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07/15/2008

PTAA launches travel handbook, gets DOT endorsement

The Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA) recently launched the most comprehensive travel handbook in the country. Researched and written for over a year, the book dubbed “The 1st Philippine Domestic Travel & Tour Handbook 2008” offers detailed information on the 17 regions of the Philippines including local politics, culture, history, tourist destinations and products.

PTAA vice president for inbound John Paul Cabalza believes the 788-page book will help serve as guide to travelers wanting to explore the beauty of the country. The handbook already received the endorsement of Department of Tourism Secretary Joseph Durano who claimed it is a tool that promotes the Philippines’ scenic wonders and is a timely endeavor that provides benefits to tourism establishments in the country. It is available in collegiate textbook edition, paperback and CD format at the PTAA Secretariat Office. For information, please call 552.0026 to 29 and look for Abel Espedido or Babes Obispo-Carzano or e-mail ptaa@pldtdsl.net.

Nurturing the love of reading

Citibank Philippines and partner Synergeia Foundation recently held a reading enrichment activity for more than 1,200 students of Magat Salamat Elementary School in Tondo, Manila. Together with volunteers from Museo Pambata, Citibank and Synergeia officers led the students, all enrolled in grade one, in a host of activities that included storytelling sessions and games, arts and crafts activities and visits to a mobile library. The one-day affair was actually the culminating activity of a year-long program that sought to improve the reading skills of the students. According to Citibank Country Business manager Mark Jones, a diagnostic exam administered to the students early in the school year showed that 95 percent had reading skills two levels below that of a pupil enrolled in the first grade. Working with a grant from Citi Foundation, Synergeia Foundation trained teachers and parents, and distributed lesson plans and workbooks to get the reading program off the ground. Less than eight months later, the students’ improvement was remarkable. Its support for Magat Salamat Elementary School is part of Citibank’s “I Love To Read” campaign, a reading intervention program that seeks to improve the reading and comprehension skills of students in primary schools, as well as a love for reading.

How happy are you?

You have a flourishing career, a healthy relationship, and good friends, but why aren’t you happy? Many women find themselves in a situation where they are unhappy despite all the blessings that come their way. Others find themselves in less-than-ideal situations but are able to find happiness despite their troubles. What, then, makes a person happy? This July, Marie Claire Magazine features a Happiness Report that helps you answer the question “How happy are you?” According to a worldwide happiness survey conducted by the World Values Survey group, Filipinos are the seventh happiest people in Asia out of nine countries in the region. If you don’t find yourself among the Filipinos that look on the bright side, check your happiness meter with Marie Claire’s one-minute Satisfaction with Life Scale. Then, take Marie Claire’s seven steps towards genuine happiness, and find out what feel-good factors make us happy. Grab your copy of the July issue of Marie Claire Magazine, now available in magazine stands and bookstores at P125 per copy.

Freedom fighter releases second book

More than a second book about the end of the Marcos dictatorship, A Country Not Even His Own by Steve Psinakis recounts the author’s odyssey from the events that inspire him to champion democracy in the Philippines to the subsequent US reaction: United States of America versus Steven Elias Psinakis. From Greece with an American electrical engineering degree, Psinakis found employment and met his wife to be, Presy Lopez, in Manila. As the Production Manager of Meralco stationed in Manila, employment inequities between Americans and Filipinos were soon to become evident. In 1972 human rights abuse would yet strike at the heart of his wife’s family with the political imprisonment of her brother, Geny Lopez. During the martial law years (1972-1986) while abroad in the United States, Psinakis helped orchestrate the successful escape of his brother-in-law Eugenio Lopez Jr. from political imprisonment and took a leading role in exposing the abuses of the Marcos regime. The book takes its title from a 1988 citation by President Cory Aquino to Psinakis in recognition of his steadfast commitment to restore democracy in the Philippines, A Country Not Even His Own. The book is now available on leading bookstores nationwide. For more info, contact Helen Constantino (0917) 801-6407.