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LAST FRIDAY, The Peninsula Manila’s bar takeover series featured Satomi Mizugishi, formerly of Singapore’s Jigger & Pony (No. 5 at the World’s 50 Best Bars 2024 and No. 3 at the awards’ 2024 Asian counterpart).
Ms. Mizugishi worked there for two years, and resigned just before they made the announcement. Today, she works as a freelance bar consultant back in Japan. We met her right before her bar takeover on June 13 at The Peninsula’s The Bar.
“Right after COVID, I got sick of being in Japan, because no bartenders were working,” she said, which is why she made the move to Singapore.
“It was my very first time working abroad,” she said of her stint working at the top bar in Singapore. While she had worked with different nationalities in Japan before — Chinese, Koreans, and Swedes — Singapore was more multicultural. “I learned a lot of things from them, like how to work together, with different backgrounds and cultures.”
That’s probably why she hit the sweet spot between traditional Japanese tastes and more cosmopolitan takes for her bar takeover last Friday.
FROM PUNCH TO NEGRONI
She made four drinks for the occasion: a Yuzusco Margarita (Patron Anejo, Sancho Matcha Coinyreau, Yuzusco, agave, and lime), a Tropical Coffee Fizz (Patron Anejo, Bombay Sapphire, pineapple falernum, Kokuto — brown sugar — syrup, cold brew coffee, lemon, and soda), an Elegant Negroni (Bombay Sapphire, Buckwheat Campari, Sweet Vermouth, and port), and the DX-Reggae Punch (Bombay Sapphire, HM peach liqueur, dark oolong tea, Kokuto-ginger syrup, and acid).
We had the Reggae Punch first, a cocktail popular in Japan. It was served with a wafer shaped like a macaron, filled with peach preserve, which you bite into right before taking a sip. In the mouth, the wafer crumbled slowly and filled the mouth with a fruity flavor. The drink itself was mild and delicate, with floral notes and a nice, subtle peach flavor — it was like drinking in the scent of a perfume, Guerlain’s Mitsouko, to be exact.
The Margarita was subtly sour; but an all-grown-up version of the bar favorite. It had heat and chili in the latter stages of the swallow, and the green, savory rimming salt added an edge.
The Negroni was expectedly refined and bitter, while the coffee fizz was a delightful surprise — we usually hate the flavor in drinks, but this one translated to a nutty cocoa note with a light and refreshing edge.
The Bar was busy and we ended the evening past midnight (Ms. Mizugishi passed around a shot before retiring for the night).
A BIT OF HISTORY
Speaking again from her experience at Jigger & Pony, she gave tips on how bars can make it to the top. “You have to make some noise in the industry,” saying that winning competitions and doing exchanges and guest shifts abroad really make a difference.
This is what she’s doing to bars now in Japan, to keep them in shape for the next round of 50 Best selections. “Japan has a longer history of bars, but then Japan is a bit bigger than Singapore; and has more bars maybe, but I see just a few of them on the list.
“The average level they have (of drinks) in Japan is quite high, but sometimes the venue is small; the team is small,” she said.
Her experience, however, goes beyond Jigger & Pony. “I’m not too sure when I started,” she said about mixing drinks, because even as a schoolgirl, she had been mixing sodas and juices for fun, and to taste and capture flavors. She said that her mother also regularly patronized bars: “I was quite inspired by my mom. She’s the one who made me a bartender, as well. She was happy, that like, ‘Now, my daughter’s making cocktails for me!’”
Two more guest bartenders are coming to The Pen this year: in August and in October. — Joseph L. Garcia
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CYBERSECURITY FIRM CyberArk is planning to expand its presence in the Philippines as more local companies are proactively seeking to strengthen their cybersecurity posture in response to emerging threats.
“One of the areas that we really want to look at expanding is in the financial services sector,” CyberArk Regional Business Leader for the rest of Association of Southeast Asian Nations Serene Lee told BusinessWorld on June 4.
