The Philippine Top Choice Awards for Excellence 2014

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Good businesses ensure their energy is focused on giving exceptional service.They seek out and develop talented, free-thinking people with the imagination and initiative to make a difference. They organize themselves to operate in ways to bring out the best team to do the job in hand and the one needed tomorrow. Their systems work to support their people, not the other way around.

They encourage involvement at all levels of the business so that clients and customers are impressed at the commitment regardless of which employees answer the phone or opens the door to them. Great businesses go further, they look to provide the products and services others want to buy in a sustainable way. They use profit not just to pay themselves and employ their staff but to invest in the future. It is this level of achievement that awards like the Philippine Top Choice Awards for Excellence are set out to acknowledge and reward.

Wazzup Pilipinas is proud to be the recipient of the Top Filipino Community Blog Site award from the Philippine Top Choice Awards for Excellence. It is with great appreciation to be recognized for the fourth time as an entity that excels in its field. We will receive this recognition with great pride and a promise to continue to elevate our standards for the welfare of our readers, partners and sponsors.

Mission EO 255: A 5K Campaign Run for Stricter Implementation of Executive Order 255

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Can you finish 5K in 25.5 minutes? Run with us on May 18 and see if you can!


The Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mangaawit (OPM) - the leading and most respected organization of Filipino professional singers in the country, in partnership with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), is holding a campaign run dubbed as Mission: EO 255 for the stricter implementation of Executive Order 255.

This will be held on 18 May 2014 at the G-Strip in Greenhills, San Juan. The race will kick off at 5AM.

The event aims to raise awareness of and encourage the radio stations’ full adherence to the above-mentioned Executive Order, issued by former Pres. Corazon Aquino in 1987, requiring all radio stations with musical format programs to broadcast a minimum of four (4) original Pilipino musical compositions in every clock hour.

“OPM aims to ensure the growth of the local music industry; thus, it is very important that all radio stations implement EO 255,” said OPM President Ogie Alcasid.  Furthermore, “Not only are we launching the campaign to remind radio stations – and a big thank you to those who do implement EO 255 – but also to let the public know that they can expect a minimum of four OPM songs to be played per hour on all radio channels so as to make the implementation of EO 255 participative.”

Cockfighting Tour: A Visit at the La Loma Cockpit

Wazzup Pilipinas!

My grandfather was a "sabungero" or "mananabong" (cockfighter). I remember him visiting our home so early in the morning to bring us some "puto" (rice cakes) from the "palengke" (public market) before proceeding to the cockpit which was just one ride away from our home. His routine would be to pass first by the public market near their home (one city away) to buy those rice cakes for us, then head on over to our home to drop off the treats. I was still in grade school but I remember him vividly well because my parents would always wake us up when he arrives. He will not join us for breakfast and will only have coffee before he leaves for the cockpit. I can still remember the rooster or cock which he carries around inside a box filled with holes and has a handle for convenience in carrying.

I was still too young to realize he was into cockfighting. During those days I thought it was just one of his pets. We had our own share of pets during my younger years. We had rabbits, ducks, dogs, turtles, chickens, and lots of birds of different kinds that made our home look like a mini-zoo. It never occurred to me that you can train animals to fight each other. All I've personally seen close to it during those days was spider fighting among my friends. My playmates would capture and force spiders to fight atop a stick. We would hunt for spiders at nearby areas where lots of trees used to exist, and put them inside matchbox cages. There was indeed a lot of thrill and excitement to see those little creatures fight each other. I can imagine right now what it feels like when cockfighters do the same with their cocks. 

Cockfighting is a blood sport in which two cocks bred for aggressiveness are encouraged to fight to the death. It happens in many neighborhoods especially in the provinces around the country. It is however considered illegal and a felony in many other countries. The chickens are pumped up with stimulants and have sharp razor blades or ice-pick-like gaffes affixed to their legs. They hack each other to death at the cockpit ring to the amazement of the spectators. Punctured bodies, gouged eyes, and other grievous wounds are part-and-parcel of cockfighting. It is a way of gambling in the Philippines but it is also seen as a national sport where both the rich and poor gather and witness some kind of extreme confrontation between fighting birds.