Crowd Favorite 'Ikaw' Interpreted by Jonalyn Viray was 2013 ASOP TV Grand Final's “Song of the Year”

Wazzup Pilipinas!

'Ikaw', a crowd favorite song of praise composed by Boy Christopher Ramos Jr., bested 12 finalists to win “Song of the Year” award in this year's ASOP TV Music Festival Grand Finals Night while Jonalyn Viray received the “Best Interpreter Award” for the same song.

Ramos is a professional composer whose awards-worthy “Ito ang Buhay Ko” won in the Best Theme Song category of the 2011 Asian Television Awards. Viray, on the other hand, is a 2006 WCOPA gold medalist known for her power vocals.

Meanwhile, RJ Jimenez's “I Am Grateful”, earned the first-runner up prize while Christian Obar 's “Lagi Kang Nariyan” received second-runner up prize, and Paul Hildawa's “You'll See Miracles” was third-runner up. Stonefree's Miro Valera, pop prince Gerald Santos and Carl Trazo were interpreters for Jimenez's, Obar's, and Hildawa's song entries, respectively.

The grand prize-winning song comes with P500,000 cash prize. The other runners-up receive P250,000, P150,000, and P100,000 for first, second and third runner up placers, respectively.

34th Manila International Book Fair : It's Raining Book Authors!

Wazzup Pilipinas!

When you see a guy who forms the letter C with his hand, you'll know immediately that he is motivational speaker and book author Chinkee Tan. Well.... aside from the huge name on his jacket that says Chink+, but only if you were observant enough,  his face is just too familiar not to be recognized by real book lovers.

Chinkee Tan was just one of the famous Filipino writers that were present at the 34th Manila International Book Fair now being held at the SMX Convention Center until the 15th of September.

Congratulations to Primetrade Asia and all the rest of the organizers and other groups responsible for organizing another successful book fair which was able to bring to the book-loving public several amazing books at discounted and sale prices, plus a meet and greet photo ops with our favorite book authors.

What I appreciate the most is the opportunity to meet a lot of popular and well-respected authors all in one roof, most of them guesting a booth all at the same day (Whew!). Some booths even have an hourly schedule of book authors visiting and signing books for their fans (OMG!). I wanted to personally see the other authors for myself  as well so I was going back and forth from one boot to another (starstruck and greedy....hehehe).

Being part of media, I get to have an excuse to ogle and lurk at the popular personalities and impressive showcase of books and booths without people thinking I'm some kind of pervert or obsessed fan.

34th Manila International Book Fair : Awesome Second Day

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Apparently, you'll find more than just books at the 34th Manila International Book Fair. There were also an awesome selection of other educational stuff that could help in keeping up with the educational requirements and expectations of the digital (or more advanced in technology) generation.

Even the cute little youngsters are so challenging to teach and train so it requires more creative efforts on the part of adults to deliver our ideas successfully so that they could absorb what has been taught. We are not expecting a hundred percent but a good figure above the passing grade would be nice.

The good old-fashioned and traditional story-telling could still work for the little ones - especially if coming from energetic story-tellers with fancy assorted voices and exaggerated body gestures. Add to that the facial expressions that could easily make you smile, shed a tear, get you furious, scare you to death or make you wanna laugh out loud.

But everyone has probably realized by now that as soon as these young kids learn how to use a TV remote control or operate a computer, (or maybe an iPad or an Android tablet), then you'll be in for a mighty difficult challenge of convincing them to let go.