“Talking to our customers and industry experts, realizing that the government itself has been pushing a lot of new standards and reforms — that is going to drive the growth and focus on cybersecurity. I think that’s something that we have in mind,” she said.
CyberArk has 40 to 50 clients in the Philippines, primarily in the telecommunications and financial technology (fintech) sectors. Ms. Lee said they also have partnerships in the banking, healthcare, and hospitality sectors.
The company has headquarters in the United States and Israel and has offices in several countries globally. Its Asia-Pacific office is in Singapore.
Ms. Lee said cybersecurity is a growing concern for companies as the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has expanded the attack surface amid the surge in machine identities, or digital credentials used to authenticate machines, applications, and cloud workloads.
“AI agents can create new actions, tasks, or code, which in turn generate new machine identities,” she said.
These identities, if compromised, can be exploited for unauthorized access, data breaches, and lateral movement within networks, Ms. Lee said.
In its recent Identity Security Landscape report, CyberArk found that machine identities now outnumber human identities by more than 80 to 1.
With this, Ms. Lee said Philippine firms should adopt identity-first security practices.
“The second thing is we advise companies to put in place audit mechanisms to ensure that they are able to track and test and see who has access to the systems and who are creating identities within organizations,” she said.
Automation can also help companies bolster their security policies, Ms. Lee said.
“As machine identities scale into the millions or billions, manual tracking is no longer feasible.”
According to the 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index report, only 6% of organizations in the Philippines have “mature” cybersecurity systems that can handle threats. — Aubrey Rose A. Inosante
THE PHILIPPINE Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE) is seeking to attract more overseas Filipinos to invest in the local stock market.
PSE President and Chief Executive Officer Ramon S. Monzon said that less than 1% of overseas Filipinos have stock market accounts.
Partnerships with government agencies could help encourage greater retail investor participation, he said in a statement on Tuesday.
The PSE has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) to implement programs aimed at empowering overseas Filipinos to become active participants in the Philippine capital markets.
“By partnering with CFO, PSE will now be able to reach Filipinos who have migrated overseas — specifically those who are permanent residents abroad, including their immediate family members,” Mr. Monzon said.
“I hope PSE and CFO can amplify the shared mission of promoting the well-being, in this case their economic or financial well-being, of Filipinos across the globe,” he added.
The MoU includes initiatives such as learning sessions and information campaigns. The PSE will showcase its PSE Academy website, along with its online and mobile app-based platforms for disclosures, market data, and initial public offering subscriptions, in the webinars and training sessions for overseas Filipinos.
The CFO is an agency under the Office of the President tasked with promoting and protecting the interests, rights, and welfare of overseas Filipinos.
The PSE recorded a 50.1% increase in the number of stock market accounts to 2.86 million in 2024 from 1.91 million in 2023. The growth was driven by a 62% rise in online accounts to 2.47 million.
“More than the numbers, what is important is that retail investors are equipped with investment know-how to avoid investing pitfalls. We address this need for investor education through our various investing literacy initiatives,” Mr. Monzon said.
“We also actively work with trading participants and government and private entities to spread the word about personal finance and stock market investing,” he added. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
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In the late 1960s, the prevailing opinion among Israeli Shin Bet intelligence officers was that the key to defeating the Palestinian Liberation Organization was to assassinate its then-leader Yasser Arafat.
The elimination of Arafat, the Shin Bet commander Yehuda Arbel wrote in his diary, was “a precondition to finding a solution to the Palestinian problem.”
For other, even more radical Israelis — such as the ultra-nationalist assassin Yigal Amir — the answer lay elsewhere. They sought the assassination of Israeli leaders such as Yitzak Rabin who wanted peace with the Palestinians.
Despite Rabin’s long personal history as a famed and often ruthless military commander in the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli Wars, Amir stalked and shot Rabin dead in 1995. He believed Rabin had betrayed Israel by signing the Oslo Accords peace deal with Arafat.
It’s been 20 years since Arafat died as possibly the victim of polonium poisoning, and 30 years after the shooting of Rabin. Peace between Israelis and the Palestinians has never been further away.
