#digital pr philippines

[ultravioart]

Okay so! If Aurora was the only omnic that was unable to be overtaken by Anubis,

This SERIOUSLY makes Maelstrom's lore that much more SOMA vibes/horror, and I kind of love that because it REALLY fits his themes of "what is the difference between man and omnic" and what's the fine line between consciousness and sentience, alive and imitation of life, Echo vs Aurora type existence.

Basic oc lore rundown:

Maelstrom used to be a Sama Filipino marine eco conservationist. He often went out on boat runs to manage coral conservation and take samples. One day, Vishkar messed up as they do and a rig explosion occured off the coast of the Phillipines. He was caught in the aftermath and sent to the hospital in critical condition. A huge PR disaster for Vishkar, so Vishkar offered to put him through experimental treatment to try and save his life. He agreed. However, the treatment failed, and instead they simply recorded a brain scan and put it into a HADAL omnic body with some light tech upgrades. (HADAL are my invented deep sea exploration / underwater welding omnics.) He was returned to his family as a "suitable replacement + hush money"

He still believes his soul was transferred into the omnic body, but others see him simply as an object (Think: Echo like personality copy) or as a clone of the man who had died.

During the first omnic crisis, the Philippine shores were attacked and Maelstrom was beginning to be overtaken by Anubis ai. He managed to get his family to safety, fight off a few invading drone omnics, but ultimately had a self induced shut down to avoid being overtaken completely.

(THIS is that part that is SOMA horror vibes. When Maelstrom learns only Aurora was able to deny Anubis due to her sentience, this would make Maelstrom question EVERYTHING. He thought he was sentient, does this mean he isn't? What is he then? Is he really just a learned echo type tech, not truely sentient, only mimicking???? Is he even alive??? Was his family right? He would be terrified, and I think this is how Ramattra could help ground Maelstrom, and help Maelstrom embrace his new omnic identity. In reality, Maelstrom is just a digitized human brain, so imo he IS human and sentient, it's just that Aurora's sentience surpasses any human one because of Aurora's set up and computing power. The part of Maelstrom that was being taken over during the crisis was Maelstrom's base omnic coding, not his brain scan simulation. But it's impossible for Maelstrom to know this, because Vishkar encryption is too hard to deal with to get a proper peak at his inner workings. Sombra has tried, but doing it incorrectly could kill Maelstrom, and the only people that can actually test it are specific Vishkar employees that would want to capture/silence/kill Maelstrom since he is "rogue Vishkar tech"... Vishkar wants to keep its skeletons in its closet, they don't want a Omnica type lawsuit for illegal experiments with human brain and human sentient tech.

I have come up with the idea that maybe Vishkar creates simulations to test if a human is compatible with using hard light technology... meaning for every human user like Satya, a variety of 'experiments' were conducted on clone copies of her brain ran in simulations, essentially torturing digitized humans until they get the connections right, then deleting the evidence and applying it to the actual og human. That would be a fun headcanon to explain by hard light tech is so hard to find suitors for, and give reason to why Vishkar would even be messing with brain sim tech for Maelstrom.)

After the first crisis aka once Anubis is finally contained, it triggers Maelstrom to come back online as no more Anubis transmissions are detected. This means he wakes up years later after Anubis devastated the world, but now with an Iris awoken sentience + human sentience. He interprets the Iris sentience as a "guiding jinn" (Sama beliefs that a jinn can inhabit a person after a near death experience) and everything he once knew is different. His family had moved on from him in those years. The Phillipines are starkly anti-omnic now as Anubis's attacks devastated the Phillipines. His human community rejects him, omnics are wary of this omnic that has unreadable encryption in his wireless transmissions and they reject him too. He is lost, and outcast. So he follows a calling he had felt ever since he awoke, into the ocean depths.... (insert the rest of his lore, amd how he came to work with NullSector and occasionally Talon, as explained in previous posts.)

[onenettvchannel]

CONSUMER HEALTH NEWS: 'BAN Toxics' launches Holiday Ber-months Campaign against Hazardous Toys for the Filipino shopping consumers

MANDALUYONG, MANILA -- Calenderic 'Ber' months are now approaching, particularly with the annual and upcoming yuletide season, the environmental non-government organization 'BAN Toxics' has just initiated an important awareness campaign in the 1st week of September this year in 2024, to protect Filipino children from the hazards of toxic toys. As the year-end holiday seasons are usually associated with gift-giving, the organization released an educational infographic titled "Mag-Ingat sa mga Laruang Toxic! (Beware of Toxic Toys!)" teaching all of its consumers to watch out for toxic chemicals that may be hiding in toys, especially those sold at neighborhood markets and cheap bargain shops.

(ART PHOTO COURTESY: BAN Toxics via PR / A female kid sat toxic toy to be disguised as a playable friend)

The infographic, as presented digitally and in traditional pamphlet-like papers, shows that there is a wide variety of toxic chemicals, including Lead, Phthalates, Cadmium, Bisphenol A (BPA), Chromium, Formaldehyde, Bromine, Chlorinated Paraffins, Mercury and Arsenic. Many of these chemical additives might be used in the manufacturing processes from factories, and could create very serious health risks for our children.

Mr. Thony Dizon, who is a campaign and advocacy officer of 'BAN Toxics', many of those toys lacked proper labeling and safety information, meaning they may not have been tested correctly, or complied with health and safety regulations. All toys sold in the Philippines were supposed to be affixed with safety labeling under the Republic Act #10620, also called the "Toy and Gaming Safety Act of 2013", but many products still manage to slip through.

The toxic nature of such chemicals exposes humans to alarming health implications, as exposures may cause a variety of diseases that may include endocrine disruption, carcinogenicity and neurotoxicity; several of which, may persist throughout childhood and even thereafter in our adulthood life.

Dizon urges lawmakers in the nationals, to prioritize the legislation of the "Safe and Non-Hazardous Children's Products Law", a newly-proposed measure which provides for tighter regulation of the importation, manufacture, distribution, and sale of toys and other children's products containing hazardous chemicals. This forthcoming legislative drive is relevant to ensure safeguards for the kids against substances that could jeopardize their health and well-being.

In addition to the infographic, BAN Toxics plans to distribute thru partner schools and communities through their Toxic and Waste-Free Schools Program (TFSP), which potentially later expanded here in the Visayas and Mindanao regions, including Dumaguete City, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental. This is to ensure that there is always an assurance of the safest and cleanest environment in schools, including these examples of 'West City Elementary School' and 'Magsaysay Memorial Elementary School', while also educating children on the risks and giving them a head start on making legitimate and responsible choices about the toys they play with.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the Philippines plays a very crucial role in this regard through periodic issuance of advisories on the proper use of toys, including those with mandatory labeling. It has taken charge in conducting research and testing of available toys and childcare articles in the market and is presently drafting an administrative order containing product standards on chemicals to be at par with international guidelines. Meanwhile, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has established the Philippine National Safety Standard (PNSS) for toys, in response to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

'BAN Toxics' is committed to continuous market monitoring and testing of toys, and more activities are planned for the coming months to keep the public informed of any new findings. As the 'Ber' months are just around the corner, it is now high-time for consumers to be more vigilant and informed about the toys they are going to buy, whether in-store or online.

