Do you have your cheat sheet for May 13 yet? With the elections on most everyone’s mind these days, we decided to sit down with journalist Inday Espina Varona to find out what has been keeping her and the half-a-million strong Bayan Patrollers busy.
Varona, head of ABS-CBN’s Bayan Mo, iPatrol Mo (BMPM) for almost three years now, regularly crisscrosses the country with her team to hold citizen journalism workshops and to preach the importance of exposing electionrelated problems. But more than that, Varona stresses, we must use our vote to help our communities and those who do not have access to social media, which is exactly what several groups of Bayan Patrollers did recently. Find out how they pulled it off in our cover feature this month.
The Lopez Memorial Museum and Library, founded in 1960, is one of the most enduring and most personal legacies of Eugenio Lopez Sr. The product of about two decades of painstakingly scouring shops and sales abroad, the Lopez Group founder’s rariora soon needed its own home, and so the Lopez Museum was born.
The Benpres Building-based museum has had one former home and will soon move to its third. In addition to the current exhibit called Grounded, one of its last few projects out of Ortigas is a membership program that comes bundled with irresistible perks. Lopez Museum executive director Cedie Lopez Vargas discusses the details in our cover feature for the month!
Rockwell Land Corporation is doubtless making good on its pledge to “create quality living.” Less than two decades after it was established, the company has built for itself a sterling reputation buoyed by impeccable after-sales service and top-notch developments like Manansala, Rizal, Joya and even the Proscenium.
In this month’s cover feature, we offer a closer look at this 18- year-old lifestyle developer: how it grew the Rockwell community out of a disused power plant, its enviable and ever growing project portfolio and, of course, the men and women who work tirelessly to make the company into what it is today.
The mood was upbeat at the Group’s annual budget conference in January, with Lopez Group chairman Ambassador Manuel M. Lopez (AMML) foreseeing “a good year for the Philippine economy.” He cited the fiscal gains we’ve made under the leadership of Pres. Aquino, including the stable foreign exchange rate. Check out the full story on page 3.
One major Lopez Group milestone that we’re celebrating this year is the 60th anniversary of the first Philippine TV broadcast, which actually took place in October; this is why ABS-CBN has a full year of activities mapped out, including a bigger and more ambitious Pasig River run in the second half of the year.
Just like that, we are bidding 2012 goodbye and saying hello, Year of the Water Snake. But for now, all our energies are focused on getting through yet another Christmas season and everything that it signifies: interminable traffic, scheduling dilemmas and excess pounds that insist on making their home on our hips.
Seriously, though, Christmas, for Filipinos, is the time to remember and express our appreciation and gratitude, not only to the people who have helped or been kind to us in the past year, but especially to The One who gave us the greatest gift of all. Our Lopez Group leaders remind us of the deeper meaning of this season in their traditional Christmas message on page 5.
