Dancing our culture away

Reading a status message of a friend and batch mate from high school on my news feed on Facebook disturbed me. 

It was a disappointed comment about the opening number performed by Sarah Geronimo in her weekly show, Sarah G. Live! aired last Sunday, 12 August 2012 on ABS-CBN (Channel 2, on UHF). Sarah danced Singkil, a Maranao cultural epic dance, while singing adaptations of a number of novelty songs. I wasn't able to see it live, but I was too alarmed that I had to search for it online and verify. True enough, the pop star was doing a "modernized" version of Singkil. (Watch the video here.)

I shared my friend's (who by the way spent and devoted years to various forms of dance) sentiment. I felt that in as much as I want to assume that the show was promoting Filipino culture, it went overboard that for me affected the integrity of Singkil.

As the water rises

For the past weeks, the Philippines have been experiencing strange and intense calamities.

On 1 August 2012, a storm surge during the onslaught of Typhoon Gener was experienced along the coasts of Manila Bay. This stretched from Roxas Boulevard in Manila to some towns of Cavite. Roxas Boulevard was left flooded and closed for traffic. Worse, tons of garbage were washed to shore as if the sea was spewing back to us the garbage we improperly threw away.

Skinfatuated ™ with VMV

Like a teener who blushes every time her crush's name is mentioned, I flush when I talk about VMV.  I giggle and I just talk non-stop about it. (My friends can attest to that.) No, VMV is not a pseudonym, it is a brand of skin care products.

I met VMV Hypoallergenics through a small blue box in Christmas of 2009. My best friend gave me an Id Buff-buff Clarifying soap to help erase my bacne (back acne). It worked, but I was nonchalant about it, because I wasn't very conscious about skin care then. 

Fast forward to January of 2011. While preparing for the 2010 Bar Examinations, I was plagued with acne due to stress. I never had as many breakouts my entire life and it sadly did not go away until VMV came to the rescue, just like a knight in shining armor. From then, our love affair blossomed that I want to spend the rest of my life with VMV.