...the social gamers

First Pinoy Facebook game taps into social media

01/18/2011

 

The power unit of business conglomerate Aboitiz Corp. is taking to social media to push its environment agenda by creating a Facebook game application that is geared towards educating people about the concepts of carbon footprints and cleaner and renewable sources of energy.

The game, called Alter Space, is reputedly the first Facebook game to be developed locally. It was commissioned by AboitizPower. According to Socialbakers.com,

The energy provider is taking advantage of social games as there are about 56 million Facebook users playing daily and 290 million playing monthly. Up to 265 million Facebook gamers, meanwhile, spend 210 minutes playing games. Twenty-percent of these game players even pay cash for in-game benefits.

In the Philippines, 54 percent of social networking site users cite gaming as the reason they log on, the company said. According to Socialbakers.com, there are over 20.8 million Filipinos —or just under 21 percent of the country's total population— on Facebook as of January 2010.

In Alter Space, the game players’ mission is to take care of their own little planet. They do this by keeping their carbon footprint levels low, while still keeping their Happiness levels up. They will have to accomplish fun tasks and challenges while their carbon footprint is measured.

Every choice they make affects their environment, and the game always gives feedback as to whether the player’s choice was environmentally sound or not. They can also invite friends to be their neighbors, and their over-all carbon footprint as a community will be calculated.

If they fail to make the cleaner and greener choice, their virtual planet will experience disasters like Smog, which cause their avatar to lose interaction, and Heat Wave, wherein they will have to perform extra tasks or pay a fee to bring their carbon footprint down.

Aside from the carbon footprint calculator, game players’ progress is also measured through their Happiness level, Current-cy, and Experience points.

Mini-games, meanwhile, provide game players an interactive way with which they could learn more about the different sources of cleaner and renewable energy. Harvesting alternative energy is how they earn points in their planet — a significant function of the game that encourages players to seek out and use alternative energy.

The mini-games include Solar, wherein they are tasked to catch as many sunbeams as they can; Geo, wherein they are asked to click the steam that goes out of the valves of hot spots; and Hydro, wherein they create a passageway for the water to reach turbines.

Practical tips, trivia, and other features guide players along as they strive to make their virtual planet a cleaner and greener one.

While addressing the bigger issues of carbon footprint reduction and environmental preservation, Alter Space employs some uniquely Filipino features in doing so. The use of pamaypay (the Philippine native fan), the playing of the game sungka, and eating what is colloquially call “dirty ice cream" are incorporated into the game for that distinct Filipino flavor.

The Facebook game is scheduled to be launched on February 7, although players can take a peek by visiting www.facebook.com/AlterSpaceGame. — Newsbytes.ph

...the blogger gets blogged

Pinay a finalist in blog competition

By Balitang America Staff

abs-cbnnews.com

01/18/2011

 

TUSTIN, California - A Filipino-American self-described food-a-holic is in the running for a $10,000 grand prize and a two week trip throughout Asia.

Marian Bacol Uba, known online as Marian the Foodie, is a top five finalist for Pei Wei Diner’s Blog Asia Competition.

A marketing manager for a technology firm, Uba’s food blogging skills can win her a two-week vacation through five countries and a $10,000 cash prize.

During the Asia trip, the winner will get to blog about the local cuisines that they will eat. The winner will be announced later this month, after Pei Wei interviews the finalist.

Readers are asked to post comments on Pei Wei’s Facebook page whom they would like to see win the grand prize. Blogging skills, personality, and popularity will be some of the criteria in their selection.

Uba said, “I’m really, really passionate about all this. I basically eat, breathe, and everything is about food. And sharing that with others, that’s why I got into blogging. I want to share these foods with other people.”

...the educator

Pinoy educator Gabriel Esteban appointed president of US university

SPOT 

 Tuesday, January 18, 2011

 

Gabriel Esteban says, "I am honored to be asked to serve as the 20th president of Seton Hall University, a leader in higher education for the past century and a half."

Filipino educator Gabriel Esteban, 49, was named the 20th president of Seton Hall University in the U.S. last month, reports Manila Times. He served as the interim president of the school for almost six months.

Esteban is the first non-priest to head the university in New Jersey. According to Manila Times, the school's board of regents asked the board of trustees to make an exception to the university rule that requires the president to be a priest. "I am honored to be a part of this great institution and to carry on its nationally recognized leadership in Catholic higher education," Esteban said. "As an immigrant, I am extremely thankful."

