Pinoy: A Poem

Philippine Tourism Public Photos

Check this link to see the beauty of the Pearl of the Orient - Philippines!

http://www.flickr.com/groups/philippine_tourism_public_photos/pool/with/4973753859/

Dearmanila: The Introduction

Crystal Superal explains what DEARMANILA is, and shares what she sees as the truth behind the Philippines' reputation. A short introduction to her life's work:

To see the rest of Crystal's videos, click here.

Video Podcast: Dearmanila Teaches You Tagalog

With our previous post about the Tagalog language, we present our first video podcast featuring Crystal Superal, as she teaches the three most important Filipino greetings. Learn how to say "How are you?" "I love you" and "Goodbye" in the 100-million strong nation. Let us know what you think! Enjoy.

Pinoy Pride: Arnel Pineda

Arnel Pineda, is a Filipino singer-songwriter who has served as the lead singer of the American rock band Journey since 2007.

Arnel has had a successful music career in the Philippines for 25 years, even before the Journey fame. Like most Filipino singers, he had a humble beginning. Arnel's family acquired deep debt when his mother died. His dad was forced to ask relatives to separate and take his siblings. At this time, Arnel quit school, was sleeping in the streets, and had to work odd jobs like cleaning scrap metal and docked ships, just to be able to strike out on his own.

But even at a young age, his parents instilled in him the love for music. In one interview, he revealed that one of his earlier idols were Barbara Streisand and Karen Carpenter. At 1982, at age 15, Arnel joined a group called Ijos Band. He formed and transferred to several bands since then. A talent agent spotted Pineda and his then group "New Age" and asked them to perform in Hongkong restaurants. Arnel worked in Hongkong for several years thereafter.

Like Charice, Arnel's career was hugely boosted thanks to Youtube. On June 28, 2007, Neal Schon of Journey contacted Noel Gomez, a longtime fan and friend of Pineda who uploaded many of his performance videos, to ask for Pineda's contact information. Schon sent an e-mail to Pineda inviting him to audition for Journey. The rest, as they say, is history. To quote this article:

Chilean media acclaimed Pineda's performance (translated to English): "The new vocalist fit very well with the band, his vocal aptitudes shining through, which are very similar to the legendary musician of the band, Steve Perry."^] Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain described Pineda's performance in a radio interview: "We went to Chile just recently, where we had never played and they went crazy, they absolutely went nuts...Arnel's first show — talk about a stressful thing — we had a televised concert for 25 million people...Is the guy a winner? Yeah, he's a winner. He's a clutch player."

Journey's concerts with Arnel are huge hits. This is a video from his 2008 Las Vegas concert.

This is PinoyTunes The Podcast's feature on Arnel Pineda:

For the latest on Arnel, check out his official blog: http://arnelpinedarocks.com/


Source: Wikipedia

Pinoy Pride: Charice Pempengco

Charice Pempengco, or simply Charice to her fans, is a Filipino singer and actress who rose to popularity through Youtube. She is currently the most internationally hot shot singer from the Philippines.

She started her career almost like Regine Velasquez, joining small singing competitions all over the country at a tender age. In 2005, Charice joined Little Big Star, a talent show in the Philippines loosely patterned after American Idol. Eliminated after her first performance, she was called back as a wildcard contender and eventually became one of the finalists. Although she was a consistent top scorer in the final rounds, she did not win the title in the finale and only placed third. (Wikipedia)

Charice Pempengco in The Ellen Degeneres Show


Unlike Regine, her big break happened because of a fan and with the help of the internet. Someone under the username FalseVoice uploaded her video performances in Youtube - it received over 13 million hits. Through her international performance videos, Ellen DeGeneres found her and made an on-air invitation to guest her on The Ellen Degeneres show. Pempengco also appeared on the May 12 edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show in an episode entitled the "World's Smartest Kids", where she performed Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing.^[19] After the show, Oprah Winfrey contacted David Foster to see what the legendary music producer could do for Pempengco. David Foster liked her and held several well-recieved performances with her. In one of those concerts, Charice met Andrea Bocelli, her idol. Bocelli expressed his interest in performing a duet with her. Aside from her solo performance in Bocelli's birthday concert "The Cinema Tribute", she also sang a duet of "The Prayer" with the famous tenor in front of more than 8,000 people.

