Ang Dabawenyo

Sad news — Caffe Vivere is closing shop sometime soon. Owner Mawie Bawar texted me yesterday and asked if I knew anyone possibly interested in taking over a restaurant business. Unfortunately, Mawie will be relocating back to Manila already, is why.

So, I thought it might be good to blog about it, to help her find potential buyers. Here are some information I got from Mawie. The establishment is located on Mt. Apo Street, near the rotunda. It is around 70sqm, with a mezzanine. It can accommodate around 30 people.

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I’d been planning a look-and-feel change for my I-love-Davao blog for sometime now, but I just couldn’t find the right timing. But when WordPress came out with version 2.5, I knew I’d found the inspiration and the impetus to give Ang Dabawenyo a makeover.

Of course, having a brand new logo helped, too! (Thanks again, Winston.)

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Ang Dabawenyo is busy today at the…

1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit

It’s just three weeks to go before the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit, and I’m really excited about it! This is a first-of-its-kind event down South, and I’m proud that I’m part of the team that’s organizing it.

If you’d like to be part of this unique event on 27 October 2007, go ahead and register to join now. It’s free! But more importantly, it will be a venue for us to promote the true images of Mindanao to the world, via the power of our blogging voices. Read more »

Cheers to my AngDabawenyo.com blog! This is my 100th post, so some friends and I toasted this humble milestone with a few beers. Fellow blogger Maej Villanueva, entertainer extraordinaire Ahbet Padilla, new friend and chef Jenny Tan, and fellow student of Nihongo Peter Labor kept me company that night.

We were with a couple hundred Dabawenyos at the Victoria Plaza carpark, where one of several Oktoberfest celebrations have kicked off in Davao. By the looks of it, this one will most probably last the whole month of October. It’s located in front of 51 Coffee Shop and Buffet Palace — you can’t miss it, what with the humongous San Miguel tents covering the entire area. Read more »

The old PTA Park, as everyone in Davao should’ve noticed by now, has undergone a major renovation, and is due to be completed in December this year. It’s so named because of its having been the grounds used by the Parents and Teachers Association of Kapitan Tomas Monteverde High School way back when. If I’m not mistaken, the Association office had such a huge “PTA” sign, and so people started calling the place that way.

Right smack in the heart of downtown Davao, the new park, as before, will offer residents and visitors a place to unwind, relax and take in the city’s sights and sounds. The nearly 4-hectare park is nestled in the center of 3 hotels (The Apo View, Casa Leticia and Royal Mandaya Hotel) and numerous restaurants. Once finished, I imagine it’s going to be the perfect place for a quick break during weekdays, and for longer, leisurely strolls during weekends. Read more »

Not that I’m naïve, but it was a shock when I saw what results come out on Google when you do an image search for “Filipina”. I’ve been encouraging my friends to join Janette Toral’s “Filipina” Writing Project, and one of them showed me the current Google image search results. To put it very lightly, I was utterly dismayed. I don’t even want to describe it here, for fear of adding to the already negative connotation of the keyword.

The “Filipina” Writing Project aims to debunk the current search results associated with the keyword “Filipina” coming out of major Internet search engines. By generating more positive content related to this keyword, and via the pervasive effects of good SEO techniques, the Project hopes to spread an improved — and true — image of the Filipino woman. Read more »

Here’s the official press release for the 1st Pre-Kadayawan Poker Tournament.

The Metro Madayaw Poker Room, Davao’s first and only legal poker room, in cooperation with Casino Filipino Davao will be conducting the 1st Million Peso Pre-Kadayawan Poker Tournament on August 11, 2007 at the Pantawan Hall of Casino Filipino Davao.

Players from all over the country are expected to arrive & play No Limit Texas Hold’em and vie for the top prize which includes a seat to the 1st APPT Poker Tournament. The APPT will be conducting its first poker tournament on August 23-26 in Manila with a buy-in of USD 2,500 and an estimated prize pool of 25 Million Pesos, one of the, if not, the biggest ever poker event in the country to date. International professional poker players will be participating in this once in a lifetime event. Read more »

Last night I was invited to a press conference that was certainly not run of the mill. When Jojie (who’s actually my colleague of sorts as we both contribute to Sun•Star Davao as columnists) told me about it, she didn’t tell me what it was going to be all about. She just said there’d be food and alcohol, and that was enough for me to want to go!

Jojie was retained by this group of poker tournament organizers to handle their PR, but she probably didn’t know I played poker. I do, since 2005 in fact. And I used to be crazy over Texas Hold’em. I had a Japanese-language translation project that involved card games, and I started playing poker because I had to get into the groove so that I could understand better, ergo do my work better. Read more »

Lumadnong Kagikan, Mabungahong Kinaiyahan, Gasa sa Kahitas-an
(Ethnic Heritage, Bountiful Environment, Gifts from the Almighty)

The Kadayawan sa Dabaw will be formally opened at the brand-new Centennial Park on 8 August 2007, 5:30 PM. From the 8th to the culmination in mid-August, there will be various activities that will celebrate the Kadayawan festival around the city. Below, following the Kadayawan highlights, is a set of schedule of activities (tentative, as of 11 July).

Kadayawan Highlights

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