Filipino clerk pleads guilty of filming roommates in shower

An unnamed 41-year-old Filipino clerk admitted he installed a GoPro camera to film his Filipino flatmates in the shower, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The clerk pleaded guilty to the charge of molesting and breaching the modesty of his female roommates at the Dubai Court of First Instance last Thursday, Sept. 20, as reported by Gulf News yesterday, Sept. 22. A ruling on the charges will be heard on Oct. 8.


“During questioning, the suspect admitted that he had filmed his flatmates naked in the shower,” an unnamed police corporal told the prosecutors, the report stated. “When asked why he did so, he alleged that he used to film them nude and watch the content to please his sexual desires.”

Apparently, the camera was discovered in the ceiling of their washroom by one of the clerk’s roommates in August. She, unnamed also in the report along with her fellow female roommates, immediately made her discovery known to them. They then decided to take the camera down on their own.

When they removed the camera’s memory card to inspect its content, they stumbled upon videos of themselves naked in the shower, the report said. They confronted the clerk who admitted to installing the said camera.

The clerk assured them that there were no more images and so his roommates decided to forgive him instead of reporting him to the authorities. However, one of his roommates browsed the content of the memory card the day after they spotted the camera and learned that he had been filming them longer than they had initially thought.

It turns out that the clerk started filming them from December 2017, amassing more than 100 videos and images of them naked, the report stated. Because of their findings, they decided to forego their initial resolution to forgive their flatmate, proceeding to file their complaint against him. Kate Matriano/JB

source: globalnation.inquirer.net

‘Balikbayan’ box tax-free up to P150,000

Good news for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) sending home  “balikbayan” boxes to their loved ones.

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Department of Finance have signed the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) prescribing the guidelines on duty- and tax-free balikbayan boxes.  The two agencies signed Customs Administrative Order (CAO) 05-2016, which serves as the IRR of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) covering the sending of such packages.

“We value the importance of each balikbayan box. (It) symbolizes the hardship of our (OFWs), and the love of Filipinos abroad for their families here in the country,” BOC Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon said.

Qualified Filipinos 


CAO 05-2016 takes effect on Dec. 25, Christmas Day, and states that only qualified Filipinos abroad may avail themselves of duty- and tax-free privileges on balikbayan boxes containing personal effects and households goods.

Under the new CMTA, the tax exemption ceiling for balikbayan boxes has now been hiked to P150,000 as long as the items inside the box are not in commercial quantities.

 3 times a year

OFWs may avail themselves of the duty- and tax-free privilege up to three times a year.

Defined as “qualified Filipinos abroad”  are holders of valid passports issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs and certified by the Department of Labor and Employment or the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration for overseas employment purposes.

Also included are nonresident Filipinos who have established permanent residency abroad but retained their Filipino citizenship, and resident Filipino citizens who temporarily stay abroad and hold a student visa, investors’ visa, tourist visa and similar visas.

To avail themselves of this privilege, qualified Filipinos must submit: a photocopy of the page of their Philippine passport with personal information, picture and signature, or a photocopy of their foreign passport with personal information, picture and signature, plus a copy of proof of their dual citizenship.

The qualified Filipino must also submit an invoice, receipt or equivalent document covering the goods in the balikbayan box.  The sender must sign and submit as well the information sheet to be issued by the agency, with the document serving as the packing list.

Electronic format

The international forwarder or consolidator, meanwhile, must submit the information sheets and supporting documents in secured electronic format to the Philippine forwarder or deconsolidator.

The local forwarder shall then transmit the information sheet and supporting documents in a secured electronic format to the BOC, before the arrival of the balikbayan boxes to the Philippines.

For consolidated shipments by sea that have a three-day shipping time, documents must be submitted 24 hours before the package’s arrival.  Those with a seven-day shipping time must have the documents submitted 48 hours before arrival.

For shipments coming from America, Europe, Middle East, and other parts of the world that do not fall under the above-mentioned shipping time, the documents must be submitted 10 days before arrival.

