Jollibee in Edmonton

Popular Filipino fast food chain Jollibee opens in Edmonton to huge fanfare

Slav Kornik | Global News Canada

16 August 2019

The popular Filipino fast-food chain Jollibee opened its first restaurant in Edmonton to massive fanfare on Friday morning — the excitement was so great, a record was set.

Jollibee opening in Edmonton, Canada

Hundreds of people lined up for hours and even days just off Calgary Trail and 38 Avenue in south Edmonton to get the first taste of the restaurant’s food.

The crowd cheered, sang and danced shortly before the restaurant opened.

Jordan Haworth was the first in line after arriving at the restaurant at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, meaning he waited in line for nearly three days —which set a record for the longest wait at a Jollibee opening.

Jollibee store openings have been known to draw large crowds as fans and newcomers alike line up for a chance to try the unique food.

“I’m very very excited. People have been repping it all week,” Haworth, who hadn’t tried the company’s food before, said.

“We have never seen this kind of opening at any of our locations before, probably the [previous] record we had was a 20 hour wait,” JFC North America Philippine branch president Maribeth Delacruz said.

“It was in Manhattan in New York, but somebody waiting in line for three days for the opening is just really phenomenal.”

Others drove several hours to get a taste of Jollibee’s food. The Filipino people who lined up said Jollibee is more than a fast-food restaurant, it’s a part of their native country.

“When you go to a mall with your family, you would eat at Jollibee. You would always eat there.”

The fast-food giant has been in the Philippines for 40 years, with around 1,000 restaurants world-wide.

The menu contains items that may be new to some Canadian palates: known as “the McDonald’s of the Philippines,” the restaurant has diverse offerings such as fried chicken, sweet-style spaghetti sauce and noodles, and peach mango pie.

“I just came from inside and somebody who waited for three days in line, and when she finally got to the counter she was literally crying,” Delacruz said.

The Edmonton restaurant is the fifth in Canada for the company. There are also two in Toronto and two in Winnipeg.

Those in line believe the new restaurant will be a huge hit in Alberta’s capital.

“Especially that it’s just one in Edmonton,” Angel Haddac said.

“And there’s a lot of Filipinos and other people that would like it,” Reyes added.

The company has aggressive expansion plans, with the goal of opening 100 restaurants in Canada over the next five years.

Louganis loves El Nido

Louganis in love with El Nido


Abac Cordero
Philippine Star
13 April 2019

EL NIDO, Palawan, Philippines — The greatest diver in history was smitten by the beauty of the surroundings here.

“It’s just a spectacular background,” said Greg Louganis, the four-time Olympic champion from the United States.

 

Louganis, 59, is here as sports director of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, which was to kick off its 11th season yesterday.

Twenty-four of the world’s best cliff divers are in this picturesque island of amazing geologic formations and pristine waters with corals and marine mammal life.

Louganis, who wore his Olympic ring on his right hand during the interview, said the event couldn’t find a better spot.

“Such an incredible backdrop,” he said of the site.

Two platforms of 20 meters (70 feet) for women and 27 meters (90 feet) for men were constructed on a towering limestone formation in Miniloc island.

The competitors from the US, Great Britain, Canada, Mexico, Belarus, Romania, Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic will jump off a cliff with sharp, jagged rocks from as high as 90 feet. It takes them three to four seconds to hit the waters at a speed of 70 to 80 kph.

It’s heart-stopping to watch.

“I’m just in awe,” said Louganis, winner of two Olympic gold medals (platform and springboard) in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.

“And I’m always asked, ‘What’s your favorite spot?’ I have to say it’s Oman and the Philippines. They’re neck-to-neck,” he said.

“But here you really feel you’re embraced by nature. And that’s what cliff diving is all about. It’s the backdrop. The gorgeous clear waters. It’s stunning,” he said of the El Nido site.

From here, the series moves to Ireland in May, Italy in June, Portugal in June, Lebanon in July, Bosnia and Herzegovina in August then Spain in September.

Louganis, winner of five world championships, has never tried cliff diving.

Not yet. One day, he will.

“I really want to experience what the divers experience. The impact. But you don’t know until you do it yourself,” said Louganis.

“But if I’d dive, I’d do it here,” he said.

Louganis is in love with El Nido.

