MMFF 2023 Entry MALLARI Holds Fan Conference in MALL OF ASIA

The MALLARI fever is on as they hold a big mediacon and fan conference at the Mall of Asia Music Hall this December 1st courtesy of the folks from Mentorque Productions and their new distributor partner Warner Brothers Pictures and Cleverminds Incorporated.

The film is part of this year's Metro Manila Film Festival entries which is highly coveted. This stars Mr. Piolo Pascual who plays the role of Father Juan Severino, a Filipino priest who met his untimely demise through the hands of the Spanish colonizers because of his acts. The event will also be graced by Mentorque Productions President John Bryan Diamante, lead stars Piolo Pascual, Janella Salvador, indie king JC Santos, Miss Universe 1969 Gloria Diaz, hunky Ron Angeles, Tommy Alejandrino, and a throng of actors in this real and semi fictional story of a priest that lived in the 1800's. He is said to have victimized over 57 people before getting stopped as the earliest recorded serial killer. Even older than Jack the Ripper.

Piolo says "For me as an actor, it's hard, but the difference of the characters were already described. The production value really was my consideration, the time I read the script, I already knew how big it was."

Gloria Diaz says she loves working with Piolo and adds "I love him, he is so nice. He is so maappeal. The director is a little tense, I am insecure with the new director so I always ask. The location, rain and distance was far, I had to do this of course."

Direk Derick says "Our set is fun, it's so easy to work because everyone was good vibes. The day 1 was severely difficult because we shot the ending first. I had questions about the way we shot this because it was very challenging to do 3 different personas and do it right away."

Janella says "The reason why it's called a curse (love as a curse) is because you want to do everything for the one you love, but I don't believe in that much."

Here's our video coverage, please enjoy!

 

This is Directed by Derick Cabrido who's dedication is unquestionably proven in this film. He showcased different timelines, periods that is not a usual topic in MMFF entries. Fans who love horror will surely love this offering, and international audiences will have a treat watching this horror flick on Christmas day. If you want to know more about MALLARI, visit Mentorque on Facebook  and @mentorqueproductions on IG.

SEAN DE GUZMAN Ready to Break Limits of Genre with FALL GUY

It was such a pleasure to see fresh faces for the upcoming Joel Lamangan masterpiece "Fall Guy" (this is still their working title). In a grand story conference this evening, producers Ms. Len Carillo of 3:16 Media Network and John Bryan Diamante of Mentorque Productions had us see a glimpse of this upcoming movie written for the screen by famed Troy Espiritu.

This stars the good looking Sean De Guzman who also starred in previous Joel Lamangan film "Anak ng Macho Dancer" (Son of the Macho Dancer) which was his launching film during the first quarter of last year. He also did Bekis on the Run (Gays on the Run), Huling Baklang Birhen sa Balat ng Lupa ("The Last Gay Virgin on the face of the Earth" which have yet to be shown on theaters) and Island of Desire on streaming platforms.

He says "Honestly, when I was informed that I was going to do FALL GUY, I was nervous, I had self doubt because the role was super heavy. I knew that I really have to work on how I portray the role as it is very different from the films that I've made in the past. It delves more into drama. You can say this is my attempt to crossover to a different genre. Not that I'm quitting making those kind of films, I just want to take on different roles and learn from them. I wouldn't want to put limitations,  Who knows, you might be seeing me in action films in the future."

Direk Joel says "I am the one who went with him on his journey as an actor. Why did I choose him? Because I saw potential as an actor, intrinsic traits of a good one. It can be developed into something big as a lead for a film. That's what I see in Sean. When the opportunity came for me to make a film for him, I didn't bat an eyelash. After working with him in previous projects, I can say he will deliver. I've seen his growth as an actor and this movie will surely showcase his versatility. I have never doubted that from day 1. This is a good story of a young man who didn't like where he came from, because they're poor, and this is what happens if they follow a life with lies. I know Sean can do something like this, and people can learn from it."

Aside from the films mentioned earlier, Sean has also been busy with other films and series under the Vivamax brand. He also made mention of how he's really eager to work with Cloe Baretto of whom we've interviewed a couple weeks ago. They've been friends for a while now and just joked around about who wanted who. Needless to say, they've been looking forward to do a project and this has just come in to fruition.

