I use "O2 your country" sim card, the sim card is free from any O2 shop as long as you top it up atleast £20. I top up every month with £30 with that you get 200 free mins and you actually get 200 mins to call anywhere in the world not just philippines. Plus the £30 paid credit which gives you a total of 230 mins at a cost of 7.6p per min. It sounds a bit exspensive but it works for us cause we only talk around 10 mins everyday whilst I'm at work, the good thing is the reception is fantastic and crystal clear. On weekends we just use ym.

I used phoned cards before but I still cant figure out how they deduct minutes, so you dont get what you pay for with phone cards. And sometimes it takes many goes just to get a connection, so frustrating. Which is why I dont use them anymore.