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Like a Phoenix, Jose Llana returns with a new album and a regal lead role in ‘King and I’
By Randy Gener Did you know? Jose Llana — the alluring dynamo who recently wowed Broadway audiences as the King of Siam in Lincoln Center Theater’s Tony Award-winning best-musical revival of “The King and I” — turns 40 years old this month. So far, it looks like a royal turning point of a birthday year […]
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How pop culture, social media played a role in Halalan 2016
By Joel David When it comes to popular culture trends, the Philippines appears to be mimicking its former colonizer, the US, in some ways, and leading it in other ways, usually by resisting or overturning the trends the latter sets. The recently concluded presidential election provides fertile ground to study these older possibilities as well […]
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Filipino food: Tops in taste ‘but not pretty on the table’
By Cristina DC Pastor With lavish patriotic pride, we declare Filipino food to be the best in taste. But we also wonder: Why hasn’t the Kare Kare crossed over to mainstream American tables the way General Tso’s Chicken has? About 20 restaurant owners and chefs who gathered recently to launch Filipino Restaurant Week — from […]
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Reflecting on a post-Aquino Philippines: Issues of poverty, private armies, corruption confront new president
Weeks before Filipinos go to the polls, diplomats, business executives, and analysts gathered at a Johns Hopkins campus to reflect on the administration of President Benigno Aquino III and examine the challenges confronting his successor. Motoo Konishi, former World Bank Country Director for the Philippines emphasized the importance of addressing corruption and improving governance, protecting […]
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3 Philippine films make the cut in the New York Asian Film Festival
The New York Asian Film Festival – from June 22 to July 9 – gave first glimpse of this year’s lineup featuring cutting-edge themes and a cast of Asia’s hottest stars. From the Philippines come three genre-defying films that explore fatherhood, and what it means to be an adult: Erik Matti’s religious crime drama “Honor […]
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Tech company ordered to pay its Filipino engineers more than $160K in back wages, overtime
A federal court in San Francisco has entered a consent judgment that orders a Silicon Valley electronics manufacturer to pay more than $80,000 in minimum wage and overtime back pay and an equal, additional amount in damages to its workers after the U.S. Department of Labor discovered violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). […]
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‘Elvis & Nixon:’ It’s all about the badge!
By Cristina DC Pastor Sometime in the Seventies, U.S. politics and pop culture intersected, resulting in one goofy moment in history: President Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley meeting at the White House. This encounter between the 37th president and the King of Rock and Roll was supposed to be a mere five minutes (because even […]
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Trail goes cold in case of missing ‘balikbayan’ boxes and vanishing freight forwarders
By Cristina DC Pastor This is a story familiar to many of us who have experienced shipping ‘balikbayan’ boxes around the holidays with relatives receiving them several months later, or worse, not receiving them at all. The story of Tess Madamba, a caregiver from Queens, is our story. She sent several ‘balikbayan’ boxes to her […]
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$76K judgment for trafficked physical therapist; 3 staffing agencies charged with coercion, fraud
Three staffing companies were hit with a $76,000 judgment in a lawsuit which claimed that they violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act by luring a Filipino man to the United States with false promises of a highly paid full-time job, according to the website Pechman Law Group PLLC. The […]