Podcasts about Filipinos

What do the love story of Habagat & Amihan have to do with ants and elephants? Carmina and Patch discuss the mythology of the Philippines' monsoons, how early Filipinos dealt with this phenomenon, and current day views about climate change. They talk about how Tropical Cyclone Haiyan (also known as Yolanda) gained global attention through Yeb Saño's emotional speech at the 19th conference of parties (COP) to the UN in 2013 and his climate justice efforts. They also introduce us to Red Constantino and his impactful essay “How the Ants Move the Elephants in Paris,” which chronicled the developing nations' collective efforts in 2015 to move developed nations towards a more equitable Paris Agreement. Finally, they attempt to inspire hope, and like the ants in Red's essay, call all of us to action.   Learn more: Increased Risk of Diseases Due To Typhoons, Climate Change In Western Pacific, Agri-Losses, NYT: Typhoon in Philippines Casts Long Shadow Over U.N. Talks on Climate Treaty, Yeb Saño's fast for the climate offers sanity amid the madness of global inaction, Filipino climate envoy comments on typhoon, breaks down during opening of climate meeting, Yeb Saño at COP29, Yeb Saño's Speech at #WeStandWithYou Petition Delivery, Climate advocates demand reparations from World Bank's IFC, RCBC over coal plant financing | ANC , Filipino youth at COP29 demand climate justice, finance , "Not Too Late": Rebecca Solnit & Filipino Activist Red Constantino on Avoiding Climate Despair, Not Too Late, Climate change: Philippines's coastal communities battle rising sea levels,  Disappointment resounds among groups over $300-billion COP29 deal, and The Surprising Role of Philippine Seas in Fighting Climate Change.Visit https://filtrip.buzzsprout.com. Drop a note at thefiltrip@gmail.com. Thanks to FilTrip's sponsor SOLEPACK. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.See https://www.buzzsprout.com/privacy for Privacy Policy.

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Carolyn and I talk about making decisions and intentionality vs. circumstance, need, and necessity. We then go on to talk more about Carolyn's lifelong love of sports. She shares the story of her maternal grandmother coming from The Philippines to live with them and how they'd watch games together. It was the days when, in much of the country, if you wanted to watch Major League Baseball, it was all Atlanta Braves, all the time (thanks to TBS, of course). Carolyn became a Braves fan, especially a fan of Dale Murphy. She watched football, too. She didn't watch the Giants on TV much, because every game wasn't televised in those days. But she could easily hop on Muni to see a game at Candlestick Park. Her dad often picked them up, showing up at the ballpark around the seventh inning, getting in free, and watching the end of the game with Carolyn and her friends and/or sisters. We go on a short sidebar about bundling up in San Francisco—at Candlestick and if you just wanted to go to the beach. In addition to Candlestick, she went to Warriors games a bit and also various sporting events at Cow Palace. Her dad learned how to bowl and would take his kids with him. We fast-forward a bit to hear about Carolyn's years in high school, when she went to the all-girl school Mercy High (which is now closed). Later, she took the same bus, the 29, to SF State that she had taken to Mercy. State was the only college she applied to. We talk a little about her decision not to leave San Francisco for school. In high school, she had decided that she wanted to be a sports writer. In fact, she aimed to become the first woman anchor at ESPN. We rewind a bit to talk about some of the journalism Carolyn did in high school. She had her own column in the school paper called “Off the Bench.” She shares a fun story of calling the Braves' front office to arrange for an interview with her favorite player—Murphy—the next time Atlanta rolled into town. In her third semester at SF State, Carolyn got pregnant. Around this time, she also took her first Asian-American Studies class, something that kicked in for her and stays with her to this day. She dove in head-first. I ask Carolyn whether and how much of that history her parents were aware of. She says that, for them, much of it was just things going on in their lives in the city they came to—things like the strike at SF State or the demonstrations at the I-Hotel in Manilatown. Learning more and more about the history of her people in the US lead Carolyn to confront her dad. “Why did you bring us here?” she'd ask. She ended up raising her first child, a mixed-race kid, as a single parent around this time in her life. She had figured that her son's dad would bring the kid the Blackness in his life, and she'd bring the Filipino-ness. Her own ideas of how best to raise the kid had to evolve, and they did, she says. She eventually returned to State and graduated. She lived in South City for a hot minute, held three jobs, and raised her son. She never felt that she couldn't leave The Bay. It was more, “Why would I?” Then, because if you know Carolyn Sideco, well, you know … then we talk about New Orleans. New Orleans is why and how Carolyn came into my life. My wife is borderline obsessed with The Crescent City. I'd been there some earlier in my life, growing up not too far away and having some Louisiana relatives. Erin and I spent three weeks in fall 2022 in a sublet in Bywater, Ninth Ward. That NOLA fever caught on for me then, and I'm hooked. Back home sometime after that, Carolyn came across Erin's radar. “There's a woman in San Francisco who seems to love New Orleans as much as I do and she has a house there!” Erin would tell me. In 2024, at a vegan Filipina pop-up at Victory Hall, we finally met this enigmatic woman. We ended up spending Mardi Gras this year at Carolyn's house in New Orleans—Kapwa Blue. “New Orleans has been calling me for about 20 years,” Carolyn says. One of her younger sisters lived there awhile. Her oldest son served in AmeriCorps there for three years and kept living in New Orleans four more. Carolyn and other members of her family visited often. This was around the time that Hurricane Katrina hit and devastated Southern Louisiana. A little more than a decade ago, Carolyn learned of the historical markers in the area that told the stories of Filipinos being the first Asians to settle in that part of the world. (Longtime listeners of Storied: SF might recall that Brenda Buenviaje hails from just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.) As Carolyn learned more and more of the Filipino history in the region, that calling started to make more and more sense. Three years ago or so, her oldest son got married in New Orleans. That visit told Carolyn that she, too, could live there. Her husband devised a plan, and with some of Carolyn's cousins, they bought a house in the Musician's Village part of town, near the Ninth Ward—the aforementioned Kapwa Blue. They intended to bring that same sense of community her parents found and participated in back in San Francisco all those decades ago to their new neighborhood New Orleans. In addition to the house, Carolyn helped found tours of Filipino history in New Orleans and the surrounding area. Find them Bayou Barkada Instagram at @bayoubarkada Back in The City these days, Carolyn has her own sports consultancy called Coaching Kapwa (IG). “I call myself ‘Your sports relationship coach,'” she says. This means that she provides comfort and advice to anyone interacting with any of the various sports ecosystems. She aims to apply the idea of kapwa to an otherwise competition-driven sports landscape. We end the podcast (and the season) with Carolyn's interpretation of the theme of Storied: San Francisco, Season 7: Keep it local. She shares what that idea means for her here as well as how it pertains to her time in New Orleans. We'll be taking August off as far as new episodes go. I'll be busy putting together the first episodes of Season 8 and getting ready for the season launch party/art opening. “Every Kinda People” kicks off at Mini Bar on Sept. 4. That's also the theme of the next 20 or so episodes of this show. As always, thank you deeply and sincerely for listening/reading/sharing/liking/commenting/DMing/emailing/subscribing/rating/showing up and really any type of interaction you do with this passion project of mine. If you're not already, please sign up for our monthly newsletter over on the About page. See you in September!

NEWS: Filipinos support President — survey | July 28, 2025Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net Follow us: Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital Check out our Podcasts: Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcherTune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein #TheManilaTimes#KeepUpWithTheTimes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For millions of Filipinos, it's a core memory of childhood and school days: a dense, fortified bread distributed or sold in schools. But was the famous Nutribun a symbol of genuine care or a masterful tool of political propaganda? In this episode, we unwrap the complex history of this iconic bread, tracing its journey from a US-funded aid program to a potent symbol of the Marcos regime's "New Society." Join us as we explore how a simple food item became intertwined with history, power, and nostalgia, and why its recent revival forces us to confront a complicated national legacy.

A group of Filipino young professionals wants to inspire and support the next generation. Paris Mina, Adam Punsalang, Mark Gonzales, and Shen Gonzales started the group to help the youth grow in their careers and stay connected to the Filipino culture and community. - Isang grupo ng mga kabataan ang nais magbigay-inspirasyon at suporta sa susunod na henerasyon. Itinatag ni Paris Mina, Adam Punsalang, Mark Gonzales, at Shen Gonzales ang grupo upang tulungan ang mga kabataan na umunlad sa kanilang mga karera at manatiling konektado sa kultura at komunidad.

Members of the Young Adults Choir from the Filipino Chaplaincy Diocese of Parramatta are coming together for more than just music—they're singing for a cause. - Magsasama-sama ang mga miyembro ng Young Adults Choir mula sa Filipino Chaplaincy Diocese of Parramatta nang higit pa sa musika—sila'y aawit para sa isang mabuting hangarin.

Another typhoon has entered the Philippine area of responsibility, Typhoon Emong, with winds up to 120 -165 kilometres per hour, located North of Luzon. - Isang malakas na bagyo ang nasa loob ng Philippine Area of Responsibility, ang Bagyong Emong. Taglay nito ang pinakamalakas na hangin na mula 120 hanggang 165 kilometro bawat oras at nasa kanlurang bahagi ng Luzon.