Today, and for the future, the unveiling of "Mag-Ingat sa mga Laruang Toxic!" continually reminds us that even in seemingly innocent gifts, the worm of hazard may be concealing itself. Through awareness and a call for better regulations, 'BAN Toxics' hopes to protect the health of Filipino children and ensure that the joy of giving is not transposed into an act at the expense of their safety. Even when Santa Claus should check first, without secretly adding toxics in toys.

ART PHOTO COURTESY: BAN Toxics via PR BACKGROUND PROVIDED BY: Tegna

-- OneNETnews Online Publication Team

[onenettvchannel]

BALITANG BIZTECH: SkyCable inks partnership with Converge, upgrading new fiber plans for 'SkyFiber' free-of-charge

QUEZON, MANILA -- SkyCable Corporation and Pilipino Cable Corporation (in Negros Oriental) have signed a commercial agreement with Converge ICT Solutions Inc. to improve internet services for active 'SkyFiber' subscribers.

A strategic partnership that looks to enhance the entire customer experience by leveraging Converge's new and extensive fiber-to-the-home network. The FTTH Network measures approximately 700,000kms in length, with over 8 million ports. SkyCable would plug into this robust infrastructure to provide better services to its customers nationwide.

Beginning Monday morning on August 12th, 2024 (Manila local time). Eligible internet fiber subscribers, specifically those here in Dumaguete City and other selected areas of the entire province of Negros Oriental, you are about to look forward for a free upgrade with your current 'SkyFiber' plan. This shall not be associated in general as a regular 'SkyCable' plan, which normally associated with being a flagship cable television provider.

New options chosen for the consumers of SkyFiber offers pure and original fiber internet speeds of up to 1Gbps with a price starts at PHP999 per month and above. SkyFiber gives only the fastest downloads and uploads.

Unlike the asymmetrical connections of old, where download speeds are faster than upload speeds -- Converge's FTTH network has equal download and upload speeds. This keeps video calls in a smooth high-definition (if applicable), and allows lag-free 'Netflix' and 'Amazon Prime Video' streaming together with efficient file uploads like Google Drive. Finally, the reliable network infrastructure of Converge averts any service disruptions for more stable online experiences.

As one may recall, its deal with SkyCable did not materialize supposedly due to competitive issues raised by Cignal with the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC). While Converge already expanded here in Negros Oriental, not too long ago in 2022.

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Converge named 'Mr. Dennis Anthony H. Uy', stated that Converge is only proud to be a part of Sky's transformation in the cable telecommunication and fiber internet industry. This looks forward to replicating the same successful partnership with other key players in fulfilling its mission to bring world-class connectivity to all Filipinos and Negrosanons in the digital age.

You can avail and upgrade with your current 'SkyFiber' plan starting August 12th. Free upgrades for subscribers of SkyFiber shall be made available up until September 15th, 2024.

FULL DISCLOSURE: SkyCable Corporation and Converge ICT is our parent fiber internet provider for internet broadcasting of OneNETtv Channel.

STOCK LOGOS COURTESY: Google Images

SOURCE: *https://www.mysky.com.ph/sky-converge [Referenced PR Article via MySkyPH] *https://www.mysky.com.ph/skyfiber *https://businessmirror.com.ph/2024/07/22/converge-fiber-network-to-support-sky-cable-rebirth/ [Referenced News Article via Business Mirror] *https://manilashaker.com/converge-targets-sky-cable-partnership/ [Referenced News Article via The Manila Shaker] and *https://www.bworldonline.com/corporate/2024/07/23/609650/sky-converge-deal-may-lead-to-bigger-move-analysts/ [Referenced News Article via BusinessWorld]

-- OneNETnews Online Publication Team

[themarketupdate]

Energy Trade Finance Market to Witness Excellent Revenue Growth Owing to Rapid Increase in Demand

Trade finance refers to the representation of financial instruments and products that are used by companies to initialize international trade and commerce. Due to trade finance, it is easier for importers and exporters to transact business through trade. As with many other commodities, pricing volatility drives commercial strategy for the firms engaged in the commercial trade of petrol, gas, electricity, and other types of energy commodities. Trade-in petrol and gas requires huge amounts of capital to invest in exploration, extraction, and transportation along with high-tech, physical and digital infrastructure. As a result, companies engaged in the trade of petrol and gas have a need for energy trade finance. With the increasing demand for energy, the demand for trade finance is also increasing.

Free Sample Report + All Related Graphs & Charts @: https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/sample-report/166855-global-energy-trade-finance-market?utm_source=Organic&utm_medium=Vinay

Latest released the research study on Global Energy Trade Finance Market, offers a detailed overview of the factors influencing the global business scope. Energy Trade Finance Market research report shows the latest market insights, current situation analysis with upcoming trends and breakdown of the products and services. The report provides key statistics on the market status, size, share, growth factors of the Energy Trade Finance The study covers emerging player’s data, including: competitive landscape, sales, revenue and global market share of top manufacturers are Citi Bank (United States), Tradeteq (United Kingdom), Santander (United States), ANZ (Australia), ING Wholesale Banking (Netherlands), Standard Bank (South Africa), Marco Polo (Germany), Commerzbank (Germany), Rand Merchant Bank (South Africa), Asian Development Bank (Philippines)

Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Southeast Asia.

Contact Us:

Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)

AMA Research & Media LLP

Unit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJ

New Jersey USA – 08837

sales@advancemarketanalytics.com

[atomxmedia]

Healthcare Startup Doceree Secures $13.6 Million in Series B Funding from Creaegis

The well-known healthcare startup Doceree, led by the Indian private equity firm Creaegis, has successfully received Rs 113.5 crore (about $13.6 million) in its Series B fundraising round. With this most recent investment, Doceree is demonstrating its increasing impact in the healthcare industry as well as its creative method of bringing healthcare professionals (HCPs) together via cutting-edge programmatic marketing solutions.

Funding Details

A special resolution to issue 10, equity and 24,300 Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) at an issue price of Rs 4,672 per share, raising Rs 113.5 crore, was authorised by the Doceree board. Entrackr announced this financial milestone, referencing Registrar of Companies regulatory records obtained through access.

Cumulative Funding and Previous Investments

With this fresh round of fundraising, Doceree has raised more money than $50 million in total. Only the Series B round, led by Creaegis, brought around $35 million. In 2022, Doceree achieved a noteworthy milestone in its financial growth trajectory when it raised $11 million in its Series A fundraising round, which was spearheaded by Eight Road Ventures.

Doceree’s Mission and Platform

Harshit Jain founded Doceree in 2019 with the goal of strengthening healthcare media agencies, pharmaceutical and life sciences corporations, and both. By enabling connections between healthcare professionals within their networks, the business hopes to improve patient health outcomes. As the first worldwide network of physician-only platforms, Doceree’s platform distinguishes apart and provides a special way to enhance programmatic marketing in the healthcare sector.

Strategic Partnerships and Global Expansion

Through a partnership with Hello Health Group, Doceree increased its global presence in May of last year. Eight countries in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore, Philippines, and Taiwan, were opened to Doceree through this strategic partnership. With this growth, Doceree has been able to reach a larger geographic area and improve services while also increasing its impact.

