Gilas Cadets, UAAP Standouts for SMART Elite UAAP and an Exclusive Interview with UE Red Warrior Paul Varilla

 It's UAAP Season 78 and what better way to celebrate it but by recognizing the best of the best players  as SMART the country's biggest network launches Smart Elite-UAAP in Makati. After being in the midst of their counterparts in the NCAA we were only expecting the best players included in this mix and we were eagerly waiting for the names announced that afternoon. We were not disappointed!

Mr. Epok Quimpo, Smart's Sports Senior Manager says "We have tennis, we have badminton, we have football, and Smart has been sternly supporting a lot of sports and come to think of it, why do we have to do a Smart Elite launch? Basically our goal is to impart to the Filipinos how to live a Smart Life. When we say living the Smart Life, it means touching on our passion points. Passion points like entertainment, leisure, travel, you post where you go, like Jordan Clarkson who went to Boracay and his girlfriend a Victoria Secret Angel, she posted a photo in a paraw, she really fell in love with the place. Boom, TJ, and I love international games, we want Filipinos to experience this passion across the nation and we're here to introduce several UAAP standouts in promoting and doing this. We invite everyone to support the athletes in promoting the LOVE for the sport, for the game of basketball. This will inspire kids, the high school, college basketball teams and hopefully represent the country in the international level."

They came out one by one and it was nice to see Gilas cadets Kiefer Ravena of Ateneo De Manila, Kevin Ferrer of UST, Mark Belo of FEU, Gelo Alolino of National University and Prince Rivero of De La Salle University. They are also joined by UAAP standouts Von Pessumal of ADMU, Jette Manuel of UP, Dawn Ochea of Adamson University (he came after practice!) and Paul Varilla of my alma mater University of the East.

Now we didn't get to see Paul Varilla because he had practice schedules that morning so we did the next best thing and asked him questions online. Paul says "I want to thank Smart for selecting me and giving me an opportunity to represent them the best I can. I feel honored to be apart of the Smart Elite team and alongside the other UAAP players. My brother and I use Smart's pocket wifi when we are out and about. I use it every night to connect and chat with my parents abroad. I use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram mostly. I am really looking forward to use Spinnr! For those who want to get in touch, my IG and Twitter handle is @PuffeeP or they can just search for Paul Varilla. I forgot to mention that I do watch a lot of YouTube as well haha! I tried to use streaming accounts from the US but it doesn't stream out here. I've just recently heard of iFlix and I'll check that out for sure! Aw man now it hurts more that I wasn't there haha. I really wish I was in the launch, my apologies but my priorities with the team had to come first in preparation for the first game!" then we exchanged pleasantries.

With Smart's widest coverage, UAAP fans including me will continue to address digital needs by catching games wherever we are in the country. Using our smart phones, Smart, PLDT Home will bring more Filipinos closer to the games and their passion. The players all are heavy internet users, Kiefer and Mac even mentioned how they love Spinnr and iFlix too. Von and Dawn also uses Smart Bro in their quarters so after a game they would be able to get in touch with their families wherever they are, and says it's very convenient since they play in their respective schools and Smart Araneta Coliseum.

For those who want to win make sure you visit the SMART Life booths in the Smart Araneta Coliseum today so you can get the chance to get phones and gadgets unlike those fake Facebook pages I saw yesterday, don't fall for that by the way!.

I'll be at the SMART Araneta Coliseum later to watch the UE Red Warriors battle it out with UP Fighting Maroons. I'm rooting for my alma mater as usual because I'm a full blooded warrior but I'll be cheering for the whole Smart Elite Team too of course. They've done the country proud and even inspired thousands of students, hopefully convert them all to live the Smart Life!

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Kim Rodriguez Celebrates Birthday at Grace to be Born in Pasig City

We were with Kim Rodriguez a few days ago to celebrate her birthday in Pasig City. I haven't been here before but the place we went to called Grace to be Born is a shelter fully dedicated to the temporary care of expecting mothers no matter what age or demographic they may be. 

Ladies from the shelter personally made Kim Rodriguez's birthday posters. That part was very touching!

