Urduja, a Filipino animated film

What happens when Pocahontas goes to the Philippines? She becomes Urduja. Seriously though, other than the weird similarity to the Disney character, this animated film doesn’t look bad at all.

It’s about Princess Urduja a 14th century warrior of legendary Tawalisi, said to be in Pangasinan, northern Philippines. We can’t be sure that Urduja really existed. Philippine written history only started during the time of Spanish rule. However, the odds are that most British-born Filipinos like myself have only heard of Lapu-Lapu, Dr Jose Rizal and The Katipunan bunch. Discovering something new about our past is refreshing.

Keys Me

Is it bad to post this? 😛

Learn to speak Tagalog Podcast

Here’s a useful site for second-generation Filipinos who want to learn Tagalog.

If you grew up in the UK and never learnt Filipino, take a look at Manuel Viloria’s Pinoy Podcast. You can subscribe and load them into your MP3 player for those tube journeys. He also has a web player so you can listen directly on the site.

Manuel’s already on Episode 40 so there’s lots of catching up to do.

filmefilms update

filemefilms have an update video for 2008. Take a look at their latest videos and redesigned site at filmefilms.tv.

Filipino martial arts event in London

For anyone interested in Filipino martial arts, there are two upcoming events:

  • The Seni Eskrima Open Championship – Excel, London on 26 April 2008
  • World Eskrima Kali Arnis Federation (WEKAF) Invitational tournament – Mile End, London on 2 March 2008

You can get more information from www.dgdocepares.co.uk

Filipino martial arts event in London

 

Annual PNA UK Short Story Writing Contest


The Philippine Nurses Association of the UK and Ireland
is launching its Annual PNA UK Short Story Writing Contest beginning January 2008.

The annual contest is a part of the association’s cultural awareness and Filipino identity promotion program among the huge OFW community living abroad.

The primary objective of the contest is to help promote literature, cultural and creative thinking in the migrant worker in the context of UK environment and trends and to enable the individual to share this in writing. Aimed at highlighting the OFW as a truly world-class Filipino, the contest stands to be the first of its kind in the UK Filipino community. The ambition of the project campaign is to expand opportunities for the writers, readers and possible publisher of the stories.

It is further hoped that the contest will continue to serve as a reminder for the Filipino individual of the cultural roots and modern social adaptation in a literary environment. The award endeavours to focus on the life of the overseas national in the United Kingdom. The project is open to all overseas Filipino, British-Filipino and Mixed-Filipino national who have mainly come to the UK to work and/ or live permanently. All entries must be between 6,000 to 10,000 words. Deadline for submission of entries is on 30 April 2008.

The PNA UK Annual Short Story Writing Contest is fully endorsed and supported by the Philippine Embassy in London and by various Filipino business establishments. For more entry and sponsorship information, please visit the website at www.pnauk.org.uk where complete information can be found. Alternatively, please email [email protected].

[Sent by Michael Duque, president of the Philippine Nurses Association of the UK]

View from Muelle Pier in Puerto Galera

A visitor asked me to share the following webcam page of a view from Muelle Pier in Puerto Galera, in Mindoro, Philippines.

http://www.pgyc.org/qbewebcam.html

"Dear Second Generation Filipinos,

It is a challenge to find out how to contact you but I wanted to let you know that there is a webcam in one beautiful corner of the Philippines that you may want to visit and share with your members. It shows in real-time the true beauty of the country of your roots.

it is located on the island of Mindoro and where I spent three days sailing just two weeks ago. The yacht club who manage the site where the webcam is offers sailing courses at very competitive rates, compared to the UK, and welcomes everyone with open arms.

Enjoy . . .

Best regards,

Martyn

P.S. Note the webcam is real-time and the Philippines is 8 hours ahead so log in early or very late."

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