Read more: Marketing News, Advertising News, PR and Finance News, Digital News

[digitalmarketingph]

SEO: Wikipedia Writing and Publication

SEOs and Digital Marketers know that getting a Wikipedia page and backlink is a very juicy digital achievement. The link juice is the primary aim for it, plus the kind of branding/online presence it establishes as well.

WRITING

It's not so easy to get published on Wikipedia. The approving Wiki editors are very strict. Aside from grammar, the content has to be unbiased. It won't get published if it sounds like PR content. Here's an example between PR sounding and objective/unbiased:

PR - "The BlahBlah Company is the best digital agency founded in 2018 by John BlahBlah, a multi-awarded SEO guru with over 2M followers on social media."

Objective / Unbiased - "The BlahBlah Company is a digital agency founded by John BlahBlah in 2018."

Avoid superlatives and other statements that don't have supporting published written articles/links from credible sites (like famous news sites, organizations, etc) for such claims.

CITATIONS

Now that you know the difference between sentence formulations, next would be backup links/resources to support your statement/s.

Like I said, every statement to be written must have a supporting backlink. The screenshot below shows that there are "citation links" as to why such statements were written and approved by Wiki editor/s.

When you go down to the bottom of every Wikipedia article, there's a list of citation links to show proof that the statements in the article are correct/valid.

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE / CMS

Formatting the content such as bold, italic, hyperlinking, and so on is different compared to your standard HTML. There would be a bit of a learning curve for this but they have a guide for formatting. You are allowed to preview your work before submitting/publishing it in their CMS.

THE SANDWICH METHOD

To seem like I was an objective/unbiased contributor in Wiki, I had to mask myself virtually. I didn't sign up using my work email (e.g. jane@blahblahcompany.com) and I used my home/mobile hotspot Internet connection (IP address). Then, the content needed to have a bit of dirt on the article's subject to really be unbiased, but tried to make it short and light.

The sandwich method is writing a paragraph that doesn't shade the subject in the intro and latter parts of the whole article and putting the shade in the middle. That is if such dirt content exists. Adding this truly gives you an objective / unbiased rapport as a Wiki contributor.

MY SAMPLE WORK

I used to work for a famous Southeast Asian E-commerce company back in 2013-2015. Back then, the Lazada Wiki article was published but needed to be updated/edited. Since leaving the company, it underwent many changes so the Wiki article has also gone through many changes too. It used to be separated into different countries (Lazada Philippines, Lazada Malaysia, Lazada Indonesia, etc) but the Wiki editors might have decided to consolidate everything into one link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazada

But the localized version still exists which I wrote: https://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazada_Philippines

It's the exact content of my English version (but now was changed and merged into the currently existing article version). When you check "View History" of a Wiki article, you get to see when it went a change and who made the change.

When you see the very bottom/start of the editing history, that's me with the username "TheSentenceFormulator"

By now, I've forgotten the login details for it since it was just a secondary task for my SEO duties back then. We were busy with ongoing On-Page optimizations and Off-Page optimizations (a growing e-commerce company meant a growing number of category, product, promo, and sale web pages).

When your boss or client wants a juicy backlink like Wikipedia, share this article to them so they know that they need to start investing in having their company being published/recognized elsewhere first.

[mint-moon25]