 

Vance Larena is also part of this project

FALL GUY also stars Ms. Glydel Mercado, the legendary Shamaine Buencamino. Also in the cast are Vance Larena, talented actress/writer Quinn Carrillo, Marco Gomez, Karl Aquino, 80's icon Ms. Tina Paner, Jim Pebanco, Pancho Carrillo, Mark Cardona, Tiffany Grey, Azekah Alvarez, Nisa Ortiz, Hershie de Leon and Itan Rosales. As you can see, they're not shortchanging you in the acting department, you'll be seeing another Joel Lamangan film that's worth watching when they finish the shoot. Follow their social channels to know more about the project.

Trend Micro PH Set To Hold DECODE 2020 on November 10 to 12th

Tomorrow, they will be holding a cyber security conference done via virtual sessions at decodeph.com. There's an expected 3000 attendees in 40 different sessions, definitely a huge one. For those who don't know, Decode started in 2017 and aims to make local technology professionals be up to date of worldwide cyber security trends. This year is no different, and they're making it available online since we are all under the pandemic.

New threats means corporations need to transform seamlessly and securely. They are identifying cyber security skills gap in the country and currently, they put this in risk analysis and mitigation, non technological security, IT roles, and more. This year, they are doing 6 keynote speakers, about 33 breakout sessions, 2 plenary sessions and 1 panel discussion on the three days they are doing this.

Good things to learn of course are topics about securing privacy, identity and compliance, cyber crime vulnerabilities and future threats. Martin Rosler, Myla Pilao and Robert McArdle of Melissa Hathaway of Trend Micro, Hathaway Global LLC, Philip Casanova of SGV, Craig Jones of Interpol will be the keynote speakers for the event and they are expecting attendees include IT professionals, decision makers, cyber security professionals and others.

If you or your organization would like to register for free, visit their official website today at https://decodeph.com/

Rogin-E MANCON Slated February 18

For the men who always want to be on top, Rogin-E is holding a MANCON (yes a MAN CONFERENCE) for Filipino guys who are always active, on the go and need a supplement to maintain that form.

This February 18, Saturday at 4:30PM you can join in the fun at Metro Tent, Metrowalk in Ortigas, Pasig along with celebrity Rogin-E female guests sultry Aubrey Miles, dance diva Regine Angeles and Sports personalities, Jimmy Alapag, king of the Kramer Family Doug Kramer, football hottie Anton Del Rosario and good looking Aly Borromeo as they showcase their own lifestyle activities as real Rogin-E men. They will show their secret in staying on top.

So don't do anything on Saturday and go to this venue. They'll make sure it'll be worth your while.

KUMAGCOW

Fresh Blogs Fast!

Meralco Launches 1st MTECH 2015

We're in the Meralco Technology and Innovation Summit today at the Meralco grounds in Ortigas. This is a 3 day summit designed to push Meralco's goal for innovative solutions and customer service advancement in the power industry. They call it Visioneering, a combination of forming a vision and engineering innovative solutions that would in turn increase customer interaction, empower them, integrate environmentally apt and distributed resources, plus sustainable and reliable energy. This is the first MTECH forum and they were led by Meralco Chairman Manny V. Pangilinan, President and CEO Oscar Reyes, Meralco SVP Alfred Panlilio and their Chief Technology Adviser Gavin Barfield in simple ceremonies. 

Meralco's VP and CIO Marthyn Cuan says "Tech is a powerful tool to differentiate Meralco Business from the others as we continue to engage and empower our customers. It will shape a brighter future for the company and our customers."

Confirmed to speak in the conference is IBM Scaleable Solutions Architect and master inventor Kerrie Holley who will talk about his topic "Rethink Disruption". Also, they had IBM Analytics Chief Data Scientist Dr. Olav Laudy talking about big data and analytics and how to use it in utility companies. Siemens Asean Chief Technology Officer and Engineering Head Anand Gopal Menon and Sajin Rejan the Managing Director from Opower APAC on the other hand discussed smart technologies and customer based applications. All of these of which is to make Meralco 2021 a reality today.

MTECH2015 has also partnered with Cisco (hello! I know you're reading this LOL), Cotrix, Cloudera, Dell, Indra, Landis + Gyr, Microsoft, GMS, Hitatchi, Huawei, IBM, Pay Maya, Safezone, Salesforce (oh hello there too!), Samsung Business, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Toshiba and a lot more so they could showcase their products, software and services at the venue.

KUMAGCOW

Fresh Blogs Fast!

