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ISSUE 88

CONTENTS Ju n e 2 0 1 5

FEATURES

66

ROGUE’S 50 MOST INFLUENTIAL FILIPINOS ONLINE From business moguls to politicos, we round up the 50 Filipinos whose likes, double taps, and retweets are also a measure of their leverage.

4 J U N E 2015

84

HOW TO DISMANTLE AN ATOMIC BOMB The Philippine Nuclear Power Plant remains a white elephant, mainly due to our government’s indecision and neglect.

Mixkaela Villalon inquires into whether it will one day serve its true purpose—or be relegated to a mere reminder of past transgressions.

94

THE MEN WHO INVENTED TOMORROW The overriding theme of the last 10 years is that deceptively simple apps hold the potential to topple even the most longstanding industries. We spotlight the minds behind these insurgent tech services who are revising all the rules of wired living.

102

SMOKE AND MIRRORS Tony Ahn has established himself as a driving force in the industry of digital public relations. Arianna Lim looks into the strategies of the man who counsels in the court of public opinion.

106

CELL TO CELL Jonathan Franklin investigates Brazil’s most feared criminal ring which has expanded its empire by way of violence, impressive organizational discipline, and smuggled mobile phones—all within the walls of prison.

THE BATAAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT PHOTOGRAPHED BY AT MACULANGAN

G/F GREENBELT 5, AYALA MALL, MAKATI CITY R-1 LEVEL POWERPLANT MALL, ROCKWELL CENTER, MAKATI CITY G/F SHANGRI-LA PLAZA MALL, EDSA MANDALUYONG CITY

ISSUE 88

CONTENTS Ju n e 2 0 1 5

SECTIONS 15

AGENDA With the impending release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens, review the characters, timelines, and continuity of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. We highlight eight sci-fi books that are looking much less like fiction these days.

Since establishing itself as the most sought-after “not brownie,” the Bucky has made a new home for itself at Bucky’s Counter.

George Lucas and Mark Hamill on the set of Star Wars: A New Hope, 1976.

6 J U N E 2015

33

SPACE Three of the automotive world’s biggest carmakers look to the future by way of three stunning new concept cars. Alex Garland’s Ex Machina summons a futuristic mansion set in Juvet, a hotel tucked in the Norwegian wilds.

Look into how the smartphone has evolved from an ingenious gadget to the most essential device of the 21st century.

49

THE EYE French porcelain methods and the ancient Japanese art of aka-e come together for 12 one-of-akind timepieces by Hermès; alter your look without throwing out your style staples by adding a few of these strategic statement pieces.

Walk a mile in German legwear manufacturer Falke’s rich stylistic history, from the late 19th century to the modern age.

59

THE SLANT Glenn Tuazon examines the problems and possible solutions to online anonymity. James Gabrillo analyzes “Hillary Clinton 2016,” the presidentiable’s revamped and tech-savvy campaign. Mary Grace Mirandilla-Santos points out the holes in our telecoms’s policies.

One Apple employee offers a look into the company’s progress in the wake of Steve Jobs’s passing.

Editor in Chief PAOLO R. REYES Design Director MIGUEL MARI

Creative Director MIGUEL LUGTU

Managing Editor JACS T. SAMPAYAN

Style Editor GINO DE LA PAZ

Executive Editor CARMELA A. LOPA Associate Editor MICHELLE V. AYUYAO

Assistant Editor DON JAUCIAN Editorial Assistant ARIANNA LIM Editor at Large TEODORO LOCSIN, JR.

On the Cover Kim Jones wears an H&M necklace

ART Senior Designer PATRICK DIOKNO Photographer at Large MARK NICDAO

Junior Designer CHESCA GAMBOA

Photographer STEVE TIRONA

Illustrator MENEER MARCELO

Photographed by Mark Nicdao Styled by Philppa Andren Makeup by Jen Delica Hair by Mark Familiara Production Design by Elmer Pueblo

Contributing Editors JAMES GABRILLO, TRICKIE LOPA, L.A. CONSING LOPEZ, MANO LOTHO, TATS MANAHAN, TEDDY MONTELIBANO, NEAL OSHIMA, NICOLA M. SEBASTIAN, GUTSY TUASON, MARTIN VALDES, MARITES VITUG, JJ YULO, CLINTON PALANCA Contributing Writers APA AGBAYANI, ANDREA ANG, MARGARITA BUENAVENTURA, KRISTINE DABBAY, GIO DIONISIO, PAULO EDROSOL ANO, JEFFREY FRANCISCO, STEF JUAN, PETRA MAGNO, SHINJI MANL ANGIT, ELVIN LUCIANO, JANSEN MUSICO, MIGUEL ORTEGA, SAM POTENCIANO, NADINE RAMOS, CHRISTIAN DE PIO SANCHEZ, MARY GRACE MIRANDILL A-SANTOS, RAMON TAYAG, AYANA TOLENTINO, GLENN TUAZON, MIKKA WEE, MIXKAEL A VILL ALON, MARTIN YAMBAO Contributing Photographers & Artists MORTEN ANDERSEN, JER DEE, CARLOS LERMA,

ERRATUM In our May 2015 issue, we failed to credit Kay Isabedra as the food stylist for our feature “Manila Eats” and Gustare as the shoot location for the feature “The Mind of a Chef.”

We apologize for these oversights.

AT MACUL ANGAN, MIGUEL NACIANCENO Interns CHRISTIAN CASTILLO, JAMIE CASTRO, JL JAVIER, JAM PASCUAL, CZARINNA ANTHEA REYES

PUBLISHING Publisher FELIPE P. CRUZ III / felipe.cruz@roguemag.net Associate Publisher ANI A. HIL A / ani.hila@roguemag.net Advertising Sales Director CHRIS TAN / chris.tan@roguemag.net Senior Account Manager PAM PLANTA-YAP Account Managers THUNDER ILUSTRE, CATHERINE F. RAYMUNDO, VELU ACABADO Advertising Traffic Officer, Production Coordinator & Circulation Assistant MYRA CABALUNA Marketing Manager & Special Projects Head NIKKI ARRIOLA Marketing Assistant SAMANTHA ANGELES Associate Circulation Manager RAINIER S. BARIA

Circulation Assistant MARK ROLAND LEAL

Building 3, 2nd Floor, Jannov Plaza, 2295 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati 1231, Philippines Telephone: (+632) 729-7747 Telefax: (+632) 894-2676 Email: mail@roguemag.net Online Presence: Rogue.Ph Facebook.com/rogue.magazine Twitter: @rogueonline Instagram: @rogueonline Tablet version available at: Zinio.com/Rogue Official Internet Service Provider:

Circulation Assistant JERICO ALDANA Dispatch Supervisor ERIC GARCIA, JIMUEL TATAD Controller EDEN G. ARGONZA Credit & Collection Officer KRISTINE CELIZ Finance Analyst JEMMALYN LUCERO Accountant SHAN MARCELO HR Supervisor KRISTINE MARTILLANO

For subscriptions, back issues, bulk orders, and other circulation concerns please contact : Rainier S. Baria at (+632) 729-7747 and rainier.baria@roguemag.net ROGUE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED MONTHLY, ELEVEN TIMES PER

Administrative Supervisor DEANNA GUEVARRA Legal Counsel MOST L AW

YEAR. THE EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS OF THE MAGAZINE MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES IN RELATION TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THE ADVERTISEMENTS, PRODUCTS, AND SERVICES ADVERTISED IN THIS EDITION. OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS MAGAZINE ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHORS AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF ROGUE MAGAZINE. THIS MAGAZINE

This issue would not have been possible without the help of ALDRIN CALIMLIM, GAIL COWPER, LEIGH ARMAS, ENGR. MAURO MARCELO, MARY REYES, STEFAN VADOCZ

IS FULLY PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT, AND NO PART OF THIS MAGAZINE MAY BE USED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS.

ISSUE 88

THE EDITOR’S NOTE Ju n e 2 0 1 5

10 J U N E 2015

exercise that involved three months of solitary confinement in his studio and an almost superhuman mastery of his nervous system. “I need to work between heartbeats, to reduce the risk of hand tremors,” he said. “The pulse in my finger can cause a fatal mistake.”

There are occupational hazards too— eyestrain, static friction, and the exasperating challenge of holding his breath. Once, while applying the finishing touches to his Alice in Wonderland micro-tableau, he mistimed his breathing and, like a Grimm fairytale gone wrong, accidentally inhaled Alice.

A self-taught miniaturist, Wigan’s reverence for all things small began at age 5, when he was a bullied schoolboy in Birmingham, England. Branded as the “class idiot” because of his undiagnosed dyslexia, he retreated into the world of ants. An all-seeing giant among these tiny insects, he fashioned himself a kind of God of Small Things, making them houses, chairs, tables, shoes, and hats out of wood splinters. “It was a way to compensate for the misery and ridicule,” he recalled. “People made me feel small, so I wanted to show them how significant small could be.”

Wigan’s diminutive figurines have been hailed by the British press as the “eighth wonder of the world.” His limited body of work—70 or so pieces that can comfortably fit in the palm of one’s hand—has been insured for £12 million. One of his commissioned pieces, a replica of Richard Rogers’s Lloyd’s of London building, was auctioned for £94,000.

In 2007, Prince Charles, a Wigan collector himself, honored his services to the arts with a chivalrous suffix, MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). The title may not carry the monumental weight of a Knighthood or a Nobel Prize, but for a man with a murderously difficult sense of artistry, it’s still no small wonder.

Paolo R. Reyes Editor in Chief

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK NICDAO

S

even years ago, I had the privilege of attending an extraordinary exhibit in London. To my surprise, there wasn’t a single mounted canvas at this Bloomsbury gallery in 40 Museum Street, only microscopes. That’s because the artworks of its featured artist, nano sculptor Willard Wigan, were invisible to the naked eye.

Measuring 0.0002 inches tall, roughly the size of a human blood cell, Wigan’s mindboggling sculptures have ruffled the manicured field of medical science, baffling both microsurgeons and nanotechnologists for its sheer impossibility.

Instead of using marble, metal, or wood, he carved his miniscule masterpieces from a grain of sand, sugar, or rice, using fine surgical blades or a broken shard of diamond. His choice of paintbrushes bordered on the bizarre: strands of hair plucked from the head of a housefly.

Every finished piece was placed within the eye of a needle or the tip of a toothpick or mounted on a pinhead.

After being introduced to Wigan, I discovered that the most amazing aspect of his craft was the process—a painful, obsessive

The Atomic Circus

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ISSUE 88

THE GUEST LIST Ju n e 2 0 1 5

Carlos Lerma is a Mexican visual artist with over a decade of experience in illustration and graphic design to his name. Pulling from his love of film, video games, books, and TV, his colorful art has appeared in numerous publications and shows from Tijuana to Paris.

12 J U N E 2015

Jonathan Franklin, a foreign correspondent of Rogue since 2007, is an awardwinning investigative journalist who has reported for The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Glove, GQ, Playboy, BBC, and 60 Minutes. He is the author of the book 33 Men: Inside the Miraculous Survival and Dramatic Rescue of the Chilean Miners.

Mixkaela Villalon became a writer of short stories and plays after leaving her dreams of rockstardom by the wayside. She used to plays drums for a high school punk band, but has since mellowed out considerably.

At Maculangan attended cinematography workshops at the MOWELFUND Film Institute in the 1980s. Although still active in helping independent film productions and filmmakers, he’s since devoted his talents to photography, shooting guerilla-style, but coming up with no less evocative, elegant portraits.

James Gabrillo is a former associate editor at Rogue, writer at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and culture editor at the Middle East broadsheet The National. He’s currently a grad student at Cambridge, where he’s finishing a dissertation on the spectacle of Philippine presidential campaigns.

In this issue, he dissects Hillary Clinton’s second stab at returning to the White House.

Johnny Appleseed is an Apple employee and professional vault of secrets. While not moonlighting as a writer and double agent, he alternates spending time between Manila and the Silicon Valley, tinkering with machines wherever he goes.

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Ju n e 2 0 1 5

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AGENDA

F O O D + E N T E R TA I N M E N T + C U L T U R E + T R AV E L

ACROSS THE

With the impending release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens, we review the characters, timelines, and parallel universes that spanned the Star Wars galaxy WORDS BY MIGUEL ORTEGA

ISSUE NO.

88

AGENDA BOOKS

SPECIAL FORCES

From top: Luke Skywalker onboard an X-34 Landspeeder; Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader’s final duel; the original Imperial Stormtrooper armor from Episode IV: A New Hope.

X-WING SERIES BO OK COU N T:

10

L ONG STORY SHORT:

Wedge Antilles creates Rogue Squadron, tasked with recapturing Coruscant after the war, and Wraith Squadron, tasked with stopping Warlord Zsinj after acquiring a Super Star Destroyer. It’s the Expanded Universe’s version of Top Gun. G E E K FAC T: The novels were apparently based on the X-Wing and Tie Fighter video games and, aside from Episode VII, a Rogue Squadron movie is also in the works.

HEIR TO THE EMPIRE (THRAWN) TRILOGY BO OK COU N T:

after the destruction of the Death Star, born from the imagination—and denial—of Star Wars fans all over, the Star Wars Expanded Universe filled in the blanks left by the movies, gave depth to the franchise’s characters, and ultimately stretched the whole Star Wars ride when people thought it was over. George Lucas considers the Expanded Universe material as a parallel universe; one that tries its best to maintain consistency with the main canon, Episode I to VI. The announcement of Episode VII, however, meant the Expanded Universe had to be wiped clean. It was renamed “Legends” to give way to JJ Abrams’s take on Star Wars. So before all is lost, let’s take a look at what happened after Return of the Jedi according to the biggest geek pick-meup in the galaxy.

A UNIVERSE CREATED

16 J U N E 2015

3

L ONG STORY SHORT:

The rebellion faces Admiral Thrawn, leader of the remaining Imperial Forces on the other side of the galaxy and a master tactician that’s equally feared as Vader. Thrawn aligns with a Sith who wishes to turn Luke, Leia, and her twins to the Dark Side.

G E E K FAC T: The series introduces Mara Jade, the Emperor’s servant and Luke’s love interest, as well as the Ysalamiri, a small creature that is able to repel Force energies.

Thrawn has one, just so you know.

JEDI ACADEMY BO OK COU N T:

3

L ONG STORY SHORT:

Luke reestablishes the Jedi Order on Yavin 4. There he trains Leia and Han’s twins, Jaina and Jacen Solo, and eventually their younger brother, Anakin. However, Luke’s most promising student, Kyp Durron, is turned to the Dark Side by the trapped spirit of the Sith, Exar Kun, who exploits his hatred for the Empire.

G E E K FAC T: Kyp recovers the Sun Crusher on Yavin 4, a small starfighter deadlier than the Death Star. It can destroy entire star systems by causing its sun to go supernova.

YOUNG JEDI KNIGHTS BO OK COU N T:

14

L ONG STORY SHORT:

Geared towards a younger audience, the series takes on the training of Jaina and Jacen Solo in Luke’s Jedi Academy.

G E E K FAC T: One of the twins’ classmates is Lowbacca, Chewbacca’s nephew. There, a Wookie Jedi.

NEW JEDI ORDER BO OK COU N T:

19

L ONG STORY SHORT:

The new Republic, together with Luke’s Jedi Academy, face the Yuuzhan Vong, a race bent on conquering the galaxy. These invaders carry a unique trait in that they exist outside of the Force—they cannot be sensed nor are they affected by Force powers.

G E E K FAC T: An estimated 365 trillion lives were lost in the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, along with it, Chewbacca, while saving Anakin Solo.

The series, being so massive, was actually overseen

by Lucasfilm and their continuity advisors.

ACTS OF WAR

From top: Chewabacca, C-3PO, Princess Leia, and Han Solo onboard the Millennium Falcon; George Lucas drew inspiration for R2D2 and C-3PO from two sidekicks in Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress; Vader and his Stormtroopers during the Battle of Hoth.

LEGACY OF THE FORCE BO OK COU N T:

9

L ONG STORY SHORT:

The series has parallels to the first three Episodes in that a civil war sets the stage, the Corellia system rebelling against the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. Jacen Solo, in his dream to unify the galaxy, falls to the dark side—mentored by the female Sith, Lumiya—and becomes Darth Caedus.

G E E K FAC T: Though shorter, this series has more character deaths than New Jedi Order.

The series also brings back Boba Fett and Lando Calrissian.

FATE OF THE JEDI BO OK COU N T:

9

L ONG STORY SHORT:

With the death of Darth Caedus, the Galactic Federation holds Luke responsible for his fall and orders the Jedi to either disband or fall under the government.

Luke accepts exile and, accompanied by his son Ben, attempts to discover the cause of Jacen’s fall to the Dark Side.

G E E K FAC T: The series introduces Abeloth, an extremely powerful Dark Side entity. Once mortal, she served the Ones, a family of force wielders seen as gods consisting of the Father, the Son who is the embodiment of the Dark Side, and the Daughter, the embodiment of the light.

J U N E 2015 17

AGENDA TELEVISION

In Hot Pursuit Filling the void that Mad Men left behind is AMC drama Halt and Catch Fire. Set in 1980s Texas, it explores the PC generation in both its infancy and gradual evolution WORDS BY JAM PASCUAL

SCREEN TEST Hot on the heels of its high-rating original shows, HBO introduces two more to add to the collection this month

18 J U N E 2015

THE TERM “HALT AND CATCH FIRE” is a computer language euphemism used to describe a code that causes a computer to malfunction and require restarting. The AMC show of the same name runs along the same vein: the period is the 1980s, an era when 8-bit graphics and Speak & Spell toys were standard fare. In the Texas Silicon Prairie, the personal computer revolution is racing towards the future at breakneck speed, and Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) is the suit-and-tie schemer in the flurry of it all, eager to dismantle the tech paradigm that surrounds him by reverse engineering IBM’s designs. Flying alongside him, wax wings and all, are frustrated engineer Gordon Clark (Scooter McNairy) and computer prodigy Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis).

Deconstructing and rebooting, however, doesn’t seem to be a concern for just the show’s characters, but the AMC network as well. When AMC announced it would renew Halt and Catch Fire for a second season, it was a bit of a surprise move, considering its relatively small viewership— at least compared to the network’s biggest show, The Walking Dead, which averaged 14 million viewers, over 10 times as much as Halt.

Despite this, the network believes it can reel in a larger viewership over time, considering the tendency of most of today’s TV shows to slowly flesh out all their conflicts and build up to a climactic state of tension, the stuff of classic TV drama. For what it’s worth, Halt is capable of doing just this, its thematic engine running on the ideas of “invention, experimentation, and the inherent risks of breaking new ground,” according to AMC president Charlie Collier. But the show’s real power lies in its unique mix of nostalgic charge and modern sensibility, unraveling the hidden history of an industry still working towards a future we find ourselves chasing today.

THE BRINK

BALLERS

Jack Black plays a politically incorrect Foreign Services officer alongside Tim Robbins as an incompetent US Secretary of State in HBO’s newest comedy, trying to quell a geopolitical crisis in Pakistan, hoping the rest of the world doesn’t go down with it.

Produced by Mark Wahlberg and Steve Levinson, the show follows a football legend-turned-corporate agent played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who navigates a world of high materialism. This highflying former athlete, however, may be too cocky for his own good.

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AGENDA FOOD

Better than Chocolate To call a Bucky a brownie is an insult. The recently opened Bucky’s Counter devotes itself to this fudge and flourless chocolate cake hybrid, which is a pastry unlike any other WORDS BY MIKKA WEE / PHOTOS BY MIGUEL NACIANCENO

of “not being a brownie” has, without a doubt, been one of the main reasons Bucky’s has become what it is today. A common sight at bazaars, food fairs, and the glass counter of a neighborhood specialty coffee shop, these slabs of gooey, sticky chocolate bricks have become the ones to constantly blame for ruined diets and that extra jiggle around the waist. Recently, they opened their first-ever coffee shop, Bucky’s Counter (169 Aguirre Ave., BF Homes, Parañaque; 0917844-5104; buckysnotabrownie.com).

