By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

A FILIPINO tech blogger has launched a blog that is dedicated to helping overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to remotely manage their finances and communicate with their families back home.

“It hopes to bring together information to help OFWs manage their finances. It will contain news and information, such as how they can pay their Meralco (Manila Electric Co.) electric bill remotely,” said founder Edwin “Ka Edong” Soriano, who has been blogging for years.

The idea to start the eOFW blog was born two years ago but only materialized this year after Soriano found a Singaporean partner.

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CHECK out this speech by video blogger Coy of CokskiBlue.

PHILIPPINE Daily Inquirer entertainment columnist Ruben Nepales is now also blogging for INQUIRER.net, with the launch of The Nepales Report.

Nepales, who is our man in Hollywood, offers interesting glimpses into the life of Filipinos in the US, as these entries on “award-itis” and “closet Filipinos” show.

Here’s what Nepales wrote in his “award-itis” entry:

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A BLOG also lends itself well to fiction and other literary pieces. An interesting example of this is Shiksa from Manila, a series of stories from Brooklyn-based Filipina writer Sophia Romero about a fictional character/online persona named Amapola Gold.

Romero is the author of “Always Hiding,” a 1998 novel whose main character Viola is the daughter of a wealthy Manila socialite who has fled the Marcos regime to live as an illegal immigrant in New York City. Viola’s father, a government official, decides to send Viola to live with her mother in New York to escape the political turmoil, unaware that his daughter plans to bring her mother back to the Philippines.

I haven’t read the book, but the description of Romero’s first novel has certainly piqued my curiosity. For now, I’m glad I’ve stumbled upon the fascinating stories on her blog. By the way, as her blog explains, a “shiksa” is a “term used to describe a woman who is non-Jewish. Usually meant in a pejorative way.”

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