For more information about their services:

Meralco

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Visit their official website

http://www.meralco.com.ph/

Saranghaeyo #EwanKoSau Story Conference

We spent a quaint afternoon with the cast and crew of up coming film Saranghaeyo #EwanKoSau during their story conference at the Belleville Cafe in Scout Tobias in Quezon City. It's an independently produced film but will be released mainstream by Bagong Buwan Artist Collective (New Moon) and Directed by Roman Perez Jr. It's also written by Palanca Awardee En Villasis. 

As you can see, this one's pretty mixed. Artists from different channels like ABSCBN, GMA and TV5 comprise the stars of this movie and it's not often that this happens. Imagine Jon Lucas, Barbie Forteza, Francis Magundayao and Elisse Joson in one project, that just won't happen in normal circumstances but the stations were nice enough to allow them to do this and Director Roman Perez Jr. is really happy about the outcome of their dialogue with the networks. It was hard but when they told them the story and what they wanted to achieve the network wars didn't seem to be an issue at all. 

The producer herself says she is taking a gamble at this because she believes in the individual actors and the Director who has done projects for the different networks in the past. Aside from that, they are putting out a very current story and will delve more into the KPOP Fever that teens nowadays are crazy about and make the characters live in the moment but portray them differently so they can depart themselves with the goody two shoes role they used to see these stars on TV.

John Matthew Uy is also here. He's gone a long way from his Star Factor TV5 days and is juggling around appearances here and there. He was also in the highly successful She's Dating The Gangster movie with Daniel Padilla and Kathryn Bernardo. Joshua Rafael Davis the Yoyotricker and Ultimate Talentadong Pinoy isn't dishing out toys anymore. He's doing good in shows of TV5 and now he's doing this too with compatriots from other networks. He looks good and it seems that he's going to be part of the crew of John Lucas' character in the movie. Obviously we don't have any shortage of talent with this boy and we can only expect he'll be making this an interesting mix of personalities in the movie as Caloy.

Jon Lucas

Jon Lucas who played Dominic in the highly successful series Got To Believe in Magic and Michael in the longest running show Be Careful With My Heart (lol) will play the role of River Mondragon, a highschool hearthrob who's also an achiever and a student leader. He might grow the irk of Barbie Forteza's character later on, I'm sure it won't be helped.

Barbie Forteza

 I love Barbie Forteza in Half Sisters and I watch her everyday. I also have seen her best supporting actress performance in Mariquina that's been lauded by critics. Now that she's in this film, she's going to be very different from that kind cutesy role we often see her with because as she plays Calixta "Kai" Luna, an only daughter that's rich, but hungers for parental love. She's a hard core KPOP fan and falls for River (Jon Lucas' role). She's THE mean girl in school and she's going to make everyone's life miserable. She says this is going to be a challenge for her but says it's something that she wanted to do because she's always the good one on tv programs. She's welcoming the change and wants to see how they would be able to make the character as feared as she was reading it in the script. The character was that interesting so when her home station permitted her to play the character, she grabbed it. They were all hand picked by the way so just imagine this stellar cast on the silver screen soon.

Elisse Joson

I haven't seen her in person before before this event, but we've seen how she did "Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo" (Why aren't you the crush of your crush?) last year. I must say, she's really pretty. She also dresses well. Elisse is playing the role of Amanda "Mandy" Martinez. The character will be the best friend of Baste, but later on falls in love with him. We'll have to watch how her character gets beaten up by Kai (maybe) in the film. Will she also be the apple of the eye of Baste too? Well, we need to watch out for that.

Francis Magundayao

Francis Magundayao has worked for both GMA and ABSCBN. In the Kapamilya Network, he's doing several MMK episodes and Wansapanataym (read as Once Upon A Time) episodes. He's also in the hit series "Sana Bukas Pa ang Kahapon" (Wish Yesterday Was Tomorrow) as Sebastian Syquia. He's on that show with Bea Alonzo and Paulo Avelino. His successful projects makes him one of the most bankable young stars in the network and when the opportunity to work with different networks arrived, he said Yes right away. 

It was a no brainer because he always wanted to work with great people from other networks and lauds Barbie Forteza since he watched her shows and movies prior to this. He's also done an excellent job on his current projects and has amassed a good following even on social networks. In this movie, he's playing Sebastian "Baste" Agoncillo. He comes from a very big and happy family. Even if he's poor, he's doing good in school and wants to be a local Shakespeare in the making. 

