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The Filipina 2.0 Personality

This is my official entry to WikiPilipinas and FilipinaImages Writing Project: “Filipina Stories”. WikiPilipinas, the Philippine Encyclopedia will unveil a special portal, The Encyclopedia of Philippine Women which will feature achievements of Filipinas all over the world.

The Iconography of the Modern Filipina
The Filipina 2.0 Personality -- A Digitally Extrovert, Modern Maria Clara

There is no doubt, a new breed of Filipina is emerging. In the surface, they have the qualities every Filipino men wants to have: beautiful and confident, reserved but knows what she wants, and super caring despite all odds. These are the same traits that Filipinas are known for around the world and most foreigners covet to have. You won't immediately recognize them when you meet them because you need to know them in a much deeper level. I'm sure you have met these new breed of Filipinas which I call, the Filipina 2.0 and here is how you can recognize them:

Digitally Extrovert

These new breed of Filipinas are introvert when you meet them but they are extrovert online. They are would usually share a part of their emotional shelf via their blogs / websites. Online, they share what they think about the places they have been to or the food that they ate and how they spend their life today. They are very honest about their opinions and feelings. Interacting with the online community is very important to them. They network with women who shares the same experiences or within the same life stage.

Modern Maria Clara

There is no doubt that they are beautiful in their own right and starting to embrace the unique Filipina qualities. They are reserved but she knows what she wants for the family, career and aspirations in life. She is still a super caring lady despite all odds and would die for love. She is always in touch with the latest trends and in touch with realities in life.

Her Own Boss

They are very entrepreneurial and decided that she wants to be her own boss. She is also the CFO of the household and ensures that cost savings program are in place. Kids are her most important asset in life. She would do whatever she can to develop the kids to the best of her abilities.

Mrs Awesome Planet – The Filipina 2.0 Personality

My wife belongs to this new breed of Filipina 2.0. I admire her because she sacrificed her career to be a stay at home mom to take care of Aidan and Josh. She continues to breastfeed Aidan after 3 years and syoti Josh as well. She takes care of both of them with the help from Tita D during weekdays. She does not fail to prepare food when I go home after office. She usually would call me throughout the day to ensure that I am fine at work. Recently, she convinced the family to turn off our Cable TV because of its harmful effect on the kids and watching most of the shows are a waste of time.

She started her own blog, Mrs. Awesome Planet (www.mrsawesomeplanet.com) to generously share her point of view about the places we visit or the food that we ate. She is starting to get a following and sees that the comments on her blog are steadily increasing. In the next few months, she will be launching a shopping vblog to share the hidden shopping secrets in Manila. She started to earn income online in only a few months.

Have you seen this new breed of Filipina 2.0 personality lately?

Ice Cream Bar (Flavors by FIC)

It's Ice Cream Time!

The FIC Ice Cream Bar is now open at the Joya Tower (in front of 7/11 in Rockwell). I was excited to check it out because there is a new dessert bar that you can go to after dinner in Makati. Also, I want to check out their Frozen yogurt dessert. The ice cream bar menu is simpler than Five Cows in Trinoma. I would still vote for Five Cows in terms of creativity and uniqueness of the ice cream concoctions. But if you love FIC for its premium quality dairy and milk ingredients, then this is the place to be :)

Related OAP Posts on Frozen Yogurt:
Cold Spoon Frozen Yogurt - The Next Dessert Craze in the Philippines!
Sorry Ice Cream, I'm On My Way to Pinkberry!
Red Mango-licious
I Love Berries Frozen Yogurt -- The Best Froyo so far in Manila...
Ice Cream Bar (Flavors by FIC)
Yogurbud
The White Hat - Let the Fro-Yo Wars Begin in Manila!
The Buzz About Froyo's
California Berry Frozen Yogurt
Lulubelle
After Lego Island, Enjoy Yoh-Gurt Froz!

Soft Serve Frozen Yogurt (P120) with P15 for every topping. I was disappointed with the Frozen Yogurt because for the tiny serving it would costs P150 with 2 toppings. With Cold Spoon Frozen Yogurt, it only costs about P100. Secondly, it is more of an ice cream with a bit of a yogurt taste. But it is still a healthier option to choose versus the ice cream ones.

[Flavors of La Salle] Solomon's Guest House

Be Our Guest @ Solomon’s

One of Malate's secret places is called Solomon's Guest House. It is the practicum restaurant of De La Salle - College of St. Benilde School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management. Only the creme dela creme of the batch are allowed to operate and run the restaurant for a particular term. Since it opened in May 2003 to the public, they now have 14 batches of students serving the Solomon Guest House. Batch-14's theme is Mediterranean Cuisine and Solomon's House Classics.

