Wazzup Pilipinas News and Events

Monday, August 11, 2014

Bacolod: The “City of Smiles” and Merriment

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Masskara, one of the most colorful and upbeat festival in the Philippines. Celebrated on October 19, during the charter day of Bacolod City . “Mass” meaning crowd and “cara” for face, originally coined by painter Ely Santiago. Masskara Festival was initially created to uplift the spirit of the people during the tragic times in the 1980’s.

Since then it becomes one of the most highly anticipated festival of the year because it is a month long celebration. The highlight of the festival is the street dancing competition and parade. Each team that represents a dance group wears a mask and costume originally designed for their specific dance moves.

A beaming face with a smile and laughing gesture is a must in every mask worn by performers as well as colorful and exquisite costume.

I was lucky enough to be invited to witness the festival up close. Armed with our cameras and gears, we followed, danced and took photos of the happiest festival.

Juan Big Idea: Taking Marketing Thoughts into Flight (South Luzon Edition)

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Junior marketers, your next destination in this amazing marketing journey is finally revealed!

Next stop, NAGA CITY!

The Philippine Junior Marketing Association is officially inviting you to the first of four Chapter events this academic year...

Juan Big Idea: Taking Marketing Thoughts into Flight(South Luzon Edition) on August 16, 2014 at the Ateneo de Naga University Gymnasium.

Meet and learn from three notable speakers who will talk about the three stages of Content Marketing, be involved in different fun-filled undertakings and revel in what we have in-store just for you!

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Ever since we were kids we would know Manila as two things, the Capital City and the location of the historic Intramuros. When I started College, I saw more of Manila in my everyday journeys to and from my house to my school. From the train you can see the old glorious architectures and its faded beauty. One would marvel at the intricate and detailed designs seen in almost every house, building, and store that lined the streets of Doroteo Jose to Vito Cruz, where my stop was. There was this one particular building that caught my eye. It was “The Pink” building, as I used to refer to it. Every time I would see its majestic façade and unique architecture, I would always hope for a chance to get a glimpse of its interior, and how it would feel like to be part of the MET experience.

It was during my senior year in College when I found out about a tour inside the MET and its surrounding historic buildings. I jumped on the opportunity for 2 reasons, one because (honestly) it was free and two because I rarely back out on an adventure. During that time (Around 2012), I was becoming quite emotional about Taft and the views I saw on my everyday commute. I would surely miss its vintage appeal and its quaint – hispanic feel.

I got in touch with the tour guide, Mr. Rence Chan who was a contact of my old highschool classmate. He is part of the Royal Heritage group. When I arrived at Liwasang Bonifacio (our assembly area), I didn’t know exactly what to expect from the tour, I was repeatedly thinking that this might have no difference from those old fieldtrips I saw as a kid. I was alone, so obviously I didn’t know anybody from the number of people who were starting to gather in front of the Post office. When the tour began, it was Sir Rence Chan who stood as host, detailing to us all the “fun-facts” of each building we passed by or we went into. As I moved with the crowd from building to building, I was intrigued by how so little of our history is taught in schools. What we read as kids is just a gist of what really happened from a perspective of a number of scholars. I would say I was listening, but I shall admit, that I was listening half-focused because the other half of my mind was anticipating the final stop, which was the Metropolitan Theatre.

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Catch the most anticipated jejemusical of the season, Badjao Rebolution!

Badjao Rebolution is a story about making dreams and making steps to make it happen. The musical is about three children who have taken wing under the care of a syndicate go on a journey from being orphan, to beggars, to beggars with stolen identity, to wishful thinkers, to rebels then to liberated thinkers.

It is inspired by an everyday occurrence along the highways in Taytay where “Badjao” children hitching jeepneys, give out dirty envelopes asking for money to buy food while hitting a make-shift drum out of empty milk can or carrying month-old babies on a blanket wrapped around their chests.

More than reaching for their dreams, it is a story of hope. As Netnet says it, “Balang araw maririnig nila ako”. As Menggay says it, “Tingnan nyo, baling araw makikita niyo”. Hope. Hope that we could chase bigger dreams for ourselves. Hope that we could always do better if not best. Hope that we could reach and become our yesterday’s dreams. Hope that one day we can also say “I did it!”

If you’re tired of maturity lectures from the elderly, let Wayang, Netnet, Menggay, Monchi and Anching teach you how “...dapat ganito ang mga bata” and lecture you on life with their brutal honesty from their point of views yet unobstructed by norms and yet dictated by social construct.

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Philippine hotels and resorts in key island destinations are ready to compete in the global marketplace, according to the initial findings of a team of International Accommodation Assessors (IAAs) who joined the Department of Tourism (DOT) in conducting a national review of accommodation standards last month.

The team of IAAs composed of ten experts from different countries said Philippine hotels and resorts including the small players have 'very high standards' in keeping the unique Filipino hospitality, one of the country's competitive advantages.

“The warmth of welcome for guests in all types of accommodation is almost unique among international destinations. There is a real potential for the Philippine tourism industry. Some hotels and resorts need to invest to improve, but the new rating system can help identify where to focus that investment,” the initial report noted.

New standards under the Hotel and Resorts Quality Assurance and Accreditation System aim to assist visitors in terms of the quality, service and comfort provided by accommodation businesses of all sizes and types in the Philippines.

Wazzup Pilipinas!

AMD FirePro S9150 server card delivers up to 2.53 TFLOPS of peak double-precision floating point performance for intense compute workloads, and 10.8 GFLOPS double precision-per-watt, up to 77% more performance/watt than the competition.

