Special Interest

Photo Essay

Pasig’s Floating World

Text and photos by Jaileen F. Jimeno

WHAT floats and can carry a load a hundred times its weight?

If you live in Pasig City, that would be anything that has buoyancy and can be glued, nailed, or tied together, including flood-ruined freezers or laundry machines, and even discarded bath tubs. These days, all these and more are being used to ferry people and goods from one watery point to another in what is still among the most flooded areas in the metropolis.

Read more... | Posted Saturday, October 10th, 2009

Toilet trouble

by Tita C. Valderama

WE MAY have heard enough toilet humor and rumors. Now it’s about time to get serious about a simple toilet habit that can save people from many health risks: washing hands.

Health and sanitation experts say this basic hygiene practice after a pee or poo can keep one away from several diseases, diarrhea and worm infections being among the most common and fatal.

Read more... | Posted Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Sidebar

Name that tune’s price

by Isa Lorenzo

HOW MUCH is a song worth? It may be impossible to quantify the pleasure that hearing a song produces. But composers agree that they should be compensated every time a song they wrote is used.

Under the Intellectual Property (IP) code, copyright of a musical work is acquired and exists from the moment of its creation. The creator owns the composition, and is vested with the copyright, a bundle of exclusive economic rights that covers the reproduction, adaptation, distribution, rental, display, performance, and other communication of the work to the public.

Read more... | Posted Thursday, April 17th, 2008

The business of making music

by Prime Sarmiento

JAL TAGUIBAO has a very simple way of telling just when a song can be called a hit. “When your song is being played in jeepneys,” he says, “that’s when it’s gone big time.

Taguibao should know. As the bass player of the popular pop-rock trio Sugarfree, he has shared in the success of chart-toppers such as “Mariposa (Butterfly),” “Telepono (Telephone),” and “Hari ng Sablay (King of Mishaps).” His five-year-old band has sold thousands of CDs, with its second venture, the album “Dramachine,” even turning gold.

Read more... | Posted Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Conquered by videoke

by Prime Sarmiento

SHE HAS always loved to sing, and as a young girl even joined amateur contests held in her hometown of Mainit in Surigao del Norte. Now based in Los Baños, Laguna, Christine Ajoc hasn’t foregone the joys of singing to an audience, even if she has not become a professional singer. If the 25-year-old is not in a videoke bar where she and her friends feast on crispy pata and take turns singing songs by Rivermaya or Christina Aguilera, Ajoc is singing (and eating and chatting) with the help of a videoke at a friend’s house.

Read more... | Posted Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

Living rhythms

by Padmapani L. Perez

BAGUIO CITY — Minutes after Manny Pacquiao beat Erik Morales last year, gongs could be heard ringing joyously throughout this northern city. Last Sunday, when Pacquiao wrested the World Boxing Council superfeatherweight belt from Juan Manuel Marquez, Baguio’s foggy communities were silent. Yet it may hardly been because residents here were less appreciative of The Pacman’s efforts this time around.

Even last year, pattong, or playing the gongs, could not have been for Pacquiao. Pattong is simply not done for individuals without relations in the community — even if that individual happens to be the “Pambansang Kamao (National Fist).” More likely, the gongs were brought out by some families here to announce a victorious bet made over the fight and to invite neighbors to partake of celebratory drinking and eating.

Read more... | Posted Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

Video

The season of protest songs

by Jaileen F. Jimeno

“BAYAN KO” is in vogue again, being sung by demonstrators on both sides of the political fence.

Out of the current political turmoil, the positive thing singer-songwriter Noel Cabangon expects is a healthier harvest of patriotic song. He says composers often become profound and prolific during these times.

Read more... | Posted Friday, March 14th, 2008

Music and the machines

by Paolo Santos

I’M NOT quite a fan of techno, to be honest. It’s just a preference issue. I believe that watching an artist fully express himself only through voice and guitar is such an amazing experience. Yet I also know that there are now more opportunities to express oneself through music because of new technology. Today a musician can always go back to basics, but with the new technology, he can also move forward.

Read more... | Posted Friday, March 14th, 2008

Soundtrack of a nation

DO WE have anything we can rightfully call Filipino music these days? Right now, anything written by a Filipino, whether in English or Filipino or Bisaya or other dialects, is labeled as such. But the quality of our music now pales in comparison to what we used to churn out in the past.

Like everything else in our planet, Filipino music evolves. It moves with the times, adapts to changes, is influenced by its environment. Filipino music, you see, is about what we feel as a nation, what we are going through, and what we hope will happen. Culture is about how you live; you cannot separate a writer from his environment.

Read more... | Posted Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Make (beautiful) noise

SO we’re just a couple of weeks away from Holy Week, and music might not exactly be the regular topic of choice during Lent. Then again, we do have the tradition of the pasyon during cuaresma — which just goes to show that even a week without some kind of music would be hard for Pinoys, and even if not all of us are gifted with enough talent to carry a tune or play an instrument. Of course, many of us are contented just to listen, but the urge to belt out along with the professionals is simply too much for some to resist (alas).

Read more... | Posted Monday, March 3rd, 2008

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