Category: Events

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The US Embassy in Manila launches its new annex building for consular services

Consular services, whether for non-immigrant visas, immigrant visas or services for American citizens in Manila has been improved several notches up with the recent inauguration of the New Office Annex Building (referred to as NOX 1 for short) on the US Embassy grounds.

Formally opened last April 27, 2011 by none other than U.S. Ambassador Harry K. Thomas, the $50-million annex building is not just “a work of art on a grand scale”, as described by Amb. Thomas, but also was built to the most stringent safety requirements. The media, including me, had the unique privilege of being toured around the building by the Consul General himself, Michael Schimmel.

One interesting thing that Consul General Schimmel mentioned was that, contrary to popular belief, 70% of all visa applicants actually get their visas approved. He also dispelled the myth that it is so hard for a Filipino to get a U.S. visa. Schimmel said that for as long as an individual can prove a professional and economic reason to return to the Philippines, that person will be given a visa.

Some interesting trivia and features on NOX1

  • The contract to design NOX1 was awarded to Makati Development Corp. (MDC). The building costs around US$50 million and is part of a $130 million investment in the local economy and the creation of 2,000 jobs for Filipinos. This is the largest contract yet awarded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations to a foreign contractor.
  • Ground-breaking was last June 29, 2008 and attended by then-US Ambassador Kristie Kenney, Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and former OBO Project Director Rodney Evans
  • NOX1 is a 2-story state-of-the-art office complex covering a total office area of more than 12,000 square meters. The first floor is for non-immigrant and immigrant visas; the second floor is for American citizens.
  • NOX1 is the second largest such consular services building worldwide. The largest one is in Mexico.
  • Its structure is made of over 12,000 cubic meters of concrete and 5,000 tons of structural steel and it is designed to withstand even the most severe seismic event. From the looks of the outer walls, I can hazard a guess these are several inches thick and fully reinforced to withstand attacks from the outside. And the doors are heavy, with shatterproof glass windows too. I know….just opening those doors took some effort, despite these yogini arms.
  • Additional safety features include state-of-the-art fire detection and suppression systems.
  • It is a “green” building, with architectural features made of sustainable materials and cooling/lighting fixtures fitted with environmentally friendly and energy-efficient components. Even sewage waste from the building is treated and recycled into irrigation water at a newly constructed sewage treatment plant on site.
  • Visa applicants will be happy to note they now have 99 interview windows with sound-proofing for improved privacy during interviews. Of course, not all 99 are occupied by consuls at any one time but there are enough of them to ensure the wait won’t be long.
  • Public waiting areas on the first and second floors can comfortably seat more than 500 people in airconditioned comfort. Additional waiting areas outside (not airconditioned) have a capacity for over 300 people.
  • Both the airconditioned and non-airconditioned areas are equipped with modern queuing systems and LCD TV screens. Huge electric fans cool the non-airconditioned area.

Here are more pictures of NOX1. We were privileged to be allowed to take these photos because, I am told, once the building is operational, no one (not even the US Embassy employees) can take pictures.

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An escalator incident in Promenade

My family and I were killing time on the 2nd floor of Promenade, Greenhills Shopping Center last night. We were excited to watch Thor and bought tickets for the 10pm screening.

Suddenly, we heard a crashing sound, metallic, long and loud and people were screaming and crowding around the sides of the 2nd floor as everyone tried to see what was going on. It took me several seconds to squeeze my way into the crowd to see what caused the frightful sound when I saw a long metallic part of the escalator’s left side (going down) that seemed to have been ripped off from its position and it dangled wildly across the escalator’s width. An opening allowed me to get a good view of the sight below. I took my digicam out and started taking pictures.

 

This was the first picture I shot of the accident

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A Royal Wedding in April

I’m one of those hopeless romantics who will be following the live coverage of the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29. Many years ago, I also sat glued to the TV set, watching as Prince Charles wed Princess Diana.

What’s it with royal weddings that brings out the romance and the curious in us?

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they live such sheltered lives and any news published about them (except for the tabloids) passes through some sort of censorship and approval from Buckingham Palace. For me, the fascination lies in the fact that the royal family has come a long way from their traditions and customs. Princess Diana paved the way for a slow acceptance of commoners marrying royalty, of the royal family being more visible and closer to the people, and of love being of a high priority (up there with duty).

This wedding is more special to me because the foundation clearly is LOVE. Prince William and Kate have been together for 8 years. That is a long time to build a strong foundation for marriage. And with Prince William bearing a lot of the influence of Princess Diana growing up in terms of her capacity for compassion towards others, her popularity with people from all walks of life, and her strong sense of duty, it is widely believed that he will eventually be a modern monarch in all aspects.

