#laagnitantong

The video shown above was my capture of the Search for Ginang ng Santacruzan later that night we arrived in Dumaguete City. The emcee declared that it was the first of its kind, an addition to the Santacruzan festival they have been celebrating annually. The show, especially the talent portion, really proved the prowess of mothers in field of beauty pageantry. It’s a timely celebration of revealing mothers’ beauty and talent during the day the Mothers around the World are given honor; that Sunday (May 13) was a Mother’s Day. It was indeed a welcoming treat for us firstimers in the city. It was about a decade since my last visit to this city; 2003 was too long to remember what Dumaguete is for me. It was granted to me by my first foreign-assisted project with Department of Finance, the Community-Based Resource Management Project (CBRMP). Now and again, I was given to chance to revisit the place through my new project under the DSWD, the KALAHI-CIDSS. We chose Dumaguete as the ven...

George RR Martin is lately the culprit of my latest book addiction. Inspired by the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, I was lured by the story of its adaptation... in the books. I discovered that the whole story was based on the 4-book novel entitled, A Song of Fire and Ice. I started scanning the first book, A Game of Thrones, and found the movie series very faithful to it. Just like the episodes in the movies, the book drowned me into the world of fantasy very relatable to current state of the Earth - the conflict, the war, the greed of power, the politics, the game of thrones! A Game of Thrones was not enough to quench my hunger to know the mind of the author. I believe that book 1 was just the introduction, knowing its magnanimity and full of thrills, unexpected twists and turns, and an image of new world, the second to fourth books would definitely contain more of those. It kept me going... and going... Book 2, entitled A Clash of Kings, deserved another patronage. I...

EPISODE 1: The North Remembers http://flashx.tv/video/B943B54X2G49/GameofThronesS02E01

March 22. My nursing professors approached me one Saturday and asked me to do a testimony. I only realized that it is actually an inspirational message when I arrived at the venue at Catalina Hall, fifth floor of the College Building. Fortunate, I prepared one long speech, a smorgasbord of personal experience and insights, testimonies of JP Sioson's quality of education, and inspirational message. Here it is: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! If there's a goal keeper, I am the goal chaser!I always stand for what I believed in. I always chase for my dreams. Find ways to realize my wishes. And thus my parents called me one stubborn son. This for me is never hardheadedness but persistence and tenacity. On one hand, I am also reminded of the cliche "be careful what you wish for!" I tell you it's true. It may not be entirely the whole thing as you imagined it but in some way, somehow, it will be granted to you. I can vividly reimagine myself wishing upon a ...

I lost it again - my dancing prowess! I believe I learn to dance before I learn to walk. This gift in me has been showing all my life, since my school days, my under to post grad years... and even now. Many a times I tried to hide it, to never join dance groups, dance presentations but it keeps on showing off. Few months in KaLaHi, yet I exhibited my dancing prowess once more. See above the latest dance exhibition we did during the Year-end Assessment of the KC Project. But actually I miss dancing! I wanna dance once in a week but I don't know where and how...

My 36th birthday celebration is contingent to the good weather in Surigao. I kept saying this to my friends and officemates. This was due to the fact that my birthday won't realize until the lechon (roasted pig) from Surigao arrives. Thus, I called it a lechon party. And it was threatened by the rainy weather in Surigao that day. The daily flight to Surigao by Airphil Express is known to have been canceled these past days since December 2011. And thank God, despite the rains in my homeland, the plane was able to land and fly back to Manila with the lechon. The roasted pig was the promised birthday gift from my parents, Papa Tantong and Mama Dulcing. The flight however was delayed for about 2 hours. Nevertheless, the party went on. The Go family, Jun and Ruth, voluntered to provide car to pick up the lechon cargo from Airphil Express cargo station at the Domestic Airport to my apartment in Commonwealth, Quezon City. My current officemates and former colleagues and my college f...

The venue is historical; it is where Juday and Ryan held their wedding reception, the facilitator declared. The Estrella de Mendoza Aplaya Resort has become the place where all consultants and staffs of KALAHI-CIDSS congregrate for a team building workshop which will last for 4 full days. We taxied the south luzon expressway (SLEX) in the afternoon of January 11 and the trip lasted for more or less 4 hours to reach the Barangay Laiya Ibabao where the abovementioned resort is situated. My impression was a 3- to 4-star hotel along the beach. I initially thought that the fine sanded beach is long-stretched, but it's not; it is simply concentrated in the hotel area. The seabed never appealed to me, it looks grim and dangerous. True enough, one of my financial analysts got injured during their night-swimming that weekend. The kick-off activity was conducted that night with getting to know everyone through expectation setting and some kind of game. We settled around a roundtable wi...