Free Skype and Wi-Fi services at SM Global Pinoy Center

The SM Global Pinoy Center is offering free Internet services, free mobile phone charging, free voice calls, remittance pick-up (BDO) services and foreign exchange services and even free refreshments to families with loved ones working overseas.

Through the Global Pinoy Center, SM honors our country’s modern-day heroes by continuously serving them and helping improve their lives and bringing them closer to home and to their families, SM said in a statement.

SM currently has 28 Global Pinoy Centers in SM Supermalls nationwide and an SM Global Pinoy Counter at the OFW lounge at the NAIA Terminal 1. To become a Global Pinoy (GP), OFWs or relatives should show proof of remittance and pay P150 to avail themselves of a GPC card which is valid for two years.

“I can call and e-mail my daughter anytime in Qatar whenever I’m in an SM mall,” said one GPC member, 57-year-old former OFW Marcelito Quintos.

Quintos worked in Japan as a pianist from 1976 to 1987 in order to support his family and to broaden his expertise as a musician. His experience as an OFW was not that easy because he said, “You’ll leave your family and loved ones behind. You have to stick to a budget from what you earn abroad so that you can send enough money to your family here in the Philippines. Next is the communication problem because technology was not advanced in my time. I could only call my family four times a week using a call card because there was no Skype or Wi-Fi. But being an OFW will also teach you a lot about life because it will open your mind to many ideas about different cultures.”

Quintos is now back in the country with his family and his daughter Leila Quintos now works as a preschool teacher in a Qatar mall.

“In my time, the telephone (landline) was the only means of communicating with my family,” he said.

Technology upgrades like Skype and Wi-Fi are a big help to all OFWs,” he said.