LAKBAYAN: Pinoy Homecoming Hospitality Center Opens at DMIA

Balikbayans arriving at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in Pampanga, will experience their warmest welcome yet with the opening of the Pinoy Homecoming Hospitality Center at the airport on November 29.

Spearheaded by the Department of Tourism (DOT), the homecoming center is part of the government's ongoing efforts to boost visitor arrivals from the balikbayan market by 25 percent in the next five years. Dubbed as the Pinoy Homecoming campaign, it primarily targets Filipinos based overseas, not only in the United States and Canada but worldwide.

LAKBAYAN: Discover the North Pole at SM North EDSA

Experience the North Pole in the city with SM NORTH EDSA!



Christmas is here at SM North EDSA with the majestic display of things found at the North Pole. And this is where we can find Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, the elves and even the reindeers!


Visit their website at www.smnenorthpole.com, take the 360 virtual tour, and also like them on facebook at www.facebook.com/smnedsa.


Northpole Christmas at SM City North Edsa recreates Santa’s life in his home, the place where Christmas began. It is where kids and kids-at-heart can experience the joy and wonders of Santa’s snowy village where dreams come to life and wishes come true!
Santa is so happy you have come to visit his place. He has the North Pole full of fun and exciting things to do for kids this Christmas.

LAKABAYAN: San Juanico Golf Hotel - A Holiday Paradise Beckons

Enjoy Christmas and vacation trips at a holiday paradise with families and friends. The San Juanico Golf Hotel is a 30-room hotel surrounded with breath-taking verdant landscape of flat and gently sloping greens, panorama of endless rolling hills and mountains offers world-class amenities and accommodations to those visiting Eastern Visayas. 

Guests at the hotel get an exquisite view of the San Juanico Bridge, a historic structure and an engineering marvel that spans two kms across the strait that connects Samar and Leyte provinces.  It is considered the most beautiful sea-spanning bridge in the Philippines. 

REEL DEAL Movies and Television: Andy Serkis SPOTLIGHT

Andy Serkis plays Captain Haddock in  Spileberg’s The Adventure of Tintin

To play Haddock, Jackson suggested an actor he knew had what it would take to embody all the dynamics of the role:  Andy Serkis.   “Knowing Andy as well as I did, I knew he’d be absolutely terrific, so I arranged for him to meet Steven, who saw right away what he could bring to it,” he says.  


Spielberg adds: “Andy and Jamie had fantastic chemistry as this iconic pairing of a youthful, moral straight shooter and an old, reprobate sea captain.  They’re complete opposites, yet Captain Haddock brings many lessons to Tintin’s life, and Tintin really gives Haddock a chance to redeem himself.”


Serkis, who has been a fan of the comic since childhood, decided to give his character, whose origins are open to interpretation, a Scottish brogue that sets the tone for his journey.   “It seemed appropriate that Haddock should have a kind of rawness and emotional availability,” Serkis explains.  “He’s a great seaman and has great potential as a human being, but he’s kind of lost in self-pity, and it is Tintin, this boy, who helps him realize that he can connect with other people again.”

REEL DEAL Movies and Television: Jeremy Renner SPOTLIGHT

Jeremy Renner talks about Tom Cruise and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Academy Award winner Jeremy Renner  plays  the enigmatic agent William Brandt Misson Impossible: Ghost Protocol. The character had immediate appeal to Renner.  “Brandt is an analyst, a seemingly tight-wound desk guy who is smart as a whip, and that’s his job.  He’s not very emotional about things.  Then, you slowly start to see the revealing of who he really is – particularly through seeing this physical skill set you would not expect out of a tight, blue shirt-wearing analyst.  He doesn’t really want to be part of the team, but circumstances force him to join the group,” says Renner.

EVENTOLOGY: 0% Fear 100% Love

As part of the World AIDS Sunday you might want to check out this event happening at UST this December 4, 2011. Below is an eposcopal letter to ministers, leaders and the youth. 0% Fear 100% Love


Dear friends,


Greetings in the Lord on this Day 351 of our CBCP Year of the Youth, which is also World AIDS Day!


I trust everyone is still afire with the renewal which our national celebration of the NYD2011 has sparked in us. Our thanks continue to ring to our fellow youth ministers in the FNYO. The ecclesial youth organizations and movements truly are a gift to our Church, and are important partners in the mission.


I write to you now concerning a significant partnership which our commission has made. This is on the issue of HIV-AIDS, something which I believe is not foreign anymore to you, and one that is affecting many of our people, among them young. Our Church, loving Mother that she is, is at the forefront on efforts on this, both internationally and locally. Here in our country, we have the Philippine Catholic HIV-AIDS Network or PhilCHAN: a network of Catholic groups has been formed to be our Church's lead agent in her evangelizing effort on this issue. The Episcopal Commission on Youth is one of those CBCP offices within this network, along with the Episcopal Commissions on Health Care; on Migrants and Itinerant People; and on Social Action, Justice and Peace.

PCIJ Media Killing Series on GMA NEWS TV

The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in partnership with GMA News TV airs The Herson Hinolan Case: See No Evil last Saturday night at 9:55 pm on Channel 11.

Herson Hinolan was a hard-hitting radio broadcaster for Bombo Radyo Kalibo. Hinolan’s bombastic and aggressive commentary earned him the ire of many Aklanon politicians. Colleagues remember that Hinolan even engaged in a heated argument with Lezo Mayor Alfredo Arcenio while on the air, to the point where the two challenged each other to a gunfight.