California Dreamin'

To me, home is where the heart is. Being a Pinoy with spread toes and a flat nose, I almost certainly feel like I’m one of the endangered species in Bohol, the Philippine tarsier. According to tales from native folks in Bohol where the tarsiers can be found, a tarsier perhaps among warm blooded mammals, is the hardest animal to take out of its habitat because as soon as it is separated from its natural adaptation, a tarsier holds its breath until it dies. Fact or fiction? Find it out for yourself.

Anyway, over the years that I’ve been separated from the banana republic and being able to have the opportunity to come to the land of milk and honey, I have never really felt that I belong to any place other than my home, the Philippines.

The modern and sophisticated life afforded by the American lifestyle doesn’t really appeal to me. To me, it’s not what life should be. You see, if you are in America, you have to work hard, pay your bills and work even harder and pay even more bills. It’s a true rat race, but people here somehow don’t feel it. To them, having a job, paying a mortgage, having a car payment, having insurance coverage, having debts to pay, and paying bills endlessly is the typical American dream and I wonder why.

Everyday is an endless struggle to race to work to pay the bills. People forget to stop to smell the roses, but they seem pretty content with that kind of life.

I don’t know with you all but if you leave if up to me, I would not waste time in taking the next banana boat to the banana republic. I just miss the easy, laid back lifestyle back home and more than anything else, I also miss being surrounded by the people that I love.

Anyway, I’ve been to the east coast, and indeed it was hard for me to adjust to the cold chilly weather coming from a place where the coolest it could get is probably seventy degrees on a cold December morning and that’s nothing compared to a minus thirty degree weather.

With the turn of events though, we ended up experiencing the other side of America. We moved to the west coast and what better place to be in than California.


When I first set foot in California, I was kind of shock to see how different it was. I almost felt like I was not on a foreign soil. Yeah, honestly, I feel like I was just somewhere in one of the seven thousand and one islands of the Philippines.


Why? My goodness, you cannot turn your head without seeing another spread-toed flat-nosed creation. They are all over the place. I even asked myself, “How did they get here? Why is my family not here?”

Meanwhile, I see a bunch of Pinoys strolling in the malls and the stores, parading themselves like a village on the go, talking with their native tongues and freely enjoying a more Filipino-tailored lifestyle in America. How did they get so lucky? I really envy those that walk around as a family.

Anyway, California to me is probably, the closest thing to home in America. I see a lot of Filipinos. There are a lot of Filipino food outlets like Jollibee, Red Ribbon, Goldilocks and Filipino restaurants all over the place. It’s amazing how these Filipinos managed to build their empire in a land that is not geographically connected to the Philippine islands.

I like the weather in California. It hardly rains in California but when it does it sure feels like rain in the tropics. I kind of like the way the sun shines in California. It’s the closest reminder to warm sunny skies back home.

What’s so good about California is the rich diversity among people and the culture—Latino, Mexican, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Caucasians, Black Americans, Indians and many more. The vegetation is gorgeous. The views are amazing. And the things that you can do in California? Countless! Living here is like being sent on a vacation to a nice getaway. And the best part is, food always tastes great in California.

Sometimes I even wonder that if I have my close relatives here perhaps I would change my opinion about where home is to me.


But for now, I can only enjoy what California offers. In the back of my head, and in my heart of heart, I still have that longing to come home to the Philippines.

The longing can be sometimes so paralyzing. You almost can understand why it is impossible for a tarsier to be geographically displaced from its habitat.

But no, unlike a tarsier I’m not ready to hold my breath and just die. Not just yet.

Ikobo: The Sensible Way to Send Money to the Philippines

For most Filipinos abroad it is an undeniable fact that a big part of our earnings overseas is being sent back to our loved ones back home in the Philippines. Even for those who have migrated to places outside of the Philippines, the obligation continues. Yeah it is, in fact, weird as it sounds, an obligation.

Filipinos have not evolved much in their mentality in terms of taking care of their kins of kin. To them it is a moral obligation to support their Filipino families back home, being the ones who have the means to do so and also as a way of showing ingratuity even if their families back home didn’t really contribute much to their success. It’s just the Filipino upbringing, and unpleasant as it is, it’s something that’s already been a part of the Filipino culture.

Anyway, since we really have to send some cash back home on a regular basis or every once in a while, why don’t we make it easy and affordable to ourselves?

Imagine sending $600 to your loved ones and spending $50 bucks for the transfer service? That’s a lot!

You can opt to pay less by doing bank to bank transfers but it takes a while before your recipients get hold of their cash.

In emergency cases, you have no choice but to pay the higher service fee even if it burns your pocket.

I used to do that. For the sake of speed, pay extra fees. That’s an old story.

Today, I use Ikobo to send cash to my loved ones in the Philippines. It is secure. It is fast. It is very affordable and probably the cheapest deal you can get.

How does it work? You sign up online for the service, provide your funding source, register your recipients and after verification, you’re set to use the service. You can use debit card, credit card, bank accounts to fund your Ikobo account.

If it is your first time to use the service, it will take a while before your recipient can have access to the money you sent because Ikobo sends a debit card to your recipient through a reliable courier service in the quickest possible time so your recipient will have to wait until he/she takes hold of the card. As soon as your recipient gets the debit card, he/she can now transact using most ATMs that are available 24/7. Thus, whatever time of day it is, you never have to worry because your recipient doesn’t have to wait for office hours to be able to have access to the funds that you just sent.

After the first transaction, the next transactions that follow are completed in real time since the recipient can now transact right away with the card that he/she is holding, allowing him/her to withdraw cash from any ATM anytime. You send online and as soon as you finish your online transaction the money that you just sent is now readily available to the recipient.

The best part is, the service doesn’t cost as much as the other competitors. For a quick calculation the fee is 3% of the transaction amount plus $5. So if you send $600, that would be $18 + $5. That’s only $23. If you send $1000, you pay only $35, that’s even a few bucks less than paying for a $600 transaction using other services. And if you use a bank account to fund your transaction it’s only $5.

One thing to remember though is there is a $1000 maximum limit per transaction and a maximum limit is set as well for a particular period, say the maximum amount you can send within 15, 30 days or so.

Ikobo is merely complying with government rules on money transfers since these days the same service could be used to fund terrorist activities.

Anyway, this is really a good service especially if you send money on a regular basis like when you have students back home, or if you have an ailing family member that you have to constantly provide for financially or if you have an ongoing project that requires you to send financing on a regular basis until the project is completed.

I’ve been using this service since June 2007 and so far, I haven’t been disappointed with the service.

Another good thing with Ikobo is that they incorporate holidays that we normally celebrate, to give promotional discounts for the transfer fee. In fact for the end of December they offered a discount in consonance to the celebration of Rizal Day.

Would you rather pay more or take this wonderful service?