Wazzup Pilipinas News and Events

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Philippine Tourism Secretary to Open PATA New Frontiers Forum 2015

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The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) is pleased to announce that Hon. Ramon R. Jimenez, Jr., Secretary of the Philippine Department of Tourism (PDOT), will deliver the opening address during the PATA New Tourism Frontiers Forum 2015 at the Oriental Hotel in Legazpi, Albay, Philippines from November 25-27. The event is being generously hosted by the Provincial Government of Albay in partnership with The Department of Tourism, Philippines.

Secretary Jimenez, who is responsible for the country’s highly successful tourism campaign, It’s More Fun in the Philippines, will speak on the “Successful Destination Marketing Campaign – Trend in this digital economy”.

“This forum is timely and relevant as we step up our marketing efforts for our destination-based campaign and as we launch Visit the Philippines Again (VPA) 2016 –which is going to be the most massive retail-focused effort the Philippines has ever made. Destination marketing is a daunting task as it involves selling an experience, both tangible and intangible. The Philippines prides itself of having a unique biodiversity, rich natural resources, and wide variety of product offerings for tourists. But most of all, we have the Filipino people—the country’s most important asset—to thank for, who serve as the PDOT’s partners in building our brand and fulfilling the promise of a more fun Philippines,” Tourism Secretary Jimenez said.

Mr. Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA, said, “We are extremely delighted to have Secretary Jimenez open the event, as his experience and expertise on how to market a destination is something all industry stakeholders should learn from, especially when trying to market a new emerging destination. In addition to Secretary Jimenez, we have a very broad and dynamic range of speakers confirmed for the event, and delegates can be assured of coming away with practical skills and knowledge to take back and apply to their organisation, especially through the Technical Tour and Tourism Marketing Treasure Hunt.”

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Fortinet, the global leader in high-performance cybersecurity solutions, today announced the launch of its new FortiWeb 4000E and 3000E Web Application Firewalls (WAFs), designed to help customers prevent identity theft, financial fraud and denial of service through specialized, layered application threat protection. FortiWeb appliances now offer advanced security services backed by FortiGuard Labs’ advanced threat intelligence, providing real-time threat protection at the application level.These new FortiWeb solutions are also integrated with Fortinet’s FortiSandbox and offer support for new enhancements in partnership with Acunetix’s advanced vulnerability scanning solutions. These new additions bolster Fortinet’s broad end-to-end cybersecurity platform that protects customer data at every possible entry point to the network.

High-Performance Meets Advanced Layered Protection

The new FortiWeb 4000E delivers an unprecedented 20 Gbps WAF throughputand features built-in advanced anti-malwarecapabilities – a first for the WAF appliance market – while also integrating leading vulnerability scanning features from Acunetix.Fortinet’s FortiWeb appliancesprovide the performance, effectiveness and featuresthat only Fortinet can deliver, surpassing all competitive solutions and resettingexpectations for web application firewalls.

The FortiWeb series of WAFs are now fully integrated with Fortinet’s FortiSandbox and Advanced Threat Protection (ATP framework), ensuring that organizations can arm themselves with seamless, end-to-end protection from even the most sophisticated cyberthreats.These enhancements to FortiWeb deliver advanced, layered application threat protection for medium and large enterprises, application service providers and SaaS providers demanding the very best WAFs in the industry.

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AOC Philippines sponsored a special block screening of the movie "The Martian" starring Matt Damon. The event was held on September 30, 2015 at the Promenade Cinema located in Greenhills, San Juan and was attended by their dealers, event partners, and friends from the media.

It would not be my first time to see the movie as I already attended a similar block screening just a couple of days ago last September 28 sponsored by 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros, but I was actually late at that event so I missed a few minutes of the start of the movie. It was a great thing that AOC Philippines also scheduled the same movie screening.

The event started off with some activities with some booths like two photo opportunities from two different booths were at one you get a chance to win a visit the Kennedy Space Center if you get to be selected as the best photo, and at another one you get to have a photo taken with a Mars terra background. There was also a Beer Pong game where you get to win an AOC monitor if you can shoot all 10 balls in the cups.

There were also a few AOC monitors on display including their newest curved monitor which I get to review soon. The AOC people gave everyone a preview of their products and promos and hopefully we get to receive the complete information or press release soon.

