Maniolas

LOGRO with his Chinese colleagues in the palace kitchen. Contributed photo/GMA 7 With this funny antics, signature dance moves and “yumyumyum” recipes, Chef Pablo “Boy” Logro is now one of the most popular chefs on Philippine television. Once upon a time, the “Kusina Master” of Philippine television served state leaders, kings and queens. A poor boy from a fishing village in Leyte, Chef Boy’s rags-to-riches story from a houseboy in Quiapo to the personal chef of the King of Oman is among the most inspiring overseas Pinoy stories. In a palace with golden walls and crystal chandeliers, he led the kitchen with an international staff of around 300 to prepare 25 to 30 dishes for Oman Sultan Qaboos bin Said al-Said, while often preparing special menus for visiting world leaders—among them former American president George Bush, Sr., the late King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, former president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and the late Princess Diana of Wales. Former Philippine president Fidel Ramos was also one of the guests he served. The sultan also took him along on trips to Istanbul, Geneva, London and France, among others. “Kung nasaan siya, naroon ako. (I accompanied him everywhere)” he said.  They rode in a royal yacht and were given “VIP treatment” everywhere they went. The sultan, Logro said, provided him with a car and a two-storey house in a “Forbes Park-like neighborhood.”  His wife, Ernelinda, and children eventually came to live with him in Oman upon the sultan’s invitation. In 10 years, Read More …

By TJ BurgonioPhilippine Daily Inquirer 6:11 pm | Saturday, May 17th, 2014 Vietnamese expatriates and Filipinos display placards as they join together in a rally in front of the Chinese Consulate at the financial district of Makati city to protest the recent moves by China to construct an oil rig near the Vietnamese-claimed Paracels off the contested Spratlys group of islands and shoals in the South China Sea Friday, May 16, 2014. The protesters, led by Philippine Congressman Walden Bello, claimed that Vietnam and the Philippines are “natural allies as both countries suffered the same territorial struggles against China.” JOAN BONDOC MANILA, Philippines—China’s growing aggressiveness in the South China Sea is expected to top discussions between President Benigno Aquino III and visiting Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung this week. The Vietnamese prime minister, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Myanmar Vice President Nyan Tun, and other leaders are converging in Manila this week for the World Economic Forum on East Asia. Aquino and the Vietnamese premier will touch on the sea dispute with China during their meeting on the sidelines of the WEF which Manila will host for the first time, Malacañang said. “It will be probable [that they discuss it] given that’s the current issue in their country,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said over State-run dzRB. Vietnam is now locked in a tense standoff with China over the installation of an oil rig by China’s state-owned oil company in contested waters within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. China’s action Read More …

FLYING HIGH The flight certificate says it all for David Lagman, ABC News’ Filipino journalist on board Air Force One, during US President Barack Obama’s four-nation Asian swing. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ MANILA, Philippines—While Filipino journalists scrambled to take selfies with US President Barack Obama in the background giving a speech or walking behind them during his visit to Manila, two of their colleagues were just a bit luckier. They got to ride on Air Force One and got close enough to Obama to actually smell him. “He smelled good!” veteran Filipino journalist David Lagman told the Inquirer on Friday. “He’s not really elegant but he’s casual and cool. His grip is tight, his strides are sure and he makes it a point to make eye contact, even with us,” Lagman said of Obama. But the most the US President said to Lagman was, “Hey, how ya doin’?” A freelancer, Lagman was tapped by the US network ABC to be its cameraman to work in tandem with the network’s Filipino reporter. Covering heads of state is nothing new to Lagman. In fact, one is a close friend. Lagman, 55, has known President Aquino since they were small boys at Ateneo de Manila University. Lagman has covered former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and rode on the press plane with the rest of the White House correspondents, but never had the chance to be these presidents’ close-in media. Lagman first learned that Obama was coming to Asia from his wife, Read More …

Gary Cunningham, center, of the Scotland Police, addresses the media during a news conference Friday, May 2, 2014 at the Philippine National Police headquarters in Quezon City. Philippine police, backed by Interpol, have arrested dozens of suspected members of an online extortion syndicate who duped hundreds of victims worldwide into exposing themselves in front of webcams or engaging in lewd chats, including a Scottish teenager who committed suicide after being blackmailed, officials said. Listening to him are William Wallrapp of the US Department of Homeland Security Investigations and Hong Kong Police Chief Inspector Louis Kwan. AP MANILA, Philippines—The leaders of the international “sextortion” ring that has victims all over the world have been identified, but Philippine authorities will not disclose their identities just yet as they are still being hunted down. A multinational police operation busted the syndicate in the Philippines on Wednesday, with 87 people being arrested, including three men identified as the Internet con artists who victimized a Scottish teenager, Daniel Perry, whose suicide last year led to the discovery of the “sextortion” ring. Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, spokesman for the Philippine National Police, told the Inquirer by phone Saturday that authorities on top of the investigation already know who are running the syndicate. “Many of them have been identified because of the investigation but no details are given at the moment because operations are still [going on]. Authorities are still in pursuit of the many reported cases of this sort,” Sindac said in Filipino. Sindac said Read More …

Hegemony, a novel by Swedish-Filipino Elizabeth Ferido-Bohlin, is a serious, scholarly treatise wrapped delicately in a political thriller as exciting as they come—garnished with servings of a budding romance; the murder of the Saudi Arabian ambassador and a sensational, ritualistic beheading gripping peaceful Sweden; espionage and skulduggery; treachery and betrayal in high places; and, as cliffhanger, terror in the skies. Set in the backdrop of a Sweden all agog over the 113th anniversary of the Nobel Prize ceremony usually held at the magnificent Stockholm Concert Hall, a young, innocent Isabelle, lugging her book-bound Oxford thesis that she is about to defend before her peers, descends into the bowels of the Ostermalm building where she resides and finds herself in Valfisken Hall.  Entranced by the opulent surroundings, she is drawn to four pairs of swords attached to a wall:  the Katana/Samurai, the Crusader, the Scimitar/Shamshir, and the Viking. But Isabelle remembers she has to attend a party and departs in haste.  She forgets her book, which is discovered by the prostitute Marit Fagger, who comes to Valfisken Hall to meet another Ostermalm resident.  The wily Marit, out to extort a pretty sum for the mysterious microchip she stole from her paramour, the Saudi ambassador (who dies in the hands of Muslim fundamentalists disguised as Saudi Embassy personnel), hides it in Isabelle’s book—and is gruesomely killed by the pugnacious Saudi Embassy press attaché, Mohammed Fathi, swinging the Scimitar to cut off her head. The chase is on to recover the microchip, involving Read More …