What Amnesty International and a United Nations Special Committee have called genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza have spilled over into Israeli attacks on the prominent leaders of its enemies in Lebanon and, most recently, Iran.
Since its attacks on Iran began on Friday, Israel has killed numerous military and intelligence leaders, including Iran’s intelligence chief, Mohammad Kazemi; the chief of the armed forces, Mohammad Bagheri; and the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami. At least nine Iranian nuclear scientists have also been killed.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said: “We got their chief intelligence officer and his deputy in Tehran.”
Iran, predictably, has responded with deadly missile attacks on Israel.
Far from having solved the issue of Middle East peace, assassinations continue to pour oil on the flames.
A LONG HISTORY OF EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS
Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman’s book Rise and Kill First argues assassinations have long sat at the heart of Israeli politics.
In the past 75 years, there have been more than 2,700 assassination operations undertaken by Israel. These have, in Bergman’s words, attempted to “stop history” and bypass “statesmanship and political discourse.”
This normalization of assassinations has been codified in the Israeli expression of “mowing the grass.” This is, as historian Nadim Rouhana has shown, a metaphor for a politics of constant assassination. Enemy “leadership and military facilities must regularly be hit in order to keep them weak.”
The point is not to solve the underlying political questions at issue. Instead, this approach aims to sow fear, dissent, and confusion among enemies.
Thousands of assassination operations have not, however, proved sufficient to resolve the long-running conflict between Israel, its neighbors, and the Palestinians. The tactic itself is surely overdue for retirement.
TARGETED ASSASSINATIONS ELSEWHERE
Israel has been far from alone in this strategy of assassination and killing.
Former US President Barack Obama oversaw the extra-judicial killing of Osama Bin Laden, for instance.
After what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch denounced as a flawed trial, former US President George W. Bush welcomed the hanging of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as “an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy.”
Current US President Donald Trump oversaw the assassination of Iran’s leader of clandestine military operations, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020.
More recently, however, Trump appears to have baulked at granting Netanyahu permission to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
And it’s worth noting the US Department of Justice last year brought charges against an Iranian man who said he’d been tasked with killing Trump.
Elsewhere, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it’s common for senior political and media opponents to be shot in the streets. Frequently they also “fall” out of high windows, are killed in plane crashes or succumb to mystery “illnesses.”
A POOR RECORD
Extra-judicial killings, however, have a poor record as a mechanism for solving political problems.
Cutting off the hydra’s head has generally led to its often immediate replacement by another equally or more ideologically committed person, as has already happened in Iran. Perhaps they too await the next round of “mowing the grass.”
But as the latest Israeli strikes in Iran and elsewhere show, solving the underlying issue is rarely the point.
In situations where finding a lasting negotiated settlement would mean painful concessions or strategic risks, assassinations prove simply too tempting. They circumvent the difficulties and complexities of diplomacy while avoiding the need to concede power or territory.
As many have concluded, however, assassinations have never killed resistance. They have never killed the ideas and experiences that give birth to resistance in the first place.
Nor have they offered lasting security to those who have ordered the lethal strike.
Enduring security requires that, at some point, someone grasp the nettle and look to the underlying issues.
The alternative is the continuation of the brutal pattern of strike and counter-strike for generations to come.
THE CONVERSATION VIA REUTERS CONNECT
Matt Fitzpatrick is a professor in International History at Flinders University. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
CEBU PACIFIC, operated by Cebu Air, Inc., has expanded its partnership with Canada-based CAE, Inc. to include the deployment of an Airbus A330neo full-flight simulator at its training center in Clark.
“This new simulator will provide additional training capacity and heighten the safe operation of this state-of-the-art aircraft. The expansion will help meet the growing demand for pilot training as Cebu Pacific continues to grow its network and widebody fleet,” Cebu Pacific Chief Operations Officer Javier Massot said in a disclosure on Wednesday.
The A330neo full-flight simulator is expected to be ready for training by December 2026, the airline said.
