Best of the Week: Heroes, iPhone wars and the Person of the Year!

Release Party Battle Of The Week

MANILA, Philippines - Since 2008, Globe Telecom has been enjoying sole distribution of the iPhone, but their reign has ended. Apple has now given Smart Communications the green light on the iPhone 4s release as well. To set themselves apart, both companies went head-to-head with the baddest release parties. Globe’s iPhone 4s launch last Dec. 15 had house DJ, Kaskade, perform at the Ayala Museum while Smart took them on by bringing performers Lupe Fiasco and Jermaine Dupri last Dec. 16 at Rockwell. It’s hard to tell who fares better in the telecommunications game, but one thing’s for sure: with the release of the iPhone 4s and the jaw-dropping line-up of performers, everybody wins.   — Roxy Valencerina

Hero Of The Week: Robin Lim

Filipino-American midwife Robin Lim was announced as 2011’s CNN Hero of the Year, being the second Pinoy to win after 2009’s Efren Peñaflorida and hiskariton klasrum. Lim, who was proclaimed last Sunday in Los Angeles, is known in Indonesia for her free prenatal and birthing services to low-income families. Mother Robin, or Ibu Robin as she is called by locals, set up the Yayasan Bumi Sehat (Healthy Mother Earth Foundation) in 2003 to fight the rising costs of delivery that result in high maternal and infant mortality rates. Mother Robin received an additional $250,000 grant for her foundation on top of the $50,000 each of the 10 finalists received. Filipinos are proud, yet eye Indonesia as a competitor for the most populated country in Asia.

Rude Awakening Of The Week: Tvmaria.Com

Polite Manila got the shock of their lives when a live streaming link to the installation of new Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle led them to a transvestite porn site with a man wearing lingerie greeting them with “Are you over 21 and feeling horny? Then enter me, darling!!” The website link was posted on the Manila Archdiocese’s website and features the correct site but with a different domain. The group has yet to release a statement but it is safe to say that it was a rude awakening, in more ways than one.

Time’s Person Of The Year: The Protester

Time magazine’s annual Person of the Year award is out and it honors The Protester for strengthening the idea that “individual action can bring collective, colossal change.” The idea sparked when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public square because of the dictatorship, which was followed by the iconic toppling of dictators in the Middle East, and then the Occupy Wall Street movement. Other candidates were considered, such as Apple’s Steve Jobs, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Kate Middleton (we don’t know either), and Admiral William McRaven, the overall commander of the secret US mission to kill Osama Bin Laden. Filipinos have yet to meet The Protester, argue that Kris Aquino should be Person of the Year.