GenSan News Online Mag

The U.S. Embassy in Manila invites everyone to take part in their photo contest, the Sakay Na! Jeepney Photo Challenge. They are inviting the public to submit their best original photos featuring Philippine Jeepneys to compete for a chance to win prizes.

“We see the Jeepney as a symbol of U.S.-Philippine friendship,” says U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Officer Robin Diallo. “The earliest Jeepneys were constructed from jeeps brought to the Philippines by the United States during World War II, but since that time, they have evolved in beautiful and creative ways.”

Jeepneys express the unique culture of the various regions of the Philippines, as they differ in style and design from place to place. Given the historical connection of the Jeepney to the United States, the U.S. Embassy is launching the Sakay Na! photo contest to celebrate this unique and colorful cultural icon.

Winning submissions will receive a Kodak Pocket Camcorder and an invitation from the U.S. Embassy to a special event. In addition, the winning photographs will be part of a special exhibit at the U.S. Embassy.

To enter the contest, visit the U.S. Embassy Manila Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/manila.usembassy, click on the “Sakay Na! Jeepney Photo Challenge” link, and follow the instructions.

The contest is open to anyone residing in the Philippines who is at least 13 years of age. Deadline for submissions is Thursday, February 19. They will be inviting the public to vote via Facebook for the top three entries during the voting period from February 20 to February 25.

So, get your camera now, go out into the streets and start clicking!  Join the US Embassy in celebrating the Jeepney, and send them your photos of jeepneys from anywhere in the Philippines.  Have fun!

Pound-for-pound fighter from General Santos City, Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire will contend for the WBO junior featherweight title against the Puerto Rican former titlist Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. during a doubleheader titled “Welcome to the Future” at Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, to be aired on ABS-CBN on Sunday (Feb 5), 10:15 a.m.

The co-main event, also a title fight, will be a battle between Mexican sluggers Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and first-ranked challenger Marco Antonio Rubio.

The three-division world champion Donaire (27-1-0 18 KOs), who will stake his 26-bout winning streak, will once again be traipsing into new territory as he climbs up to the 122-pound class, a division once ruled by the younger Vazquez (21-1-1 18 KOs).

The pugilist from Puerto Rico entrenched himself in the title in 2010, when he knocked out another General Santos City native Marvin Sonsona. Vazquez Jr, the son of former world champion Wilfredo Vazquez Sr, defended the title twice, but fell prey to the Mexican fighter Jorge Arce in 2011.

Arce has since relinquished the title in order to fight at 118 pounds and Vazquez is poised to reclaim glory. But for Donaire, who was the Philippine Sportswriters Association’s co-Athlete of the Year for 2011, it may be an opportune time to embellish his resume with yet another division title.

Meanwhile, WBO middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1 31 KOs) will be challenged by contender Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1 46 KOs) in the co-main event.

Chavez Jr., the son of legendary boxing champion Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., is undefeated, while Rubio is in a two-year winning streak. The fight will follow the Donaire-Vazquez bout and will air at 1:00 p.m. on Studio 23.

Don’t miss these thrilling contentions for two world titles on Sunday (Feb 5). Catch the Donaire-Vazquez fight at 10:15 a.m. on ABS-CBN, and the Chavez-Rubio match at 1:00 p.m on Studio 23. A primetime telecast of the bouts will air on Studio 23 at 6:00 p.m.

With the month of February within our midst, establishments in the city have started drumbeating the events they have lined up for either Valentine’s or for the upcoming Kalilangan Festival 2012.

The city’s most happening mall, Robinsons Place GenSan starts the ball rolling with a mall show this weekend, February 4, 2012, Saturday of an up and coming teen star of the Kapamilya Network, ABS-CBN!

A former Pinoy Big Brother Teen Clash 2010 housemate and a regular on the weekly teen-age romp Good Vibes, to tickle the fancy of his young fans in the city is heartthrob-in-the-making Ivan Dorschner.

Ivan Dorschner, 21 years young is a Fil-American of Irish and German descent.  He actually gained more followers after he was called onstage by international pop singer Katy Perry during her concert in Manila last month and was kissed on the cheeks in front of thousands of screaming audience.

Check out this YouTube video of Katy Perry kissing Ivan Dorschner and him giving the singer a kiss back, below..