The place is sleek and well lit. There are a few terrariums here and there, and the occasional recycled wine-turned-water bottle makes an appearance at occupied seats. Maybe it was purposely designed to be a bit cramped or extra cozy (however you’d like to put it), but if anything, the space is very conducive for time alone.

So here’s the deal with a bar of Buckies: it has the look and shape of a brownie—it has all four corners and it is packed with serious THEIR PERSISTENT DENIAL

20 J U N E 2015

GET BAKED

From left: RIP Bars layer rice treats, half-baked original Buckies, Peanutbutter, and brittle; a half-baked blonde bucky, vanilla ice cream, graham crumbs, and espresso shot make up the Half Baked Buckygatto.

chocolate flavor—but its resemblance ends there. The main difference is its flourless spin on the cake. There is a certain joy in biting into an extremely dense and rich dessert that’s so thick that it sticks to the roof of the mouth and sends sugar spasms all over, alerting you to the state of mental and emotional bliss that’s been achieved.

The Bucky variety comes in The Original, with its deep cocoa flavor nuanced by a sprinkling of sea salt. Oats, some cocoa liqueur, and graham bits make up the Chunky Blonde, which has grown a steady following for itself.

Buckies ’n’ Cream come with a thick inner white paste rendering it an Oreo on steroids, while the Big Poppa Buckies combine savory

and sweet through cream cheese, bacon, and a lashing of bourbon. The Bugs Buckies lend a hand to a straightforward carrot cake, but the Super Buckies are the ones I always come back for. Knowing that they are made with glutenfree flour, coconut sugar, and chia seeds doesn’t really do much to ease the guilt of eating slabs at a time, but they tend to float around the more bittersweet category as compared to the others.

Bucky’s Counter also has a concoction where any Bucky block is heated until the interior is almost molten. It’s topped with some vanilla ice cream and drizzled with rich caramel sauce.

Owner Miguel L. Vargas divulges that this is just the beginning: watch out for more varieties such as Half-Baked Buckies, which I am thinking is a nod to the Ben & Jerry’s favorite.

The thought alone of Buckies Milkshakes and Milo Dinosaur Buckies are enough to send someone on a sugar high, and a spin on milk powder has gotten me curious. With a product this versatile, I can only imagine how big a creative playground Vargas has.

AGENDA TRAVEL

1

AS YOU LIKE IT In the last few years, there’s been a spike in the use of smartphones as the travelers’ way of documenting their journeys—and with it, the growth of Instagram as a virtual journal. Cliché shots of the Eiffel Tower aside, here’s a list of destinations worth the double tap WORDS BY MARGARITA BUENAVENTURA

2 3 BATH, UNITED KINGDOM #BathUK - 7,000 hashtags As its name suggests, Bath was the place to be for a refreshing soak at the height of the Roman Empire.

DOUBLE TAP: The Roman Baths, with its distinct look capable of transporting you to another century. Don’t skip out on the fan vaulting in Bath Abbey.

DODGE: Spending more than a weekend here.

The city is small enough for you to hit all the important sights in a short amount of time.

1 THE MALDIVES #Maldives - 1,323,530 hashtags The Islamic Republic is made up of 1,200 mostly uninhabited islands. Overall, 90 percent of its territory is comprised of clear waters.

DOUBLE TAP: Standing in the center of white sand and cyan waters as far as the eye can see is brilliant in its simplicity. Between May and November, you can swim with manta rays at Manta Point.

DODGE: Dressing in provocative clothes at Malé, the capital. The largely Muslim community frowns upon skimpy outfits.

2 CAPPADOCIA, TURKEY #Cappadocia - 267,286 hashtags This semi-arid region is said to be brimming with otherworldly natural sites.

DOUBLE TAP: Unsurprisingly, the hot air balloons in the town of Göreme will rake in Instagram cred. Second runner-up is the fairy chimney, spires of volcanic rock.

DODGE: Tourist traps that overcharge for dysfunctional ATV rentals.

22 J U N E 2015

4 CHEFCHAOUEN, MOROCCO #Chefchaouen - 44,430 hashtags Also known as The Blue Pearl, the homes and buildings of Chefchaouen are rinsed in

blue paint.

DOUBLE TAP: The sheltered trove in Hassan 1 is a dream with its silverware, carpets, and spices.

Alleyways in the old part of town are neatly tinted and easy on the eyes.

DODGE: Getting mixed up with shady locals.

The city is the main producer of cannabis in Morocco, and hashish is sold all over.

5 CÓRDOBA, SPAIN #CordobaEsp - 25,778 hashtags The Andalusian city is the largest urban area in the world declared a World Heritage

by UNESCO. DOUBLE TAP: Food shots at Ziryab, the city’s temple of tapas. To soak in local culture, the interiors of the Cathedral of Cordoba Mosque are spectacular.

TRUE COLORS

The idea of enhanced digital photos through filters was once snobbed, but using them has now become the unspoken standard.

According to a study on Yahoo Labs, 21 percent of filtered photos are more likely to be viewed, while the likelihood of receiving comments is 45 percent higher.

3

4 HASHTAG NUMBERS AS OF MAY, 2015.

DODGE: The Archeological Museum. It has a good collection of Roman artifacts, but no English signage.

6 CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA #CapeTown - 2,128,079 hashtags Natural beauty reigns in South Africa’s legislative capital: tranquil peaks, vibrant beaches, and a diverse array of wildlife.

DOUBLE TAP: Wake up early to hike up Cape Point or swim with great white sharks at nearby Gansbaai, then catch the view from the peak of Table Mountain.

DODGE: Partying hard. Cape Town’s nightlife simmers down by 2 A.M.

5

7 SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

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#SaintPetersburg - 1,030,055 hashtags

STUART PINFOLD / CAROLINA ODMAN / MOYAN BRENN / MR. HICKS / CHRIS FORD / HOROYUKI / MAC QUIN / DIANA NGUYEN / SIGURD RAGE / TOM GRYDELAND

Russia’s northernmost city is considered the country’s cultural capital.

DOUBLE TAP: The onion domes that crown the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood seem almost unreal in their presence.

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7

DODGE: Purchasing antiques or anything that could have “cultural value.” It may be difficult to get it past Russian customs.

8

8 MARFA, UNITED STATES #Marfa - 61,188 hashtags The West Texas city is a major center for minimalist art.

DOUBLE TAP: Marfa’s art scene like the Chinati Foundation and the Prada Marfa sculpture.

Look out for the city’s ghost lights, said to be a paranormal occurrence.

DODGE: Looking for cowboys. It’s just not that kind of place.

9 SVALDBARD, NORWAY #Svalbard - 53,031 hashtags

IMAGINE THAT

10

Second nature to the Instagram user is the importance of editing photos. In-app Instagram filters aside, VSCO Cam has been a crowd favorite. Where Instagram offers instant gratification (likes, comments, and hashtags aplenty), VSCO has branded itself as a space devoted to the image in its entirety.

Situated between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the archipelago is largely covered in glaciers.

DOUBLE TAP: The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, is definitely the central attraction. But while smartphone cameras are all well and good, the area’s low temperatures might require more resilient technology.

DODGE: Going in the dead of winter.

10 POSITANO, ITALY #Positano - 225,000 hashtags Positano used to be a poor fishing village until John Steinback wrote about it in Harper’s Bazaar in 1953.

DOUBLE TAP: Positano’s famous tipple: the L’Albertissimo, found at a tiny stall along the harbor. Then visit the Grotta della Smeraldo, or the Emerald Grotto.

DODGE: Checking into a fancy hotel. Rent out a furnished apartment instead.

J U N E 2015 23

AGENDA BOOKS

Modern History There’s no contesting that technology today has been largely defined by Sony Corporation.

From the Walkman to the PlayStation, Sony Design: Making Modern is a nostalgic paen to the electronics powerhouse WORDS BY JAM PASCUAL

PRODUCT OF POST-WAR Japanese ingenuity turned global electronics empire, Sony has always pushed itself to maintain its place at the forefront of technology. Sony Design: Making Modern (rizzolibookstore.com) shows us just that, tracing the company’s history of innovation from the 1940s until today. Sony takes us through its story of progression, with deft storytelling and analysis by three of the design industry’s modern giants: author Ian Luna, museum director Deyan Sudjic, and graphic designer Chip Kidd, ensuring the company’s story unfolds from a variety of viewpoints. With photographs straight from the company’s private archives, showcasing both the timelessness and evolution of its aesthetic, the book is an in-depth look at each breakthrough, as well as its occasional failures. The book does not pretend that Sony is perfect, but it is evident nonetheless how the national conglomerate has impacted the world, listing both bygone products and classic gadgets that were tirelessly developed through the years. The Walkman, the pocket-sized transistor radio, the miniature TV, the Handycam, the Minidisc player, and the PlayStation—all inventions that brought about

24 J U N E 2015

BUILDING BLOCKS

Clockwise, from top left: A humanoid robot called the QRIO; Sony’s music players throughout several decades; the company is considered the third largest camera manufacturer in the world.

a significant shift in the way people consume and enjoy media in almost all its forms. What is especially impressive is the fact that, when Sony was first starting out, its founders Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita were working within the constraints of a post-war economy, when both material and capital were extremely scarce.

But niches had to be filled, and Japan needed to recover. If necessity is the mother of invention, then the desire to survive must be the prerequisite to greatness. Far from other books that show off a brand’s business savvy, Sony Design is a nostalgia trip through a catalogue of successes and sidetracks, for both design and technology enthusiasts and even post-war historians. What started in 1946 as a small electronics shop in a Tokyo department store has become a tech powerhouse, perhaps even a symbol for how gracefully a nation flattened by war can advance towards the modern age. From a company that has never forgotten the virtues of utility, functionality, and innovation, we are given a book that asks us to do the same.

AGENDA BOOKS

Back to the Future Science and speculative fiction writers have unknowingly played prophets to matters that turned out to be real. Here, a list of past books that have come to predict the present WORDS BY PETRA MAGNO / ILLUSTRATION BY JL JAVIER

1

2

3

4

Mary Shelley’s

Philip K. Dick’s

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s

J.G. Ballard’s

PREDICTION: Reanimation of dead tissue

PREDICTION: Privacy and currency as defining forces

PREDICTION: Search engine keywords for info minimalism

PREDICTION: Modern suburbias as ideal living environments

Mary Shelley’s classic novel raises many questions through its electrified monster, but the main one remains: “Is it possible?” While modern science is still far from reanimating entire corpses, much less those that have been cobbled together from graveyards, cryogenic procedures have improved greatly— doling out hope for those who aim to cheat death from the onset.

In April, cancer-stricken toddler Matheryn Naovaratpong made history as the youngest person to ever undergo cryopreservation at two years and two months old.

Philip K. Dick’s near-perfect nightmare told of otherworldly wonders, but more importantly, Ubik tackled how flawed systems can and will turn such wonders into horror: cryogenics become a desperate method of survival and capitalism turns the Internet of Things into an ubiquitous method of exploitation and oppression.

Privacy is nonexistent, reality seems like a dream, currency is the prime knowledge, and the ultimate narrative is to chase down a product.

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1923 dystopian novel is one more cautionary tale of how blanket surveillance and state-sponsored security will choke society into the false dream of equality as perfection. Citizens in We’s One State, living in literal glass houses and identified only by numbers, are seen as cogs in a machine that cannot and must not fail. Zamyatin’s prediction, however, is Meta: each chapter of the book is prefaced by a set of keywords that encapsulate the content—effectively predicting SEO copywriting by decades.

J.G. Ballard, proponent of New Wave Science Fiction, created post-apocalyptic worlds that are holistic and prescient. The term “Ballardian”—expanded beyond literature to encompass aesthetics and philosophies—was coined to signify his predicted milieu: numbing psychogeography; utopias polished until the bones break through. Here, Ballard expounds on his philosophy, predicting enormous and gleaming city-suburbia (e.g. Dubai) as the ideal utopia for the tech-obsessed yet disheartened modern man.

FRANKENSTEIN

26 J U N E 2015

UBIK

WE

EXTREME METAPHORS

7

5

6

Baldous Huxley’s

Ernest Cline’s

READY PLAYER ONE

LOOKING BACKWARD: 2000-1887

PREDICTION: Suppression of free speech

PREDICTION: Power of online avatars to alter reality

PREDICTION: Credit cards as means of consolidating income

PREDICTION: Fight for universal access to sex education (RH Law)

Aldous Huxley’s 1950 predictions were sweeping, yet accurate: a leisure-oriented narcoticsobsessed society lulled into false peace. Injecting people with deep materialism and a desire for heightened efficiency (read: ease) is just as effective a barbiturate as the pleasure drug soma. As the social hype machines churn out synthetic sensory treats that echo disco and pornography, free speech and the revolutionary spirit are tenderly massaged out of existence. Got beef with this? Why don’t you update Facebook about it?

Ernest Cline’s book is relatively recent, and is therefore less a prediction than it is a revelation: the future belongs not to us but to our online avatars.The 80s-laced story rockets through teenage triumph, failure, and love as its protagonists inhabit bodies that are not their own. As Oculus Rift makes virtual reality increasingly commonplace, culture creators and tech folk are partnering in experiments that increase empathy—switching genders, for example—and awareness by literally putting you in another’s shoes. Or body.

In this quasi-Rip Van Winkle tale, written and published by Edward Bellamy in 1888, the protagonist Julian West is put into a hypnosisinduced sleep so deep that he is flung into the far future Year 2000 and its socialist utopia. Not only did Bellamy predict Amazon Prime with its drone delivery of goods, his classical Marxist ethics predicted “credit cards” which functioned like today’s debit system: where all citizens receive equal “credit” and work a number of hours according to the difficulty of their occupations.

In Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction, in a theocratic military dictatorship in what was America, women’s bodies are the property of the state. Sterility, or the refusal to participate in supposedly traditional female roles such as wife, aunt, daughter, or handmaid, tosses women down the caste system until they become non-persons. In the wake of an embittered battle over reproductive rights in the Philippines, theocracy’s detrimental effect on women’s rights doesn’t seem like fiction at all. In fact, it seems downright familiar.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Edward Bellamy’s

8 Margaret Atwood’s

THE HANDMAID’S TALE

J U N E 2015 27

AGENDA CULTURE

ONE FOR THE MONEY In 2009, a certain Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin, an electronic currency system that uses peerto-peer networking—much like sending out an email but with monetary value attached. Here’s a crash course to the world of Bitcoin WORDS BY RAMON TAYAG

HOW IT WORKS A Bitcoin works like a giant public spreadsheet that lists down which addresses (analogous to bank accounts) own bitcoin.

CARING FOR THE COIN The financial system is fraught with inefficiencies. Most Filipinos do not have bank accounts, much less credit cards.

Sending money, especially to and from the Philippines, is slow and expensive. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is as quick and easy as sending an email. With access to financial tools, anyone with an Internet connection will be open to global trade. Fiat currency is monopolized by the governments of the world—but competition tends to make markets efficient, and if people have an alternative currency to use, then fiat currency will have to step up its game.

Only roughly 21 percent of Philippine households have bank accounts, and while bitcoin will have to evolve to be accessible for them, all the unbanked individuals need is a cell phone to begin sending and receiving money from anyone in the world.

B The spreadsheet shows how coins move through addresses. If Bob with an address of ABC sends two bitcoin to Alice with an address of XYZ, you will see ABC sending two bitcoin to XYZ on this spreadsheet. c New bitcoins are issued to what are called “miners,” which are normal computers with the capacity to churn out bitcoins. The better the computer specs, the fast the bitcoin production.

BRINGING IN THE BACON A Each bitcoin used to cost a fraction of a dollar.

Today one bitcoin costs around $240.

B People claim bitcoin is just as valuable to them when it’s $1 or $100,000 each—because you can send any amount, at any time, to anywhere in the world to anyone— instantly.

MIND THE MINERS A They ensure the integrity of the currency by doing complex mathematical calculations to verify the transactions and movement of bitcoins.

C Local companies that have bitcoin as part of their operations include Coins.ph, Rebit, Palarin, and BitcoinATM.

B They ensure the bitcoins being sent around are done by those who own the bitcoin.

C They keep other miners in check so that miners don’t cheat the system.

BY THE NUMBERS 28 J U N E 2015

$3.5B

D They get to keep the transaction fees paid by ones who have sent bitcoin.

Estimated value of bitcoins in circulation, computed via the market value of a bitcoin multiplied by the number of bitcoins in circulation.

7

Number of transactions per second bitcoin has to overcome if it wants to be a viable replacement to everyday transactions.

110,000

D LocalBitcoins.com is a peer-to-peer marketplace where bitcoins can be bought and sold.

Amount of bitcoin transactions that take place per day.

“I STAND FOR ALL THE MUSIC LOVERS OUT THERE.” PEGGY

DRMARTENS.COM

AGENDA CULTURE

MURDER MYSTERY

From left: Murder victim Hae Min Lee; Adnan Syed, Lee’s former boyfriend, accused of murder; Jay Wilds, a friend of Lee and Syed.

TO BE CONTINUED The death of radio drama was inevitable—until podcasts ressurected them. A look into hit show Serial proves how riveting the evolved media can get WORDS BY MIXKAELA VILLALON

THE STORY HAS everything: young lovers who kept their relationship secret; hidden liaisons in the car and the high school library; a gutting heartbreak followed by a gruesome murder; contradicting versions of events, a shady lone witness, and a mysterious 21-minute window that no one can account for; a lie, or an avalanche of lies, and a plausibly innocent man spending the rest of his life in prison. It’s almost Shakespearian if it wasn’t set in Baltimore—and if it wasn’t real.

This is Serial, the hit podcast that swept across America and beyond. Its popularity has yielded a plethora of memes, Saturday Night Live and College Humor parodies, and web forums teeming with tinfoil hat-wearing fans swapping

30 J U N E 2015

theories about the case. Divided into 12 episodes, it patiently unfolds the 1999 true crime case of murdered 17-year old Hae Min Lee. Her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed is behind bars despite the flimsiest evidence. Narrated by investigative reporter and fellow speculator Sarah Koening, the podcast uses sound clips of interviews, courtroom recordings, and phone calls to old classmates, family members, and lawyers— anyone who may be connected to that fateful day.

Laying its bare-bones premise on paper, Serial may not sound like much. Just another entertaining timesink in a forest of timesinks.

What makes the Serial podcast stand out may be its revitalization of an old format: the radio play. For all its spruced up, highly modern documentary style of storytelling, Serial follows the tradition of your granddad’s gripping radio dramas like Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral.

But even before radio technology, serial narratives were capturing people’s imagination by the 17th century. The rise of literacy and printing technology in Victorian England churned out serialized stories like Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales. Literary works that we now consider classics were first published in that format because they were cheaper to produce and writers were paid by installment. Serialized stories weren’t all about deep human drama

either. Sometimes they were just tawdry, macabre things that stirred something in the human soul, like the obsessive and sensational news coverage on serial killer Jack the Ripper and erotic magazine The Pearl, A Magazine of Facitiae and Voluptuous Reading.

These types of stories introduced the notion of enforced waiting, which lives on to this day.

Audiences enjoyed an installment of the story and had to wait a prescribed amount of time to find out what was next. Unlike other episodic stories we are currently exposed to, Serial involves real people who can listen to the podcast and observe how the audiences react to the unfolding narrative.

Presently, Adnan Syed’s case will be up for review in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals at the same time that people on the Internet are arguing over how sincere he sounds on the podcast. Star witness to the 1999 case, Jay Wilds, who refused to be part of the podcast, has since broken his silence and gave an interview to an online magazine to clear the air of how Serial seemed to paint him in a suspicious light.

The Reddit page for Serial remains disturbingly active even after the season’s conclusion, with fans scrutinizing Sarah Koening’s email and correspondence for more clues. Part true-crime special, part radio play, Serial has us wrapped up in a storytelling tradition much older and larger than ourselves.

Ju n e 2 0 1 5

E DI T E D BY

DON JAU CI AN

SPACE

ISSUE NO.

