...the importer becomes exporter

Phl may export rice by 2013 By Michael Punongbayan (The Philippine Star) April 16, 2012

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines may start exporting rice to other Asian countries in the first quarter of 2013 if no major calamities hit the country, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said yesterday.

Alcala made the statement after National Irrigation Administration (NIA) chief Antonio Nangel inspected irrigation systems under construction and agriculture rehabilitation projects in five provinces.

In a meeting with farmers in Masbate, Alcala said the country should no longer import rice from its Southeast Asian neighbors but instead depend solely on its palay production.

“Our rice importation era will end next year since our palay production will be enough for our consumption and reserves starting next year,” he said.

Alcala attributed the good news to new technologies imparted to farmers, better post-harvest facilities, and a progressive irrigation system.

Nangel, for his part, said the NIA is working round-the-clock to meet the deadline for the country’s rice sufficiency through bountiful palay harvest by 2013.

He said the construction of new irrigation systems in the countryside and the rehabilitation of dilapidated and old irrigation canals are the results of bounty harvests this year.

He said that before the Aquino administration, there were only 1.5 million hectares of irrigated land in the country.

“We need at least 1.8 million hectares of irrigated farms to be able to produce enough palay so that our country will be rice-sufficient,” Nagel said.

“By next year, we will surpass that 1.8 million hectares of irrigated lands. Thanks to President Aquino for prioritizing our agricultural sector and to Secretary Alcala for his rice sufficiency program,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said it will allocate some P50 million yearly for water irrigation in upland communities.

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said the move is in support of the project being spearheaded by Earth Day Network Philippines Inc. (EDNPI).

“The undertaking, which will also be supported by the departments of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform under the convergence program, promotes upgrading of the capture of water in the upland. It is better to catch water in the upland as a resource because if you pay attention to it once it has flowed down, that is flooding already,” he said.

It is envisioned that some 22 million cubic meters of water per year or one cubic meter daily will be supplied to target communities.

EDNPI executive director Voltaire Perez said the project, which entails installation of 100 hydraulic ram pumps by 2013, targets to improve the irrigation capacity of communities. - With Rhodina Villanueva

 

...the Road

Pinoy horror-drama film 'The Road' featured in Brussels

 

April 16, 2012

GMA News

 

 

The Philippine subtle horror-drama film "The Road" was shown at the 30th Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF) in Belgium.
 

 

Directed by William "Yam" Laranas, the film was screened on April 9, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a news release over the weekend.

The festival opened for public viewing on April 5 and will run until April 17 at Tour and Taxis in Avenue du Port in Brussels.

The BIFFF is a prestigious award-giving institution focusing on horror, cult, thriller, and fantasy films.
 
"Laranas received a warm round of applause and response from the audience after his brief remarks about his film prior to the start of its showing. This was followed by a brief Q & A session with the BIFFF Press Corps and a short signing session," the DFA said.
 
The DFA said Laranas submitted his film for an international premiere at the festival. The results of the competition will be announced during the closing ceremonies on April 17.
 
In 2006, he won BIFFF's 7th Orbit Award for his ghost movie "Sigaw," which helped get him to the United States to shoot a remake of his film "The Echo," for BIFFF 2009. - VVP, GMA News

...the World's best dive sites

2 Phl dive sites listed as among world's best By Aurea Calica The Philippine Star April 15, 2012

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang expressed gratefulness yesterday that the beauty of the Philippines was being cited in international travel websites, especially as the country is striving to attract more tourists.

Two diving destinations in the Philippines are among the best in the world, according to the travel news website CNNGo of Cable News Network (CNN).

The Tubbataha Reef, located southeast of Palawan, ranked eighth on CNNGo’s list of best dive sites in the world.

“Super-size your dive experience at Tubbataha, where everything comes in giant form. The main advantage to diving at Tubbataha is that the water is exceptionally clean, so the marine life lives much longer, making it grow to silly proportions,” the website said.

“Expect kaleidoscopic colors combined with guitar sharks, black tip reef sharks, nurse sharks, gliding blue-spotted lagoon rays, unicorns, boxfish, scorpion fish and more,” it added.

Tubbataha is located 181 kilometers southeast of Puerto Princesa City in Palawan. The reef is made up of two coral atolls divided by an eight-kilometer wide channel. Its diving area has a depth of five to 60 meters.

