Maniolas

By Armando ChavezINQUIRER.net US Bureau 5:00 am | Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 Moreau high school dancers in Union Square, San Francisco. https://www.facebook.com/KalayaanSF SAN FRANCISCO—What a way to celebrate the 115th year of Philippine independence—Filipinos transformed San Francisco’s landmark Union Square into a Philippine town plaza for a day last June 15. Where there were usually art shows and buskers, was now filled with food booths vending lumpia, adobo, pansit, mango tarts, and other Filipino delicacies. There was a fashion show featuring haute couture as interpreted by Filipino designers. Of course, there can be no Filipino celebration without music and dancing, particularly folk dancing. This year, some of the performances were done, not on the stage, but on the plaza level, giving it the look and feel of having impromptu street performers amidst the crowd. The martial arts group Eskabo Daan gave a demonstration of the uniquely Filipino martial arts form that it practices and espouses, which bears some similarity to arnis de mano. The grand finale was a special show by Apl.de.Ap, who had the crowd—many of whom came just for his performance—dancing, singing, jumping and clapping to his beat and screaming with joy at being able to enjoy this rare performance by a true world celebrity. Apl.de.ap keeps crowd dancing and cheering. https://www.facebook.com/KalayaanSF Apl.de.Ap used the entire stage as his dance floor, going from one side to the other in half-skip, half-dance as the rapt audience of little girls, dads and grandmothers and every age group in between sang Read More …

By Tarra Quismundo, Gil C. CabacunganPhilippine Daily Inquirer 2:00 am | Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 MANILA, Philippines—As Manila and Taipei prepared for fishery talks next month in a bid to ease tensions, the Chinese Embassy on Tuesday issued a reminder of Taiwan’s political status, saying governments should defer to Beijing’s “one-China policy.” “The Chinese government has no objection to the nongovernmental economic and cultural contacts between Taiwan and foreign countries that have diplomatic relations with China, but we oppose foreign countries and Taiwan to have official exchanges or sign agreements with sovereign and official implications,” said the Chinese Embassy spokesperson, Zhang Hua. “We have always required and hoped that the countries that have established diplomatic relations with China would abide by their commitments to adhere to the one-China policy,” Zhang said in a statement to the Inquirer. The embassy official in Manila made the statement when asked to comment on the start of Manila and Taipei’s fishery talks, a sign of easing tensions sparked by the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman by Filipino coast guards in overlapping waters off Batanes on May 9. Officials of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (Meco) and the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office (Teco), the agencies that take care of Philippine-Taiwan relations, are to hold talks next month aimed at preventing the use of force in resolving fishery issues in overlapping borders. The Meco earlier said the negotiations would include crafting a protocol in responding to poaching incidents within overlapping waters off the Read More …