Now if you want to see this guy up close and personal, just be sure to be at Robinsons Place GenSan Activity Center on Saturday, February 4, 2012 before 5pm.  Seats are definitely on a first-come, first-served basis!

The coastal municipality of Maitum in Sarangani Province, one of the more popular pitstops of the Soccsksargen EXperience Tours, is promising more fun and excitment at their most famous annual celebration – the Bangsi Festival!

The festival which originated in 2008 to put into focus their top OTOP commodity, the Bangsi or Flying Fish has turned out to be Sarangani’s most documented festivity owing to the extra efforts of their Tourism Office to invite and host photographers, media and bloggers to witness it and join in their Photo Safari Competition.

Due to this, beautiful and striking images of past Bangsi Festivals can be found all over the internet. Kudos to the hardworking Ms. Beth Ramos and her dedicated staff at the Maitum Tourism Office for this!

And now for the 5th Bangsi Festival 2012 which unfolds on January 26 and 27, visitors and revelers to their seaside town should expect nothing but the best!

Here is the 5th Bangsi Festival 2012 Schedule of Events below.

For more information, check out Masaganang Maitum‘s page at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/maitum.sarangani .

See you in Maitum!

If you have been wanting to go to Iloilo City this weekend and participate in their Dinagyang Festival but could not due to various reasons, then fret not!

GenSan Sports Center is bringing Iloilo’s grandest festival to town by way of their DINAGYANG SA GENSAN FOOD FESTIVAL on January 22, 2012, Sunday!

GenSan Sports Center, the former Anchor Driving Range at the back of East Asia Royale Hotel is owned and operated by Generals Logimark Exponent, the same company behind ICE Castle Experience Hotel.  It boasts of Fire & Ice Steaks and Grills Restaurant, a Driving Range, a Spa, Arcadia Fitness Gym, and function rooms for all occasions.

For the Dinagyang sa GenSan Food Festival, the entrance fee of P350.00 entitles the guest to four authentic Ilonggo dishes and (in celebration of the Chinese New Year) four more Oriental dishes!  Wow!  That is one real treat this Sunday for people with large appetities, if I may say so!

Entertainment during this grand buffet will be provided by acoustic folk performers so expect it to be one enjoyable feast of the senses!

For ticket reservations to GenSan Sports Center’s Dinagyang sa GenSan Food Festival, please contact telephone #s (083) 826-9075.

I luckily got hold of a copy of the 2012 calendar given by a large tobacco multinational firm to its dealers and was very pleased with what I found inside its pages.

The calendar highlights twelve famous Philippine Festivals including General Santos City‘s TUNA FESTIVAL!

Two festivals are featured in each page and the Tuna Festival comes out together with Davao’s KADAYAWAN at the page for the July-August-September quarter.  Take note that Kadayawan happens in August while the Tuna Festival occurs from September 1 -5, 2012.

What really caught my attention are the female models dressed, made up and accessorized in an ultra-modern rendering of each festival.  Very unique and very classy, I must say.

Check out the photo below of the page with a shimmery, silvery and sexy “mermaid” representing GenSan’s very own splashy Tuna Festival. (You may click on the image for a larger view.)

What do you think?  Do you like how the Tuna Festival was depicted?  Share  us your thoughts please.

Manila Bulletin came out with a TV Commercial last year but which i only just saw today.

The video entitled “Binatilyo” aims to convince its viewers that “The only thing better than reading the good news is by being the good news.”

Beautiful!

Sharing it with you now.  Thank you Manila Bulletin.

Please share this video with everyone you know. Let us convince one another to be the GOOD NEWS ourselves!

Without so much fanfare, on the early morning dawn of December 30, 2011, the Dolefil Caravan of Hope left the Dolefil Gym for the second wave of relief operations in Northern Mindanao, carrying with them all the hopes of all the Dolefil employees for a better future for victims of Typhoon Sendong.

A week earlier, during the first wave of relief operations on December 23, 2011, forty-five (45) volunteers made up of members of the Dolefil Kaugnay, Dolefil Mountaineering Club, as well as the company’s partner cooperatives, travelled on board three commuter vans on route to a ten-hour trip to Cagayan De Oro.

They were trailed by three ten-wheeler trucks from Jomaray Trucking which carried the relief goods composed of Dole canned pineapple products, rice, other canned food items, noodles, plastic mats, blankets/quilts, water with an estimated value of P4.5 million, sufficient for 3,120 family-beneficiaries.

