My week has been hell: three long stories to finish and the deadline was last week. I’m a rebel. But really, one can never be too busy for YouTube. Awesome ad.

The Philippine Senate never fails to amuse me. As a background, yesterday, the Senate Committee of the Whole met to discuss a fellow senator’s (Sen. Manny Villar) alleged unethical conduct for “inserting” an additional P200-million in the 2008 national budget. The budget was used for the construction of a road that would pass through his property which thereby hiked up the value of his real estate. Those supporting and against Villar met head-to-head.

This mudslinging is entertaining as it is exasperating. And to think that Sen. Miriam-Defensor Santiago was out sick. That woman can give a soundbite.

Jump to 2:46.

Gloves come off in Senate session

Sen. Roxas: I say no. I had no insertion on any matter. In fact, I have no insertion, period. Because we’re in the minority! Let alone an insertion for a road to pass through any such property.

Sen. Pimentel: Well, well, I am sure that after your marriage, you had some insertions.

Pimentel FTW!

Jay Leno is an old hoot. I hope they release Conan’s seven months on The Tonight Show on DVD. It would be the fifth original DVD I would buy. If Triumph The Insult Comic Dog comes out with one, I’d definitely buy one…to poop on.

Conan’s Final Goodbye and a Look Back

On Conan’s last show last Friday (Saturday in Manila), one of his final guests, Tom Hanks, walked out into the show with the Beatle’s song Lovely Rita being played by The Tonight Show Band. According to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon house band leader Questlove, NBC paid $500,000 to play that song. It’s called royalties, or in this case, sticking it to the man.

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

During my last year in high school, I taught eight grade six students from a public school in Marikina, once a week, in a program called Tulong Dunong (TD). It was exasperating, but in the end, rewarding. After I graduated up to my second year in college, I’d receive a phone call on the day of my birthday every year, asking for “Sir Peter.” I’d pick it up, and on the other line was my student, now in high school, greeting me a happy birthday. During my fourth year in college, I saw one of them walking around the college campus, wearing an Ateneo ID.

Angel Aquino on Tulong Dunong

Held at The Loft @ Manansala in Rockwell, Makati City, the country’s top ten entrepreneurs of the past year were recognized in Entrepreneur Philippines annual Entrepreneur 10 Awards Night 2009 last December 15.

In what has been—to say the least—a challenging year not only for business-owners but for all Filipinos, the night was a farewell to the year that was and a glimpse of hope into the next year. While to have survived the past year is an achievement in itself, to have gone way and above the rest deserves a very classy AVP with a kick-ass soundtrack–not a business term, but that succinctly sums everything up.

10 Outstanding Entrepreneurs of 2009

The seventh batch of Entrepreneur 10 winners are Patricia Besinga of Prestige Labels Co., they provide affordable R&D for start-up businesses; Junie del Mundo of EON Stakeholder Relations Firm, he has managed to transform the PR scene with his “stakeholder” concept; Benjamin Liuson of The Generics Pharmacy, he has over 600 outlets all over the country; Roberto Locsin of Locsin International, am uber-successful furniture exporter; Jerry Perez de Tagle of Integrative Learning International Inc., a genius; Jovita Romero, co-owner of Danilyn’s Enterprises, also exports furniture; Dr. Vivian Sarabia of Vivian Sarabia Optical, eyewear outfitter to the stars; Edgar Injap Sia of Mang Inasal, `nuff said; Carson Tan of Aquabest, `nuff said; and Kerwin Tansekiao of Jimini Foods and Pizza Pedrico’s, ’nuff said.

Before the night ended, Entrepreneur 10 awardee, Jerry Perez de Tagle spoke on behalf of his fellow winners, summing it up succinctly, “We all followed our DAD: pursued our dream, took action, and had discipline.”

Check out www.entrepreneur.com.ph for more on the event.

Entrepreneur 10 Awards Night 2009 was co-presented by Globe Business, Nokia, and Western Union.

The journey from the ground floor of the office to the Summit editorial office at the sixth floor of Robinson’s Cybergate Tower 3 is always a long and arduous perpendicular ride. If I’m not waiting for the elevator doors to open, I’m waiting for them to close, desperately pushing the “close” button hoping no annoying person attempts to squeeze through the six-inch gap and pushes the doors away.

