The BISTRO GROUP Got Fully Vaccinated

 

The Bistro Group is one of the biggest restaurant chains in the country. They've got over 18 restaurant concepts which includes TGIFRIDAYS who's got pretty good burgers and ribs, ITALIANNI’S who served lovely pizza and pasta, TEXAS ROADHOUSE for the best steaks, DENNY’S who serves all day breakfas, WATAMI for Japanese cuisine, HARD ROCK CAFÉ who serves American comfort food (yes I mean those cheesy macaroni!) and live entertainment, plus the Spanish cuisin that Las Flores, BCN, Tomatitos and Rambla's offer and more. As of now, they've got over 80 branches nationwide and employ a lot in the food and beverage industry.

Recently, they announced that ALL their restaurant staff have been FULLY VACCINATED. That's a huge feat especially when Chef's, cooks, servers are protected, it'll be safer to dine in or receive delivery from these establishments. Of course, we still have to observe protocols and do our best to get vaccinated too but knowing this alone, brings a sense of security that they're taking the threat of the virus seriously. Their staff will be wearing their vaccination pin proudly so if you're looking forward to dine in (on a limited basis based on government restrictions) a Bistro group restaurant is a must! The Bistro Group President and COO Jean Paul Manuud says "We support all efforts in vaccination drives. We also want to bring the economy back to life and make dining options safe for all stakeholders."

In a nutshell, it's reassuring and as they say, a JAB well done! You may order from them via the Food Panda app, the Grab app and the Bistro Delivers app which is available in the Google Play store and the App Store on iOS.

JEREMIAH TIANGCO Releases New Single "Sa Tuwing Umuulan"

I always envied his haircut and over the years, his fashion sense has definitely admired by so many. In his latest IG stories, I've seen how the monsoon rains have been not too kind in Cavite and yes, even his house was affected these past few days.

We got to get in touch with Jeremiah Tiangco, the Clash champ himself a few days ago because he just released his newest single called "Sa Tuwing Umuulan". He's worked hard to make this single his best together with songwriter Arnie Mendaros. Listening to recently, it had a different vibe, a little funk and R&B and smooth vocal runs which Jeremiah has been known for. Honestly, if I had wine or coffee and it was raining outside, this would be the perfect song to listen to. Here's the rest of the blog conference where we also talked about his plans and perhaps his vision of "not being single" anymore in the coming years.

Anyway, Jeremiah's single "Sa Tuwing Umuulan" is now out on digital streaming sites so go download it and stream today! This is under GMA Music.

Congrats Miah! I love your voice, your music, and hope God blesses you more with more songs and opportunities. You deserve it!

 

Cut! Print. Podcast Network Starts POD CON 2021

Just got off the POD CON 2021 this morning and I'm really excited about this. I've been listening to a few throughout the years and I've seen some of them in this joint. Cut! Print. PodCast Network is the brain child of Cut! Print. Productions who are the same people behind the acclaimed short film NAKAW.

Jett Pangan hosted the show and according to Patsy Ferrer the PodMother "We bring in creators and independent talents so we can help them produce. I've talked to Jett Pangan initially and after that, we got several independent podcasters to help them produce content and create their original shows. Now we have 22 of them, all went through our incubation program and some of them will be in the panel later. It's been a good year even under the pandemic, but podcasts now have more reach because people started listening more during the period. We just concluded our event last month and released new shows from our incubator programs. We help them organize their content and put them on trainings, more like a school for podcasters. We have POP Emergency which is a pop culture show, Earpods Pro talks about mental health, Covert Operations which is about slight of hand magic, Chubby Cheeka is about body positivity and women, Kumaretalk Podcast is about current events and topics that matter, Sa San Isidro is about radio drama, Geeks and Gamers Getting By is about how gaming can help you in your daily lives, The Undertaker is about a paranormal raido drama, Now Open is about sex ed and discourse on sexuality, Blogtalk Hollywood is about Hollywood news, Ang Atty Co is about legal matters done in layman terms, Thirsty and Thirty talks about smarter love, The Design Pod is about visual and graphic design and a whole lot more in store for you soon."

Bonnie Pequeña of The Round Table says "Podcasting has not been maximized yet in the Philippines but there's an exciting future for it. Now people are consuming audio content, it's progressing. I've been doing speaking engagements now with schools to talk about young relationships."

Lucena based Jeck Jaca who does Jeck Does Tech "I started this podcast a long time ago, and didn't have the courage to post it. I was initially making it for myself, it gathered listeners so I went really serious about it. I was happy to have been able to do talks in Cultural Center of the Philippines, it brings comfort to have been able to do that and it gave me confidence doing things later on. We have a lot of things in the pipeline, please watch out for that, you'll love this thing we're cooking."

Juan Timay of Nays Juan Sessions says "Based in Mindanao, I first started doing this because I didn't love editing vlogs. Podcasting had a lot of similarities so I just made it as an audio journal which was for personal consumption. I used Binisaya because I could express more, not just in the region, but elsewhere in the world. I made use of that because, why not? Cut! Print. Podcast Network taught me editing and recording, a whole lot about podcasting. I'm currently in the network, and their support is nothing but phenomenal, I felt it is the podcast network for me and for everyone. Soon, we're going to have negosyo sessions, we'll also have collaboration with really nice stories to share."