It is part of the Tubbataha National Marine Park, which was established on Aug. 11, 1988 and was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in December 1993.

Another dive site in the Philippines that made it to CNNGo’s list is The Canyons in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro, which ranked 45th. “Schools of spotted and ribbon sweetlips, shiny trevallies and weird-looking batfish make up the scene at this first-rate dive site. There’s also an explosion of coral and plant life including beautiful delicate gorgonian sea fans and hollow barrel sponges; look inside for critters lurking within,” the website described The Canyons.

The Canyons is located northeast of Escarceo Point, some five minutes away by boat from Barangay Sabang in Puerto Galera.

With a depth of up to 30 meters or about 95 feet to a maximum of 200 feet, The Canyons was designated as a “Man and Biosphere Reserve” by UNESCO in 1973.

Earlier this year, CNNGo recognized Siargao, a teardrop-shaped island in Surigao del Norte, as the eighth best surfing spot in the world.

Manila, meanwhile, was hailed by the website as one of Asia’s greatest food cities.

Online voters, who visit the Skyscanner site to buy tickets or choose their holiday destination, also rated the Philippines as among the three countries with the least rude locals.

“We are hoping that (these recognitions) will boost our campaign that ‘It’s more fun in the Philippines,’” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

Even reports of clean comfort rooms in airports and other facilities would be most welcome, she said.

“We encourage the public to report their experiences, either good or bad, so we can do something about them and also for them to hear the efforts being done by our agencies,” Valte said.

Valte said it was also good that the “hospitality” of Filipinos as well as their pleasantness and politeness were receiving worldwide attention, aside from the beautiful tourist spots.

In earlier reports, Dow Griffiths, location manager of the Hollywood film “The Bourne Legacy,” declared Filipino hospitality as the best thing about their month-long stay in the country.

In an interview with The New York Times published last March 22, Griffiths spoke of his and his crew’s stay in Manila for the movie shoot.

“The ‘Bourne’ movies are known as a more urban and gritty kind of product, and that was certainly true of Manila. It is congested, with the highest population density in the world. But the people are the best thing about it. Don’t be fooled by the signs everywhere that say ‘Check Your Firearms at the Door.’ Many citizens are packing, but you couldn’t meet more hospitable people,” he said.

In a TV interview last January, the film’s Philippine producer, Jun Juban, said the producers picked Manila over Jakarta in Indonesia and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam for the shoot for the reason Griffiths cited.

According to his official website, Griffiths is a film industry veteran who has been working as a supervising motion picture location manager since the mid-1970s, specializing in “remote, foreign locations.”

His most recent projects were “Contagion,” “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” “Merchant of Shanghai,” “Indiana Jones 4: The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull,” and “The Bourne Supremacy.”

Griffiths also raved about the service given to them while billeted at a hotel in Makati City.

“Sometimes, when you are traveling, no matter how much you spend, you can’t buy good service,” he said. “We enjoyed personalized service at very affordable prices.”

Asked if he would go back to Manila for a vacation, Griffiths said, “For the casual traveler, it’s a good place to go to get somewhere else.”

“The real reason to go to the Philippines is to explore its more than 7,000 islands, from the heights of the rice terraces of Banaue to dives with the whale sharks in Donsol – and that’s just on one island, Luzon. El Nido, on Palawan Island, is paradise, and for a family trip, you are very well looked after at any of the resorts,” Griffiths was quoted as saying.

Griffiths, along with the cast and crew of “The Bourne Legacy,” were in the country from January to February this year.

Their filming locations included parts of Manila, Navotas, Marikina and Palawan. – With Juancho Mahusay

...the US Journalism Awardee

Fil-Am among winners of journalism awards in US

April 14, 2012

GMA News

 

 

When Connie Chung’s father, an intelligence officer under Chiang Kai Shek, fled his native China, his main source of news in the US was the Chinese language newspapers.

The TV journalist said her father spoke little English, but through the Chinese ethnic press, he kept himself informed about what was going on in China and the world.

“My father loved reading his Chinese newspapers,” she told an audience of community media publishers and journalists who gathered April 12 for the 2012 Ippies Journalism Awards, recognizing independent ethnic media.

