+ Follow MATTERS Tag
MATTERS
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[0] => Array
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[ArticleID] => 2304684
[Title] => Why is Governor Garcia an effective leader?
[Summary] => Governor Gwen is a bundle of guts, grit, and gumption.
[DatePublished] => 2023-10-18 00:00:00
[ColumnID] => 136164
[Focus] => 1
[AuthorID] => 1146528
[AuthorName] => Atty Josephus Jimenez
[SectionName] => Freeman Opinion
[SectionUrl] => opinion
[URL] =>
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[1] => Array
(
[ArticleID] => 2024147
[Title] => Train up a child
[Summary] => “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
[DatePublished] => 2020-06-28 00:00:00
[ColumnID] => 136402
[Focus] => 1
[AuthorID] => 1325498
[AuthorName] => Francis J. Kong
[SectionName] => Business
[SectionUrl] => business
[URL] =>
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[2] => Array
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[ArticleID] => 1523130
[Title] => EDITORIAL - Security and APEC
[Summary] => Regional tensions and armed conflict are never good for economic development.
[DatePublished] => 2015-11-17 09:00:00
[ColumnID] => 0
[Focus] => 0
[AuthorID] =>
[AuthorName] =>
[SectionName] => Opinion
[SectionUrl] => opinion
[URL] => http://media.philstar.com/images/the-philippine-star/opinion/20151118/startoon.jpg
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[3] => Array
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[ArticleID] => 1482577
[Title] => What matters most
[Summary] => Allow me to share one of my post-SONA 2015 reactions.
[DatePublished] => 2015-07-29 10:00:00
[ColumnID] => 133239
[Focus] => 0
[AuthorID] => 1223596
[AuthorName] => Cherry Piquero Ballescas
[SectionName] => Freeman Opinion
[SectionUrl] => opinion
[URL] =>
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[4] => Array
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[ArticleID] => 1404345
[Title] => Reminders re: Christmas parties and class reunions
[Summary] => It is the season of parties and reunions, of homecomings and class meetings.
[DatePublished] => 2014-12-19 00:00:00
[ColumnID] => 134003
[Focus] => 0
[AuthorID] => 1148714
[AuthorName] => Atty. Josephus B. Jimenez
[SectionName] => Freeman Opinion
[SectionUrl] => opinion
[URL] =>
)
[5] => Array
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[ArticleID] => 1353338
[Title] => What matters is not faith and works; it is not faith or works; it is faith that works.
[Summary] => What matters is not faith and works; it is not faith or works; it is faith that works.
[DatePublished] => 2014-08-03 00:00:00
[ColumnID] => 0
[Focus] => 0
[AuthorID] =>
[AuthorName] =>
[SectionName] => Word of the day
[SectionUrl] => word-of-the-day
[URL] =>
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[6] => Array
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[ArticleID] => 1350498
[Title] => Burger joint business gets boost from reliable broadband service
[Summary] => Burger joints are everywhere, offering everything from “buy-one, take-one” burgers to the more intricately prepared versions that use more premium and tender meat.
[DatePublished] => 2014-07-28 00:00:00
[ColumnID] => 0
[Focus] => 0
[AuthorID] =>
[AuthorName] =>
[SectionName] => Lifestyle Business
[SectionUrl] => business-life
[URL] => http://media.philstar.com/images/the-philippine-star/lifestyle/business-life/20140728/JR-dela-Paz-Size-Matters.jpg
)
[7] => Array
(
[ArticleID] => 1286185
[Title] => Two nights of Passion Manila 2014!
[Summary] => Rooted in the confession of Isaiah 26:8, passion exists to glorify God by uniting students in worship, prayer and justice for spiritual awakening in this generation.
[DatePublished] => 2014-02-03 15:33:13
[ColumnID] => 0
[Focus] => 0
[AuthorID] =>
[AuthorName] =>
[SectionName] => Music
[SectionUrl] => music
[URL] => http://imageshack.com/a/img809/4333/azmv.jpg
)
[8] => Array
(
[ArticleID] => 1259250
[Title] => Making native new
[Summary] => Hardworking, Goodlooking might just be the publisher to attract the world to Pinoy culture.
Clara Balaguer seems like the unlikeliest envoy of Philippine culture, much less ethnic Philippine culture. The Spanish blood is strong in this one, typified by sharp features and a crop of extra-wavy hair. Statuesque and in her slapdash best, she looks like a grungy model off-duty; the sort that could still be posing while slouching on a Monobloc chair, beer in hand, which is what Balaguer is doing when I meet her.
Imagine what several thousand New Yorkers must have thought when the former MYX VJ represented the Philippines at the New York Art Book Fair in September. Held at the Moma PS1 in Queens, the three-day fair rounded up over 200 vendors exhibiting books, zines, and all renegade uses of paper and ink. Sharing a stall with literary publication The Manila Review, Balaguer’s Hardworking, Goodlooking publishing outfit had drawn countless admirers. “We didn’t expect the avalanche of responses that we got,” says Balaguer. “By the second day, I had lost my voice from talking so much.”
