Hysteria (n: panic, hysterics, frenzy, madness) HERO TV and the senior Advertising Arts class of the University of the East College of Fine Arts recently held “HYSTERIA: Fashion Show for a Cause” at the UE Tan Yan Kee Building parking lot and at the UE Theater, Recto, Manila.The event served as an opportunity for UE CFA students to show their own fashion designs inspired by artists Piet Mondrian and Andy Warhol as well as Japanese street fashion collections. Participants also came dressed in their favorite anim, sentai, and computer games characters in the Cosplay parade.
This annual campus tradition was started last 2000 as part of the university’s foundation day. This year, the event was co-sponsored by HERO TV, the first and only Tagalog-dubbed anim channel in the Philippines and the Home of the New Anim Revolution. HERO TV will celebrate its first anniversary on November 18 at the World Trade Center.
“Hysteria is a unique fashion show with a noble purpose.? The organizers really exerted so much effort in designing the costumes,” HERO TV segment producer Carlo Jan Landrito said.
Read the rest of this entry »
A former officemate asked me two days after the Dinig Sa Guimaras event how the gig turned out for the first musical fund-raiser for the province. At first, I was delighted to ‘hear’ from this then colleague that it was so nice of this person to inquire how the evening transpired. So, I politely said it went ‘well’. Of course, people were expecting us to fail since it was the production’s first attempt and I simply said it went ‘well’ for the sake of brevity. Since brevity is the soul of wit, let me be a fool this time by being brutally frank while still being Roy.
It was great to have power back after 72 hours since the typhoon razed havoc in Metro Manila. Electricity was out for three long days in the Greenhills area but on the night of the event itself, I believed for a moment that God was not that angry anymore as I was informed by a co-organizer that Meralco’s electricity had flowed like honey once more!
Having no power for that long, it was impossible to imagine the lack of cold beer in convenient stores within proximity. Nevertheless, if Bela Bar was flooded with beer, I would estimate that the amount of beer could have probably touched the edge of my balls. The people had to scavenge for slightly chilled Red Horse beer just so everyone could have a dose of alcohol that they all deserve. The beer could have been frozen cold from where they got it from but due to traffic and distance, the beer temperature had probably altered to a nearly undrinkable state.
Read the rest of this entry »
In In the year 1999, the Erika Oil Spill in France rocked the whole world. The 25-year old Erika MT tanker broke into two and sank off the Brittany coast of France, leaking almost 14,000 tons of fuel and damaging 400 km. (240 miles) of coastline. The events spurred international in-depth reports, like the BBC documentary that showed a highly accurate portrayal of what was wrong with the international maritime industry.
In the beginning, Total Fina, the French oil company that owned the oil transported by Erika, denied any responsibility for the oil spill. This instigated French public outrage, while three major European countries started a boycott against the company. Suffering from public pressure and the threat of legal action in the French courts, Total Fina eventually admitted responsibility for the environmental disaster.
Many hoped that another Erika would never happen, but on Aug. 11, 2005, a tiny island in the Philippines named Guimaras suffered the same fate. In the role of Total Fina was a Philippine oil company named Petron. Petron is jointly owned by the Philippine government (30 percent), Saudi Aramco (40 percent), and other private stakeholders. More than 1 million liters of bunker fuel leaked from MT Solar I, the tanker hauling the Petron oil, damaging almost 300 km. (180 miles) of coastline and hectares of mangroves, while displacing 26,000 people, most of whom were fishermen who depended upon the sea for livelihood.
Read the rest of this entry »
To view the entire document, click the picture above. Below is also a text version of the article.
“The Erika, a tanker carrying approximately 30,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, broke into two sections about 45 miles south of Brittany’s Finisterre peninsula. Around 14,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil leaked into the Atlantic, and 14,600 tonnes of oil remained trapped in the sunken sections of the hold. TotalFina owned the oil; Panship Management and Services owned the vessel. The legal view at TotalFina was that the company was not responsible; it was the responsibility of the vessel owner, of whom no one had ever heard.”