Steel bar exporter

PH becomes steel bar exporter

SteelAsia’s first shipment to Canada

By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat\ 24March 2019

Manila Bulletin

Leading Philippine steel firm SteelAsia Manufacturing Corp. is delivering its first export of rebars to Canada, making the Philippines a steel bar exporter again after several decades.

SteelAsia SVP and Head of Sales Yvette Sy said the company shipped 10,000 metric tons of rebar to Canada worth over P300 million (around $6 million). Rebars are used by the construction sector to provide tensile strength for infrastructure, buildings, housing, and other structures.

“We are excited to see Philippine-made rebars being used in buildings and infrastructure in Canada. This shows that our steel products are competitive and world-class, having passed the stringent standards on steel set by Canadian authorities,” she said.

SteelAsia is the first steel bar manufacturer in the Philippines to have an Integrated Management System (IMS) certification when its Environment (ISO 14001) and Health and Safety (OHSAS 18001) Management Systems were integrated with its Quality Management System (ISO 9001).

SteelAsia’s Quality Management System has also been certified to conform to UK CARES or the UK Certification Authority for Reinforcing Steel Bars, the only Philippine company to achieve such certification at this time.

“We hope to do our part in raising the reputation of Philippine manufacturing by ensuring that our steel products are at par with the best in the world,” Sy said.

She also assured that SteelAsia will continue to ably support domestic requirements, especially the ongoing massive infrastructure developments in the country.

The Yao-owned SteelAsia is the Philippines’ flagship steel firm with six rebar rolling mills across the country – three in Luzon, one in the Visayas, and two in Mindanao – producing an output of over two million tons per year.

“We are proud to contribute to the country’s development, not only through the manufacture of quality steel locally but also by earning precious foreign exchange for the country through exports,” Sy concluded.

In December last year, SteelAsia Chairman Benjamin Yao have partnered with China’s HBIS Group Co. Ltd. and Huili Investment Fund Management Co. Ltd. to jointly undertake the country’s first integrated steel manufacturing operation in Misamis Oriental worth $4.4 billion.

The facilities in the plant will include those related to port operation, sintering, coking, pelletizing, iron-making, steel-making, steel rolling and further processing. The construction and ramp-up period is scheduled to span from three to five years.

Happiest Countries in the World

The World Happiness Report 2019 Is Out—Check Out The Ranking Of The Philippines

Cosmopolitan Philippines
24 March 2019

In the latest World Happiness Report (2019), the Philippines ranked 69. The results and ranking compare the happiness quotients of 156 countries. In the last report, the Philippines ranked 71st in the happiness meter, so we upped our happy score by a tiny bit.

The World Happiness Report 2019 is by Helliwell, J., Layard, R., and Sachs, J. (2019) produced by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. To arrive at the latest ranking, they asked respondents to value their lives on a 0 to 10 scale, with 0 being the worst possible life and 10 being the best possible life. And, the score of the Philippines? We got 5.63 points out of 10 points. While our ranking would still be lower than a 60 percent passing mark in a typical test, we still bested some of our neighbors, particularly the likes of Hong Kong SAR, China which came in at 76th place (5.430) and China which ranked 93rd (5.191).

Some of our favorite travel destinations ranked higher with Canada at 9th spot (7.278), the United States at 19th (6.892), France at 24th (6.592), Singapore at 34th (6.262), South Korea at 54th (5.895), and Japan at 58th (5.886). Topping the list were some of the Scandinavian countries with Finland besting all the others (again) with a 7.769 happiness score.

The World Happiness report “attempts to show how six key variables contribute to explaining the full sample of national annual average scores…. These variables are GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption.”

“We do not construct our happiness measure in each country using these six factors – the scores are instead based on individuals’ own assessments of their lives,” say the experts behind the study. So, if you were to rate your happiness against similar metrics, how would you fair? Would you say that you’re truly happy?