88

DESIGN + INTERIORS + ARCHITECTURE + TECHNOLOGY

rom om m a ing g rmat over oa to v i r me of the mo o ing n en n us w h sm S

N BY JER DE E

career f ne c

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ps,,

r iiv ve

SMARTPHONE

DIGITAL WITNESS In the age of constant connectivity, the smartphone has finally become an extension of our selves

C

apability today entails connectivity. With schedules, emails, contacts, and other necessities all compacted into a single gadget, smartphones have become essential not only for daily living, but also for the sake of a person’s wellbeing. Our conditioned dependence on our phones has transformed the device

into extensions of ourselves, so much so that leaving notifications unchecked for even just 10 minutes can result in elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and anxiety.

It’s become so rampant that there’s even an official term for the fear of losing mobile phone contact: nomophobia. Researchers’ only advice? Don’t lose your phone. -ANTHEA REYES

All Aboard the Flagships As the power players of the smartphone game unleash one shiny device after another, we pin down seven worthy of your attention Biggest of the Bunch 1 NEXUS 6 Visuals: 6-inch AMOLED display at 493ppi. 13 MP back camera with 4K video recording Power: Snapdragon 805: 64-bit octa core with 3GB RAM Noteworthy: The best Android experience straight from Google.

Large display that’s perfect for all types of media.

Most Coveted 2 iPHONE 6 Visuals: Lighter and thinner design.

Retina Display at 326ppi (iPhone 6) and 401ppi (6 Plus) Power: Apple’s A8 processor: 64-bit dual core with 1 GB RAM Noteworthy: Great ecosystem of apps and a really sharp back camera Price on Point 3 XIAOMI MI 4 Visuals: Emulates the

34 J U N E 2015

iPhone’s phone factor.

5-inch IPS display at 441ppi. 13 MP back camera and 8 MP front camera Power: Snapdragon 615: 2.5 GHz quad core with 3GB RAM with a whopping 3120mAh battery Noteworthy: Everything you could want in an Android phone at a fraction of the usual cost. The low-price point helped Xiaomi become the best-selling phone maker in China.

3

2 4 5

1

6 7

Lush Life 4 HTC ONE M9 Visuals: 5-inch SUPER LCD3 screen at 441ppi.

20 MP back camera with dual LED flash.

Stunning two-tone all-metal finish Power: Snapdragon 810: 64-bit octa core with 3GB RAM running on 2840 mAh battery Noteworthy: BlinkFeed offers places of interest and suggests things to try based on your location. The

Dolby 5.1 surround sound effect from the speakers is perfect for partying.

Rugged and Ready 5 SONY XPERIA Z4 Visuals: Operating on the Japanese philosophy of kaizen, Z4 shows small improvement from the

previous model. Same 5.2-inch display and 16 MP back camera Power: Snapdragon 810: 64-bit octa core with 3GB RAM and a smaller battery to make the device thinner Noteworthy: Graded waterproof and dustproof. Could be Sony’s last foray in producing a flagship

smartphone, as they will soon focus on gaming, film, and television.

Superb for Selfies 6 LG G4 Visuals: 5.5-inch QuadHD display at 538ppi. Customizable leather and metal back covers

Power: Snapdragon 808: 64-bit 6-core with 3GB Ram Noteworthy: 16MP back camera with lasers for autofocus. Wide f1.8 lens aperture and manual shooting mode.

Sleek and Savvy 7 SAMSUNG S6 Visuals: 5.1-inch Super

AMOLED display at 577ppi. 5 MP selfieready front camera Power: Samsung Exynos 7420: 64-bit octa core with 3 GB RAM Noteworthy: Reimagined design with dual edge curved displays (S6 Edge) and thin all-metal body.

EMOTIONAL RESPONSE Ridiculous, absurd, and puzzling—here’s how the emoji ascended to its place in 21st century pop culture

2011

2013

up on both Twitter and Facebook.

JUNE

FEBRUARY 19

Emojis debuted internationally on the iOS 5.

Fred Benenson would later be known as the man who launched the Kickstarter for a modern retelling of Moby Dick, with the novel’s text translated into emoji.

The book was added to America’s Library of Congress.

2012

DECEMBER

For the 6th annual Eustice Tilly contest, The New Yorker posted a rendition of their classic cover by Fred Benenson, who reinterpreted the cover as a mosaic made of 4,800 emoji units.

2014 Every mobile and desktop operating system became capable of supporting the emoji. The emoji could also now show

2015

FEBRUARY 23

Emoji update: Emojis now come in different skin tones, presumably in the interest of racial representation and diversity.

Twitter has already dethroned the newspaper as a breaking news source, but will it kill it completely?

MAY 4, 2015

Typing #MayThe4thBeWithYou (as well as #C3PO, #BB8, and #StormTriooper) on Twitter automatically creates Star Wars emojis of these iconic characters.

JULY 2015

APRIL 27, 2015

MAY 21, 2015

Instagram announced that emojis can now be hashtagged. It is later discovered that the eggplant was banned, supposedly for how phallic it looks.

The word “emoji” is added to the Scrabble dictionary, along with about 6,500 other inductees, including the words “hashtag,” “sexting,” and “geocache.”

KILLING TIME Will the Apple Watch finally free us from our phones as its creators would have us believe?

THE APPLE WATCH is a product that demands attention. It’s an unusual first generation device from Apple, the first and wholly new invention developed by the geniuses in Cupertino after Steve Jobs’s death. The moments after unboxing might not be as thrilling as fiddling with a new smartphone, since it takes roughly three to five days to master its complex interface—proving thhe Apple Watch is definitely not for tech noobs. But it remains a breakthrough in many ways, as it supposedly presents a future of users freed from the enslavement of smartphones. Ironically, you can only enjoy the Apple Watch with a dedicated iPhone where you can further fuss over controls and settings—because, unfortunately, the watch’s screen

Halt and Catch Fire

only measures a little over an inch. The Apple Watch lets you deal with notifications efficiently, distilling your day to important information. All this through distinct taptic inputs: incoming calls may feel like bees buzzing on your wrist and messages or tweets a simple tap. Learning these codes over time helps you distinguish the deluge of data without ever having to look at your phone— or watch—screen. The watch right now may be rewarding for only the most enduring of the Church of Apple’s disciples, but its possibilities—paying for your coffee, hailing an Uber, and monitoring your day—marks the dawn of an era where devices feel organically integrated into our bodies. –DON JAUCIAN

The month scheduled for Microsoft to launch Windows 10, which, unlike Apple and their iOS operating system, is reported to support the middle finger emoji.

IN THE EARLY days of Twitter, Internet users didn’t know what to do with it. It took a while for us to figure out what it was good for: real-time updates from actual sources, right where the action is.

From earthquakes, to celebrity gaffes, to world affairs, the new rule is if it’s not on Twitter, it didn’t happen. The speed of the medium has prompted some to predict that Twitter will eventually kill the newspaper as a news source. Even print journalists themselves use their own accounts to break stories ahead of their article’s publication date. But then, just as channels evolve, so does the news. Although 140-character headlines are one thing, in-depth pieces are another. There is information that needs to be broadcast ASAP, and there are stories that deserve further distillation to better serve its purpose (like helping form intelligent opinions). Rather than replacing one with another, these channels will co-exist. In the case of Twitter and the print medium, each will serve its purpose, and each should stick to what it’s good at. -ELVIN LUCIANO

J U N E 2015 35

SMARTPHONE

Fight Club iOS or Android? Apple and Google’s war for mobile supremacy rages on

TASK MASTER

WITH ITS SLEEK shape and multifunctional design, it would be an injustice not to call the Swiss Army Knife an early predecessor of the modern smartphone. The parallels are undeniable: the elegance and practicality of putting together some of the most important tools for survival in one compact item mirror the smartphone’s capability as a device for modern living. Here we take a closer look at the similarities between the decades-old multi-tool and the most ubiquitous device of the digital age.

These days, the smartphone is the key to surviving the wilderness of urban living, much like its early ancestor, the Swiss Army Knife WORDS BY JAM PASCUAL

WORDS BY CHRISTIAN DE PIO SANCHEZ

T

36 J U N E 2015

GROOMING Sure, you can check yourself on your phone’s camera, make sure you look clean.

But it can’t help you groom, unless it’s equipped with tweezers, or a toothpick, or a nail file. Not sure if there’s an app that can do what those things do.

BRANDING Much like the bitten apple on your iPhone, the imprint of “Victorinox Swiss Made Stainless/Officer Suisse” on the tool’s largest blade lets you know that what you hold in your hands is the real deal, not some cheap knock-off.

DISASSEMBLY The Swiss Army knife’s corkscrew and screwdriver was originally intended for soldiers to easily take apart their rifles. The ability to adjust your phone’s settings and plan your schedule allows you to take apart your day, rendering you properly armed.

REPAIR Good design is dedicated to problem solving. Your smartphone gives you access to the Internet, where you can easily input your inquiry in any given search engine. But this little pocket knife, armed with pliers, a screwdriver, and a wire cutter, prepares by anticipating your needs.

IDENTIFICATION You’ve probably picked out your phone’s case to best suit what makes you, you.

This World War essential didn’t scrimp on looks either.

The Swiss army knife came in many skins, sporting different military fatigue patterns from Germany, to Malaysia, to the US.

PHOTO AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY JL JAVIER

he current version of iOS, 8.3, is certainly compelling. Features like Handoff and Continuity let compatible Apple devices interact seamlessly—you can text from your Mac or make calls from your iPad, for example. What’s more, extensions now let you customize cu your device a little more than Apple used to allow.

On the other hand, one of the greeat things about Andrroid is variety.

You can pick up a good number of phones, from p HTC to Samsung, and you can be sure of one thing: it runs Android. It’s Lollipop, today’s Android flavor, which might just have undergone the more noteworthy change.

Google’s striking “material design” interface debuted with Lollipop and aallows for new heights of user-friendliness.

It also showcases Project Volta— Google’s battery life-boosting initiative—and lets heir several users have th d own accounts a la Wi Windows.

It will only be a matter of time, though, before Apple amps up their game a couple of notches higher. The Silicon Valley behemoth is expected to present the next version of iOS at the upcoming Worldwide Developers’ Conference. Let’s see if it raises the stakes.

KIMI JUAN

SEEING SQUARES More than a platform for your #selfie or #ootd, Instagram has become a digital playground and a helpful leg-up for up and coming photographers

W

JELITO DE LEON

hen Instagram became a mainstream app on smartphones, the rules of the game changed for photographers. Some decried it for all its

GENERATION NEXT After Siri, wireless charging, and even waterproofing, is there still room for the smartphone to innovate?

WORDS BY PAULO EDROSOLANO

weirdly named filters, saying it oversimplified the craft and degraded their profession.

Others, like Jelito de Leon (@jelitodeleon) and Kimi Juan (@ kimijuan), used it as a stepping stone, a way by which they could hone their skills and build a network. Juan, who has collaborated with brands like Bench and Herschel Supply, owes Instagram’s power to its accessibility: that virtually anyone can instantly view a photographer’s makeshift portfolio makes it easier to scout for potential clients, and vice versa. De Leon, who currently has over 78,000 followers, owes his following partially to the simplicity of the medium. With little effort on their part, an audience is now able to watch a photographer’s style evolve with each Instagram post, and even change slightly to suit their newest projects, whether it’s shooting models, a concert, or a restaurant’s newest selection of dishes. But the magic of Instagram lies in how informal it is—a gallery where

THERE IS A consensus among tech industry analysts that smartphone innovation has stalled. We can pretty much predict how smartphones will evolve—and that is sort of a problem.

What consumers expect from companies like Apple and Samsung are revolutionary innovations like better artificial intelligence implementation so we wont have to type and tap as much, as opposed to incremental innovations. To break the cycle of mediocre releases, here are areas where developments should pick up in the next five years.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

you can mix your fun, off-hours photos with more serious output.

In one photo, you’re unwinding in Tali.

Next post, you’re back in the studio with your latest subject. All at once, an Instagram portfolio speaks of its user’s lifestyle, their work ethic, and the glory of their main grind. The discrediting “Instagram photographer” label aside, the app makes it easy to take pride in what you do. And

though anyone and everyone has access to the app, what remains true is only those who have ample skill and dedication can really utilize the platform.

And for those chosen few, Instagram is serious business.

-JAM PASCUAL

Natural Language Processing, a component of AI, is currently the biggest challenge for systems to pass the Turing Test. It enables the likes of Siri to properly understand what we’re asking them to do, and in effect, avoid being the subject of memes.

AUGMENTED REALIT Y Like Google Glass, it involves superimposing relevant information and objects over the user’s view of the real world. Microsoft took a slightly different approach with the recently announced HoloLens which is an untethered headset computer that seamlessly integrates holograms (virtual objects) into the physical world.

WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY FOR PARENTS OF the 90s, there

The Death the Encyclo dia d We pay tribute to our earliest multi-volume companion in the pursuit of knowledge WORDS BY ELVIN LUCIANO

was an instant way to make kids appear smarter: by buying them a set of encyclopedia. For a time, the privileged children who had these hardbound volumes lorded over the others. And then they were thwarted by the generation who had the CD ROM-based Encarta. The Internet more or less leveled the playing field temporarily, but again the scales have been tipped in favor of all smartphone owners. The printed encyclopedia that was once a symbol of being ahead would give the opposite effect today.

We have yet to see how the Apple Watch and Microsoft HoloLens fare, but wearable tech is promising due to its massive potential to change the way we live and its applications in healthcare.

INTERNET OF THINGS IOT is a future version of the Internet in which everyday objects have sensors, software, electronics and can send and receive information. Think cooking pots that notify you when you need to stir the stew or lighting bulbs that automatically adjust brightness based on instructions you program using your phone.

J U N E 2015 37

SPACE ARCHITECTURE

ANGULAR MOMENTUM

Frei Otto’s Large Umbrellas at the Federal Garden Exhibition in Cologne, Germany, 1971. Below: The Diplomatic Club in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1980.

Event Horizon With his use of swooping lines, elegant arcs, and soaring shapes, Frei Otto’s body of work remains a testament to nature’s role in architecture—a legacy that has earned him the 2015 Pritzker Prize WORDS BY MIGUEL ORTEGA

38 J U N E 2015

THERE ARE CASES in history when the mundane gives way to irony and when coincidence can’t be denied as destiny. Frei Otto, famed for pioneering tensile and membrane architecture as well the early use of 3D modeling, passed away a day before it was announced that he would be receiving the 2015 Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor—equivalent to the Nobel. He was the first person to receive the prize posthumously.

Otto led the way in developing lightweight structures that were adaptable, economical, and ecological, creating wide opens spaces with technical perfection and human purpose. His early works include the 1955 Federal Garden Exhibition in Kassel, Germany, his first project that gained international recognition, and the tent-like structures in the 1972 Olympic games in Munich. His architectural voice came from his time as a child in Socialist Germany, both as a prisoner of war and as a citizen of a world recovering from the devastation of World War II. All his designs were a far cry from the heavy columned buildings rampant during the Third Reich. When WWII ended, there was a call for dematerialization in architecture and Frei Otto would champion that revolution, achieving an architectural freedom through the creation of open spaces never devoid of function.

Otto’s style revolves around the natural, the flowing, and even the surreal. His design ideas are drawn from nature, from a bird’s skull and coral formations to cobwebs and even soap bubbles. The latter, as he concluded, would naturally spread to a set of fixed points with the smallest achievable surface area. He would reveal this feasibility with his design of the West German Pavilion at the 1967 World Expo in Montreal.

Today, Otto’s designs can be seen in the works of modern architects, a hint, a flicker, a spark of emulation. Along with the Pritzker Prize and the countless awards he’s received, generations of architects will owe something to Frei Otto, the man who wanted to see the world held up by strings.

SPACE FURNITURE

Acorn-stained Bar Cart

Buffet in walnut veneer

Desk in white lacquer finish

HEADING WEST Brooklyn-based home retailer West Elm launches its Manila store this month with their iconic mid-century furniture collection WORDS BY KRISTINE DABBAY

Reeve coffee table

Moroccan pendants

40 J U N E 2015

Nighstand in acacia veneer

Trays with brass details

NOTHING IS HALF-BAKED or uncertain when it comes to mid-century design—a defining characteristic that can be gleaned from the new collection of interior retailer West Elm (Estancia Mall, Capitol Commons, Pasig; westelm.com) as they open their first Manila store at the end of June. Retro and cinematic, the Mid-Century Nightstand is held up by the period’s iconic inclination to slim, rounded legs. Its antiquebronze-finish knobs accent its ochre build, lending nostalgia to any bedroom. Meanwhile, the Mid-Century Bar Cart rolls in a warm sheen of acorn-stained walnut veneer, a visual feast to complement a round of drinks. The Mid-Century Buffet fits three drawers and a cabinet, the perfect anachronistic touch to go with your flatscreen. With this formidable collection, West Elm’s opening is a reminder that true modernism doesn’t have to shout.

JU NE 2015 / I S S U E 88

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OUT OF THE WOODWORK With their new showroom in Bonifacio Global City, Italian furniture brand Calligaris treats spectators to their vision of the modern home

To adorn one’s dwelling is a daunting task, one that requires a refined sense of taste. But with the launch of the Calligaris showroom (Mezzanine Floor, Clipp Center, 11th Ave. Corner 39th street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; 869-1059 to 61), such a task is rendered less intimidating, more welcoming. The launch of the event, held last March 12, was graced by the presence of the company’s chairman, Alessandro Calligaris, and Florence Ko, managing director of Gruppo Mobili Philippines, Inc. In the showroom, some of Calligaris’s innovations are set up to illustrate the brand’s domestic ideals, from the Gamera chair, with its durable polyamide shell, to the modular Urban sofa, designed to accommodate with its multiple configurations. Also included in this showroom is Calligaris CODE, a collection of pieces inspired by Italy’s avante-garde artistic youth. More than symbolic of its Italian heritage, the Calligaris showroom serves as a testament to craftsmanship, an exemplar of good design.

SPACE MOTORING

TERRA FIRMA Straight out of The Jetsons, Aeromobil’s flying car may finally free us from traffic jams by 2017 WORDS BY CHRISTIAN CASTILLO

HENRY FORD saw the flying car coming decades ago.

His prophetic 75-year oldquote, “Mark my words. A combination of an airplane and a motor car is coming. You may smile, but it will come,” is splashed across Aeromobil’s web page (aeromobil.com), as if a confirmation of a dream coming to life. The flying car took 25 years to make, with three iterations behind it.

According to its inventors, Stefan Klein and Juraj Vaculik, the idea behind the vehicle was to provide escape from the “traffic jam prison” and the “airport prison.” There’s no word yet on an official release, but the company says it’s very close to a final product, as they aim for a 2017 launch.

CAPACITY IN HORSEPOWER The Aeromobil has a fourcylinder Rotax 912 light airplane engine built for light aircraft. It can reach a speed of 99 mph on the road. In the air, however, it can reach up to 124 kph. The surprising part is that it runs on regular gas like any other car.

27

WINGSPAN IN FEET

This flying car is smaller than a WWII fighter aircraft, but with one major difference: the wings are retractable. On top of that, its variable angle of attack and flaps that hang down to add lift allow it to take off after just 200 meters.

130

TAKE OFF SPEED IN KM/H The classic image of a personal aircraft has the propeller at the front of the cockpit. But the Aeromobil 3.0 has it backward. The propeller is in betwee two tails with the back wheels hidden under them. When you want to fly, power diverts to the tail, allowi for take off.

42 J U N E 2015

WEIGHT IN KILOGRAMS The Aeromobil’s relatively slim nose and body paired with the wings has drawn comparisons to a white and blue dragonfly.

The body is composed of a steel frame coated in stretched carbon fiber. This keeps it lightweight allowing for efficient fuel consumption.

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SPACE ARCHITECTURE

Enjoy the Silence Alex Garland’s sci-fi film Ex Machina summons a futuristic mansion set in Juvet, a modernist hotel tucked in the Norwegian wilds WORDS BY APA AGBAYANI

IN A GENRE largely populated with massive creatures and characters, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina makes a statement with its smallness. It’s a film that strips science fiction down to its core themes, offering a subdued, quietly terrifying experience.

