Discovering Flores de Mayo: How Well Do You Know the Queens of Santacruzan?

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Aside from the first rain in May which is believed to possess healing powers, many Filipinos await this month for an extravagant festival celebrated in most towns across the archipelago, which is the Flores de Mayo. This celebration culminates with the Santacruzan which many, especially the young generation, aren’t aware of. For the millennials and gen z, the procession can be misleading and altogether shocking. One might ask, “Why is she holding a decapitated head?”; “Why is this queen blindfolded?” There are a lot of puzzling symbols that aren't friendly for the unfamiliar. So to help you know the queens and their symbols, here's an infographic from M2Comms.

Roughly translated into English as Flowers of May, this festival is popularly known for the parade of beauties with escorts and flower arcs. But in its essence, Flores de Mayo is a month-long celebration in honor of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. It started in the middle of the 19th century following the issuance of the Papal Bull in 1854 that proclaims Mary, the mother of Christ as free of any kind of sin, hence the name Immaculate.

During the festival, a special altar is set up for the Virgin Mary. Devotees would sing hymns and say prayers and most importantly, young girls would offer flowers to the Virgin Mother of Christ every afternoon following the daily novena.

The feast culminates with a pomp procession of beautiful town ladies dressed to the nines and accompanied by a handsome lad, under a decorated bamboo arc. This is what people refer to as Santacruzan. This procession is held in commemoration of the finding of the Holy Cross by Reyna Elena mother of Constantine the Great. 

DOE Set To Launch WESM Mindanao

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The Department of Energy (DOE) under the helm of Secretary Alfonso Cusi has been laying the groundwork in Mindanao in order to deliver quality, reliable, secure and affordable electricity” to the region through the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).

Energy Undersecretary Wimpy Fuentebella revealed this today during a presentation on WESM in this city. “Sec. Cusi sends his message that WESM is not only for Luzon or Visayas but also for Mindanao,” said Fuentebella.

Fuentebella likened the spot market to “a dating place” to determine compatibility among potential energy partners. 

"The spot market is where the demand and the supply of electricity meet so that there will be an increased efficiency in the use of energy.

Fairness and transparency. That is the bedrock of the rules to have a level playing field for the good energy participants to shine," he said during the forum.

The WESM mechanism will also bring more flexibility, progress and, most importantly, enhance the power of choice for the consumers, he added. 

ePLDT PH Data Center Industry to Rise as IT-BPM Sector Grows

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Backed by an economy that is rising six percent annually and a booming Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, ePLDT—an industry leading enabler of digital business solutions for enterprises in the Philippines—believes that the Philippine data center industry will experience tremendous growth in the next years as demand grows.

Revealed during the 10th International ICT Awards, the IT-BPM sector is already the second largest source of income in the country generating $25 billion (P1.026 trillion). By 2022, the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) expects it to be worth P2 trillion as stated in the 8th International IT-BPM Summit.

“With the massive growth of IT and data in general, players in this sector will need to offload their data as soon as possible—or risk falling behind the competition,” said Nerisse Ramos, the Chief Operating Officer of ePLDT Group. “This is where ePLDT’s expertise and pioneer experience can enable the sector—with the increasing need for colocation, IT-BPM players will find it relevant to secure their data through a robust data center facility that operates based on global best practices with international certifications.”

ePLDT’s VITRO Data Centers are designed based on the requirements of enterprises in meeting global industry standards. It is a network of multiple data centers spread across strategic locations in the country, and are carrier-agnostic to meet redundancy and diverse telco path requirements. These data centers can address all production and disaster recovery requirements within the area as well as those in nearby areas.

All these data centers offer colocation services as well as server hosting, disaster recovery, data security and network management to help companies focus on growing their assets without worrying about data loss.

ePLDT operates its ISO and PEZA Certified VITRO Data Center in Pasig City, which is the country’s first purposely-built Tier 3 compliant Internet Data Center that serves as the global gateway of majority of the top BPO companies, local and international telcos, Over-the-Top (OTT) Players, Content Providers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

What’s more, ePLDT VITRO Data Centers in Makati and Clark are rated-3 data center facilities according to the standards set by Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). The criteria is based on the data center’s concurrently maintainable design, which means each component that is part of the distribution path, can be removed, replaced or serviced on a planned basis without disrupting the ICT capabilities of collocated customers.

To date, ePLDT operates nine data centers, including the recently inaugurated data centers in Davao and Clark. By 2018, there will be a total of 10 operational data centers with approximately 9,000 racks with the launch of its second data center in Cebu.

“Overall, an effective data center helps businesses increase profitability by making data easily accessible while maintaining its security, reducing risk, and lowering cost,” said Dave Simon, ePLDT Group Chief Technology Officer. “This is what our VITRO data centers bring to the table.”

ePLDT’s VITRO data centers deliver up to 99.99 percent availability with a maximum outage of 52 minutes per year. Its data center-grade gensets, uninterruptable power supply, switch gears, and transformers are fully redundant to eliminate any point of failure. This allows the company to do concurrent maintenance without power and service interruption on the client’s servers.

On top of these features, VITRO Data Centers are operated and maintained by professionals who are guided by ISO standards such as Quality Management System (ISO 9001:2008), Business Continuity Management System (ISO 22301:2013), Information Security Management System (27001:2013), IT Services Management System (20000-1:2011), and Environmental Management System (14001:2004).

Following PLDT’s partnership with NTT Communications, ePLDT’s data centers in Paranaque, Clark and Makati were recognized as Nexcenter-compliant for adopting its data center design practices and management experience.



“As the country leverages information technology for innovative services, the outsourced data center is playing a rapidly expanding role in job creation and preservation of the health and sustainability of the broader economy,” said Simon. “For the country’s burgeoning IT-BPM sector, this means more opportunities for rapid and unparalleled growth with robust technology to support them through their success roadmap.”



For more details, please visit our website at www.epldt.com.