Philippines Customs Tax Calculator

A lot of Pinoy eBayers, including myself, have asked for help from the experts on how to compute for tax/duties for imported products or items delivered from abroad. Based on information from an eBay thread (thanks to katana_hunter, tamed_8souls & v.carter), I created a calculator for this purpose. It's a little crude, but hopefully it becomes handy for those who have items to be delivered to the Philippines.

Disclaimer: This is meant only as a tool to estimate customs fees. This is in no way meant to be an official computation. Please use the calculation as guidance only.

Input fields are in yellow.

For corrections or suggestions for improvement, just leave a comment.

Declared Value
Shipping Cost
Other Costs
Total Taxable

Peso Rate
Amount For Customs Fee Computation

Tariff Rate (get the rate from the Tariff Table. if you're too lazy, just peg it at 10%)
Customs Fee

CDS
IPF
Postal Charge

Total Vatable
VAT (12%)


Total Amount To Pay (sum of green fields)


For those using Express Mail Service (EMS), here's additional information:

EMS office phone numbers at Pasay City (as of August 2010):

854 5257
854 5148
867 8070
854 0084
854 3580
854 4621

Wikimapia map: EMS Location Map

YouTube Picks: Amazing Time Lapse Videos

Following The Herd

In the past months i saw a lot of surveys & polls but noticed essentially two disparate results: the kind where Noynoy and Villar leads...

SWS: Binay now tied with Mar; Noynoy widens lead

Erap tied with Villar in new Pulse Asia survey

And the kind where Gordon and Gibo is at the top...

Gordon, Roxas, Santiago top UP mock polls

Pic your President

If I didn't have enough time to analyze the candidates, and had to resort to consulting what the populace thinks, I need to decide which crowd is smarter (and therefore more attuned to what this country needs), then pick whomever is on top of its polls.

How do you know which one is smarter? Simple: Look where Erap is miserably failing in the rankings. Any poll that doesn't put Erap in the top three has a more sane set of voters, I think everyone would agree... I'd rather be influenced by this crowd.

By all means, we should make an independent and impartial choice, but if for some reason you can't make a principled choice and just have to follow the herd, at least follow the smarter herd.

 

How To Pick A Candidate

Ask a man which way he is going to vote, and he will probably tell you. 
Ask him, however, why, and vagueness is all. 
- Andrew Lack

This quote reminds me of school exams. Everybody loves multiple choices but never problem solving questions. The reason is quite obvious: with multiple choices, you’re allowed to be lazy and still have a chance of getting it right simply by guessing an answer. Solving problems however require a lot more deliberate effort called thinking, and when you don’t know what to do, it really shows.

It’s election time once again. In the midst of traditional mudslinging, melodramatic political ads and motherhood statements, have you picked a good candidate? And if so, how did you make a choice? A.) The candidate has the most powerful ads, B.) Looked at the surveys and followed the herd, C.) The candidate is the cousin of your officemate’s neighbour... Obviously, it’s easy to make a choice for all the wrong reasons.

The real question is, can you justify your choice with confidence? 

What then is a good way to select a candidate that would fit the job best? How does one pick? Hmmm... Eureka! Beauty pageants?

We need to establish a basis for selection—a criteria for judging: 30% beauty, 30% personality, 20% talent, 20% intelligence. Yeah, that could work...

So here's a rating system that works the same way, but applies to judging politicos (anyway, an election is nothing but a pageant of ugly people making us believe they’re beautiful, right?). What I like most about this system is it tries to make the process quantitative and balanced, removing as much subjectivity as possible.

Here goes...

Step 1: Set the criteria – This is first and foremost. What qualifications are we looking for? Do not pick a candidate just by looking at one facet. The whole package must be considered, all angles inspected.

Example:

Leadership	20%	Observed influence, role-modeling.
Character	20%	Observed integrity, credibility, fairness, objectivity.
Accomplishments	30%	Actual accomplishments, competency, experience.
Platform	15%	Specific and attainable action plans to achieve goals.
Forums/Interviews	15%	Observed intelligence, show of experience and communication skills.

