A Dove dinner and make-up lessons from Xeng Zulueta

To be a make-up artist is one of my secret wishes (and I guess it’s no longer secret at this point). I think there’s a fascinating art to looking good and the ability to transform a face with make-up is magic in itself.

I attended a dinner-cum-mini beauty workshop hosted by Dove last week and one of the first lessons taught was for women to have good skin before one can have truly great make-up. And one word came up in the discussion several times that I promised it will be my mantra: moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!

I can’t fault Dove for selling the idea to me since they are a leading moisturizer brand. It’s an institution in itself and Dove’s white beauty bar was one of the first products I discovered to leave me smelling real good :D To prove that Dove is not just a woman’s turf (there is Dove Men after all), the brand’s product manager in the Philippines is a guy. Meet Gem Laforteza.

Dove dinner

After his short talk was the main part of our little get-together which was a tutorial + demo on how to achieve the “no make-up” look (while still using make-up!) with popular make-up artist Xeng Zulueta.

Xeng Zulueta

In a nutshell, here’s what she said:

1. It’s best to use combination products like a concealer that also doubles as foundation or brow definer that can also work as mascara. Saves on storage and cost.

2. A mini eyelash curler is best for Asian women who have relatively shorter lashes.

3. Cream blush is preferable over powder blush when trying for a no-make-up look.

4. When going for the natural look, one can skip the eyeliner and aim for natural shades of lipstick.

5. Begin your make-up by applying concealer on oil-prone areas, especially the T-zone: forehead, contour of nose and also the chin. Then apply powder foundation.

Bloggers Hannah and Angela are glowing examples that the no make-up look works indeed!

Hannah & Angela

Our group picture:

Dove dinner

It was my third time to visit the Ascott Hotel Makati and I should remember it for this yummy chocolate tart.Diet PHAIL!

Chocolate tart

For your make-up dilemma and instant make-up tips, follow @xengzulueta on Twitter

Also check out Dove’s Facebook page

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Weekend Getaway in Puerto Princesa Part3

Our day 3 in Puerto Princesa is for City Tour. I am quite excited actually, because the last time I was in Puerto Princesa, I wasn’t able to complete the whole city tour. Our day started a bit early. after breakfast we then started to roam the city streets of Puerto Princesa.

puerto princesa 00002

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Weekend Getaway in Puerto Princesa Part 2

Our Day 2 in Puerto Princesa Palawan started a little bit early as we will be travelling to the Puerto Princesa Underground River (PPUR).This is not the first time that I’m going to this UNESCO World Heritage site, so I am not really that excited anymore.

palawan 0088

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Aquino’s first year: The good and the bad

Shortcoming: shooting buddies

One area where the year-old Aquino government has made reforms, slow it may be, is in the fight against graft and corruption through reforms in the justice system.

This is not to say that Aquino has eliminated graft and corruption or there is no graft and corruption being committed by his own appointees. I merely recognize some reforms made in the justice system that could help in the fight against graft and corruption that was the campaign battle cry of Aquino -”Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.”

Number one ‘achievement’ is the removal of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and her subordinates either through dismissal, resignation or suspension. As long as Gutierrez was head of the anti-graft body, her benefactor Gloria Arroyo, her husband and members of her family could feel safe from prosecution.

Not making Arroyo accountable for the violations of the law that she committed would be an injustice to the Filipino people.

Last March 22, Aquino’s allies in the House of Representatives showed they have the numbers when they approved the impeachment of Gutierrez. The trial which would have been conducted by the Senate was aborted when Gutierrez resigned.

A new Ombudsman will soon be named that will preside over the plunder charges that have been filed against Arroyo. So far, former Solicitor General Francisco Chavez, who has declined the nomination for Ombudsman, has filed two. Chavez said that would not be the last.