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Here's all 12 finalists' plays from the Short+Sweet Theater Manila 2015 festival of 10-minute plays taken from the audience seats on two dates: Half from September 26, and another half from the September 27, playdates.

From half you will obviously see the audience heads which was our predicament since we were seated about 5 rows from the front, so I decided to transfer to the front row on the second day to be able to get a front view of the remaining half of the plays.

I also intended to divide my video coverage so that I can use the other half of my camera batteries for the backstage interviews and for photos during the plays. What I intentionally left out was to take photos during the backstage interviews because I was really sure I will ran out of juice if I also do that extra activity. Anyway, I can screen grab from the videos if I wanted to.

I have nothing but praises for the 12 plays that I've seen, and it was very unfortunate I was not able to watch the earlier weeks due to a week-long flu followed by a week-long assignment in Bohol. The same things always happen to us whenever we plan for an activity, other unavoidable circumstances and necessities will become obstacles to the earlier goals.

Anyway, we were still able to watch the "best of the best" and were glad our normally hectic schedule no longer got into the way. All the plays were awesome, and we have to admit that we can't really pick a single favorite.

Comedy Cartel presents The Marco Polo Hotel and VU's Sky lounge Comic Monday

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Start your week right with laughter as the BEST Stand-Up Comedy acts in the country is coming to Vu’s Sky Lounge!

This September, Vu’s Sky Lounge launches its new themed night - Comic Mondays with The Comedy Cartel - a veteran comedy group who has been performing all over the Philippines since 2007.

Next Monday (Oct. 5), Tim Tayag, one of the pioneers of point ot view stand-up comedy in the Philippines and one of Asia's Top Ten Stand-Up Comedians will take centerstage at Vu's Sky Lounge! Show starts at 9:30 PM! Entrance is FREE so See you there!

Vu’s Sky Lounge is the first sky bar in Ortigas, located at the 45th floor of Marco Polo Hotel, Ortigas, Manila.

For inquiries or reservations, text 0922-8596144.

#comedycartelPH #Vu’sSkyLounge

The Beauty of Bohol As Seen Through The Lens of Hiroshi Takano

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We should all be concerned in the protection of our environment. The preservation of all living things, may they be above or below the seas, should be everyone's cup of tea. There should be no other choice for us. It is every man's obligation to keep the world and all life forms safe and flourishing.

Singer-songwriter and aquatic photographer Hiroshi Takano raises environmental awareness through his songs done in a very unique way. He is what they dubbed as the "singing underwater photographer" for his talent in singing and playing many kinds of guitar using his own music and lyrics. He shares his talent through mixed media concerts more aptly called as photo-concerts where he uses his photographs and videos as an effective way to engage people to listen and become involved no matter what their age, language or religion is.

For him "Pictures and music can go beyond boundaries" and are valuable tools to send his message to the people to value "water" and the living things that can be found in it.

We can feel his concern for the environment even during our tour of the seas of Bohol where we accompanied him and the other foreign delegates of the post-event diving tour of the Diving Resort Travel Expo held in Manila on September 11 to 13. The post-event was held in Bohol from September 14 to 18, as well as other 5 locations within the Philippines. Since the tours were happening all at the same time, we had to choose only one destination- and you probably know already that we chose Bohol.

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Blood. Black roses. Guns. Candles. Can you keep a secret?

On October 31, let Telu Events present to you a one-of-a-kind Halloween event you shouldn’t missed.

After a successful Valentines special at Oz Bar, Holiday Inn & Suites Makati, Telu Events will once again set the tone for Halloween with their event entitled “Mystery Affair: A Speed Dating Event”, and take you back in the 1920’s to search not only for the suspect, but for friendship, and maybe love?

All single ladies and gentleman aged 23 – 35 years old are invited to attend. Only 25 pairs will be accommodated for the event. Speed daters are mostly professionals, with Telu Events making sure that they screen the participants according to age group and personality profiling so everyone will find a match. Participants will be given 5 minutes to know their dates before the bell rings to signify to move on to the next.

As quoted from their previous participants:

“It was a fun event. The participants are diverse and interesting. Thanks and good job Telu! J ”

Thank you for the great service! :) Great job on the concept as well, it was very consistent.

The speed dating was not just for romantic purposes but it also paved way for new friends. It was an awesome event. My friends would love to attend you next speed dating event…”

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Governor Hilario Davide lll arrived in Russia Sunday afternoon upon the invitation of Governor Georgy Poltavchenko to renew the twinning agreement between Cebu Province and St. Petersburg Administration.

