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PHILIPPINES
Communications
Letters from the Philippines take at least five days to reach other
countries by air, sometimes significantly longer. For incoming mail,
major post offices in Manila have a counter for poste restante .
The country's telephone system has improved dramatically in recent
years, although outside urban centres it can still be temperamental.
Public payphones are not common, but can be found in many malls
(where there are often long queues to use them) and hotel lobbies.
They take P1 and P5 coins. Many payphones take only Philippine Long
Distance Telephone (PLDT) cards only, known as Fonkards . These
are available in P100, P200, P300 and P500 denominations and can
be bought from convenience stores such as 7-11 and hotels. Long-distance
domestic calls are known as NDD (National Direct Dialling). Regional
codes are given throughout the section; you'll need to dial the
"0" before all long-distance national calls within the
Philippines. To check a phone code, dial 112. Manila to Baguio costs
P5 a minute, or P4 during the off-peak hours of 7pm-7am and all
day Sunday. For local directory assistance call 114.
Rates for international IDD calls are fixed and charged in US dollars
by the "pulse". A pulse is equivalent to six seconds.
To Australia the first ten pulses (60 seconds) cost 19 cents and
every additional pulse cost 15 cents. For the UK it's 19 cents then
16 cents. Calls are cheaper 9pm-8am and all day Sunday. To call
abroad from the Philippines, dial 00 + IDD country code + area code
(minus the first 0) + number. The international operator is tel
108. PLDT also has a service for making overseas collect calls .
If you dial 105 plus the country access code you will be connected
to the operator of the country you are calling. These calls can
be billed to your credit card.
Internet cafés are springing up all over Manila and an increasing
number of the more popular resorts and dive centres have email facilities
you might be able to use for a small charge. |
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