The ride can be awkward as you try to not look at anyone straight in the eye, but the confined space leads you to stare at either the ceiling or blank aluminum in front of you–both making you look like an idiot. While you whip out your mobile phone and pretend to answer a message, the lady behind reads above your shoulder, muffled coughs attempts to drown out the uncomfortable silence, shuffling feet preparing to get off, the feeling that someone is staring at you from behind. The doors open, you get out, relieved. Then you realize you forgot to push your floor button so you end up five minutes late waiting for the next elevator to go down.

Civilization, a video mural created for the elevators of the Standard Hotel in New York City, depicts a journey from hell to heaven interpreted through modern film language using computer-enhanced found footage. It takes elevator passengers on a trip from hell to heaven as they go up or from heaven to hell as they go down. This epic video mural contains over 400 individual channels of looped video blended into a multi-layered seamless tableau of interconnecting images that illustrate a contemporary, satirical take on the concepts of Heaven and Hell.

Civilization by Marco Brambilla

More here.

December issues come out this week. I’m giddy about seeing ours. In the foreign magazine section, Hearst Corp, big-time media company and magazine publisher, announced a few weeks ago that Esquire would launch a new “augmented reality” issue for release in December. And just the other week, they finally unveiled they’re newest invention that, while it promises some moments of pure fascination and awe, still begs the question, “What now?”

On the cover of Esquire’s December issue is the new Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey Jr. in a three-piece suit, proudly showing the package between his legs. It is this device, along with a program you need to download off the Esquire website and a web cam, that enables the actor to literally jump off the cover. Awesome sh*t.

Once the AR program is installed, users will have to point the “marker” located at the bottom of the magazine towards the web cam to activate the feature. For the cover, Robert Downey Jr. does a song and dance, among other things. Inside, a fashion photo shoot changes the model’s clothes and the weather, depending on how you hold and rotate the magazine. Their monthly “Funny Joke from a Beautiful Woman” section has actress Gillian Jacobs tell another joke, and there’s an ad from Lexus, which reportedly shouldered the cost of the AR issue coming in at six figures according to Wall Street Journal.

Esquire’s Augmented Reality Issue: A Tour

While AR seems to be a huge leap in the print medium, attempting to tie in the web element of Esquire, Augmented Reality feels like another passing fancy. It’s a chore to download and install the AR program. And after viewing the few pages AR is featured in, you’re left with, well, a magazine. And no one buys one for AR and AR alone.

The tactile experience of holding a magazine is still a whole different experience. Augment it as you may want, in the end, it’s content that matters the most. And that’s what made and still makes Esquire one of the best men’s magazines in the world. And that’s why people still buy magazines. Great idea, but what now?

Still, if there’s one thing I’ll always like about Esquire, it’s their original content and the punk-ass attitude with which they present them. Only they can put “WTF?!” on their cover and get away with it.

Newspapers around the world are experiencing a recession of their own with major broadsheets closing down after decades of loyal service. Many titles in the United States have closed down or are facing imminent shutdown.

With the rise of the internet and cheaper broadband rates, more and more people are turning to the world wide web to get their daily fix for news and pop culture. What will happen with newspapers are completely obliterated? It’s a scenario that’s just too unthinkable to happen. One might think that the print medium is on its way out. However, magazines, are in a league of their own.

The Twenty Tweetable Truths About Magazines

Halloween isn’t exactly a Philippine tradition. Pumpkins aren’t indigenous to the archipelago, we neither say trick (bulaga?) or treat (pasalubong?). The closest we ever got was the yearly one-hour special of Magandang Gabi Bayan on zombies, spirits that live among us, and supernatural beings. The script was repetitive, the reenactments (pagsasadula) were tacky bordering on ludicrous, and the ghosts were old women in linen. But it was still scary. When I was a kid, my mom would dress me and my little brother and sister  up every Halloween and go trick or treating. Every year I only had two choices as to who  or what I could be: Peter Pan (for obvious reasons), and Dracula (for reasons unknown). This isn’t scary, but it sure kicks ass.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s 2009 State of the Nation Address

Jump to the 1:00 mark and try to keep your seething anger in.

“As a country in the path of typhoons and in the Pacific Rim of Fire, we must be as prepared as the latest technology permits to anticipate natural calamities when that is possible; to extend immediate and effective relief when it is not….The mapping of flood- and landslide-prone areas is almost complete. Early warning, forecasting and monitoring systems have been improved, with weather tracking facilities in Subic, Tagaytay, Mactan, Mindanao, Pampanga….

