Report to Motherhood - TV5 host Cheri Mercado

by Dheza Marie Aguilar
September 24, 2008

Just how life changing is motherhood? Like any first time mom, Cheri Mercado knows.

The former news anchor of ABS-CBN was used to working habits from sun up to sundown. She started her day by waking up at 3 in the morning to host Magandang Umaga Bayan which airs at 5:30. The she rushed to the field to gather news, from 9am to 4pm. At one point she also anchored the late night newscast the Global News and a lifestyle show called Coffee Talk in the ANC Channel. Young and full of vigor, Cheri was at the height of her career in the Kapamily network.

But things started changing for the woman who was so used to the rat race when she learned that there is a “life growing inside her”. She started changing her priorities.
“The life growing inside of me was all that mattered then. All of a sudden the rat race didn’t make much sense and I couldn’t take care of my health with the kind of demands and schedule I had,” recalled the (age ) mother.

Dream Figure in Six Hours

by Dheza Marie Aguilar

August 5, 2008

Everybody craves and dreams for a supermodel figure, voluptuous behind, firm and proud front, a six-pack abs for men and a flat stomach for us girls. This degree of vanity makes gyms and fitness centres flourish, enhancement products to sell and derma and surgery clinics to maintain a good business despite the economic decline. One colleague noted that even if people are dealing with hard financial times, businesses that cater to being beautiful will remain strong. Blame it to magazines, Hollywood, television shows, the huge billboards around the Metro, to Filipinos’ innate narcissism, even to articles like this one; we will always make a way to have the dream body and the look that qualifies for the standard of beauty and sexiness.

But reality bites and no matter how hard we try or how long we starve ourselves, it is very difficult to achieve a perfectly sculpted body. It demands time, patience and a lot of discipline and of course money. But while most people cannot pledge 100% to the first three requirements, but have big bucks to burn, a new clinical surgery promises to be the answer to your six-pack abs desires.

Dutch water knowledge can help prevent Philippine flooding

By Dheza Marie Aguilar, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau

Posted at 07/03/2010 12:24 AM | Updated as of 07/03/2010 12:24 AM

NETHERLANDS - While the Philippines has yet to fully recover from the devastation brought by Tropical Storm Ondoy and the successive typhoons in October last year, the country’s weather agency has recently announced the possibility of the occurrence of the La Niña phenomenon.

The rainy spells that come with it can trigger yet another “Ondoy” tragedy which the country cannot afford to have in just a year.

Rick Heikoop, water and sanitation specialists and professor of water management at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, understands this problem very well. For most part, Heikoop thinks that the flooding problem in the country, especially in the urban areas, has a major connection to urban planning.