It will complement the existing A320 and ATR 72-600 simulators at Cebu Pacific’s Clark training center, which was established in partnership with CAE in 2011.
CAE provides simulation technologies and pilot training services to airlines globally. It currently offers training on Airbus A320, A320neo, and ATR 72-600 aircraft for Cebu Pacific.
“The deployment of this new A330neo simulator strengthens our shared commitment to delivering world-class pilot training. We are happy to be expanding our longstanding partnership with Cebu Pacific and further enhancing our center’s position as a key aviation training hub in the region,” CAE Division President for Commercial Aviation Michel Azar-Hmouda said.
Cebu Pacific said it currently operates 11 A330neo aircraft, with more deliveries expected.
The airline operates a fleet of 98 aircraft, comprising Airbus A320, A321, A330, and ATR types. It serves 35 domestic and 26 international destinations across Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. — Ashley Erika O. Jose
ON JUNE 10, Bonchon, the Korean fried chicken chain that arrived in the Philippines in 2010, officially opened a new concept: Café Koreano.
The first location was unveiled at Festival Mall, Alabang. Its menu items expand from Bonchon’s usual drinks and desserts, offering an array of milky Korean shaved ice, known as bingsu, as well as sweet variations of iced coffee.
Its bestsellers so far are the Classic Caramel Café Koreano, which puts a caramel twist on the classic coffee drink; and Mango Cheesecake Bingsu, which blends the milky snow ice with bits of mango and cheesecake. Those who want to try iced coffee in a different way can opt for chocolate, ube (purple yam) milk, and banana milk blends.
“The opening of our first Café Koreano is a significant milestone,” said Scott Tan, managing director of Scottland Food Group Corp., at the opening. “Festival Mall is a vibrant hub, and we are excited to offer shoppers and mallgoers a unique new way to cool down and enjoy a taste of modern Korean café culture.”
He said that Filipinos’ love for all things Korean makes the concept appealing, specifically to the youth.
“We believe Café Koreano will quickly become a beloved destination for its unique products and the cool, trend-setting vibe we aim to cultivate, making an accessible everyday experience,” he explained.
Among Scottland Food Group Corp.’s other food brands are Korean chain Eat Pizza, Japanese concept Go Bento, and Singaporean franchise Ya Kun Kaya Toast.
For Bonchon, the bingsu blends at Café Koreano are a form of “innovation for its signature bingsu offerings.”
While there are expansion plans, these are currently under wraps.
Flavors are matcha white chocolate, creamy strawberry, and honeydew. Special blends are chocolate brownie, strawberry Oreo, matcha Oreo cheesecake, matcha red bean, and matcha strawberry mochi, all crafted with shaved ice. Prices range from P109 to P135.
Café Koreano is located on the 2nd floor of Festival Mall Alabang, Filinvest City, Alabang, Muntinlupa City. — Brontë H. Lacsamana
SAN FRANCISCO — Adobe, Inc. released its first dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) smartphone app on Tuesday that includes AI models from the company and partner firms, in a bid to tap into a growing trend of sharing AI images and videos over social media.
The new Firefly mobile app packages Adobe’s own AI model together with models from OpenAI and Google and is available on iOS and Android phones.
In addition, Adobe is integrating models from new partner firms Ideogram, Luma AI, Pika and Runway, which can be accessed in Firefly Boards, a product that is part of the Firefly web app.
Generating images that can easily be shared on social media has become a key driver of AI interest, with OpenAI’s Ghibli-style AI images driving record traffic to the ChatGPT creator.
Adobe’s mobile service will offer subscribers unlimited basic image generation from Adobe models, while it will charge extra for access to the company’s premium models and those from its partners. The subscription cost will be the same as for the web versions of Firefly, which start at $10 per month.
The San Jose, California-based company had earlier released AI tools along with the mobile app version of its popular image-editing program Photoshop.
Adobe has not disclosed how much it pays the partner models on the Firefly app.
The company had promised users that its AI model is trained only on material that it has a legal right to use, with Adobe offering protection against copyright claims.