 Charice in GLEE


In an ABC News interview, David Foster mentioned that she has the ability to mimic other people's voices, which, according to him, is a characteristic of good singers. In a separate interview, Josh Groban stated that Charice's voice is one of the most beautiful voices he has heard in a long time. The New York Post once called her a vocal prodigy for being able to sing 'big songs' even at her tender age. Ryan Murphy, the executive music producer of the hit US television series Glee, said, "When that girl opens her mouth, angels fly out."

PinoyTunes features Charice in this week's episode:

For more information about Charice, check out her website: http://www.charicemusic.com/

Source: Wikipedia

Pinoy Pride: Regine Velasquez

Regine Velasquez is one of the best singers the Philippines has ever produced. She's known as "Asia's Songbird" for her exceptionally wide and powerful vocal range. She has 30 albums under her belt, winning 59 awards locally and internationally.

 Regine has also won acting awards from her performances in television and film. Aside from being a singer-actress, she is also a record producer, TV host, and philanthropist. "My family was really poor, so I wanted to help them.. I wanted to send my siblings to school and I was able to. That's my greatest achievement actually," said Regine in an interview on CNN Talk Asia. Her philanthropy involved projects with Duty Free Philippines, Hongkong's AIDS foundation, Singapore's National Kidney Foundation, UNICEF, and many others.

                              Music Video: Regine Velasquez's "And I Love You So"


Regine claims that she learned singing even before she could read. To train her voice, her father let her sing neck-deep in the ocean - supposedly to strengthen her stomach muscles and increase lung power. Today, she credits her vocal abilities to her dad who remains dearly close to her. Her career started in small singing contests all over the country until she won a recording deal with Octoarts. The rest, as they say is history.


Other interesting facts about Regine Velasquez:


 - In 1991, she performed an outstanding performance at the Carnegie Hall, one of the most prestigious venues in the world for classical and popular music. She was the first solo Filipino act there.


- In her career she has joined about 200 competitions and won 60 of them.


- She directed most of her own music videos, concerts and TV shows.


- She does her own makeup.


-After seven years of being together, Regine and Ogie Alcasid (another Filipino singer-songwriter), announced their engagement at a noontime show.





They got married on December 22, 2010 in Nasugbu, Batangas, Philippines.




Listen to PinoyTunes the Podcast's episode on Regine Velasquez:

So, What Kind Of Rice?

 In a typical Filipino pantry, you'll find rice. Exactly what kind, you ask?

Long-grain VS. Short-grain

Mainly, we prefer rice that is white as snow, aromatic, and long-grain. It complements the main dishes of meat, poultry or even vegetables. The favorites are Jasmine rice and Milagrosa, and you can tell if the rice grain is fresh just by the strong aroma. If not, you can always add some pandan or screwpine leaves to give the same result.

Pandan leaf aroma is distinct and hard to describe, somewhat nutty, reminiscent to fresh hay and definitely pleasant.

Another favorite is what we call, "malagkit"(pronounced MAH-lag-kit), a short-grain rice that is sticky and starchy when cooked. This goes well for savory dishes like Arroz Caldo and Bringhe and for sweet desserts like Biko, Champorado, Guinataang Monggo and Ginataang Mais. When soaked in water and ground-up, Glutinous rice turns into a type of dough called Galapong. Galapong is used to make Puto, Palitaw, Bibingka.

Making Bibingka - a type of rice cake made of rice flour, coconut milk, egg and water.