Chung commended the ethnic media for its “fortitude” in reporting the news despite limited resources and bare-bones operations. She said immigrant journalists who write for the mainstream press could be “very effective in raising (immigrants) voices.” In some news reporting about Muslim and Asian immigrants, she said the mainstream media is “not doing its job.”

“You write with more details,” Chung said.

Chung also took potshots at the mainstream media for gender bias and too much “negativism.”  While there may be more women and minority journalists in the mainstream media, “they have not reached a level of parity” in executive positions.

She also said the “creeping negativism” in media “is just plain wrong.” She would like to see the return of  good old-fashioned reporting in the news and not too many opinions.

For this year’s Ippies, a record 46 publications, plus a few freelancers, submitted more than 240 entries for the 10 categories in which prizes are given. This is the 10th anniversary of the awards, and the first time the CUNY Journalism School has been their host.

Cristina DC Pastor, founding editor of The FilAm, won second place for an editorial she had written for Feet in 2 Worlds. The essay, “The Seductive Frenchman and a Feisty Hotel Maid,” examines whether the credibility of asylum seekers as court witnesses will always be in doubt following the dropping of sex assault charges against  Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The rest of the winners are:

Best investigative/in-depth story: Investigates an issue overlooked by mainstream media or one that has great community impact

• 1st place: Meng Fang, Tu Yichen and Law Wai Ki for “Aftermath of September 11: New York’s Chinatown Ten Years On (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3),”  World Journal (Translations coming soon)
• 2nd place: Jacky Tik Wong for “Private Danny Chen Allegedly Subjected to Physical Abuse and Racial Taunting before Death,” Sing Tao Daily New York (Translation coming soon)
• 3rd place: Megan Finnegan (Our Town) and Stephon Johnson for “Elite Racism,” New York Amsterdam News

Best article on immigration or social justice: Critical look at economic, political or social issues that affect disenfranchised communities

• 1st place: Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives for “Washington Backed Famous Brand-Name Contractors in Fight Against Haiti’s Minimum Wage Increase,” Haïti Liberté
• 2nd place: Yuwei Zhang for “Talent hunters mean business,” China Daily USA  
• 3rd place: Neil deMause for “One Woman’s Plan to Beat Poverty,” City Limits

Best editorial/commentary: Presents a convincing and compelling perspective

• 1st place: Marco Salazar for “Scam U,” YCteen
• 2nd place: Cristina Pastor for “Looking Back at the Scandal of 2011: The Seductive Frenchman and a Feisty Hotel Maid,” Feet in 2 Worlds
• 3rd place: Kung Li­ for “A History of Georgia’s 1%: Why You Must Face Race to Occupy Atlanta,” Colorlines

Best overall design of print publication: Use of typography, art, images and layout in conveying a publication’s editorial message

• 1st place: Kurt Hoffman, The Forward
• 2nd place: Nick Sadowski, Nowy Dziennik
• 3rd place: Anthony Smyrski, City Limits

Best overall design of an online publication: Use of typography, art, images and layout in conveying a publication’s editorial message

• 1st place: Nick Sadowski, Nowy Dziennik
• 2nd place: Gabrielle Birkner, The Forward
• 3rd place: Phong Bui and Walter Chiu, The Brooklyn Rail

Best photo essay or online slideshow: Photographic series that best conveys a storyline or concept

• 1st place: A. Jesse Jiryu Davis for “The LD Presents ‘Strangers,’” The Lo-Down
• 2nd place: Peter Yan and Rick Ho for “911: The 10th Anniversary – At Ground Zero: Then and Now,” Sing Tao Daily
• 3rd place: Elizabeth Borda, Amelia Holowaty Krales, Ashley Marinaccio and Julie Turkewitz for “We Contain Multitudes,” The Indypendent

Best photograph: Goes beyond headshots or posed formal shots

• 1st place: Karsten Moran for his photo accompanying the story “Albany Votes to Approve Same-Sex Marriage,” The Riverdale Press
• 2nd place: Carl Glassman for his photo accompanying,  “Parting Shots: A Beloved Tribeca Ping Pong Club Shuts Down,” The Tribeca Trib
• 3rd place: Andrew Stern for his photo accompanying “Taking it to the Street,” The Indypendent

Best video: Best use of visual storytelling to highlight an issue of importance to a local community

