved. Go ahead and make the difference in someone’s life today. Share this with a friend and always remember: God is at the window! When Jesus died on the cross; he was thinking of you! God is good all the time! All the time, God is GOOD!