Thursday, March 23, 2017

Pagibig Contribution Table 2017

Here is the latest Pagibig Contribution Table 2017 or HDMF Contribution Table. The Home Development Mutual Fund is very helpful in supporting Pagibig members to generate savings, earn dividends and avail housing loans and other loans offered by Pagibig.

It is mandatory for employees to pay Pagibig Fund contributions every payroll or whenever they receive their salaries. This is automatic and done by the employer every payroll. It is also important for employers to remit and submit reports to Pagibig regarding all their employees’ contributions. Knowing the latest Pagibig contribution table helps in awareness of each member, thus we are sharing here the latest contributions.

Pagibig Contribution Table 2017

Every employee, employer, members, OFWs must take note the latest Pagibig Contribution Table 2017 below to aid and be aware how much you are paying to Pagibig Fund every month. The usual payment is P100 following the maximum compensation set to 5,000.



How to compute Pagibig Contributions?

The maximum monthly compensation allowed to compute each employee’s Pagibig contribution is currently set at P5,000. This means that the maximum contribution a member can pay per month is currently P100 and the employer’s share applied to that maximum contribution is also P100.

If you are employed and you are receiving more than 5,000 every month, you will be deducted 100 every month to cover your employee share. Your employer will also pay 100 to your Home Development Mutual Fund (employer share).


How Pagibig Fund earns money?

Pagibig (HDMF) is a mutual fund. All the money you will contribute to the HDMF will be pooled and invested to different financial instruments usually government funds or money markets. These Mutual Fund then will earn income from those investments. As a member of the Home Development Mutual Fund, you are entitled to that income.

Learn more about Mutual Funds and earn more money by going to this page: Mutual Funds Guides


How to increase your Pagibig Contributions?

Pagibig a.k.a. HDMF, allows members the opportunity to earn more income and dividends from the Fund by increasing their Pagibig savings. You can check out this post to learn how to do that: “How to increase your Pagibig Savings”



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New SSS Contribution Table 2017

We have the latest and new SSS Contribution Table 2017 here so everyone including employers, employees, self-employed, voluntary members and OFWs must know the latest contribution table. This applies to SSS Contributions 2014, 2015, 2016 as well.
I’ve been to the SSS office two days ago to pay the current quarter’s premiums and as usual to submit R3 reports. The very kind and accommodating employee reminded me about next year’s change of SSS contributions schedule. I asked a copy of the complete schedule for employers, employee, self-employed, OFWs and voluntary members as well. So here I am sharing them to everyone.
Thought to share the latest SSS Contribution table 2017 here. It will be very helpful if you print it out especially if you’re an employer so you can update your employees’ contributions earlier and not rush doing it at the exact time of your payment. I also advise voluntary members, OFWs and self-employed to know the update and check the new amounts from the table to avoid payment errors.
By the way, all members of SSS including employers are now required to have an SSS online account. Apparently, the Social Security System is aiming to make everything online now which is great I think. Eventually, we don’t need to go to the SSS to transact or inquire about our account. There are features on the online account such as viewing premiums, static information, and employment history download that are now working. I hope other features for employers like uploading R3 will be working soon too. I’ve been trying to do the uploading manually online but the system causes errors. I asked that to the SSS too and they said, it would work in the future.
If you want to view and check your SSS account online, we have the ultimate guide here:       How to View and Check SSS Contributions Online

SSS Contribution Table for 2017
For employers and employed people, see the table below.


SSS Contribution Table 2017 for OFW Self-employed and Voluntary members


Note that the minimum salary credit for OFW member is P5,000.

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New Philhealth Contribution Table 2017


Philhealth Contribution Table 2017 for Employed Members


The table below applies to the employed category membership of the NHIP. According to the memo from Philhealth, “members shall be entitled to in-patient hospital care including all case rate packages and catastrophic illness in the Case Type Z Benefit Package, out-patient coverage and other special benefit package under the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP).”



Philhealth Contribution Table 2017 for OFW

New premium contributions of P2,400/year applies to OFW or those under the OWP (Overseas Workers Program) applicable to Landbased OFWs, either documented or undocumented.

Members under this category can pay either P2,400 for the annual contributions or P1,200 for the 6 months contributions.




Philhealth Contribution Table for Self-employed, Individually Paying Member

With monthly income of P25,000 and below – P2,400/year
With monthly income above P25,000 – P3,600/year
All members under this category can pay quarterly, semi-annually or annually.