Watch "Glenn Miller - In The Mood [HQ]" on YouTube

GBC - LEGAL - PERMISSION - KR

GANGNAM - BROADCASTING CO

COMPANY - SEOUL KOREA - KST

PRESENTS - GBC - FM - DIGITAL

RADIO - WORLDWIDE - 24/7 YES

REPUBLIC - OF - KOREA

PHILIPPINE - REPUBLIC

TAX FREE - NO - NUDITY

NO - RELIGION

BUYING - PRISM CLOSING

4 - BOMBS - SENDING EA

BACK - 7 TIMES - FORCE

GIVEN - SENDER RECEIVES

BACK - 'KENTUCKY' - FRIED

CHICKENS - THEIR - CITIES

COLUMBIA

GBC - FM RADIO - 24/7 - FREE

DIGITAL - APP - ONLINE - OFF

LINE - TONGUES - ONLY - TO

ACCESS - WORLD - WE'RE -

BUYING MAKATI - OR/OCC -

ORIENTAL - OCCIDENTAL -

GBC - FM RADIO - PROVIDING

FREE - DATA - GBC - FREE ALL

AGES - FREE - SMARTPHONES

TABLETS - LAPTOPS - FREE XO

DATA - INTERNET - NETWORK

ALL - AGES - WE - DEDICATE

OUR - FM - RADIO - 2 - OUR -

DEARLY - DEPARTED 2 YES -

MISS - TOURISM - AGE 25

MUTYA NG PILIPINAS - 2012

GODDESS - PHILIPPINE YES

ISLANDS - 5'9 FT - WE DON'T

HAVE - 2 MANY - 31 KOREAN

STARS - WHO - DEPARTED -

WE - DEDICATE - OUR YES -

MUSIC - OUR - BROADCAST -

COMING - 2 SEOUL - YES -

JEJU - ISLAND - MAKATI -

MINDORO - ISLAND YES -

COLUMBIA - TAX FREE - HK -

HONG KONG - BEIJING AND -

SHANGHAI - PARIS FRANCE -

24/7 - HOLIDAYS - COMING -

MOON AND BLUES - CAFES -

EACH - CAFE - OPENS - YES -

AT - MIDNIGHT - 12A STARTS -

WITH - NO - SOUND - FULL -

FIREWORKS - SPECIAL YES -

COLORED LIGHTS DANCING -

FOUNTAINS - AS - U - KNOW -

PEOPLE - LOVE - 2 - SIT AND -

FEEL - THE - WIND - FROM A -

FOUNTAIN - THIS - TIME - CN -

CHINA's - RED - WATER - LILLY -

FLOATING - LANTERN MOSTLY -

SURROUNDS - TURNS - AUTO -

EVERY - 15 MIN - 3 COINS - EA -

2 SEND - 2 - FOUNTAIN WATER -

JUST - THERE - 15 MIN - TURNS -

PLAYS - GLENN MILLER - BAND -

USA - MUSIC - NICE - BLENDING -

OF - MUSIC - BUT - ONCE - IN - A -

BLUE - MOON - EXPRESSION - IT -

WATER - LILLY - TURNS - BLUE -

TAKE - CARD - 500 BILLION -

TAX - PAID - WITH - CARD U -

BOW - 2 - THE - FOUNTAIN & -

WITH - CARD - NO - ONE YES -

READING - MOUTH - MAKE A -

WISH - NOW - PACK - OF - YES -

3 GOLD - COINS - COME - OUT -

TURN - AROUND - TOSS REAL -

GOLD - WE'RE - GATHERING 2 -

FEED - HUNGER - LOCAL AND -

WORLD - AS - MOON & BLUES -

CAFES THEME - WORLD WAR -

2 - UNIFORMS - NOSTALGIA -

DANCING - THE - BLUES YES -

BURGERS - FRIES - MILK HAI -

SHAKES - ASIAN - EUROPEAN -

24/7 - KIDS - SENIORS - FREE -

LIKE - WE - WILL - NEVER YES -

FORGET - THE - MUSIC - OF -

GLENN MILLER - WE - WILL -

NEVER - FORGET - OUR YES -

DEARLY - DEPARTED - SULLI -

GOO HARA - JONGHYUN -

TST - MOON - IN OUR KR -

HEARTS - FOREVER YES -

ANGELS - IN THIS CAFES -

WE - WEAR - FORMAL PR -

HATS - MILITARY UNIFORMS -

SPECIAL - MARINES

SPECIAL AIR FORCE

SPECIAL - NAVY

REMEMBERING - WHEN THE -

KINGS - GOVERNMENTS AND -

LOCAL - AUTHORITY - TAKE -

RIGHT - 2 - ARM - U - GET - A -

NEED - 2 - INCREASE - LAND -

4 - DAILY - DEPARTURES - FR -

MURDERED - AS - UNARMED -

AS WOMEN - MOON & BLUES -

CAFES - WILL - SHOWCASE -

WHAT - COUNTRIES - TREAT -

WOMEN - KIDS - AND - OLD -

THE - BEST - WHO - LIVES -

LONGEST - THE - RICHEST -

LARGEST - POP - IN - THE -

WORLD - MOON & BLUES -

CAFES WILL SHOWCASE -

HAPPIEST - PEOPLE - ON -

EARTH - WE - COMING -

JESUS - IS - LORD - KR

[wordsbymikha]

Blazing Sapphire: ComCo Southeast Asia Celebrates its 5th Year in the Industry

ComCo Southeast Asia is Blazing Sapphire this 2021 with a year-long celebration of the company’s beginnings, triumphs, and future plans. A precious stone, sapphire’s etymology stems from Latin and Greek words meaning blue. The sapphire symbolizes many things — wisdom, truth, justice, and sincerity. This is what ComCo SEA is all about as it marks five strong years of meaningful storytelling. embarass 

Trailblazing communication professionals

Comprised of esteemed experts in their fields, the ComCo Squadron proves their prowess by reaping achievements left and right.  

ComCo Southeast Asia has earned various awards over the past years, having received recognition from award-giving organizations like IABC Quill Awards, MarCom Awards in USA, Mumbrella Awards, Marketing Event Awards in Singapore, Campaign Asia Pacific’s PR Awards Asia in Hong Kong, Spikes Asia, Anvil Awards, Asia Pacific Stevie Awards, Kidlat and ARAW Advertising Values Awards. Additionally, a number of ComCo SEA partners and projects were bestowed with metals and Quills by the prestigious IABC Quill Awards. The company most notably won as Agency of the Year 2nd Runner Up.

Attesting to the company’s continued success are its recent finish as regional finalist in the Marketing PR Awards in Singapore for Best Use of Micro / Niche Influencers for its Write to Ignite Blogging Project and major account wins in agency pitches like Xiaomi, Unilab Foundation, and Sunlife ASC.

To date, ComCo SEA has won a total of over 76 awards and has worked with more than 61 brands/accounts. 

Transformative storymakers

In ComCo Southeast Asia’s quest to accomplish Meaningful Storytelling, the company champions the disciplines of New PR and Smart Social where we put content and strategy at the forefront while maximizing digital and social channels. This enables ComCo SEA to have a more well-rounded approach to transforming brands, igniting change, developing talents, and fostering collaboration.

At the heart of ComCo SEA is its commitment to advocacies for children and women, wildlife and environment, health and wellness, and heritage and culture. The Citizen ComCo initiative ensures that the company stays true to its thrust of making a difference in the lives of the individuals and communities reached by our work. As such, ComCo SEA works with established non-government and development organizations in both the local and global scenes. The company has collaborated with WWF, World Vision, Called to Rescue Philippines, and the Philippine General Hospital through community development endeavors. Likewise, ComCo SEA organizes outreach activities and donation drives for sectors in need of help. 

Limitless horizons

ComCo SEA has grown exponentially in the last five years, beginning only with a dream of individuals to create a communications agency that champions its people and makes a difference. There is still much work to be done as the company evolves and adapts to the times. 

Together with its affiliate network in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, ComCo SEA pursues excellence in Communications with limitless potential, passion, and vigor. The ComCo squadron renews its dedication to sharing stories that connect, ideas that transform, campaigns that make the world just a little bit better.

[public-relations-agency]

Tips for Hiring the Right Digital PR Agency In The Philippines

When you decide to invest in digital PR Philippines, you will have a wide range of digital PR agencies to choose from. Every agency you come across will claim to have what it takes to help your business achieve your goals, but you need to be careful because there are some firms that will say anything so that you can hire them.  It is important that you know how to pick the right agency from the many different options that are available out there. The following are some of the things you can do in order to make the selection process a lot easier.

During your search for the right digital PR agency, one of the things you need to do is look to past clients. It is important to investigate the past clients of the PR agency you are interested in.  A reliable agency will not hesitate to provide you with past clients to provide references and talk about their experience with the agency. A reliable agency will also be ready and willing to provide case studies as well as a portfolio demonstrating their abilities and successes.

Make sure that you take some time to check out the reviews of the agencies that you are interested in, both on their own site as well as reviewing sites like Yelp and Google Reviews. A reliable digital PR agency will be able to prove to you their abilities and success through the testimony of past clients. If you are interested in a PR company but they are not willing to provide references, it would be a good idea to avoid them. They could be hiding something from you.

For more tips on how to hire the right digital PR agency in the Philippines, visit our website at https://www.ngpimc.com/

[flippinflipnews]

DTI-BOI sees further growth of manufacturing output

DTI-BOI sees further growth of manufacturing output

MANILA – Following the greater mobility and effective implementation of health and safety protocols with lesser and lesser coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19 cases), the Philippines is in full swing of economic recovery as manufacturing output climbed 53.2 in March 2022, again outperforming its Asean neighbors.    

  The Department of Trade and Industry, through its industry and investments promotion arm, the Board of Investments (BOI), believes the country’s manufacturing output will continue to rebound this year. 

 “The surge of the Omicron variant dampened our recovery expectations at the start of the year but with the lesser and lesser Covid-19 cases in February and March, all signs point to a full recovery in full swing starting March and in the coming months,” Trade Secretary and BOI chairman Ramon Lopez said.  

 The manufacturing output, through the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) of the IHS Markit Philippines, climbed to a three-year high at 53.2 in March, again outperforming its Asean peers as the country’s mobility was the highest, snapping four months of the index above 50.  

 “With this, we expect a robust first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) performance and for manufacturing PMI to again signal expansion in April. Still on the brighter side, manufacturing output for the whole of 2021 capped a solid year marked by nine straight months of growth culminating in December,” Lopez said. 

 The Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) monthly survey of selected industries showed the Volume of Production Index (VoPI) expanded 17.9 percent year-on-year in December 2021 which is slower than the 25.8 percent growth in November but a turnaround year-on-year of the 14.8-percent decline recorded in December 2020.  

  The PSA indicated 11 industries that grew in December and were paced by the manufacture of wood, bamboo, cane, rattan articles, and related products which attained a 122.6-percent growth year-on-year. 

 Other gainers include the manufacture of machinery and equipment, as well as electrical as both grew by 50 percent. 