Shawntel Nieto of Sustainarumble says "I'm excited to be here. I'm a sustainability advocate, and we met last year while I was talking about my movement. We started to formulate the idea of having a podcast that discusses solutions for sustainability for the ordinary joe. We believe podcasting is slowly growing, a lot of people can benefit, be knowlegeable, easy to comprehend our efforts and have a cool place to talk about this topic. Because of this, we received The Diana Award (yes the Princess Diana!). It's quite an achievement more so to be the first Filipina to have it. I've been active in sustainable development in communities, provide food in our cities, and do efforts for our frontliners, partner with restaurants and businesses here in Cainta and nearby towns as well. It's about making it a conversation, about making it not data heavy, explain it casually so people in the community feel they're part of it and easily understand things. We also ask experts we invite, so anyone who listens to it can learn from Sustainarumble."

As a Dungeons and Dragongs based podcast it's not that easy to make it into a show. Jethro Parolan and Dan Areola of You Have Six Seconds says "I've had the pleasure to do this initially on our own and the content was more role playing, and when creating conecpts, it had to be structured. We will try to have our content be right with the holidays of the year, soon, we're going to release this like one shots, a non canonical story. So you'll have horror, more holiday inspired story lines."

Taryn Navarro and Angela Tiotangco-Alvarez of Career Mo 'Te "It's an advocacy for women empowerment, with a multimedia platform posting about it on social media. Now we're producing our own show thanks to Cut! Print. Podcast Network. We're just starting and we can't wait to have more episodes released soon on our podcasts."

Issa Litton hosted the second part of the press conference. She introduced an ASMR podcaster Joshua Von Drake, GMA Network's voice George Boone, Marites for all season and Tiktok Superstar Justine Luzares, actor and The Dawn frontman Jett Pangan, and top voice actor Inka Magnaye. They are part of the talent roster of Cut! Print. Podcast Network.

Patsy says "We manage talents too. It's a lot different on podcasters, talents are the ones we manage. Inka already got a Hollywood stint, we want to see them move forward.

Joshua Von Drake plays the role of the perfect virtual "boyfriend on demand" and will have a collaboration with Inka Magnaye in a future show. They will also be doing ASMR which I'd love to see in a future episode. In the show, Joshua says "It is me, just a little bit unfiltered." George Boone is also doing a Masterclass on his podcast, the legendary voice of GMA is willing to share his expertise in voice acting and the different facets of it. Trending with a total of 10 accents is Justine Luzares and he's glad to have been able to work with Cut! Print. and manage his new found niche. Jett Pangan on the other hand touched on efforts they've been doing with Congress to help the music and creative industry, saying "Governments change but the creative people will stay the same. We hope you check out CreativeIndustriesPH for that cause."

Inka Magnaye has been with the podcast network for over a year. She says "It was an interesting experience to be able to work in this industry and I felt nervous judging there, they work so fast in Eat Bulaga. I needed to step up and observe, learn how to banter and I love every bit of it. The Hollywood film "Surprise!" happened when the producer messaged me on Instagram. Matt Marlowe asked if they wanted me to be part of it and it was an interesting thing that TikTok talents were part of it. We were like their dream cast, they were happy about it because they had to shoot from different countries. South Africa, LA, Manila, we were checking with each others schedules and every time we shot we were like awake in the wee hours of the morning. It makes the world so much smaller. It was shot entirely on zoom. The film is around 10 minutes, I'm so happy about that!"

 

I asked Inka and Joshua about creeps who message them and Inka says "I get a lot of creeps all the time, how do I handle it? I fight them, when they're really bad it feels more like swatting a fly, an aggressive response." while Joshua on the other hand says "I don't really get a lot but I do get some in my socials and email. I respond to them professionally."

Podcasts still have a long way to grow in the country but these people are flourishing. Faster internet, access to it will become easier in the coming years and it's such a nice moment to be in the first POD CON 2021, hearing from these success stories, I'm optimistic that the future for it is bright! Thanks to Cut! Print. Podcast Network for inviting us on their first salvo. Hope there will be more of this soon, if not next year!

How I wish I could start my own podcast no?

Huawei ICT Academy Inks Partnership with 15 Schools in the PH

Huawei just partnered up with 15 Universities and Colleges via Huawei ICT Academy in the Philippines. This comes as they wish to develop, build and strengthen the country's local ICT talent ecosystem. This includes prestigous schools like University of the East, STI College in Alabang, Southville International School and Colleges, Colegio de Muntinlupa, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Muntinlupa, Southern Luzon Technological College Foundation, Angeles University Foundation, Marinduque State College, and the University of the Assumption among others.

In Visayas and Mindanao they've also partnered up with schools like University of the Visayas and Cebu Institute of Technology, Xavier-Ateneo de Cagayan University, Holy Cross of Davao College and Jose Maria College in Davao.

This is part of Huawei's corporate social responsibility programs under the Huawei ICT Academy. They provide certification courses in the fields of AI, big data, cloud computing, storage management, 5G communication, security which would benefit faculty and students alike. They initially laucnhed this in 2018 and was successful in University of Southeastern Philippines. It has spurred growth in the region and has produced competent teachers, students that have had Huawei Certified Network Associate certifications and some of them getting certified as Huawei Academy Instructors.

That's good news!