Philhealth Contribution Table 2017 for the Sponsored Program Members

Sponsored members whose premium contributions are fully or partially subsidized by their sponsors such as LGUs, Private Entities, Legislators, and National Government Agencies are under this category.

Annual premium of P2,400 is also applied to these type of members.
According to Philhealth, all sponsored members and their beneficiaries

"shall be entitled to identified in-patient hospital care (including the Z Benefit Package), out-patient care services, and other health care services provided by accredited health care centers and providers. They shall also be entitled to the No balance Billing (NBB) Policy for health care services provided by accredited government health facilities in a non-private accommodation. Likewise, they shall also be entitled to the Primary Care Benefit 1 (PCB1) Package to be provided by their accredited Primary Care Benefit Provided where they are assigned and enlisted."

Those health benefits sound so helpful. Health is wealth. Remember that in order to be eligible to benefits, we must always pay our premiums and avoid missing a month or months of unpaid contributions. Philhealth always require active membership and payment of premiums in availing benefits. It is always important to know our benefits and the requirements even if we are not availing them.

I hope though these premium requirements will not increase next year. They are too close to those private health insurance providers. Nonetheless, they must also increase health benefits packages and coverage.

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Sunday, March 19, 2017

Philippine Pres. Duterte visits Myanmar and Thailand to boost industry partnerships


President Duterte speaks during his departure ceremony before a visit to Myanmar at Davao city international airport, in Davao, Philippines, 19 March 2017.
(EPA/CERILO EBRANO / MANILA BULLETIN)

President Rodrigo Duterte said he will be anchoring its friendship and possible deals on the similarities between the Philippines and Myanmar, during a departure speech delivered at the Francisco Bangoy International Airport in Davao City.

Duterte said he is scheduled to visit Myanmar and Thailand in the latest leg of his visits to the ASEAN member states.

In a prepared speech, President Duterte said that the synergies between the two nations could form the basis of strengthened cooperation. “As developing countries with similar historic experiences and facing the same challenges, we can use the synergies of our interests as basis for strengthened cooperation,” Duterte said. The President cited “traditional and emerging transnational crimes” such as terrorism, violent extremism, piracy, and illicit drug trade. “We also have a common interest in sustaining inclusive growth and development for our peoples,” Duterte added.

“Myanmar’s economic development is recognized as one of the fastest in our region and therefore bilateral trade and investment will be a key area of discussion,” he said.

Duterte said that the Philippines and Myanmar could likely partner in several industries such as pharmaceuticals, and food and beverage. According to the leader, the visits to the ASEAN member states help the Philippines prepare for the scheduled hosting of the 30th ASEAN Summit and related meetings in Manila this April.

“Myanmar is our ASEAN neighbor and friend with whom we’ve had relations for more than six decades now. My visit will underscore our commitment to deepen partnership with Myanmar towards a brighter and better future,” Duterte said. After Myanmar, Thailand will also be honored as a co-founding nation which started the ASEAN 50 years ago.

“There is much at stake in relations. We have to move forward together on shared interests in securing security and stability in the region as we seek to sustain growth and development for our peoples.”


Source: manilabulletin

AMD previews ‘Naples’ server processor


Resurgent chip maker AMD has taken a significant step into the server and datacenter market with its most detailed look yet at the upcoming high-performance CPU for servers, codenamed “Naples”.

Purpose-built to disrupt the status-quo and to scale across the cloud datacenter and traditional on-premise server configurations, “Naples” delivers the highly regarded “Zen” x86 processing engine in industry-leading configurations of up to 32 cores. Superior memory bandwidth and the number of high-speed input/output channels in a single-chip further differentiate “Naples” from anything else in the server market today. The first processors are scheduled to be available in Q2 2017, with volume availability building in the second half of the year through OEM and channel partners.

“Today marks the first major milestone in AMD re-asserting its position as an innovator in the datacenter and returning choice to customers in high-performance server CPUs,” said Forrest Norrod, senior vice president and general manager for enterprise, embedded and semi-custom business unit at AMD.

“’Naples’ represents a completely new approach to supporting the massive processing requirements of the modern datacenter. This groundbreaking system-on-chip delivers the unique high-performance features required to address highly virtualized environments, massive data sets and new, emerging workloads.”

