QUEZON City, Philippines – Medical board exam topnotcher Marlon Garcia always wanted to become a doctor.
“I learned to love the profession as I was studying and I got to interact with the patients,” said the 26-year-old Garcia who finds the Anatomy and Surgery part of the board exam the hardest.
Watch this video interview with Garcia:
In an interview with INQUIRER.net, Garcia said the country suffers from the unequal distribution of qualified doctors and the lack of adequate facilities to perform medical procedures.
He said most of the doctors are located in the city while far-flung provinces are in dire need of more doctors. [Read the rest of this entry »]
TAGUIG City, Philippines — Stacking a dozen plastic cups might sound like a parlor game played during children’s parties but some kids get to play it as a sport. In fact, a sibling of three Filipino kids showed that stacking can be serious fun.
The Purugganan brothers Andrew, 16, Brian, 12, and Steven, 11, have been playing and breaking records in this relatively unheard of speed stacking contest. They and their proud parents Danilo and Victoria Purugganan are in the Philippines as participants in the the Passion Rush at the Bonifacio Global City.
As the name implies, sport stacking requires players to stack up to 12 cups in a pyramid. While some people would take over a minute to stack up all 12 cups without them falling, these boys can stack the cups in threes, six, and dozen consecutively in less than 10 seconds.
There are four basic categories in competition level speed stacking. These are the 3-3-3 wherein the player has to stack nine cups in threes then nest them back; the 3-6-3 is with 12 cups where the goal is to stack three sets of cups in threes, six and another threes; and the 1-10-1 also using 12 cups.
The fourth category is the cycle stack, where the player is required to cycle through the three other categories. A fifth category is the doubles with two players doing a cycle stack with one hand each.
The youngest of the Purugganans Steven is currently the world record holder for three categories: 3-3-3 that he completed in 1.86 seconds; the 3-6-3 category in 2.34 seconds and cycle stack category at 6.21 seconds. He broke the 3-3-3 and cycle stack records at the recently held World Sport Stacking Championships in Denver, Colorado.
Steven and his brother Andrew also held the doubles championship title with 7.84 seconds, which they got at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships in Delaware. This was broken by Germans Timo Reuhl and David Wolf with a very close 7.65 seconds during the 2008 World Sport Stacking Championships.
Their mother Victoria said the boys only started playing less than two years ago after watching the competition on TV.
“They got interested in it so we bought them cups that they could play,” she said, noting that they first joined the New York State Championships in October 2007 and from thereon, they’ve been breaking records.
And like all athletes, Victoria said her children do some exercises before joining any competition, such as push ups and jogging. Even when they are not practicing, which she said is a lot, the boys still get to do other activities, such as playing other sports like basketball, swimming, baseball and soccer.
Victoria said she is proud to let her kids compete in a sport they love while still having fun. She hopes that her kids will pursue the things they like and be successful at it.
MANILA, Philippines –When you’re single and a college graduate, would you rather be a mother of 11 kids who have come from different places and backgrounds?
For 20 years now, Erlinda Lubi has been a foster parent in the SOS Children’s Village Manila, where 32 homeless kids are currently housed.
Lubi, who is fondly called “Mama Erlin,” is now taking care of 11 kids from different age groups.
Lubi shares her unforgettable experiences as a foster in this video interview taken by multimedia reporter Morales.
“WHEN you decide to become a nurse, there should be a passion to serve and to care,” said Aira Therese Salamanca Javier of the University of Santo Tamos (UST), who topped the recent Board of Nursing exams of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) with a rating of 86 percent.
She said that going abroad should not be the primary motivation to pursue a career in nursing.
Asked to comment on the controversial leakage of the nursing board exams in the past, she stressed that nurses should always stand for integrity and honesty because they’re dealing with people’s lives.
Javier topped the board exams out of 64,459 students who took it. She was a UST scholar for four years.
ONE of the all-time greats of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), former professional basketball player Fortunato “Atoy” Co, was the special guest at the annual summer basketball tournament of the Filipino community in Dubai and the Northern Emirates which opened on April 11.
Here’s a photo of Co addressing the participating teams.
The opening ceremonies held at the Al Nasr Gymnasium in Oud Metha, Dubai saw the Intercontinental Hotel team win the best in uniform award, while Nina Cascades of the Fairmont Hotel team was named Ms. FBC-Chikka Grill at Marco Polo Hotel Cup.
MANILA, Philippines–In the eyes of fellow environmentalists, Von Hernandez is the kind who walks his talk, and gets the job done.
It’s no surprise then that Hernandez has been named by Time magazine as among this year’s “Heroes of the Environment,” along with Al Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev and Prince Charles and other personalities.
The Greenpeace campaign director was cited for his relentless campaign against trading in waste and highly polluting waste incinerators that led the Philippines to ban waste incineration in 1999, the first country to do so.
MANILA, Philippines–Imagine going to Manila Bay and coming face-to-face with a shark or even a school of fierce barracudas.
Come December, this awesome scene would be experienced by Filipinos — adults and children alike — with the completion of the Manila Ocean Park just behind the Quirino Grandstand at the Rizal Park.
The ocean park, a P1-billion project of Singaporean and Malaysian investors, is the first world-class marine park to adopt a “fusion concept,” according to Manila Ocean Park president Lim Chee Yong.
MANILA, Philippines–He isn’t hanging up his gloves yet. But Manny Pacquiao now wants to focus on a larger-than-life fight outside the ring — protecting the Philippine Eagle from extinction.
The boxing icon bared his plans to help preserve one of the world’s rarest and most powerful birds after he was showered with red, white and blue confetti at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Pacquiao, 28, fresh from his second conquest of Mexican Marco Antonio Barrera in Las Vegas last Oct. 7, flew in early Thursday to a subdued, less festive welcome after a planned motorcade in Manila was scuttled.
MANILA, Philippines–Family, health and religion are the three most important sources of happiness among Filipinos, while sex, sports, politics and cultural pursuits rank among the least important, according to a recent study by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).
But sounding incredulous, the NSCB official, who released the results of the study Tuesday, observed: “Could it be that the respondents were just too shy to reveal their true feelings about sex? Or (is it) time to shift stories away from the birds and the bees?”
Romulo Virola, NSCB secretary general, reported that Filipinos ranked family as the most important source of happiness, with a score of 9.45 on a scale of 10. Health came next with 8.95, while religion ranked third with 8.59.
MANILA, Philippines–She has literally seen the growth of Makati City from the time it was still known as San Pedro Makati to its rise as the financial capital of the country.
Today, 101-year-old Paula Garcia-Samarista will be honored, along with two of her slightly younger peers, in a special ceremony at the Makati City Hall celebrating their longevity.
To mark the beginning of Senior Citizen’s Week, the city famous for pampering its elderly residents will pay tribute to Garcia-Samarista, Melchora Oria-Ancheta, 97, and Mercedes Sarmiento-Belandres, 95.
Being Filipino, the INQUIRER.net blog that celebrates the lives and achievements of Filipinos all over the world. Manila-based INQUIRER.net is the online home of the Philippine Daily Inquirer group of publications.