Much of the film happens in a mansion in the middle of nowhere, where programmer Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) finds himself caught up in reclusive genius Nathan Bateman’s (Oscar Isaac) work on artificial intelligence.

FACE OF ANOTHER

Top: In Ex Machina, the tech billionaire’s mansion hides a few surprises, including a disco that plays a key part in one of the film’s most talked-about scenes.

Right: The film’s production designers recreated much of the hotel’s subterranean space in soundstages around England.

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One of the key tasks in making the film was scouting its location: the madman’s idyllic hideaway. Production designer Mark Digby and art director Michelle Day scoured through potential locations across Europe, ultimately settling on Juvet Landscape Hotel in Valldal, Norway.

Juvet (Alstad, 6210 Valldal, Norway; +47 950 32 010; juvet.com) is a modernist hotel designed by architects Jensen & Skodvin in 2007. The architects found the site in a

nature reserve almost by chance and they took the opportunity to craft a unique hotel experience. The end product is a perfect marriage between the sheer power of the Scandinavian landscape and the organic simplicity of modern Norwegian design.

Indeed, the hotel seems to have built itself around the landscape—boxy structures jutting out between trees and boulders, viewing decks overlooking the fjord, glass walls that give a sense of the grandeur of the hotel’s surroundings. Its nine rooms are built separately from one another at locations that required minimal changes to the topography, yet offered incredible nature views.

In the film, each room is filled with classic mid-century Scandinavian furniture.

Paired with the effortless geometry of Juvet, these pieces complete Nathan’s eerie futureperfect living space. By no means does it look like your typical mad scientist’s lair.

The film is a testament to how choices in production design become definitive of a cinematic experience.

Whether it’s Nathan’s duplicity or the robot Ava’s aspiration for humanity, Garland’s themes make themselves at home at Juvet. Here, his characters can navigate tensions between nature and artifice in a space that seems to do the same.

SPACE DESIGN

OBJECT LESSONS For its 2015 Objets Nomades collection, Louis Vuitton assembles some of the most stellar names in design to create foldable furniture and travel accessories WORDS BY MARGARITA BUENAVENTURA

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SINCE ITS UNVEILING in 2012, Louis Vuitton has made its furniture collection, Objets Nomades, an avenue to explore new technologies and forays into creativity—proof of the brand’s dedication to impeccable design. The collection features 16 items, all sold in limited editions or experimental prototypes. For the newest iteration, Louis Vuitton (G/F Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati; 756-0637) invited three new designers, including the London-based duo Raw Edges, to add to its already stellar roster of names, which includes Nendo and Patricia Urquiola. “We liked the challenge of working on a collection of collapsible objects,” explains

Raw Edges’s Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay on their Concertina pieces. Inspired by industrial duct tubing, the Concertina chair is comprised of a padded seat of overlapping petals covered in Nomade leather.

Taking cues from the shape of a handbag, architect and designer Patricia Urquiola created the swing chair, made of leather-covered handles and woven mesh. She also created a foldable stool that resembles a leather clutch when collapsed, half-covered in yellow leather, woven 3D lining, gold-plated hinges, and Nomade leather details. On the other hand, the cocoon seat by the brothers Campana is a

delicately perforated pod made using high-tech stereolithography, a form of 3D printing. Proving that recycled materials can be luxurious, the cabinet by the brothers’ Maracatu uses recycled leather offcuts from the Louis Vuitton Haute Maroquinerie workshop in Asnières.

Rounding up the team is the leather stool by Swiss team Atelier Oï. Inspired by the origami shapes of a Hussein Chalayan skirt, the piece is a gorgeous leather seat that folds up into a single sheet of leather for easy transport—whether navigating the plains of Africa or exploring the Congo River, this handsome stool certainly won’t be out of place.

1 PATRICIA URQUIOLA’S FOLDABLE STOOL 2 ATELIER OÏ’S STOOL MADE FROM A SINGLE FOLDABLE LEATHER 3 THE CAMPANA BROTHER’S COCOON POD 4 CONCERTINA CHAIR BY RAW EDGES

J U N E 2015 45

SPACE MOTORING

ELECTRIC FEEL Aston Martin’s DBX concept is an unconventional grand tourer with a lifted stance, streamlined body, and massive 22-inch wheels

BLAZINGSPIRITS With their refined agility and precision design, these two concept cars set the bar high for vehicles to come

WORDS BY JEFFREY FRANCISCO

AUDI TT CLUBSPORT

ASTON MARTIN HAS made an imprint on the automotive world by specializing in the production of high-performance, high-end GTs made for spirited longdistance driving. With their unveiling of the new DBX Concept, the iconic British carmaker is making a bold statement by crossing over to the diverse multipassenger touring market.

This concept was designed to explore other primary facets of GT motoring besides comfort and driving performance.

Aston Martin (astonmartin.com) projects that cross country driving and long urban drives will lean toward a more practical, family-friendly, and environmentally responsible direction.

Although not a production-ready sports GT yet, Aston Martin is optimistic that the DBX will be the blueprint of versatile GTs which they will develop in the near future.

The DBX Concept is a pioneering GT platform that marries Aston Martin’s lavish standards with cutting edge engineering. It is an all-wheel drive, fullscale electric vehicle that utilizes “inboardof-wheel” motors powered by lithium sulfur cells. This technological approach

46 J U N E 2015

opens up cargo space within the long front bonnet. The advanced powertrain set-up is revolutionary for a vehicle built to chalk up countless miles both on highway runs and moderate back road expeditions.

The interior is embroidered with Nubuck leather and various soft materials that seek to create a rich and intimate atmosphere, so you’ll feel right at home even though you’re on a high-speed motorway. Despite its affluent bearings, the DBX concept is not only a pretty road prowler but also a practical GT that comfortably seats four and has enough real estate for luggage or golf sets.

The DBX Concept will be a relevant undertaking for Aston Martin. The discerning public can only hope that the many of the impressive technical and design details in the DBX Concept make it to the production model. A four-door model seems to be the most realistic arrangement for an elevated, familyhauling GT. The all-wheel drive electric motor’s real world performance and suspension assembly will determine the overall success of this model.

This, however, definitely won’t be James Bond’s next Aston Martin ride.

What’s so special about this car is that its turbocharger is electronically aided by a 48-volt system. That translates to 0-100kph in 3.2 seconds.

Impressive, but even more surprising is how the Audi TT Clubsport Turbo sounds. The engine exhales with a whole, deliberate, and controlled exhaust note stressing its immense power. Audi (audi.ph) claims that the electric turbo system is close to production and we suspect this technology to be fully integrated into future Audi TT RS models.

TOYOTA FT-1 The Toyota FT-1 (toyoya.com.ph) is widely rumored to be the next Supra, the street and circuit cult classic of the 90s. This track-focused sports car shouts steely confidence and aggression from all angles. A visually exposed engine section, a rearwheel drive configuration, and its athletic stance emphasize this sports car’s commitment to performance and driving experience. A definite production car will emerge, though enthusiasts will need to wait perhaps until 2018 to see if it will really bear a revived Supra badge or not.

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THE ROGUE ARENA Promotions and relevant items, direct from our partners

THE FUTURE IS YOURS Design Week Philippines and Max’s Group of Companies challenged the boundaries of innovation and design at the 61st edition of Manila FAME Design Week Philippines has always sought to bring together creative individuals from different backgrounds. But it was the collaboration between the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM), the export promotions arm of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and the Max’s Group of Companies that really opened new doors. These forces came together for the 61st edition of Manila FAME, the country’s premier design and lifestyle event, which ran at the SMX Convention Center from March 13 to 16, 2015. In keeping with Design Week Philippines’s tradition of inspiring interactivity, the Max group set up a freedom wall and a blank sculpture of their logo for both Manila FAME attendees and WeeWillDoodle, the country’s premier doodle and illustration group, to play with. Max Group of Companies Director and Vice President for Marketing Jim Fuentabella has expressed, after their successful collaboration with CITEM and DTI, that he’s also interested in showcasing Filipino artistic talent in other spaces.

T H E

P A G E

Y O U

PHOTOGRAPHED PATRICK

BY

DIOKNO

STYLED

BY

SAM

P O T E N C I A N O

ARE

LOOKING

FOR STATEMENT

DETAILS,

CLEVER PRINTS, AND A

HEADY

OF

PUNCH

ORANGE

WARDROBE

GIVE STAPLES

A JOLT OF ATTITUDE. DON'T

BE

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CANNOT

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FOUND

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THE EYE STYLE

FROM TOP: VALENTINO CAMO BUTTERFLY CREW TEE (P38,798). DIOR HOMME STAPLES DERBY SHOE (P55,998)

50 J U N E 2015

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP RIGHT: CHRISTOPHER RAEBURN MEN'S PATCH CREWNECK SWEATSHIRT (P19,698). RAF SIMONS X ADIDAS STAN SMITH SNEAKERS (P19,998). DIOR HOMME SCRIBBLES SHORT SLEEVE SHIRT (P28,598). MAISON MARGIELA BLOCKED TEE (P15,198)

ALL FROM UNIVERS D'HOMME ET FEMME, G/F, EAST TOWER ONE ROCKWELL, MAKATI

MODELED BY TIM OF ELITE MANILA

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THE EYE ACCESSORIES

A FINE FUSION Hermès brings two worlds together to create 12 one-of-a-kind timepieces with dials made from French porcelain and embellished using the Japanese art of aka-e WORDS BY STEF JUAN

FROM THE ATELIERS of Sèvres, a major center of porcelain making in Europe, located near Paris, all the way to Kyoto, the Slim d’Hermès Koma Kurabe is an exquisite homage to the famous Japanese horse race held once a year in Kamigamo Shrine, an important Shinto sanctuary on the banks of the Kamo River.

The porcelain from France goes through days of processing, from molding, drying, polishing, firing, and glazing before being cut and shaped to form the dials. Then these small, blank porcelain canvasses are handed to the master of aka-e painting.

Buzan Fukushima is one of the few artisans remaining in Japan who still practices the technique, a type of ukiyo-e (a genre of woodblock prints and paintings) that is printed entirely or predominantly in red.

Fukushima creates visions of Japan in subtly graded shades of red and ocher, polishing them off with a fine layer of gold. The 71-year-old is a maestro of painting on larger decorative items such as vases or dishes, and this is the first time his work will be on a watch dial.

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SEEING RED

Clockwise, from top left: The Slim d'Hermès Koma Kurabe; aka-e is a term used to refer both to the style of painting that uses mainly red and gold paint and to items that have been made using this technique; Sèvres porcelain is processed before being cut to form dials; the porcelain dial depicts the famous Japanese horse race; 71-year-old artisan Buzan Fukushima is one of the few who still practices the ancient art of aka-e in Japan.

Behind the magnificently detailed work of art featuring festive scenery—with its airborne horses and kimono-clad onlookers—is yet another masterpiece: the finely crafted Swiss mechanical self-winding movement of Hermès (Greenbelt 3, Ayala Center, Makati; 757-8910; hermes.com). The ultra-thin Manufacture movement H1950 is only 2.6mm thick, with a power reserve of 42 hours. All these are enclosed in a 39.5mm white gold case with sapphire crystal, topped off with an alligator strap. This extremely limited series only has 12 pieces, each with a unique painting by Fukushima.

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THE EYE ACCESSORIES

HOLDING COURT Paul Smith takes a key detail from a storied castle in the English Midlands and turns it into a range of distinctive bags WORDS BY GIO DIONISIO

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KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON

Belvoir Tiles Print Backpack (P25,850) and Belvoir Tiles Print Portfolio (P20,550), from Paul Smith. Below left: The prints were inspired by the marble floor of Belvoir Castle's Guardroom, which features swords and muskets.

where Anna Russell, Duchess of Bedford, popularized the British social repast of cakes, gossip, and afternoon tea during the 1800s.

Under the supervision of Emma Manners, the current Duchess, the estate accommodates field sports, a cricket club, fishing in its three lakes, and weddings year round.

The Belvoir Tiles Print Portfolio, with navy leather handles, two pouches and an internal zipped pocket, has a padded slip pocket perfectly suited to 13” to 15” laptops and, like the Holdall, sports a stud-protected leather V-base. The nylon Belvoir Tiles Print Backpack, meanwhile, includes two zipped pockets—in the main compartment as well as in the mesh back—plus a padded slip pocket designed to hold gadgets, such as a tablet. All bags are lined with a luxe purple twill and are finished with gold Paul Smith signature embossed hardware.

PATRICK DIOKNO

FROM SCARVES AND KEYRINGS to billfold wallets and laptop sleeves, the latest collection of accessories from Paul Smith (Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati; 729-9898) features a range of functional designs that carry a distinctive print inspired by the marble floor of the Guardroom at Belvoir Castle.

Situated in the middle of a vast 16,000acre estate in northern Leicestershire, Belvoir Castle—pronounced “Beaver,” built up over time through the inability of Anglo-Saxons to master the French tongue—has been the ancestral home of the Dukes and Duchesses of Rutland for over a century. Its ornate Gothic walls house paintings by Reynolds, Holbein, and Poussin as well as splendid collections of furniture, porcelain, tapestries, and Italian sculptures that extend out into the gardens. The Castle is often touted as the site

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THE EYE ACCESSORIES

ONE FOOT AT A TIME

UNCOMMON THREADS

Tracing its roots to the late 19th century, German sock manufacturer Falke has set itself apart amid an industry of mass production WORDS BY GIO DIONISIO

OVER THE COURSE of 120 years, Falke has delivered fashion and design sharply attuned to an individual’s lifestyle, personal culture, and ambitions.

1920 The first factory is built in Schmallenberg and continues to serve as the brand’s primary headquarters today

1951 Following the death of their father Franz Jr., Paul and Franz-Otto Falke take over, establishing a production network across Europe

1980s PEP IN YOUR STEP

Gentleman’s Lab, the top-quality knee-highs of Falke's Luxury line, features an abstract print.

FOR THE WARMER MONTHS, Falke introduces colorways inspired by the balmy pastels of North Africa, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula to their timeless range of sock designs. Muted shades such as fresco and quartz dominate the City segment, a perfect way to punctuate light gray suits. The Casual collection, meanwhile, features more vibrant hues—from amber yellow to coral red—as well as oriental patterns that suggest the lively spirit of Moorish medinas. For their Luxury line, the merino/ silk blend Gentlemen’s Lab stands out with a painterly print.

Established in 1985, the German legwear manufacturer has distinguished itself as a brand synonymous with premium materials and the finest workmanship. Its roots, however, run back

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to the late 19th century. Franz Falke-Rohen, having worked as a knitter during the cold winter months, started his own mill in 1895, originally producing a couple dozen pairs of socks a day. By 1902, Falke-Rohen’s son Franz Jr. took over management, eventually guiding the fledgling enterprise through the turmoil of the First World War. The father-son tandem purchased a wool and hair yarn-spinning mill in 1918, laying the foundations for the Falke Group. In the decades to come, the enterprise would consolidate with other firms and manufacturers such as Salomon Stern, Leinefelder Textilwerke, and Burlington—the latter remains an independent brand within the group—ensuring the superior quality of their specialized yarns, fabrics, and hosiery.

The company enters several license agreements with designer labels such as Armani, Boss, Kenzo, and Joop!

1990 Fourth generation cousins Franz-Peter and Paul Falke win an environmental award for their landmark Clima Wool technology

2008 Falke purchases Burlington

2015 Manolo Blahnik, a longtime fan of statement hosiery, teams up with the German group to design a limited collection of unisex socks

FALKE IS AVAILABLE AT VAN LAACK, GREENBELT 5, AYALA CENTER, MAKATI; 728-6468, AND MAIN WING, SHANGRI-LA PLAZA, MANDALUYONG; 635-6467.

A TRIP THROUGH TIME

For its 40th anniversary, Tumi releases 1975, a special collection inspired by its roots as a leather goods importer, and envisions travel essentials for the future INTERVIEW BY STEF JUAN

BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE

Clockwise, from left: 1975 Carry On in Tan Leather; 1975 Slim Brief; 1975 Rucksack . In background: Victor Sanz, Tumi design director.

FOUNDED BY CHARLIE CLIFFORD, Tumi started life four decades ago as an importer of leather goods from South America to the United States. The former Peace Corp volunteer’s vision was to revolutionize travel through the introduction of stylish, functional, and durable bags that would make life in transit more of a breeze. Apart from its leather offerings, the company—named after a Peruvian ceremonial knife used for sacrifices— has also become known for products made of black-on-black ballistic nylon. Here, Victor Sanz, the design director of Tumi (Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati; 728-0117), talks about the limited edition collection inspired by its beginnings and imagines the next generation of lifestyle bags for jetsetters of the future.

How did you begin designing 1975, the commemorative collection? What was your starting point and do you have a favorite piece from it?

We found an old box of Tumi catalogs in our archives. Since then, I began collecting original pieces from bag collectors, thrift shops, and other places around the world. As these pieces came in, we noticed how beautiful the leather had worn over the years and saw this as a great jumping off point for the material for our new collection.

I personally love the Rucksack backpack—it’s different from the silhouettes we already offer in the line.

How do you know when to stop designing a product?

Usually the product tells me when it’s done.

It’s one thing to draw designs, but these are products we interact with, and we recognize the importance of positive customer experience.

What role does technology play in your professional and personal life?

We are always exploring new technologies and seeing how they can benefit our product development. I have always had an interest in the aerospace industry, which will have some remarkable developments coming out that will affect the way we interact with our world.

What trends do you foresee in international travel?

Weight and maneuverability are always the big push for us, as we’ve continued to see that our customers still love all of the special functional features that make their travels more comfortable.

New systems will be coming out in some of the products in the coming seasons that are sure to make packing and organizing easier.

PERFECTING THE JOURNEY To mark 40 years, the American bag manufacturer tapped the talents of Cebuano industrial designer Kenneth Cobonpue, best known for his furniture work and his deftness with organic materials. With the Vortex bag, which sports a detailed spiral pattern woven onto its body, Cobonpue stays true to the Tumi tradition of durability and functionality, while offering a fresh reimagining of the modern travel bag’s look and feel. –JAM PASCUAL

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Pia Hontiveros Chief News Correspondent Pia

o iveros

NEWS, NOT NOISE. @cnnphilippines www.cnnphilippines.com

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Ju n e 2 0 1 5

E DI T E D BY

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THE SLANT

ISSUE NO.

88

TONY AVELAR/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

OPINIONS + IDEAS + PERSPECTIVES

R Connecting the Dots

Raging Against the Machine

Connection Failure

Johnny Appleseed

Glenn T. Tuazon

Mary Grace Mirandilla-Santos

James Gabrillo

Nearly four years after Steve Jobs’s passing, how has the company fared in light of unmitigated expectations of failure?

Internet anonymity has been treated as a free pass at bad behavior—but legal regulation carries dangers of its own.

Ours are among the slowest and priciest Internet services in the world, and current policies only serve to choke our connections.

Hillary Clinton’s current campaign is quite out-of-character—but this may be precisely what she needs to rebound from her failed bid in 2008.

Hail Hillary

J U N E 2015 59

Johnny Appleseed ON WORKING FOR APPLE, INC.

Connecting the Dots When Steve Jobs passed, many expected his company to go with him. But one Filipino employee at Apple, writing under a pseudonym, explains how the spirit of the company’s late creator has outlived him

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PHOTO BY VISIONS OF AMERICA/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES

I

’ll never forget the day of October 5, 2011. My co-workers and I were holed up at the office, concerned about leaving the premises because the news just came out that a shooter was on the loose in the area (he had taken to hiding in the residential area across our office). We were glued to the news feeds on our computers, waiting to see if and when it was safe to go home. Then, in the middle of all the live updates, different news broke: “Steve Jobs has died.”

As the flags outside our Cupertino headquarters flew at half-mast, the world mourned with us.

At the same time, the media were quick to write that it was only a matter of time until Apple collapsed—the end of Jobs was the end of Apple. Except that anyone that worked inside Apple’s walls thought the exact opposite. We were confident in our new CEO, Tim Cook, and excited about the future and what we could contribute to the world.

