B&B Burgers & Brewskies: Definitely Big in Taste Even Without Beer

Wazzup Pilipinas!

As usual, I'm the early bird to come to the restaurant since I really hate to be late for a food tasting event. Just as how I hate people coming in late since if its this kind of event, the food is usually served ahead for photo (and video) before finally eating them all for tasting. So if you come in late, you'll end up eating left-overs, and worst is that you won't be having any good photos (and videos) of the food.

However, my experience at this restaurant is somewhat different because it let us order our own choice of burger (from between two selections only) and it just served what we normally call as the starters. Drinks could be cola, beer, or any liquor, but I chose a healthier drink of mango smoothie or shake since it was too early for alcoholic drinks.

I couldn't recall anymore how I got invited to this food tasting event but something tells me it must have been from a long-time sign-up opportunity looking for bloggers to try out restaurants. It's either my memory has defeated me or it was from a long time ago, and it is only now that they opted to invite us.

We were greeted by the organizer, Paulo, together with the owner and Chef who could be clearly known by the uniform he was wearing having the name tag of Marc. Chef Marc said they had a former branch at Capitol Commons but it had to close down. Right now he is concentrating on this only branch located at BGC which is now about to offer new menus for the restaurant.

We were told to bring in a plus one to join us for lunch but I completely forgot about it. Thus, I came there alone, while most of the attendees were with someone. But no worries since I left the resto smiling because of their delightful food.

NEC launches Center of Excellence for Analytics Platform & Solutions in India

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NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) and NEC Technologies India Private Limited (NTI) announced the launch of a “Center of Excellence for Analytics Platform & Solutions” (COE-APS) for promoting solutions and services of NEC’s Big Data & Analytics Platform, “Data Platform for Hadoop (DPH)”. The COE-APS will simplify digital transformation and act as a one stop shop for both customers and partners in the Telecom, Retail, Banking, Financial Services, Insurance and Manufacturing sectors, as well as Government organizations. NEC aims to achieve revenue of more than $100M USD within 3 years of the COE-APS’ establishment, which is being set-up with an overall investment of $10M USD over the same period.

The COE-APS will initially focus on markets that include Japan, India, Singapore, Philippines and Hong Kong, then gradually expand services throughout APAC and other regions. In order to support these growing operations, NEC plans to organize a team of 100 professionals within the first few years, as the Global Big Data & Analytics market is expected to reach $210B USD by 2020 (*1). Hadoop alone is expected to reach $50.2B USD by 2020 (*2). With the industry already facing a shortage in talent, specifically in Hadoop and analytics areas, the establishment of the COE-APS will help NEC to leverage India’s strong talent base.

In recent years, the exponential growth in data processing is straining the capabilities of conventional databases and data warehouse solutions. With the advent of Big Data & Analytics solutions, customers can be reassured that data is comprehensively and reliably analyzed, thereby enabling them to make well-informed decisions at the right time.

Moreover, the COE-APS will leverage the computational power and scalability of NEC’s specialized Hardware for Big Data & Analytics in order to flexibly handle the ever increasing demand for storage and computation by Hadoop.

The DPH features open source Hadoop from Hortonworks, as well as an analytics and Business Intelligence layer, making it a first-of-its-kind (*3) solution-in-a-box that frees customers from the burden of searching for the individual building blocks of big data analytics, and enables them to generate value from the enormous pools of data.

NEC has an accomplished record of contributing to national projects in India, including the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which is aligned with the Government’s “Digital India” initiative. For the DMIC, NEC established a Logistics Data Bank (LDB) that tracks almost 70% of containers in India (*4). In terms of the UIDAI, NEC provides a large-scale biometrics identification system which registered more than 1 billion people since its deployment.

“The key to success for organizations today is to make fast and informed decisions by extracting insights out of the huge volumes of data that are available to them. The new Center of Excellence is an important step towards utilizing big data analytics and NEC’s Data Platform for Hadoop to provide benefits for government bodies and enterprises in India and across the world,” said Tomoyasu Nishimura, Senior Vice President, NEC Corporation. “Going forward, we aim to continue driving digital transformation for industries of all sizes and markets.”

Tanada, Catholic Bishops and Student Leaders to File Petition Urging SC to Compel Congress to Hold Joint Session on Duterte's Martial Law

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Former Senator Wigberto "Bobby" Tanada, Bishop Broderick Pabillo of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila, Bishop Pablo David of the Caloocan Diocese, Mother Adelaida Ygrubay of the Order of St. Benedict and student council leaders from different universities will file a petition for Certiorari and Mandamus before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, June 7, 2017, Wednesday 11:30 am, to compel the legislature to do its constitutional duty to hold a joint session on President Duterte's Martial law in Mindanao.

Tanada, who was a member of the "Magnificent 12" that voted no to a new lease for the US bases in the country, said in their petition that a plain reading of the 1987 constitution leads to the "indutable conclusion that a joint session of Congress to review a declaration of Martial law by the President is mandatory."

The petitioners also said that failure to convene a joint session deprives the public of transparent proceedings within which to be informed of the factual bases of the declaration of Martial law.

It was reported that there were erronenous information in the President's report submitted to Congress regarding his Martial law declaration in Mindanao. Due to the non-holding of a joint session, there is no way of scrutinizing the said inconsistencies and errors. They now cast a dark cloud of doubt over the legitimacy and proportionality of Martial law as a response to the Marawi conflict.

The filing of the petition is initiated by the Gathering for Civil Liberties (GCL), a multi-tendency, multi-form and multi-sectoral loose formation organized by different personalities, human rights crusaders, sectoral leaders and social activists to provide safe and informal spaces to consolidate voices, perspectives and initiatives to promote democratic values and vigilance amid threats of creeping authoritarianism.

Photo opportunities and interviews will be made available.