• 1st place: Nate Lavey for “Living Apart in Crown Heights,” The Forward
• 2nd place: Nate Lavey for “Naming Mushky,” The Forward 
• 3rd place: Lan Trinh for “Immigrants and Native-Born Seek Chinese Language Instruction in NYC Public Schools,” Feet in 2 Worlds

Best audio: Best use of audio storytelling to highlight an issue of importance to a local community

• 1st place: Monica Miller for “Newark Roll Call,” WBGO 88.3FM
• 2nd place: Von Diaz for “LGBT Immigrant Youth Struggle in New York,” Feet in 2 Worlds
• 3rd place: Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, with help from Mohsin Zaheer, for “With an Eye on the Sky, Immigrants Revive Practice of Pigeon Tending in New York,” Feet in 2 Worlds

Best multimedia package: One that integrates multiple elements

• 1st place: DNAinfo.com staff for “Crime and Safety Analysis Delivers Surprises Across the Five Boroughs,”  DNAinfo.com
• 2nd place: Gal Beckerman for “Crown Heights 20 Years Later,” The Forward
• 3rd place: El Diario team for “Sept. 11 – the Latino experience,” El Diario/La Prensa

- The FilAm

...the Canadian theater world

Fil-Canadian shines in theater industry

by Rhia Alcantara,

ABS-CBN North America News Bureau

04/12/2012

CANADA – Filipino-Canadian Joseph Sevillo from Winnipeg is one among the few who is able to break into Canada’s competitive world of theater.

“I first tried singing, dancing and acting when I was 13 years old in high school. My choir director pulled me out and told me I had a really good voice and pushed me to audition for my very first professional show at the Rainbow Stage which is an original theater company here in Winnipeg Manitoba," said Sevillo.

 

Sevillo has toured major cities in the country through memorable performances and hits like Rent, Evita, Miss Saigon and his biggest break so far, Mamma Mia in Toronto.

 

But Sevillo remains grounded and visible in the community.

 

Despite a vibrant career in his hands, Sevillo still sees plenty of growth opportunities in his career--one that takes him beyond theater to the new generation of the web.

 

Sevillo's latest project is a web series filmed with YouTube sensation Mikey Bustos.

 

“Prison Dance is an all new Filipino musicale inspired by the viral event, the dancing inmates of Cebu. In this competitive industry, I was lucky enough to be selected as the only Winnipeg Filipino to land in one of the supporting roles in the show,” he said.  

...the Peri's snake Eel

Newly-discovered eel species named after Pinoy diver

SHAIRA F. PANELA, 

GMA NEWS 

April 10, 2012 

There are only eleven known species of snake eel in the world —and one of them is named after the Filipino diver who helped scientists identify it.

 

The new species of snake eel, commonly known as Peri's Snake Eel (Myrichthys paleracio), was named after Christopher “Peri” Paleracio, dive guide at a diving resort in Anilao, Batangas. Paleracio (the person, not the fish), collected the species and submitted it for examination at the California Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2009.
 

^{Photo credit: Mark Atwell}
 

The snake eel M. paleracio was first seen in the shallow-water coral reefs of Verde Passage, located between Batangas and Oriental Mindoro. 

 

“Having a snake eel named after me is something.  I feel really lucky than honored actually,” said Paleracio.

 

Peri’s snake eel

 

According to the International Journal of Ichthyology, published in California, USA, M. paleracio differs from all known Myrichthys in its vivid brown and white coloration; its body elongation; and the number of vertebrae in each segment of its spinal column. 

 

“I’ve been seeing that particular kind of eel for years. I thought that it was just a color variation of the other snake eel that was already identified,” Paleracio said.

 

Based on studies, M. paleracio is most closely related to the dark-spotted and banded Indo-Pacific species M. maculosu and M. colubrinus, both also occur in shallow water within the Philippines Archipelago. However, none were observed at the locations where M. paleracio was captured.

 

Internationally-renowned marine scientist Dr. John E. McCosker and Dr. Gerald R. Allen, an expert on the classification and ecology of coral reef fishes in the Indo-Pacific region, received the specimen from Paleracio. 

 

McCosker is a senior scientist and the current chairperson of the Aquatic Biology Department of CAS in the state of California, USA. Allen of Perth, Australia, on the other hand, served as the Western Australian Museum’s Curator of Fishes for 25 years and is now working as a full-time consultant of Conservation International, an organization dedicated to protect the Earth’s richest regions of plant and animal diversity.