Source: Filipino-food-recipes

A Brief History of Rice

"For a Filipino, a meal is not a meal without rice. Besides being the sacrificial cereal for every meal, rice is also ground into flour to make bibingka and puto, pounded flat to make pinipig, and even crushed, dyed and fried to make colorful decorations come fiesta time in Quezon," said Doreen G. Fenandez, a food columnist and researcher.

Rice has become a significant part not only of the Filipino cuisine, but of the culture as well. Without rice in the table, many Pinoys would not even call it a meal. When did rice started being a staple of the Filipino life?

In the Philippines, the cultivation of rice started in the 3200 B.C.  Like of the many southeast Asian countries, rice grown in dry fields was the most common type of rice. Much of this rice was grown by means of the slash-and-burn method of agriculture, and it was glutinous, or sticky rice. It was only in the years after the birth of Christ that wet-field, or irrigated rice cultivation, spread throughout the region.

3200 B.C. proved to be an important point in history for Filipinos - this is when they started to settle in one area as opposed to moving constantly, a typical life of a hunter. The result is that they had more time to develop their culture. Rice made it possible for civilization to appear, not only in the Philippines, but to the whole southeast Asia.

The earliest found archaeological excavation of the use of rice in the Philippines was found at a site called Andarayan. This is a very fertile plain. The sample of rice that archaeologists found is a mix between wild rice and the cultivated rice that we see today. Another find at the site suggests that the people used rice in a variety of ways, as there are clay pots that contain the stems of rice.

Some people disagree that rice is the main staple of our daily consumption, pointing out that sweet potatoes and taro are the legitimate ones. But some scientists find it hard to believe that people would take the time to focus so much of their energy on building terraces if they did not use rice as their main food (as recalled in my previous post.)

Today, rice has to be in every Filipino home, everyday. It is a part of our life, culture, and psyche. Each Pinoy can attest to the fullness and satisfaction of eating rice with every meal. But it doesn't mean we cannot live with all the carbohydrates - many Filipinos working abroad also get used to bread, cheese, couscous, etc. But rice is still our staple food, and for a Pinoy, it's hard to go without it.

 

Source: livingcebuforums

For more information, click here.

Pinoy Pride: Lea Salonga

She's said to be the Philippine's living national treasure.


Lea Salonga (born February 22, 1971) is a Filipina singer and actress. She started performing professionally in the Philippines at age 7, but she gained international exposure just a decade later as a teenager when she landed the role that would propel her onto the global stage. Lea played Kim, a young viatnamese woman in Miss Saigon, a role for which she earned the Olivier, Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, and Theater World awards. She was the first Asian to play the roles of Éponine and Fantine in the musical Les Misérables on Broadway. She also provided the singing voice of the two Asian Disney "princesses": Jasmine inAladdin (1992), and Fa Mulan in Mulan (1998) and Mulan II (2004).


Here is Lea recording Disney's "A Whole New World" for Alladin:

Lea Salonga in her extraordinary rendition of "I Dreamed A Dream" as Fantine during the 25th year anniversary of Les Miserables:

In 2004, she got married to Robert Charles Chien, a Chinese-Japanese managing director based in Los Angeles. They have a daughter, Nicole Beverly, who was born on May 16, 2006. In 2008, she became a columnist for a national paper, The Philippine Daily Inquirer. She's been performing ever since, one of the recent ones is the role of Drizabella in the Manila run of of the Asia-Pacific tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. On 15 October 2010, Lea Salonga was nominated Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).


A famous Philippine DJ, Mo Twister, calls Lea "hands-down, the most intelligent celebrity I've met." She is also an avid video game enthusiast, and has mentioned her love for the hobby in several of her print articles. 


Lea is a world-renowned singer-actress, mom, columnist, model, endorser and even a gamer! That is the embodiment of Filipino talent and pride - a living national treasure indeed. Thank you Lea for making us proud to be Filipino.


This is PinoyTunes the Podcast on Lea Salonga: 

For Lea Salonga's Official Website, click here. 

