Sketches Post Liberalia 2014

Well, you heard all of it--the stories and the fun that people had in Liberalia last March 15 at the Crocodile Park Grounds. Music started playing at three in the afternoon. As expected from a rave party, bars were opened as early as when people arrived. By the time the sun set, people were already starting to get drunk! Before midnight came, everybody was already soaked wet with neon paints, alcohol, rain and to some lucky persons, CAKE!

While many people love to throw their criticism about the event, I could only speculate that they had a bad company that night because only bad company can ruin a seriously fun and festive night.

Thanks Smart Communications, Ms. Kat Dalisay of Manic Nightnings for inviting the Davao Bloggers for the event and to all the DJ's and friends who made the party more wild and unforgetable (except for some who had amnesia that night..lol You know who you are!)

So here is a collage of some of the best photos I've seen during the event. Please note that these are not my photos unless otherwise specified.

Before all the alcohol, paint (and puke)
(c) Danelle Jo Filipinas

(c) Jesh Margatinez

#TeamSingle Davao and CDO
(c) Princess Lalwani

Sober and Clean...Hahaha Pre-Amnesia with Madie and Chamee
(c) Madie Sahid

 (c) Alison Dilangalen and (c) Angelina Sam

Partying with the DJ's
(c) Angelou Hayana

 Pretty and Ready to Party

(c) @baufelle  and (c) @camillehoney 

(c) Dawn Villahermosa

Post-party and after shocks
(c) @janelle 

(c) Anne Luy

 (c) Jesh Margatinez

Lucky and pretty. Surely she is still beautiful even with icing all over her.
(c) @jillhomez 

(c) @lloydelicious and (c) Madie Sahid 

With our beloved friend DJ Wacky Masbad
(c) Madie Sahid

The youngest DJ (and the most handsome too), DJ Antonio Tupas
(c) Mimi Tupas

Add caption

(c) Ross Naval 

Friends from CDO after party
(c) Vashy

 Glow! (c) Wacky Masbad

The Night from the Distance
(c) @Yves 

Max’s Restaurant Brings Bruno Mars to the Philippines for Moonshine Jungle Tour

The artist behind the phenomenal songs like “Just the Way You Are”, “Locked Out of Heaven”, and “Nothing on You” is coming to the Philippines for his Moonshine Jungle concert in Manila. Taking place this 22^nd of March, 8:00PM at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City, this Grammy awardee will serenade his Filipino fans to promote his second studio album, “Unorthodox Juxebox”.

Photo from www.hitsradio.com

Max’s Restaurant, the official restaurant of the tour, joins the Filipino community in promoting exceptional Filipino talent by sharing the experience of having a Filipino pride on stage. Bruno Mars, born to a Latino father and a Filipina mom, has not only sold over 115 million records all over the world but also had more than 20 Billboard Top 100 hits and was named as one of 100 most influential people in the world by the Time Magazine in 2011.

To give more opportunity for people to watch Bruno Mars live in concert, Max’s Restaurant will be giving away free tickets to the Moonshine Jungle concert this week.  To join, simply visit the Max’s Restaurant Facebook page and click on the app to enter the raffle. Full updates and details are also in their fan page.

Thanks to the Max's Restaurant team for giving the Davao Bloggers a Bloggers Day!
If you want to also enjoy a truly Filipino cuisine, visit the Max's Restaurant nearest you (Abreeza Mall and SM Lanang Premier for Davao City).

Davao Bloggers with our friends from Max's
Photo courtesy of Algene Cutamora of iamthecoffeechic.com

Thanks to Madie Sahid for the food photos!

Plains & Prints Spring Summer 2014 Collections

Plains & Prints recently released its much-awaited Spring Summer 2014 Collection in collaboration with the country’s famous designer, no less than Rhett Eala. This season’s designs take inspiration from various tropical elements and artistic moods that embody the fun loving yet smart and sophisticated look of the brand.

The charming Filipina-Australian actress, model, TV host, recording artist, fashion icon and recent brand endorser, Anne Curtis, expresses her love for the collections, “I will always be the fun-loving, girly, girl that I am. But I’d like my audience to know that I’ve grown up and become more mature, too. That’s why this year, I’ve decided to dress more responsibly”, she states. Undoubtedly, Anne’s personality and lifestyle reflect what the work-wear brand stands for—fresh and fashionable.