 Other industries recorded double-digit growth, such as coke and refined petroleum products (48 percent), computer, electronic and optical products (27 percent), non-metallic mineral products (37 percent), food products (32 percent), and fabricated metal products (40 percent).   

  All told, about a fourth of factories were at the full-capacity operation.  

  Growth in the Value of Production Index (VaPI) posted an increase of 18.6 percent in December from 27.2 percent in November. 

 For the full year, VaPI increased by 47 percent, a turnaround from the 43 percent contraction in 2020.  

  “The nine-month run expansion of manufacturing output played a key role in pushing our economic growth to 5.6 percent for 2021, above our target of 5 to 5.5 percent. By capping its run until the end of the year ushered a strong 7.7-percent GDP growth in the last quarter,” Trade Undersecretary and BOI managing head Ceferino Rodolfo said, noting that manufacturing was among the sectors that posted investment growth.  

  The growth in the manufacturing sector was significantly supported by the surge in the country’s foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows last year to reach an all-time high of US$10.518 billion, 54.2 percent higher than US$6.822 billion in 2020, according to the data from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).  

 The previous record level was US$10.3 billion in 2017.  The 2021 net FDI also surpassed the earlier government projection of US$8.5 billion.  

  “The growth in FDI reflected continued positive foreign investor sentiment on the country amid expectations of a rebound in domestic economic activity and declining Covid-19 reported cases, as well as the strengthening of the global economy,” Rodolfo said. (PR)

   #FlippinFlipNews

[migsvenegas]

The use of Social Media in Political Election Campaigns in PH

The use of social media has become more progressive compared to how we use these platforms before. Aside from this medium being used as a way of communication, socialization, entertainment, and news, social media is now being used for business and political campaigns. With our new generation specifically the generation z and millennials, we have become more vocal using these platforms when it comes to our beliefs may it be political or personal. With this way of using social media, businesses and politicians took the advantage to utilize social media as their marketing and PR tool to catch the attention of users and to attract potential votes for them in elections. But what makes for a successful political campaign on social media? And is utilizing social media for political campaigns is a positive way of strategy to strengthen the PR of a certain person who runs for elections?

As part of generation z, I consume social media as a way of staying connected with my friends and family. But at the same time, I’ve been using this to voice out my opinions on certain issues that we’re dealing with right now in our country.  Since the coming elections for the presidency are approaching, I can’t help but notice politicians are already starting their social media campaigns with articles about their purpose of running for president and It’s funny to see how these candidates try to hide their allegations about their stand on certain societal issues for the sake of having a good image as a candidate running for president. I can agree that social media has now being used for this kind of business as most people nowadays are already on digital platforms. But according to Gibson, the people behind these social media campaigns lie with the users and the supporters, not the candidates themselves. But how are these campaigns being made by the supporters? 

One thing I noticed is that this way of campaigning politicians on social media already exists ever since the presidential elections back in 2016 when President Duterte was elected as our President. Duterte’s presidential social media campaign has become controversial as he had a wide reach on social media during the campaign proper. According to Sinpeng et al., there are three ways how social media campaigns are being done by politicians during the electoral race; the first is the Broadcast Model. As stated in Sinpen et al.’s paper, these top-down or ‘broadcast’ approaches analyze social media campaigns from the perspectives of the candidates or their political parties—seeking first and foremost to understand their online communication strategies (Grant, Moon, and Grant 2010). There are three sub-types of a broadcast model of campaigning: the savvy, active, and populist communication style. The ‘Internet savvy communication style’ espouses a positive relationship between active, frequent, and professionalized social media campaigning with higher levels of fan engagement (Williams and Gulati 2013; Larsson and Kalsnes 2014). The broadcast model is basically focused on the team and the candidate itself putting themselves on social media with a strategized content about being active and authentic to attract supporters. One example of this campaign is the social media campaign of Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo as part of the Liberal Party back in the 2016 elections. The second is Grassroots model. According to this perspective, politicians and parties should step away from the broadcast model of communication, where they push out information and instruct the public to take particular actions (Wells 2015). Based on Gibson’s study of the 2010 UK general election, this bottom-up approach to digital campaigning is particularly suitable for new parties with few resources. This model is what President Duterte and his team did during the electoral race on social media. Their campaign is initiated by the citizens itself that why he had a huge breakthrough on social media that led him to be liked by so many people. According to Ross Tapsell, During the campaign for the electoral race, President Duterte already projected himself as the strongman who will alleviate crimes and corruption in the country. By doing this, He had his own PR team of paid trolls, a “team of writers and videographers” and used fallacious reasoning and propaganda techniques. To add, those people who helped their campaign on social media were all rewarded with government positions, claiming these influencers are “the new generation”. This strongly supports that President Duterte and his team followed the grassroots model where they let the citizens and people on social media initiate in making him noticeable on these platforms. Moving on to the last model, The Self-Actualizing Model is an intersection of the two models that I mentioned above. It simply says that this strategy includes inviting crowd input for suggestions on actions to take, interacting with the crowd, and providing inclusive and undirected motivation to take action, where the crowd could opt-in and out at will (Lilleker and Jackson 2010; Harfoush 2009; Enli and Skogerbø 2013; Kreiss 2016).

The way of electoral campaigning has already dominated the social media scene but it doesn’t mean that we as consumers of social media and citizens of the Philippines should depend on what we see on digital platforms especially when it comes to knowing the right candidate that we want to vote for elections. We all know that there’s no dirty political campaign and these candidates have their own strategies on how to get the people’s vote and it’s still up to us on how we consume those campaigns to ourselves. We’ve been dealing with fake news for so many years now and it’s sad to see how politicians and people who have power take advantage of this to get what they want. Living here in the Philippines, not everyone is fortunate enough to have an education, and with that, we as privileged people who are able to have the opportunity to study, should all step up and educate people about certain things. The election is coming up in just a few months and the best way we can do is not to leave everyone behind. We had enough for voting the wrong person last election, it’s time to vote who truly deserves to lead the country.

References:

Sinpeng, A., Gueorguiev, D., & Arugay, A. A. (2020). Strong fans, weak campaigns: Social media and Duterte in the 2016 Philippine election. Journal of East Asian Studies, 20(3), 353–374. https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2020.11

[phroyd]

Hours after President Trump’s incendiary post last month about sending the military to the Minnesota protests, Trump called Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

The post put the company in a difficult position, Zuckerberg told Trump, according to people familiar with the discussions. The same message was hidden by Twitter, the strongest action ever taken against a presidential post.

To Facebook’s executives in Washington, the post didn’t appear to violate its policies, which allows leaders to post about government use of force if the message is intended to warn the public — but it came right up to the line. The deputies had already contacted the White House earlier in the day with an urgent plea to tweak the language of the post or simply delete it, the people said.

Eventually, Trump posted again, saying his comments were supposed to be a warning after all. Zuckerberg then went online to explain his rationale for keeping the post up, noting that Trump’s subsequent explanation helped him make his decision.

The frenzied push-pull was just the latest incident in a five-year struggle by Facebook to accommodate the boundary-busting ways of Trump. The president has not changed his rhetoric since he was a candidate, but the company has continually altered its policies and its products in ways certain to outlast his presidency.