Outstanding Filipino: KC Concepcion

As much as we love the Philippines, we also need to honor outstanding Filipinos who make us proud to be one. 


KC Concepcion (born Maria Kristina Cassandra Cuneta Concepcion on April 7, 1985) is a Filipina actress and singer. She's the daughter of the Philippine megastar, Sharon Cuneta and actor Gabby Concepcion - the most promising reel couple back in the 80s admired by millions of fans all throughout the country. She graduated at the prestigious American University of Paris with a Bachelor's degree in International Communications, minor in Theater Arts. Instead of pursuing her studies in the United States which she originally thought of doing after her stint in Paris, Concepcion went back home to the Philippines and made her official acting debut. It was in early 2008 when she wowed fans with a special number for her mother's birthday concert, a TV special featuring her last days in Paris, and her first ever television drama special.


Proving to be more than just a beauty, KC is also a dancer, photography enthusiast, model, and a fantastic blogger. In spite all of these achievements, she adds another feather in her hat as being the current National Ambassador Against Hunger of the UN's World Food Program.

                            KC is "Fabulously Pinay" like her shirt says.

Recently, she traveled to the island of Mindanao, one of the country's intriguing regions. The only island in the Philippines to host a large Muslim population, Mindinao also suffers from high levels of child malnutrition. KC’s journey takes her from a school where local children are celebrating the Islamic New Year to a woman’s cooperative and health centre where food is provided to those in need.


                            
                        

She's indeed beauty and brains, and more. Talented, humble, sincere, intelligent, hardworking - she's the perfect role model for the modern-day Filipina. 


To learn more about KC's work for the UN, click here. 

Filipino Food: Lechon

Filipino cuisine is distinguished by its bold combination of sweet (tamis), sour (asim), and salty (alat) flavors. Filipino palates prefer a sudden influx of flavor, although most dishes are not heavily spiced. While other Asian cuisines may be known for a more subtle delivery and presentation, Filipino cuisine is often delivered all at once in a single presentation.

I conducted a poll in which my friends chose their ultimate Filipino comfort food. I got answers such as lechon, rice, adobo, chicharon, banana cue... Which we will all get to discuss someday. For now, let's handle one.

The lechon (pronounced LE-ch-on) in the Philippines connotes a whole roasted pig, "lechón baboy." Anton Bourdain of Travel Channel's No Reservations, a show that uncovers the best culinary cuisines around the world, declared Philippine lechon as the top in his hierarchy of pork. By reputation, the Cebu lechon is considered by most as the tastiest and crispiest, with such flavorful meat that condiments or sauce are typically not necessary anymore.

This is the Episode 1 of Anton Bourdain's Philippine trip, where he doesn't only praise the famous Philippine lechon, but tastes the other amazingness that Filipino food is all about. Enjoy!

 

For those who wants the see the whole episode, click here.

The Banaue Rice Terraces

"The Ifugao Rice Terraces epitomize the absolute blending of the physical, socio-cultural, economic, religious, and political environment. Indeed, it is a living cultural landscape of unparalleled beauty." 

These are the words used by UNESCO to describe the famous Philippine wonder.

The Banaue (pronounced as BA-na-weh) Rice Terraces,  are 2000-year old terraces that were carved into the mountains of Ifugao, Philippines about 2,000-3,000 years ago. The tribes people did this with their bare hands and crude implements, without using machinery to level the steps where they plant their rice, which is what makes this wonder so attractive, aside from the fact that the rice terraces are still used today. It is commonly referred by the Filipinos as "Eight Wonder of the World." 


This is considered to be one of the greatest engineering feats of mankind, because if each one were connected end to end, then they would reach halfway across the globe or be 10 times as long as the Great Wall of China. It was not until only 13 years ago (1995) that the Banaue Rice Terraces were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.


Even though it is about 8 or 9 hours from Manila in a car, the Banaue rice terraces are known to be one of the most spectacular places to see in the Philippines. What is the purpose of the rice terraces? They transformed the Cordillera mountains of barren stone into ledges that are fit to grow rice.

