Chill out from Netflix for a while. If you’ve been thirsting for a really good Filipino film—and by that we actually mean excellent—here’s something that will keep you woke.
The prestigious Criterion Collection recently released Insiang (1976), director Lino Brocka’s now‑classic social realist melodrama that made Hilda Koronel a star at the Cannes film festival and also secured the director’s place in international cinema.
Not only is the Philippines now represented in the Criterion catalogue, but its release of Insiang is also part of the Blu‑ray/DVD collector’s set entitled Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 2 which retails at US$99.96.
(Also featured, among others, in the Scorsese project is Apichatpong Weersekathakul, whose Thai art drama film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) was shown yesterday at the UP Film Institute’s Film Center.)
A link on Insiang in the Criterion website also features an essay by cineaste Phillip Lopate that shows a refreshing familiarity with Philippine cinema.
It was reported late last year that Criterion would release another masterwork by Mr. Brocka, Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (1975), on which New York Times critic Manohla Dargis wrote an earnest appreciation in her 2014 retro‑review.
Four decades after the Second Golden Age of Philippine Cinema—the era of Mr. Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, and Mike de Leon, among others—that period continues to be revived and rediscovered.
IT IS DIFFICULT not to be impressed by the Lenovo Yoga Book the first time you see it. This 2-in-1 convertible tablet is wafer-thin and comes with a futuristic keyboard that’s guaranteed to elicit oohs-and-aahs from colleagues the moment you pop the device open.
What makes it even more appealing is its below-P30,000 price tag (P28,999 to be exact for the Windows version), which is considerably lower than say, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4, which starts at P60,000 — although both may not be comparable in terms of specs.
With the Yoga Book, Lenovo may have succeeded in designing the ideal ultraportable laptop, but its usability and mediocre performance could be the reason it’s still not in the same league as other premium 2-in-1s in the market. Still, depending on the level of productivity you require while on the go, there’s enough to love about this device. Read on.
DESIGN AND FEATURES
The Yoga Book’s design is one of its strengths. Two metal slates made of aluminum and magnesium alloy are held together by Lenovo’s famous watchband hinge, which allows the Yoga Book to fold 360 degrees and transforms the device into four versatile modes: laptop, tablet, tent, or flat/drawing.
Yoga Book comes with Lenovo’s famous watchband hinge.
On the left side of the keyboard surface, you’ll find the micro-USB charging port, HDMI connector, left speaker grill, a charging/power indicator, and a micro-SD card tray. On the right are the on/off button, right speaker grill, volume buttons, and a 3.5-mm headphone jack.
The thinness of this device — 9.6 mm when closed shut — and its lightweightness (690 grams or 1.52 lbs) earn the Yoga Book high marks in portability. It’s slender body and matte finish also offer a good grip. A case or a sleeve may be unnecessary for the Yoga Book was easy to slip in the handbag (or backpack). It was also thin enough to carry around like a book when rushing to meetings.
My only problem with a laptop so thin, however, is that opening the Yoga Book needs both hands to pry it open. Also, in laptop mode, using your lap for support may not be enough to hold the Yoga Book steady as you type. It also tends to slip or wobble when you move your legs.
Yoga Book’s Halo keyboard doesn’t have physical keys.
Opening the Yoga Book reveals a flat, matte surface that instantly glows, revealing an outline of a full backlit keyboard. The keyboard, called Halo, is a ‘learning’ keyboard, according to Lenovo, and it’s designed to “adapt to the typing habits” of its user thanks to a built-in prediction and artificial learning software.
The Halo keyboard may be ground-breaking but it comes with a steep learning curve. On the first week, it was impossible to type even just a paragraph as I’d inadvertently hit a random key or the I-beam pointer would jump elsewhere on the page whenever my palm slightly brushes the hypersensitive touchpad. I also remember hitting the backspace more often than typing the keys.
It took me a little over three weeks before I became comfortable with typing on the key-less keyboard. And even then, I still had to glance at the surface every now and then to make sure I was tapping the right keys.
The option to turn on haptic feedback on the keyboard helped, but it lagged whenever I type fast and the vibration was felt on the entire keyboard, not on a specific key. Note: the Halo’s “learning” feature comes in the form of autocorrect and predictive text functions. It helped, but only to some extent. There were just too many typos that the software somehow gave up at some point.