HI NAY IS RELEASING A NOVELLA! https://www.instagram.com/p/DMQda3Jxo7S/?img_index=1Hi Nay B Sides 1.3 - Filipino Folklore, Monsters, and Urban Legends In Hi NayCONTENT WARNINGS: Discussions of abortion, infanticide, miscarriage, sleep death, heart disease, murder, and other folklore and urban legend related horror and violenceMotzie (Mari Datuin, various) and Edward McKee (Danny Boyd) chat about the Filipino folklore monsters and urban legends that build the strange and unsettling world of Hi NayWe talk about Motzie's upcoming Hi Nay novella compiling the "Remind Me To Tell You Later" short stories and the Filipino folklore behind Mari's experience with the supernatural, from monsters to urban legends in the Philippines that many Filipinos grow up with.SPOILERS for past Remind Me To Tell You Later episodes!The full episode will be available to $10 Patrons and above as part of their monthly rewards!https://www.patreon.com/hinaypod-HELP PALESTINIANS FIGHT THE GENOCIDAL ARMY'S COMMUNICATION BLACKOUTSE-SIMS FOR GAZA: https://www.gazaesims.com/ where you can help Palestinians connect to loved ones, help doctors stay connected to each other, and help journalists broadcast the truth. You can follow @mirna_elhelbawi and Connecting Humanity on socials for more info and updates, as well as answers to common questions.CRIPS FOR E-SIMS FOR GAZA by disabilityvisibilityproject: https://chuffed.org/project/crips-for-esims-for-gaza simplifies the process by buying esims on your behalf. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of The Adam Carolla Show, comedian Jessimae Peluso stops by the studio! Adam starts off with a bleak observation about Malibu's slow recovery, noting that the local Equinox has been shuttered for six months while the Taco Bell across the street never closed. Jessimae and Adam take a look at Erewhon's absurd prices—including Hailey Bieber's $20 smoothie and question the legitimacy of trendy health fads like sea moss. They also weigh in on the bizarre cultural crossover of celebrities like Travis Scott having signature smoothies and McDonald's meals, and wrap up the segment with a cringe-worthy clip of E. Jean Carroll's awkward interview with Anderson Cooper.In the news, Jason “Mayhem” Miller joins to cover some wild headlines. A former MLB pitcher has been convicted of murdering his father-in-law in a chilling home invasion that involved hours of shocking security footage. Then, things take a lighter, but weirder turn with a viral TikTok story about single women in Manhattan allegedly stealing lunches to get dates, hoping a swiped salad will turn into romance via LinkedIn. Finally, they review a new 2028 Democratic primary poll showing Kamala Harris as an early frontrunner, despite her recent landslide loss to Donald Trump.Legendary boxer Manny Pacquiao calls in to talk about his upcoming WBC welterweight title fight against Mario Barrios. He opens up about how his training and recovery have changed with age, and reflects on his long relationship with legendary trainer Freddie Roach. Manny also shares thoughts on stepping away from politics to refocus on boxing, and discusses how his humble beginnings in poverty shaped his drive and determination. Adam wraps the episode with a funny personal story about why he learned never to mess with Filipinos.Get it on.FOR MORE WITH MANNY PACQUIAO:FIGHT: Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao (62-8-2 w 39 KOs) vs. WBC Welterweight WorldChampion Mario “El Azteca” Barrios (29-2-1) PBC Pay-Per-View event on Prime Video begins at 8 pm ET/5 pm PTTickets available at AXS.comINSTAGRAM & TWITTER: @ MannyPacquiaoFOR MORE WITH JESSIMAE PELUSO:PODCAST: Dying Laughing with JessimaeWEBSITE: www.jessimae.comINSTAGRAM & TWITTER: @JessimaePelusoFOR MORE WITH JASON “MAYHEM” MILLER: INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: @mayhemmillerWEBSITE: www.mayhemnow.com Thank you for supporting our sponsors:BetOnline120Life.com - use code ADAMHomes.comoreillyauto.com/ADAMPluto.tvLife insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS, and save more than fifty percent at selectquote.com/carollasimplisafe.com/ADAMThriveMarket.com/ACSLIVE SHOWS: July 16 - Rosemont, ILJuly 17 - Plymouth, WIJuly 19 - Plymouth, WIJuly 20 - Milwaukee, WISee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A throw-back to our May Mariathon 2025 hearing from the delightful Sisters of Mary and the wonderful work that they do. What is a Mariathon? Every May, Radio Maria stations all over the world fundraise for each other, gathering financial support for another Radio Maria somewhere in the world. We call this the Mariathon. This year (2025) Radio Maria England gives thanks for the riches of the Catholic faith in the Philippines which spills out into our parishes here in the UK with the presence of strong Filipino communities that serve so generously. Supporting Radio Maria in the Philippines is a way for us to give back and support the faith in the Philippines, a vast country with a thriving faith but where many do not have regular access to the sacraments and a Catholic radio can do a lot of wonderful work. Visit our website and make a contribution to keep Radio Maria in the Philippines on air. The campaign ends on Friday the 6th of June. Visit ⁠www.RadioMariaEngland.uk⁠ to find out more. A Blossoming Mission in LuzonRadio Maria Philippines was the first of its kind in Asia. It began in 2002, not far from Manila. Over the years, it has expanded steadily across the northern region of Luzon. Currently, on four FM frequencies covering multiple dioceses.Additionally, its digital channels broadcast from the main headquarters in Tarlac. Filipino listeners have always been loyal. They support the station despite poverty and economic hardship. Their faithfulness speaks volumes about Radio Maria's impact.Truly, the station has become both a spiritual and social voice in their daily lives. It nourishes souls and strengthens communities. Now, more bishops want Radio Maria in their cities. They long to hear it in Tagalog and other local dialects.The Philippines is made of over 7,000 islands. Many still wait to receive the voice of Radio Maria.Naturally, this demand brings financial challenges. New towers, and equipment are costly. Transport and setup are major undertakings. The main studio in Tarlac needs attention. Its production equipment is outdated. The building itself requires urgent renovation. For 23 years, Radio Maria Philippines has remained self-sufficient. However, today it cannot face these new challenges alone.Firstly, funds are needed to restore the headquarters and upgrade its technology. This is the top priority. Then, the mission will focus on expansion. Bishops are offering premises and sometimes even frequencies to help. However, to succeed, Radio Maria needs international support. It needs friends who believe in this mission.The Philippines is the world's third-largest Catholic country. Expanding Radio Maria here is a chance to plant lasting seeds. With your help, more Filipinos can hear the Good News. Your support can turn dreams into stations of hope.Let your giving blossom this May. Support Flores de Maria. Let Radio Maria grow, bloom, and bear fruit in the Philippines.Blossoms That Need Watering Your Giving Can Bear Fruit

In a very special episode, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert "Gibo" Teodoro sat down with co-host Ray Powell for an exclusive in-person interview at his Manila office, delivering insights into the Philippines' defense strategy to counter China's aggression in the West Philippine Sea.Secretary Teodoro emphasized that defending the Philippines matters globally because maritime violations anywhere threaten the international order. "If we are to preserve an international order, imperfect as it is, then we should care if anyone's country, no matter how small, is violated," Teodoro stated. He noted that China's approach appears focused on weakening alliances between the United States and its partners.The defense chief highlighted that multiple nations support the Philippines' stand, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and European G7 countries, all facing similar challenges from Chinese gray zone aggression.Secretary Teodoro outlined the Philippines' shift from its traditional post-invasion land defense to a proactive deterrent strategy called the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept. This multi-domain approach recognizes that modern conflicts begin with information warfare, cyber attacks, and hybrid operations before physical invasion.The strategy aims to secure the Philippines' 80% water, 20% land territory under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, protecting fishing grounds from Chinese coast guard, maritime militia and fishing vessels that have violated Philippine maritime rights and severely degraded its traditional fishing areas.The defense secretary discussed modernization efforts under the Re-Horizon 3 program, moving beyond the country's outdated 15-year planning cycles. Key investments he is pursuing include:- Strategic infrastructure and bases to fortify outer territorial boundaries- Secure connectivity and domain awareness across 2 million square kilometers of maritime area- Medium-range missile capabilities and multi-role fighters- Hybrid warfare tools, including drones and unmanned systems- Cognitive warfare capabilities to combat PRC disinformation- Force structure expansion beyond the current 162,000 personnel for a country of over 120 million.Teodoro addressed China's information warfare efforts, including attempts to censor “Food Delivery”, a West Philippine Sea documentary that recently won awards in New Zealand. He also discussed confrontational tabloid tactics by China Daily reporters at Singapore's Shangri-La Dialogue. The interview revealed the significant evolution of Philippine-Japan defense cooperation, with both nations facing similar Chinese territorial challenges. Japan's proposed "one-theater concept" creates an operational convergence between the US Indo-Pacific Command, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia, as does the country's recently approved Reciprocal Access Agreement with Japan.Teodoro addressed the impact on Filipino fishermen excluded from traditional fishing grounds at Scarborough Shoal. China has no right to exclude anyone from these waters, the secretary emphasized, according to international law and the landmark 2016 Arbitral Tribunal ruling.The defense chief noted how China's West Philippine Sea actions have become the primary catalyst for international convergence in opposition to Beijing, with countries recognizing that "if China can do it here, then other countries can do it in their own areas".Teodoro observed that 90% of Filipinos distrust China due to current leadership's actions, suggesting Chinese leadership will face accountability for damaging its international standing and uniting its adversaries in opposition.Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia

For many Filipinos in regional towns of Queensland, the simple process of obtaining a document or service from the government, whether from Australia or the Philippines, means long travels, transportation costs, and taking time off work. - Para sa maraming Pilipino sa regional towns ng Queensland, ang simpleng proseso ng pagkuha ng isang dokumento o serbisyo mula sa gobyerno mula Australia man o Pilipinas ay nangangahulugan ng mahabang biyahe, gastos sa pamasahe at pagliban sa trabaho.

NEWS: Filipinos urged to fight disinformation on WPS | July 14, 2025Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net Follow us: Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital Check out our Podcasts: Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcherTune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein #TheManilaTimes#KeepUpWithTheTimes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the anxious moments before a life-changing entrance exam to the simple joy of learning to write your name, one object has been a constant companion for generations of Filipinos: the iconic yellow Mongol pencil. In this episode, we sharpen our focus on this seemingly simple tool to tell a surprisingly complex story of international branding, local manufacturing, and deep cultural embedding. How did "Pahiram ng mongol?" become the standard way to ask for a pencil? Why was its specific lead grade crucial for every Scantron sheet, and how did it evolve from an imported icon, a proudly Philippine-made product, and back to imported? Join us as we explore the history, nostalgia, and talismanic power of the pencil that has truly written itself into the Filipino story.