Ely Greenfield, Adobe’s chief technology officer for digital media, said Adobe’s approach has also gained some resonance among consumers.
“Even for many of our individual customers, that promise of the commercial safety and the story about how Firefly is trained continues to be a really important differentiator,” Mr. Greenfield said. — Reuters
RAFFLES MAKATI presents another concept to its signature Afternoon Tea at the Writers Bar. The Honey Bliss Afternoon Tea is a collection of sweet and savory bites inspired by the flavorful honey produced by Raffles Makati’s very own bee colonies. This marks the fourth installment of honey-themed afternoon teas at Raffles Makati that began in 2022. The savory offerings include Lady Grey onion prosciutto tartlet, Quail egg guacamole tapenade cradle, Raffles organic honey pistachio sphere, Orange blossom honey salmon blini, and Hibiscus tea beetroot napoleon. For sweets, there are the Honey Clementine, Supreme chocolate honey almond tart, Honey macadamia passion, Honey baklava pouch, Matcha honey yogurt macaron, and Raspberry tofu tahini praline. Lastly, no afternoon tea is complete without the Writers Bar signature classic scone and the new Bacon honey scone to pair with clotted cream and jam. For several years, bee colonies have been nurtured and harvested from to supply the hotel with honey. The Honey Bliss Afternoon Tea at Writers Bar is now being served until July 31, from 2 to 5:30 p.m. The tea set is available for P3,200++ for two persons with options for cocktail and zero-proof upgrades. For table reservations, contact 8555-9840 or e-mail dining.makati@raffles.com.
NOLTE KÜCHEN, a popular kitchen brand from Germany, re-establishes its presence in the Philippine high-end kitchen market with a focus on functional design. The brand recently opened its new flagship showroom in 7646 Guijo St., San Antonio Village, Makati, where it showcases modular kitchen systems that blend German engineering with contemporary Filipino lifestyle needs. Aside from fully functional kitchen displays, the showroom features interactive demonstrations, allowing customers to experience the brand’s precision engineering firsthand. The Nolte showroom in Makati features several working setups where customers can see and test the brand’s kitchen and storage solutions for themselves. Founded in 1958 in Löhne, Germany, Nolte specializes in personalized kitchen solutions that adapt to individual lifestyles, from custom storage for specific cookware collections to layouts designed around family routines and entertaining preferences. Homeowners, interior designers, and property developers can also avail themselves of professional design consultation services on-site. The brand maintains rigorous quality standards throughout its manufacturing process in Germany, using sustainably sourced wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, with climate-neutral manufacturing processes. Additionally, Nolte has earned other certifications, including the Golden M mark for safety and environmental protection, and the Furniture Made in Germany recognition for its quality and durability. To book an on-site or virtual design consultation, contact Nolte Küchen Philippines through their social media channels (Facebook: Nolte Küchen Philippines; Instagram: @nolteph_official) or visit the showroom directly.
RED RIBBON’S all-new Mochaccino Delight Cake blends real coffee and rich chocolate into one dessert. The cake is coated in milk chocolate ganache and is topped with beige-and-white streaks, reminiscent of intricate latte art. Inside are layers of chocolate and mocha chiffon, balanced with mocha cream. Prices start at P250 for the petite size, with the regular size cake being P699. The cake is available at Red Ribbon stores and can be ordered via the Red Ribbon delivery website (order.redribbon.ph) or through GrabFood and foodpanda apps.
ECO HOTELS Philippines has won praise from the international NGO Lever Foundation for its commitment to increasing plant-based menu offerings to 30% across all its properties by this year, making it the first homegrown Filipino hospitality brand to formalize such a comprehensive plant-forward initiative. It incorporates innovative plant-based dishes while responding to growing consumer demand for environmentally responsible dining options. The plant-based menu expansion represents a natural evolution of Eco Hotels’ sustainable practices, which include inclusive hiring from local communities, green supply chain partnerships, and eco-conscious design principles. The company’s sustainability framework includes goals for reducing food waste, carbon emissions, and water usage.
