INQUIRER.net launches showbiz, science blogs

WE’VE launched two more blogs, for a total of nine sites in the INQUIRER.net Blogs network — and counting.

First up, we have Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Ruben Nepales’ showbiz blog, The Nepales Report.

Here’s an excerpt from the Breaking News story:

In his first blog post, Nepales wrote about performers in the US who try to hide their Filipino roots.

“In my years of wandering as a promdi in Hollywood, I have come across some folks who hide their Filipino heritage. These personalities say that they’re a mixture of Spanish (or to be more vague, ‘European’), Chinese and Malay, the standard racial make-up of most Filipinos. Some even claim that they are of Polynesian heritage. Basta anything but Filipino.

“Why do these Filipinos or hyphenated Filipinos conceal their Pinoy identity? Most are performers — actors, actresses and singers — who want to appeal to as broad a market or audience as possible. Or they like to be ambiguous in their race identity so they will not be pigeonholed into Filipino or Asian roles only,” Nepales wrote.

We’ve also launched the Inside Science team blog, which we hope will help more Filipinos appreciate science. Alex Villafania and I are the first members of the Inside Science team.

Here’s an excerpt from the Breaking News story:

“Today’s world revolves around information and communications technology (ICT), with many people becoming dependent on their computers, the Internet, mobile phones and portable devices. Students are taking up computer-related courses in college after seeing the promise of fat paychecks and traveling abroad. Not since the early ’70s have we seen this kind of surge in enrollment in computer-related courses, largely due to the increase in ICT requirements across industries and nations.

“But what few young people know or even understand is that all underlying principles behind ICT hardware and software are rooted in the most basic of all developments — and that is science and technology and mathematics. It is the laboratory scientists and researchers who toiled long and hard to find the best type of materials and best processes to make any equipment work. Metallurgists and chemists find the right raw materials for any hardware. Electrical and electronics engineers come up with the integrated chips. Mathematicians develop the software embedded in these chips. Even environmental scientists are part of the growing ICT industry as they come up with strategic routes where huge fiber optic cables will be laid across land and sea. These are the men and women who work behind the scenes to make ICT come to life,” Villafania wrote in his first blog entry.

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