Stuart Pollington was born in the United Kingdom and grew up there. After college he began working and along the way he decided he wanted to travel a bit. He worked in Las Vegas for six months and then had the opportunity to work for a year in Australia. He then ended up doing some work in Asia and fell in love with Thailand. For the past 20 years he has lived in Thailand where he helped start several entrepreneurial endeavors and he began two companies which are quite alive and well.   My discussion with Stuart gave us the opportunity to explore his ideas of leadership and entrepreneurial progress including what makes a good entrepreneur. He says, for example, that anyone who wishes to grow and be successful should be willing to ask many questions and always be willing to learn. Stuart's insights are quite valuable and worth your time. I believe you will find most useful Stuart's thoughts and ideas.     About the Guest:   Stuart Pollington is a seasoned entrepreneur and digital strategist who has spent over two decades building businesses across the ASEAN region. Originally from the UK, Stuart relocated to Thailand more than 20 years ago and has since co-founded and led multiple ventures, including Easson Energy and Smart Digital Group. His experience spans digital marketing, AI, and sustainability, but at the heart of it all is his passion for building ideas from the ground up—and helping others do the same.   Throughout his career, Stuart has worn many hats: Sales Director, CTO, Founder, Digital Marketer and growth consultant. He thrives in that messy, unpredictable space where innovation meets real-world execution, often working closely with new businesses to help them launch, grow, and adapt in challenging environments. From Bangkok boardrooms to late-night brainstorms, he's seen firsthand how persistence and curiosity can turn setbacks into springboards.   Stuart's journey hasn't always been smooth—and that's exactly the point. He's a firm believer that failure is an essential part of the learning process. Whether it's a marketing campaign that flopped or a business idea that never got off the ground, each misstep has helped shape his approach and fueled his drive to keep moving forward. Ways to connect with Stuart:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartpollington/ www.smart-digital.co.th www.smart-traffic.com.au www.evodigital.com.au https://easson.energy     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hello, everyone. Once again, it is time for an episode of unstoppable mindset. And today we have a guest, Stuart pullington, who is in Thailand, so that is a little bit of a distance away, but be due to the magic of science and technology, we get to have a real, live, immediate conversation without any delay or anything like that, just because science is a beautiful thing. So Stuart is an entrepreneur. He's been very much involved in helping other people. He's formed companies, but he likes to help other entrepreneurs grow and do the same things that he has been doing. So I am really glad that he consented to be on unstoppable mindset. And Stuart, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. And thank you for being here,   Stuart Pollington ** 02:14 Ryan, thank you for the invitation, Michael, I'm looking forward to it.   Michael Hingson ** 02:18 And Stuart is originally from the United Kingdom, and now for the past, what 20 years you've been in Thailand? Yes, over   Stuart Pollington ** 02:27 a bit over 20 years now. So I think I worked out the other day. I'm 47 in a couple of weeks, and I've spent more than half of my life now over in Asia.   Michael Hingson ** 02:39 So why do you like Thailand so much as opposed to being in England?   Stuart Pollington ** 02:46 It's a good question. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do, I do like the UK. And I really, I really like where I came, where I'm from. I'm from the south coast, southeast, a place called Brighton. So, you know, pretty good, popular place in the UK because of where we're situated, by the, you know, on the on the sea, we get a lot of, you know, foreign tourists and students that come over, etc. I mean, Asia. Why? Why Asia? I mean, I originally went traveling. I did six months in America, actually, first in Las Vegas, which was a good experience, and then I did a bit of traveling in America, from the West Coast over to the East Coast. I did a year in Australia, like a working holiday. And then on my way back to the UK, I had a two week stop over in Thailand, and I went down to the beaches, really enjoyed kind of the culture and the way of life here, if you like. And ended up staying for a year the first time. And then after that year, went back to the UK for a little bit and decided that actually, no, I kind of liked the I liked the lifestyle, I liked the people, I liked the culture in Thailand, and decided that was where I wanted to kind of be, and made my way back   Michael Hingson ** 04:13 there you are. Well, I can tell you, Las Vegas isn't anything like it was 20 years ago. It is. It is totally different. It's evolved. It's very expensive today compared to the way it used to be. You can't, for example, go into a hotel and get an inexpensive buffet or anything like that anymore. Drinks at the hum on the on the casino floors are not like they used to be, or any of that. It's it's definitely a much higher profit, higher cost. Kind of a place to go. I've never been that needy to go to Las Vegas and spend a lot of time. I've been there for some meetings, but I've never really spent a lot of time in Las Vegas. It's a fascinating town. Um. One of my favorite barbecue places in New York, opened up a branch in Las Vegas, a place called Virgil's best barbecue in the country. And when they opened the restaurant, the Virgil's restaurant in Las Vegas, my understanding is that the people who opened it for Virgil's had to first spend six months in New York to make sure that they did it exactly the same way. And I'll tell you, the food tastes the same. It's just as good as New York. So that that would draw me to Las Vegas just to go to Virgil's. That's kind of fun. Well, tell us a little about the early Stuart kind of growing up and all that, and what led you to do the kinds of things you do, and so on. But tell us about the early Stuart, if you would.   Stuart Pollington ** 05:47 Yeah, no problem. I mean, was quite sporty, very sporty. When I was younger, used to play a lot of what we call football, which would be soccer over, over your way. So, you know, very big, younger into, like the the team sports and things like that, did well at school, absolutely in the lessons, not so great when it came to kind of exams and things like that. So I, you know, I learned a lot from school, but I don't think especially back then, and I think potentially the same in other countries. I don't think that the the education system was set up to cater for everyone, and obviously that's difficult. I do feel that. I do feel that maybe now people are a bit more aware of how individual, different individuals perform under different circumstances and need different kind of ways to motivate, etc. So, yeah, I mean, I that that was kind of me at school. Did a lot of sport that, you know was good in the lessons, but maybe not so good at the PAM studying, if you like, you know the studying that you need to do for exams where you really have to kind of cram and remember all that knowledge. And I also found with school that it was interesting in the lessons, but I never really felt that there was any kind of, well, we're learning this, but, and this is how you kind of utilize it, or this is the practical use of what we're learning for life, if that, if that makes sense. Yeah. So, you know, like when we were learning, and I was always very good at maths, and I love numbers, and you know, when we were learning things in maths and things like that, I just never felt that it was explained clearly what you would actually use that for. So when you're learning different equations, it wasn't really well explained how you would then utilize that later in life, which I think, for me personally, I think that would have made things more interesting, and would have helped to kind of understand which areas you should focus on. And, you know, maybe more time could have been spent understanding what an individual is good at, and then kind of explaining, well, if you're good at this, or passionate with this, then this is what you could do with it. I think I remember sitting down with our I can't they would have been our advisors at the time, where you sit down and talk about what you want to do after school, and the question was always, what do you want to be? Whereas, you know, for me personally, I think it would have been more useful to understand, what are your passion you know? What are you passionate about? What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? And then saying, Well, you know, you could actually do this. This is something you could do, you know. So you could take that and you could become, this could be the sort of career you could do, if that makes sense. So anyway, that that was kind of like, like school and everything like that. And then after school, you know, I didn't, I worked for a couple of years. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Funnily enough, there was actually a Toys R Us opening in Brighton in one of the summers she went and got, I got a summer job there at Toys R Us. And I really enjoyed that. Actually, that was my first step into actually doing a bit of sales. I worked on the computers. So we were, you know, selling the computers to people coming in. And when we opened the store, it's a brand new store. You know, it was just when the pay as you go. Mobile phones were kind of just coming out. We had Vodafone analog, but it was the non contract where you could just buy top up cards when they first came out, and I remember we were the first store, because we were a new store. We were the first store to have those phones for sale. And I remember just being really determined to just try and be the first person to just sell the first ever mobile phone within Toys R Us. And I remember I started in the morning, and I think my lunch was at, say, 12, but I missed my lunch, and I think I was up till about one, one or 2pm until finally I managed to find someone who, who was, who me, had that need or wanted the phone, and so I made that first sale for toys r us in the UK with the mobile phone, and that that, in itself, taught me a lot about, you know, not giving up and kind of pushing through and persevering a bit. So yeah, that that was kind of my, my early part. I was always interested in other cultures, though. I was always interested at school, you know, I do projects on Australia, Egypt and things like that. And, you know, in the UK, when you get to about, I think similar, similar to America, but, you know, in the UK, where you either before or after uni, it's quite usual to do, like, a gap year or do a bit of traveling. And I just kind of never got round to it. And I had friends that went and did a gap year or years working holiday in Australia, and I remember when they came back, and I was like, Yeah, you know, that's that's actually what I want to do. So when I was about 22 it was at that point, and I'd worked my way up by them from Toys R Us, I'd already moved around the country, helped them open new stores in different locations in the UK. Was working in their busiest story of in Europe, which was in London. But I decided I wanted to kind of I wanted to go and travel. So I remember talking to my area manager at the time and saying, Look, this is what I want to do. I had a friend who was traveling, and he was meeting up with his sister, and his sister happened to be in Las Vegas, which is how we, we kind of ended up there. And I remember talking to my area manager at the time and saying that I want to leave, I want to go and do this. And I remember him sat down just trying to kind of kind of talk me out of it, because they obviously saw something in me. They wanted me to continue on the path I was doing with them, which was going, you know, towards the management, the leadership kind of roles. And I remember the conversation because I was saying to him, Look, I want, I want to, I want to go and travel. I really want to go. I'm going to go to Las Vegas or to travel America. And his response to me was, well, you know, if you stay here for another x years, you can get to this position, then you can go and have a holiday in America, and you could, you can get a helicopter, you can fly over the Grand Canyon, and kind of really trying to sell me into staying in that path that they wanted me to go on. And I thought about that, and I just said, No, I don't want to just go on a holiday. I really just want to immerse myself, and I just want to go there, and I want to live the experience. And so yeah, I I left that position, went to Las Vegas, ended up staying six months. I did three months. Did a bit in Mexico, came back for another three months. And that's where I met a lot of different people from different countries. And I really kind of got that initial early bug of wanting to go out and seeing a bit more of the world. And it was at that point in my life where I was in between, kind of the end of education, beginning of my business career, I guess, and I had that gap where it was the opportunity to do it. So I did, so yeah, I did that time in America, then back to the UK, then a year in Australia, which was great. And then, yeah, like I said, on the way home, is where I did my stop over. And then just obviously fell in love with Thailand and Asia, and that became my mindset after that year going back to the UK. My mindset was, how do I get back to Thailand? You know, how do I get back to Asia? I also spent a bit of time, about five years in the Philippines as well. So, you know, I like, I like, I like the region, I like the people, I like the kind of way of life, if you like.   Michael Hingson ** 14:23 So when you were working in the Philippines, and then when you got to Thailand, what did you do?   Stuart Pollington ** 14:30 Yeah, so I mean, it all starts with Thailand, really. So I mean, originally, when I first came over, I was, I was teaching and doing, trying to kind of some teaching and voluntary stuff. When I came back, I did a similar thing, and then I got, I get, I wouldn't say lucky, I guess I had an opportunity to work for a company that was, we were, we were basically selling laptop. Laptops in the UK, student laptops, they were refurbished like your IBM or your Dell, and we they would be refurbished and resold normally, to students. And we also, we also used to sell the the laptop batteries. So we would sell like the IBM or Dell laptop batteries, but we sell the OEM, you know, so we would get them direct from, from from China, so like third party batteries, if you like. And back in the day, this is just over 20 years ago, but back then, early days of what we would call digital marketing and online marketing. And you know, our website in the UK, we used to rank, you know, number one for keywords like IBM, refurb, refurbished. IBM, laptop Dell, laptop battery, IBM battery. So we used to rank above the brands, and that was my introduction, if you like, to digital marketing and how it's possible to make money online. And then that kind of just morphed into, well, you know, if we're able to do this for our own business, why can't we do this for other businesses? And that would have been the, you know, the early owners and founders of the of smart digital and smart traffic seeing that opportunity and transitioning from running one business and doing well to helping multiple businesses do well online and that, that was the bit I really enjoy. You know, talking to different business owners in different industries. A lot of what we do is very similar, but then you have slightly different approaches, depending on them, the location and the type of business that people are in.   Michael Hingson ** 16:47 Well, you, you have certainly been been around. You formed your own or you formed countries along the way, like Eastern energy and smart digital group. What were they? Right?   Stuart Pollington ** 16:59 Yeah. So, so yeah, going back to the computer website. Out of that came a company called smart traffic that was put together by the free original founders, guy called Simon, guy called Ben, and a guy called Andy. And so they originally came together and put and had created, if you like, smart traffic. And smart traffic is a digital marketing agency originally started with SEO, the organic, you know, so when someone's searching for something in Google, we help get websites to the top of that page so that people can then click on them, and hopefully they get a lead or a sale, or whatever they're they're trying to do with that, with that traffic. So, yeah, they originally put that together. I being here and on the ground. I then started working within the business. So I was running the student website, if you like, the laptop website, and then got the opportunity from very early on to work within the Digital Marketing Company. I've got a sales background, but I'm also quite technical, and I would say I'm good with numbers, so a little bit analytical as well. So the opportunity came. We had opened an office in the Philippines, and it had been open for about, I think, 18 months or two years, and it was growing quite big, and they wanted someone else to go over there to support Simon, who was one of the founders who opened the office over there. And that's when I got the opportunity. So I was over in Cebu for what, five, five and a half years. At one point, we had an office there with maybe 120 staff, and we did a lot of the technical SEO, and we were delivering campaigns for the UK. So we had a company in the UK. We had one in Australia, and then also locally, within the kind of Thai market. And that was fantastic. I really enjoyed working over in the Philippines again. Culture enjoyed the culture enjoyed the people. Really enjoyed, you know, just getting stuck in and working on different client campaigns. And then eventually that brought me back to Thailand. There was a restructure of the company we, you know, we moved a lot of the a lot of the deliverables around. So I was then brought back to Thailand, which suited me, because I wanted to come back to Thailand at that point. And then I had the opportunity. So the previous owners, they, they created a couple of other businesses in Thailand. They're one that very big one that went really well, called dot property, so they ended up moving back to the UK. Long story short, about maybe 10 years ago, I got the opportunity to take over smart digital in Thailand and smart traffic in Australia, which are both the. Marketing agencies that I'd been helping to run. So I had the opportunity to take those over and assume ownership of those, which was fantastic. And then I've obviously been successfully running those for the last 10 years, both here and and in Australia, we do a lot of SEO. We do a lot of Google ads and social campaigns and web design, and we do a lot of white label. So we we sit in the background for other agencies around the world. So there'll be agencies in, you know, maybe Australia, the UK, America, some in Thailand as well, who are very strong at maybe social or very strong ads, but maybe not as strong on the SEO so we, we just become their SEO team. We'll run and manage the campaigns for them, and then we'll deliver all the reporting with their branding on so that they can then plug that into what they do for their clients and deliver to their clients. So that's all fantastic. I mean, I