In many ways, after years of unheralded success and popularity (from the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad), we felt that we were just scratching the surface of what we could do. We were more focused than ever.

The greatest thing Steve Jobs built was not the iPod, or the Macintosh, or even the iPhone. It was Apple, the company. He created a culture and standard of excellence within the company where all you wanted to do as an employee was to do great work. That began with hiring. He made sure that he hired the best at the top, and trusted that it would trickle down through the organization.

Hiring is so important to Apple that we put a premium on employee referrals (top dollar for every engineer you help get hired), and you can pretty much forget about doing a cold application for an open position you find online. It’s like throwing your resume into a black hole. The result is that you are surrounded with brilliant people that are passionate and committed to “putting a dent on the universe.” It’s contagious and, more often than not, your work becomes your life’s work. Collaboration is so important to Apple culture that we’re building our new campus to foster and encourage this behavior. It’s essentially shaped like a large donut, where the chances of you bumping into someone with the next biggest idea is more likely to happen than when employees are siloed in different buildings.

For now, our current campus is located smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley, surrounded

We have company get-togethers where free flowing beer and finger food is served—and because we do run iTunes, we get to drink wine in plastic cups while listening to Maroon 5 or Pharrell play their latest hits live.

BEYOND THE BOX

DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

“This is clearly Cook’s Apple, but Jobs’s DNA still runs deep within the company,” says the author of Tim Cook (pictured), who was named CEO on August 24, 2011 while a cancerstricken Jobs was on medical leave. Opposite: The Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California, which resembles a university campus.

They will move to a new $5 billion ‘Spaceship’ campus in late 2016.

by other tech giants like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and dozens of startups. Yet people still forget how long the company has been around (with presence in Cupertino dating back to 1977), and are continually surprised that we don’t have ping pong tables, graffitied walls, and colorful lounge chairs. By all accounts, Apple is an old school company and, in many ways, still runs like a good old American corporation. And no, our cafeteria food is not free. One great perk, though, is every now and then there is a company get-together on campus where free flowing beer and finger food is served. And because we do run iTunes—the biggest online music store in the world—we get to invite musical artists as entertainment during these get-togethers. So, it’s pretty neat when, let’s say on a Wednesday afternoon, we get to drink wine in plastic cups while listening to Maroon 5 or Pharrell play their latest hits.

Secrecy, as you know, is integral to Apple.

That is how we stay relevant and how we stay

competitive. Trying to keep our secrets secret is a full time job, and we have many teams that try to stay on top of that. Depending on your position in the company, you are strictly on a needto-know basis. There are many doors that lead into many rooms that are restricted to a lot of our employees. If you happen to be granted access to a room where items on tables are covered in black shrouds, that’s intentional. You do not need to see what’s under them. When you ask an Apple employee working at the retail stores when the new iPhone is coming out and they say “I don’t know,” they really don’t know. We’ve never been this focused on secrecy about what we’re doing—and yet we’re also more “open” than ever now. Under Tim Cook’s stewardship, the company has done an about-face of sorts. We’ve been more open with media and allow more of our leadership team to shine in the spotlight. We’re in more magazine articles, granting more on-screen interviews, focusing on charitable causes and pioneering ways a big cor-

poration can reduce carbon footprint and save the environment. This is clearly Cook’s Apple, but Jobs’s DNA still runs deep within the company. In fact, before his death, the company created “Apple University” as part of a succession plan to prepare Apple for life after Jobs. It was a program to teach future leaders of the company to learn from our past mistakes and successes.

It still blows my mind when I go to the cafeteria to have lunch and I bump into Tim Cook or Jony Ive. A co-worker once approached Ive and told him he was a big fan. Ive shook his hand and promptly asked him, “What is your favorite product?” My co-worker didn’t know what to say.

Apple is now one of the biggest—if not the biggest—company in the world, but the foundation that Jobs has built has kept us grounded throughout these years. This singular focus and attention to detail are lessons he taught us to help the company tune out the unnecessary and concentrate on doing what we feel is right.

J U N E 2015 61

Glenn T. Tuazon ON ANGER AND INTERNET ANONYMITY

Raging Against the Machine Society’s bogeyman has changed from an all-knowing Big Brother to a legion of nameless Internet trolls

62 J U N E 2015

Identity is power, and identity is consequence.

Our acts in real, non-cyberspace attach to ourselves and we seek to craft our best selves from these. In contrast, our Internet selves encourage split personalities—learned and polite in one space, crass and unfiltered in another. There is the sheer thrill of forging personalities not at all acceptable, or even possible, in civilized society.

Shouting the contents of a YouTube comments section in the middle of a public square is the fastest way to get locked up in jail or a mental ward. But in non-confrontative spaces, there is only impunity.

Nowadays, Big Brother is legion and is prone to multiply itself. Ironically, the legion’s best weapon is also its Achilles heel. On the one hand, anonymous and faceless ragers typically engage in doxxing—the sharing of someone’s personal information online to pursue vigilante justice. But on the other hand, outing the identities of these commenters is also the fastest way to temper their wrath.

For this reason, moderated spaces are slowly becoming the norm. Some websites require a Facebook login before one can comment—and rage is discouraged now that there is a real name and face attached to it. These websites force selfdoxxing for the privilege of a voice. Other websites like the New York Times or Huffington Post, meanwhile, moderate comments before they are reflected. Of course, this can potentially stunt discourse and subject it to the subjective standards of the moderator.

Despite the proliferation of faceless rage,

there was widespread condemnation of the government’s attempt at a response: the infamous Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. Section 4 of this law penalizes libel “committed through a computer system.”

Protests against the Cybercrime Law hinged on fear of Internet censorship, hinting at a society’s willingness to tolerate online bigotry over restriction of speech. Freedom of speech is still highly valued, and the framework appears to call for the same limited set of standards that would otherwise restrict free speech in non-cyberspace: speech must not pose clear and present danger to society, must not lead to “dangerous tendencies,” and must adhere to the balancing of interests. Thus, saying, “I will kill you” as a joke is not the same as saying that we should cut off the Governor-General’s head as held in an old Supreme Court case (this is an early example of the Supreme Court applying the dangerous tendency test). This mindset, for better or for worse, relegates Internet rage into an online form of locker room talk: not to be taken seriously, perpetually excused.

There must be, however, a reexamination of this perspective, especially in light of cyberbullying and Internet rage having resulted in real-world consequences, such as suicide as the extreme case or self-censorship as the more latent effect of rage-fear. Solutions need not rely on (mostly ineffective) legal reform, but a critical evaluation of sources of power and how the power of identity and identification may be harnessed to stifle the proliferation of faceless rage.

PATRICK GEORGE/GETTY IMAGES

I

n decades past, we feared an Orwellian Big Brother. Society dreaded the rise of an allknowing, all-seeing monolith that followed one’s every step. Big Brother was to be this singular, omniscient entity that consolidated power unto itself. It would be invisible but omnipresent, controlling societies through puppet strings. From this anxiety grew an aversion for totalitarian and fascist governments, and along with it the terror of thought control.

Then a funny thing happened: we became Big Brother. With the rise of the Internet, we obtained the power to communicate through vast distances and access a limitless amount of information. Through this, we became significantly empowered—not to control, as originally feared, but to comment.

In cyberspace, feedback is king. In every site, article, product, or piece, we expect the power to share our own thoughts. There are feedback sections in news sites, forums and UseNet groups, Ask.FM, Omegle, and the dregs of the Internet, YouTube comment boxes. This was the evolution of the age-old “cold-versus-hot” media divide; cold media is where information flows unilaterally and recipients are uninvolved, hot media is that which engenders participation. We now bask in media inferno.

Feedback is normally responsible because of the consequences of identity. Professional critics have bylines and reputations that police irresponsible reviews. Interpersonal communication has immediate consequences—a dissenting employee can be fired, a rowdy heckler ejected, and a tactless person ostracized.

But the Internet strips people of their physical bodies and their immediate identities. And consequently, it liberates people from their inhibitions. Hence, the phenomenon of “faceless rage”: the melting pot of crass, violent, perverted, or politically incorrect statements and opinions. Invisibility has taken away our filters.There is little fear of retribution, because how can we punish the unknown? Responding to these acts of faceless rage is likewise unsatisfying. The typical troll drops a bomb in some piece of Internet real estate, neither checking it again nor engaging responders in constructive discourse. The nasty comment, once deployed, festers without much import to its author.

Mary Grace Mirandilla-Santos ON THE STATE OF LOCAL INTERNET

Connection Failure We’ve been subjected to one of the poorest and priciest Internet connections in the world. How fair are the Fair Use Policies that define our connectivity?

JORG GREUEL/GETTY IMAGES

S

ince the Philippines first connected to the Internet 21 years ago, technology has changed immeasurably. Yet the benefits of advanced technologies are beyond the reach of the average Filipino because what this country has is just basic connectivity. About 40 percent of the whole population is online, but this includes shared access, one hour of Internet at a given time, and slow, intermittent service.

The Internet now functions like a utility that citizens, businesses, and governments in most developed regions can’t do without. Connectivity is no longer just nice to have—it’s a necessity.

Unfortunately for the Philippines, its Internet service providers (ISPs) do not seem to mind mediocre to poor connectivity. By any standard, the country has the slowest average speed in ASEAN and one of the most expensive connections per mbps in the world. But with a dearth of telcos connecting most of the archipelago to the Internet, there isn’t much incentive to do better.

The fair use policies (FUPs) being imposed by ISPs is a case in point. These are probably some of the most anti-consumer practices in any industry today. ISPs unilaterally defined data caps that are too low for consumers to enjoy currentday Internet services. A cap of 1.5 GB per day, for example, can be used up easily by watching a YouTube video for an hour or so. And once the data cap is reached, ISPs throttle a subscriber’s Internet speed, supposedly to make the Internet experience better for the most number of subscribers. But if that is the reason behind throttling, shouldn’t Internet service be getting better and not worse?

To be clear, data capping is not unfair or anticonsumer per se. Rather, it is the potential abuse of the ones providing and controlling the data service that should be scrutinized and averted.

In this case, data capping without providing subscribers a means to monitor actual data volume consumed runs that risk.

Winthrop Yu, vice president for technology of Internet Society-Philippines Chapter, argues that “Data usage caps, without allowing the subscriber a means of monitoring his/her usage and their cut-off dates, is arbitrary and unfair.” Without a way to monitor actual usage within the cut-off date, “Any telco claims of ‘abusive’ or ‘over’ usage that [supposedly] exceeds the data cap is one-

sided. With this information asymmetry, subscribers cannot reasonably be expected to manage their own usage, leaving them at the mercy of telco’s arbitrarily charging for ‘over’ usage,” Yu explains.

In economics, information asymmetry is one of the symptoms of market failure. And in market failure, scarce resources are always misallocated somewhere, somehow. The consumers pay too much or too little, or firms produce too much or too little. In either case, the market becomes inefficient.

Unbalanced information and inefficiency do happen because of some unknowns in a new market. However, there are cases when some parties stand to benefit if others are left blindsided.

ISPs claim that enforcing FUPs is as much a network management issue as it is a business decision that they can unilaterally enforce. In short, the regulator should be hands-off. However, since it is the National Te l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s Commission’s mandate to balance business and consumer interests, it would only be reasonable for them to require ISPs to provide a means for subscribers to monitor their data consumption in nearreal time. This should be a prerequisite for data usage caps. Otherwise, it would be like buying a gallon of water but instead of being given a container clearly

LEFT BEHIND The Philippines is the second slowest country in Asia in terms of download speed.

1. SINGAPORE

122.43 mbps 2. HONG KONG

102.96 mbps 3. JAPAN

82.12 mbps 21. THE PHILIPPINES

3.64 mbps 22. AFGHANISTAN

2.52 mbps Despite this, Filipinos pay an average of $18.19/mbps, nearly three times the global average ($5.21/mbps).

marked with the volume, the seller hands you the other end of a hose. The seller turns on the valve and you get water—sometimes in full blast, sometimes in trickles. The catch: the seller has full control of the valve and you don’t know how much water you’re actually getting.

Democracy.net.ph, the lead drafters of the crowd-sourced bill proposing the Magna Carta for Philippine Internet Freedom, has been making this argument for years. Atty.

Cecilia Soria, one of its founding members, asks, “Who has the burden of proof to say that the data cap has been breached?” Soria asserts that it should be the telcos.

Telcos justify poor connection by blaming the country’s archipelagic nature, the 10 to 11 percent of subscribers who hog bandwidth, and even the technology (i.e., broadband is a shared service and there are many uncontrollable factors). Hence, telcos have resorted to offering “fast Internet” at best effort with minimum guaranteed dial-up speed even if you are paying for a premium plan.

Should Filipinos be resigned to the idea that this is as good as the Internet gets? As long as the status quo remains, the answer will always be a sad yes.

J U N E 2015 63

James Gabrillo ON CLINTON IN 2016

THE LONG ROAD AHEAD

Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea visit US troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1996.

Opposite, from top: Hillary and Bill share a light moment in Capitol Hill, 1993; having a laugh with students at a college in Concord, New Hampshire last April.

Hail Hillary

“A

fter 25 years in the public eye, Mrs. Clinton has suddenly developed the capacity to surprise,” wrote Maggie Haberman and Patrick Healy in the New York Times. Indeed, when Hillary Clinton declared her second stab at the US presidency in April, what electrified the public was not her announcement, but the way she did it: by releasing a YouTube video where she basically does not show up.

The video instead features an ethnically diverse group of “everyday Americans”—including families, same-sex couples, and factory workers— getting ready for big changes in their lives. Ninety seconds later, Clinton finally makes an appearance—look who else is having a spring awakening!—standing outside a suburban house, smiling.

“I’m getting ready to do something, too,” she said,

64 J U N E 2015

puckish but relaxed. “I’m running for president.”

It is a compelling kick-start. The video, essentially content-free, introduced voters to the tone of her campaign: a focus on people, instead of herself and her ideas. Launching her first presidential bid in 2007 with a video message, Clinton sat alone on a couch and discussed, flaccidly, the Iraq war, health care, and freedom from foreign oil. She used the word “I” a dozen times. “I’m in it to win it,” she proclaimed.

This time, Clinton seems determined to not repeat the mistakes of that campaign. Now there are less Is and more yous: “I’m hitting the road to earn your vote—because it’s your time.” That was not a metaphor: on the first day of her campaign, she traveled for 16 hours in a van from New York to Iowa—the state that harshly spurned her during the 2008 primaries—making unannounced

pit stops at gas stations and ordering a chicken burrito bowl at Chipotle. In Iowa, there were no big rallies; instead she visited coffee shops, a family-owned business, and a community college. Suddenly, a new Hillary: low-key, exuding accessibility. And folksy, too—as her campaign attempts to portray her presidency as one organically springing from a populist movement.

“Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top,” Clinton said in her video, aligning herself with the masses, who may still see her as that aloof stateswoman, fiddling with her BlackBerry aboard a private jet.

Wisely, she has also emulated Barack Obama’s strategy of appealing to younger voters. Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, is 35 and a tech whiz. Teddy Goff, a 29-year-old who worked on

PHOTO BY JILL M. DOUGHERTY/GETTY IMAGES

How can a universally recognized political figure reinvent herself for a new generation? Through humility— and calculated spontaneity. We break down Hillary Clinton’s current presidential campaign

CONSOLIDATED NEWS PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES. PHOTO BY MELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

There is a lightness, a sweetness to her campaign: her bumper stickers read “I heart H.” On Mother’s Day, she held a raffle on social media where the winner’s mother received a phone call greeting from Clinton herself.

Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, was behind Clinton’s pitch-perfect announcement video.

In 2008, Clinton played down her gender with a macho-style campaign bent to show she was tough enough to lead a nation. It didn’t work—she came off as strident and sanctimonious; Obama’s memorably dry slam during a debate: “You’re likable enough, Hillary.” Now the 67-year-old is willing to exploit the idea of making history as the first woman president. Her Twitter profile reads: “Wife, mom, grandma, women+kids advocate, FLOTUS, Senator, SecState, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, 2016 presidential candidate.”

There is a lightness—a sweetness—to her current campaign: her promotional bumper stickers, distributed to voters, read “I heart H.” On Mother’s Day in May, she held a raffle on social media where the winner’s mother received a phone call greeting from Clinton herself. She is also being less combative: when the self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders, Senator of Vermont, announced his bid for the Democratic nomination, Clinton tweeted: “I agree with Bernie. Focus must be on helping America’s middle class. GOP would hold them back. I welcome him to the race. –H” In this whole rebranding enterprise, Clinton’s challenge is how not to appear phony amid the calculated spontaneity. “Hillary didn’t become Hillary by being one of the gals; she became Hillary by not being one of the gals, but by being one of the guys, only smarter and craftier,” said Rich Galen, a Republican strategist. Curiously, Republican presidential candidates like Scott Walker, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio are taking an opposite approach: as Clinton pretends to be an everyday American, they’re pretending to be veteran political torchbearers. Announcing his White House aspirations, Rubio, a 44-year-

A GOOD START Hillary Clinton began her 2016 bid with a YouTube announcement, the social media numbers of which left her competitors in the dust.

old baby-faced first-time senator, tried to appear presidential, discussing issues such as taxation, immigration, and Israel. His kickoff speech— heavy on the Is and less on the yous—hawked himself as the voice of a new generation and the first Hispanic presidential nominee for a major party. It is reminiscent of Obama ‘08—so while Clinton’s path to a Democratic nomination may be tranquil due to a dearth of viable rivals, the general election will not be a smooth ride, thanks to Rubio’s potential.

Hence Clinton has to find the right balance between street credibility and political acumen.

The latter she clearly possesses—Clinton speaks no foreign languages but has visited 112 countries as secretary of state—but her credentials may get buried under all the grassroots flurry. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio shockingly declined to endorse Clinton immediately following her video announcement, regardless that Clinton has

nurtured de Blasio’s political career. Reasonably, de Blasio says he’s waiting to hear her stances on issues first.

Yet you can’t blame Clinton for focusing on the fuzzy future; her past is where her handicaps reside. She will forego boasting about her foreign policy experience—initially received via osmosis as first lady—as it may bring back the drama of her husband’s scandal. She won’t enumerate the charitable endeavors of the Clinton Foundation, as it will bring up queries about undisclosed foreign donations. She will downplay her successful—dutiful—stint as secretary of state, as it will bring up her ill-considered use of personal email to conduct business during her tenure.

It is a tricky task: in making their case for public office, recent candidates have focused their campaigns either on explaining what they plan to do or why they are the best fit. Voters frequently chose those who did both.