Pressing the pen icon at the top right surface converts the keyboard into a drawing tablet. Using the pressure-sensitive Real Pen stylus that comes with the Yoga Book, you can write notes or draw on the surface. Powered by Wacom, maker of drawing stylus and artist tablets, the Real Pen was designed to respond to the surface’s built-in electromagnetic resonance (EMR) film, which enables real-time digitization, according to Lenovo. This means your handwriting or drawing is mirrored on the screen — a feature that students and graphic artists might be drawn to.
Lenovo says the Real Pen can draw with the precision of a pencil or paintbrush, with 2,048 pressure levels and 100-degree angle detection. The 10.1-inch screen, which is made of Gorilla glass, also responds to the stylus but it’s not as responsive as the drawing surface.
For those who like the feel of ink on paper, there’s also an option to plug an ink tip to the Real Pen (it comes with three ink refills) so you can write or draw on the 20-page Book Pad (also included) and save a digitized version of your work on the Yoga Book. You can also use any paper as long as it fits the Book Pad clipboard.
The Yoga Book’s 10.1-inch full-HD display is nothing to write home about, except for its touchscreen capability, which I found more reliable than the touchpad when it comes to scrolling through or navigating the screen. The thick glass bezel surrounding it (about 2 cm wide) may be disappointing to those looking to use the Yoga Book for creative applications and want to draw on as much screen real estate as possible, but for note-taking and other productivity purposes, this feature is negligible.
PERFORMANCE
The unit that Lenovo sent for review was the Carbon black, Windows 10 variant. There’s an Android version, which has some dedicated functions and a slightly different set of pre-loaded apps. For instance, the Android version comes with a nano-SIM tray for 4G LTE connectivity, as well as Google apps like Google Docs and Google Sheets, while the Windows version comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Office Mobile apps like MS Word and also OneNote.
What’s in the Box?
• 1 Yoga Book
• 1 Real Pen
• 1 Book Pad (with 15 pages)
• 3 Real Pen Ink Refills
The Windows review unit features Intel Atom X5 quad-core processor with a 1.44 GHz base clock speed, 4 GB of RAM, and 64 GB storage with a micro-SD slot that supports up to 128 GB. These specs are just about right for the Yoga Book’s price. The premium 2-in-1s — those that retail for above P50,000, usually come with better processing power (1.6 GHz to 2.4 GHz) and a bigger RAM (up to 8 GB) that offer more muscle to drive productivity.
In the course of this review, multiple-tab browsing, word processing, and playing videos worked without lag on the Yoga Book. It was when I started accessing apps such as Adobe Photoshop Express and a pre-installed creativity app ArtRage (Lite) at the same time as switching between multiple tabs on Chrome and Internet Explorer browsers that the Yoga Book became sluggish and, at times, froze some apps into being non-responsive. This goes to show that the Yoga Book is only good for light productivity work while on the go.
The Yoga Book’s note-taking feature was amazing and it’s something students will surely appreciate. A colleague, who’s a graphic artist, also tested the Yoga Book’s drawing surface using ArtRage (Lite), and she said the Yoga Book worked as efficiently as a Wacom drawing tablet.
The Yoga Book is said to last 13 hours of use on a single charge. I brought the Yoga Book with me for a four-day industry conference, which entailed about 8 hours per day of writing articles and browsing the Web. On and off, I’d say the Yoga Book lasted a day and a half without having to plug it for charging.
VERDICT
On paper, the concept of the Yoga Book is great. But in reality, it’s an imperfect ultraportable laptop marred by less-than-ideal typing experience. But I’d like to see what Lenovo can do when it comes out with the next iteration of this beautiful note-taking device. If anything, the Yoga Book is an indicator of good things to come. — Mira Catherine B. Gloria
Aimee Hashim, owner of luxury trading company LoveLuxe Trading, Inc., has shopped for more than a hundred Birkin bags. She doesn’t own all of them. The 28‑year‑old keeps for herself “just ten” of those. The rest goes to her stellar clients (a long list which includes tycoons and actresses), who get to enjoy the elusive Hermés “handbag of all handbags” famous for its pricetag (up to $150,000 or ₱7 million) and its long waitlist, which makes it more like a Ferrari than a bag.
That, among many other reasons, is why moneyed people hire Ms. Hashim’s services: she gets in line for them. Oh, but that’s not the end of it. She profiles prospective clients, assesses their taste, then has their shopping money (plus her fee) deposited in her bank account. Then, she contacts her Dubai‑based staff, boards a plane to the shopping capitals, makes rounds on fashion houses’ shop floors, rubs shoulders with the who’s who of the industry, runs through exclusive collections, picks out the items for her clients, flies back, and then delivers the haul back to them, personally, in their homes.