love, I love digital marketing. I love, I love looking at the data and, you know, working out how things work. And we've been very successful over the years, which then led on to that opportunity that you mentioned and you asked about with Eastern energy. So that was about three and a half years ago, right right around the COVID time, I had a meeting, if you like, in in Bangkok, with a guy called Robert Eason. He was actually on his way to the UK with his family, and kind of got stuck in Bangkok with all the lockdowns, and he was actually on his way to the UK to start Eastern energy there. And Eastern energy is basically, it's an energy monitoring and energy efficiency company. It's basically a UK design solution where we have a hardware technology that we retrofit, which is connects, like to the MDB, and then we have sensors that we place around the location, and for every piece of equipment that we connect to this solution, we can see in real time, second by second, the energy being used. We can then take that data, and we use machine learning and AI to actually work with our clients to identify where their energy wastage is, and then work with them to try and reduce that energy wastage, and that reduces the amount of energy they're using, which reduces their cost, but also, very importantly, reduces the CO two emissions. And so I had this chance encounter with Robert, and I remember, at the time I was we were talking about how this solution worked, and I was like, oh, that's quite interesting. You know, I've I, you know, the the digital marketing is going quite well. Could be time to maybe look at another kind of opportunity, if you like. So I had a look at how it worked. I looked at the kind of ideal clients and what sort of other projects were being delivered by the group around the world. And there were a couple of big name brands over in there. So because it works quite well with qsrs, like quick service restaurant, so like your fast food chains, where you have multiple locations. And it just so happened that one of the in case studies they'd had, I just through my networking, I do a lot of networking with the chambers in Bangkok. Through my networking, I actually happened to know some of the people in the right positions at some of these companies. I'd never had the opportunity to work with them, with the digital marketing because most of them would have their own in house teams, and I just saw it as an opportunity to maybe do something with this here. So I, you know, I said to Robert, give me a week. And then a week later, I said, right, we've got a meeting with this company. It's international fast food brand. They've got 1700 locations in Thailand. So when ended that meeting, very, very positive. And after that meeting, I think Robert and I just I said to Robert, you know, currently you have a plan to go to the UK. Currently you're stuck in Thailand with lockdown, with COVID. We don't know what's going to happen and where everything's going to go. Why don't we do it here? And that's where it originally came from. We decided, let's, you know, let's, let's give that a shot over here. Since then, we've brought in two other partners. There's now four of us, a guy called Gary and a guy called Patrick. And yeah, I mean, it's a bit slower than I thought it would be, but it's in the last. Six months, it's really kind of picked up, which has been fantastic. And for me, it was, for me, it was just two things that made sense. One, I love I love data, and I love the technology. So I love the fact that we're now helping businesses by giving them data that they don't currently have the access to, you know. So when you get, you know, when you when you get your electricity bill, you get it the month after you've used everything, don't you, and it just tells you how much you've got to pay. And there's not really much choice. So what we're doing is giving them the visibility in real time to see where their energy is going and be able to make changes in real time to reduce that energy wastage. And I just thought, Well, look, this is great. It's very techie. It's using, you know, date big data, which I love, using machine learning and AI, which is great. And then I also, you know, I do care about the environment. I got two young kids, so I do care about what's happening around the world. And for me, that was a win, win. You know, I got to, I got to do something with tech that was new and exciting. It's definitely new to this region, even though it's been new to the same sort of technology has been utilized in Europe and America for a number of years. So it felt new, it felt exciting. And it's also good, you know, because we are helping people on the path to net zero. You know, how can we get to net zero? How can we reduce these emissions? So, yeah, I mean that that, for me, is   Stuart Pollington ** 26:40 two different types of, in my opinion, entrepreneurial kind of journeys. One is that the with the digital marketing is, is all it's a story of working my way up to then reach the top, if you like. And whereas Eastern energy is more of a traditional kind of as an entrepreneur, this is, this is an idea. Let's do something with it and get an exciting about it. So two kind of, two different approaches to get to the ownership stage, if you like.   Michael Hingson ** 27:14 I have an interesting story. I appreciate what you're saying. The whole entrepreneurial spirit is so important in what we do, and I wish more people had it. But years ago, one of my first jobs out of college was working for a company in Massachusetts, Kurzweil Computer Products. Ray Kurzweil, who developed, originally a reading machine for the blind, and then later a more commercial version of it. And there's somebody that I had met when I was a student at UC Irvine who ended up being back in Massachusetts working for at that time, a think tank consulting company called Bolt Beranek and Newman. I don't know whether you're familiar with them. They changed their name to, I think it was CLOUD NINE or Planet Nine. But Dick was telling me one day that, and this is when mainframe computers were so large and there was a lot needed to keep them cool and so on. Anyway, he was telling me that one day the gas utility came in because the total heating bill for the six story building was like $10 and they wanted to know how BBN bolt, brannic and Newman was stealing energy and and making it so that they didn't pay very much money. And the the president of the company said, let me show you. They went down to the basement, and there they had two PDP 20s, which are like dual PDP 10s. And they put out a lot of heat, needless to say, to run them. And what BBN did was to take all of that heat and pipe it through the building to keep the building warm in the winter. Rather than paying all the gas bills, they were using something that they already had, the entrepreneurial spirit liveth well. And the bottom line is they, they kept the building well heated. And I don't know what they did in the summer, but during the winter it was, it was pretty cool, and they were able to have $10 gas bills for the six story building, which was kind of fun. No,   Stuart Pollington ** 29:39 that's brilliant, yeah, and that just goes to show me, that is what a large part of this, you know, energy efficiency and things like that, is, it's, it's, it's not about just completely replacing or stopping something. It's about better utilizing it. Isn't it? So they, you know the example you just gave there, with the heat and the wasted energy of being lost in that heat release they've used and utilized, which is brilliant.   Michael Hingson ** 30:12 I a couple of years ago. So my wife passed away in 2022 and we have a furnace and so on here, and we had gas bills that were up in the $200 a month or more up as much as $300 a month in the winter to keep the house at a temperature that we could stand. And two years ago, I thought about, how do we lower that? And I was never a great fan of space heaters, but I decided to try something. We got a couple of space heaters, and we put them out in the living room, and we have ceiling fans. So turned on the space heaters and turned on the ceiling fans, and it did a pretty decent job of keeping the temperature down, such that for most months, I didn't even have to turn the furnace on at all, and our heating bill went down to like $39 a month. Then last year, we got an additional heater that was a little bit larger, and added that to the mix. And again, the bottom line is that if I start all of that early in the morning, our heating bill is like 30 $35 a month. Now I do cheat occasionally, and I'll turn the furnace on for about 45 minutes or 50 minutes in the morning with the ceiling fans to help distribute the warmer air, and I can get the house up to 75 degrees, or almost 30 Celsius, in in a very quick time. And then with the other two space heaters running, I don't have to use furnaces or anything for the rest of the day. So I think this year, the most expensive heating bill we had was like $80 because I did occasionally run the the the heaters or the furnace, and when I was traveling, I would turn the furnace on for the cat a little bit. But the bottom line is, there's so many things that we can do to be creative, if we think about it, to make things run more efficiently and not use as much energy and eliminate a lot of the waste that that we have, and so that that has worked out pretty well, and I have solar on the house. So in the summer, when most people around here are paying four and $500 a month for their electric bills to run the air conditioning. My electric bill year round, is $168 a month, which is   Stuart Pollington ** 32:47 cool. Yeah, no, that's great that you've and you've that is a great example there of kind of how you know our approach to energy efficiency. You know what? What are you currently doing? Is there a more efficient way of doing it? Which is exactly what you found, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 33:07 yeah, and it works really well. So I can't complain it's warming up now. So in fact, we're not I haven't turned the furnace or anything on at all this week. This is the first week it's really been warm at night. In fact, it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit last night. I actually had to turn the air conditioner on and lower the house to 70 degrees, and then turned it off because I don't need to keep it on, and made it easier to sleep. But it's it's amazing, if we think about it, what the things that we can do to make our energy lives more efficient, lower the carbon footprint, and all those kinds of things. So I hear what you're saying, and it's and it's important, I think that we all think about as many ways as we can of doing that. I   Stuart Pollington ** 33:56 think one of the biggest problems with energy is just invisible. You don't, you know, you don't really see it. No. So just, it's just one of those. You just don't really think about it. And again, you only get, you only get told what you've used once you've used it. Yeah, so it's too late by then. And then you go, Oh, you know, you might get an expensive bill. And go, oh, I need to be careful. And then you're careful for a few days or a week, and then again, you don't see it until you get your next bill. Yeah, it's really hard as with anything. I mean, it's a bit like going to the gym. If you go to the gym or the fitness and you just do it sporadically. You don't really have a routine, or, you know, it's gonna be very hard to achieve anything. But then if you, if you set your mind to it, if you maybe get a trainer, and you get a you go onto a better diet, and you follow your routine, you can you will see the results. And it's very similar to what we do. If you've once you've got the data, and you can actually see what. Happening, you can make proper, informed and educated business decisions, and that's what we're trying to do with that is to help businesses make the right decision on the path to net zero   Michael Hingson ** 35:11 well, and you have to develop the mindset as the consumer to bring in a company like yours, or at least think about yourself. What can I do consistently to have a better energy pattern? And I think that's what most people tend not to do a lot, and the result of that is that they pay more than they need to. The power companies like it, the gas companies like it. But still, there are better ways to do it so. So tell me you have been in business and been an entrepreneur for a long time. What is maybe an example of some major crisis or thing that happened to you that you you regard as a failure or a setback that you have had to deal with and that taught you something crucial about business or life.   Stuart Pollington ** 36:08 Brilliant question. I mean, I would, I would guess, over 20 years, there's been a lot of different, sorry, a lot of different things that have happened. I think probably, probably an impactful one would have been. And this taught me a lot about my team, and, you know, their approach and how everyone can pull together. So it would have been, I think it was about, it was when I was in the Philippines. So it would have been about maybe 1212, years ago, we're in Cebu, and there was a big earthquake, and when it hit Cebu, I think it was quite early in the morning. It was like 6am and I remember the whole bed was kind of shaking and rocking, and we, you know, had to get out of the condo. And we're, at the time, living in a place called it Park. And in the Philippines, there's a lot of cool centers, so it's very much 24/7 with an office environment. So as we're coming out of the condo, in literally pants, as in, when I say pants, I mean underwear, because you literally jump out of bed and run. And they were like 1000s, 1000s of all the local Filipinos all all in their normal clothes, because they've all doing the call center work. And I remember just, you know, sitting out on the ground as the aftershocks and whole grounds moving and and, and that that was a very, you know, personal experience. But then on top of that, I've then got over 100 staff in in Cebu at the time that I then have to think about. And, you know, is everyone okay? And then, because of the time it happened, Luckily no one was in the office because it was early, yeah, but it all but it also meant that everything we needed   Michael Hingson ** 38:08 was in the office. Was in the office. Yeah, yeah. So,   Stuart Pollington ** 38:10 so I remember Matt, you know, I remember getting a group of us there, was myself and maybe three or four others from the office, and I remember getting in my car, drove to the office. We were on, I think it's like the eighth or ninth floor, and they didn't want to let us in because of, obviously, the earthquake, and it was a, it was a couple of hours later, and you've got to be obviously, you know, everything needs checking. You still got all the aftershocks, but we managed to let them allow us to run up the fire exit to the office so we could grab, you know, I think we were grabbing, like, 1520, laptops and screens to put in the car so that we could then, and we had to do that of the fire exit, so running up, running down, and that was all into The car so we could then drive to a location where I could get some of my team together remote and to work in this. I think we ended up in some coffee shop we found that was open, and we had the old free G boost kind of the Wi Fi dongles, dongles. And I just remember having to get, like, 1015, of my team, and we're all sat around there in the coffee shop in the morning. You know, there's still the after shops going on the I remember the office building being a mess, and, you know, the tiles had come in and everything, and it was all a bit crazy, but we had to find a way to keep the business running. So we were in the Philippines, we were the support team. We did all of the delivery of the work, but we also worked with the account managers in the UK and Australia as their technical liaisons, if you like. So we. Helped do the strategy. We did everything. And so with us out of action, the whole of Australia and of the whole of the UK team were kind of in a limbo, so we really had to pull together as a team. It taught me a lot about my staff and my team, but it also kind of it taught me about, no matter what does happen, you know, you can find a way through things, you know. So at the time that it happened, it felt like, you know, that's it, what we're going to do, but we had to turn that around and find the way to keep everything going. And yeah, that, that that just taught me a lot of you know, you can't give up. You've got to find a way to kind of push on through. And yeah, we did a fantastic job. Everyone was safe. Sorry. I probably should have said that. You know, no one, none of my team, were affected directly from the from the earthquake, which was great, and we found a way to keep things going so that the business, if you like, didn't fall apart. We,   Michael Hingson ** 41:09 you know, I guess, in our own way, had a similar thing, of course, with September 11, having our office on the 78th floor of Tower One, the difference is that that my staff was out that day working. They weren't going to be in the office. One person was going to be because he had an appointment at Cantor Fitzgerald up on the 96th floor of Tower One for 10 o'clock in the morning, and came in on one of the trains. But just as it arrived at the station tower two was hit, and everything shook, and the engineer said, don't even leave. We're going back out. And they left. But we lost everything in the office that day, and there was, of course, no way to get that. And I realized the next day, and my wife helped me start to work through it, that we had a whole team that had no office, had nothing to go to, so we did a variety of things to help them deal with it. Most of them had their computers because we had laptops by that time, and I had taken my laptop home the previous night and backed up all of my data onto my computer at home, so I was able to work from home, and other people had their computers with them. The reason I didn't have my laptop after September 11 is that I took it in that day to do some work. But needless to say, when we evacuated, it was heavy enough that going down 1463 stairs, 78 floors, that would have been a challenge with the laptop, so we left it, but it worked out. But I hear what you're saying, and the reality is that you got to keep the team going. And even if you can't necessarily do the work that you normally would do you still have to keep everyone's spirits up, and you have to do what needs to be done to keep everybody motivated and be able to function. So I think I learned the same lessons as you and value, of course, not that it all happened, but what I learned from it, because it's so important to be able to persevere and move forward, which, which is something that we don't see nearly as much as sometimes we really should.   Stuart Pollington ** 43:34 Yeah, no, no, definitely. I mean the other thing, and I think you you just mentioned there actually is it. You know, it was also good to see afterwards how everyone kind of pulls together. And, you know, we had a lot of support, not just in the Philippines, but from the UK and the Australia teams. I mean, we had a, we had a bit of an incident, you know, may have seen on the news two weeks ago, I think now, we had an incident in Bangkok where there was a earthquake in Myanmar, and then the all the buildings are shaking in Bangkok, yeah, 7.9 Yeah, that's it. And just, but just to see everyone come together was, was it's just amazing. You know? It's a shame, sometimes it takes something big to happen for people to come together and support each other.   