Tim Hortons Now In The Philippines!

It looks like the Canadian's are here! Tim Hortons Canada's well loved and biggest coffee and baked goods chain just opened shop at the Ground Floor of Uptown Mall in BGC. The brand has existed for 50 years and they promise to bring the same good Double Double Coffee and signature doughnuts to the Philippines as this is their first franchise in the Southeast Asian Region.

The opening was graced by the DOT Secretary, Miss Universe Canada Siera Bearchell, and Canadian Embassy officials this morning.

The interiors are modern, farmed wood, could probably sit around 60 people. It's a busy district with nearby offices so expect it to be packed the whole day. They have ample wifi, so be nice and ask the barista for codes.

They are popular for Coffee, and as they say in Northern America they don't say I need Coffee anymore. They usually say "Let's go to Tim's! Let's go to Timmies!", understandably so.

Oh yeah, and the donuts are divine. You'll love the glazed ones, and the frosted ones too!

Other baked products like the cookies and muffins are also best sellers, so do get some before it runs out!

And never, ever, ever, ever go home without the TIMBITS which are delightful small donuts made fresh everyday.

A great cozy environment for coffee lovers and doughnut people alike. I guess they'll also be opening a few more branches here and around Asia soon so if you're too far right now, expect them in your neighborhood pretty soon!

Oh and if you want more, order the eclair because that's my fave! Trust me on that!

KUMAGCOW

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THE VOICE Season 12 on Star World!

We spent a couple of hours trying to figure out if we're cut for the job at The Voice Season 12 launch in Manila. Yes, 12 seasons of discovering raw talent powerful voices without judging them on looks during the first round and battling it out with equally capable individuals to become the best of the best in the United States. 

The party will start this February 28 at 2PM and will get repeats at 7PM and 10PM on the same day. This will also mark the return of my love Gwen Stefani. She'll be joining country star boyfriend Blake Shelton, good looking and sexy Adam Levine plus the great Alicia Keys. Coaches will also get paired with mentors Celine Dion (for Gwen), Luke Bryan (for Blake), John Legend (for Adam) and DJ Khaled (for Alicia Keys). 

So make sure you tune in to Starworld on these dates, to make sure you'll get a singer made like a champion with their guidance. This is going to be crazy!

KUMAGCOW

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Beat the Summer with Daikin Aircons

On a day like this, I would like to pour a bucket of cold ice on myself for obvious reasons. Summer is just around the corner and I'm sure it'll only get hotter. Not because of my sculptured german physique but because seasons change. Thank the heavens above for there's always aircon. 

Lee Wai Kok of Daikin Philippines says "Daikin will have powerful cooling capable air conditioners with less power consumption in the country. We will take action with the demand of customers, harnessing synergy in the technology, our best products will come with best services too. We will put up more service centers soon. We will get our products affordable while we provide our Cool King line and see to it that every Filipino home would get environmentally safe products that follow the Montreal protocol as we phase out R22 products and have inverters in cooling systems and it's motor. This is the most energy efficient line. We believe in challenging the status quo, this is more user friendly."

Daikin currently has the Standard Cool King Unit and the Premium Cool King Unit in their Cool King series. These are split type air conditioners that uses R-104A refrigerants that have 23dBA so it won't be as noisy as that. The other is the Home Central Air Conditioning which you can use for multiple rooms in your home or office, individually controlled for your convenience. This will be arriving soon.

KUMAGCOW

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The 1st Philippine Rare Disease Symposium

Have you had your share of experience with rare diseases? I'm sure you've had several of it heard from the news, and most of it had no cure, no extensive study and a very bleak mortality rate at that. It actually affects a percentage of the population, although low, it still would be a matter of concern because it's lives we're talking about here. Moreover, most of the kids affected die before the age of 5 which is really scary. 

Dr. Carmencita Padilla says "With the infrastructure we have the numbers are more, but it's complicated and difficult with rare cases and we cannot afford to let a patient die but we have the numbers. The IRR is just being made but we're actually prioritizing the improvment of detection, improvement of laboratories, equipping pediatricians and initially we're looking at supporting medicines and supplies the mega hospitals across the countries so we have multiple specialties across the country. A portion of the president's 100 Billion fund for health, but if you factor that in we need about 200 Billion for indigent patients so this is just a drop in the bucket. We are connected with other countries and yesterday we have formalized the Asian Metabolic industry, the Philippines is one of the leaders and learning from the newborn screening method that we do, they are trying to have this in their respective countries and we are connected with them now. This infrastructure is existent and we just need to connect, we lack specialists and that needs focus training so we could address these patients. We just need to enhance it on the field, like the nutritionists and dieticians, when you look at a hospital's team the DOH nominates them. Disabilities from environmental factors are different, these are recessive diseases happen 1 in 4 times, if a person has it, it can happen to babies and the genetics clinic in PGH and connecting it to the network can get more genetic counsellors in the country. The goal is to have big hospitals to have one so they can refer people to the right doctors as a first step, one per million as the WHO suggests." 

DOH Secretary Paulyn Ubial adds "Let's get genetic counsellors for our provincial and regional hospitals. The biggest challenge is really the human resource, and since 1992 we don't have capital outlay, only in 2007 did we get one and we need 7,500 more beds to at least have that infrastructure in place and shows a lack of specialization per population. We need to have force multipliers to have counselling to screen and detect with general practitioners to address these lack of people. There are gaps, we need to identify them with genetic counsellors and see if this could at least address when they happen. We have to adjust."

It was so sweet to see some of the kids afflicted with rare diseases to actually perform for us that afternoon, I had to hold back taking photos as I want them to have their privacy. This should be something that the governments around the world should look into, provide the needed infrastructure and manpower so these kids won't have to suffer. Please make sure you support the RARE DISEASE ACT and call your congressmen to pass this. 

They should listen.

KUMAGCOW

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