Aquino has correctly linked graft to poverty that characterizes the lot of a third of the more than 90 million Filipinos. Reducing graft and corruption in government would redirect the billions that are diverted to the officials’ pockets to much needed funds for education, health and other social services to improve the lives of the underprivileged Filipinos.

Aquino should also be credited for encouraging participation of officials in congressional hearings on anomalies particularly involving military funds unlike during Arroyo’s time when her infamous Executive Order 464 prohibited Cabinet members and subordinate officials from testifying in congressional hearings without presidential clearance.

By encouraging transparency, the Aquino government helps in empowering the people with information that is needed for them to participate in governance.

Based on his still-high, although declining satisfaction and trust ratings, the public gets the sense of Aquino’s good intentions. But it is his capability in carrying out his intentions that is in doubt.

Aquino has not been helpful in erasing this doubt with his appointment of friends and shooting buddies in important positions. He even stood by them when they faltered in their jobs. The most controversial of them are Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Rico Puno, a pathetic figure during the Aug. 23, 2010 hostage crisis and Land Transportation Chief Virginia Torres, who continues to remain in her position despite results of investigations of questionable actions in the controversy involving Stradcom, the Information Technology provider.

In his inaugural speech last year, Aquino declared that “from presidential appointees chosen mainly out of political accommodation to discerning selection based on integrity, competence and performance in serving the public good: a civil service based on merit and not political patronage.”

This is where Aquino has fallen short and it is a major stumbling block in his governance.

On Writing Workshops

Penman for June 27, 2011


EVERY NOW and then, I get asked about the purpose and the value of writing workshops. Quite a few people—notable writers among them—have dismissed writing workshops too easily, pointing out (correctly) that writers like Jose Rizal, Leo Tolstoy, and William Shakespeare never went to one, and (incorrectly) that writing can’t be taught, and that workshops only end up creating technically perfect but unexciting and insubstantial works catering to the tastes of an academic cabal.

Facing another such question in an online forum a couple of weeks ago, I felt obliged to respond that what you get out a workshop depends to a great extent on what you bring into it—your work and your expectations.

People often go to workshops aware that their work is encountering a problem, and are therefore open or should be open to suggestions. Some others attend workshops in search of an audience to appreciate what they think is already polished, superlatively good work—and when they catch flak, they react and resist, and the workshop turns into a fruitless and ugly experience for everyone. Some people expect writing workshops to be therapy sessions or support groups; writing can be tremendously cathartic, and sharing one’s deepest hurts with others can be a good way of exorcising them.

Experienced writers don’t need workshops, because they’ve internalized its principles, and are in constant dialogue with themselves. Some others—perhaps less confident and craving the company and attention more than the instruction—might go workshop-hopping, gaining a bevy of e-group and Facebook friends.

Workshops can serve these needs, but that's not their primary purpose. Workshops are meant to help writers—especially those just getting started—with their attitude and technique. A good writing attitude is one that knows how to accept and dispense criticism, and also to determine what the core of one’s own writing is, and to discern which comments help that core, and which don’t. While I suspect that insight and linguistic brilliance come with the person, I believe that writing technique can certainly be taught, and those who think otherwise need only ask why piano teachers and voice coaches exist. At a certain level, a workshop will also raise more philosophical issues—whom do we write for, and why? How does our writing relate to the life of the nation?

Much depends on the workshop director or facilitator—usually, a person who is not only a credible writer himself or herself, but someone who knows how to manage people and expectations. Good facilitators keep their own egos in the background and lead discussions gently but firmly, steering them toward important learning points (say, point of view, dialogue, characterization, description, etc.). They should tread a fine line between candor and crudeness, and always seek to maintain civility in a potentially explosive situation, mindful that—no matter how badly done—a creative work is an extension of the writer’s person. The useful question to ask isn't really "Do you like it? Do you hate it?" but "Why?" A good facilitator will not seek to impose his or her own critical standards on others, but will offer up many ways of looking at a work; he or she will also not seek to create clones or carbon copies or his or her own work and style among the workshoppers.