“Remember this pair of Ralph & Russo shoes of Marian [Rivera]?” she asked us one afternoon at a coffeeshop neighbouring a television network in Quezon City, talking about the local celebrity whom she considers gave her the biggest break. “She’s been wanting to get it for couple of years, and she has already asked several shoppers. I was the only one who got those because you can only get a pair by appointment.”
“It’s about bridging the gap of what’s not accessible to my clients,” she says in that afternoon, one of those rare occasions she’s in town. The luxury trader was in between meetings with two celebrity clients whose ages are about the same as hers when she first took on this job.
This—shopping for the rich—counts as her first job.
Hidden past the racks of designer clothing, genuine leather handbags, shoes, and god knows what, her closet contains her own proverbial skeleton (though not necessarily negative): a nursing uniform. Ms. Hashim, in a previous lifetime, is a registered nurse.
In fact, she could’ve further pursued a career as a doctor—she has the smarts for it, plus that’s what her engineer parents wanted her to do—but like a woman walking in the wrong pair of heels, she tripped and landed someplace else.
The year was 2008. Aimee Hashim had just graduated from college, and has barely rubbed off her reputation as the most glamorous student in class, whose habit of wearing heels in the classroom compelled the school to create a new rule against it.
Bored of waiting for the nursing boards results, Ms. Hashim logged onto her computer and whipped up a CV.
The next day, she walked in the holy grail of luxury shopping malls, Rustan’s. Wearing a trendy pair of jeans and sexy heeled boots, she came for an interview.
“I wasn’t even applying for a personal shopper position,” she recounted, reeling in memories from her childhood where she’d been naturally fond of fashion. “I remember the HR head telling me that she liked how I carried myself from the moment I stepped in, and by the way that I spoke with them.”
The company offered her the job as a lifestyle consultant for the company’s platinum clients.
For the uninitiated: Platinum clients are Rustan’s VIPs who are feted the center’s best new items in a special fitting session at an eponymous lounge.
As a lifestyle consultant, her job included choosing clothes, shoes, and bags for their customers—celebrities, businessmen, elites—based on their profiles.
“It was my first job out of college, and I think it was my destiny,” she said. “I think I was destined to do that when I look at all the odds.” Because literally, armed with a nursing degree, she was the odd one out. “Among my colleagues, I was the only one who was different.” she narrated. “They were like, ‘You’re a nurse, what are you doing here?”
Which is such a foolish question. If they only realized then that if there’s anything nursing taught Ms. Hashim, it’s how to take care of people.
“You have to build a relationship with them,” she said, now talking about her clients. “You need to study each person, you have to know their preferences, what works for them, what doesn’t work for them, what they like, and what they don’t like. Those are the things that I had to study.”
In the midst of her new endeavor, Ms. Hashim learned about the result of the exam. But despite the positive outcome, she still chose to continue with her newfound job.
“My family at first didn’t support me because they really wanted me to pursue my career, my profession. They were all engineers and they wanted to have a doctor in the family,” she said.
“But it was so easy for me to adjust [to fashion]. It just came naturally I think because I really love what I was doing,” she said. “I get a certain kind of high when I see the things that I shopped for,” she added. “Before I did this kind of work, I was already shopaholic.” In fact, she might as well have walked out of a Sophie Kinsella novel…
Ms. Hashim is invested in Birkins, but also in this business and a plethora of other ventures like a travel agency and a flower shop. She also has a full range of staff who assist her in keeping tabs on stores all over the world.
Yet she still considers LoveLuxe Trading as her baby. After all, she built it from the ground up. From Rustan’s, she transferred to SM and worked as a merchandise manager for the company’s shoe designing department. But not long after, she left the company and flew to Dubai (where her British‑Indian family lives) to start her enterprise.
In Dubai she looked for contacts, shopped for new items then posted the products on Facebook. She had only one rule: “I will post whatever is saleable to me.”
Opening the business, Ms. Hashim had only one goal: to be the “go‑to person of almost everyone whenever they want anything.”
“It became one of my trademarks,” she said. “If anyone wants something that is hard to find, they just go to me. I used my connections, having the points that I have there. I call the stores, if it’s not in their store, I ask them to please find out if they can have it shipped to theirs, or if I need someone in another country to buy them.”
In the next couple of years, she is eyeing more businesses related to fashion and retailing, that will perhaps allow her to go beyond the luxury market. “I also want to build a safe environment for online sellers,” she added. “That’s my dream, that’s how I see myself in the next couple of years.”
