You arrive at your hotel and check in at the front desk. While checking in, you give the front desk your credit card (for all the charges for your room). You get to your room and settle in. Someone calls the front desk and asks for (example) Room 620 (which happens to be your room). […]

Salisi gang in Manila Sunflower Health & Massage Clinic owners Derrick and his wife Monica Brillo recently returned from a holiday in the Philippines. While having lunch at Tokyo Tokyo Japanese Restaurant somewhere in Manila, Monica’s handbag was grabbed by a member of “Salisi Gang.” In it were her mobile phone and wallet that contained […]

During our first week in Beijing, we first visited The Lama Temple (Yong He Gong). This is the best preserved temple in China. Fortunately, it was not severely damaged in spite of several foreign invasions or even by the Cultural Revolution. Monks from Tibet, Mongolia, and Manchuria were the former residents of this temple. Lama […]

The Great Wall is located about 70 kilometers north of the City of Beijing. It can be accessed through bus or trains, but with several stop overs. Since we were constrained by time, my host daughter Dionne hired a taxi for one whole day for our trip. Luckily, my “bunso” joined us here in Beijing […]

The Swedish embassy in Ireland is closing after 65 years, while the Philippine embassy celebrates its first year in Dublin. Ambassador Abadilla was assigned as Consul General in Sydney in the mid-90s. After 4 years in Australia, he moved to Washington DC as head of the Philippine Mission and was later based in Honolulu. Dublin, […]

Is your passport still valid? You think renewing your Australian passport is easy? Not these days apparently! Gone are the days when you can pop in to your local Australia Post Office and you can easily get a Renewal Form from the shelves without having to queue up to the counter. Having realised that our […]

It could only happen in Australia: A lowly aspiring ”barangay-level” Filipin-Oz politician literally bumping into the Australian Prime Minister for a quick chat. I cannot imagine that happening in the Philippines. Neil Galang, a small business owner from the city of Blacktown in Sydney’s west, was on a family holiday in the resort town of […]

Despite the global financial meltdown, our fellow Filipinos are still in demand as cruise ship workers for most companies around the world! Sonny Flores, who works as a waiter for the Sun Princess told this writer that more than 60 percent of the crew at the luxury ship are made up of Filipinos. They are […]

There is no need to leave the comfort of your home just to buy your airline ticket. “A telephone call will do,” says Pauline Peralta of Travel Access. Unlike other travel agents who make you wait, all you need to do is to inform her of your destination or itinerary and she will offer the […]

TRAVEL traffic between Australia and the Philippines continued to buck the trend this year in the face of the current global recession. In an exclusive interview, the Philippines’ tourism attache in Sydney, Consuelo ‘Lito’ Jones, told Radio Sandigan that despite a worldwide decline of 8 per cent, traffic between Australia and the Philippines had increased […]

Pauline Peralta of Travel Access offers a very special rate of only $899 to Sydney-Manila-Sydney passengers, inclusive of taxes. Travel period covered is from October 12 to November 18 and from January 24, 2010 to March 26, 2010.

Why are cruise ships docking in Vietnam, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Korea and others, when these places are no better than Manila or Cebu? This story was written by a Filipino couple who now lives in the United States. They want to share with the readers of Philippine Sentinel what they discovered as the reason why […]