HEARTS ON ICE Cast Speak Highly of Xian Lim's Ice Skating Efforts, Excited on Ashley Ortega's Lead Role

Spent a few hours with some of Sparkle's brightest stars who's part of the cast of the new show HEARTS ON ICE. This is the first of it's kind, you could say the launching project of Ashley Ortega as she now takes the lead as Ponggay in this new series. She also gets to be paired with premier actor Xian Lim who's going to be interesting to see in a story of love, hardships, hope and perseverance. Athletes would surely be connecting with their characters as it'll be showcasing a lot of the things that are happening behind the scenes. Aside from that, they want people to get inspired about how they triumph over life's obstacles since it is a very hard sport. 

Together with Ashley that afternoon was Skye Chua, Hannah Arguelles, Shuvee Etrata and Kim Perez (which unfortunately we didn't get to take a solo shot of because he was doing interviews). Skye actually is part of the Philippine national team, very skilled and equipped to do this stint on GMA and admitted to have had trouble doing acting, and her emotions which she usually do on ice came in handy. She used it to make sure she's also going to do good as Ponggay's rival. Hannah on the other hand will be Xian's little sister, and will be doing a lot of scenes with the Viva actor as they've got family issues to take care of too. Shuvee on the other hand will play one of Poggay's best friend and will give advice as it'll be hard to go through life without one. Kim will be on Xian's side and might provide help when his best friend would get in trouble in the show.

Xian Lim who is Ashley Ortega's partner in the show impressed not just his co-actors but even the professional skating athletes who's part of the show. They were so happy about his progress in the short amount of time he spent in training, so now he's super into the sport already. He took exams and has progressed and passed, which may mean he's going to be doing a lot of his own moves in the show.

Here's my part of the interview, hope you enjoy my questions as I did asking them!

Here's a little talk about their ice skating experience and how Ashley had to go back to training just for this show.

 

Hearts on Ice starts at 8:50PM weekdays on GMA, and replays a few hours after (11:30 or 11PM) on GTV. Make sure you catch the episodes to support not just Ashley and Xian, but the whole ensemble cast that's got veterans and new artists in the mix. Congratulations, I've heard it's doing good in the ratings still! I also have a few videos of their routines on our YouTube channel so just look for kumagcow on the app!

Showcasing Filipino Martial Arts to the World: Hari Osias Banaag

Hearing Filipino Martial Arts be included in major Hollywood films always made me so proud not just as a movie goer but as a Filipino. Sometimes it's sad to see that these arts end up flourishing in other countries other than ours, but more people are actually now seeing value of learning home grown martial arts apt for our built, not rocket science if it seemed at all. Lately Hari Osias Banaag (a Filipino Sikaran Grand Master) has been receiving a lot of attention for championing SIKARAN, a Filipino Martial Art that originated in Baras, Rizal. Learning Karate at an early age, he wasn't keen on pursuing it after learning the ropes for 3 years. He enjoyed roughing it up with his playmates and used hay cushions as his workout arena. This was the time he saw them and his brother make use of their feet and legs to fend off people who had street wise weapons during those years so it got him interested and researched more about SIKARAN as a martial art form. He eventually put up the first school and called it Foremost Sikaran Brotherhood back in 1976. 

He attended the World Martial Arts for Peace event in Washington in 1997 and migrated to the US to introduce the sport abroad. He started training his relatives and friends then got Global Sikaran Foundation DBA established in 1998. Word spread like wildfire about it and got a couple of actors interested to practice like Cynthia Rothrock (my favorite 80's action star), Jerry Fisher, Don “The Dragon” Wilson and Eric Lee among others. The art form has likened some of it's forms to farm animals which made it quite unique compared to other disciplines, as it spreads to other countries like the US, the Philippines, Canada, Australia, Algeria, Korea, Sri Lanka, India, Italy Mexico, Argentina, Burundi and Saudi Arabia. Soon the world. He hopes this would be the start of something big in the Philippines as they are gunning to include it in the curriculum, perhaps soon a national sport. He also wants to make this a way for Filipinos to promote and learn discipline, humility, honor and dignity. If this happens, this would be an even greater country.

KUMAGCOW

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Nestea Beach 2014!

Summer is here and we all love bumming in the sun or simply playing our favorite volleyball game in the beach. Well, Nestea has been doing that for the past 17 years. They're much of an expert in this field of chilling, relaxing and playing and they're doing it again in a grand way come labor day this year.

They gave us the experience of celebrating on water and on land at the Antel Suites in Makati, which comes close to Boracay right? Twas complete with sand, a bar and a great DJ spinning music throughout the hot afternoon!

Music was great. It was awesome to see some personalities from Air Asia, Nuffnang, Eon, Lenovo and other companies too. Aside from that, some of my blogger friends were also there to enjoy the festivities.

Oh of course, the gorgeous models were there too!

If you check out the poster beside her, (and probably not looking at her too much LOL) Nestea Beach 2014 Volleyball Championship will happen from May 1-3. A yacht party will happen too from Kalibo's port to the island. The biggest pool party will also commence in The Tides in Boracay. I've heard Cedric Gervais and Steve Aoki will perform. Aside from that, Dj's Jessica Milner, Nina Saputil and RX Jocks will be there too. If you plan to go to Boracay, you'll witness how 24 teams vie for the ultimate Nestea Beach 2014 championship... all you need to do is be there!

A few games were also done that evening. Believe it or not, I won an O+ Phone just by posting on Instagram. The others engaged in a better, bolder activity. They did the NESTEA SPLASH!

The models did it first. I didn't think they had any problems with it. They had fun though! :)

They did it in a series. Then the public voted to see who's worthy of the fabulous prizes. Some went home with trips to a local and international destination courtesy of Air Asia. Then one won the latest YOGA Tablet from Lenovo! Congratulations guys!

Thank you also to the team behind Nestea Beach 2014! Now, we can't wait to see what will happen come May 1st when we take the party to Boracay. Is it just me or are they not taking me there?! Well I hope so LOL!

See you in Boracay!

For more information about their event:

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http://www.nestea.com.ph