Baguio City was the summer capital of the Philippines wherein many tourist would go up all the way from different provinces just to cool their mind, body and especially to attend and watch the Panagbebenga festival-“season of blooming.”

In January 31, Friday, Mayor Benjamin Magalong announced the cancellation of all big public activities in Baguio due to the threat caused by the novel corona virus. These includes the very popular opening of Panagbenga Festival on February 1, Cordillera Administrative Region Athletic Games on February 15, and Sunday openings of Session Road, but the small event like weddingd, conferences, and others would still go on.

Mayor Magalong said that he would still see if the street dancing and floating parade would push through by February 29 and March 1. He said “The tourism revenues are the least of my concerns. My main priorities are the health of my constituents.” The desicion to cancel these events was reached after a meeting on friday morning with the health authorities and the members of the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation. He said that the cancellation of the Panagbenga opening parade would not mean the suspension of classes in the college level.

Mayor Magalong reiterates his pronouncement that Baguio City is not on lockdown only the postponement of government sponsored events that would attract large crowds in the next three weeks was announced as a preventive measure against the 2019 novel corona virus. The confirmed death toll in China rose to 490 on Wednesday as millions of people in the country were ordered to stay indoors.

The virus has spread to more 20 nations, prompting several governments, including our country Philippines, to implement travel restrictions and airlines to suspend flights from China. They reported Sunday the first death outside China was a man from virus epicenter Wuhan. The number of individuals being monitored for possible nCoV stood at 105, latest DOH data showed.

“If you are sneezing with colds and feverish, I ask you to stay home and avoid crowds,” Dr. Rowena Galpo told the media during a forum at the Baguio City Hall.

Galpo said they already made the advisories and cautioned residents and tourists here while also telling the to take precautionary measures so as not to contract or spread the deadly virus, its transmission is almost assured at close contacts. Galpo also asked the locals to practice a healthy lifestyle, avoid smoking and reduce drinking as well as have regular exercise to remain fit and healthy to be disease resistant.

Basic hygienic practices must be observed too like hand washing every now and then. She also said advisory to the hotel owners and managers to be more vigilant and report if there are suspected cases among their guests, especially foreigners or those who came from countries that have reported case of coronavirus.

They should know of the guest travel history if they came from a country which has reported cases of corona virus infection. “We urge them to report cases so we will know what we can do,” she said.

Their office has an established system. First is surveillance and if there is a case, then they would isolate the person, then have him or tested, and finally observed the people he or she contact with the past days. The observation is usually from 14 to 20 days and if the contacts show any flu like symptoms the hopefully not, there is already an infection.

Department of Health-Cordillera (Kagawaran Ng Kalusugan – Cordillera) Infectious Disease Cluster Head Dr. Jennifer Joyce Pira said that there are no persons under investigation (PUI) with regards to the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

Pira said the DOH-CAR only monitored an individual who arrived from Guangzhou, China but has no history of travel to Wuhan, China and without any known contact with a confirmed 2019-nCoV case. The person also has no known contact with individuals with severe acute respiratory illness or sick animals.

She said that although the individual and two of his roommates are under quarantine, they are all doing well and show no signs of illnesses.

The DOH-CAR stressed that there are no cases of 2019-nCoV in the Cordillera region to date.

The highland towns of Atok in Benguet province and Tinglayan in Kalinga have temporarily closed tourist attractions as part of heightened precautions against the novel coronavirus.

The local government of Atok has suspended all tourism activities in the municipality, which is home to a number of flower farms such as the Northern Blossom Flower Farm and Haight’s Place, which have been attracting local and foreign tourists. Atok Mayor Raymundo Sarac ordered the temporary closure of these farms starting February 6 until further notice amid the outbreak of the new coronavirus called 2019-nCoV.

Meanwhile, Tinglayan Mayor Sacrament Gumilab early this week directed all local policemen and barangay officials to put up checkpoints especially in Barangay Buscalan “to ban all tourists from entering the municipality.”

Tourists come to the remote village of Buscalan to meet Apo Whang-od, the Philippines’ oldest mambabatok or traditional Kalinga tattoo artist. The municipal government of Tinglayan has also set up a task force to prevent the spread of nCoV.

The Department of Health said there is no confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in the Cordillea region, but a total of four people are “under investigation” for possible infection – two from Benguet, and one each from Mountain Province and Baguio City.

There are now three confirmed cases of the nCov in the Philippines – all of them Chinese visitors. One of them, a 44-year-old man, died due to acute respiratory disease caused by the virus.

People with a history of travel from Wuhan, a Chinese city where the virus originated, and those who had contact with infected people are considered “persons under investigation” especially if they show influenza-like symptoms such as fever, cough, and cold. The Department of Health is awaiting test results of 127 persons under investigation.

Cold weather also decreases the bodily defenses, allowing viruses to enter the body with ease. But so far, Baguio is safe from the dreaded coronavirus.