J U N E 2015 65

THE DOMINATRIX

Anne Curtis Actress, TV host 8,020,000

3,100,000

nne Curtis-Smith is a legion. Ranking in the top 200 “Most-Followed” Twitter users worldwide, number one in the Philippines, recognized by Twitter in their published book “Tweets from the Top” and Time as 28th in a global list of “50 Smartest Celebrities on Twitter,” Curtis finesses her millions and millions (and counting) of followers with social media deftness bordering on the preternatural. Fluent in hashtags and trend machinations, the actress is cognizant of using different platforms to achieve different results. The social media game may feel like low-hanging fruit for someone as “big” as Curtis, whether its deploying the Q&A formatted #AskANNE on Twitter (which trended worldwide) or achieving a prodigious number of likes for her #KabaliwANNE shenanigans on Instagram, but in 2015’s celebrity culture status quo, active digital engagement is the game and longevity is the prize. - MARTIN YAMBAO (MY)

PHOTO BY MARK NICDAO

A

annecurtissmith

Manny Pacquiao World boxing champion and congressman

2,400,000

P

acquiao’s first foray into Twitter was a disaster, replying “E di mag reklamo ka sa lolo mong panot hahahaha” to everyone who prodded him on his political performance (his handle was @CongMP for Congressman Manny Pacquiao, after all). Now, a better-guided Pacquiao has one of the most organized and polished social media accounts, having the look and feel of a global brand. - ELVIN LUCIANO (EL)

mannypacquiao

T H E P O W E R P L AY E R

SOLENN HEUSSAFF P

Chot Reyes

Model and actress

2,450,000

1,400,000

After being catapulted into the world of celebrities via her stint as a fan-favorite castaway on Survivor Philippines: Celebrity Showdown, Heussaff has been the subject of several controversies that gained traction online—among them the widely publicized fallout between the star and a French TV network that aired a misleading documentary about her “bimbo” lifestyle. - AYANA TOLENTINO (AT)

Basketball coach 145,000

A

GEORGINA WILSON Model and host

2,800,000

1,300,000

In 2015, Wilson—perhaps most notable for her hosting gigs with Channel V and Asia’s Next Top Model—published the autobiographical book Besties with BFF Solenn Heussaff to celebrate their dynamic lives, engage with their fan base, and address their ruthless critics, most of whom take to social media to express distaste for the celebrity duo. - AT

solennheussaff

s a social media savvy sportsman, basketball coach Chot Reyes knows exactly what sports fans want to see: behind the scenes action, player interactions, and personal insights not usually seen on TV. But more than just chronicling blow-by-blow updates, he is always ready to speak his mind via Twitter, whether he’s defending his boys against passionate sports anchors, dishing motivational tweets to young, disheartened athletes, or casually planning tune up games with Pau Gasol. Beyond basketball, Reyes has expanded himself to become a life mentor, network executive, and a digital media professional. When he played hoops with Justin Bieber and dressed One Direction in Gilas Pilipinas jerseys, it almost broke the Internet. - EL

ELLEN ADARNA Celebrity 166,000

maria.elena.adarna 70 J U N E 2015

676,000

Ellen Adarna, sex icon of the now, is a digital marketer’s dream. Attach her name to an online video (playful wordplay optional) and it’s guaranteed to amass search hits. Her brand of sexiness has allowed her to transcend all of social media space, from the textual to the highly visual. - EL

MANNY PACQUIAO PHOTO BY STEVE TIRONA / SOLENN HEUSSAFF PHOTO BY MARK NICDAO

2,470,000

THE TEMPEST

KRIS AQUINO

VICE GANDA

Actor and comedian

5,260,00O

1,900,000

His clout is an example of the combined influence of traditional and social media. Vice Ganda unleashes a wisecrack on TV and it’s trending on Twitter minutes later. One of the few local celebrities with millions of followers, he can tweet “It’s a wonderful day!” and get more than 4,000 likes and retweets. - EL

LEA SALONGA

Tony-award winning actress, singer

2,850,000

341,000

Lea Salonga is a literal voice of authority in media, a national icon who has made a living of inspiring other Filipinos to make an impact globally. - JAM PASCUAL (JP)

ANTOINETTE JADAONE

Queen of All Media 1,040,000

1,800,000

I

t is very easy to pick on Kris Aquino or make jokes about putting her on mute. She has no filter, no sense of tact, and a surplus of personal opinions. Since her social media debut in 2012, she’s had a few spats with the public, mostly caused by her brazen defense of her family: once for justifying their stake in Hacienda Luisita and, more recently, for unfollowing high-profile celebrities who criticized her brother’s no-show at the SAF 44’s arrival honors. She has since kept quiet on Twitter and set her sights on curating her Instagram page. There, Aquino has blossomed into a full-fledged tita.

Interspersed with selfies and photos of her sons are promos for her lifestyle blog and pictures of Jesus with matching Bible quotes. If this were a sign of Kris’s eventual mellowing out, her penchant for oversharing proves otherwise. - JANSEN MUSICO (JM)

Director

4,288

13,100

The director of That Thing Called Tadhana is on the road to claiming the rom-com genre on her own, and on the way she’s been made the unofficial spokesperson of everyone’s heartbreak, mostly through Twitter and rapid-fire memes about love or the lack thereof. - JP

JOSE JAVIER REYES Filmmaker

35,300

14,500

Blessed with the sharpest tongue and incisive wit, Direk Joey takes to Twitter to spread his gospel about film, television, and celebrity culture. - DON JAUCIAN (DJ)

withlovekrisaquino

KATHRYN BERNARDO AND DANIEL PADILLA Celebrity love team KATHRYN DANIEL

4,580,000 2,100,000 3,810,000 226,000

It makes sense to count KathNiel as one irrepressible force, a tandem whose adoring fans—and there are millions of them—can raise box office stakes, topple rivals, and act on anything to support their beloved love team. - DJ

SARAH GERONIMO Singer and actress

MEGAN YOUNG PHOTO BY MARK NICDAO / ART BY MENEER MARCELO

658,000

233,000

Best-selling records and box office hits, all these Sarah Geronimo owes to her fiercely loyal “Popsters,” who can even send Geronimo’s bets in The Voice of the Philippines to win the reality singing competition’s coveted championship. - DJ

MEGAN YOUNG P Miss World title-holder

1,440,000

733,000

Retweeting Haruki Murakami and contesting the use of the word “bae,” you can’t say Megan Young isn’t using her influence for a good cause. - DJ

ISABELLE DAZA Model and actress

898,000

853,000

Aside from selfies, #OOTDS, and endorsements, Daza has used her online presence to reach out to her fans, and at times, even explain her side of the story. - DJ

meganbata

MARIAN RIVERA Actress

1,600,000

For celebrities in the same high-wattage league as Rivera, Instagram can easily be turned into your own People magazine: a platform for wedding photos, endorsements, telling off haters, and even showing a baby bump. - DJ

PHOTO BY MARK NICDAO

therealmarian

THE IRON MAIDEN

Miriam Defensor Santiago Senator, politician 1,520,000

16,900

A

fter her steep popularity drop during an embarrassing end of term in Erap’s congress, the outspoken senator is experiencing a new life thanks to Twitter. Her pick up lines may have gotten her cool points from today’s teens, but it’s her candor and razor-sharp zingers that keep people glued to her every word. Her Twitter tirade against Senator Enrile, for example, was an enjoyable master class of sass. It’s no surprise that Santiago has become the most followed Filipino senator on social media. Her Facebook page reads like a fun little résumé divided into daily hashtags. Her throwback posts recall her past achievements, while her #miriammondays are rife with bits of trivia. (Did you know that she’s ambidextrous? Well, now you do.) If the number of Miriam parody accounts is anything to judge by, she and her social media team are doing things right.- JM

iamsenmiriam

GRACE POE 37,500

Communications Undersecretary

Senator

17,500

380,000

Nobody expected Poe to top the polls in 2013. Since then, she has harnessed social media as a form of accountability and transparency.

From taking the #MRTchallenge to leading the Mamasapano Massacre investigation, Poe tweets live updates of all the senate hearing she participates in, as well as work she does outside the Senate. – NADINE RAMOS (NR)

FRANCIS PANGILINAN

Former senator, politician

421,000

ART BY MENEER MARCELO

MANUEL L. QUEZON III

PIA CAYETANO

Senator

Agriculture has always been Pangilinan’s advocacy, both inside and outside of public office. Talking about his two passions, a tweet recently read, “It’s been one year & 3 weeks now since I left the farm to rejoin govt. I miss farm life where the only sh*t I had to deal w/ was manure.” - JP

175,000

38,300

Cayetano’s Twitter bio reads: “Senator, mom, triathlete.” Apart from sharing her love for her family and for sports, she makes extensive use of her social media to connect with her constituency, raising awareness on issues such as reproductive health, ageism in the workforce, and the implementation of K-12. - APA AGBAYANI (AA)

RISA HONTIVEROS Akbayan chairperson

104,000 An influential activist for women’s rights and a co-author of the RH Law, Hontiveros might be able to expand her reach if she runs for senate next year. - JP

Cabinet secretary

470,000 The incumbent secretary of the Philippine Department of Interior and Local Government may have a chance to atone for the mistakes made during the Yolanda aftermath if any word on the possibility of running for the Presidential seat proves to be true. - JP

Former Communications Secretary

MON JIMENEZ Tourism secretary

114,000

He’s curated museums and libraries, worked for two presidents, and won a Palanca. But perhaps his biggest achievement is giving the government a strong online presence via the Official Gazette, for which he’s editor-in-chief. On Twitter, he shares what catches his interest, from business to history, thought pieces to cute videos. He also posts the occasional selfie, proof that he’s also one of us. - JM

MAR ROXAS

RICKY CARANDANG

18,900

Carandang knows how to start a conversation. The former newscaster and first head of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office (PCDSPO) provides commentaries on various political and cultural topics; his opinions on the former spur discussion on local and international issues, such as Mary Jane Veloso’s case. – NR

BAM AQUINO Senator

43,400 Experienced both in legislation and service, the youngest senator in Congress has more than his lineage to go by. He mostly uses his online accounts to talk about his advocacies and accomplishments. - JP

Jimenez, a former ad man, takes his duties as tourism secretary above and beyond the usual, using his social media to promote tourist spots across the country. He also spearheaded the post-Yolanda campaign “The Philippines Says Thank You,” which thanked the world for coming to the country’s aid after the super-typhoon. - AA

LOREN LEGARDA Senator

39,400 A staunch environmentalist, Legarda was partly responsible for launching the 10@10: The Ten Million Trees campaign, which went viral. Legarda recently made waves in social media for backing two cultural goalposts: the Venice Biennale and Brillante Mendoza’s Cannes entry, Taklub. - JP

SONNY ANGARA Senator

66,400

26,800

Angara’s Twitter feels more like a personal account rather than a politician’s, something that makes him more relatable to his constituents. - DJ

50 MOST INFLUENTIAL FILIPINOS ONLINE

ilovemartine

mikaelamartinez

Model and executive

102,000

78,900

Modern-day career woman Mika Lagdameo-Martinez, who balances business ventures with raising kids, has an enviable, Instagram-worthy lifestyle that has made her an ambassador of sorts, inspiring women everywhere to strive for “the good life.” - DJ

MANNY V. PANGILINAN Business mogul

97,600 Most active on social media during sporting events, PLDT-Smart chairman Manny V. Pangilinan builds support in his Twitter following for basketball team Gilas Pilipinas before all their international games. Pangilinan has also vocally supported boxer Manny Pacquiao in all his recent fights. - AA

CRISTALLE BELO HENARES

Managing Director, Belo Medical Group

217,000

138,000

With a keen business sense, Henares manages her social media activity with dexterity, using photos of herself with Belo endorsers to bring an intimate, behind-the-scenes feel to the brand—thus creating an air of accessibility to the beauty company. - DJ

RAJO LAUREL Fashion designer

500,000

150,000

This fashion savant still maintains a firm hold on the industry, either by designing, judging on Project Runway Philippines, or even speaking his mind about how gowns for children’s pageants should look. - JP

74 J U N E 2015

Martine Cajucom Entrepreneur

107,000 Manila-born and LA-bred Martine Cajucom isn’t a celebrity, strictly speaking. But with an engaged audience that consistently fawns over her personal style on Instagram, Cajucom has translated her regular comings and goings into an enviable lifestyle. She is also the creative director of Sunnies Studios, a local eyewear brand that she co-owns with Bea Soriano, Eric Dee, and cousin Georgina Wilson. As the brand’s artistic head, Cajucom has managed to turn Sunnies into an extension of her personal brand. - MARGARITA BUENAVENTURA (MB)

MIKA LAGDAMEO PHOTO BY STEVE TIRONA / PHOTOS FROM INSTAGRAM.COM/ILOVEMARTINE

MIKA LAGDAMEO-MARTINEZ R

THE EMINENCE GRISE

BEN CHAN Bench CEO 333,000

120,000

A

s the CEO of Bench, Ben Chan is a celebrity kingmaker: in choosing brand endorsers, he has shown an ability to handpick celebrities and influencers that will mobilize their own social media following. But in harnessing social media to expand the brand’s influence, Chan and the Bench Group have faced a number of tempests: the brand’s annual underwear show became a hot topic last year, bringing forth discussions on gender equality and exploitation. Most recently, their campaign #LoveAllKindsofLove, which featured a billboard with a gay couple holding hands, became a highly controversial topic across social media. - MB

PHOTO BY STEVE TIRONA

bcbench

ATOM ARAULLO Broadcast journalist

I

799,000

131,000

t’s rare for the newsman to become the story, but at the height of Typhoon Yolanda’s devastation in Tacloban two years ago, ABS-CBN News reporter Atom Araullo became just that. He delivered the news amid harsh winds and dangerous debris.

Social media users quickly took notice of his bravery: soon after the report aired, Araullo trended worldwide on Twitter, and the video of his reportage has over two million views on YouTube. - MB

Musician, writer

820,000

32,400

A man of many talents and interests, Jim Paredes tweets everything from his stunning photography to dad jokes and political endorsements. Never one to shy from national politics, Paredes has recently supported a change.org petition calling on Vice President Jejomar Binay to resign and face the corruption charges against him. - AA

MONIQUE LHUILLIER

TIM YAP

TV host, newspaper columnist

1,260,000

224,000

Love him or hate him, Yap still brandishes impressive clout over the city’s nightlife. Though come daylight, his feed seems to get taken over by his cat Juanita. - DJ

MARIA RESSA Journalist

251,000

8,646

Lhuillier’s snapshots so accurately showcase a highly coveted lifestyle that even the Condé Nast Traveler website has asked her to curate her own guide to Paris. - DJ

Under Ressa's watch, Rappler, of which she is also CEO, has become a go-to source for breaking news regardless of the hour. Ressa was also instrumental in turning Rappler into a more interactive reading experience—the site’s award-winning Mood Meter, which has its share of naysayers, allows users to express their emotional reaction to particular news. - MB

MARLON STOCKINGER

CELINE R. LOPEZ

Fashion designer

36,200

494,000

Racecar driver

44,000

59,200

Writer, film producer

11,500

Though Stockinger is on the rise as a Formula 3 driver, his influence is amplified by the fact that his selfies average around 3,000 likes at least. Whatever he tweets or posts, his fans will support. - DJ

One of Manila’s original It Girls and multi-hyphenates, Lopez continues to wield influence even with her innocuous Instagram posts. - DJ

NONITO DONAIRE

Journalist, former congressman

Boxer

387,000

2,673

From fan art, words of wisdom, to well wishes for his new baby, the Filipino Flash has established a fan base that has tipped him to be the next Pacquiao. - DJ

76 J U N E 2015

atomaraullo

TEDDY BOY LOCSIN 171,000

Locsin has been known to engage in Twitter wars. In 2013, the former congressman published a series of tweets condemning Senator JV Ejercito for his comments about the unlikelihood of the “popular” President’s impeachment, and in 2012 he was involved in a heated argument with the Akbayan party, sparked by his insistence that they should all be killed. - AT

PHOTO BY BJ PASCUAL

JIM PAREDES

Pepper.ph Food blog 6,262

22,400

Pepper.ph innovated food photography with a purely digital outlook. Since publishing in 2012, the food website pushed their visual dimension to the fore with deft art direction (the rise of the "flat lay" top shots), nuanced lighting (shadows versus maximum exposure) and textured styling. Before the ubiquitous Kinfolk aesthetic took hold, the feisty food blog sublimated food photography with recipes of artfully styled entrées on top of wooden boards. - MY

carlosceldran

CARLOS CELDRAN Cultural activist

CARLOS CELDRAN PHOTO BY SYEVE TIRONA / BRYNANBOY PHOTO FROM GETTY / FOOD SHOTS FROM INSTAGRAM.COM/PEPPER.PH

217,000

16,300

When there’s mention of Carlos Celdran on your news feed, there’s bound to be a pressing issue that needs discussing. With each quip, Celdran amasses likes, shares, and retweets for his scathing stance on every issue, making everyone either more skeptical or nod in agreement.

BRYANBOY

eventually drove even the biggest celebrity gossip shows to go off the air, a fact that even the show’s hosts acknowledged. - DJ

Blogger

582,000

bryanboycom

534,000

Did fashion’s most controversial blogger miss his death knell? Frequent front-row fixture Bryanboy is still playing the long game.

Candid in his delivery and unfiltered in his reportage, he survived the obsolescence of the blogger 1.0. Bryanboy, represented by IMG, continues to be archetypal with his cheeky runway commentary, social mediadriven campaigns, and brand sponsored swag. He still manages to redirect revenue and traffic in 2015 with the same tropes he himself pioneered back in 2004. - MY

FASHION PULIS

Celebrity gossip site, one of the Philippines’ most visited websites

540,000 The blog’s Insta-scoops, rabid commenters, and carefully constructed blind items

ANTON DIAZ Food blogger

18,000

13,300

Curious as to whether a restaurant is worth your buck? A Google search will probably yield Diaz’s blog, Our Awesome Planet (ourawesomeplanet.com), as one of the top results, proof of his allencompassing, if not always authoritative, hold in the local food blogging world. - DJ

DAPHNE OSENA-PAEZ TV host and designer

113,000

62,800

Martha Stewart comparisons aside, OseñaPaez still remains the cool mom every woman aspires to be. - DJ

pepper.ph

PHOTOGRAPHED BY MARK NICDAO _ ST YLED BY PHILIPPA ANDREN MAKEUP BY JEN DELICA _ HAIR BY MARK FAMILIARA _ PRODUCTION DESIGN BY ELMER PUEBLO

kimcamjones

THE INGÉNUE

KimJones 44,000

378,000

THOM BROWNE SUNGLASSES AT RONNIE & JOE, H&M TOP, STYLIST’S OWN NECKLACE. OPPOSITE: H&M TOP, STYLIST’S OWN NECKLACE

In case you were wondering, this is how an instagrammable life looks:

a vintage ring-dial telephone sitting on a pile of coffee table books, brightly colored floaters swaying in the middle of an infinity pool, nautical striped table cloth lining a pristine white dining table.

Sunlight pours in from every direction. Sometimes a miniature beagle named Atticus (Finch, of course) pokes its nose around, but for the most part it lays down to sunbathe.

That’s Kim Jones’s life, or rather “Miss Jones.” She of the sixdigit Instagram following, the quarter of a million Facebook likes, the 44,000-strong Twitter audience for an account that only cross-posts from her other social media outlets.

I notice, however, that none of it looks familiar. I’ve gone through her entire Instagram account, read a large chunk of kimcamjones.com (which goes all the way back to 2012), Googled her intensely, but none of it—not the vinyl records shelved into her marital home’s little nooks, or the full-length mirror resting by the staircase, or even Atticus—has made its way onto her social media.

Which makes for an even more horrifying conclusion: Kim Springs that put her alongside social media heavyweights like Jones has bigger things to post about.

Margaret Zhang (shinebythree.com) and Aimee Song (songofstyle.com), and a visual glossary of every beach in the country HER BLOG BEGAN as a “moodboard”—run of the mill worth a photo. From Amanpulo to La Union, Jones has become Tumblr fare where she posted things she liked, showing an a veritable ambassadress for Philippine tourism at the exact moobvious interest in photography, art, and fashion. Things take a ment in pop culture when every sunset and neoprene bikini on turn for the artista only in her first post of 2013, which features Instagram is an ode to Eat. Pray. Love., and every beach trip is a her “twirling about” in the woods as photographed by then- weekend warrior’s escape. Her social media’s message is simple: boyfriend, now-husband Jericho Rosales. The subtle but telling cheers to the freaking weekend, except her weekends seem to last clothes credit is at the end. In that instant, it would’ve been easy to longer than the weekdays. categorize Kim under “fashion blogger” and close the tab.

Nowadays, the outfit post—#ootd, #ootn, etc.—is something But the twirling about escalated quickly into sponsored posts else in Jones’s hands: she’s taken to frequent out-of-town collabofrom brands like Coca-Cola, a capsule clothing line with shop- rations with photographer Shaira Luna and stylist Bea Constanping site Ava.PH, an invitation from Louis Vuitton to Palm tino, where Jones plays muse, wearing at any given moment Joel

H&M NECKLACE OPPOSITE: LOUIS VUITTON TOP AND DRESS, STOCKTON ROW EARRINGS, STYLIST'S OWN CUFF

J U N E 2015 81

50 MOST INFLUENTIAL FILIPINOS ONLINE

“We’re at a stage now where we’re realizing social media, in traditional or current terms, is saturated. So having a following doesn’t necessarily mean you’re influential.”