Facebook has constrained its efforts against false and misleading news, adopted a policy explicitly allowing politicians to lie, and even altered its news feed algorithm to neutralize claims that it was biased against conservative publishers, according to more than a dozen former and current employees and previously unreported documents obtained by The Washington Post. One of the documents shows it began as far back as 2015, when as a candidate Trump posted a video calling for a ban of Muslims entering the United States. Facebook’s executives declined to remove it, setting in motion an exception for political discourse.

The concessions to Trump have led to a transformation of the world’s information battlefield. They paved the way for a growing list of digitally savvy politicians to repeatedly push out misinformation and incendiary political language to billions of people. It has complicated the public understanding of major events such as the pandemic and the protest movement, as well as contributed to polarization.

And as Trump grew in power, the fear of his wrath pushed Facebook into more deferential behavior toward its growing number of right-leaning users, tilting the balance of news people see on the network, according to the current and former employees.

Facebook is now confronting a mounting advertiser boycott that has pushed down its stock price as companies demand stricter policies against hate speech. Starbucks became the latest on Sunday to say it would hit pause on social media advertising.

Facebook is also facing a slow-burning crisis of morale, with more than 5,000 employees denouncing the company’s decision to leave Trump’s post that said, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” up.

Bowing to those pressures on Friday, Zuckerberg announced a rash of new policies aimed at better policing content on the site. That includes affixing labels on posts that violate hate speech or other policies — even on those from political leaders.

But the company said the post wouldn’t have qualified.

As the United States heads into another presidential election while facing a pandemic and civil unrest, the latitude given to Trump may afford him a potential advantage. In recent months, he has used Facebook and other platforms to tout misleading information about coronavirus cures, election fraud and the motives of protesters, frequently targeting a left-wing movement as a cause of violence without citing evidence.

It also places Facebook in growing conflict with its counterparts in Silicon Valley. Twitter has labeled several presidential tweets as abusive and misleading, and social media platform Snapchat curtailed the reach of the president’s account.

“The value of being in favor with people in power outweighs almost every other concern for Facebook,” said David Thiel, a Facebook security engineer who resigned in March after his colleagues refused to remove a post he believed constituted “dehumanizing speech” by Brazil’s president.

Facebook contends the use of incendiary populist language predates social media. Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president for global affairs and communications, said in a statement that populism wasn’t invented in Silicon Valley, pointing to centuries of political history before social media companies‘ existence.'

“From the Arab Spring to local candidates challenging political incumbents, social media has also helped to open up politics, not favor one side over the other,” Clegg added. “Studies have shown the drivers of populism are complex and cannot be reduced to the use of social media, in fact political polarization has fallen in many countries with high internet use.”

Facebook declined to make Zuckerberg available for an interview, although it pointed out that Zuckerberg opposed Trump when his Muslim immigration ban went into effect. The White House declined to comment.

Zuckerberg talks frequently about making choices that stand the test of time, preserving the values of Facebook and subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram for all of its nearly 3 billion monthly users for many years into the future — even when those decisions are unpopular or controversial.

At one point, however, he wanted a different approach to Trump.

Setting the stage

Before the 2016 election, the company largely saw its role in politics as courting political leaders to buy ads and broadcast their views, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.

But that started to change in 2015, as Trump’s candidacy picked up speed. In December of that year, he posted a video in which he said he wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. The video went viral on Facebook and was an early indication of the tone of his candidacy.

Outrage over the video led to a companywide town hall, in which employees decried the video as hate speech, in violation of the company’s policies. And in meetings about the issue, senior leaders and policy experts overwhelmingly said they felt that the video was hate speech, according to three former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Zuckerberg expressed in meetings that he was personally disgusted by it and wanted it removed, the people said. Some of these details were previously reported.

At one of the meetings, Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president for policy, drafted a document to address the video and shared it with leaders including Zuckerberg’s top deputy COO Sheryl Sandberg and Vice President of Global Policy Joel Kaplan, the company’s most prominent Republican.

The document, which is previously unreported and obtained by The Post, weighed four options. They included removing the post for hate speech violations, making a one-time exception for it, creating a broad exemption for political discourse and even weakening the company’s community guidelines for everyone, allowing comments such as “No blacks allowed” and “Get the gays out of San Francisco.”

Facebook spokesman Tucker Bounds said the latter option was never seriously considered.

The document also listed possible “PR Risks” for each. For example, lowering the standards overall would raise questions such as, “Would Facebook have provided a platform for Hitler?” Bickert wrote. A carveout for political speech across the board, on the other hand, risked opening the floodgates for even more hateful “copycat” comments.

Ultimately, Zuckerberg was talked out of his desire to remove the post in part by Kaplan, according to the people. Instead, the executives created an allowance that newsworthy political discourse would be taken into account when making decisions about whether posts violated community guidelines.

That allowance was not formally written into the policies, even though it informed ad hoc decision-making about political speech for the next several years, according to the people. When a formal newsworthiness policy was announced in October 2016, in a blog post by Kaplan, the company did not discuss Trump’s role in shaping it.

In an interview, Bickert said the company ultimately made a call to maintain Trump’s Muslim ban video because executives interpreted Trump’s comment to mean that the then-candidate was not speaking about all Muslims, but rather advocating for a policy position on immigration as part of a newsworthy political debate. She said she did not recall the document where the options were presented.

Facebook’s Bounds added that the “newsworthiness” policy was added in 2016 after content reviewers removed a photo of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam War. “Our goal was to recognize the essential public benefit of preserving content that in other contexts wouldn’t be allowed,” Bounds said. “In the case of elected officials, it also ensures that they will be held to account for their words,” so that people can judge for themselves.

In spring of 2016, Zuckerberg was also talked out of his desire to write a post specifically condemning Trump for his calls to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, after advisers in Washington warned it could look like choosing sides, according to Dex Torricke-Barton, one of Zuckerberg’s former speechwriters.

The political speech carveout ended up setting the stage for how the company would handle not only Trump, but populist leaders around the world who have posted content that test these boundaries, such as Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Narendra Modi in India.

“Though [Facebook] has cracked down on misinformation, the most problematic influencers are politicians,” said Claire Wardle, U.S. director of First Draft, an organization dedicated to fighting misinformation that has a partnership with Facebook to fact-check news articles. “You can do all the fact checking in the world, but these influencers have a disproportionate impact.”

Trump presented a unique challenge, she added. “Until then, no one would have considered a president who would have said those things.”

Protecting the right

After the election, it became clear Russia had used social media to sow disinformation. Facebook soon after became a frequent target of the president’s ire. He tweeted that the social media giant was “anti-Trump” and trying to undermine his victory.

At the same time, GOP leaders stepped up criticism that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, with leadership ranks full of liberals, sought to limit the reach of right-leaning voices.

“There’s no credible research supporting Trump’s claim that social platforms suppress conservative content, but he still succeeded in getting them to revise their rules for him,” said former Facebook spokesman Nu Wexler, who left the company in 2018.

As Facebook scrambled to tackle foreign interference and misinformation, its executives in the nation’s capital argued that caution and deference was necessary to survive the new political environment, according to three people familiar with the company’s thinking.