Michael Hingson ** 44:27 We saw so much of that after September 11. For a while, everyone pulled together, everyone was supporting each other. But then over time, people forgot, and we ended up as a as a country, in some ways, being very fractured. Some political decisions were made that shouldn't have been, and that didn't help, but it was unfortunate that after a while, people started to forget, in fact, I went to work for an organization out in California in 2002 in addition to. To taking on a career of public speaking, and in 2008 the president of the organization said, we're changing and eliminating your job because nobody's interested in September 11 anymore, which was just crazy, but those are the kinds of attitudes that some people have, well, yeah, there was so little interest in September 11 anymore that when my first book, thunderdog was published, it became a number one New York Times bestseller. Yeah, there was no interest. It's   Stuart Pollington ** 45:31 just, I hope you sent him a signed copy and said, There you go.   Michael Hingson ** 45:35 Noah was even more fun than that, because this person had been hired in late 2007 and she did such a great job that after about 18 months, the board told her to go away, because she had so demoralized the organization that some of the departments were investigating forming unions, you know. So I didn't need to do anything. Wow, so, you know, but it, it's crazy, the attitudes that people have. Well, you have it is, it's it's really sad. Well, you have done a couple of things that I think are very interesting. You have moved to other countries, and you've also started businesses in unfamiliar markets. What advice? What advice would you give to someone who you learn about who's doing that today, starting a business in an unfamiliar market, or in a foreign country, or someplace where they've never been?   Stuart Pollington ** 46:34 Yeah, again, good questions. I looking back and then so and seeing what I'm doing now, and looking back to when I first came over, I think chambers, I think if I have one, you know, obviously you need to understand the market you want. You need to understand, like the labor laws, the tax laws and, you know, the business laws and things like that. But I think, I think the best thing you could do in any country is to check out the chambers. You know, I'm heavily involved and active with aus Jam, which is the Australian Chamber of Commerce, because of the connection with smart traffic in Australia, in Sydney, the digital marketing. I'm also involved with bcct, the British chamber as British Chamber of Commerce Thailand as well, that there's a very big AmCham American Chamber over here as well. And I just think that the chambers can help a lot. You know, they're good for the networking. Through the networking, you can meet the different types of people you need to know, connections with visas, with, you know, work permits, how to set up the business, recruiting everything. So everything I need, I can actually find within this ecosphere of the chambers. And the chambers in Thailand and Bangkok, specifically, they're very active, lots of regular networking, which brings, you know, introductions, new leads to the business, new connections. And then on top of that, we've had, we've had a lot of support from the British Embassy over in in Thailand, especially with the Eastern energy, because it is tech based, because it is UK Tech, and because it is obviously something that's good for the environment and what everyone's trying to push towards. So I think the two key areas for me, if you are starting a business in an unfamiliar area, is one. Check out the chambers. So obviously the first one you'd look at is your own nationality. But don't stress too much about that. I mean, the chambers over here will welcome anyone from any nationality. So, you know, utilize the chambers because it's through that that you're going to get to speak to people, expats, already running businesses. You'll hear the horror stories. You'll hear the tips. It will save you some time, it will save you some money, and it will save you from making similar mistakes. And then also talk to your embassy and how they can maybe support you. We've had, again, some great support from the British Embassy. They've witnessed demo use. They've helped us with introductions. On the energy efficiency side,   Michael Hingson ** 49:26 one of the things that clearly happens though, with you is that you also spend time establishing relationships with people, so you talk about the chamber and so on. But it also has to be that you've established and developed trusting relationships, so that you are able to learn the things that you learned, and that people are willing to help teach you. And I suspect that they also realize that you would be willing to help others as well.   Stuart Pollington ** 49:55 Yeah, and I think I mean yes, and I'm talking about. And I mentioned, sorry, networking and the changes. But with networking, you know, you don't, you shouldn't go in there with the mindset of, I'm going into networking. I want to make as many sales as I can. Whatever you go into the networking. Is an opportunity to meet people, to learn from people you then some of those people, or most of those people, may not even be the right fit for you, but it's about making those relationships and then helping each other and making introductions. So you know, a lot of what I do with the chambers, I run a lot of webinars. I do workshops where I do free training on digital marketing, on AI, on SEO, on ads, on social. I use that as my lead gen, if you like. So I spend a lot of time doing this educationally and helping people. And then the offshot of that is that some of those will come and talk to me and ask me to how I can help them, or they will recommend me to someone else. And you know, we all know in business, referrals are some of the best leads you can get.   Michael Hingson ** 51:11 Yeah, by any, by any definition, one of, one of the things that I tell every sales person that I've ever hired is you are a student, at least for your first year, don't hesitate to ask questions, because in reality, in general, people are going to be perfectly willing to help you. They're not going to look down on you if you ask questions and legitimately are looking for guidance and information. Again, it's not about you, it's about what you learn, and it's about how you then are able to use that knowledge to help other people, and the people and the individuals who recognize that do really well.   Stuart Pollington ** 51:50 No, exactly, and I don't know about you, Michael, but I like, I like helping people. Yeah, I like, it makes me feel good. And, yeah, that's, that's a big part of it as well. You know   Michael Hingson ** 52:01 it is and, and that's the way it ought to be. It's, that's the other thing that I tell them. I said, once you have learned a great deal, first of all, don't forget that you're always going to be a student. And second of all, don't hesitate to be a teacher and help other people as well.   Speaker 1 ** 52:16 Man, that's really important. Yeah, brilliant.   Michael Hingson ** 52:20 Now you have worked across a number of sectors and market, marketing, tech, sales, energy and so on. How did how do you do that? You You've clearly not necessarily been an expert in those right at the beginning. So how do you learn and grow and adapt to be able to to work in those various industries.   Stuart Pollington ** 52:41 Yeah, I mean, for the marketing, for the marketing, it helps that I really was interested in it. So there was a good there was a good interest. And if you're interested in something, then you get excited about it, and you have the motivation and the willingness to learn and ask the questions, like you said, and then that is where you can take that kind of passion and interest and turn it into something a bit more constructive. It's a bit like I was saying at the beginning. It's the sort of thing I wish they'd done a bit maybe with me at school, was understand what I was good at and what I liked. But yeah, so with the marketing, I mean, very similar to what you've said, I asked questions. I see it just seems to click in my head on how it worked. And it kind of made sense to me. It was just one of these things that clicked, yeah. And so for the marketing, I just found it personally quite interesting, but interesting, but also found it quite easy. It just made sense to me, you know. And similar, you know, using computers and technology, I think it just makes sense. It doesn't to everyone. And other people have their strengths in other areas, but, you know, for me, it made sense. So, you know that that was the easy part. Same with Eastern energy, it's technology. It makes sense. I love it, but at the end of the day, it's all about it's all about people, really business, and you've got your people and your team, and how you motivate them is going to be similar. It's going to be slightly different depending on culture and where you're based, in the type of industry you're in, but also very similar. You know, people want praise, they want constructive feedback. They want to know where they're gonna be in a year or five years. All of that's very similar. So you people within the business, and then your customers are just people as well, aren't they? Well, customers, partners, clients, you know that they are just people. So it's all, it's all, it's all about people, regardless of what we're doing. And because it's all very similar with tech and that, it just, yeah, I don't know. It just makes sense to me. Michael, I mean, it's different. It's funny, because when I do do network and I talk to people, I say, Well, I've got this digital marketing agency here. Work, and then I've got this energy efficiency business here. And the question is always, wow, they sound really different. How did you how did you get into them? But when, again, when I look at it, it's not it's it's tech, it's tech, it's data, it's people. That's how I look at it,   Michael Hingson ** 55:16 right? And a lot of the same rules apply across the board. Yes, there are specific things about each industry that are different, but the basics are the same.   Stuart Pollington ** 55:28 That's it. I, in fact, I that isn't almost, there's almost word for word. What I use when I'm explaining our approach to SEO, I just say, Look, you know, there's, there's three core areas with SEO, it's the tech, the on site, it's the content, and it's the off site signals, or the link building. I said they're the three core areas for Google. They've been the same for, you know, 20 years. Within those areas, there's lots of individual things you need to look at, and that changes a lot. And there's 1000s of things that go into the algorithm, but the basics are the same. Sort your tech, sort the text, sort the tech of it out, the speed of the site and the usability. Make sure your content is good and relevant and authoritative, and then get other sites to recommend you and reference you, you know So, but, yeah, that's very similar to how I try and explain SEO. Yeah, you know all this stuff going on, but you still got the core basics of the same.   Michael Hingson ** 56:29 It is the same as it has always been, absolutely. So what do you do? Or how do you deal with a situation when plans necessarily don't go like you think they should, and and all that. How do you stay motivated?   Stuart Pollington ** 56:45 I mean, it depends, it depends what's gone wrong. But, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a big believer in, you know, learning from your mistakes and then learning also learning from what went wrong. Because sometimes you don't make a mistake and something goes wrong, but something still goes wrong. I think it helps. It helps to have a good team around you and have a good support team that you can talk to. It's good to be able to work through issues. But, I mean, for me, I think the main thing is, you know, every like you were saying earlier, about asking questions and being a student for a year. You know everything that happens in business, good or bad, is a lesson that should help you be better in the future. So you know the first thing, when something goes wrong, understand what's gone wrong first. Why did it go wrong? How did it go wrong? How do we resolve this, if we need to resolve something for the client or us, and then how do we try and limit that happening in the future? And then what do we learn from that? And how do we make sure we can improve and be better? And I think, you know, it's not always easy when things go wrong, but I think I'm long enough in the tooth now that I understand that, you know, the bad days don't last. There's always a good day around the corner, and it's about, you know, working out how you get through   Michael Hingson ** 58:10 it. And that's the issue, is working it out. And you have to have the tenacity and, well, the interest and the desire to work it out, rather than letting it overwhelm you and beat you down, you learn how to move forward.   Stuart Pollington ** 58:25 Yeah, and that's not easy, is it? I mean, let's be honest. I mean, even, even being when we were younger and kids, you know, things happen. It does. We're just human, aren't we? We have emotions. We have certain feelings. But if you can just deal with that and then constructively and critically look at the problem, you can normally find a solution.   Michael Hingson ** 58:46 Yeah, exactly. What's one piece of advice you wished you had learned earlier in your entrepreneurial career?   Stuart Pollington ** 58:56 Um, I Yeah. I mean, for this one. I think, I think what you said earlier, actually, it got me thinking during wise we've been talking because I was kind of, I would say, don't be afraid to ask questions just based on what we've been talking about. It's changed a little bit because I was going to say, well, you know, one of the things I really wish I'd learned or known earlier was, you know, about the value of mentorship and kind of finding the the right people who can almost show you where you need to be, but you could, you know, but when people hear the word mentor, they think of either or, you know, someone really, yeah, high up who I could I'm too afraid to ask them, or someone who's going to cost you 1000s of dollars a month. So actually, I'm going to change that to don't be afraid to ask questions, because that's basically what you'd expect from a mentor, is to be able to ask. Questions, run ideas. And I think, I think, yeah, I think thinking back now, understanding that the more questions you ask, the more information you have, the better your decisions you can make. And obviously, don't be afraid to learn from other people's experience, because they've been through it, and potentially they could have the right way for you to get through it as well.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:24 And you never know where you're going to find a mentor. Exactly,   Stuart Pollington ** 1:00:28 yeah, no, exactly. I think again, you hear the word mentor, and you think people have this diff, a certain perception of it, but it can be anyone. I mean, you know, if I my mom could be my mentor, for, for, for her great, you know, cooking and things that she would do in her roast dinners. You know that that's kind of a mentor, isn't it making a better roast dinner? So I think, yeah, I think, I   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:54 think, but it all gets back to being willing to ask questions and to listen,   Stuart Pollington ** 1:01:02 and then I would add one more thing. So ask the questions, listen and then take action. And that's where that unstoppable mindset, I think, comes in, because I think people do ask questions, people can listen, but it's the taking action. It's that final step of having the courage to say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go for   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:23 it. And you may find out that what was advised to you may not be the exact thing that works for you, but if you start working at it, and you start trying it, you will figure out what works   Stuart Pollington ** 1:01:37 exactly. Yeah, no, exactly. That's it, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:41 Well, what a great place to actually end this. We've been doing this now over an hour, and I know, can you believe it? And I have a puppy dog who probably says, If you don't feed me dinner soon, you're going to be my dinner. So I should probably go do that. That's   Stuart Pollington ** 1:01:57 all good. So for me, I'm going to go and get my breakfast coffee. Now it's 7am now, five past seven in the morning.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:03 There you are. Well, this is my day. This has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate you being here, and I want to say to everyone listening and watching, we really appreciate you being here with us as well. Tell others about unstoppable mindset. We really appreciate that. Love to hear your thoughts and get your thoughts, so feel free to email me with any of your ideas and your your conceptions of all of this. Feel free to email me at Michael H, I m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I B, e.com, you can also go to our podcast page. There's a contact form there, and my podcast page is www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, and Michael hingson is spelled M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, O N. Love to hear from you. Would really appreciate it if you'll give us a five star rating wherever you're watching or listening to the podcast today, if you know anyone and steward as well for you, if any one of you listening or participating knows anyone else that you think ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, we'd love to hear from you. We'd love introductions, always looking for more people to tell their stories. So that's what this is really all about. So I really appreciate you all taking the time to be here, and Stuart, especially you. Thank you for being here. This has been a lot of fun, and we really appreciate you taking your time.   Stuart Pollington ** 1:03:26 Thank you, Michael. Thank you everyone. I really enjoyed that. And you know, in the spirit of everything, you know, if, if anyone does have any questions for me, just feel free to reach out. I'm happy to chat.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:39 How do they do that? What's the best way, I   Stuart Pollington ** 1:03:41 think probably the LinkedIn so I think on when you post and share this, you will have the link. I think   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:49 we will. But why don't you go ahead and say your LinkedIn info anyway? Okay, yeah.   Stuart Pollington ** 1:03:53 I mean, the easiest thing to do would just be the Google search for my name on LinkedIn. So Stuart pollington, it's S, T, U, a, r, t, and then P, O, L, L, I N, G, T, O, N, and if you go to LinkedIn, that is my I think I got lucky. I've got the actual LinkedIn URL, LinkedIn, forward slash, I N, forward slash. Stuart pollington, so it should be nice and easy.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:19 Yeah, I think I got that with Michael hingson. I was very fortunate for that as well. Got lucky with   Stuart Pollington ** 1:04:23 that. Yeah, they've got numbers and everything. And I'm like, Yes, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:30 Well, thank you again. This has been a lot of fun, hasn't   Stuart Pollington ** 1:04:33 it? He has. I've really enjoyed it. So thank you for the invitation, Michael.   **Michael Hingson ** 1:04:42 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