DOLEFIL CARAVAN OF HOPE VOLUNTEERS GIVE OUT DOLE GIFT BOXES IN CAGAYAN DE ORO

The volunteers of the Dolefil Caravan of Hope themselves distributed the relief goods to various evacuation centers in Cagayan de Oro City, bringing smiles to the homeless families.  Aid amounting to P1.2 million from Dolefil Caravan of Hope were also extended to families in Valencia City in Bukidnon, another province hit hard by the same devastating typhoon.

AFFECTED FAMILIES OF TYPHOON SENDONG LINE UP FOR DOLEFIL CARAVAN OF HOPE DONATIONS

Atty. Melquiades L. Hernandez III, Dolefil HR Division Director, shares, “In this season of love and sharing, it was heartwarming to note the outpouring of support from the Dolefil employees, unions, cooperatives and other business partners who unselfishly shared their blessings for the benefit of the typhoon victims just in time for the Holidays.”

For the record, Dolefil (the Grand Kapatid Awardee of 2011) and its employees alone have collectively raised over P1M, which was used to purchase basic necessities such as rice and water for the family-beneficiaries in Northern Mindanao.

Good work Dolefil for this humanitarian mission!   May your story inspire other groups to do the same for our brothers and sisters affected by Typhoon Sendong.

Check out this video about their relief mission.

Just in time for the 2011 Christmas Season, KFC released upon an unsuspecting public a new TV Commercial which capitalized on the country’s being the Call Center capital of the world.

The KFC commercial features a call center agent at work while entertaining the call of a lady one Christmas night.

The TV advertisement was short and simple but was so poignant in its portrayal of the professionalism of the call center agent.  The ending immediately made me remember my late mom and how she could have done the same to me if I was a call center agent myself.  It was a moving and touching ode to moms and their love for their children, regardless of their age.

Without giving away much, here is the Christmas-themed KFC Call Center TV Commercial.

 

Kudos to KFC for conceptualizing this ad and also for putting into the forefront the plight of the thousands of young, dedicated and unheralded call center agents out there who work mostly on graveyard shifts and have managed to help the country afloat.

For me, next to our OFW’s, they are the country’s modern-day heroes.

And yes, the Philippines being a matriarchal society, this KFC Call Center TV commercial has surely pushed the right buttons.

Mindanao’s Funnest Blogging Circle, the Soccsksargen Bloggers was privileged to have been invited to witness the official launching of Dolefil’s Light-A-Tree, Light-A-Life Project for Christmas 2011 at the Dolefil Cannery Compound in Polomolok, South Cotabato, earlier this month.

Now on its 15th year, this program is one of the Corporate  Social Responsibility (CSR) Projects of 2011 Grand Kapatid Awardee Dolefil.   (One of the most notable is their Chairs-for-Trees Program.)

The Light-A-Tree, Light-A-Life Program has two components, the first of which is the Fund Racing Contest where Dolefil’s nine divisions battle it out to raise the biggest amount for various charitable institutions.  The total funds accumulated will be matched by Dolefil management.

The 2nd component is the Light A Tree Competition where they decorate and dress up Norfolk Pine Trees assigned to them along the compound’s covered walk.  The Soccsksargen Bloggers were privileged to have been there during the simultaneous lighting of the Christmas tree entries.

DOLEFIL'S LIGHT A TREE ENTRY FROM CANNERY DIVISION WHICH WON THE GRAND PRIZE

Together with them were some wards of the charities they support, St. Gemma’s Orphanange & Marcellin Foundation in General Santos City and the St. Lawrence Kalinga Foundation in Koronadal City.

On hand to welcome them were Dolefil Vice President and Managing Director Simon Denye and HR Division Director Atty. Mel Hernandez.  Emceeing the affair was HR Communication Division’s Gwynee Ebol and Logistics Division’s Aethan Yting, also a member of the Soccsksaren Bloggers.

To find out more about the Soccskargen Bloggers‘ experience at Dolefil’s Light-A-Tree Project, check out a few of their blog posts by clicking on the links below…

• South Cotabato News Online
• Pinas Backpackers
• Tales of a Newlywed Couple
• Pinay Travelogue
• Rosilie

Thanks to Lynette Gallinero, of Pinay Travelogue & Nanardz Fernandez of SouthCotabato Tambayan for the photos.