We have worked on flood control infrastructure like those for Pinatubo, Agno, Laoag, and Abucay, which will pump the run off waters from Quezon City and Tondo flooding Sampaloc. This will help relieve hundreds of hectares in this old city of its age-old woe….

Patuloy naman iyong sa Camanava, dagdag sa Pinatubo, Iloilo, Pasig-Marikina, Bicol River Basin, at mga river basin ng Mindanao.”

Now where the f*ck are all those things?

There was one night at work where we ended at around 11 at night from a studio shoot in the freezing cold Summit Studios. While the adjacent studio was blaring with Beyonce, Rihanna, and T-Pain for Cospomolitan’s October cover shoot with a lady I would describe as “the one with ginormous legs,” the photographer, art director, and myself were silently crouched over a small plastic platform surrounded by lights, taking pictures of a phone and a book. I was freezing and feeling pangs of hunger, and the only thing I had in my bag was bottled water and a banana I had put there before leaving for work in the morning.

This one’s for Mac World’s cover. I wish our studio looks like theirs.

With less than a month before the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival opens at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (July 17), I find myself craving for an indie fix now and then, especially during these lean weeks between last month’s comedy Drag Me To Hell, this month’s Michael Bay porn flick (masturbation) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and next month’s tween flick Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

It’s a good start that some movie houses in the metro have devoted several theaters to screening indie movies, although they’re still subject to MTRCB’s rules and regulations. Cannes Best Director Brillante Mendoza wanted to  commercially screen Kinatay but refused for it to be censored. That hasn’t pushed through yet for obvious reasons. Robinsons Galleria has one lonely movie theater devoted to independent movies, albeit not always good ones. I read some positive reviews, but still. Why would I sit through a movie with the title Kamoteng Kahoy (cassava/yam)? It’s a root crop. Then again, I’ve sat through more harrowing movies like First Day High with Maja Salvador’s atrocious excuse for what seemed to be the English language. My friends and I needed a no-brainer movie. I left a part of mine behind.

In the meantime, I tide myself over with  some of the finalists from this year’s Short Feature category. Something to note: Bonsai has Angel Aquino, Tatang has Pen Medina. I like them already.

Bonsai by Alfonso “Borgy” K. Torre III

Tatang by Jean Paolo “Nico” Hernandez

BLOGOG by Rommel “Milo” Tolentino

Watch the all 20 short and feature films  at the Cultural Center of the Philippines from July 17-26, 2009.

The world has lost Michael Jackson, and Twitter is, once again, the source from which people found out and gave their 140-character eulogies. If Twitter won’t be the cover of Time Magazine’s best of 2009 issue,  then Facebook will have to do.

Eight of the first ten Tweets on my Twitter feed were about Michael Jackson. One that was out of place came from Barack Obama and his Tweet on health care. Close enough. On the popular feeds on the right, nine out of the ten were also about Michael Jackson. Now what happened to Iran, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon?

Click to zoom in

Farewell Michael Jackson. There must be one amazing party wherever you’re at.

While Channel V and MTV air their Michael Jackson tributes, as CNN and FOX News show us the meaning of coverage overkill, and as people continue to blog about MJ and suddenly become fans on Facebook, convicted murderers, rapists, and drug dealers in a maximum security prison in Cebu just dance. It’s what he would’ve probably wanted.

CNN Report on Thriller-dancing inmates’ MJ Tribute

And from Texts From Last Night:

(406): Dude michael jackson died, guess he’s not ‘stayin aliveee‘ any longer.

(1-406): Uh dude that wasn’t a michael jackson song it was the BGs.

UPDATE (07.02.09): Found Michael Jackson’s official YouTube Channel here. It’s an excellent place to waste time online.

The house has been without cable for the past month. Mom has been planing to switch cable providers but is too busy to take care of it. Dad just wants to watch Federer and Nadal. Younger brother wants to watch basketball.  Youngest sister needs her Gossip Girl. And I need my current events and pop culture. Live streaming for the win.

In what has since become a perfect example of how citizen journalism trumps mainstream media, the political crisis  in Iran has been exploding with images, texts, and, of late, videos from people who just happened to be at the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time armed not with guns or placards, but with a camera or a mobile phone.