AMD announced the AMD FirePro S9150 server card – the most powerful server Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) ever built for High Performance Computing. Based on the AMD Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, the first AMD architecture designed specifically with compute workloads in mind, the AMD FirePro S9150 server card is the first server card to support enhanced double precision and break the 2.0 TFLOPS double precision barrier¹,². With 16GB of GDDR5 memory – 33 percent more than the competition3 – and maximum power consumption of 235 watts, AMD FirePro S9150 server GPUs provide supercomputers with massive compute performance while maximizing available power budgets.

“Today’s supercomputers feature an increasing mix of GPUs, CPUs and co-processors to achieve great performance, and many of them are being implemented in an environmentally responsible manner to help reduce power and water consumption,” said David Cummings, senior director and general manager, professional graphics, AMD. “Designed for large scale multi-GPU support and unmatched compute performance, AMD FirePro S9150 ushers in a new era of supercomputing. Its memory configuration, compute capabilities and performance per watt are unmatched in its class, and can help take supercomputers to the next level of performance and energy efficiency.”

Wazzup Pilipinas!

After the worldwide success of Ice Age Village, Gameloft, a leading global publisher of digital and social games, and Fox Digital Entertainment, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox Filmed Entertainment, have extended their partnership to create Ice Age Adventures, a new game inspired by the wildly popular Ice Age animated film franchise. Ice Age Adventures delivers hours of entertainment with its immersive gameplay and unique storyline, which features the official voices of Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (Denis Leary) and Diego (John Leguizamo).

Scrat's nutty pursuit of his beloved acorn once again has world-changing consequences. It’s up to players to help Sid rescue Manny and Diego, and then save the remaining members of the herd. Players will embark on an epic adventure, exploring uncharted worlds, battling iconic adversaries, solving puzzles, looking for treasures and taking on exciting challenges.

Players will meet all of the beloved Ice Age characters on their journey through Ice Age Adventures. In addition to familiar faces, look forward to the innovative and captivating gameplay, vibrant environments, beautiful graphics and a variety of fun mini games.

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The literary and youth volunteer group Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo (LIRA), will hold the 33rd edition of its nationwide seminar-workshop series, the "Pambansang Edukasyong Pampanitikan" (National Literary Education) at De La Salle University-Manila (Multipurpose Room, 2/F Enrique M. Razon Sports Complex) on October 3 – 4, 2014, Friday – Saturday, 8 am – 5 pm.

TO REGISTER:

(1) Log on to: http://bit.do/registerPEPmalate
(2) Fill out the online form.
(3) An email will be sent confirming your registration.

Registration is on a first come, first served basis and is free of charge. Priority will be given to teachers in the Malate district and adjacent areas. Lunch and snacks will be served.

Deadline of registration is on August 12, 2014, 5:00 PM. Only those duly registered can enter the university premises and will be given signed certificates.

Titled "PEP Malate, Manila," this leg is co-presented by the DLSU College of Computer Studies, in partnership with the DLSU Student Media Office, Malate Literary Folio (official arts and literary publication of DLSU), and Ang Pahayagang Plaridel (official newspaper in Filipino of DLSU); and with support from the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, JP Anthony D. Cuñada Law Office, Fringe Manila Arts Festival, ABS-CBN’s Choose Philippines, Kalatas magazine, and the Pulong ng Kabataan. Other media partners are Tomasino Web, Wazzup Pilipinas, and Astig.ph.

Government should do the right thing with MRT3

image taken from Philstar

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The government is now working to take over the MRT which is the train that runs along EDSA. There are a lot of people that ride this train every day of the week and there are a lot of problems they need to address. One problem they need to address is the lack of security in the train stations during rush hour. There are a lot of shoving, pushing and mangling going on usually during 8 AM in the morning and 5 PM in the afternoon. Those are the times where it would be difficult to ride the train due to the fact that there are a lot of people there. More security guards should be put there in order to prevent everyone from riding the train. The government surely has enough budget to hire more people with low salaries.

Of course, it won’t hurt to add more trains but all of them don’t necessarily need to be used all the time. They just need to be on the move during rush hour in order to accommodate all the people who want to go to their destination right away. The lines on each door should be fixed before the train arrives so each guard should make sure that nobody would suddenly barge in to the door and assert himself even if there is a line. That is very rude and it would be unfair to the other passengers who fell in line for a long time. Only time will tell if the government buying the MRT3 is a good thing or not. Since the government has a lot of budget then it is expected to be a good thing. However, they might not use it for the right purpose so they better be careful where they spend their money on.

SONA 2014 – P-Noy forgets to mention Binay?

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The President’s latest SONA came and went but he forgot to mention one person and that’s Vice President Jojomar Binay. It is no surprise he did that since Binay is expected to be the main competitor on the next elections against the election’s presidential candidate Mar Roxas. Binay uplifted the plight of the OFWs since he is the presidential assistant for Overseas Worker’s Affairs. However, that did not happen but that does not mean the president and the vice president of the country are at odds against each other. It just means the president had a lot of other people he thought that he should mention instead of his second in command. Whether they deserve to be mentioned on top of the vice president is another issue. Aquino obviously wants his best friend Mar Roxas to win the 2016 elections so the current projects of the government would be continued. However, he is not really sure if the public wants the same since his trust rate has gone down recently.

Nobody knows if Binay and Aquino really got along with each other during the President’s term. Now that there are only two years left on the current term of Aquino, that won’t really matter as it would be time to pass the torch in just a couple of years. If the elections would happen now, he would be touring Binay at the Malacanang palace. Some say the only way Binay loses is if massive cheating happens. That already happened in the past so it won’t be a surprised if it happens again. It won’t be fair though since the people should get who they want as the leader of the country. At least some lesser known cabinet members got mentions in the speech of the President. However, the person voted to be his second in command did not.