Paragliding Off a Hot Air Balloon: Raising the Level of Air Sports in the Philippines

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Air Sports in the Philippines is evolving. Paragliding is the up and coming new airsport which will hopefully be included in the SEA Games 2017 Malaysia, Asian Games 2018 Indonesia, 2019 SEA GMAES Philippines, 2020, Olympic Games Japan. Many countries are asking the NOC and IOC to include it.

For those who are unaware what paragliding is, Wikipedia explains paragliding as "a recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paragliders: lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. The pilot sits in a harness suspended below a fabric wing comprising a large number of interconnected baffled cells. Wing shape is maintained by the suspension lines, the pressure of air entering vents in the front of the wing, and the aerodynamic forces of the air flowing over the outside.

Despite not using an engine, paragliders flight can last many hours and cover many hundreds of kilometers, though flights of one to two hours and covering some tens of kilometers are more the norm. By skillful exploitation of sources of lift, the pilot may gain height, often climbing to altitudes of a few thousand meters."

For 20 years at the Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, this is the first time that a paragliding was included. Paragliding is free flying, without any motor, usually foot launched from a cliff. The Balloon fest is done in the Clark airport so since it’s flatland, paragliding is not usually included during this event.

This year was different. For the first time, PPHGA (Philippine Paragliding and Hang Gliding Association) was responsible for the segment of paragliding in the balloon fest in Clark, Pampanga. 

Book Launch of "Yolanda: The Roaring, The Waves, The Waiting" by William Shaw

Wazzup Pilipinas!

William "Bill" Shaw writes about the typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) tragedy but is focused more on the stories of the survivors from Tacloban. I attended his Book Launch a few days ago on the 18th of February at Nuvo Bar, Greenbelt 3 in Makati city.

The book is entitled "Yolanda: The Roaring, The Waves, The Waiting" about the typhoon that happened two years ago but brought a lot of despair throughout the Philippines striking Tacloban as among the worst to be hit by the disaster. 

There were several lives and properties lost during that day when the sudden flash floods hit and the worst is for the ones left behind, the survivors, who were left without the presence of their loved ones anymore. The hardest part was the times when they were looking for their families when they got separated during the typhoon and hoping they survived. The saddest is when realizing they are gone, and even more devastating is not finding them at all. There were around 6, 300 recorded dead and maybe more since it is difficult to accurately get the numbers especially for provinces like Tacloban.

I am a victim also of a typhoon but it was Ondoy that struck us here in Metro Manila. I was in Pasig that day when the floods engulfed our business establishment where we run a computer rental business. It was a weekend so our children were with us that day and you can't imagine the fear we had when we couldn't even guess when the storm will stop and how high the waters will get. We were actually on the rooftop waiting to be saved but the authorities would only reach us the following day and would not even make efforts to rescue us as most of our areas were 10 feet or more under flood water. So were left there on the roof waiting for the waters to subside.

SAP Social Sabbatical Reaches Out to Social Enterprises for the Second Year in Philippines

Wazzup Pilipinas!

SAP gives out support to help improve operational efficiency and achieve social objectives of 4 social enterprises and non-profit organizations namely GKNomics of Gawad Kalinga, Silid Aralan, Teach for the Philippines and for the 2nd time, Messy Bessy Cleaners.

They sent out 12 of their top talents from Europe, US, Latin America and India to come to the Philippines for a 1 month engagement with the mentioned 4 organizations to help them out in automating and improving their almost manual processes. The SAP employees leveraged their expertise in areas such as strategy, marketing and IT, to guide the four social enterprises and non-profit organisations in the Philippines on issues pertaining to marketing development, strategy expansion, infrastructure design, and expansion planning.

At a press conference held at the SAP Bonifacio Global City office, all of the 4 social media enterprises and non-profit organizations involved, as well as the SAP employees who were with them throughout the month-long sabbatical program, The press conference was led by Scott Russell, COO of SAP in Asia Pacific and Japan, and Ryan Poggi, Managing Director of SAP, who answered all inquiries from the media. I have everything on video and hopefully could share with you some of the highlights and quotable quotes when I find the time to transcribed the talks and discussion.

The representatives of the social media enterprises and non-profit organizations in attendance at the press conference were Krie Lopez of Messy Bessy Cleaners, Angel Ramos of Teach for the Philippines, Arcie Mallari of Silid Aralan, and Aimee Gloria of GKNomics.

Besides the Philippines, the SAP Social Sabbatical program was also taking place in Myanmar and Gabarone, Botswana, with plans to extend to Kigali, Rwanda, in July 2016.