(2nd Edition, February 1999)

by Rey Carolino

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2. Send e-mails to your friends or relatives in the Philippines.

   Electronic mail (e-mail) is the number one reason why people use the Internet. You no longer have to find a pen and a paper to write to and on, you do not have spend money for stamps, you don't have to brave a snow storm to drop your letter in a mailbox and there are no more two weeks (perhaps a month) waiting period before your letter reaches your friends or relatives. Instead, you simply sit in front of your computer after a sumptuous dinner (my wife wouldn't want me to sit though until after half an hour - part of my weight loss process!), type the message in your mail program, click the SEND button and within seconds, your message is in the hands of the recipients. If the recipients are not currently logon to their Internet account, the e-mail will stay in their assigned mailbox with their Internet Service Provider (ISP) until they logon to the Internet and pick-up those e-mails.

   You maybe surprised to find out that a lot of your friends and relatives now have e-mail addresses (either from their personal Internet account or through their employer's Internet connection). How do you find out their e-mail address?   If they are posting messages and articles to a lot of electronic mailing lists and newsgroups or if they are giving away their e-mail addresses to companies when they register a product they buy, chances are you can find their e-mail address through some Internet search engines like the following:

   WhoWhere
   BigFoot
   Yahoo's People Search
   Lycos
   AltaVista
   Infoseek
   WhitePages.Com
   YellowPages.Com
   EDSA's Pinoy E-Mail Search

   If they are not active on the Net and they do not give away their e- mail address to anyone, the only way to find it out is to ask them about it. [NOTE: The CANADA 411 online directory contains over 10 million listings of people in Canada with or without e-mail address.]

   Of course your relatives will need an Internet connection in order to be able to receive your e-mails. This is where the problem lies because the cost of an Internet connection to the Philippines is not as cheap as in North America where free Internet access is even possible through those FreeNets. You can however get inexpensive e-mail only access in the Philippines by using the services of a Bulletin Board Service (BBS)   like Livewire! Manila which charges P600 for four months or P1,500 per year. Access to a BBS does not require a powerful PC and a fast modem. Even first generation PCs running in DOS and a 2400-BAUD modem will work. Thus, if you are upgrading your old PC and modem, you may wish to ship your old ones to the your friends and relatives in the Philippines to enable them to at least get an e-mail access. For a list of other BBS in the Philippines, click here .

   You can also send e-mails to a lot of Filipino government officials and celebrities and here are some that you may wish to try. If you do not receive a reply and the e-mail doesn't bounce back to you, that means your e-mail went through but the person is perhaps too busy to reply (click on the celebrity's name to browse his/her homepage):

   GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS:

   President Joseph Estrada	erap@erap.com
   Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo	gma@easy.net.ph
   Senator Edgardo Angara	angara@senate.iphil.net
   Senator Ramon Magsaysay J	myguy@rmagsaysay.com
   Senator Raul S. Roco	senator@raulroco.net
   Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO): cfopmo@mnl.sequel.net Department of Foreign Affairs	dfa@mnl.sequel.net
   Philippine Consulate Office-Toronto	torontopc@philcongen-toronto.com

   
   CELEBRITIES:

   Jim Paredes (Apo Hiking Society)	apojim@skyinet.net
   Boboy Garrovillo (Apo Hiking Society)	cupido@skyinet.net
   Danny Javier (Apo Hiking Society)	pidrocom@skyinet.net
   Ruffa Gutierrez	ruffa@skyinet.net
   Sharmaine Arnaiz	sharmaine@skyinet.net
   Sharon Cuneta	sharoncuneta@skyinet.net
   Meryll Soriano	diamond@webquest.com
   Marc Ballesteros (see Showtime in our February, 1997 issue)	elman@interlog.com
   Junix Inocian	junix@aol.com
   Kuh Ledesma	KuhLedesma@aol.com
   Dina Bonnevie	ms.d@skyinet.net
   Gelli De Belen	gelli@freemail.webquest.com
   Charlene Gonzalez	keepondancing@abs-cbn.com
   Mikee Cojuangco:	mikeec@skyinet.net
   Pops Fernandez	pops@skyinet.net
   Zsa Zsa Padilla	zsazsa@skyinet.net

   Lea Salonga
   Lea Salonga is perhaps the first Filipina celebrity to embrace the Net. She was a "hot" item among the early generations of Filipino Internet surfers who were lucky enough to be on the Net at the time when Lea was an active participant to it. She answered all her fan e-mails faithfully and personally, posted in the newsgroups and did several online chat sessions with her fans. In September, 1996 she felt that her e-mail load was too much to handle and she decided to change her e-mail address and kept it private. But she couldn't resist the lure of the newsgroups and she continued posting to her favorite ones ( soc.culture.filipino, alt.fan.lea-salonga and rec.arts.theater.musicals) under cover. She couldn't fool her die hard fans, though. They knew who she was but decided to honor her wish for privacy and they kept their mouth shut. When Lea returned to Miss Saigon earlier last month, she blew her cover wide open when she posted a request for prayers on her opening night. Everybody in the alt.fan.lea-salonga newsgroup now know that the person using the name BIGSIS1013 is none other than their beloved Lea Salonga. Lea's official homepage is at: http://www.compose-it.com/lea/

 

 

3. Listen to Filipino radio stations on the Net.

   If your computer is equipped with a sound card and speakers, and you have a fast modem (preferably 28.8kbps and higher), and your browser has the proper plug-in programs ( such as RealPlayer ), you can actually listen to several Filipino radio stations on the Net playing Filipino music- some of them live and some of them pre- recorded. Here are some that you can listen to:

   • CityLite 88.3
     This is the first radio station in the Philippines to broadcast live on the world wide web.
   • DWRR 101.9
     Broadcasting live from the ABS-CBN Headquarter in the Philippines.
   • DZMM 630 KHZ
     Another ABS-CBN radio station in the Philippines.
   • Sarimanok News Network
     A news station from ABS CBN.
   • PhilMusic Radio
     Broadcasting live daily from 6 to 8 PM EST from Orlando, Florida.
   • PhilMusic NetRadio
     This site carries lots of OPM music but does not have live broadcast.

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