Facebook’s security engineers in December 2016 presented findings from a broad internal investigation, known as Project P, to senior leadership on how false and misleading news reports spread so virally during the election. When Facebook’s security team highlighted dozens of pages that had peddled false news reports, senior leaders in Washington, including Kaplan, opposed shutting them down immediately, arguing that doing so would disproportionately impact conservatives, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. Ultimately, the company shut down far fewer pages than were originally proposed while it began developing a policy to handle these issues.

How conservatives learned to wield power inside Facebook

A year later, Facebook considered how to overhaul its scrolling news feed, the homepage screen most users see when they open the site. As part of the change to help limit misinformation, it changed its news feed algorithm to focus more on posts by friends and family versus publishers.

In meetings about the change, Kaplan questioned whether the revamped algorithm would hurt right-leaning publishers more than others, according to three people familiar with the company’s thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. When the data showed it would — conservative leaning outlets were pushing more content that violated its policies, the company had found — he successfully pushed for changes to make the new algorithm to be what he considered more evenhanded in its impact, the people said.

Isolated and divided

With the 2020 election on the horizon, Facebook and Zuckerberg’s hands-off approach to free speech was leaving it increasingly isolated in Silicon Valley.

In May 2019, Zuckerberg, citing free speech, refused to take down a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that made her appear drunk.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg reached out to Speaker Pelosi. She hasn’t called him back.

That summer, company leaders held a meeting to revisit its newsworthiness exception, which until then had been determined on a case-by-case basis, with the most controversial calls made by Zuckerberg. Internally, some were unclear how far that leeway extended, according to two people.

Clegg, the company’s new head of global affairs and communications and a former British deputy prime minister, announced the outcome of that meeting at a speech in Washington in September 2019. Aside from speech that causes violence or real-world harm, Facebook would allow politicians to express themselves virtually unchecked on social media. Facebook’s network of independent fact-checkers, which had been established as a key part of the company’s response to disinformation, would not evaluate their claims and the community guidelines would largely not apply to politicians.

Facebook did not want to be an arbiter of truth in political debate, he said, echoing Zuckerberg’s long-standing position.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says in interview he fears ‘erosion of truth’ but defends allowing politicians to lie in ads

The speech angered some employees, triggering more than 250 of them to sign a petition disagreeing with the decision because they thought it gave politicians a pass.

One former executive, Yael Eisenstat, who worked to improve the political ads process, wrote in The Post that the controversy was “the biggest test of whether [Facebook] will ever truly put society and democracy ahead of profit and ideology.”

She said that she routinely experienced how the company’s efforts at integrity were often undermined by “the few voices who ultimately decided the company’s overall direction.”

Meanwhile, in October, as Facebook faced more potential regulation and political troubles, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan went to the White House for a private dinner with Trump, a part of the CEO’s effort to cultivate personal relationships in Washington.

Tweetstorm

As the pandemic and civil unrest dominated the first half of this year, Trump continued to turn to social media platforms to spread misinformation. He touted the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible cure for the coronavirus and claimed without evidence that the left-wing antifa movement was behind the violence at George Floyd protests.

Meanwhile, Facebook employees began challenging the company’s decisions.

Two months before Trump’s ”looting, shooting“ post, the Brazilian president posted about the country’s indigenous population, saying, “Indians are undoubtedly changing. They are increasingly becoming human beings just like us.”

Thiel, the security engineer, and other employees argued internally that it violated the company’s internal guidelines against “dehumanizing speech.” They were referring to Zuckerberg’s own words while testifying before Congress in October in which he said dehumanizing speech “is the first step toward inciting” violence. In internal correspondence, Thiel was told that it didn’t qualify as racism — and may have even been a positive reference to integration.

Thiel quit in disgust.

In May, following years of internal debate of its own, Twitter chose to go in the opposite direction. It labeled two misleading tweets by Trump about mail-in ballots with a fact-check label.

Twitter’s decision to label Trump’s tweets was two years in the making

Trump responded two days later with an executive order that could hurt social media companies by removing a key exception that limits their liability for content posted on their sites.

The next day, Trump tweeted about the Minnesota protests. Twitter quickly labeled the tweet for violating rules about glorifying violence, and Snapchat stopped promoting Trump’s account the following week. YouTube told The Post that it holds politicians to the same standards as everyone else.

Facebook, on the other hand, chose to haggle with the White House, asking for a deletion or a change, said the people. Axios first reported the call, which Facebook’s Bounds confirmed to The Post.

As employees raged on internal message boards and externally on Twitter, Zuckerberg told workers that Facebook’s policies might change again in light of Trump’s post. The company had rules allowing for “state use of force,” he said, but they were vague and didn’t encompass the possibility that such pronouncements could signal harmful aggression. Bickert’s team planned a series of policy meetings for the weeks ahead.

In June, Facebook removed a swath of Trump campaign ads with Nazi symbolism, after an initial internal assessment that found the ads did not violate the company’s polices, according to documents viewed by The Post. In meetings, senior executives argued that not removing them would be perceived as pandering too much to the president, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Last week, the advertiser boycott picked up steam. Hershey, Verizon, Unilever, Coca-Cola and others said they were temporarily pulling ads.

On Friday, Zuckerberg told employees in a live-streamed town hall that he was changing the company’s policy to label problematic newsworthy content that violated the company’s policies as Twitter does, a major concession amid the rising tide of criticism. He also said in the most explicit language ever that the company would remove posts by politicians that incite violence and suppress voting. Still, civil rights leaders said his assertions didn’t go far enough.

“There are no exceptions for politicians in any of the policies that I’m announcing today,” Zuckerberg said.

Phroyd

[purplesurveys]

979

survey by xalikattx

FOOD

What is your favorite salad dressing? I’m not really familiar with most of them as I only consume one type of salad and the recipe for that usually calls for mayo and some kind of spicy sauce. I guess that’s my favorite dressing by default.

Favorite sit-down restaurant? Yabu for days. I personally don’t think that will change for me. Mama Lou’s is also nice but its crowd can be so boujee it kills the dine-in experience for me.

Favorite pizza topping? I’m easy to please; I just like my pizzas cheesy.

What food could you eat for two weeks straight and not get sick of it? Fried chicken sandwiches.

What do you put on your toast? Butter is fine with me. I don’t really eat toast.

What food do you eat the most? I have rice in every meal.

Do you like food? Yes.

Do you LOVE food? Yesssssssssir. I have my preferences and things that I don’t like but I’m not picky for the most part, and I love being adventurous with the foods I try.

Do you even eat at all? ...What kind of question is this

What do you put on your ice cream? I never customize my ice cream. I usually consume ice cream however way it’s already served. 

Do you like steak? For sure.

Or are you a vegetarian? No.

How about a vegan? No.

What food do you hate the most? I’ve never learned how to appreciate kakanin, which is a group of a variety of sweet rice cakes that we have in Philippine cuisine. This has definitely caused my Filipino card to be revoked in the past lol, but ugh the texture is just so slimy and I hate how, even though we have so many types of kakanin, they all just taste and feel like sticky, chewed-up rice doused in sugar and coconut flakes. Korean rice cakes taste so much better.

TECHNOLOGY

How many TVs are in your house? We have four. Two downstairs, two upstairs.