The new AMD server processor exceeds today’s top competitive offering on critical parameters, with 45% more cores1, 60% more input/output capacity (I/O), and 122% more memory bandwidth.

“It is exciting to see AMD back in the server conversation with a new CPU and a sound strategy for why it is the right processor for the modern datacenter and the cloud computing era,” said Matt Eastwood, senior vice president for enterprise infrastructure and datacenter at IDC.

“Looking at the product details announced today, it sounds like a compelling combination that will give IT buyers a unique new option to consider when making their next upgrade.”

“Naples” features:

• A highly scalable, 32-core System on Chip (SoC) design, with support for two high-performance threads per core

• Industry-leading memory bandwidth, with 8-channels of memory per “Naples” device. In a 2-socket server, support for up to 32 DIMMS of DDR4 on 16 memory channels, delivering up to 4 terabytes of total memory capacity.

• The processor is a complete SoC with fully integrated, high-speed I/O supporting 128 lanes of PCIe 34, negating the need for a separate chip-set

• A highly-optimized cache structure for high-performance, energy efficient compute

• AMD Infinity Fabric coherent interconnect for two “Naples” CPUs in a 2-socket system

• Dedicated security hardware


Source: newsbytes

Super Mario Run reaches Android on March 23rd

Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Nintendo has made good on its earlier promise and revealed that the Android edition of the touchscreen runner will arrive on March 23rd, in sync with version 2.0 of the game. Android users won't have to wait much longer to find out whether or not Super Mario Run has justified any of the hype. That update will give you more character choices beyond the current six, and will throw free players a bone by letting them tackle World 1-4 if they complete a challenge. There's more to 2.0 than that, Nintendo teases, but you'll have to wait to learn the rest.


Source: engadget

Google Street Maps takes cameras inside Volcanoes

Google Maps has added volcanoes to their list of Street View projects. Image: Google Maps via AFP Relaxnews

For the mission, Google Maps dispatched explorers Geoff Mackley and Chris Horsley to repel 400 meters into the belly of the Marum volcano on Ambrym island, and collect 360-degree imagery of the molten lava lake which spans the size of two football fields.

In line with the growing popularity of volcano tourism, Google Street View has gone into the bowels of the earth to capture images of what locals in Vanuatu call “a hot-headed husband and wife pair with a tendency to erupt in public spats.”

“Standing at the edge and feeling the heat lick your skin is phenomenal,” said Chris Horsley after returning from his descent into the crater. “I hope that by putting this place on the map, people will realize what a beautiful world we live in.” Vanuatu is located about 1,600 kilometers off the coast of Australia and is made up of 80 islands and nine active volcanoes. On Ambrym, locals believe that volcanoes Benbow and Marum are a pair of husband and wife devils, with hot tempers.

“If you go up to a volcano you have to be very careful because the two volcanoes could get angry at any time,” said Chief Moses of the local village of Endu. “We believe that Benbo is the husband and Marum is the wife. Sometimes when they don’t agree, there’s an eruption which means the spirit is angry so we sacrifice a pig or fawel to the volcano.”
Ambrym is home to 7,000 people who live mostly in the rainforest down the mountain.
Virtual visitors can also take a stroll through Endu Village, which has been rebuilding its infrastructure after being hit by a cyclone a few years ago.


Source: inquirer

Saturday, March 18, 2017

Russian space agency prepares for its first manned moon landing

Image: Roscosmos

NASA, the US government and American space corporations aren't the only ones with their eyes on the moon. Russia's Space Agency (Roscosmos) has begun planning for its first manned lunar landing, starting with a recruitment drive for potential cosmonauts. The agency is looking for six to eight trainees with a background in engineering or aviation, or those who already have experience working in the space industry. All interested candidates will go through several stages of psychological, physical and medical tests during the selection process. The chosen eight will have to undergo some intense training until four remain. Those who get the job will pilot Russia's next-gen reusable manned spacecraft Federatsiya.


Photograph: Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

Since flying to space is pretty demanding not just mentally, but also physically, Roscosmos is looking for people with a high standard of fitness. Applicants must be 35-years-old and below, with a minimum height of 4'11" to a maximum of 6'2" and who don't weigh over 199 pounds. Sergei Krikalyov, the agency's executive director of manned programs said "There will be no discrimination based on skin colour or gender."Russia's first manned moon landing isn't scheduled until 2031, but the agency is launching a manned test flight in 2023 from its new spaceport.

Source: engadget