“The fact that the TotalFina? brand was a household name around the world and that its reputation was its most important asset mattered not a jot, said the lawyers. The only response of any importance, according to the legal view, was to be seen as not liable. In other words, to do absolutely nothing. Big, huge mistake. Within two weeks, the company’s share price had fallen 5%, the French Government had intervened and demanded that TotalFina take some positive action and the company’s boss, Thierry Desmarest, had been savaged by the newspaper Le Figaro in a way that no French businessman has been before or since.”
Read the rest of this entry »
JOURNALISTS LASH OUT AT IOPC EXEC FOR DOWNPLAYING OIL SPILL-David Israel Sinay (Panay News)
ILOILO City Two months since the oil spill in Guimaras began, the sunken MT Solar 1 remains at the bottom of the Guimaras Strait and continues to leak bunker oil, displacing over 40,000 residents and destroying the environment. But International Oil Pollution Compensation (IOPC) Deputy Director Joe Nichols wants the media to downplay the environmental disaster.
Read the rest of this entry »
For more details on how to order, please write to Laura at: [email protected]. Rock for Guimaras t-shirts is a part of the concert project of Versus team headed by Laura Mejias.
I was about to post a list of First World Countries that are helping us with the oil spill plight when it dawned on me that I’m back at pre-school and can just literally count them with my fingers. (Now, as you well know, first world countries are the no. 1 pollutants in the world and consume more oil than we do.) The same countries above are generous donors to the Oil Spill Compensation Fund with Japan being the principal donor. Smelling where the money is, Pinoy Politicians have been surely raving about the Oil Spill Fund to make us feel we’re already saved but are actually distracting us from the real issue and giving us people false hopes!
Well, unfortunately, the Oil Spill Compensation Fund only pay clean-up costs but not pay for the environmental damage caused by the oil-spill! And what’s more, Inquirer reports said we are not even sure if we are gonna get a piece of the cake!
“The IOPCF, however, did not specify whether the people who became ill from the oil pollution could file claims for compensation or remuneration of expenses for treatment of their conditions.
In its March 2006 manual, the IOPCF said that to be entitled to compensation, the damage must result from oil pollution and must have caused a quantifiable economic loss.”
In all types of calamities, it is always the children who suffer the most. What does the future hold for them? Inquirer reports that Guimaras child evacuees had to bear heat, discomfort and stench in their makeshift classrooms. (The stench was not coming from the bunker fuel but from the CHEMICAL DISPERSANTS!. According to DOH, chemical dispersants are more harmful than the bunker fuel itself.)
Sludge also posted an article that reported children have higher risks of contracting defects when exposed to fuel oil because they? are not able to? metabolize, detoxify and excrete environmental agents that enter their bodies. Weeks after the oil incident, Alejandro, a two year old child, died from an asthma attack, a likely result of inhaling fumes from the oil slick. (Photo courtesy of Hazel P. Villa)
Menu of the Day: TOXIC
What do you think are they gonna eat if:
-
Income lost by 10,000 Guimaras fisherfolk: 3 to 5 million pesos daily
-
Displaced fisherfolk are still waiting for assistance from the city government (Read accompanying news at
Sludge blog)
-
Water and soil samples in 3 barangays have been found contaminated. (Read it
here).
-
There are still no alternative jobs for Guimaras victims.? (Read it
here.)
-
Relief goods don’t reach the victims.
Anthony J. is an active member of care2.com, a social network for social causes. He is an environmentalist and an outspoken social activist on renewable energy and climate change. Anthony writes: “It wasn’t that long ago that Southeast Asia, Australia, China, and the United States entered into an agreement on the advancement of coal burning facilities, throughout these regions.”
“Since this agreement time and time again I have ran across a legion of environmental accidents occurring in the region. I’m not uniting the two, I’m simply pointing out that unless this consortium of nations begins addressing the issue of renewable energy, these accidents will continue and actually increase in numbers.
As the concept of clean burning coal is a fiction, coal is the dirtiest and most dangerous contributor of CO2 the world over. This applies to every aspect of coal, from manufacturing to supply and consumption. So without any further ado, lets turn our attention to a travesty that has occurred in the Pacific.”
Read the rest of this entry »