Do they all work? I think the one in my brother’s room has stopped working but we just never get around to throwing it out because of the possibility of it getting fixed someday.

Do you have Comcast digital cable? I don’t know what that is. Probably a US thing? In that case we don’t. We used to have cable TV but my dad ceased our subscription a few months ago because no one in the family has been watching the TV for cable anymore and he got sick of paying for something that we don’t even avail of; we all stream our shows and movies on Netflix now.

AT&T Uverse? Definitely no AT&T on this side of the world, so no.

Dish Network? No.

Something else? Obviously.

Nothing? Again, it was a local cable provider but we’ve since cut off our subscription.

What's your favorite show? Of all time, Breaking Bad. Currently, it’s The Crown but I’ve been such a bad viewer at the moment; I stopped watching at some point a few months ago and haven’t gone back to Netflix since, welp.

What's the worst show? I don’t objectively know what’s the worst one out there but when it comes to my personal preferences, I’ve just never seen the appeal of shows targeted to teenagers or a younger demographic in general, like Teen Wolf, 13 Reasons Why, Riverdale, the TV adaptation of Scream, etc. Of course, this is just my own taste and I certainly don’t judge people who enjoy these shows. 

What color cell phone do you have? The official name is Space Gray but that’s too fancy so let’s just call it black.

What kind? iPhone 8.

What does the first text message in your inbox say and who sent it? So I scrolled all the way down to the bottom of my text threads and the last person on the list is Ate Frances, and she was just telling me to check my Messenger because she had sent me a question regarding an event our org was holding at the time.

What was the last text you sent and who did you send it to? Gabie. I simply said “hi.”

Who was the last person to call you? My mom.

Who was the last person you called? Gab.

CURRENTLY

Are you missing someone? Yeah but let’s not get into it.

What are you listening to? I can hear rain pouring from outside my window.

Watching? It’s mostly background noise because I’m focusing on this survey, but I have on a YouTube video playing.

Worrying about? Work. I was tasked to think of PR executions for a client over the weekend and I just really really dislike it when I’m assigned to something that forces me to brainstorm, so ugh. Wish me luck because my brain juices have been feeling weak all weekend.

Where are you? I’m in my bedroom, my favorite place to be these days.

What's it like there? Lonely, but it’s quiet and comfortable. I used to avoid my bedroom all the time everyday because it makes me depressed, but now I am depressed and prefer to stay here all the time too.

How are you feeling? A little sad but I think tonight’s one of the nights I can fake it a little more easily, which is decent enough for me.

Is anyone with you? Who? Just Kimi.

Are you hungry? I haven’t had an appetite in a while. No.

What do you want to eat? I’m not craving anything.

Thirsty? I’m good, thank you.

What do you want to drink? I might end up drinking some of the plum soju that’s been in the fridge for months tonight, even though I told myself I wasn’t interested in touching it lol.

What time is it? 6:58 PM.

LASTS

Thing you ate? A tuna empanada.

Thing you drank? Pretty sure it was just water.

Thing you said? “Go, pee” It was to Kimi as I set him down on the balcony.

Movie you watched? I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Ugh, I really should watch a more light-hearted movie soon because this answer is such a depressing one and I’m tired of mentioning it.

Store you went to? What did you buy? Grocery store; dog food.

Person you talked to? My sister.

Person you hugged? I think it was Gabie.

Kissed? Also her.

Yelled at? I haven’t raised my voice in a while. I don’t remember anymore.

Book you read? Midnight Sun.

Thing you touched? Other than the keyboard, I pushed up my eyeglasses.

Person you became friends with on Facebook/Myspace/whatever other site? [continued the next day] A co-intern, Justine, added me on Facebook. I honestly don’t see the point of being Facebook friends because we’re bound to part ways and never encounter each other again after our internship...but I guess it’s nice to have friendly co-workers.

RANDOM

Are a righty or a lefty? Righty.

Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Just a decaying tooth, but otherwise no organs or anything larger.

What is the last heavy object you lifted? Does Cooper count? Little man has been getting so big over the last few weeks. He’s finally getting the growth spurt that we’ve been waiting for :’D But I don’t really do heavy lifting around the house, so.

Have any scars? Sure.

How did you get them? Any interesting stories? Most of them are scars from childhood falls, because I was the clumsiest kid in the neighborhood and tripped and scraped my legs at least once every time I played outside. There’s a scar on my left eyebrow from an idiot cousin who had been out to make me blind, and then there’s the self-harm scars as well.

if it were possible, would you want to know the day you're going to die? Yes. It’s one of the things I’ve always wanted to know.

If you could change your name, what would you change it to? I’m happy with mine. I’m not five anymore.

Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? If it was like sriracha then yeah. Not willing to do anything overly hot, though.

How about 10 bottles of ketchup? I’d be more enticed if you offered mayonnaise, but even then I think such a feat deserves a higher prize than $1000.

10 bottles of maple syrup? Thinking of how thick that is already hurts my throat. Pass.

A bottle of vinegar? HELL no.

10 jars of peanutbutter? HELL yes but again, I’m gonna be asking for more money lol

How many pairs of flip flops do you own? A couple. They’re not my favorite things to wear so I don’t feel the need to collect a lot of them.

Favorite month? April because birthday month; December because even though that’s when my depression strikes the hardest, everyone else is caught up in the holidays and that allows me to guiltlessly cut off contact with people for a few weeks.

Do you always answer your phone? If you mean calls, then no. I do not pick up if it’s an unknown number, but after rejecting I immediately text them asking who they are and what they’re calling for. I just feel like it’s proper etiquette to text before you call, especially if you’re reaching out to me for the first time.

It's four AM and you get a text message, who is it? Gabie for sure. She’s on the graveyard shift, so it wouldn’t be a surprise.

If you could change your eye color what would it be? I’m okay with mine, but if I got reincarnated as a foreigner I’d love to have hazel eyes. They look very pretty.

Do you own a digital camera? Not anymore. My phone camera can take good enough photos.

Do you take lots of pictures of yourself? Hell no.

Do you take them in front of the mirror in the bathroom? Nope.

Have you ever had a pet fish? I had several goldfish as a kid, yes.

Pet hamster? Nope. That’s mostly a Western thing too I think; I don’t think I know anyone who’s ever had a hamster.

Bird? We had lovebirds before; they were so low-maintenance and made for such sweet pets.

Rabbit? Yep. Tobi was a bit of a handful, but I loved him all the same.

Iguana? No.

Favorite Christmas movie? Love Actually and It’s A Wonderful Life.

Favorite Christmas song? Probably It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas. It’s so soothing and yet makes me feel festive and excited for Christmas.

Can you do push ups? I can, doesn’t mean I’m good at holding myself up ha.

Can you do a chin up? I can but I hate those.

Does the future make you nervous or excited? Both.

Ever been in a car accident? Just minor ones.

Do you have an accent? I think everyone does. I’ve honestly never understood this question lol, if I go to a different country or continent, people are always going to have an accent in my ears. Even in my own country, I can think of a number of accents I’ve heard people speak in.

What song always makes you cry? 26 by Paramore.

Have any plans for tonight? Rest my tired head.

What were you doing at 12 AM last night? Talking to Gabie.

What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? Ugh, Monday.