Consolidated shipments carried by aircraft and coming from Asia must have their documents submitted one hour before arrival. Those from other countries must have the documents submitted six hours before arrival.

The BOC said the qualified Filipino sender must also certify that only personal effects and household goods, in noncommercial quantities, are contained in the balikbayan boxes. These include clothes, foodstuff, grocery items, canned goods and other similar items.

A different order covers balikbayan boxes brought in through means other than consolidated shipments.

Faeldon urged all international and local forwarders, foreign consolidators and local deconsolidators to strictly follow the guidelines provided for in CAO 05-2016 to ensure that BOC personnel can expedite clearance procedures, and that all balikbayan boxes are delivered to their receiver with utmost care.

The BOC chief also reminded all port officials and personnel to follow the agency’s “no opening of balikbayan boxes” policy, and to expedite the release and handling of these boxes.

source: globalnation.inquirer.net

Filipinos abroad mobilize to help country

HONG KONG—Filipinos abroad, who have spent harrowing days trying to contact loved ones after a typhoon devastated their homeland, are mobilizing to send relief, despite misgivings about corrupt local officials pocketing aid on the ground.

With thousands feared dead and aid only trickling in after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: “Haiyan”) laid waste to entire coastal towns on Friday, many among the 10-million-strong diaspora are still frantically trying to find out if their relatives are alive and their homes still standing.

And from Asian capitals to the United States and Europe, Filipino communities are taking to churches and social media sites to raise funds for communities left with nothing—and growing increasingly desperate.

In Hong Kong, where some 150,000 Filipinos work as domestic helpers, the Red Cross said a hotline set up to trace the missing had been overwhelmed since the typhoon smashed into the nation’s central islands, displacing an estimated 673,000.

“The maids were crying. They didn’t know what to do,” spokesperson Denise Wong told AFP.

Liezel Miralles, a 40-year-old domestic worker from Batad, a coastal town of 20,000 people, had not been able to contact her husband and other relatives to find out if they had survived.

“I feel very, very, very sad, my whole family is there,” Miralles said as she bought groceries for her employer at a street-side market. “There is no house, no phone, no connection.”

On Sunday, when Hong Kong’s downtown throngs with domestic helpers congregating on their day-off, worker groups will hold an “information drive” on the crisis and gather donations.

But support group United Filipinos is one of many organizations and individuals around the world planning to direct aid only to nongovernment agencies.

“We are afraid that if we send to the government, it will just to go their pockets and will not reach the beneficiaries,” secretary general Eman Villanueva told AFP.

“Politicians are using it for their own benefit even in the midst of this devastating situation. They are still thinking for themselves.”

In Singapore, Dimples Larrazabal said the 24 hours it took for her to get in touch with her mother, her brother and his family in the town of Ormoc in devastated Leyte province seemed like an eternity.

“At first I was half-positive (that things would be OK) because our house is a good structure,” said Larrazabal, a 35-year-old homemaker. But she began to panic after seeing photos showing the unimaginable devastation.

“That’s when I cried ‘Oh my God! Nothing was spared!” she said. “I knew that Ormoc was directly in the path of the typhoon.”

Social media sites were inundated with posts from people searching for missing relatives, uploading pictures of individuals and families on Facebook and Twitter in posts tagged #tracingPH or simply #missing.

Google said it had updated its Person Finder site—which helps people find loved ones after a disaster—to include Philippines’ mobile numbers.

Krima Molina, a 26-year-old teacher from storm-struck Leyte now living in Tokyo, said she watched in horror as Facebook posts from friends at home turned into increasingly desperate pleas for help.

Homeless survivors were becoming ill from exposure, left with no shelter but makeshift shanties made of plastic tarps draped over plywood, she said. “They need medicine. They need volunteer doctors. A lot of people are injured.”

Many of the homes destroyed have been built with the earnings of the staggering 10 percent of the population that works abroad.

source: globalnation.inquirer.net