General Info

[QUOTE=Golfinho;2040658]Of course, you'll want to do online check-in with any airline with which you don't have gold / platinum status -- in order to avoid the lines, although now with machine kiosks, check-in can be done quickly at the airport, with just bags to drop. Discount carriers let you check in days in advance -- sole purpose being to market the upsell. Problem is, if your plans change at the last minute, once you've checked in with some airlines it is not so simple to get a refund or ticket change: you risk losing it completely.[/QUOTE]I have never seen machine kiosks at any terminal in the Philippines, though it's possible that I've missed them and they do exist. I did once try to go through security with nothing but my digital ticket and was promptly sent to a counter and told to get a physical printout. The digital era here is in its infancy--remember this country still engages in the wide use of carbon paper--and assumptions about check-in procedures in more developed places often don't hold here. Aside from Manila, lining up to pay the airport departure tax is still required. This remains a basically analog place.

GE.

[QUOTE=GoodEnough;2040780]I have never seen machine kiosks at any terminal in the Philippines, though it's possible that I've missed them and they do exist. -and assumptions about check-in procedures in more developed places often don't hold here. [/QUOTE]Machines printing boarding passes exist in Manila airport. No assumptions were being made: only statements of experience in Philippines.

I have never seen so much paperwork to get on to ferry with a motorcycle. In Manila. I had to make at least 8 stops on different windows.

[QUOTE=GoodEnough;2040780]I have never seen machine kiosks at any terminal in the Philippines, though it's possible that I've missed them and they do exist. I did once try to go through security with nothing but my digital ticket and was promptly sent to a counter and told to get a physical printout. The digital era here is in its infancy--remember this country still engages in the wide use of carbon paper--and assumptions about check-in procedures in more developed places often don't hold here. Aside from Manila, lining up to pay the airport departure tax is still required. This remains a basically analog place.

GE.[/QUOTE]

Analog world yes and moving up to the digital one will take huge investments. Even if the moneys are there we all know someone pocket them before any investments are being made. On the other hand workers are cheap and paid small coins so if the employ like 8 people doing the same 1 person does back in the real world, it's still cheap.

[QUOTE=VernierCaliper;2041555]Analog world yes and moving up to the digital one will take huge investments. Even if the moneys are there we all know someone pocket them before any investments are being made. On the other hand workers are cheap and paid small coins so if the employ like 8 people doing the same 1 person does back in the real world, it's still cheap.[/QUOTE]Yesterday I was listening a HRM student who is going to do an OJT. Apparently 1000 hours required for the graduation. A free labor to the industry. Unbelievable.

[QUOTE=Mbsl65;2041724]Yesterday I was listening a HRM student who is going to do an OJT. Apparently 1000 hours required for the graduation. A free labor to the industry. Unbelievable.[/QUOTE]You didn't get the full story. They need to pay to work OJT.

Just returned from a quick visit and had chance to use the new bridge connecting naia 3 and resortworld. I think it opened about a month or so ago. From the airport, you have to go up to the food court on 4th level. It should be noted that there were absolutely no signage that I could see so I don't think many people know since you have to walk thru the food court. The moving walkways were working and there was also a cart to drive you. Once you exit on the resorts world side there are free shuttle vans for Marriott, Remington and maxim hotels. Directly across is the Belmont hotel. Very convenient for the morning Ana flight to narita but I saw absolutely no one else using it during both directions perhaps due to the lack of signage.

[QUOTE=SaltyPete;2041876]You didn't get the full story. They need to pay to work OJT.[/QUOTE]Well I don't think they all have to pay for their OJT. I've had girls telling me in fact they got paid doing OJT (small compared to the their future small wage but still better than nothing). And of course a few weren't paid a single maid. But to my knowledge they didn't have to pay for OJT. BM Salty's statement can very well be true as well in a few cases but I doubt paying for OJT is not what all have to do. I can see no reason why the girls would lie about being paid small or paid nothing.

[QUOTE=VernierCaliper;2042619]Well I don't think they all have to pay for their OJT. I've had girls telling me in fact they got paid doing OJT (small compared to the their future small wage but still better than nothing). And of course a few weren't paid a single maid. But to my knowledge they didn't have to pay for OJT. BM Salty's statement can very well be true as well in a few cases but I doubt paying for OJT is not what all have to do. I can see no reason why the girls would lie about being paid small or paid nothing.[/QUOTE]Whether they pay the OJT employer or not may be different in some cases. Meanwhile in OJT they might still be paying the school tuition for the OJT time frame.

The point is they are screwed and some are more screwed.

Don't forget many are from out of town and have to pay for their own room and board. All for HRM degree which they can qualify for a job at minimum wage on 6 month contract.

[QUOTE=VernierCaliper;2042619]Well I don't think they all have to pay for their OJT. I've had girls telling me in fact they got paid doing OJT (small compared to the their future small wage but still better than nothing). And of course a few weren't paid a single maid. But to my knowledge they didn't have to pay for OJT. BM Salty's statement can very well be true as well in a few cases but I doubt paying for OJT is not what all have to do. I can see no reason why the girls would lie about being paid small or paid nothing.[/QUOTE]You are right, of course. I should have said that they 'often' have to pay for OJT. And of course pay for and attend useless seminars on how to make a resume, how to interview, blah blah blah, where often the "Professor" doesn't even bother to show up. Oh, and then they have to pay for a diploma, the graduation ceremony, and the gown before they are allowed to graduate. It really is quite the sham.