With a brand that continues to expand, along with the territory are detractors, and Ms. Hashim sometimes even becomes collateral damage, especially when showbiz figures are pitted against each other. The most recent case is an infamous Dolce & Gabbana t‑shirt whose authenticity was questioned.
But issues like that do not succeed in bringing a good woman down. Clients keep coming back, and new ones pour in. And on top of it all, like a whiff of Chanel No. 5 over a well-done ensemble, Stefano Gabbana (verified account) followed her on Instagram.
“I remember telling this to my mom: ‘You watch out, I’m going to show you how it’s done.”
CASINOS across the country will soon be covered by the anti-money laundering law after both chambers of Congress approved the measure concerned on third and final reading.
Voting unanimously, the House of Representatives approved last Monday House Bill No. 5663, or “An Act Designating Casinos as Covered Persons under Republic Act (RA) No. 9160, otherwise known as the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001 (AMLA), as amended.”
The Senate approved its own measure, Senate Bill No. 1468, in plenary session yesterday.
Both House and Senate versions seek to count casinos — including Internet and ship-based facilities — chipwashing and junket operators among “covered persons” under AMLA. They also set the threshold amount for coverage at a minimum of P5 million, or its equivalent in any foreign currency, per transaction.
The threshold of other covered transactions under the RA 9160, as amended, is over P500,000.
The development comes a little more than a year after the February 2016 heist of some $81 million from Bangladesh Bank’s accounts with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that eventually found its way into the Philippines and much of which disappeared after being used to play in casinos here.
Of the total that found its way into the Philippine system, only about $15 million has so far been returned to Bangladesh.
Philippine lawmakers had ignored as early as four years ago calls by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force to include casinos among entities watched by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), arguing that doing so would scare away investors and stunt a gaming boom.
RA 9160, among others, formed AMLC and gave it powers “to freeze any monetary instrument or property alleged to be proceeds of any unlawful activity.”
The House version, states that casinos’ P5-million threshold may be adjusted by the AMLC “upon the recommendation of the congressional oversight committee.”
The Senate version, meanwhile, proposes that a 20-day freeze order may be issued immediately by the Court of Appeals.
Senator Francis Joseph G. Escudero, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies, said in his sponsorship speech that the passage of the bill was “necessary” given the June deadline imposed by the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) for the Philippines to strengthen the AMLA. The APG is an international body that monitors the implementation and enforcement of internationally accepted standards against money laundering and financing of terrorism.
Samar Rep. Ben P. Evardone, chairman of the House committee on banks and financial intermediaries, said that both chambers of Congress do not need to meet in a bicameral conference committee since the Senate version is “acceptable” to the House members.
“We will no longer meet as bicam because the amendments in the Senate version [are] acceptable to us. So we will just adopt their amendments so that it will be approved before we adjourn this week,” Mr. Evardone said in a text message to BusinessWorld.
The AMLC charter was last amended in February 2013 to include foreign exchange dealers, pawnshops and pre-need companies as entities that should be monitored.
A US State department report, “International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, Money Laundering and Financial Crimes 2017” published in March, tagged the Philippines as a “major” money laundering site in 2016, noting that “[c]riminal groups use the Philippine banking system, commercial enterprises, and particularly casinos, to transfer drug and other illicit proceeds from the Philippines to offshore accounts.”
Marawi City, considered the heartland of the Islamic faith in the Philippines’ southern island of Mindanao, provides fertile ground for ISIS militants. The city is the provincial capital of Lanao del Sur, part of Central Mindanao, which for decades has been home to a Muslim rebellion. The city’s Mindanao State University is a hotbed of activism. BusinessWorld Research collated economic data, comparing Marawi not only with Manila, but also with Davao to show the disparity even within Mindanao.
An audience of twenty‑somethings, sitting on space‑saving plastic stools, willingly crammed themselves into the area provided for them in Camerahaus, Megamall, all ears to hear what award‑winning street photographer and Fujifilm brand ambassador Rommel Bundalian has to say about taking unique, artistic photographs of his travels.
It’s not surprising that more and more young people are flocking to opportunities that will refine their photography skills, now that being a social media influencer is becoming a legitimate job, while big business advertisers are pressured to shift to digital. Influencer Sara Melotti took to her blog with a confession entitled “Instagram created a monster ‑ A no‑bullshit guide to what’s really going on!”that has become controversially viral. She detailed how influencers, whom she called “walking billboards,” reach “consumers” (their followers) through ethical and unethical methods.