ELIZ MARCELO TOP, H&M TROUSERS AND EARRINGS, MISS SELFRIDGE HEELS. OPPOSITE: LOUIS VUITTON TOP, DRESS, EARRINGS; CUFF

82 J U N E 2015

Escober, Joey Samson, or Vania Romoff, the woman behind her wedding dress.

The fantasy-inspired mini editorials do the trick of erasing a less-than-glossy past: you forget that she actually did time as an ETC host alongside Patti Grandidge. She tells me about growing up middle class in Adelaide (“I probably had like, two pairs of shoes. All of my uniforms were secondhand”), and how when she first arrived here in Manila, she was sleeping on the floor surrounded by six other people.

Yet perpetuating la dolce vita doesn’t seem to be the point of Kim Jones being here. She is not on vacation—or at least, not anymore.

WITH JONES ’S BACKGROUND in finance, command of social media, and careful toeing of that ever-so-tricky line between masa appeal and access to the velvet ropes, one can’t help but draw comparison to her trajectory and that of another Britdone-time-in-Oz—the cunning, calculated Georgina Wilson, whose social media stock is in the millions, yet remains free from the clutches of noontime shows and the deciding hammer of TV networks. Wilson controls her 9 to 5, and handles each move, brand, and post with the utmost precision.

Jones has yet to achieve the same level of anal, almost obsessive control over her image. Right now, she’s more concerned with staying true to who she is, refusing to accept free clothes or any offers for plastic surgery, and making sure her hemlines don’t go too high (she tells her manager Vanessa, right before bounding in front of Mark Nicdao’s lens, to “watch her skirt”).

The opportunity, however, is undeniable: the creeping realization that she could be the respectable, premium social media star that is easy to find all over the world, but the Philippines has yet to cultivate. If—and only if—she chose to play the game, she could be Wilson, or the digital version of her: queen of endorsements, friend to all collaborative brands, dream selfie of every makeup artist’s Instagram account.

Of course Jones knows what her social media audience (typically females, between the ages of 18-34) likes and wants, but perhaps there lies the difference. What they “like” is simple: “I’ve done a lot of travel posts because it’s very much a part of who I am, but the local ones are by far the most popular,” she explains.

“Maybe the interest is from seeing the Philippines through the eyes of someone that didn’t grow up here.”

And what they “want” is a bit more complex. Jones has a wide range—she brings you behind the scenes, she puts you at the front row, she takes you with her on every ride, whether on plane or boat or train. But still, it has to be said: her God-approved marriage to soap star Jericho Rosales is clearly winning her a few extra likes. While she usually averages in the 5,000-10,000 range, a romantic photo of her husband dipping her low and moving in for a kiss, her face mid-laugh and a leg kicked up in the air, hits 14,000 likes easily. And that one was posted just a couple of hours ago.

Her 376,000+ followers clearly don’t all belong to her, and this is important: these are actual numbers, a real measure of brand value. Jones juggles the numbers because she has to, but her eyes tell you something different, that she’s aiming for something else: purpose. “We’re at a stage now where we’re realizing social media, in traditional or current terms, is saturated. So having a following doesn’t necessarily mean you’re influential. Following doesn’t equal influence. I think it’s who you are—despite your following—is how you’re influential. It’s what you choose to do, what projects you don’t choose to do, it’s those little details that make you influential.”

She pauses. “Unless you’re Kim Kardashian. Then you’re just a whole different breed.” - ANDREA ANG

PHOTOGRAPHED BY AT MACULANGAN

HOW TO DISMANTLE

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was meant to usher in a new era of power—instead, it’s been relegated to an artifact, buried under years of red tape and unchecked fear. In light of the looming energy crisis and ever-mounting costs, Mixkaela Villaon explores the state of the two billion-dollar plant to see whether it should be brought to life or left for dead

AN ATOMIC BOMB

THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

Clockwise, from top left: A perservation tag left by inspectors from BNPP’s sister plant KEPCO in Korea; an area of the plant’s fuel storage wing where the uranium stores were supposed to be kept; radioactivity labels found in the plant’s storage area; at the heart of the plant is the nuclear reactor, which is kept inside a domed structure made of reinforced one meter-thick concrete. Since the plant was decomissioned, the reactor has been dismantled. Previous page: The control room of the plant. Much of the technology here is analog and will have to be replaced if the plant will be revived.

IN MORONG, BATAAN, SURROUNDED BY THE CRASHING WAVES OF THE WEST PHILIPPINE SEA AND THE GHOSTLY OUTLINE OF MOUNT MARIVELES, THE BATAAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT SLUMBERS. It has done so since its completion in 1984, dreaming of what it could have been, the catalyst meant to launch the Philippines into the nuclear age and economic prosperity.

Instead it sits idle, its heavy machinery and equipment—all state of the art in the 80s—have long been overtaken by the continuous march of technology. Its corridors and work spaces built to accommodate at least 400 workers lie quiet. It’s sweltering in here. The air is still and smells faintly metallic.

Only the low hum of emergency lights can be heard throughout the plant, punctuated by the lonely footsteps of the occasional guard walking through the rooms to check that nothing disturbs the mausoleum-like stillness.

Outside the plant, the world rages. For over 30 years, the fate of the 369-hectare property has been hotly debated. Inquiries regarding the plant’s safety features, the advantages and risks of nuclear power, and the mark of late President Ferdinand Marcos’s corruption have stalled the plant’s future 88 J U N E 2015

prospects. For now, the powers that be seem content enough to leave the sleeping giant alone.

Engineer Mauro Marcelo of the National Power Corporation (NPC) believes it is high time to talk about the BNPP again as we experience particularly high electricity prices and a looming energy crisis similar to 1991. Marcelo joined the NPC in 1978, hoping to be one of the country’s pioneers for nuclear energy. Today, he remains at the power plant as the assets preservation and department manager, briefing tourists and ensuring that the plant is in its best condition if and when the Philippine government decides to turn it on.

A year after Marcelo’s hiring, President Marcos suspended the BNPP’s construction because of the partial nuclear meltdown in Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania in the United States. The worst accident in US commercial power plant history threw a wrench in the BNPP’s construction because

POINT OF CONTACT

Top: One of the control room’s key communication lines includes a phone without dials that connects directly to the office of the Philippine president. Left: The plant has been designed to withstand major earthquakes and was strategically built in an area 18 meters above sea level. However, some contest the plant’s area as dangerous since it is supposedly near a volcanic formation and a fault line.

it shared the same design and equipment by Westinghouse Electric.

Commissions to evaluate the BNPP’s safety and public hearings soon followed. The plant’s original design was updated and construction resumed in 1981. These upgrades, Marcelo informs, justifies the additional $369 million spent on the power plant. This is on top of the estimated $2.1 billion initial cost to build the BNPP. “We sacrificed efficiency for safety,” Marcelo says as we walked along the plant’s labyrinthine insides. Complex coils of steel pipes and cables spread along the walls and ceilings of the plant, and huge machines sat side by side, each one properly tagged and labeled for preservation. “This plant’s location and design is safer than its sister plant in Busan (South Korea) and the one in Fukushima ( Japan).”

Indeed, the numbers seem pretty impressive. The Fukushima power plant was built to withstand an intensity 7 earthquake, which it did. It was the

subsequent tsunami that submerged the power plant’s sensitive equipment and disrupted operations. In contrast, the BNPP can withstand an intensity 8 quake. Located 18 meters above sea level, Marcelo is convinced that the BNPP is untouchable. “An intensity 9 earthquake can produce 10-meter high tsunamis. Kung may earthquake na makagawa ng mas mataas na tsunami, hindi na natin problema ang water damage sa reactor. Nalunod na tayong lahat,” he chuckles. That’s probably nuclear humor for you.

Even after the construction was completed and hot functional tests were conducted, the plant never got to show its full potential. The People Power Revolt in 1986 deposed Marcos and installed President Corazon Aquino, who was concerned that the catastrophic Chernobyl disaster could happen here. She mothballed the BNPP but issued an executive order to maintain and preserve the plant until such time that the Philippine government can decide what to do with it. Several presidents later, J U N E 2015 89

SKIN AND BONES

Clockwise, from top: An area of the plant’s control room with yellowed schematic diagrams and other drawings relvant to operations; a section of the turbine found at the topmost floor of the building. The turbine is part of the pressurized water reactor that generates nuclear energy; standing at the entrance to the plant are two body scanners that monitor radioactivity levels; the airlock guarding the nuclear reactor.

THE SLEEPING GIANT

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant occupies a 389-hectare property off the coast of the West Philippine Sea. It is considered to be among one of the most robustly-built power stations in the world. Its sister plants—nuclear energy plants that share the same designs—can be found in Brazil, Korea, and Slovenia. Among them, BNPP was the only one built with upgrades, which were included after the Three Mile incident in the US.

the BNPP remains slumbering, drinking up 40 million pesos in annual maintenance costs while never producing anything. In 2011, the government decided to turn the plant into a tourist attraction to earn revenue.

DURING THE TOUR, we danced around the dangers of nuclear energy. The NPC recognizes the possible health risks posed by radiation and acknowledges the necessary precautions of disposing radioactive nuclear wastes. Marcelo explains that other sources of energy also pose similar risks. “Ang geothermal energy, naglalabas ng hydrogen sulfide. Isang singhot lang n’on, patay ka na. Sa nuclear, tatagal ka pa.” I refrain from pointing out that that is exactly why nuclear energy is so frightening.

The risks are minimal, Marcelo says, because before any nuclear plant can be approved for operations, it must first pass the stringent requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an independent body that not only requires stringent measures to safeguard 92 J U N E 2015

against nuclear incidents but also continuously monitors operations in each power plant.

Marcelo ticks off the advantages of nuclear energy on his fingers. It is cheaper in the long run, he says, estimating a drop to only two pesos per kilowatt/hour of electricity, down from our current six. It produces less harmful greenhouse gasses than our current sources of energy—coal, oil, and natural gasses—all of which we import from other countries. It is more stable than renewable energy sources like hydroelectric, wind, or solar because water runs out in the hot season, wind isn’t always there, and the sun sets. Most importantly, says Marcelo, nuclear power plants can provide stable energy to become a base load plant, the foundation of the energy grid, a steady source of electricity.

All around the Philippines, ASEAN countries are stumbling over themselves for IAEA approval. According to Marcelo, China is commissioning one plant per month, Indonesia’s nuclear program has just

THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT OF BATAAN IS ALLEGEDLY FINE WITH NUCLEAR ENERGY, AS LONG AS ITS OPERATIONS ARE NOT IN THEIR JURISDICTION. EVERYONE SEEMS INTERESTED IN REAPING POTENTIAL BENEFITS, BUT NO ONE WANTS TO TAKE THE RISK. been approved, and Malaysia has created the Malaysian Nuclear Power Corporation, a governmental agency ready to head operations when they get their approval. This is happening while the Philippines sits on its hands and the very heart of the BNPP, the behemoth nuclear reactor, lies inactive. Eventually, surrounding countries with cheaper electricity will be more attractive to foreign investors.

There is much to be gained in nuclear power, but there is far too much at stake as well. The current administration has hinted its interests in nuclear energy but is on the fence about the BNPP, probably because its political history is near inseparable with the Aquino-Marcos tension. The local government of Bataan is allegedly fine with nuclear energy, as long as its operations are not in their jurisdiction. Everyone seems interested in reaping potential benefits, but no one wants to take the risk.

As things stand, it would take upwards of one billion dollars to upgrade the BNPP’s equipment and four years to train new operators to get the

plant back on its feet. This is still preferable to building a new nuclear power plant, says Marcelo, estimating at least eight to ten billion and 10 years of construction. Before any of that, Marcelo says that what we truly need is a comprehensive National Nuclear Program. This will ensure legislative stability and discourage future governments from disrupting the nuclear program simply because they did not agree with the previous administration.

When the BNPP is in operation, Marcelo is confident that change will come to the Philippines, whether we are ready for such change or not.

When all the machines start humming and the turbines start churning, this new, clean energy will displace our dependence on fossil fuels and force the country to industrialize. He is nearing retirement age now, but Engr. Marcelo’s belief in the BNPP’s potential remains steadfast. He smiles wistfully when asked if he thinks he will ever see the power plant in operation. “Maybe one day,” he says softly.

J U N E 2015 93

L’OVE

PHOTOGR APH BY MARK NICDAO

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LOFFICIELMANILA

A ROGUE PORTFOLIO

I L L U S T RAT I O N S B Y C A R L O S L E R M A

In the last decade, it’s become apparent that the foundations of entire industries can be shaken by something as seemingly innocuous as an app. The once-groundbreaking iPod has been toppled by mobile music streaming, and old-school cabs are threatened by the efficiency of ridesharing. For Rogue’s inaugural tech portfolio, we examine the minds behind these services that aren’t just winning the game, they’re rewriting the rules

INSTAGRAM

KEVIN SYSTROM OWING TO AN ELEGANT and simple interface (foisted by co-founder Mike Krieger’s commitment to user-experience design), Instagram quickly gathered a solid community of content-generating enthusiasts. Though its implications of democratizing the field of photography remain disputable—as with all emergent technologies—Instagram’s appeal reached critical mass by fostering a novel system of expressive communication among users. Nowadays, it’s less about snapping lo-fi pics of color-corrected memories and more about a collective insight into individuality and human behavior. “Right now, we define photos and video as the basis for a moment,” CEO Kevin Systrom told Business of Fashion. “When I say ‘moment,’ a synonym you could use is ‘story.’ I mean, we really are about storytelling through a visual medium.” Throughout its brief lifespan, the image-driven photo-sharing service has become a platform leveraging social #trends, #discourse, even #advocacy. A couple of #throwbacks and #freednipples is all it takes for celebrities to market reputation, businesses to build relationships, brands to engage customers, artists to promote portfolios, and bloggers to grow their legions. This year, Instagram continues to expand with the introduction of native advertising, whose positive early results suggest its outperformance of current ad tech across the board, including its parent company, Facebook. - GIO DIONISIO

24

the total number of filters available, with Earlybird being the most popular

300 million

active users, as of late 2014

Mike Krieger

studied symbolic systems in Stanford, which is a field of study that integrates ideas from studies of artificial intelligence and how people interact with computer interfaces.

GiveWell

The non-profit charity evaluator organization that co-founder Mike Krieger announced he would commit US$750,000 to.

TINDER

SEAN RAD SWIPE-BASED TINDER, which is all at once a dating app, a messaging service, and a location-based game, has been downloaded 40 million times since it launched in 2012. Compared to OkCupid and Match.com, which gun for maximum attraction via algorithms, Tinder, with its simple gesture-based navigation and minimalist profiles, is the most elegant dating app on the scene. In 2014, with a stock estimate of over a billion, the company faced an upheaval. In the great Silicon Irony of 2014, Tinder’s Chief Marketing Officer Justin Mateen was accused of sexual harassment and promptly fired, even as the case was settled out of court. Fallout rippled through the company, ousting Mateen’s best friend and Tinder co-founder Sean Rad from his CEO position and toward a more managerial one far from product. His newly revealed replacement, Christopher Payne, was swiped from his position as head of eBay North America, and was in the running to be Paypal’s CEO. Rad’s last move as CEO was to launch Tinder’s first revenue generator—the premium service Tinder Plus, which will allow you to take back a left swipe and to browse Tinder Plus users in other countries—and guaranteeing its success will test Payne as a true Tinder match. - PETRA MAGNO

Bumble

The app created by Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe after a failed sexual harassment lawsuit, in an attempt to make sure girls could feel safe using a Tinder-type online dating platform.

50 million

people use Tinder everyday, give or take.

And out of the one billion profile swipes that occur each day, only 12 million matches are made.

6 billion

matches have been made ever since Tinder’s launch in 2012.

Tinder

has recently collaborated with Instagram, creating a feature that allows users to access the last 34 photos of their matches’ Instagram accounts.

NETFLIX

REED HASTINGS NETFLIX’S FIRST original series on the streaming service didn’t happen by some brilliant stroke of luck. Its success was born out of a close analysis of the viewer’s preferred content and House of Cards’ recipe included: customer’s strong liking for British spy thrillers, Kevin Spacey, and David Fincher, whose films are watched from start to finish in the streaming service. Elsewhere, Netflix is a minefield for binge watching. Categories such as “Shows with Strong Female Lead,” “Emotional Independent Drama for Hopeless Romantics,” and “Emotional Drug Movies” eerily place the viewing experience solely in the hands of the user, as opposed to the demographic-pleasing programming by broadcast networks. Netflix isn’t the first one to wield data analysis to its advantage. Amazon, Facebook, and even LinkedIn have turned users’ interests into a profitable experience tool; Netflix, though, has used it to upend industry conventions, challenging legacy corporations to cash in on the streaming business (see Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, and HBO Go). Reed Hastings’s behemoth is planning on expanding its reach, dipping its toes into the rich markets in Asia and the Middle East. Fifty-three million subscribers and billions in revenue later, Netflix continues to lord it over the entertainment business, with Hastings—a man who likened the entrepreneurial deep dive as an act of stupidity—becoming an unlikely savior of an ailing industry. - DON JAUCIAN

60 million

the number of subscribers Netflix has

The Square,

a documentary film on the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, was the first Netflix original production to be nominated for an Academy Award.

CEO Reed Hastings

graduated from Stanford with a master’s degree in computer science.

Having been a former member of the

California State Board of Education,

Hastings is an advocate for educational reform and philanthropy.

SPOTIFY

DANIEL EK IN AN AGE when piracy is the norm, the idea of inventing a service that lets users listen to their favorite music artists for free while ensuring that the musicians are being monetarily compensated seems laughable, until you realize that Daniel Ek, founder and CEO of Spotify, made it work, and to great effect. With its user base of over 50 million subscribers—and more than 12 million of them paying for the premium service—Spotify has set itself up to be the streaming service norm, feeding the fire of the torch that Napster first lit. But once the mobile version of Spotify was announced to be made free for all smartphones and tablets, a more peculiar shift took place. The iPod was suddenly and completely dethroned. You no longer needed your own library of mp3’s to carry around your music, what with Spotify granting you the privilege of accessibility. Even the catch of the smartphone version of the app, which forces you to shuffle through your playlists and Spotify’s, has the accidental side benefit of introducing you to new music, thus building your collection, which was Daniel Ek’s intention. Even with competitors like Tidal jumping into the streaming arena, Spotify remains, like a mid-stream ad, stubborn and ever-present. - JAM PASCUAL

u Torrent

The popular torrenting service, of which Daniel Ek was the former CEO.

$310 million

Daniel Ek’s net worth

Napster

The service that supposedly inspired Spotify’s creation. Its founder, Sean Parker, would eventually invest $15 million on Spotify and serve on its board.

50

The number of languages Spotify is available in. To date, the music streaming service has made itself available in 58 countries.

1,500

Number of employees

UBER

TRAVIS KALANICK WHEN UBER MOVED into its new headquarters in San Francisco’s Market Street last year, its main conference room was dubbed the War Room. It’s an aptly named space, given that the on-demand car-service company counts journalists, taxi industries, and transportation regulatory boards from all over the world among its most vehement adversaries. Behind the five-year-old, multibillion-dollar start-up—which is probably the most deserving of the “disruptive” title so often thrown around in the start-up industry—is co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick. He had two dashed business attempts and was over 30—past his prime by Silicon Valley standards—when he launched Uber in 2010. But it’s likely that his history as an ill-fated entrepreneur is what built the foundation of the obstinate and overly aggressive attitude he’s since been branded with. Following upsets that include tire-slashing by cab drivers, office raids by traffic investigators, and drawn-out battles with regulatory boards averse to innovation, Kalanick has stayed determined, sometimes to a fault. But in his field, success without opposition is virtually impossible. Under his leadership, Uber has grown from a niche US market to a global operation that spans, so far, 285 cities across 55 countries, with the intention of growing until Uber is “cheaper than owning a car.” - ARIANNA LIM

$258 million

The amount of money Google Ventures invested in Uber.