Censorship in the Islam nation has lead to the government cutting mobile telephone networks, blocking  popular Internet websites like  Facebook and YouTube, and even expelling foreign journalists or placing them under house arrest. With professional journalists  gone and people lamenting the utter lack of coverage of CNN, Fox News, and other news networks, the people on the scene have taken over.

Popular author Paulo Coelho  blogged about the video currently circulating around the internet of  a woman who was  shot, then dies on the same street where rallies are being held in protest of the results of the elections last June 12, saying:

“My best friend in Iran, a doctor who showed me its beautiful culture when I visited Teheran in 2000, who fought a war in the name of the Islamic Republic (against Iraq), who took care of wounded soldiers in the frontline, who always stood by real human values, is seen here trying to resuscitate Neda – hit in her heart.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjBKHkoDgCM&w=330&h=270&rel=0]

CNN Report on  Neda

He (Coelho) has since been exchanging e-mails with the doctor in the video trying to make sure Iran officials don’t hunt him and his family down.  He has left Iran and is now in London. Meanwhile, here’s the amateur video that made everyone stop, think, blog, and Twitter. There are two versions available online. This is the longer one, and just as graphic and chilling.

Iran Amateur Video: Neda

Accompanied by the description:

“Basij shots [sic] to death a young woman in Tehran’s Saturday June 20th protests At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim’s chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers [sic] away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass [sic] used among them, towards Salehi St. The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know.”

One of the many arguments against citizen journalism is how to verify if the information published is indeed true. Professional journalists are bound by their responsibility to fact-check every piece of information, name, date, place, quote. Otherwise, anything published or aired, if proven to be inaccurate, will greatly affect the public’s sense of trust with the media. Ordinary citizens aren’t privy to such a responsibility. Therein lies the rub. But in tense situations like these, with no other choice but to let the witnesses become the reporters, is verification really important? Or do we need all the information we can get?

UPDATE (06.25.09): The videos were taken down yesterday from Vimeo for “violating the Upload Rules of Vimeo.com: Vimeo does not allow TV shows, movie trailers, or stuff you found on the web.” I argue fair use and insert a false allegation of censorship just to make it interesting. I’ve uploaded them again.

There are several things I loved and hated at the same time while I was in college. Aside from my daily three to four hours breaks, there’s my senior thesis. Others–correction–most utterly hated theirs. They abhor the whole experience with their whole being, curse it to the depths of the universe, and refuse to acknowledge that it ever happened and the people they worked with never existed.

I keep a bound copy of my thesis on my bedroom shelf. In the times I receive a hard assignment, I look up and remind myself how I wrote 100+ plus pages, got an A, and didn’t end-up killing myself or my partner. How could you not have feelings towards the title, PinoyNewsPortal.com: An Analysis of The Gatekeeping Phenomenon in Online Citizen Journalism Initiatives in Asia To Produce a Model for Future Implementation in the Philippines? I meant every word.

This thing called citizen journalism is so simple and easy that you may have already done it, or are currently doing it. It goes by many names: citizen media, we media, grassroots journalism, open-source journalism, hyperlocal journalism, participatory journalism, and many others. However, the basic idea for all is similar: that ordinary people with no professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology such as computers, camera phones, mobile phones, and digital recorders, and the reach of the internet to make media on their own or with others.

With the internet and emerging new technologies, mainstream media reporters are not the exclusive source of information anymore, but the citizens–ordinary people–who collectively know more: the office secretary in Makati  who went to the rally and took pictures, the student who blogs about his classmate with A(H1N1), the congressmen who updated their Facebook statuses in the middle of the House voting on Resolution 1109. And with the power of social networking and other web tools or applications, you’ve got a pretty strong base that’s easy to maintain, cheap, and far-reaching. People are starting to find their own voice, no matter how annoying (and sometimes stupid)  it may be, and, in some cases, authoritarian governments are scrambling to take control.

China just banned Twitter last month. They just couldn’t screen it like they usually do so they banned it altogether. If you’ve been watching CNN, Twitter has been playing an important role in the crisis currently broiling in Iran. Twitter isn’t popular in the Philippines, but Friendster ranks second in popularity to Katrina Halili and Hayden Kho. Don’t quote me on that.

Clay Shirky: How Twitter can make history

However, I don’t think it counts when all you Twitter is what you’re currently stuffing down your throat, wearing, watching, or listening to. That’s just mindless egotistical  crap.