Page 3 Asian Journal - (619) 474-0588 Visit our website at http://www.asianjournalusa.comSeptember 12 - 18, 2008
By Jose Wendell Capili Philstar
I drank my rst cup of coffee atage sixteen. I got curious aboutit because my parents and rela
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tives were drinking coffee all thetime. One time, after watching a Nescafé frappe commercial ontelevision during school break, Iran to the kitchen and preparedcoffee for myself.I’ve been drinkingcoffee ever since.What stood outfrom my adolescentmemory is that Idrank Nescafé from aglass that also servedas its packaging. Iremember convinc
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ing my mother to buymore of those Nes
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café drinking glasses.My family collecteddozens of jars, thediamond-cut onesmost especially, inno time at all. I alsonoticed that familiesof my playmates in Sampaloc,Manila did the same too. Yearslater, my Nescafé jar-collecting playmates grew up to becomeluminaries in various disciplines:Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Tor
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res Jr. of the Armed Forces of thePhilippines, Manhattan-basednovelist Bino Realuyo, US-basedentrepreneur Joel Christopher Remandaban, sports broadcaster Mon Liboro, De la Salle-Collegeof St. Benilde’s industrial designdepartment chair Rino Datuin.
Remembering theiconic drinkingglasses of Nescafé
During the 1960s, the Philip
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pines did not have Starbucks,Seattle’s Best, Coffee Bean andTea Leaf, and Figaro. But therewas Nescafé. And Filipinos sati
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ated their coffee cravings with Nescafé, then all available in jars, the most popular being the50g and the 75g drinking glasses.In those days, powdered prod
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ucts were either in cans or glass.Cans were economical but jarshad a special re-use value. Thedecision to pack Nescafé in thereusable drinking glass provedto be providential. The drinkingglass, solid and durable, instantly became a household hit. Whileothers bought them to start acollection (it’s always nice to seea kitchen with uniformed glass
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ware), those far wiser boughtthem because they’re gettingmore value for their money.Imagine, you not only get a merecoffee container. You also geta glass which you can use for other things!The rising popularity of thedrinking glass coincided with aseries of momentous events inPhilippine popular culture andhistory: the crowning of Mar
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garita Moran as Miss Universe(1973), the victory of Muham
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mad Ali over Joe Frazier inThrilla in Manila (1974), thestaging of the Miss Universe pageant in Folk Arts Theater,Manila (1974), the founding of the Philippine Basketball As
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sociation (1975), and the rise of Paeng Nepomuceno as a sportshero by winning the BowlingWorld Cup Champion in Tehran,Iran (1976).These triumphs we celebratedwith each diamond-texturedglass jar of Nescafé, oblivious of the behind-the-scenes quandarythe company’s productionteam was goingthrough just todeliver thoseglass jars entireneighborhoodshad been col
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lecting.You see, ap
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plying the labelson the surfaceof the diamond-textured Nesca
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fé glass jars wasquite a chal
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lenge. In theearly years, the production teamhad to manually feed tube labelsinto the glass jars. You couldn’t begin to imagine how tedious itwas. But with the introductionof the automated labeler, the process became much easier andsaved the company both timeand money.Looking back, the glass jarssomehow helped iconize Nes
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café. For decades, we bought anddrank our Nescafé in these com
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pact reusable glass jars. Evenup to this day, walk into anycarinderia in Manila or in rusticCagayan de Oro and you willlikely nd a NESCAFÉ glass jar sitting comfortably with someceramic plates and mismatchedsilverware.Former Nestle Philippines’Communications Director NoyDy-Liacco, who was the GroupProduct Manager for Coffee andBeverages at that time, sharedthat the evolution of the glass jars required the expertise of many people. The marketing,sales, packaging and productionteams worked with the glasscontainer supplier in developingnew designs, a renovation that became a competitive advantage.One experiment was a diamondglass jar with a handle on oneside, resembling a coffee mug.It was truly an innovative design but a nightmare at the lling line.In time, this design had to bediscontinued.By the time I went to collegeduring the late 1980s, technolog
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ical advancements in productionallowed Nestle to pack NES
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CAFÈ in other formats such asthe now very popular soft packs,a breakthrough that has madethe product more affordable andaccessible.The Nescafe jars of old have become as symbolic of my grow
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ing up years as the animatedrobots on television. And theones my mother collected remainkings and queens of our dishrack. Finals were reviewed, andterm papers and thesis writtenwith hot Nescafé in them. Howwonderful to remember the goodold times, and as we know, Nes
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café never stops reinventing andimproving on how our favoritecoffee is packaged. I so look forward to the new generation of glass jars.These days, whenever I visitmy parents, I still insist on hav
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ing my Nescafe prepared in anyof these glass jars. Yes, I guess Ilove those drinking glasses morethan I dare to admit.