According to Ms. Esther the shelter's Social Worker "We do temporary care, facilitation of adoption and foster care. We're being supported by Light of Jesus Community which is also being ran by Brother Bo Sanchez. It's one of the ministries of Brother Bo Sanchez and at the same time is the Pro Life Ministry under the Rosary for Life Ministry. For now we have 13 mothers in the shelter, 9 are pregnant and 4 have already given birth. The other babies here, their parents have opted to place them for adoption but we're not a child caring or placement facility primarily, we just facilitate. Hopefully we'll be in that state  as soon as we open up another Grace to be Born facility in Pampanga soon. So we'll have 2 facilities, Pasig and Pampanga. There are a lot of maternity homes but our admission of pregnant women is only for those in the first trimester. It's because we provide counseling, we also give them three options to take care of the baby, temporary care and adoption. We're the ones to help them with that. After Grace to be Born, they have one month to recuperate and stay after they give birth. Everything is provided, everything is free from Vitamins, from checkup, so that's why babies are healthy when they're born. People who want to help us are usually referred by NGO's, government agencies, some walk in, and we screen all of them too. Grace to be Born has been here for 6 years already and we're blessed to be still operating til now, we get help with people like you, like Kim Rodriguez and GMA, and we don't get permanent help but get by with donations. Light of Jesus family helps us too in so many ways." You can also get in touch with them on their Facebook page here if you want to help.     

It was also nice to see some of Kim Rodriguez's sponsors helping the cause. Big shoutout to Artista Salon who gave livelihood starter kits to expectant moms. They taught and had some of them cut hair and provide services, a thing that they could do to earn a living after their stay here in Grace to be Born. They also received goodies from Unisilver Time and Aquabest. You could see the faces of the women in the shelter light up when they played games and small contests, it kept them entertained while we were there. You could also see Kim's reaction on how she got to interact with the women and how her contribution will go a long way to the care of them, they absolutely need your help too. I remember what Ms. Esther told us during our visit, some people just appear on their door with 2 sacks of rice, they need that to feed everyone in the shelter and when they need it, people just go there and help.

 

 Now here's a short interview we did during that event:



Happy happy birthday Kim! Stay blessed!

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Splice Delivers Exclusively via FoodPanda!

We visited SPLICE last week to try out their dishes courtesy of our friends from Food Panda. Splice has been operating since early this year and has impressed some of the foodies this side of town. SPLICE is located in Greenfield District's new strip called The Portal right along Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong City. 

At the helm is Chef Ivory Yat (third place in the first season of Pinoy Master Chef), she co-owns this place with Oliver Chan, Malou Galian, Harvard Uy de Baron and Japs de Jesus. The menu, is quite unique, filled with off tangent comfort food you could expect from a more adventurous establishment without the hefty price. They could have charged higher, but I don't think they made the restaurant that way, definitely not.

Splice Nacho Grande - It's like Cheese with Nachos, they don't hold back drizzling it with warm cheese sauce and add more cheese to an already cheezy version of bar nachos. Pretty good, has some bits of beef in the mix so it would be really perfect with 2 or more bottles of beer which they serve in Splice too.

Sriracha Butter Wings - It's  not your usual buffalo wings because they use Thai/Viet/Asian hot sauce called Sriracha to spice up your butter smothered wings. Not too salty, so you can feel the spices shine in this dish. It was pretty good.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup - This one felt okay, but I think the only fancy thing here is probably the spice on top (which I think is paprika and or nutmeg) plus a few lines of sourcream and snips of parsley. Hearty and would be perfect for the rainy days.

French Onion Soup - Must have this while it's hot. Don't take photos, just take it all in.

Splice Salad - I love the combination of sweet, salty, tangy and the freshness of the greens. I must admit it felt like I was having a Waldorf Salad without the walnuts and apples. I like it.

Slut's Spaghetti - Pardon the name but I think it's where they got the Puttanesca name to begin with. It's got really good meatballs, tomatoes, capers and olives in a tad salty anchovy oil. It wasn't to hot at all, plus I like how they kinda fried the meatballs because I don't like the ones they usually simmer in tomato sauce. This one is just right.

Danggit and Chicken Skin Pasta - My first impression was, this isn't date food. It will have the intense smell of danggit as the name implies and the fishy salty profile will complement the crunchy bits of chicken skin spread throughout the plate. It's not too overpowering but it's danggit so freshen up immediately before you talk to your loved one. Or mints.