In my other blog, The Philippine Beat, I assembled a list of popular apps available now on the royal wedding. You can also find there a link to the official royal wedding site.

This April 29, I will surely be at home, watching the entire event on TV.

Do you plan to watch? What are your thoughts on this wedding?

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Earth Hour 2011

This is the 5th year of Earth Hour (it began in Australia in 2007 when 2.2M people and 2,000 businesses turned off their lights for an hour as a message about climate change). The following year, it became a global initiative with other countries, including the Philippines, joining in.

Since it began in the Philippines in 2008, my family has taken part as seen from my posts:

Earth Hour 2008

Earth Hour 2009

Earth Hour 2009 At Home

Earth Hour 2010

The urgency to take action and reverse the effects of climate change can no longer be ignored. The recent quakes that are getting stronger and more frequent are already signs that our Earth is not as it was before and that it is the effect of decades and decades of abuse to Mother Earth. Stronger typhoons, floods in places that never flooded before, drought in once lush places and more should be enough evidence that to save our planet, it takes the whole world to join hands.

This year, my family will again join the rest of the world as we turn off our lights at exactly 8:30pm and keep it off for an hour. Beyond lights, we’re actually going to turn off other appliances as well, including our computers, save for those that necessitate security. I’m leaving my modem on though so I can document our observance of Earth Hour using my iPad and keep up with the Earth Hour goings-on in the rest of the world.

This year’s theme is “Going Beyond the Hour”. Turning off lights for an hour is just a symbolic gesture. More importantly, saving energy needs to be our ongoing lifestyle. I was involved recently in a green campaign and those few months made me painfully aware of all the mistakes I have been committing, adding my own pollutants to Mother Earth. I am slowly trying to change our habits here at home and going green and organic.

Here’s a video of Earth Hour 2011:

HOW ARE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY OBSERVING EARTH HOUR?

Let’s all join hands on March 26, 2011, 8:30-9:30pm. Wherever you are, turn off your lights in support of saving Mother Earth.

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U.S. Embassy in the Philippines holds its first web chat

(UPDATE: This has been discontinued by the Embassy and as a result, the Facebook page is no longer available.)

In an unprecedented move by an embassy to connect with Filipinos and answer some burning questions, the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines is hosting a web chat right now (Feb. 23, 2011) as I am typing this post out. The first topic: U.S. Non-Immigrant Visas.

The hour-long web chat (from 4pm to 5pm) was well-announced. First, a Facebook event page was created. Then I heard the announcement of the web chat several times since yesterday over Crossover 105.1 FM. And a friend told me it was also announced over DZRH when a consular representative guested.

The chat room has about 117 participants as of this writing which includes people from the U.S. Embassy who are answering the questions posted on the chat room. To log on, go to this page.

The questions range from general questions — like what documents are needed to apply for an immigrant visa, why certain people were denied, how long before a schedule can be given — to specific family situations like an entire family wanting to apply for visas to attend a wedding.

I believe that this move not only brings the U.S. Embassy (and its government) closer to the Filipinos but attempts to address issues that are close to the Pinoys’ hearts. The issue of non-immigrant visas was a good choice, considering summer is very near, and many are planning vacations.

There were a few technical difficulties at the start of the web chat but I believe those are just birth pains. I hope that this marks the start of more technology-based communications with the Filipino people on matters that are of importance to both countries.

I’d like to congratulate the U.S. Embassy in Manila as well as the entire team behind it. More power to you!

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My Most Bloggable 2010 Event

