Today’s dashboard over wordpress Tagalog.

A Philippine Mobile Network announced that it is one of the first mobile phone service providers in Asia to bring the most anticipated phone of the decade, the iPhone. According to a report on Inquirer.net, Globe Philippines will exclusively offer iPhone in the country while Optus will carry the smart phone in Australia and Bharti in India. Both Optus and Bharti have yet to confirm the agreement which was said to have been finalized yesterday.

Western Australian Police from the Major Fraud Squad raided The Sunday Times last week in a complaint against the paper allegedly by the Department of Premier and Cabinet. A report from Perthnow.com quoted department statements as saying that “it had ‘referred allegations of the unauthorised disclosure of a confidential document to the police and the Corruption and Crime Commission’ relating to a political exclusive about taxpayers’ money being used to fund the Labor Party’s re-election campaign.”
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An Australian Football League player recently made headlines after landing a heavy left hook on an opponent few days ago. Here’s the a news video grab about that:
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Since I’ve blogged about Inquirer’s Radio online, it has become my most read blogged post ever. It has served the purpose for most of our expats and OFWs who Googled Philippine Radio Stations Online and relieved homesickness, I suppose. However, I’ve been contacted by some of Blogbastic! readers and visitors inquiring about 90.7 Love Radio. The Manila-based radio station is one of the most popular radio stations in the Philippines and appeals to the masses because of its lively programming and witty Disc Jockeys.

I’ve made online searches for any source of online broadcast streaming of Love Radio to no avail. So, I decided to write a person connected with Manila Broadcasting Company , the owner of the station, and inquire if they are broadcast streaming but as of this writing, I have yet to receive a response.

If you are kind enough to lend a hand and you are based in Manila, you might want to contact the station manager of Love Radio and inform them that a number of OFWs and expats are requesting that Love Radio find a way to broadcast online. It might be better if some will be able to ask permission from the station to stream the broadcast of the station online! Hopefully this call will be noticed by someone with close network to the station.

As one of my readers said, kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan?!

The Olympics Torch is set to arrive in Canberra this Thursday. The torch is set to arrive in Australia on 23 April and will appear for about five hours the following day. The Australian Olympic Committee said in its website that “the route will include major cultural icons of Canberra including Parliament House, the Australian War Memorial, the Civic Centre and will be rowed across Lake Burley Griffin.”

The route, however, might change at the last minute if protests similar to the London, Paris and India leg will be repeated. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, however, declared that Chinese security officials would not be allowed to exercise any authority in securing the torch unless in cases of terrorist attack.

Activists found the best way of sending China their message to improve its recognition of human rights and call for its withdrawal from Tibet through the disruption of the Olympics Torch Relay.

UPDATE (24 April): There’s some confusion during the torch relay in Canberra today as despite Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s declaration that the Chinese security escorts the Chinese ‘blue guards’ tried to interfere with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in securing the torch. This made the AFP scuffling not only with Pro-Tibetan protesters but also with the Chinese escorts.

Some Australians did not welcome the action of the Chinese security escorts as Beijing Organizers insisted that the blue guards had a security role to play. Excerpt from news.com.au report are as follows:

But the blue tracksuited guards were seen by Australian relay organisers as a deliberate act of provocation by the Chinese, who have been told for months that they would not be allowed to have a security role.

As the Philippines remembered its Day of Valor (Araw ng Kagitingan) last April 9, this week Australia remembers a parallel event known as Australian New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) Day. ANZAC Day is celebrated every April 25 when both armies landed on Gallipoli, Turkey during World War I.
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A man has been charged over the weekend as a result of a police drama last Friday. The man threatened staff at the Australian Government Solicitor’s Office after an unfavorable court proceeding result. Police believed that he will return with a gun and the vicinity of the building was locked down for hours with hundreds evacuated. No gun was found.

In another news, a tragic accident literally arrived at the doorstep of a mother and her baby sending the baby flying meters away. The baby died on the spot and the man was apprehended by witnesses after trying to flee the scene. The mother received treatment for minor injuries.
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Well even with a well managed time (or so I believe), it was quite hard chasing time, deadlines and fighting writer’s block.

As some of you know, I’m a student and at this stage, I’m currently preparing for my first fieldwork in Southeast Asia. It’s scary, sometimes discouraging but most of the time challenging but that’s not a discussion for this post–it’s just my way of saying my sincerest apologies for the long hiatus (again?).

Well, there are lots of us getting the slack on the keyboard (well, blogging, i.e.). Massa P. for one was kind enough to heed her sister’s call to blog again for the reason that she’s got lots of fans out there (well, at blogosphere at least!? well, I might jump if I see her in person sometime, somewhere–a similar feeling when you find a fellow Pinoy in a foreign land–kabayan! in this case, uyy blogger yan!–at nasa blogroll ko pa! [fellow blogger and in my blogroll, too!]). Shari was also taking some time off writing but she’s slowly getting into it again and she’s also got a new theme!  Chuck, Jun and Alma are also taking it a bit slow but slowly are getting back again.

Well, blogging is hobby to most of us while some of us are getting paid, we still have a life to live and it’s just how some of us are able to tame time and feel that it’s always on our side.

Last year, Inquirer.net reported that the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) was rethinking its purpose and was aiming to preserve RP’s other languages. This is a welcome news since we are slowly losing our identity as our culture is slowly swallowed by the different colonizers that came to ‘teach’ us the proper way. The alibata is almost extinct while there are some dialect that are slowly becoming a dialect only spoken among the senior generation. So, the move by the KWF is welcome news. Personally, I believe if we know our language well, then we have a chance for development and better understanding of other languages. Filipino is based on the Tagalog dialect, strictly speaking if we follow a pure Filipino language not everybody will be able to understand it. My Filipino teacher back in High School pointed out that in Tagalog, month and moon are spelled the same–buwan, so, how do you differentiate month from the moon? In Filipino, (if my memory serves me right), month is buwan and moon is bulan. Some of my Bicolano readers might say–ei that rings a bell. Well indeed it does because the Filipino language, ideally, is a mixture of all the dialect of the Philippines.
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