World news in 7 minutes. Wednesday 9th July 2025.Today: Taliban warrants. Israel Hamas slow progress. Nepal China floods. China easy visa. Yemen Houthis kill Filipinos. Mexico xenophobia. Brazil BRICS. Africa malaria treatment. South Africa corrupt police minister. Ukraine deep strikes. Trump Putin bullsh*t. France Macron visit. France fires. Germany record ode.SEND7 is supported by our amazing listeners like you.Our supporters get access to the transcripts and vocabulary list written by us every day.Our supporters get access to an English worksheet made by us once per week.Our supporters get access to our weekly news quiz made by us once per week.We give 10% of our profit to Effective Altruism charities. You can become a supporter at send7.org/supportContact us at podcast@send7.org or send an audio message at speakpipe.com/send7Please leave a rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify.We don't use AI! Every word is written and recorded by us!Since 2020, SEND7 (Simple English News Daily in 7 minutes) has been telling the most important world news stories in intermediate English. Every day, listen to the most important stories from every part of the world in slow, clear English. Whether you are an intermediate learner trying to improve your advanced, technical and business English, or if you are a native speaker who just wants to hear a summary of world news as fast as possible, join Stephen Devincenzi and Juliet Martin every morning. Transcripts, vocabulary lists, worksheets and our weekly world news quiz are available for our amazing supporters at send7.org. Simple English News Daily is the perfect way to start your day, by practising your listening skills and understanding complicated daily news in a simple way. It is also highly valuable for IELTS and TOEFL students. Students, teachers, TEFL teachers, and people with English as a second language, tell us that they use SEND7 because they can learn English through hard topics, but simple grammar. We believe that the best way to improve your spoken English is to immerse yourself in real-life content, such as what our podcast provides. SEND7 covers all news including politics, business, natural events and human rights. Whether it is happening in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas or Oceania, you will hear it on SEND7, and you will understand it.Get your daily news and improve your English listening in the time it takes to make a coffee.For more information visit send7.org/contact or send an email to podcast@send7.org