There were paperback copies of Tribal Kitchen: The Aytas, a cookbook of 30,000-year-old recipes and survival tips from aboriginal farmers in Pampanga. Another stack bore the ballsy all-text cover of Edit, a mini-magazine showcasing globalized Filipino intellectualism through photos by Steve Tirona or an essay on museum design by Miguel Syjuco. Balaguer also added a Philippine National Police accreditation test and civil service reviewer — printed items that, “although primitive, were attractive examples of Filipino design.” Under an odd basketball hoop Balaguer hung above her stall, the publications lured everyone from curious white Brooklynites to culture-clueless Fil-Ams. As with the origin of the name “Hardworking, Goodlooking,” which Balaguer had spotted on a Manila taxicab’s bumper, the crowd reveled in discovering such ingenuity in a place like the Philippines.
“I think the overwhelming response we got has a lot to do with how the Filipino zeitgeist in New York has been a long time coming. We just happened to be at the right place at the right time,” says Balaguer, who credits her stall’s popularity to two factors: the rise of Filipino food culture in New York thanks to restaurants like Maharlika and the international acclaim Philippine cinema has earned recently.
Back home, we could do with a little more enthusiasm for sariling atin. Considering the proliferation of retail pop-ups and hybrid pastries, US-appropriated culture is what young Filipinos go crazy for. It isn’t surprising that the native content Hardworking cranks out is largely unknown. For Balaguer, the Western marketing of hip is a way to spur interest in local issues. “We used what we think is cool from our occidental knowledge and fused it with our down-home oriental roots,” she says.
Hardworking, Goodlooking is the publishing arm of the Office of Culture & Design (OCD), the tight headquarters Balaguer holds at Makati’s offbeat commercial compound The Collective. Founded in 2010, the creative think tank has collaborated with artists to spread awareness on a number of issues. Commissioned by Oxfam, OCD made Fish on the Highway, a 30-minute film documenting relief efforts in Typhoon Pablo-hit southern Mindanao. A byproduct of the project: photos of rural folk holding their most cherished items while taking in their ravaged area, a series slated for exhibition in 2014. To promote local artists like Gary Ross Pastrana and Stanley Ruiz, OCD got creative with kink, showing artwork alongside “pornographic chairs” in an exhibit entitled “Chairporn.” Through a grant from Singapore’s Nanyang University, OCD created “Lupang,” a film installation on post-Pinatubo Aytas.
Upon each project’s completion, the OCD puts a corresponding print publication together, applying contemporary design and a sheen of cool in order to get eyeballs on indigenous issues.
The publications were what Balaguer stuffed in a suitcase and lugged to the New York Book Fair — an effort soon rewarded. International booksellers expressed interest in her titles, which all quickly sold out. As were the artisan products she brought from the Philippines: candles from Quiapo, woven doormats from Bantayan Island, and curios made from repurposed cock leashes in Cebu. Another OCD initiative, the products are an additional source of income to rural folk with unstable livelihoods. The OCD’s makeshift “sari-sari store” was a success. Even art sensation Ryan McGinley lingered at their stall, chatting Balaguer up about how his childhood best friend was Filipino, and then hoarding a bunch of Philippine-made pens with purpose-driven engravings such as “For Sudokus” and “For Bad Poetry,” as well as the pervasive imprint, “Hardworking, Goodlooking.”
If young creatives and upwardly mobile Filipinos knew about that last fact, maybe the Office of Culture & Design would be abuzz with eager patrons and collaborators. Actual office employees, even. While individual projects have their creative point people, OCD’s central staff consists of just Balaguer and Danish transplant Stefan Jorgensen, a former design intern. It’s a tiny operation considering Balaguer’s extensive plans, in light, especially, of recent catastrophes.
“The playing field has completely changed because of the Zamboanga crisis, Bohol earthquake, and typhoon Yolanda. We’ve had to refocus everything we planned to fit that framework,” says Balaguer, whose priority now is less the proposed book on Philippine vernacular typography she hoped to put together and more the talks she’s organizing on weather-proofing shelter. There’s also the major database of post-disaster information OCD is assembling, covering everything from donation drop-off points to DIY water purification.
Repackaging local culture is enough of a challenge, what more rebuilding the infrastructure and morale of an obliterated city? Still, Balaguer is optimistic. “Dialogue and the exchange of knowledge are also relief goods,” she says. “That’s my new mantra.”
[DatePublished] => 2013-11-22 00:00:00
[ColumnID] => 134358
[Focus] => 0
[AuthorID] => 1639355
[AuthorName] => Paolo Lorenzana
[SectionName] => Young Star
[SectionUrl] => young-star
[URL] =>
)
[9] => Array
(
[ArticleID] => 967951
[Title] => It’s what’s in the heart that matters.
[Summary] => It’s what’s in the heart that matters.
[DatePublished] => 2013-07-14 00:00:00
[ColumnID] => 0
[Focus] => 0
[AuthorID] =>
[AuthorName] =>
[SectionName] => Word of the day
[SectionUrl] => word-of-the-day
[URL] =>
)
)
)
abtest
November 17, 2015 - 9:00am
February 3, 2014 - 3:33pm