In almost every workshop, some people will talk more often and more loudly than others—and quite often, the best talkers aren't necessarily the best writers. Speaking of talking, in my workshops, the writer whose work is being taken up doesn't speak until everyone else has spoken, so the discussion doesn't become unnecessarily defensive early on, and people don't clam up when they sense resistance from the author.

For me, one of a workshop's best values is that it gives the author a sense of how his or her work is going over with ordinary readers, a chance he or she will never get in the open market—and you spoil that chance by intruding too soon into your reader's responses. Let them speak freely—and then make your clarifications afterwards (in a good work and to a sharp reader, the clarifications will be embodied in the text.)

While it's important to listen keenly to what people are saying and to their suggestions for improving the work, the author should feel under no obligation to accept them all. They will often be varied, if not at cross-purposes. So a workshop teaches the author discernment, and encourages him or her to develop his or her own critical faculties. Eventually, the workshop will end—euphoria for some, torture for others, a bit of both for most—and the participants will have to go home to face the blinking cursor all by themselves, keeping whatever they learned in mind.


FROM A former student of mine and a UP workshop alumnus, Carljoe Javier, comes the good news that his book And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth, originally published by Milflores, has come out in an e-book version on Amazon. You can download it for $2.99 at (http://www.amazon.com/Geek-Shall-Inherit-Earth-ebook/dp/B0053ZJ2P6). This is a boon for all Filipino writers, as it opens the door wide to global publishing and distribution, without all the complications that come with finding an agent who then finds a publisher, and so on. I asked Carljoe how he did it, and this was what he told me:

“I submitted my book to local digital publisher Flipside (www.flipsidecontent.com) and they took care of digitizing the text for iPad and Kindle versions. They are registered with both iBookstore and Amazon (Flipside is a Filipino company that works as a BPO digitizing books for the likes of Barnes & Noble, and they've branched out to offer new local content).

“We could always go directly to Amazon and Apple and publish through them, but the registration, taxes, and other hassles were too big for me to think about, so I outsourced all the worry to the digital publisher.

“As someone trying to get read by a larger audience, I've published with two digital publishers already. Vee Press publishing Kobayashi Maru of Love, and now Flipside is publishing And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth.

“I believe in Chris Anderson's Long Tail, which says that if it's on the Net, someone will download it. I don't hope to be a big hit like Rowling or Meyer, but I do hope to get enough of a readership, a niche readership that's larger than the one I have in print here in the Philippines.”

All the best of luck to you, Carljoe—the rest of us won't be far behind. By the way, another Javier book—Geek Tragedies, for which I wrote a blurb sometime back—will be launched by the UP Press on July 1. This guy’s on a roll!


AND HERE'S another UP Press plug—an appeal, actually. My UP colleague and good friend Dr. Gemino “Jimmy” Abad would have been distinguished enough if poetry were all he did, but Jimmy is also fast shaping up to be the most important Filipino literary anthologist of our time. After completing a monumental series of anthologies covering Philippine poetry in English over the past century, and picking up where the late Prof. Leopoldo Yabes left off by selecting the best Philippine stories in English of the past six decades, Jimmy is about to complete the final volume of his story series. This book, Hoard of Thunder, will cover the best stories of roughly the past two decades.

Jimmy needs permission from several authors he can’t reach, for him to publish their stories: J. A. Romualdez, "The Apartment," 1994; Carmelo Juinio, "The Fairy Prinsoid," 1996; Merlinda Bobis, "White Turtle," 1998; Iris Sheila B. Crisostomo, "Passage," 2000; Rhea B. Politada, "The Epic Life," 2008.

If you know these authors or have their email, please let them know about this call. Jimmy also wants the authors to know—with some sadness, I’m sure—that “The UP Press, as it is subsidized, can afford only a 20% discount for authors included in the anthology.” Thanks, all!