Category Archives: The Media

Business, Film and TV, International, Law Enforcement, Music, Technology, The Media

OSCAR-WINNING SONG ‘LET IT GO’ CLIMBS TO NO. 1 IN PHILIPPINE MUSIC CHARTS

March 6, 2014 Pol Pinoy Leave a comment

Philippine Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago (photo credit: philstar.com)

Manila, Philippines – “Let It Go,” the Oscar award-winning best song from the Disney animated film, “Frozen” shot up to number one in the music charts in the Philippines, and this happened in less than 24 hours.

The song was composed by Robert Lopez, a Filipino American, and his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez. But that was not the reason the song climbed up the music charts.

At a Philippine Senate hearing investigating the 10 Billion-peso pork barrel scam involving detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles and implicating three senators, state witness Dennis Cunanan was being grilled by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

Santiago repeatedly asked Cunanan, who was the director of the Technology Resource Center (TRC) when the pork barrel scam happened, what he knew about the involvement of the senators. TRC, a government corporation, acted as a conduit for the release of pork barrel funds to fake non-governmental organizations or NGOs. The senators who were allegedly involved in the scam were Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla, Jr.

“Wow. I’m very interested in what you have to say,” Santiago told Cunanan at one point of the questioning. When Cunanan hesitated to confirm who he thought was the mastermind of the whole scam, Santiago said, “Let It Go” in a Karaoke-style musical tone.

Immediately, the social networks exploded with the Santiago quote and radio stations started simultaneously playing the song from “Frozen.” In just a few hours, “Let It Go,” became the number hit on the Philippine music charts.

Film and TV, Human Interest, International, Technology, The Media

VIRAL TWEET WASN’T ELLEN’S SELFIE AFTER ALL

March 4, 2014 Pol Pinoy Leave a comment

Bradley Cooper, foreground, takes the photo that went viral on Oscar night

Hollywood, California – Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar night selfie that became the most re-tweeted tweet ever and caused Twitter to temporarily crash on Sunday, was, after all, not Ellen’s selfie.

Oxford Dictionaries which just last year named ‘selfie’ the “Word of the Year,” defines selfie as ” a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.

The problem was that it wasn’t DeGeneres that took the viral photo. It was Bradley Cooper. In fact, DeGeneres herself said in her tweet that “If only Bradley’s arm was longer…”

So it is Cooper, not Ellen, who owns the photo and who should be credited with the honor of the most re-tweeted tweet.

The Adobo Chronicles learned from sources close to Cooper that his lawyers are working to copyright the famed photograph.

Film and TV, International, Music, Politics, The Media

PHILIPPINE SENATORS COME TO THE DEFENSE OF FILIPINO AMERICAN OSCAR WINNER ROBERT LOPEZ

March 3, 2014 Pol Pinoy 1 Comment

Manila, Philippines – Three top Philippine senators came to the defense of Filipino American Robert Lopez who just bagged an Oscar award as co-composer of the song “Let It Go,” from the Disney animated film, “Frozen.” By winning the Oscar, Lopez joins an elite few who have won in all of the top and prestigious American awards such as the Emmy, the Grammy, the Oscar and the Tony, more popularly know in the entertainment world as “EGOT.”

The three senators were Ramon “Bong’ Revilla, Jr. , Manuel “Lito” Lapid and Vicente “Tito” Sotto III. All were former movie actors in the Philippines. They criticized the U.S. media for referring to Lopez as “EGOT winner.” “Egot” is a derogatory Filipino slang word often used to belittle or make fun of dark-skinned or black people.

In a statement read during today’s session of the Philippine Senate, Revilla, Lapid and Sotto accused the U.S. media of being racist and insensitive. “We are extremely proud of the honor that Lopez has brought to our country and to characterize him as such (“egot”) is unbecoming of Americans who pride themselves as the most ethnically and culturally sensitive people in the world,” they said.

The two senators were joined in the signed protest statement by their senate colleagues who also have some connection to film and the media, namely: Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada whose father, former Philippine president and now mayor of Manila Joseph Estrada was a movie actor; Loren Legarda, who was a television journalist; and Grace Poe, daughter of real-life husband and wife actors Fernando Poe, Jr. and Susan Roces.