Okay, here I am typing this while sick and in bed. I missed Christmas celebrations with the family and will most likely miss New Year’s too. But that is not what makes a bloggable event, right? A bloggable event is something that isn’t run-of-the-mill (although I wouldn’t call my cough and colds run-of-the-mill). It has to have some outstanding (or really deranged) essence in it for it to qualify as bloggable. Something that stands out, oftentimes not repeatable. Must have some meaning in one’s life. In that case, I do have one and nothing beats it hands down –and that is my being part of Blog Watch (a blogger group that was formed without any prior intentions or political intent but became one of the most visible social media groups during the May 2010 elections). One day in September last year, my good blogger friend Noemi (who everyone online knows as momblogger) just asked me out of the blue. “Jane, do you want to join me & some other bloggers to possibly write about the coming May 10 elections?” In my younger years, I saw a lot of action during elections. I was part of the Systems Committee of NAMFREL’s Operation Quick Count (OQC) during the 1984 presidential elections (when Imelda ran for President) and during the 1986 presidential snap elections. But motherhood dampened tempered my civic enthusiasm somewhat and I felt that my days of citizen activism were over and it was time to settle down to something quiet, boring and unbloggable. But here was Noemi, a mom like me, with no political inclinations, wanting to do her share for the country. How could I refuse? Fast forward to October 2009. A handful of us bloggers met to talk about what we wanted to do as a group, what to write about, and what to call ourselves. I think we all agreed we would write on voter education and spread awareness of candidates’ platforms. We actually spent more time thinking what to call ourselves. After a lot of brainstorming, we decided it would be a 2-word, 1 syllable name so it would be catchy and short. Noemi contributed the word BLOG and I contributed WATCH. For ever and ever, Noemi and I will be in the annals of Blog Watch history for that. Hahahahaha….. Our first exciting adventure event was a demo of the PCOS Machine by COMELEC. Then we began reading up on speeches by the candidates to see how we could put their platforms into a format easily understood by the public.This was followed by a PCIJ training on how to cover the elections plus some election-related fora like those at AIM with some candidates in attendance. But Blog Watch was meant for a bigger role in the scheme of things because before we knew it, Noemi was able to arrange our first interview with a presidential candidate – Manny Villar! To cut the long story short, that first interview led to interview after interview until we eventually covered 7 of the 9 presidential candidates, some vice-presidential candidates, senatoriables and local government candidates as well. This foray into the unknown world of politics and media coverage was really a trial and error thing for bloggers like us who were comfortable behind a laptop but were suddenly thrust into the limelight. We suddenly became interesting news – this small group of bloggers who were interviewing candidates & broadcasting the interviews raw and live via livestream. Blog Watch was invited a few times to ABS-CBN as well as a segment on radio.

Blog Watch on Strictly Politics with Pia Hontiveros

 

Ron Cruz interviewed Blog Watch on ANC's social media segment with the glitzy, high-tech "war room" behind us
Mornings @ ANC with TJ Manotoc

 

Guesting on DZRH

And, for the first time ever, we were reluctantly placed IN FRONT OF a real, live, TV camera when Global Destiny Cable asked us to cover the elections live! (Blog Watch had tied up with 100Araw.com and we called ourselves #juanvote). What an experience that one was. You had to think on your toes. Ok, who says what next? Where do I look? Which camera is on? Let me just say I was relieved when THAT was over!

 

#juanvote monitors the elections at GNN

What makes this a truly bloggable event is the fact that bloggers have made inroads  in areas where we are considered newbies and where bloggers have never gone before. We have never interviewed politicians. We have never appeared in front of TV cameras nationwide for such a big event. All we had were our usual blogging equipment (laptops, mobile phones, digicams, videocams) and yet we were able to produce interview podcasts, well-written published articles and beautiful photos chronicling the months in the run-up to the May 2010 elections.

When President Noynoy Aquino was declared the winner in the presidential race, Blog Watch was given the rare privilege of covering at least 4 post-election events.

With Cheryl Cosim of TV5 at Luneta Grandstand
At Malacanang Inaugural

If you’re wondering how Noemi and I got from Luneta to Malacanang on the same day going from casuals to Filipiniana, let me tell you that it is no joke to look for a clean restaurant so you can do an instant costume change while trying to find Malacanang via Google Maps (as we did not know how the heck to get to the Palace, hahaha). Thank goodness we passed a Starbucks branch on the way to Malacanang (you should have seen the raised eyebrows we got from Starbucks customers when we came out in full Filipiniana attire)! This must be how Superman feels every time he has to go “on call”…

Covering the SONA at the Batasan
Covering PNoy's 100 Days Report

Now that I think of it, 2010 was truly FULL in terms of bloggables. I believe that Blog Watch was able to help manifest the growing power of social media and citizen journalism. Citizen journalism and vigilance was highlighted to the hilt and the present Administration is now trying to see how social media can play a role in helping government keep watch.

Here’s what someone on the PNoy team told me.

At the beginning of the campaigns in late 2009, they placed social media influence at only 2%. By end of the elections, the influence of social media (and I believe a great chunk of this was contributed by Blog Watch) was estimated by them to be at a whopping 16%.

So, watch out 2013/2016 elections. Blog Watch will be there!

And oh, by the way, we just turned ONE! Yippppeeee!

 

Thanks to Winston and Jehzeel Laurente. Only a contest like yours would make me blog from my sickbed. LOL