According to the Seton Hall University website, Esteban previously served as the provost and chief academic officer of the school. He started heading enrolment services in 2009. "Under his leadership, Seton Hall recruited the largest new class in 30 years, more than 1,300 students, with an average increase in SAT scores of 27 points."

Before joining Seton Hall, he worked at the University of Central Arkansas, the Arkansas Tech University, the University of Houston-Victoria and the University of the Philippines. He has a Ph.D. in Administration from the University of California, a Master of Science in Japanese Business Studies from the Chaminade University in Honolulu, and a Master of Business Administration and a degree in Math from the University of the Philippines Diliman.

For more on this story, log on to Manila Times and the Seton Hall University website.

...run for Kabayan

Pinoys to join Dubai marathon to help distressed compatriots

01/17/2011
GMANews.tv

A group of Filipino runners in Dubai is joining a marathon event in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to raise funds for their distressed compatriots there.

Filipino Runners-UAE said on its website that it is participating in the annual Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon on Jan. 21 not only to keep healthy or overcome homesickness, but also to assist unfortunate Filipino workers there.

Dubai-based Filipino Runners-UAE is joining the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon to raise funds for distressed OFWs. GMANews.TV

Dubbed Takbo Para kay Kabayan (Run for my Countrymen), 39 members of the group vowed to run a total of 800 kilometers in the marathon.

The group said it is hoping to raise at least Dh40,000 (about P480,000) by soliciting pledges of Dh50 (about P600) from individuals and groups for every kilometer that they run.

The activity’s proceeds will go to Filipinos at the Rashid Hospital who need medical and financial assistance; education and training workshops to inform overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) their basic rights; and repatriation of distressed OFWs at the POLO-OWWA Center in Abu Hail in Dubai.

“Finishing the Dubai Marathon, which includes the grueling 42km event as well as the 10km race, is a major feat in itself, but participating in that event to help others is glorious," said Euca Bolingot, the group’s coach and team captain.

Bolingot, 28 years old and an IT professional in Dubai, said many OFWs, particularly domestic helpers and unskilled workers, end up as victims of maltreatment, harassment and unfair labor practices, while some of them have piled up hospital bills.

Takbo para kay Kabayan, Bolingot said, is the group’s way of extending aid to their distressed compatriots and raising awareness on the conditions that many OFWs endure.

Filipino Runners partnered with the UAE chapter of migrants’ rights group Migrante International in November last year to help realize the fundraising project.

Yuri Cipriano, chairperson of Migrante-UAE, said Takbo para kay Kabayan is “a clarion call to all Filipino expats to hold similar activities that will uplift the lives of their kababayans (countrymen) in the Middle East."

Cipriano, who will participate in the 10km run, said Takbo para kay Kabayan is a fine example of the Filipino practice of bayanihan or collective action.

“More than ever, we are more determined to reach the finish line. Each stride, each bead of sweat, each glory and pain is dedicated to improve the lives of our fellow migrant workers," Balingot said.

The group started with just three runners, but according to Bolingot, the group’s membership has now grown to almost 50 in just a few months. The group was initially called Zabeel Night Striders until the members decided to adopt the name Filipino Runners.

The group has set up a website for those who would like to give donations. - JA/KBK, GMANews.TV

...school initiative

Local green schools fight US junk food

Philippine Daily Inquirer
Agence France-Presse
01/17/2011

 MANILA, Philippines—The country’s elementary school yards are being transformed into vegetable gardens in a bid to fight US-inspired junk food addictions that are causing an explosion of health problems throughout society.

At one of the showcase schools in Metro Manila for the burgeoning health food project, teachers and students are joined by parents in tending lush plots that have an assortment of vegetables.

Every available space is used to grow nutritious greens that are harvested in cycles—as free food for the school’s mostly poor students or sold as part of a livelihood project for their families.

Where there is no soil, portable hydroponic gardening is promoted using discarded plastic bottles as water receptacles for plants that hang symmetrically in rows.

“It’s amazing what many things you can do with a little innovation, and a little bit of imagination,” Parañaque Central Elementary School principal Edita Baggayan, 65, told Agence France Presse (AFP) as she inspected tomatoes in a mini-greenhouse.

“Children here are taught proper nutrition, and we involve parents in the project because we want to take families away from a lifestyle of eating junk foods,” Baggayan said.

Nearby, boys in khaki trousers are busy removing weeds and watering the upcoming harvest of thick green okras, eggplants and moringa leaves.

There is a row of cabbages, vines with budding luffa fruits and winter melons that are typically used in a variety of traditional Filipino dishes that are fast vanishing from dining tables in favor of takeout and instant foods.