Checkout the ranking of156 countries below:

1. Finland (7.769)
2. Denmark (7.600)
3. Norway (7.554)
4. Iceland (7.494)
5. Netherlands (7.488)
6. Switzerland (7.480)
7. Sweden (7.343)
8. New Zealand (7.307)
9. Canada (7.278)
10. Austria (7.246)
11. Australia (7.228)
12. Costa Rica (7.167)
13. Israel (7.139)
14. Luxembourg (7.090)
15. United Kingdom (7.054)
16. Ireland (7.021)
17. Germany (6.985)
18. Belgium (6.923)
19. United States (6.892)
20. Czech Republic (6.852)
21. United Arab Emirates (6.825)
22. Malta (6.726)
23. Mexico (6.595)
24. France (6.592)
25. Taiwan Province of China (6.446)
26. Chile (6.444)
27. Guatemala (6.436)
28. Saudi Arabia (6.375)
29. Qatar (6.374)
30. Spain (6.354)
31. Panama (6.321)
32. Brazil (6.300)
33. Uruguay (6.293)
34. Singapore (6.262)
35. El Salvador (6.253)
36. Italy (6.223)
37. Bahrain (6.199)
38. Slovakia (6.198)
39. Trinidad and Tobago (6.192)
40. Poland (6.182)
41. Uzbekistan (6.174)
42. Lithuania (6.149)
43. Colombia (6.125)
44. Slovenia (6.118)
45. Nicaragua (6.105)
46. Kosovo (6.100)
47. Argentina (6.086)
48. Romania (6.070)
49. Cyprus (6.046)
50. Ecuador (6.028)
51. Kuwait (6.021)
52. Thailand (6.008)
53. Latvia (5.940)
54. South Korea (5.895)
55. Estonia (5.893)
56. Jamaica (5.890)
57. Mauritius (5.888)
58. Japan (5.886)
59. Honduras (5.860)
60. Kazakhstan (5.809)
61. Bolivia (5.779)
62. Hungary (5.758)
63. Paraguay (5.743)
64. North Cyprus (5.718)
65. Peru (5.697)
66. Portugal (5.693)
67. Pakistan (5.653)
68. Russia (5.648)
69. Philippines (5.631)
70. Serbia (5.603)
71. Moldova (5.529)
72. Libya (5.525)
73. Montenegro (5.523)
74. Tajikistan (5.467)
75. Croatia (5.432)
76. Hong Kong SAR, China (5.430)
77. Dominican Republic (5.425)
78. Bosnia and Herzegovina (5.386)
79. Turkey (5.373)
80. Malaysia (5.339)
81. Belarus (5.323)
82. Greece (5.287)
83. Mongolia (5.285)
84. Macedonia (5.274)
85. Nigeria (5.265)
86. Kyrgyzstan (5.261)
87. Turkmenistan (5.247)
88. Algeria (5.211)
89. Morocco (5.208)
90. Azerbaijan (5.208)
91. Lebanon (5.197)
92. Indonesia (5.192)
93. China (5.191)
94. Vietnam (5.175)
95. Bhutan (5.082)
96. Cameroon (5.044)
97. Bulgaria (5.011)
98. Ghana (4.996)
99. Ivory Coast (4.944)
100. Nepal (4.913)
101. Jordan (4.906)
102. Benin (4.883)
103. Congo (Brazzaville) (4.812)
104. Gabon (4.799)
105. Laos (4.796)
106. South Africa (4.722)
107. Albania (4.719)
108. Venezuela (4.707)
109. Cambodia (4.700)
110. Palestinian Territories (4.696)
111. Senegal (4.681)
112. Somalia (4.668)
113. Namibia (4.639)
114. Niger (4.628)
115. Burkina Faso (4.587)
116. Armenia (4.559)
117. Iran (4.548)
118. Guinea (4.534)
119. Georgia (4.519)
120. Gambia (4.516)
121. Kenya (4.509)
122. Mauritania (4.490)
123. Mozambique (4.466)
124. Tunisia (4.461)
125. Bangladesh (4.456)
126. Iraq (4.437)
127. Congo (Kinshasa) (4.418)
128. Mali (4.390)
129. Sierra Leone (4.374)
130. Sri Lanka (4.366)
131. Myanmar (4.360)
132. Chad (4.350)
133. Ukraine (4.332)
134. Ethiopia (4.286)
135. Swaziland (4.212)
136. Uganda (4.189)
137. Egypt (4.166)
138. Zambia (4.107)
139. Togo (4.085)
140. India (4.015)
141. Liberia (3.975)
142. Comoros (3.973)
143. Madagascar (3.933)
144. Lesotho (3.802)
145. Burundi (3.775)
146. Zimbabwe (3.663)
147. Haiti (3.597)
148. Botswana (3.488)
149. Syria (3.462)
150. Malawi (3.410)
151. Yemen (3.380)
152. Rwanda (3.334)
153. Tanzania (3.231)
154. Afghanistan (3.203)
155. Central African Republic (3.083)
156. South Sudan (2.853)