Send us a textThis conversation with Carolyn Sideco will be released in two parts this week. In part 1, we catch up on life, identity, and community. Carolyn is a youth sports professional, grandmother, and founder of Coaching Kapwa, bringing a restorative, justice-driven lens to athletics. But beyond sports, we dive into her journey embracing elderhood, building Filipino community in New Orleans, and wrestling with identity as diasporic people. We talk about the long, often hidden history of Filipinos in Louisiana, what it means to balance personal needs with service to community, and how to stay grounded in our relationships during overwhelming times.Rep Amplify RJ Merch Connect with us on:Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and TikTok!SUPPORT by sharing this podcast and leaving a rating or review

Long before the Philippines was known by its modern name, it was home to a powerful and wealthy civilization—the Lequios. Described by Portuguese explorers like Antonio Galvão and marked on 16th-century maps like the Dourado Map, the Lequios were skilled shipbuilders, traders in gold, and a dominant presence in Southeast Asia.So why were they erased from mainstream history?In this video, we dive into forgotten archives and ancient maps to explore how the Lequios were not Japanese as some believe—but pre-colonial Filipinos. Evidence places them in Luzon, trading up and down the coasts, with links to major volcanic events like the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.From the capital of a majestic city to gold-rich trade routes in Pangasinan and La Union—this is a legacy worth reclaiming.✨ Discover the truth that colonial propaganda tried to erase.