The Philippines

The first country to establish and enforce ride-sharing regulations for appbased transportation services, legalizing the operation and usage of Uber anywhere in the country.

Uber

has announced, in the context of its partnership with Google, their goal of developing selfdriving cars in the future.

AIRBNB

BRIAN CHESKY THE RAPID-FIRE WAY Brian Chesky talks about his multibillion-dollar company, Airbnb, makes you want to take a sip of whatever Kool-Aid he’s drinking.

Online, he tweets about how the company creates a close-knit community of low-income earners across the globe. On TV, he harps on how it keeps the mom-and-pop culture alive. No matter how lofty he makes it all sound, there’s actual truth to his hyperboles. Airbnb, much like its contemporary, Uber, is fueling what we now know as the sharing economy. “People describe it as the worst idea that ever worked,” he says in an interview with Time. His supposedly bad idea has since raised his net worth to $1.89 billion in just eight years. What started out as a three-airbed rental service in 2007 has become a growing online market of homeowners-turned-hoteliers racing to share their real estate—from medieval castles in the Irish countryside, to a romantic igloo in Andorra, to Kurt Cobain’s old apartment in LA. Some pundits are saying that Airbnb may be the death knell for the hotel industry, a claim Chesky laughs off. For now, he’s more focused on working out the legal kinks in his system and exploring new ways to expand what he sees as the ultimate end-to-end travel experience. - JANSEN MUSICO

$1.5 billion

The net worth of each of Airbnb’s founders: Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk, and Joe Gebbia.

Barack Obama

and John McCain were the inspirations behind “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCains,” special edition breakfast cereals created and sold to help fund the Airbnb site.

Upon the announcement of Airbnb’s expansion to

Cuba, the Obama

administration was compelled to restore diplomatic ties with the country, easing travel restrictions between Cuba and the US. In the wake of

Hurricane Sandy, Airbnb

reached out to New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to help provide free, temporary housing for those displaced.

IN FOCUS

P H OTO G R A P H E D BY PAT R I C K D I O K N O

From manipulatin Go gl ear es ext gu hi sc n s before theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re alight, Tony Ahn has spent years refining the art of saving face. Arianna Lim gets an exclusive tell-all from this digital PR pioneer, the unseen hand that shapes public perception of some of the biggest names in the Philippines

IN FOCUS

If you were to make a determined effort, you would still be able to uncover years-old blogs and online comments hosting scattered discussions about Tony Ahn.

Specifically, you would find shoddy assertions of his alleged involvement in sexual misdeeds, supposedly taking place under a different name.

Following a ruckus in 2009 when he cofounded an anti-racial discrimination campaign for foreign teachers working in South Korea, opposing parties countered with a smear campaign of their own in which “one founder was called an anti-Semite, they called one a communist, and then me they called child molester,” Ahn recalls now. He eventually relocated to China—where he met and promptly panicked the woman he was seeing when her family decided to Google his name. “Just because I’m gone doesn’t mean it’s gone,” he realized. “I spent the next three years getting all that stuff cleaned off the Internet.”

But what began as a nuisance and an even greater embarrassment turned out to be the seeds of what is today an impressive and far-reaching career. Ahn had worked in PR in the past, but it was only after he wrote a well-circulated press release for friend Carlos Celdran—after 104 J U N E 2015

the latter’s arrest for his Manila Cathedral protest—that he turned it into an independent entreprenurial venture. Two years later, Ahn founded Tony Ahn & Co., an online reputation management firm whose digital approach made it a pioneering and necessary venture in a PR industry that had yet to catch on.

Where the first phase of a fledgling business is usually an uphill battle to earn and grow a customer base, Tony Ahn & Co.’s first client was an immediate catch. In the heat of the Renato Corona impeachment trial, rumors of corruption bubbled when PSBank was threatened with contempt for refusing to disclose information about the then-Chief Justice’s dollar accounts.

It was at this point that Tony Ahn & Co. was called in, arranging for a ghostwritten blog and a system for social media monitoring and response in which an attorney joined online discussions to explain bank secrecy laws. In place of a potential media wildfire, public opinion was neatly won in nine days time.

Since then, Ahn has done work for a wide range of clients with a wide range of needs.

His work has spanned revising the digital campaigning rules and campaign finance tracking for Comelec, finding the right celebrity for a restaurant chain willing to pay a pretty penny for mentions on Twitter, and getting a “Gucci Gang” article deleted from Wikipedia, which he claims may have been a first.

Every public relations strategy must be tailor fit to the client in question, and the deeper a crisis is steeped in scandal, the more complex the strategies tend to be. Ironically, the client that could have singularly defined Ahn’s career is also the one that eluded him: Janet Lim-Napoles, alleged pork barrel scam mastermind and, by the time Ahn was commissioned for a PR proposal, the recipient of widespread public antagonism.

Apart from standard procedures of social media monitoring and online reputation management, much of the plan revolved around getting out the story that Napoles’s camp insisted the press kept getting twisted: for one, the coal mine that Philippine Daily Inquirer reported could not have been the source of the family fortune because it didn’t exist. But despite one failed venture, they were, they insisted, the owners of another lucrative and very much functional mine. The plan: hire an independent attorney to examine their documents and deeds

and fly bloggers and journalists to the mine for interviews, with the end goal of revealing the newspaper’s shoddy research. But Ahn says, “We didn’t get to that point. Two weeks later she got arrested, and that was kind of the end of that.”

There was also the task of preempting the stories which, with their irregular but unrelenting emergence, was fanning the flame of public ire much longer than Ahn thought necessary. His recommendation to the Napoleses was to make a full list of their assets and publish it as a full page ad in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “Every press outlet will write a story about it, and then after that, there won’t be any more stories,” he recalls explaining to them. “‘There’s really no new information in your case, but the problem is is that every day, a journalist finds a new car, or a new yacht, or a new bank account, or a new condo.’” But then attorney Lorna Kapunan killed the idea: “Lorna said, ‘That’s not a very good idea . . . because if we take out a full page ad in the PDI, it’s going to confirm to the whole country how rich they really are.’ And I said . . .

‘She bought her daughter a Porsche for her 18th birthday! The country already knows how rich they are!’”

Napoles’s arrest got in the way of any of Ahn’s major recommendations, but he got his share of flack for considering her case all the same. “I don’t know what Janet did and didn’t do. I don’t know. And it wasn’t very important because the stuff I was supposed to do for her didn’t hinge on whether she did it or not,” he maintains.

“She definitely had her part to play, and I wasn’t trying to hide that, but I was trying to add some perspective.

“Any time I have a client that comes to me and says, ‘Okay, here’s what’s really going on but I wanna spin it this way,’ I tell them ‘I can’t help you with that,’” he reiterates. “As a PR agency, the only thing that we have is our integrity. And the first time that’s breached, there’s no coming back from that.”

There will always be suspicion surrounding his line of work. But in the wired age—when the slightest public misstep can trigger vehement and viral protest—using the same medium to carve out a space in which the accused can tell their side of the story is a noble if thankless effort. “Morally dubious people have rights and they deserve a day in court too,” Ahn asserts.

“And the court of public opinion is not fair.”

CELL _T O

P H O T O G R A P H E D_ B Y_ M O R T E N A N D E R S E N

_C E L L In combining brute force an impressive organizational discipline, Brazilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most powerful prison gang has created a elaborate system to keep their hold on SĂŁo Paulo. Thei accomplice: mobile phones smuggled by way of carrie pigeons and toy helicopters Jonathan Franklin investigate an expanding criminal empire run by men behind bars

_O N J A N U A R Y 1 8 , 2 0 1 3 P R I S O N GUARDS IN THE BRAZILIAN CITY OF JOINVILLE ROUNDED U P A G RO U P O F I N M AT E S A N D BEGAN TORTURING THEM.

Over the course of four hours, the naked men were shot with rubber bullets and doused with pepper spray. In a video clip, the men are seen in the fetal position, waiting for the attack to end.

The prisoners’ counterattack was swift and deadly. Days after the video surfaced, prisoners organized attacks across the six million-person state of Santa Catarina. The homes of prison officials, police stations, and public buses were all attacked. “Prisoners decided to orchestrate the attacks to call the attention of the population and authorities to issues of management in the prison system,” said Col. Nazareno Marcineiro, the commander of Santa Catarina’s military police.

The Santa Catarina uprising was yet another chapter in an eight-year reign of terror organized and carried out by Brazilian prisoners. In Santa Catarina the attacks were organized by Primeiro Comando Catarinense, a copycat offshoot of Brazil’s most powerful prison gang the Primeiro Comando do Capital, which is widely known as “The PCC.” The attacks have left hundreds dead and provide a terrifying example of what happens when imprisoned criminals have widespread access to communications technology. Be it the cell phone or the Internet, whether they are looking up the home address of their least favorite guard or buying gold bullion via stolen credit card numbers, the PCC has shown that prisoners with bandwidth pose a host of new challenges.

The PCC is hardly alone in its exploitation of in-prison cell phone usage to organize crimes but few prison gangs in the world can match 108 J U N E 2015

PRISON BREAK

A prison guard holds up a bag of phones that have just been confiscated. In 2013, Brazilian authorities impounded over 30,000 units. Opposite, from top: Organized crime has coordinated seamlessly from behind prison walls to slum areas such as this Rio hillside favela; prisoners have become increasingly creative in smuggling mobile phones, hiding them in everything from a wooden leg to a loaf of bread.

2,000 reais [$350-$900] to smuggle in cellphones. During raids, guards often confiscate the very same phones, which are then resold back to the prisoners. Brazilian prison guards are also paid to smuggle in phone cards to recharge the illegal handsets already inside the prison.

In the most creative case, in 2009, a guard at Tower II of the Danilo Pinheiro prison noticed a pigeon balanced on a power line just outside the prison courtyard. The pigeon wobbled like it was drunk and had a bag tied to its body. When it fell to the ground and landed in a neighboring lot, the guards tracked down the errant pigeon and opened the bag—it contained pieces of a cellphone. The following day, a second pigeon was trapped, this time by prison guards who used bread crumbs to lure the bird close enough to snare it with a fish net. Inside the bag? A cellphone charger.

Six days later, a third pigeon was trapped. This one with two phones, a battery charger, and a slip of paper with the name of the inmate who was to receive the phone. “The use of carrier pigeon to smuggle cell phones into prisons is becoming almost commonplace,” a prison guard told the Associated Press. “Guards now keep a sharp eye on pigeons as well as on inmates.” their combination of access to phones, brute violence, and organizational The PCC was born as a result of organized crime—by Brazilian discipline. And as the PCC has shown repeatedly, wired prisoners change prison guards. The initial organization by the group was in response to the entire concept of incarceration. Instead of being isolated and punished, the massacre of 111 prisoners at Carandiru prison in 1992. That event the inmate with access to a cell can organize murders, threaten witnesses, instigated the prisoners to organize and fight for basic human rights by plan crimes and even browse porno pages to figure out which escort to presenting a unified front to prison authorities. order up for the next intimate visit.

Led by Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, AKA “Marcola,” the PCC Last year, Brazilian authorities confiscated an estimated 35,000 phones is based in Brazil’s economic capital, the sprawling 20-million city of from prisoners, yet Brazilian organized crime leaders continued to have São Paulo. With operations in Bolivia and Paraguay, the PCC controls widespread ability to make calls, receive calls, organize conference calls, wide swaths of the cocaine and marijuana trade as well as kidnapping, and even hold virtual trials where gang leaders from different prisons are prostitution, and extortion schemes. Though “Marcola” has been in prison patched in to a central line to debate the fate of gang members accused of since 1999, his access to cellphones has allowed him to not only control but betraying the group’s ironclad rules.

“They [prisoners] organize executions over the phone. You never forget it to expand his empire to an estimated 22 states across Brazil.

Asked by a newspaper reporter if he feared dying, Marcola outlined when you hear the crime bosses voting one after another—‘kill,’ ‘kill,’ a new balance of power. “It is you who are afraid of dying, not me. As a ‘kill’ . . . I have heard this type of conversation many times,” said Marcelo matter of fact, here in jail you cannot come in and kill me . . . but I can order Cristino, a Federal Prosecutor in São Paulo as he described a conference to kill you out there.” Referring to his loyalists, Marcola described inmates call among an estimated seven PCC leaders. Cristino has spent over a who “graduate in the jails like monsters” and form “a new culture of killing decade fighting against the PCC as a federal prosecutor. He has listened aided by modern technology, satellites, cellular phones, Internet.“ to hundreds of hours of conversations as the prisoners run their criminal Using clandestine cell phones and capitalizing on the appalling enterprise from behind the walls. “It is all very disciplined. They don’t shout. conditions of Brazilian prisons, the PCC now controls dozens of prisons They take turns.” in the Brazilian state of São Paulo and has expanded to other prisons Smuggling phones into Brazilian prisons had become a niche industry. throughout much of Brazil. The PCC also controls lucrative in-prison drug Lawyers and visitors are regularly caught smuggling in the phones in ruses sales, trafficking of other contraband, control of prison commissary services, ranging from phones stuffed in a hollow fake leg to a man who glued the and numerous extortion scams that begin with an inmate on a cell phone phone to his head then covered it with a hollowed out Afro.

In May 2009, police on the perimeter of Venceslau, a maximum-security threatening a civilian on the other side of the wall.

Thanks to the phone and their union-style rules and regulations, prison in São Paulo, made another unusual discovery. At a routine police criminals in São Paulo who are sent to prison and removed from society stop, a group of three adults and a teenager were found traveling with a are transported into a regimented, disciplined world organized not by the remote control helicopter, 14 cell phones and 1,000 reais ($450). Under state—but by the PCC. interrogation, the teenager confessed that he had been paid 10,000 reais Each member of the PCC must pledge allegiance to a 16-point oath, ($4,500) by prisoners to buy the toy copter, the 14 cell phones, and rent the which bars rape but leaves the door wide open for lucrative endeavors car. He was promised another 10,000 reais if he could pack the helicopter including bank robberies and kidnapping. Once sworn in, the members with the 14 phones and land it inside the prison courtyard. While police must pay $25 a month if they are inside prison and $250 if they are on the refuse to identify the intended recipients, the maximum security Venceslau other side of the razor wire. Benefits include a gun library where criminals prison is home to many of the PCC leaders. can borrow weapons, returning them after the crime.

Corrupt Brazilian prison guards are known to charge between 800 to J U N E 2015 109

INFERNAL AFFAIRS

From top: Police cars at the ready for the fight against organized crime; a police officer studies the organizational chart of the Primeiro Comando do Capital, an in-jail syndicate that operates in over 22 states in Brazil, as well as nearby Bolivia and Paraguay.

VISITORS ARE CAUGHT IN RUSES RANGING FROM PHONES STUFFED IN A FAKE LEG TO A MAN WHO GLUED THE PHONE TO HIS HEAD THEN COVERED IT WITH A HOLLOWED OUT AFRO. Phone cards are now considered currency inside São Paulo prisons.

With a cell phone, a prisoner can traffic drugs inside and outside the walls. For hundreds of Brazilian inmates, the phone helps them run a direct marketing appeal that is both simple and brutal. Going through the phone book, the inmates ring São Paulo residents and say, “I am from the PCC I know where your children go to school, if you do not pay, I will grab them.” The threat ends with a solution—place $100 on a specific cellphone account now and the child is saved. With an estimated positive response rate of five percent, these direct fear marketers “earn” thousands of minutes on their phones by terrifying city residents into subsidizing their cell phone accounts.

Though prisoners know that much of their phone talk is monitored, they have devised countermeasures. “We had one group of prisoners who took French lessons and then they would speak in French just a few words, very 110 J U N E 2015

quick and all in code,” said a São Paulo police investigator who asked not to be named. “You see the same thing in the text messages, it is all in code and even if we do break it, by that time the [drug] delivery already happened like three days before.”

Using guerilla strategy and cell phones, the PCC has evolved from a classic pyramid structure to the more difficult-to-penetrate structure of independent cells, much like a classic terrorist group. Thus a single member can’t compromise more than a fraction of the organization.

Ironically, as they spread mayhem on the streets, the PCC is recognized even by its critics for bringing order and lowered levels of violence inside the prisons that it essentially controls. “There is a kind of deal between the prison directors and the PCC,” said Julio Ferreira, a São Paulo based photojournalist. “The deal is the PCC won’t make a mess in the jail—don’t give me problems, and I will close my eyes and let you have everything you want in prison—cell phones, girls, drugs, marijuana, cocaine, drinks, and everything. Everyone is happy with that. The prison director is happy, there are no riots. The guards are happy, they have their money—everything comes in by bribes. The PCC is happy because they have their drugs, their phones.”

But ubiquitous access to cell phones has long stymied efforts by government officials to dismantle the PCC, so in October 2013 the São Paulo government announced that it was installing cell phone jammers in

dozens of prisons throughout the state. The idea was to isolate the PCC leaders and prevent them from maintaining fluid communications with their lieutenants down the hierarchy.

The focus of the jamming was on Mauricio Henrique Guimaraes Pereira Penitentiary, a maximum-security facility in the west of the state that houses Marcola, the PCC’s supreme leader. But prisoners instantly found holes in the coverage—areas of the prison known as “shadows” were found to still have cellphone signals. And it was a cellphone call by a PCC prisoner that alerted prison authorities to an escape plot that involved renting two helicopters, shielding them with bulletproof armor and then hovering over the prison yard to whisk away the PCC leaders. While authorities touted their ability to upend the Hollywood style helicopter rescue, more somber analysts wondered what it said about the ability to effectively cut off communications to PCC leaders.

Even if the cell phone jamming works, the prisoners are likely to remain one step ahead. PCC members have been monitored as they attempted to buy satellite phones for use in prison. These phones would bypass the normal cell phone circuits and would likely include encryption.

AGAINST THE WALL

Clockwise, from right: Using mobile phones, the PCC has mimicked classic terrorist groups by evolving from a classic pyramid structure to that of indepedent cells, making it harder to penetrate; an investigator compares voices in monitored in-prison phone calls; guns confiscated by the police.

Firearms have become a secondary threat next to mobile technology.

The PCC’s interest in telecommunications goes well beyond placing and receiving phone calls; they have also invested heavily in attempts to record cellphone conversations. In a series of PCC conversations intercepted in January 2008, Brazilian police listened as top PCC leaders negotiated with their lawyers to buy a surveillance system known as “Guardian,” which is capable of simultaneously monitoring more than a thousand cell phone conversations. The PCC discovered that the Brazilian Federal Police used Guardian to coordinate investigations that required massive phone surveillance. The machines are sold in Miami and, after setting up a front company, the PCC prepared to send a corrupt lawyer to Miami to purchase the $320,000 machine.

Brazilian police foiled the plot by arresting the lawyer before the Miami trip, but the PCC’s goal remains clear: to establish what the Brazil press dubbed “a parallel intelligence agency” in which they would record the conversations of top police commanders and politicians. With their attempt to buy Guardian, Brazilian prisoners sought to come full circle, to create a wholesale reversal of justice in which prisoners investigate politicians, find their crimes, and punish them.

Ju n e 2 0 1 5

FAMOUS ROGUE

TIM BERNERS-LEE, Inventor of the Internet transgressions and obscenities that have taken root online are likely here to stay, but perhaps Berners-Lee’s invention will eventually emerge a closer iteration of his original design. Only turning 60 this month, he remains an authoritative force in the wired industry, serving at the forefront of numerous organizations that are working towards making open web access not a privilege, but a right. “The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet,” he once said. “The future is still so much bigger than the past.”

"When I invented the web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission."

ED QUIN / CORBIS

WHEN SIR TIM Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, he did so with a goal both simple and inconceivable: to allow people to transfer information of any kind to anyone anywhere in the world. The Internet was meant to be the great democratizer, a system that would carve out unprecedented spaces for empowerment. Lately, however, it’s acted more like a virtual magnifying glass for humankind’s darker sides: freewheeling criticism, the anxieties of social media, revenge porn. The