Further strengthening the brands image is this season’s collaboration with fashion and design icon, Rhett Eala, crafting together this series of collections. Plains & Prints’ Spring Summer 2014 release is one that can go for different styles and trends, but still retain that smart and sophisticated look every workingwoman longs for. Indeed, this collaboration between the brands new endorser, Anne Curtis, and renowned designer Rhett Eala is yet another Perfect Partnership by Plains & Prints!

Make sure to catch the Preview of our entire Spring Summer 2014 Collections at The Shangri-La Mall and Ayala Cebu boutiques on March 7-9 and TriNoma and Chimes Davao boutiques on March 14-16.

Water Collection

A Collection inspired by the water element in warm shades of Yellow, Lilac and Blue with modern aquatic art prints, comes with feminine shapes and easy silhouettes—perfect for casual dressing.

Air Collection

For this summer collection, we take inspiration from birds and feathers. A fun and tropical look that is perfect for the summer. Colors are periwinkle, royal blue, navy, pinks, khakis and touches of washed out neon orange.

Swimsuit & Cover-ups

A capsule collection especially made for the beach. Don’t get nervous, we have a suit especially designed to hide the flabs and chic cover-ups to top it off.

Summer Dresses

Celebrate the Summer Season in style with a whole collection of dresses in vibrant colors and shades, perfect for the summer Season.

Saint Tropez

A Paris cruise mood inspired in a modern way, this collection combines the glamour of cruise with the tradition of classic nautical strips. Refreshed and reworked in new ways, designs are then punched with red, white and blue colors in easy breezy shape.

Domestic Bliss

A classic 50’s inspired look to the home of timeless staples in strong and saturated tropical tones such as green, yellow, orange and a touch of warm shades of peach and blush in a laid back style of blissful decorative prints.

Art Nouveau

As we cap off the summer, we take inspiration from the 20’s architectural details and translating them into mod inspired places. Primary colors such as coral, lime, royal and green with accents and white is what constitutes this collection.

Check out Plains & Prints must-haves at the branch nearest you or shop online at www.plainsandprints.com

Thanking Those Who Shared the Love

The significance of life can be reflected by how much impact we have created to other people.

Before the year ended in 2013, my friends from the Davao Bloggers took the initiative to help raise funds for 100 hygiene packs intended for the victims of the typhoon Yolanda in various places in Visayas. Mid-November, our blogpost rolled out and the response turned out to be overwhelming! Before our target date last December 7, 2013, we reached more than our goal of P100, 000 and even with several donations in kind.

Forgive the selfie but the photo was included in our campaign.
Photo by Ria Jose

Sample hygiene kit that contained  soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, deolotion, shampoo, alcohol, tissue, insect repellant, cotton and sanitary napkin for women. The kit is estimated to supply one week need for each person. 

Kuya Andrew’s place was filled with so many boxes of goods and hygiene products where the volunteers spent an entire evening (until dawn) to repack and write messages of kindness in the hygiene kit. Before the week ended, all 1000 donation packs were distributed to the families in Tacloban and other affected regions.

Boxes turned over to Ateneo de Davao University's Yolanda volunteer group.
Photo grabbed from Chamee Pecson

Volunteers doing the repacking.
Photo from Naprey Almario

More pictures of bloggers and friends doing the repacking. This photo also shows Kezia, (topmost) taking a photo of the skies during dawn as shown in the image below. No sleep, just pure love of volunteerism!

Although it’s more than a hundred days delayed, allow me to dedicate this blogpost to our volunteer team for the Project Hygiene kit (with our project coordinator, Chamee), to our fellow Davao Bloggers who helped spread the word and kept on reposting the campaign to reach many readers and most especially to the many generous donors who shared their kind heart in helping us help the families affected by the devastating typhoon. THANK YOU, DAGHANG SALAMAT, SUKRAN, KAMSAHAMNIDA, ARIGATO GOZAIMASU!

The A Team! Photo grabbed from Madie Sahid's Instagram account.

We believe that all the little things everyone gave made a step closer in helping alleviate the lives of those who are affected. May we also not forget to be grateful for being safe and alive right now and never forget to include in our prayers the lives of all those struggling, those who fight to remain alive, those who protect the weak and those who have passed.

