ART IS A BANG: Performance Artist Explores Female Power and Beauty Through Poetryand Visual Expression

Performance poetry artist, advocate and educator Kooky Tuason presents a fresh look at female empowerment in her new coffee table book Picket Lines: Dialogues Between Eves, Among Eves and For Eves, which features 100 photos of women with poems written on their bodies. The book juxtaposes poetry on select women’s skin and images to make powerful statements about the lives of women.

Picket Lines is a product of the author’s collaboration with photographers Niccolo Cosme, Tabitha Fernan, Mitch Mauricio, Katrina Pallon, and Nikkorlai Tapan. It features various women, many of whom are leaders in their fields and prominent in the public arena such as Sr. Mary John Mananzan, Fides Cuyugan-Asensio, Miriam Quiambao, Shawn Yao, Andrea del Rosario, Nina Ricci Alagao, Cecile Guidote-Alavarez, Love Anover, Jodi Sta. Maria, Lilia Cuntapay, Cynthia Alexander, Kate Torralba, Michelline Syjuco, Risa Hontiveros, Sonia Roco, Twinkle Ferraren, Abby Asistio, Gaby dela Merced, Giselle Sanchez, Sanya Smith, Mocha, Karen Kunawicz, Gloria Diaz, Aimee Marcos, Anita Linda. The images reflected in the book were intensified by the contributions of highly talented make-up artists and stylists.

PROJECT PAGSULONG: Building the nation is our business

Given the chance how will you alleviate poverty? That is a question that most of us ask to our fellow Filipinos and even to ourselves. That is why the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines Alumni Community (TOSP-AC) , PLDT Smart Foundation, RFM Foundation, and PLDT Ka Asenso fourmulated a formula of:

Youth + Technology + Entrepreneurship

Through Project Pagsulong which aims to promote youth to do businesses and also at the same time make a social impact with the community called Social Entrepreneurship. The Program Lifecycle starts with the application that is still ongoing (June to August 30, 2012). Each team should be 3 members(18-30 years old) to 5 max with 1 proposal.

COMMIT to End HIV/AIDS (Headshot and Education)

TODAY IS WORLD AIDS DAY 2011. I do believe in the power of education and the right choices. And knowing the true facts about HIV/AIDS and how to prevent them. Why need to talk about this? Its because everyday 6 to 8 people are get infected by the still incurable epidemic, and this is just the Philippines!

To spread the awareness I've attended Project Headshot Clinic's new campaign COMMIT at Victoria Court, Malate, Manila. I have participated with the Red Whistle Bloggers' Night which the post also contained useful information for people who want to be tested and contact numbers of agencies one can use if in case of doubt or reassurance being free of the deadly virus before one may spread it to friends and loved ones.

I also got new information about how the virus can spread and shattered the old things about the disease. Better review these facts and share them to family and friends to be informed than be victims of the pandemic and public discrimination.

BLOW The RED WHISTLE

Now with 7 Billion people in the world, the problems also grew like hunger, housing and most especially health. Though many sickness can be cured by medicines today, the HIV/AIDS epidemic remains the most alarming sickness that infects 6 people everyday in the country. And the complications that come with it gives the infected person agonizing pain and also rejection from society.

Now is the perfect time to spread the awareness about HIV/AIDS so that more people may get to know how it is transferred and how to prevent it. 

The Philippines is facing an alarming rise in HIV infection. Six new infections are recorded everyday, an exponential leap from the ‘low and slow’ character of the epidemic before 2007. There are also reports of undocumented HIV-related deaths, a manifestation of the invisibility of the epidemic and its impact. Evidence indicates that the increase is driven by the lack of awareness and appreciation of the risks of HIV infection due to unprotected sex, which is aggravated by fear and stigma that surround the virus and the people living with HIV and AIDS. 


The Red Whistle Campaign is a response to this alarming situation. The emerging trend shows that the current prevention programs are insufficient, and the communities affected by the epidemic must be mobilized into action to support initiatives that aim to stop the epidemic.