Sinulog 2011 (Cebu, Philippines)

Sinulog is held each year on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City to honor the Santo Niño, or the child Jesus, who used to be the patron saint of the whole province of Cebu (since in the Catholic faith Jesus is not a saint, but God). It is essentially a dance ritual which remembers the Filipino people’s pagan past and their acceptance of Christianity.


This is a 15-second clip from the Sinulog Festival in Cebu, Philippines. I was able to witness the Philippines' biggest street party first-hand! Enjoy!

Discovery Channel's "The World Is Just Awesome" Station ID

Sometimes it takes international recognition before one appreciates what they have. Recently, Discovery Channel aired their newest station ID. It was shot in Hamilo Coast in Nasugbu, Batangas (Philippines), as it is one of the areas heavily tended by WWF Philippines for conservation projects. The World Wild Fund Philippines is composed of a brilliant team of visionaries - an organization that spearheads practical solutions to help the country adapt to climate change, secure food sources to alleviate poverty, conserve local ecosystems to reap natural benefits, and more. The world is awesome indeed.

This is the video. Enjoy!

Boom De Yada...

This year, Discovery Channel is airing a different version of their popular "The World Is Just Awesome" station ID- WWF Philippines style! Our National Ambassadors, Marc Nelson and Rovilson Fernandez got in on the action. Thank you Discovery Channel Philippines for making this happen. Again, proud to be Pinoy! (Source: Youtube)

Misibis Bay (Cagraray Islands, Philippines)

Tucked away in the lush province of Cagraray Islands, a breathtaking tropical paradise awaits those who seek the extraordinary, the extravagant and the enchanting. Welcome to Misibis Bay, Philippines!

Misibis Bay is found on the island of Albay.

Video here:

(For the full video, click here.)

Tagalog: What Is That?

TAGALOG (pronounced TUGGA-log) is a big word for the Filipinos. It can mean two things: 


1. A member of a people native to the Philippines and inhabiting Manila and its adjacent provinces.
2. The basis of the Filipino national language.  ("Tagalog" is a dialect; "Filipino" is our national language)

With a population of over 90 million, it is said that there are as many as 300 languages and dialects in these islands which belong to the Malayo-Polynesian family of languages. One of the factors that complicate the language situation in the Philippines is diversity (7,107 islands!) Linguists say there are 75 to 150 native languages spoken by Filipinos. The latest estimate is 109 languages. Although these languages are in some ways grammatically and lexically similar, they are mutually unintelligible.


In 1571, the Spaniards found the people in Manila and other places writing on bamboo and specially prepared palm leaves using knives and styli. They were using the ancient Tagalog script which had 17 basic symbols, three of which were the vowels a, i, and u. Each basic consonantal symbol had the inherent a sound: ka, ga, nga, ta, da, na, pa, ba, ma, ya, la, wa, sa, and ha.

The Tagalog script was a syllabary, which means that each symbol represents a complete syllable. This is in contrast to the Latin alphabet where each symbol represents a phoneme, the smallest unit of the sound of speech. It is this distinction that makes it difficult for many people steeped in alphabetic systems to understand the correct way of using the Tagalog script.

Filipino (Tagalog) has been influenced, principally in vocabulary by the languages with which they have come into contact: Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese, English, and Spanish. It is closest to Spanish, but not quite.  Although that might confusing, there are some fun websites that can help:

Tagalog Lang

http://tagaloglang.com/

Learning Tagalog
https://learningtagalog.com/

And of course, the Rosetta Stone for Filipino.

The language is very rich and beautiful. I will share poems, soon. In the meantime, here are some fun tagalog phrases that might be useful for you.

I love you = Mahal kita

How are you? = Kamusta?

Goodbye! = Paalam!

Beautiful = Maganda

Hello! = Mabuhay! 

Filipinos love to smile. Hi! Mabuhay!