My online buddy, pinoy in NY Butch, led me to this site that tells of anything good about Pinoys in the international scene (and hopefully soon in outer and inner space, hehe). Even a slight drop of good news for any pinoy anywhere in the world is announced here even before the local media gets wind of it. A good repository of many things good about the Philippines and Filipinos, including those people who only have a tiny drop of Filipino blood.

Wala lang. Sometimes I check on this, so I'd know what or where I'm pressing at.

David. From his HS graduation, to finding roots in the Philippines, getting a Filipina wife, having a baby, then back to the US. All his life. His journey.

A new friend, HDR.

Obviously, anything damn interesting!

Being born and raised in the Waray shores of Leyte, we reveled in the wealth of Waray literature in songs and poems (siday). We were lulled with such poetry by our forebears. Now that we have grown and finding our destinies in shores away from Leyte, with fondness do we recall these forms of expressing artistry through the written and spoken word.

Waray, as a language, is spoken in the provinces of Leyte, Biliran and the three provinces in Samar island: Western Samar, Eastern Samar & Northern Samar. Incidentally, parts of Masbate facing Samar also speak Waray. However, it is not known whether their forms of literature are also rooted from the Waray masters of Samar & Leyte.

Here then is a site devoted to preserving the rich history of Waray literature from such luminaries as Iluminado Lucente and many other brilliant swordsmiths. I am ever thankful that with the advent of the internet, these legacies from our "Iroy nga Tuna" will once again be shared and relished by Waray souls worldwide thirsty for such antiquity through:

The Online Museum of Everything Waray

Sample:

San-u Ka Bumaya
ni Espiridios Brillo

Kun umabut an adlaw,
ha akun nim’ pagbaya,
bilini aku anay,
hin puraw nga himaya;
panasa an kasamdung,
ha akun hunahuna,
ihalad lugud anay,
an unub nga himaya.

Thanks to Raissa Villasin for linking this site. And much gratitude is accorded to the blog owners for putting this up. Truly, our Waray legacy will forever live on!

Mabuhay an nga Waray!

Calle Zaragosa is a restaurant owned by a High School classmate's Uncle, Gerry Ruiz, located in Independencia Street, Tacloban City.

It has become a venue for social gatherings. Meetings of former classmates (from various schools in Tacloban City) were (and still) done there and meetings of government officials and just about anything.

So Gerry thought of getting a website to publish everything that happens in his restaurant. It caught fire. So Taclobanons and Leyteños from all over the world got wind of this place and its website so everybody browses and visits both the restaurant and the site.

I am pleased to know that this site gives me an update of long lost friends, classmates and relatives; their whereabouts, lives and achievements. And also importantly, the site publishes and announces important dates and events happening in Tacloban and other parts of Leyte.

I'm adding this therefore for easy access so I'd be updated for the happenings of of the city of my youth.

I have family and friends in Tacloban and other parts of Leyte. So even if I now think like I'm a Cebuano, I still want to be connected to the place of my past: Tacloban and Leyte.

This site helps keep my feet rooted as a Waray.

The grandiloquent Inday has now a dot-com at http://www.blogniinday.com/
See, she is moving stratospheric in popularity ranking number 6 in the most browsed English-based websites.. And now she has a dot-com.

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This has been in the news and I only got to get the link through MJ.
"Inday" is a source of amusement.
So I wish her to rock on!

This was her old site..

http://blogniinday.wordpress.com/

I wonder if this is her real blog.
Nonetheless, I'm putting a link of the Senator's blog to mine.