Broccoli and cauliflower were last season’s harvests, but they will be grown again in the second semester, Baggayan said.

Measurable impact
During AFP’s visit, students hungrily tucked into their chicken-vegetable soup at lunchtime, with some going back for second servings.

School nutritionist and cook Dulce Aranda said the program was having measurable impact on the malnourished students.

She said 100 of the most undernourished children among the roughly 3,000 students were picked for a feeding program using the harvested vegetables when the initiative was launched last year.
“Our charts now show they are more healthy, attentive and are performing better in school,” Aranda said.

“We just hope they will carry this through when they grow up. There are just too many people who are unhealthy.”

Bad eating diets
Fast-food outlets are perhaps even more ubiquitous in the Philippines than in the United States, which ruled the Southeast Asian nation as a colonial power for nearly 50 years from 1898.

The Philippines has a wildly popular home-grown fast-food chain that has outlets even in remote towns, while the famous US brands are also widespread.

In homes, rice remains a staple for most meals but accompanying dishes are typically fried and heavy in oil.
As a result, lifestyle diseases such as hypertension and diabetes are ravaging the adult population, especially people aged in their 20s to 40s, leading to a bonanza for pharmaceutical firms.

“Everything now is fast or processed food,” said Dr. Carmela Pagunsan, the medical director at the Manila unit of French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Aventis.

“We have bad eating diets and sedentary lifestyles. Parents and their children don’t go out and do physical activity anymore, don’t eat vegetables and fruits,” Pagunsan said.

Cultural in nature
“If you go to the malls now, you will see many overweight children and young adults. They have not been trained to be fit, to have proper diets.”

She said the problem was also cultural in nature, with Filipinos having a propensity to over indulge in salty, fatty and very sweet foods, particularly during festivals and celebrations.

The government’s National Nutrition Survey in 2009 showed that 27 percent of adults were overweight, while 25 percent reported having hypertension.

“That is a gross underestimation in my view,” Pagunsan said. “Because there are many more people out there who don’t know they are hypertensive, who don’t get the medicines they need and who don’t see a doctor for consultation.”

“And because they go undiagnosed, they do not have any compulsion to control their lifestyles, not knowing that complications are already setting in,” she added.

Pagunsan said her company alone marketed five anti-hypertension medicines locally, while also selling oral medication and insulin injections for diabetes.

Market still growing
“The hypertension market is still growing,” Pagunsan said, adding that the number of applications for patents covering generic hypertensive drugs in the Philippines was on the rise.

The Department of Education launched the vegetable project last year, and it hopes to replicate the success of the Parañaque school and others in Metro Manila nationwide to produce a new generation of health conscious Filipinos.

Pagunsan said the vegetable project was commendable, but noted it may take a lot more to change the Filipinos’ mind-set.

“The public’s awareness of the problem is in the spectrum of between low and medium. They are generally aware, but they don’t do something about it,” she said.

...little batter kings

Razcals claim AsPac Pony baseball crown By Olmin Leyba The Philippine Star January 17, 2011

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS: The Philippine Little Razcals, the 2011 Asia Pacific Zone Pony Mustang Baseball champions, pose with Philippine Ambassador to Vietnam Jerril Santos after beating Singapore 14-6 in the finals at the Vinh Yen Baseball Field in Vietnam’s Vinh Phuc province. In photo are (from left) coach Eric Gersmundo, Javier Sale, Kiel Agoho, CJ Castillo, Javi Limpo, Ambassador Santos, Emman Manaig, Nathan Carpio, Philippine Tot Baseball president Rodolfo Tingzon Jr., Atong Natanauan, Carl Castaneda, Marty Ranada, Vincent Noprada, Zian Eleria, Enzo Montemayor, Dax Fabella, Lloyd Cinco, Ian Mercado and assistant coach Christian Cinco.| Zoom

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Little Razcals advanced to the World Series as they battled back from a four-run deficit to score a come-from-behind 14-6 victory over Singapore and capture the first-ever Asia Pacific Zone Pony Mustang Baseball Championship in Vietnam yesterday.

Favored to win the four-team tournament after sweeping the three-game eliminations, the Phl 10-under clouters found themselves in a 1-5 hole halfway through the six-inning championship game after failing to hit their marks against the solid pitching of Singapore’s Charles Hogan.

But digging deep into their reservoir of skills and summoning their big fighting heart, the Filipinos turned the game around and made the big plays in the final three frames to complete the remarkable comeback and crown themselves champions.