Controversy aside, it pays to have good photographs (pun not intended), if not because the modern world increasingly depends on visuals, then for the beauty of keeping memories.
Mr. Bundalian gave his lecture with the Fujifilm’s X-series in mind (his gear consisting primarily of the Fujifilm X‑T1, to be specific), but newbies who have yet to see if they are worth a pro camera may practice on their mobile phones or tablets, he told SparkUp. “But if you’re into serious photography,” he warned, “I won’t recommend that you use mobile devices.”
“Whenever we travel, we always want to capture the beauty of the place,” he began. But tourist spots are often crowded places, all of them taking photos of the exact same thing. How can yours stand out?
Art Samantha Gonzales
The people in the tourist spot can be put to your advantage, Mr. Bundalian advised. “If you look at my photos, there’s always a person that I use as a scale.” See a photo of a mountain is just a photo of a lump of land, but a photo of a man climbing the mountain shows the magnitude of the place, how old the earth is compared to the person who just happened to be walking past. “When we travel, we always want to capture the beauty of the place but always put the scale,” he said.
He favors shooting locals over his friends or fellow travelers in his travel photography. “Minsan hindi na ako nag-papaalam (sometimes I don’t ask for permission),” he admitted about taking photos of strangers, adding there are no laws prohibiting stolen photos in the Philippines. On the other hand, he cited France as an example of a place with strict photography laws. The French civil code protects the rights of its citizens not to be photographed in the streets in a way that would make them recognizable in a published image.
Art Samantha Gonzales
Speaking of France where everyone will most likely take a photo of the iconic Eiffel Tower, he said people get a “sense of place” from looking at a photo. “Iconic sights are important. That’s why we always take photos of them when we travel,” said Mr. Bundalian. “It establishes a sense of place, all it takes is one look to know where it is.”
To expound, a Filipino looking at a photo of a jeepney traversing a long bridge should know that the photo was taken at the San Juanico Bridge. A foreigner looking at the same photo should, on the other hand, get a sense that the scene took place in the Philippines. Festivals and local events should also give viewers a sense of place.
Art Samantha Gonzales
Another tool that a photographer can use to stand out? Google. “Before going to a place, google it,” he said. “There you’ll see what is the best shots of other photographers. You’ll observe that they’ll all see the same photo.”
And after you’ve taken that iconic shot, the same way others have done before you? Be creative. “Know the rules and break the rules, if you want to stand out,” he said. Explore, look at the place through different angles, let wanderlust take over logic.
Art Samantha Gonzales
“Photography is a waiting game. If you think you can get a good shot, you have to wait,” Mr. Bundalian said. He gave as an example a photo that he had to take for an automobile company. Parking the car that he has to shoot by a roadside cliff in Sagada, he had to wait for hours so that fewer pedestrians will be caught on camera. Some of the people, he recounted, even drew on the dew that stuck to the car windows (which he had to wipe clean). The waiting (and cleaning) paid off, and he was able to take a perfect shot of a lone car surrounded by nature, the sun hitting its windshield at just the right angle for a perfect starburst.
Patience is a key trait that extends to the uploading of images. “Marinate your image,” he warned. “Don’t be too excited to post. The photos that you just took, all of them would look good to you because the idea behind taking them is still fresh in your mind.” Detachment, he added, would help you decide if the photo is as beautiful as you initially thought it would be. It would also save you from spamming social media with so many photos of just one place or event.
Art Samantha Gonzales
But the most important thing in taking a good photograph, Mr. Bundalian said, is this: “Don’t take photos for others to like. [Instead,] take photos for yourself. Shoot from the heart.”
“Keep on practicing. Go out and shoot. Always bring your camera,” he said, a feat that is made easier now that cameras have gotten more portable and affordable from the hulking DSLRs of the ‘90s. It’s also important for the photographer himself to smile. “Smile. Talk to people so that you’ll be more comfortable taking photos. At least thank them, and if they talk to you then you’ll also get a good story to back your photo.”
And one not need travel far to take that perfect travel photo. Some of Mr. Bundalian’s iconic works have been taken within the Metro Manila area—Bonifacio Global City, Roxas Boulevard, and Laguna de Bay. In the end, it’s all about having a trained eye, gained through practice, patience, more practice, and more importantly, heart.
Fujifilm Philippines will be holding its 21st Graphic Expo from June 1 to 3 at the SMX Convencion Center, Mall of Asia. A photography workshop and thanksgiving party for Fujifilm users entitled Different Stories will be held at the Green Sun Hotel, Makati City on June 3.