Roses & Thorns By Alejandro R. Roces Philstar, September 4, 2008
The greatest Filipino journalistever known was Marcelo H. delPilar. His 158th birth anniversarywas commemorated last August30. Sadly, few people, much lessthe youth of today, even remember him now, except of course, for thestreets named after him, whichhardly recall his contribu
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tion to Philippine history.Del Pilar, whose penname is Plaridel, an ana
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gram of his surname, isone of the citizens thatmake the provinceof Bulacan proud.Plaridel estab
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lished the rstPhilippine bilingualnewspaper, Diari
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ong Tagalog in 1882to publish obser
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vations and criti
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cisms on how theSpanish government in the Philip
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pines was run. He was the fearless propagandist who took over LaSolidaridad, a quarterly political publication initially edited by Gra
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ciano Lopez Jaena, that elicited anationalistic spirit among Filipinoilustrados against Spanish impe
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rialism. His writings inspired thePhilippine revolution. Del Pilar took advantage of his mastery of the Filipino language to raise theawareness of the masses on theabuses of the powerful Spanishfriars that led to oppression, racialdiscrimination and corruption. Us
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ing simple and forceful Tagalog,he parodied Spanish creeds and prayers to expose the abuses of thefriars then, i.e., The Lord’s Prayer ‑ Our Father (“Amain Namin”),the Hail Mary (“Aba GinoongBarya”), the Apostle’s Creed,the Ten Commandments and thecatechism (spoofed in “Dasalan atTocsohan”). With the help of Pe
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Plaridel - a shiningexample for our journalists
dro Serrano Laktaw, he had these published like the Catholic nove
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nas, making his propaganda veryeffective. Likewise, he also wrote“La Soberania Moncal en Filipi
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nas” (Monastic Sovereignty in thePhilippines) and “La Frailocraciaen Filipinas” (The Priest-ocracy inthe Philippines).Today, Samahang Plaridel, anassociation of veteran journalists,editors, publishers and com
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municators, honors Marcelo H.del Pilar as their patron saint, ashis life and works portrayed thevalue of freedom of thoughtand opinion as paramountover any material or personal gain. TheUniversity of thePhilippines (UP)also awards theannual UP GawadPlaridel to outstandingmedia practitioners whohave excelled in print, lm,radio, television and newmedia and who have per
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formed with the highest levelof professional integrity in theinterest of public service. Like delPilar, the recipients of this awardmust believe in the vision of aPhilippine society that is egalitar
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ian, participative, and progressive,and in media that are sociallyresponsible, critical and vigilant,liberative and transformative, andfree and independent.A British journalist writes of Journalism, “Its primary ofce isthe gathering of news. At the perilof its soul, it must see that the sup
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ply is not tainted. Neither in whatit gives nor in what it does notgive, nor in the mode of presenta
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tion, must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment isfree but facts are sacred.”Likewise, may Del Pilar’s ideol
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ogy of truth, fairness and impar
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tiality in writing and reportinginspire our journalists of today.
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