As far as I can tell, after earning a HRM degree, a waiter / waitress has learned 3 things:

1. ALWAYS interrupt the conversation, even if it appears to me intimate. Make that ESPECIALLY if it appears to be intimate.

2. ALWAYS re-state the order.

3. Always say "Sir, I have received phpXXXX" when paid.

Unfortunately, a degree does not ensure competence.

Yes I agree. Like many things in Phils, decent and indecent students, are basically fucked one way or another from reasons mentioned from other BMs. Girls I meet doing the OJT shuffle are often proud going forward in life and reaching this stage of their educ. I mostly encourage educ and I don't want to be the one destroying their positive attitude towards their future. They find out sooner or later themselves it was all for a jolli clerk position anyway at best (to be a tad cruel).

[QUOTE=Dg8787;2042731]Whether they pay the OJT employer or not may be different in some cases. Meanwhile in OJT they might still be paying the school tuition for the OJT time frame.

The point is they are screwed and some are more screwed.

Don't forget many are from out of town and have to pay for their own room and board. All for HRM degree which they can qualify for a job at minimum wage on 6 month contract.[/QUOTE]I agree that mostly they pay for OJT and in fact all those I know who do / did OJT have paid and as DG says many are not living in the same town so have additional expenses. Those who intern in the USA have huge bills to pay and agencies rip them off badly.

Is a mess as the HRM course are worthless and while you must not dampen enthusiasm I try to persuade them to take other courses before they embark a 4 year course where there are limited job prospect apart from being used as slave labour in fast food places.

[QUOTE=WickedRoger;2042829]I agree that mostly they pay for OJT and in fact all those I know who do / did OJT have paid and as DG says many are not living in the same town so have additional expenses. Those who intern in the USA have huge bills to pay and agencies rip them off badly.

Is a mess as the HRM course are worthless and while you must not dampen enthusiasm I try to persuade them to take other courses before they embark a 4 year course where there are limited job prospect apart from being used as slave labour in fast food places.[/QUOTE]As a former GM of a major hotel in Davao once commented to me, HRM students spend four years learning to make beds and fold napkins, and at the end of four years, they qualify to work as waitresses, knowing little or nothing about hotel management. Much the same holds true for the current educational craze of "culinary arts," from which students graduate after two years, firmly believing that they are "chefs," only to be roughly disabused of that notion once they plunge into the sea of reality. And so it goes.

The incongruity between skills taught and skills needed is not limited to specific curricula, but applies across most if not all of the academic spectrum. To illustrate this point further, a few years ago, I arranged for a friend of mine, a European software engineer with a highly successful company, to meet with some IT professors at a major university here. He left the meeting after a couple of hours shaking his head, telling me that the skills the students were acquiring were so outdated, and ultimately so irrelevant to the needs of software development firms, that the best the students could hope for after graduating was to get a job developing websites as their programming skills were primitive by European standards.

The deep abyss between academia and real-world skills here is likely attributable to several factors and I don't claim to know them all. One however, must surely be that in most economic sectors this country falls dramatically short of minimally acceptable international standards at almost every rung of the ladder; a function no doubt of a fairly closed crony capitalism that precludes meaningful competition and excludes the admission of foreign competition. The bar is set low, but Filipinos who haven't traveled much may be ignorant of this fact, and receive their rude awakening once they try to sell their skills into an overseas market. A second, related factor is that so many universities here are so poorly equipped and staffed with so many unqualified faculty that the system becomes self-perpetuating, with mediocrity giving birth to more mediocrity. I recall a university president--whose academic field was similar to mine--proudly giving me a copy of an article he had had published in a local academic journal. It was so convoluted, so poorly written and poorly constructed that it's chance of having been accepted in a true internationally peer-reviewed journal would have been about zero.

A further confounding factor is the growth of the local labor market. The birth rate here remains high, and the number of young people seeking to enter the labor market vastly outstrips the number of jobs created by the economy, so even if graduates were highly qualified for the jobs they seek, the mismatch between job seekers and employment opportunity would be huge.

GE.

Per CNN Philippines: [URL]http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2017/06/02/Duterte-Terrorism-in-PH-funded-by-drug-money.html[/URL].

GE.

[QUOTE=GoodEnough;2043047]Per CNN Philippines: [URL]http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2017/06/02/Duterte-Terrorism-in-PH-funded-by-drug-money.html[/URL].

GE.[/QUOTE]This was reported in the local press with the comment that as there is Martial Law there will be arrest of narco politicians who are supporting the group and / or using them to protect the durg business. Said in one report some are incumbent legislators. Why does that not surprise me GE.

[URL]http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/06/01/1705623/drugs-funding-terror[/URL]

Also talk of extending this to the Visayas.

Some of my friends are very supportive of this and blame the rich elite and LP politicians / support base for trying to destabilise matters as they are finding their schemes, scams and drug income at rik. Whatever it is they are firmly in D30's camp.