It is named after a De La Salle brother - Br. Solomon Nicholas Leclerq who was martyred during the French Revolution on September 2, 1792 and the first to be beatified among the La Sallian brothers on October 17, 1926. The Solomon Guest House is hidden along one of the side streets from the corner of De La Salle - College of St. Benilde Angelo King Building.

What we love about Solomon house is that you can eat their Parm Crusted Fish classic complete with presentation and ambiance for less than P100. Also, their paninis are sold for P65 only. The service is very good and the students are very professional. We love to bring our guests here. However, the Solomon House fails in comparison with all the other practicum restaurants that I have been to. That is sad because CSB's culinary arts has the highest tuition and they are on trimestral basis.

[Flavors of La Salle] Cerealicious

Cerealicious - Are you Delicious?

Cerealicious is still the first and only Cereal Cafe in the Philippines. One of their first few branches was located in Sherwood Place in front of DLSU. On a normal day, it is packed with students just hanging out and enjoying the healthy cereals. The marketing of using movie titles to package their cereal creations is brilliant. It is young, fun and makes you feel like a kid again. No wonder, Cerealicious continues to expand to other school vicinities and other areas outside Metro Manila like Cebu and Davao. We need to have more of these healthy alternatives to the fatty ice cream and fatty chocolate cakes. They deserve all the media attention they are getting for the past 3 years. Congratulations on your success!

[Flavors of La Salle] Mama V Resto

Beef Tapa (P89).

Mama V @ The Providence Tower is what I would call an All Filipino Restaurant. It probably serves all the Filipino food that we loved since our childhood. Beef tapa (in 12 special flavors), tocino, pork chop, corned beef, sisig, 9 pork variations (afritada, binagoongan, caldereta, kare kare, menudo, patatim, pochero, sinigang, sweet and sour), macaroni salad, spaghetti tomato, adobo, pork/chicken barbecue (in 12 special flavors) and chicharon. The menu is targeted to students and most of the dishes are less than P100.

It was established way after we graduated from DLSU and it caters to La Salle, CSB and St. Scho crowd. The place is not sossy but it is patronized by the students. Finding a parking is always a challenge so better avoid the heavy traffic hours (usually late afternoons)

Mama V Restaurant Menu | The Mama V Story

One interesting thing worth checking out is the P5/per song 24 hours a day Karaoke. There is no entrance fee, no cover charge, no person/per hour charge. The private air conditioned rooms can comfortably sit 5-10 persons but I usually see more people inside the room. I miss the college days where you hang out in a karaoke to celebrate someone's birthday and the more squeezed you are inside the room-- the better it is (if you know what I mean :)

(For room reservations with advance food orders, call Tita at 02 440 8749)

[Flavors of La Salle] Do you remember Garaje?

Garaje

We have always wondered what happened to our favorite Garaje turo turo place in La Salle. Garaje was the favorite food hang out place for DLSU engineering back then and most student raved about that place in the 1990s. Fast forward to 2000, it already moved to a nearby location where there are no signs and you can only see a small door beside a sari sari store. We actually got lost and had to call a few folks to give us direction. This place gave us an idea to do a series on restaurants/ food places around the La Salle area that is worth blogging about.

We lived in the Malate area near DLSU, so we decided to have our family lunch in Garaje. Rache was still pregnant with Josh but this did not stop us from reminiscing our college days ignited by the Garaje food.

Rogin E Blogger's Physique Challenge

This is my second attempt to lose weight (the first one was during the marathon last year.) Thanks to Rogin E for putting up this physique/ weight loss challenge for 3 fat bloggers (hehe) which includes Carlos Celdran and Paul Santos. I'm also starting to experiment with Vblogging and the video above is my first attempt . Check it out and let me know what you think :)




Related Posts:
Okay... Here we go... by Carlos Celdran
Heigh-Ho, Off I Go! by Paul Santos

One Night in Manila

I'm excited that my short contribution for Lara Day's One Night in Manila article in Time Magazine was published already. Lara asked three people about their recommendation to people if they only have one night in Manila. I was interviewed together with Jake Macapagal, 40, theater and independent-film actor and JLizette Claudio, 26, head of artist and media relations, MTV Philippines. Check it out:

One Night in Manila by Lara Day