There are of course other criteria out there, so feel free to make up your own based on what you think should be good measurements. Just be sure they have value and are balanced. Next is to put weight on each of these qualities (the more important the factor is, the bigger the percentage you assign to it).    

Remember, be objective: wipe out the names of the candidates from your head as you build these criteria, else you might make it biased and that won’t make this exercise effective.

Step 2: Research about the candidates – It’s time to pick them apart. List down the candidates and gather as much info related to the criteria as you can. Thanks to the Internet, we got news, candidates’ web sites, blogs and forums to grab these data from. Write them down or put everything on a spreadsheet. This is where the bulk of the work is done, but it should be all worth it.

Step 3: Rate the candidates – After digesting what you’ve researched, it’s time to rate the candidates. I used a 5-level system to keep it simple (20, 40, 60, 80, 100) and rated them per criterion (horizontally). In the table below, Candidate B and D have the best showing of leadership so they were both given a 100; next is Candidate C (80); then Candidate A last (60). Do the same for the other criteria, and you would have something like this:

Again, be objective as much as you can. If you’re putting perfect scores on one candidate, you know you’re showing favoritism. Get real!  

Do not continue to the next step until you’re fully satisfied that you've been objective about your ratings.

Step 4: Sum up the scores – First, multiply the ratings against the weights and put it on the blank columns.

Then, sum up the candidates’ scores.

From this example, Candidate B is the best choice.

Whether you agree or not with the result, is a matter of discipline and personal deliberation. Like I mentioned in Step 3, do not proceed with tallying up the scores until you’re convinced that you’ve rated objectively. If you have, then you should agree with the outcome with conviction.

What this demonstrates is that there are quantitative ways to make an independent and impartial choice. This is much better than simply being swayed by a politician’s flattery, by surveys and by the crowd.

Now, when somebody asks why you picked your candidate, you can be confident and say that you did some decent research and analysis.

Be a good judge... Vote intelligently!


 Attachment: Criteria Scoring Spreadsheet.

Farewell, Conan

It's a sad day in late night comedy. Conan O'Brien finally had his last day in "The Tonight Show", after just a short seven months of being handed the reins.

Conan O'Brien leaves NBC in 45 million dollar deal: reports

Conan O'Brien has left NBC in a reported 45-million-dollar deal, it was confirmed Thursday, ending an ugly public feud surrounding the fate of US television's long-running "The Tonight Show."

NBC Television said in a statement it had reached a settlement with O'Brien and later confirmed that the funnyman's predecessor Jay Leno would return to host the show he helmed for 17 years until he stepped down seven months ago.

"NBC and Conan O'Brien have reached a resolution of the issues surrounding O'Brien's contract to host 'The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien,'" the statement said, adding O'Brien would be free to work elsewhere after September 1.

What would comedians do in the middle of a big controversy as this one? Well, what anybody else would. Fight it out. Here's how the funniest comics do it, and see how they're trashing their home network in the face:



Kimmel was heartless, Leno was speechless.



A $1.5 million comedy bit!





Too bad I wasn't able to catch the last episode so I'm scrapping for videos. This was the best I found: Conan's final 'Tonight' tops Friday ratings

See you in September, Coco!

CES 2010 Picks

The Consumer Electronics Show has just concluded and, as always, came up with a good roadshow of what's up and coming in electronics and high tech gadgetry. This is the ultimate peep show to what's going to be ubiquitous in two or three years time (well, if the products succeed).

Here are some cool finds:


Minority Report user interface - We'll probably see widespread use in five years... I can imagine our grandkids saying, "What's a keyboard?"

3D high-def TV - Your very own 3D theater at home. 3D games next?

Slate PCs - This is the second attempt to introduce tablet PCs in the consumer market. Nothing new really, as this was introduced in the early 2000s. But since more innovative interfaces like multi-touch have sprung up, slates might have more success this time.

USB 3.0 - 10 times faster than 2.0! Enough said.

And enough salivating.