Globe Telecom to Offer Free Facebook Access

Collaboration with Facebook to bring together first-of-its-kind customer experience innovations such as availability in all Facebook mobile platforms, advice of charge notifications, one-click to purchase data plans & data access lending to access links outside Facebook

Setting another unprecedented milestone in Philippine telecommunications, Globe Telecom is giving the telco’s over 36 million subscribers free access to Facebook on mobile phones for an initial period of three (3) months. Globe worked closely with Facebook to enable customer experience innovations for the best free Facebook offer yet.

Available to all Globe Prepaid, Postpaid, and TM subscribers using feature phones and smartphones* and accessing either through the mobile site of Facebook or the Facebook app, users can post, like, comment, chat, add friends, upload photos, share posts, and more on Facebook without the need for Wi-Fi.

Aside from offering Facebook at zero data charges, the collaboration between the two global companies has also paved the way for subscribers to enjoy first-of-its-kind customer experience innovations. 

Working with Silicon Valley-based Facebook engineers, Globe has put together innovations that cover key milestones in the customer experience journey such as availability of access on feature phones and smartphones across all Facebook mobile platforms whether via the Facebook app or Facebook’s mobile site m.facebook.com; no billshock or “nakaw load” as customers will be notified if they will incur data charges once a link that leads out of Facebook is clicked; and one-click registration to the data plan of choice to continue browsing without having to leave the site. Recommended data plans consider a subscriber’s available prepaid balance and/or megabytes (MB) balance of existing data plan. 

Moreover, customers with not enough prepaid load can “loan” a 10MB data plan for only P10 which will be deducted on their succeeding top-up so they can fully explore content outside Facebook, making the experience seamless and worry-free. 

“Once again, Globe has proven that it is the mobile data service provider of choice by industry and technology leaders around the world with this breakthrough partnership with Facebook to give our 36 million subscribers uninterrupted, seamless, and worry-free Free Facebook experience. This is collaboration at its peak, which has resulted in the best and most innovative Free Facebook experience yet,” said Peter Bithos, Senior Advisor for Consumer Business at Globe Telecom. 

Globe is progressively rolling-out availability of the Free Facebook service to cover all its subscribers by October 31, 2013. 

Bithos added, “Over the past months, the engineering, business development and marketing teams at both Globe and Facebook have worked together to plan and design the customer experience from scratch – which includes making the service available across all Facebook mobile platforms, rolling out a system that alerts users once they are about to click a link that will incur them data charges, paving the way for subscribers to easily subscribe to a data plan without having to leave Facebook, and allowing data access lending for subscribers who don’t have enough prepaid load to continue browsing links outside Facebook. This service testifies how Globe is transforming itself beyond just an access carrier. Globe is striving to be a leading digital brand catering to the needs of digital Filipinos who need to be connected to their social circles around the world.” 

"Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected," said Chris Daniels, vice president of partnerships at Facebook. “Globe understands the opportunities giving people access to the Internet brings and we’re thrilled to be working with them to give Globe subscribers access to Facebook without data charges across our apps and mobile website.” 

Starting October 31, 2013, subscribers can dial *143# and select FREE FB to know more about Globe Free Facebook. 

*Except BlackBerry.  Free Facebook will soon be available to Nokia Xpress and Opera Mini users

Tanduay First Five 2013 Concert Night in Davao City

So how was your weekend? 

While other people in the other cities are probably busy partying in clubs or in their own party places, the entire Davao City filled the Tionko Football Field (Agro Football Field) and sang with their favorite First Five Band for the Tanduay First Five 2013 Davao Leg.

The annual series of concert touring around the Philippines is being sponsored by the number one liquor brand in the Philippines, Tanduay, to bring the rock scenes to the major cities. This year's final leg was with Davao City--closing the year 2013 with pure hard rock music and smooth but strong drink that has truly became a household name to every Filipino.

Opening the night was no other than the voice of Yael Yuzon and the Sponge Cola. Of course, First Five night wouldn't be complete without the hard rock songs from Wolfgang, the hyper energy of Jay Contreras and Kamikaze (Tsinelas?!), Chito Miranda and Parokya ni Edgar and also Rico Blanco who was, like last year, in his symbolic attire. Gloc-9 also joined the First Five Bands in giving cheers to the Davao crowd who rocked the night. 