The victory also made them as the AsPac’s representatives to the Pony Mustang World Series slated Aug. 3-6 in Burleson, Texas.
Using superb base running and effective bunting, the Little Razcals exploded with eight runs in the fourth inning to wrest the lead for good, 9-5, then turned to pitcher Atong Natanauan both on the mound and at bat to seal the win before a good-sized Filipino crowd led by Ambassador Jerril Santos.

Natanauan was later adjudged MVP for his exploits in the tourney held at the chilling Vinh Yen baseball field in Vinh Phuc Province, Vietnam, also the site of the fateful Suzuki Cup football match in which the Phl Azkals upset of the heavily favored Vietnamese booters.

The Phl Little Razcals team of Kiel Agoho, Carl Castaneda, CJ Castillo, Nathan Carpio, Lloyd Cinco, Zian Eleria, Dax Fabella, Javi Limpo, Emman Manaig, Ian Mercado, Enzo Montemayor, Natanauan, Vincent Noprada, Marty Ranada, and Javier Sale won the AsPac meet without a single loss.

The wards of Eric Gesmundo and Christiam Cinco started their campaign with a 13-3 rout of Singapore, waylaid host Vietnam, 26-3, and outclassed Indonesia, 21-16, to sweep the elims and go into the finale spotless.

Philippine Tot Baseball president Rodolfo Tingzon Jr. lauded the Little Razcals for a job well done but instructed them to just take a short rest because they will be up for a much tougher competition against the best of all the regions in the World Series in August.

The triumphant Little Razcals are set to arrive in Manila tonight via Vietnam Airlines.  

...saying hello

Pinoy phone holds own with sales of P2B

By Raquel P. Gomez
Philippine Daily Inquirer
01/15/2011

 

MANILA, Philippines—Three years ago, David Lim expanded the Solid Group Inc., the company put up by his entrepreneur mom Elena Sen Lim, by establishing MyPhone, a brand of affordable mobile phones targeting the lower-income market.

Priced unbelievably low, the MyPhone phones back then were almost identical with the generic looking Chinese-made phones sold cheap in Greenhills shops, but since they were stamped with a brand and feature apps and content that reflect Filipino culture and faith, they soon became a hit among the masses.

One MyPhone device was called the “Cory Aquino” phone because it features the yellow color and the image of Cory Aquino. This phone sold thousands during last year’s elections, helped significantly by President Aquino’s popularity.

Another MyPhone phone was popular among the religious because it features e-Bible and prayer apps, which automatically launch during the time of Angelus or morning prayer.

“It was a simple phone that everybody laughed at,” says Lim of how some people reacted to MyPhone when it was launched. “People were telling me, ‘Why go into the mobile market already crowded by big global brands like Nokia.’ But the market has embraced the phones so well. MyPhone even opened the doors for other Filipino branded phones to enter the market.”

Packed in a small office room of SGI building, MyPhone started as a niche business for SGI, which is into cable TV and real-estate business.

But today MyPhone sales have already reached almost P2 billion in 2010, making Lim very proud of the new venture.

The last quarter for the company has yielded a sale of more than 400,000 phones, which is a ninefold sales growth from the previous year’s fourth-quarter sales.
Lim says MyPhone is now the biggest-earning venture for SGI, contributing 50 percent to the group’s revenue.

Lim says this year the company plans to sell 2 million phones, with prices ranging from P1,999 to P5,999 only. To reach the ambitious sales target, Lim says the company would introduce more franchise kiosks, or about 150 dedicated outlets selling only MyPhone products apart from distributing the phones to more dealers.

The phones are cheap but packed with features such as QWERTY keypads, Wi-Fi, dual SIM slots, and UI filled with widgets for access of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There’s also a dual-SIM MyPhone with full touch-screen display, another adorned with Swarovski crystals, and one QWERTY phone that features analog TV receiver.

In the coming months, MyPhone will launch an Android tablet and a number of touch smart phones that feature multimedia apps and TV receiver.

“Customization was key to the strength of MyPhone,” says Lim of the products’ appeal to the mass consumers. He says that the phones are manufactured in China but are customized with apps and features by Filipino software developers.

MyPhone’s popularity was also helped by celebrity endorsers like Dingdong Dantes and Sarah Geronimo, who appeal to the masa.

“When everybody else was trying to look like a Nokia, MyPhone has its own identity from the very beginning. They call us ‘baduy’ but that’s fine as long as we are selling lots of phones,” says Lim.