Maniolas

By Ana Villanueva Lykes WHILE we love to hate Kris Aquino for constantly crying on TV, she is laughing her way to the bank. Although we find her pathetic, she is one of highest-paid celebrities in the country, earning about 150 million pesos in 2011 alone. And there is nothing pathetic about that. This drama queen can teach us a lot about money, relationships, journalism, politics, good citizenship, and the art of Taglish. She is a role model on what to do and what not to do to achieve success in life. Sobbing to success We all know Krissy too well, not only because we’ve watched her grow up from a quiet girl to one of the most powerful celebrities, but also because we had mourned for her while she stood by her hero father’s final resting place. That was the first time we saw her tears. We cried with her too when she laid her beloved mother to rest. But the tears never stopped as we followed her on her trail of failed relationships. And before long, our tears dried up and sympathy turned to irritation. We cradled her like a daughter when she was orphaned, but she has turned into a whiny little brat who cries at the mere poke of a playmate. The problem is that she tends to choose mates that don’t play nice. There’s the bad boy of Philippine movies, then her live-in married partner with whom she bore a love child, and the gun-toting Read More …

By Maribel Castillo   WHILE on a cruise to Alaska, my husband and I met many Filipino workers — now hailed as modern-day heroes of the Philippines — who endure many months at sea to support their families and help keep the nation’s economy afloat. Comprising almost half of the ship’s staff, Filipinos work as waiters, chefs, retail clerks, spa staff, fitness directors, cruise ship entertainers, lifeguards, production managers, host staff, kitchen staff, cruise ship bartenders, cruise casino workers, security workers, beauticians, excursion organizers, customer service representatives, deckhands, even as ship doctor. Manuel Carlos was the handsome Filipino maitre’ d at our favorite Italian restaurant of the Norwegian Sun. Here is his story. THE plot is familiar, reminiscent of the teleseryes so popular among Philippine TV viewers. Manuel Carlos (not his real name) was one of seven children of a petty bureaucrat and a homemaker from Binangonan, Rizal. His mother often resorted to creative ways of stretching her husband’s meager earnings to feed and raise a brood of seven. “We were so poor that my parents could not afford to give us an allowance while we attended high school. I walked to school every day so I could save on jeepney fare,” Manuel recalls. “In December, when all my schoolmates got new clothes for Christmas, I had to make do with khakis, the single pair of pants that I would wear every day the entire school year until I outgrew it.” Early on, Manuel’s mother urged her children to seek Read More …

By Ana Maria Villanueva-Lykes In almost every corner in the world you will find a little Chinese restaurant. Like the famed dumplings, Asian treats like sushi, pad thai, kimchee, curry, or pho have forever enjoyed the warm spotlight on the international dining table while our humble adobo grows cold in the shadows. But soon all that may change. Filipino cuisine, a melting pot of flavors from different cultures, is about to make its global debut, steaming and bursting with fresh flavors. Multicultural ingredients Filipino fare may be a bit strange to the foreign tongue, but the world is craving for new unusual flavors. According to an article in Thrillist, America is looking for a new East Asian food obsession and “signs are pointing to a boom in Filipino food.”  The spark of that flavor explosion started a few years back when Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods told Today.com that two years from now Filipino food is “going to be the next big thing.” He revealed this in 2012. That was about two years ago which means that the time for adobo is now. Pig and Khao’s version of sisig. “It’s just starting,” Zimmern explained. “I think it’s going to take another year and a half to get up to critical mass, but everybody loves Chinese food, Thai food, Japanese food, and it’s all been exploited. The Filipinos combined the best of all of that with Spanish technique.” Add our Indonesian, Malaysian, and even American influences are thrown into the pot Read More …

By Nikki Boncan-Buensalido AS I was driving through Edsa the other day, I was reminded of an idea that my design team came up with a couple of years ago.  It was an idea spurred by the kind of optimism that can help our development as a nation one step at a time. The idea had something to do with the Pasig River and its gentrification, and I share this in the hopes that this can become a spark, a catalyst for change, if you may. Our source of inspiration is the Pasig River and how we can bring it back to life and how we can utilize it to help improve our nation through the process of urban regeneration. This call hopes to instill a community revival that can engage Filipinos to go a step further toward nation-building. Concerned citizens have been calling on government for generations to rehabilitate this tragic body of water that was once became the inspiration for art and music, and served as the backdrop for romantic interludes. Corporate sponsors and non-governmental organizations have created and continue to create programs to help revive the river, but only a few concrete and tangible actions have been actually done. Will the time ever arrive when people can return to the banks of the Pasig River? I’m still hopeful that I get to see this come into fruition in my generation. In many countries, the river plays a major role in capturing the identity and culture of a Read More …

I’d always thought Batanes to be a typhoon-prone province with medieval stone houses, lots of rolling hills, expansive coastlines and grazing goats. Would it pale in comparison to the other picturesque and fascinating places I’ve visited outside the Philippines? READ FULL STORY