All seemed to be patterned to the well loved family "The Simpsons" they concocted these Doughnut burgers.The first one is Homer's D'ohnut burger which had a play with spicy, creamy and tons bacon. The one on the top right is the Bartholomew Burger. It's got that glazed donut, coleslaw, cheese and jalapeno. It's not as spicy as you may think, it's just right but the flavor tells me you'll love that small kick when you bite into it. The Liza Burger has a salted caramel donut bread, honey dijon mustard and barbecue sauce. The representation is promising but I might think presentation can perhaps be improved somewhere, even if the bread is pretty delicate to work with. Still, the burger is divine.

Splice Beef Belly Barbecue - It's like skewered ribs, you can feel the root beer aftertaste. It was sweet and nice.

These are pretty good entree's which I think you could consider as mains. The first one is Buko Pandan Rice with the 8 hour Pork Belly Confit. Crunchy pork plus fragrant rice, it was a formula bound to be successful. I never tried anything like this so it piqued my interest. Hearing it being prepared 8 hours was a task, what more even doing it. A little chili and Vinaigrette was nice with it. The others like Chicken Saltimbocca, Brown Sugar Belly and Beef Stroganoff (which I also love) can be served for two people. I think they'll play around with these dishes more in the coming months. 

The sweet endings always, always has to happen, so they came out with these Red and White Pannacotta Crunch made with Vanilla Pannacotta, Strawberry Jam and Donut crunch, plus the Mango Pannacotta Crunch where they use almost the same ingredient but with Mango coolie and same donut crunch. Then we had the Meringue con Quezo that's got a cheesecake filling, graham crackers and fresh strawberries. They actually made a dessert with different textures, had it in different forms, but it works. It was a perfect way to end our meal and perhaps, a reason to come back for more.

Well, not really. If you don't have that much time, you can have all these meals right at the comforts of your own home. Splice delivers exclusively through Food Panda. If you are within the radius, you can use the FoodPanda app or visit www.foodpanda.ph and order online. Check out their social media channels below so you get updated with their new partner merchants as well. It's location based so wherever you are, you've got your neighborhood's best restaurants listed on this app. If they're not listed, you can always suggest your favorite restaurant and they'll think of a way to have them there too. It was a fun afternoon with other foodies, thank you Splice! Thank you also FoodPanda for having us!

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McJim Classic Leather Launches Dreams Get Real: The Search for the Next OPM Star Season2

After the very successful first season of McJim Classic Leather's Dreams Get Real: The Search for the next OPM Star, here they go again and launched it's second season to discover new Filipino talents and promising acts all for the love of OPM. They've already made headlines with last years champs Fifth Dynamics, JBK and Neo Domingo and this time, they're going to amp up the ante with fresh voices, bigger, better and brighter stars in Dreams Get Real history.

Chris Cahilig the Dreams Get Real Project Head says "The level of competition is just mind blowing because during the eliminations, we were just pain stricken in choosing the top 10. It was around a hundred entries then we had to choose 20 for the mall eliminations. After that, we had the top 8 then add 2 more wildcard entries so we could complete the final 10. At this point, I've noticed that they are all talented but we're looking for that perfect one who has star quality. In this group, with proper guidance, we're going to have a star! We've been waiting to introduce to you the 10 finalists of this competition. The company has sternly supported OPM all these years and we've even had OPM artists as endorsers so it is inherent for the brand. The winners last year is about to launch their debut albums, all in a span of two months so please watch out for that. We also have the contestant's videos up on our youtube and social media channels and all will be culminated at the Music Museum and announced on November 9, the process is rigorous and we'll have the brightest star among them, we can't wait for you to see them all!"

These contestants are comprised of students, amateur and professional singers, people from all walks of life and some of them noted that this is a lot different from competitions they've joined in the past. The top 10 contestants are Zsarina Concepcion, Eiffel Manansala, Carmela Ravanilla, Micah Llona, CJ Raneses, Tricia May Casauay, Erickson Malabanan, Kym Penoso, Abigail Mendoza and Apple Delleva. Some of them have frequented competitions but some of them are totally new. 

The competition will make thesr guys and gals win a full album, their own music video, Php 100,000 cash prize from McJim Classic Leather, artist marketing support (which they'll find very important!) and a talent management contract. For more details about the competition, please like their Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/OfficialMcJim so you can catch these performers as they battle it out with other artists very soon! 

Ciao!

KUMAGCOW

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