 

Catching and naming the eel

 

In 2009, when Allen and Roger Steene, also a known Australian underwater explorer and photographer, went for a dive with Paleracio, they realized that the particular snake eel has not yet been identified.

 

The fish experts decided that the snake eel should be caught for identification.

 

Paleracio recalled, “I tried catching it with the net that we are using to other fish but this one is not that easy.  It is very slippery, and can escape from your grip easily.”

 

In an effort to catch the snake eel alive, Paleracio had to struggle staying underwater with barely enough air to breathe.

 

“It was a struggle for me to get it alive. When I caught it, I barely had enough air in my tank to reach the surface,” he said.

 

In 2011, the California Academy of Sciences arranged its biggest expedition, composed mainly of marine biologists and other fish experts, in the Philippines to find and get the eel. McCosker interviewed Paleracio for the needed data in their study.

 

McCosker and Allen decided to name the species in honor of Paleracio, as the person who collected the specimen. 

 

Fish and sea slugs guru

 

Every year, Paleracio also contributes an average of five unidentified species of nudibranch (a form of sea slug). The Philippines has been tagged as the “Center of the Center of Marine Biodiversity” by scientists since 2005, making the country a magnet for marine biodiversity explorers.

 

Dr. Terry Gosliner, also from CAS, called Paleracio “the best dive guide in the Indo-Pacific” in his book “Indo-Pacific Nudibranchs and Sea Slugs,” published in 2008.

 

Paleracio is also an avid naturalist and photographer. 

 

His photo titled “Ocean Trash” won first prize in a National Geographic-sponsored photo contest in November 2011. — TJD/HS, GMA News

...the Pinay parliamentarian in Korea

Filipina Jasmine Lee wins seat in S.Korea parliament

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia

ABS-CBNnews.com

04/12/2012

MANILA, Philippines - Filipina TV host and actress Jasmine Lee has been elected as a lawmaker in South Korea's parliament. This makes Lee, a native of Davao, the first naturalized Korean citizen to win a seat in the National Assembly.

Lee was a candidate for proportional representation for the ruling Saenuri Party, which won a majority of 152 seats in the 300-strong assembly, election results on Thursday showed. The conservative party is headed by Park Geun-hye, daughter of the late Korean president Park Chung-hee and one of the leading candidates in the presidential elections in December.

The 35-year-old Lee was number 15 in the Saenuri Party's list of candidates for proportional representation. The party had included a naturalized citizen high on its list of proportional representatives, to gain the support of the majority of 110,000 foreigners who are now Korean citizens.

South Korea's National Assembly is similar to the Philippine Congress, where most of the members are elected in districts across the country. However, some 54 seats are elected through proportional representation, similar to the Philippines' party-list system. Political parties come up with a slate of candidates for proportional representation.

The Filipina-Korean's rise in politics has not been smooth, as anti-multicultural groups in Korea have raised criticisms against her.

Lee is an advocate for multicultural families and the Filipino community in South Korea.  She met her husband Lee Dong-ho when she was still a college student at Ateneo de Davao, and moved to Seoul in 1995. She became a naturalized Korean citizen in 1998.

Her husband died in 2010 while saving their daughter from drowning in a mountain stream in Okcheon-dong, Gangwon province.

Lee is secretary general of Waterdrop, a charity formed by foreign spouses of Koreans and the team manager of the city government's Seoul Global Center.

Last year, Lee co-starred with Korean heartthrob Yoo Ah-in in the blockbuster hit "Wandeugi" (Punch), where she played the role of a Filipina married to a Korean. Since 2006, she has appeared on the KBS program "Love in Asia" and a Korean language program on educational channel EBS.

In December 2011, she was the first recipient of the Korea Image Millstone Award from the Corea Image Communication Institute. She was cited for her volunteer and charity works for foreign immigrants in Korea.

Earlier, Vice President Jejomar Binay said Lee “gives hope not only for Filipinos but for all migrants and immigrants”.

"We are all very proud that a full-blooded Filipino is being given the opportunity to be a member of the Korean Parliament," Binay told South Korean media. "It shows that Korea is prepared to extend the opportunity to become a public servant even to those who were not born here."