Ms. Pepper
When I was given an assignment for my Online Journalism subject, Gosh! I don’t know what to do because we were given a task to make an article about our partner and make him or her become the center of the topic and discuss about their passion. I thought I was going to have a hard time. I have not hanged out with my classmates long enough to actually write about them and write something they are passionate about. Then, the day finally came. She has to feed me enough information about herself and passion so that I can write something about me and vice versa.
Samantha Fae Ignacio. My God! How am I going to describe this girl? She is a 2nd Year B.S Phycology student studying in the University of the Cordilleras and mind you that she is still not even her 20’s – she is 19 actually – but she was able to experience a lot of things in her life. As for me, the most exciting thing I’ve ever done is separate the coffee, sugar and cream from a 3-in-1 sachet of instant coffee. All those experiences made me intimidated towards her, I admit.
When I asked what she was willing to share, she told me that she loves voice acting and as of this moment she is honing her skills to be one. I envy her cause she was able to find her dreams at a very early age. You see, ever since she was young, she was always fond of foreign animation. May it be in movies or cartoon series. She watched them so often that she wanted to it for the rest of her life the moment she figured out that you could make a career out of it. What shocked me the most was this realization hit her at the age of 4 or 5 years old. Most people would reach the age of 30 and they still finding themselves and have no idea what to do with their life. That character of hers is very admirable.
Being a self-driven person that she is, she didn’t just sit around and did nothing. She honed her skills as much as she could without getting formal voice acting class or training and relied on the lessons she got online. She told me that one of her greatest influence was the animation “Helios: Axis Power”. Basically, it is a Japanese webcomics and later adapted in to manga and anime series written by Hidekaz Himaruya (a Japanese manga artist). To cut the story short, it is a show that personified the different countries of the world where political views are being discussed and historical moment are shown in a very over-the-top comedic manner. I personally saw this animation as a child so I could say that it was a very good animation.
For the reason that this animation became her huge influence, she started practicing a lot of accents and key dialects online where she imitated some of her favorite characters. Some of the accents she learned was English, Mid-Atlantic, Jewish, New Yorker, French and German. Despite being able to do these accents, she has always had a lot of difficulties talking in her own native language which is Filipino, particularly in Tagalog.
Her efforts were not even vain when she had an opportunity to become a voice actor. Her good friend Zaid Al-Shaheed introduce her to a contest held by Morevna Project (an independent company where they create and produce open-source short animation and develop free/open-source software for animation). The Morvana Project, or MP to make it simple, is CEO-ed by Konstantine Dimitriev which is also a good friend of Al-Shaheed. One could put two and two together and see how Samantha got the opportunity that she wished for.
This contest happened during March of 2017. She went through a lot of trials and ended up working on the animation where she got the lead part as Pepper on “Pepper and Carrot”, a web-comic made by an artist called David Revoy. During the process, she told me that she felt honored that she would be working on the animation. Considering that she loves pepper – the actual seasoning – she felt that it was fated. I would really want to put a lot of details on how the contest worked but my words are not enough how to describe the process of the contest since I was not the one who experienced it myself. However, one thing is for sure. She worked so hard in it that it finally paid off. After she duration of the contest, she won and earned herself $100, which is around 5000 Philippine pesos at that time. Anyone could see her performance through Youtube. Just type in to the search bar “Pepper and Carrot (MOTION COMIC) Episode 6: The Potion Contest”. Unfortunately, she was not able to fully enjoy the fruit of her labor and used half of her price to buy proper equipment so that would help herself to improve her voice acting skills.
She wanted to thank a lot people especially her friend Kevin for giving her discounts for the sessions that she needed and her friend Alex for voice directing her through it all. As of this moment, Samantha Fae Ignacio is working on a new animation and audio book projects and all I could is wish her the best of luck in her endeavors.
To Samantha, you may or may not be reading this somewhere near in the future. All I could say is that we may not be friends, we may not know each other personally but I truly wish that you would reach your dreams and continue chasing the stars. I admire you for chasing your passion since not a lot of people could do so. If there is something I learned in this world is that “hard work will never fail you” and I am passing that advice to you. I hope for you be happy in this path that you chosen, coming from a person who became you fan.

Continue reading “Who is Samantha Faye Ignacio??”

Hi everyone,I’m tani, I’m a Filipino,living in the Philippines and I love to cook my super favorite dishes and discover more Filipino food that’s why I cooked this specialty of Bicolanos which I’ve tasted last year from our friends.I like chilli food that’s why I chose to cook bicol express of the bicolanos to experience their kind of dishes and flavors. When I  tasted it my taste buds already like it.When I visit places,I’m more interested in their specialties and products although I didn’t visit Bicol but their specialty reach my mouth completely and I admit it taste deliciously good for my liking.I become more interested in cooking way back in highschool and until now that I’m a college student I’m cooking my own food and this way it enhances my strategy on how to put flavors on something that is not delicious but when you do it with your own strategy it becomes deliciously good.I become more interested in cooking way back in highschool and until now that I’m a college student I’m cooking my own food and this way it enhances my strategy on how to put flavors on something that is not delicious but when you do it with your own strategy it becomes deliciously good.It is my dream to have a business like a good restaurant because everytime and everyday people eat and other says that this is only the business that you will not experience bankruptcy.”Start doing something until it becomes your own because you cannot learn without doing it and success awaits in the end for those who pursue it.”

https://tanichu.tumblr.com/post/190604366628/cooking-my-dish-bicol-express-hi-everyoneim

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