 

Alwyn Uytingco, Nadine Samonte, Alice Dixson, Eric Quizon and a lot of other actors will also be in the film. These strong personalities and the different lives they make will surely be a great place to start telling the story. They also showed us a couple of locations that they will be shooting in. I sincerely hope they make more of these independently produced films and make the more commercial ones have a run for its money. It's also refreshing to see the combination of actors and actresses since they're not playing and operating in their own stables this time. Let's see how they play this modern day Romeo and Juliet in the Philippines. I'm sure with the tons of successful shows that they've had, it would be easy to make their fan base happy on this KPOP influenced film. Watch it on theaters soon!

For more information about their movie:

Saranghaeyo #EwanKoSau

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Visit their official website

Saranghaeyo #ewankosau

Short Video: G2B Finale Press Conference

It was a nice day to celebrate but most of the personalities I've seen in the press conference of the popular show "Got To Believe" were a little sad because they've finally come to realize that good things must come to an end. 

I'll share with you the last few minutes of the G2B Finale press conference as the lead cast gave their message to the supporters of their show. Truly, they value the help of their fans to its success and they will give back through a fair in March 2. I'll update this post also to add more photos. In the mean time, enjoy this video!

Ciao!

KUMAGCOW
Men's Lifestyle Redefined!

PESO SENSE: The Philippine Financial Freedom Campaign!

Toshihiro Tanaka says that in spite of developing countries, equality remains a problem. The world distribution of equality is susbtantially not implemented. Migration gives this to overseas workers but needs to be done in their original country. It should be included in development objectives. An opportunity to link and transform Filipinos by financial literacy through the launch of the Philippine Financial Freedom Campaign.

We need to integrate migration into new economic agendas.

Secretary Imelda Nicolas shared her views on how some overseas Filipinos come home without financial stability, but adds there is hope. Even though we shop til we drop, we should be spending wisely and they'll do this via a christmas themed campaign. This includes macro economic policies on remittances or private money transfers. Improving financial initiatives that will benefit the Filipino worker and their community. Financial literacy will be supported by local and national governing bodies. Modules are currently even done in seminars for OFW deployment that encourages saving and entrepreneurship. A great start for every age and financial status. She mentions a program called PESO SENSE which teaches skills and advice on saving plus pointers on how to acheive financial freedom. 

Mr. Patrick Gaston  the President of the Western Union Foundation says that this is such an important initiative for the Philippines and other countries. Their company decided to focus on education together with their NGO partners and see that vocational training, financial literacy is a very good example when they meant education for making lives better. Western Union says they want to approach this together with their business partners and the community so it would have meanigful impact.

Dr. Felipe Medalla, Monetary Board Member adds Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas fully supports this synergy and says we must harness technology too so we can level the playing field and increase the middle class. This would result in change in leadership, as we see now in the PDAF issue. As we get older our earnings rise but our expenditures follow suit. Educating is really important, this also includes dealing with uncertainty or problems in jobs and health. It's not an easy task, a very tall order but realizing this is the first step. He also mentioned the difference between economics and sociology. People should think about this campaign, but we have to note that GDP isn't a good measure for our national accounts since it doesn't include the real picture. Ours could be more if only our leadership does not lose focus. Improve remittances, make it fast and let the people benefit from it. 

S stands for shopping list

E stands for early shopping

N stands for no expensive gifts

S stands for Solid future

E is for Earn and Save

Makes sense no? So the next time you get your 13th month pay, think about what you are spending and how much you could save with a little bit of SENSE. :) 

Visit ther official website

http://www.pesosense.com

Jobstreet.com x POEA Anti-Illegal Recruitment Campaign

Jobstreet.com and the POEA is now hand in hand in launching an Anti-Illegal Recruitment campaign to rid the country of these unscrupulous individuals and entities that prey on soon to be overseas Filipino workers. The MOA was signed at the Blas Ople Building in Ortigas, Pasig City. It is part of the agency's continuing preventive measure in streamlining a more efficient and strict renewal for recognized agencies. They also offer free legal services to victims if in case they fall victim to these agencies. They also are shaping up measures that would be able to get them to enforce stricter penalties to violators more today. 

They also are continuing to furnish trainings and overseas worker education for the benefit of the Filipino workers in order to make them well informed once they step into foreign soil. It is also being added as a requirement for all jobs. They also have some new requirements to make sure that each company that will be in their database are all legitimate. It's one way of making sure you won't be victimized by illegal recruiters which this campaign is gunning for.

POEA also just launched the Balik Manggagawa Program to schedule and secure appointments for OEC's so you don't have to line up with the crowd. It's quite similar to DFA's appointment system. It's available at POEA.GOV.PH



For more information about this cause

Visit their websites

http://poea.gov.ph/
http://www.jobstreet.com.ph/