Ga-Graduate Ka Ba?

In the Philippine school systems, towards the end of the school year is an important month for graduating students. This is the time when a student gets a clue if he or she will walk to the stage to receive a piece of typewriting paper tied with cheap lace from Divisoria. Graduates-to-be are anxious to know if they're gonna move up, or gonna get stuck behind. Frankly its a tense time.

There's a lot of challenges actually. For the high school and the college students, grades are just the start of the things to get worried about. It is a stressful phase, but also an exciting one. Commencement is the end of something, and the start of another.

Papaya Soap Syndrome

There was a time when the hottest selling thing was Papaya. You can see the fruit in newspapers and billboards. You can hear Papaya on the radio and see it on TV. Almost everyone was crazy about Papaya! Unfortunately, we didn't want to eat the fruit, we wanted it on our skin.

Almost all soaps for sale bore the resemblance to the color and smell of Papaya. Even the biggest names in soaps have their own Papaya variant. The craze even went further when someone released a green Papaya variant claiming to be more effective that the ripe fruit. Their claim?  They give Filipino women a chance to become whiter.

Open a Balikbayan Box

We are one of the world's largest exporter of human resources. The Philippines has been mass producing skilled workers, professionals and wives (yes being a wife is an occupation) for the world in the past few decades, and we're pretty good at it. Some come back here, some don't. But they funnel billions and billions of dollars here to the country so not too many are complaining. Ask a random person on the street, chances are, he or she has a close relative working abroad. Many see going overseas as the premiere destination for success because of limited opportunities here. And to those who get lucky and get overseas work, when they return, they bring their dollars and balikbayan boxes.

Its an unspoken rule. All returning Filipino men and women, upon their return here, they should be bringing huge boxes with almost everything in it. These are the balikbayan boxes. Open it up, you should find pretty interesting stuff which will make you wonder why on earth do they bring these all the way from where its from? Here are the common things you'd find on OFW boxes:

Encountering an Aswang

I don't want to meet an aswang. I bet many don't want to either. Walking alone at night on a dark "eskinita" then suddenly an aswang appears scenario is something that doesn't happen very often especially nowadays in the metropolitan cities. Aside from the fact that we are talking on "mythological" terms here, there's no proof that aswangs exists. So what's the point of this? Its a nice to know. After all, no one said that aswangs don't exist. No one has proof...yet.

So what do you do when you happen to meet an aswang? Read on and find out.

Most Exposed Filipino Movie Artists

Jose Nepumuceno, Father of Filipino Movies

We Filipinos love movies. This love for movies is something very interesting about the Philippines. For decades since the movie industry of the country started, it has been a great source of entertainment for both men and women of all ages in the archipelago. We laughed, we cried, we hated, we liked and we fell in love. Such is the power of film, media and the people behind it. Although immense is the influence, very few had taken a look as what you will find here.

It rarely gets brought up, things about the entertainment industry in general. We seem to take everything at face value. Here's something that takes a different look at things and tried to see which actors and actresses made the most films. Please note that the number of films and roles do not define an actor or actress. They are not a measure of success or the acceptance of Filipinos, although it can be an indicator. This is the list of the Most Exposed Pinoy Movie Artists.