With no further ado, enjoy browsing through the images from the evening taken by no other than my friend, Elaine Magistrado (big thanks, Lai!).

  

Daghang Salamat Tanduay! Next year na pud?!

(Many thanks, Tanduay...Till next year?)

Tanduay First Five 2013 in Davao City

Are you ready for the biggest rock concert in the Philippines?  

If you want a sneak peek on last year's concert, you may check my blog post linked below

TANDUAY ROCKFEST 2012 DAVAO

Closing the Tanduay First Five will be the Davao leg this coming Saturday, December 7, 2013 at the Tionko Football Field (Agro Football Field) along the Quimpo Boulevard. The Five Bands playing this year will include Kamikazee, Wolfgang, Rico Blanco, Parokya ni Edgar and Sponge Cola with special participation of Gloc-9.

Tanduay, the Philippines’ leading producer of liquor , boasts its products for being a true Filipino pride--made by the Filipinos using only the best sugar canes from the Philippines. And what can be the best way to celebrate and enjoy your favorite Tanduay products than to listen and jam with the top rock bands in the Philippines.

So Davao, go and purchase your favorite Tanduay liquor. One 750ml Tanduay 5 years or 750ml Tanduay Light will give you one admission ticket in any participating outlet.

1. Davao Amigo Traders (Gov. Sales Street, Davao City near Sa’Less Diner)

Map Here: http://goo.gl/maps/YDQeH

2. WVP Lopson Inc. (F. Bangoy Street, Davao City near Homitori Dormitory)

Map Here: http://goo.gl/maps/WmhpE

3. Fortuna Supermarket (Marfori Street, Bankerohan, Davao City)

Don’t forget to visit and like Tanduay Rhum’s official Facebook account here and use the hashtag #T5Davao!

Tara, Rakrakan na!

One Year after Typhoon Pablo (Bopha)

Increased support is needed if families are to fully recover from the impact of Typhoon Bopha on their livelihoods, Save the Children says. 

A year after the category 5 typhoon – the highest category for a storm – the children’s aid agency says tens of thousands are still struggling to find work to feed their families. The Typhoon, which struck on 4th of December 2012, affected over six million people and left nearly 2000 dead or missing. 

Rescue efforts during the Typhoon in December 2012
Photo from: LA Times (Ted Aljibe/ AFP/ Getty Images)

The storm caused widespread damage to agriculture, which account for the livelihoods of 80 per cent of the residents in the affected area. The Filipino government’s disaster agency estimates a loss of over US$700 million in agricultural damage, including bananas, coconuts, rice and maize. 

“The job that aid agencies need to fulfil shouldn’t stop at immediate relief,” said Tom Howells, Team Leader for Save the Children’s Bopha Recovery Program. “But many are forced to end their projects as there is little to no funding available for long-term rehabilitation of livelihoods. Our worry is that these families will no longer be able to send their children to school, provide nutritious foods and a protective home environment once aid stops.” 

Save the Children conducted two livelihoods projects in the Bopha-affected areas, unconditional cash grants for vulnerable families and cash-for-work to rehabilitate schools. Roselyn Cabatlao, 34, was one of the program’s beneficiaries in Davao Oriental after her family lost their only source of income – a coconut plantation – in the storm. It will take them at least seven more years to get back on their feet as coconut trees take about eight years to mature.

“I can see there are still many families here that do not have stable income because many of our coconuts have been damaged by the typhoon,” she said. 

Through income generated from Save the Children’s cash-for-work program, Roselyn is now able to buy food, vitamins and condiments for her children. The mother of three was also given the tools and seeds to plant vegetables in their backyard for consumption and income. The vegetables and direct nutrition interventions helped Roselyn’s son, Jericho, to recover from severe acute malnutrition. 

“Families like Roselyn will be left to their own devices once aid agencies leave. We have given them the basic tools to sustain themselves, but it will be years before Roselyn harvests coconuts again and builds a sturdy house for her family,” said Tom Howells. 

Save the Children responded to the needs of affected families in Typhoon Bopha, delivering an integrated package of child protection, education, health and nutrition, water sanitation and hygiene, disaster preparedness in schools, food security and livelihoods in Agusan del Sur, Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental. Overall, the children’s aid agency has reached about 138,000 people