"We are pleased to be here, finally, in the historic city of St. Petersburg to promote people-to-people connectivity," said Davide, who mentioned that the trip has been postponed twice due to scheduling concerns.

Governor Poltavchenko expressed his gratitude for the "interest and attention to enhancing tight and fruitful cooperation between St. Petersburg and province of Cebu" in his letter to Davide. He is also optimistic that both will "effectively advance the dialogue on the broadest range of issues."

Davide will discuss with his counterpart various areas of potential cooperation which were taken up during the recent visit of Ambassador Igor Khovaev of the Russian Federation together with Honorary Consul Armi Lopez Garcia in Capitol. These include educational exchanges, arts, culture and sports cooperation, tourism and investments promotion, and knowledge sharing on disaster preparedness, emergency response and crisis management.

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Do you know what's wrong with us? We are so inconsistent! We are like that because we are so moody. We always need to be on the mood to keep ourselves motivated. We're also what you may call a "Flavor of the Month" kind of individuals. Why? Because we tend to change interests every now and then, depending on our mood swing. We'll be cheering about an advocacy one day, and then breaking it by promoting something totally opposite. It kinda sucks sometimes, but we believe we're still at a stage of self-discovery even if we're already too old to act that way.

We keep telling ourselves we're going to be "determined and focus" individuals who definitely knows what we stand for, what we are rooting for, and what we are fighting for. But we keep getting lost along the way when there's so much opportunities (and temptations) that keep distracting us, along with the necessities and urgencies of life outside blogging, which often strays us away from our original objectives.

It keeps happening to us every time we aim for a goal. We get opportunities that would make us think twice, thrice, and a lot more unimaginable times, to keep asking ourselves, where we're really heading for. Are we heading for deep space, or deep under the seas? Both are miraculously filled with amazing wonders, but we can't possibly explore them both at the same time since there's not enough time in this lifetime to achieve that feat.

Blogging has been a hobby, so every chance to earn or gain some rewards has been a big bonus, but why is it that some people would wrongly interpret our words and actions. Was it our choice of words? Did we give an impression of arrogance? Were we going overboard with our shout-outs? Have we been too naughty or mischievous with our aggressiveness?

Alex Gonzaga is Proactiv's First Brand Ambassador from the Philippines

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The bubbly, high-spirited and spontaneous actress and comedienne Alex Gonzaga, known to many as the little sister of actress and TV host Toni Gonzaga, was earlier announced as the first endorser from the Philippines of the Proactiv facial skin care brand - popular as an anti-acne solution for all types of skin, and race, even for us Asians.

Proactiv, the skin care product choice among Hollywood’s elite finally found the perfect Filipina who embodies the brand. Young, charming and most importantly, a loyal user of Proactiv, Alex is now among the league of other Proactiv brand ambassadors like Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Adam Levine, etc.,

The launch was held at Buddha Bar Manila in Makati city on September 29, 2015, and was attended by members of the media from print, TV and online, including bloggers.

Hosting the event was the debonaire actor and director Eric Quizon, who grilled Alex with so many questions coming from him and from the audience.

The event also presented the new TV commercial or ad starring the new brand ambassador, and they also gave us a glimpse of its making. Eric mentioned how Alex had made it easy for everyone in the production while creating the TV ad, implying that working with Alex was great.

Watch out for more of our video coverage at our YouTube channel.

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Wednesday is the day!

Do you want to graduate as the top class clown? Can you challenge your fear of rejection to a staredown contest?

Is the urge of performing comedy in front of a random buzzed up crowd killing you from the inside?
Then wait no longer and register to perform at The Walrus Katipunan's Wednesday Comedy Workout with the Comedy Cartel!

Join us this Wednesday, September 30, 2015 @ 9:00PM

Work on your joke form & comedy delivery and get to do with some of the members of the Comedy Cartel - The Pioneers Of POV Stand-Up Comedy in the Philippines.

This is open to performers of all comedy formats and genres (stand-up, sketch, improv, ventriloquism, gags, music w/ comedy, props comedy etc.).

The stage is yours to perform at!

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In the midst of so many foreign pop acts and musical productions from Broadway and the West End, one small theatrical effort made waves four years ago. It was a musical revue featuring traditional and contemporary Filipino songs, sung not by legends of Classical singing, but by a troupe of dedicated artists. The show was Philippine Opera Company’s “Ang Bagong Harana”.

In celebration of its 15th Year Anniversary Philippine Opera Company's bringing back "Ang Bagong Harana" this October. "Ang Bagong Harana" is very fitting to celebrate POC's Pearl Anniversary not only because it is one of POC's successful shows but also to promote that our heritage is our country’s best asset. “Ang Bagong Harana” will also remind us to put our country's future first especially in the coming election.

From children’s songs to tribal chants, from planting songs to courtship ditties, from stirring kundiman to the delightful showstoppers by Sylvia la Torre, “ANG BAGONG HARANA” will showcase the best of all the Filipino composers from different music genres --- Nicanor Abelardo, Ryan Cayabyab, Willy Cruz, Francisco Santiago, Antonio Molina, Resti Umali, George Canseco, Ernani Cuenco, Levi Celerio, Jose Estrella, Constancio De Guzman and Felipe de Leon, to name a few.

What was the secret of this small revue’s success?

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The recent, very-limited run Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” by The Necessary Theatre was called “important,” some critics hailing the quality of its acting, its direction, and design. It drew raves from a very wide spectrum of audiences, theater-goers and non theater-goers alike.

But for all the praise garnered for different aspects of the production, the two most common sentiments were: 1. How the play has awakened the viewer to the HIV crisis in our own country and 2. A real clamor for a repeat of the show.

In 1981 in New York, a mysterious disease was ravaging a very specific, very “specialized” demographic: gay men. It aggravated deep-seated feelings of hatred and festering bigotries against, and even within the ranks of its victims. The confusion, chaos, panic and paranoia could have been a scenario from a b-grade disaster movie except that the crisis was very real and very frightening. No cause for the fatal illness was yet known, no strategies for prevention, no cure remotely in sight.

One doctor understands that the disease is transmitted sexually. She recruits a writer with a reputation for abrasiveness to combat the epidemic in two ways. First, he noisily clamors, if almost singlehandedly, for action against City Hall and the Health Department; and then fights against his own community,-- the gay community-- to convince its members to cease all sexual activity among themselves.

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Rediscover local musical treasures in a new ballet about the Filipino family. Ballet Philippines’ Sarong Banggi features new works by six exciting Filipino choreographers set to classic folk songs from around the country, arranged and orchestrated by Ryan Cayabyab, the country’s best-loved composer. Renowned fashion designer Rajo Laurel designs the costumes for this ballet.

The show features choreography by Carissa Adea, Ronelson Yadao, Cyril Aran Fallar, Paul Alexander Morales, Nonoy Froilan, and Carlo Pacis. Each choreographer brings to the stage his unique impression of the Filipino family in a new contemporary ballet with the cast led by Jean Marc Cordero, Earl John Arisola, Rita Angela Winder, and Monica Amanda Gana.

“Sarong Banggi will tug at the audience’s heartstrings with its nostalgic music and earnest look at traditional Filipino values,” says Ballet Philippines Artistic Director Paul Alexander Morales”. “It will be exciting to see these choreographers’ different takes on familiar themes; love, loss and reconciliation that cements the Filipino family”

When asked by Morales to create two pieces for the show, Hong Kong-based choreographer Carlo Pacis was excited at the chance to come home and work with Ballet Philippines again. “As a Filipino living overseas, I felt that it was my responsibility to give back.” Pacis, former soloist of the Hong Kong Ballet is a two-time awardee for Outstanding Choreography at the Philstage Gawad Buhay Awards.

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Third World Improv - SPIT's own improvisational theater school is ready to accept applications for their very first level one classes on October 7!

"The Joy of Improv" is for people who are curious about the art of improv and are ready to explore their creative side. No theater and performing arts experience required. All you need is curiosity and a hunger to play improv games!

There will be eight three hour classes on Wednesday nights in Makati starting OCTOBER 7 (7-10PM.) This class will be led by Ariadne Cristobal.

"The Playful Stage" is for actors and performers who want to inject more spontaneity, quick thinking and deep listening into their thespic toolkit.

There will be eight three hour classes on Saturday afternoons for this starting OCTOBER 10 (2-5PM.) Dingdong Rosales will be muse and mentor for this class.