Found in virtually every Filipino bathroom from the humblest provincial home to the most luxurious Manila condo, the tabo—that simple plastic water dipper—carries far more cultural weight than its unassuming appearance suggests. In this episode, we trace the tabo's fascinating journey from coconut shell origins in pre-colonial times to its status as a powerful marker of Filipino identity worldwide. Why do overseas Filipinos pack tabos in their luggage? How did this humble dipper spark "hygiene wars" on social media? And what did early Spanish missionaries really think about Filipino bathing habits? From ancient hospitality rituals to modern environmental concerns, we explore how a simple household object became both a symbol of cultural resilience and a source of unexpected controversy. Whether you're a lifelong tabo user or someone who's always wondered about that mysterious plastic cup in Filipino bathrooms, this episode dips into the surprising depth behind one of the Philippines' most ubiquitous yet overlooked cultural artifacts.

Last time we spoke about liberation of Luzon.. American forces, led by General Eichelberger and supported by General Krueger's armies, relentlessly advanced against the entrenched Japanese defenders of General Yamashita's 14th Area Army. Amid thick jungle and treacherous terrain, battles raged through the northern mountain ranges, as American troops aimed to restore the Filipino government. Facing overwhelming odds, the Japanese forces displayed extraordinary resilience, temporarily halting American progress. Remarkable efforts from General Swift's 1st Corps across Routes 9 and 11 led to significant breakthroughs as American forces captured critical positions, including Sablan and Baguio. However, the Japanese command, complacent and misjudging the American strategy, fell into disarray. As the tide turned with relentless American assaults, key Japanese positions were systematically dismantled. By late April, most of Luzon was liberated, restoring hope and autonomy to the Filipino people.  This episode is Invasion of Balikpapan Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  The battles for Okinawa and Luzon just closed up, and today we are going to be venturing back to the Dutch East Indies. As we left off in mid-May, the tides of war were shifting dramatically on the island of Luzon, with General Krueger's 6th Army celebrating significant victories across the region. In the north, General Swift's 1st Corps had successfully secured the scenic Baguio area, known for its lush mountains and cool climate, a stark contrast to the tropical heat that engulfed much of the Philippines. Yet, the fighting was far from over, as fierce battles continued on three major fronts. Colonel Volckmann's guerrilla 121st Regiment was making strides, snagging much of the strategically vital Bessang Pass, a crucial artery connecting northern Luzon to the central regions. However, their success came at a cost, leaving them overextended amidst fierce Japanese resistance. Meanwhile, General Gill's weary 32nd Division managed to claim dominance over the rugged terrain of Salacsac Pass along the historic Villa Verde Trail, known for its breathtaking views and treacherous paths that had challenged both soldiers and their supply lines. General Mullins' 25th Division achieved a remarkable breakthrough by capturing the key Balete Pass, opening the way for further advances. Not stopping there, the 25th Division pressed onward, quickly redirecting their focus northward towards the town of Santa Fe. By May 24, the 27th Regiment had cleared the Sawmill River valley, an area teeming with dense foliage and rugged hills, a significant accomplishment that paved the way for the next objectives. From there, the 1st Battalion expertly maneuvered eastward against the imposing Kanami Ridge. On May 22, the 161st Regiment dealt a heavy blow to Japanese positions in a stronghold on Mount Haruna, a location known for its steep, challenging slopes. Following this triumph, they began their descent down the northern slopes of Haruna Ridge, gearing up for a critical junction with the Villa Verde Trail by May 27. Meanwhile, the 35th Regiment launched a vigorous assault from Balete Pass, systematically clearing out the remaining Japanese caves and fortifications by May 26, culminating in the capture of Santa Fe the very next day. At Salacsac, the Japanese forces, led by General Iwanaka, initiated a limited counteroffensive, presumably to buy time for a strategic evacuation of their increasingly tenuous positions. If delay was indeed Iwanaka's intention, he executed it well; it wasn't until May 19 that the American supply line was finally deemed secure again. The 2nd Battalion of the 128th Regiment resumed its push east from Hill 525, but the progress was slow. By May 22, the 1st Battalion had only managed to advance a mere 500 yards east from Hill 508, while the 3rd Battalion commenced a southward and southeastward advance from Hill 516 on May 16. It was not until May 24 that the relentless fighting in the region bore fruit, leading to the eventual clearing of the area, and Salacsac Pass was officially declared secured. On that pivotal day, General Iwanaka began the difficult task of withdrawing the remnants of his battered forces northward, retreating up the winding valley of the Imugan River. This river, which flows through a lush, verdant landscape, would serve as a vital sanctuary, albeit one fraught with danger for the disheartened Japanese troops. Meanwhile, the American forces were gaining ground. The 2nd Battalion aggressively seized control of Hill 527, a position that provided a commanding view of the surrounding area, crucial for planning further advances. The 126th Regiment took decisive action, utilizing trucks to transport troops swiftly along Route 5 to Balete Pass before launching an assault toward Imugan from the east and southeast. Concurrently, the guerrilla 1st Battalion of the Buena Vista Regiment embarked on a northward push from Valdez, culminating in the hard-fought capture of Hill 528 on May 28. This hill, commanding and steep, presented a formidable challenge but also promised a vantage point critical for any further operations in the region. The very next day, Imugan finally succumbed to the relentless pressure of the advancing American forces, marking a significant milestone as the Villa Verde Trail came firmly under American control. This development effectively concluded the arduous operations of the 32nd Division. It was a costly campaign for General Gill; the division suffered approximately 825 men killed, 2,160 wounded, with an alarming 6,000 classified as non-battle casualties. In stark contrast, the Japanese defense was decimated, with at least 5,750 of the 8,750 troops they had deployed to defend the trail lying dead. As we gaze northward, we find Colonel Volckmann's guerrillas, who had extended themselves too thinly across Bessang Pass and into the challenging terrain of Yubo Ridge. The aftermath of their overreach saw them facing fierce Japanese counterattacks that swiftly pushed them back across Lamagan Ridge in the latter part of May. However, a small contingent managed to hold tenaciously onto the eastern slopes of Langiatan Hill, a strategic position that allowed them to maintain some level of influence in the region. Additionally, a robust force from the Japanese 76th Regiment assembled south of Butac, planning an offensive northward. However, this advance was met with fierce resistance from the guerrilla 15th Regiment, who successfully repelled the attack. Seizing the momentum, Volckmann directed the 15th Regiment into a new offensive eastward, and by the end of May, they had successfully re-secured their foothold up to Lamagan Ridge. Meanwhile, elements of the 121st Regiment executed a remarkable retaking of both Langiatan Hill and Yubo Ridge, gradually restoring control over this strategically vital area. Looking south, we find General Hall's 11th Corps vigorously engaged in two crucial offensives aimed at capturing Ipo Dam and Wawa Dam, both essential water reservoirs located east of Manila. The strategic importance of these dams cannot be overstated; they were vital not only for securing fresh water but also for controlling the flow of operations in the region. However, the relentless heavy downpours that characterized the season rendered air support missions impractical, exacerbating an already challenging supply situation for the advancing troops. As a result, General Wing's 43rd Division was forced to pause its offensive late on May 14 to reassess and devise new attack plans.  As of late May 14, the 43rd Division found itself in a precarious situation, necessitating a halt to operations to devise new attack plans. To this point, the division had made limited progress toward securing Route 52, a crucial supply line vital for their mission to capture Ipo Dam. Recognizing the urgency, General Wing decided it was essential to commit the 169th Regiment to a targeted attack to clear this road, as it would serve as a critical route for both supply and evacuation in the coming days. The adverse weather conditions had created a significant operational hindrance. For nearly the entire duration of their offensive, intermittent rains had severely disrupted ground and aerial supply chains, as well as evacuation and the crucial air support operations necessary for a successful advance. Ground conditions had become challenging, and division engineers struggled to construct and maintain supply roads at a pace even close to that of the infantry's advances. Consequently, supply drops and hand-carried provisions were just sufficient to keep combat units barely above the minimum required levels, but the evacuation of sick and wounded soldiers remained a pressing issue that plagued the division. By May 14, the situation worsened significantly. For the first time since May 6, the 5th Air Force was completely grounded, unable to conduct any air support or supply missions due to the worsening weather conditions. This represented a troubling turning point for the 43rd Division. Moreover, intelligence reports indicated that sizable groups from the Japanese Tomono and Hanabusa Detachments had shifted their focus away from their defenses along Route 52, moving instead to confront the 103rd and 172nd Regiments attacking from the south. General Wing recognized that this presented a timely opportunity for the 169th Regiment. Striking directly along Route 52 would likely be far easier and less costly than it would have been just a week prior. Furthermore, a successful offensive by the 169th could not only expedite the capture of Ipo Dam but also prevent further eastward redeployments of Japanese forces. This would be a vital maneuver, potentially relieving pressure from Fork Ridge, where the left flank of the 172nd Regiment was currently bogged down in fierce fighting. Time was of the essence, and decisive action was required to turn the tide in favor of the 43rd Division. The situation was critical; delay would allow Japanese forces to fortify their defenses further. In response, Wing mapped out a robust plan: he directed the 103rd Regiment to capture the Route 52 terminus at Ipo Dam itself, which was crucial for any further advances. Their orders included not only taking control of the dam but also clearing the high ground north of the road and west of the dam to ensure a secure position against any possible counterattacks. Additionally, he tasked the 172nd Regiment with seizing Hill 804, a vantage point that could provide vital intelligence and support to the offensive, while the 169th Regiment was directed to eliminate the last Japanese defenders in the Bigti area before advancing eastward along Route 52 to connect with the 172nd. A break in the weather finally came on May 17, allowing the 43rd Division to launch their offensive with much-needed air support. Aircraft successfully dropped napalm and strafed Japanese defensive positions, a strategy that proved devastatingly effective. General Kawashima, facing mounting losses, ultimately ordered the remnants of his command to withdraw to an assembly point on the western slopes of Mount Maranat, a retreat that revealed their deteriorating ability to hold the line. With the air support providing a critical advantage, the 103rd Regiment advanced boldly and swiftly cleared the last Japanese holdouts from Hill 860, securing an essential position. However, it was the guerrilla forces, under the command of Colonel Augustin, from the Marking Regiment who achieved a historic victory by capturing Ipo Dam shortly after noon. His patrols descended the slopes of Hill 803, crossed the Angat River at the dam, and triumphantly raised the American flag over the powerhouse on the south bank, a potent symbol of liberation and resistance. Simultaneously, the 172nd Regiment seized control of Fork Ridge, further tightening the noose around Japanese forces, while the 169th Regiment secured strategic ground from Hill 535 to Osboy Ridge, pushing forward with relentless determination. In the following four days, the 43rd Division, supported by the fearless Marking guerrillas, meticulously mopped up the area west of Ipo Dam. Their efforts culminated in the successful opening of Route 52 from Bigti to Ipo on May 19, a critical milestone that allowed for the unhindered movement of troops and supplies. By May 21, they completed the operation by clearing out the last pockets of organized resistance in the region west of the dam and south of the Angat River, a crucial waterway that would play a significant role in sustaining American operations. With the capture of Ipo Dam intact, General Wing achieved his primary objective, making a significant contribution to addressing Manila's pressing water supply problems. This success would have lasting implications for the civilians and military alike, as the dam was key to ensuring a reliable water supply in the region. The 43rd Division maintained its momentum, continuing mopping-up operations through May 31. They patrolled eastward across the Ipo River, pressed northeast up the Angat from the dam, and scoured the areas that had witnessed some of the most intense fighting during the campaign. The cost of these operations was notable; Wing's forces suffered losses of 120 killed and 515 wounded, while the Kawashima Force endured devastating casualties, with over 2,700 men killed and approximately 115 captured during the grueling battle. Meanwhile, General Chase's 38th Division pressed forward with its offensive against Wawa Dam, following the failure of General Yokoyama's most recent counteroffensive. The 145th Regiment found itself holding a precariously exposed salient at Mount Binicayan, which severely hampered their ability to launch an effective attack toward Wawa Dam. Japanese positions on the high ground to the north of the dam dominated the narrow, winding road with artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire, making any advance perilous. In response to this daunting challenge, General Chase decided to launch an offensive with the 151st Regiment in the area north of the Marikina River, targeting the formidable Mounts Pamitinan and Hapanong-Banoy. This bold maneuver was contingent upon the 152nd Regiment gaining momentum in its attack to clear Woodpecker Ridge. As such, on May 19 and 20, the 152nd Regiment executed enveloping maneuvers centered on Woodpecker Ridge, ultimately breaking through enemy lines on May 21. The breakthrough was dramatically supported by the introduction of medium tanks and flamethrower tanks, powerful assets that helped turn the tide of battle. The following day, what began as a breakthrough rapidly escalated into a rout of Japanese defenders. By May 25, the 152nd Regiment had established control over the strategic junction of the Marikina and Bosoboso Rivers, a key position that not only bolstered their operational capabilities but also positioned them for further advances in the ongoing campaign. As Japanese resistance began to dissipate under the relentless pressure from the advancing American forces, the 149th Regiment, which had successfully relieved the 145th at Mount Binicayan, launched a bold strike toward Wawa Dam on May 27. Encountering little to no opposition, they secured the dam intact the following morning, marking a significant victory. It was on May 27 that General Yokoyama ordered a general retreat, recognizing the untenable position of his forces. Acting on these instructions, General Kobayashi's remaining troops fell back, pursued by vigilant patrols from the 38th Division. With Wawa Dam secured, General Chase shifted his strategy; rather than launching direct assaults against organized Japanese lines, he opted to focus on mopping up operations and pursuing the retreating enemy. The human cost of the campaign was significant. Chase's forces sustained losses of 160 killed and 590 wounded, while the Kobayashi Force suffered catastrophic losses, with over 10,000 men killed since the onset of the offensive.  Shifting focus southeast, the 7th Cavalry and Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Anderson's guerrillas converged on the coastal town of Infanta in late May. Faced with overwhelming pressure, the Japanese naval garrison retreated westward into the Sierra Madre mountains, a rugged and dense area that posed challenges for both sides. Infanta ultimately fell on May 25, and by the evening of the following day, the reinforced 7th Cavalry had successfully cleared the entire flat, rice-rich region surrounding the town, encountering only scattered and ineffective resistance. In a strategic move bolstered by overwater supply movements, the 7th Cavalry implemented an aggressive patrolling program to the southwest, seeking out any remaining enemy forces. Meanwhile, the 8th Cavalry focused its efforts on clearing the northern section of Santa Maria Valley, advancing northward into the Sierra Madre. By the end of May, the Shimbu Group, once a significant Japanese fighting force, was rendered ineffective. Its main units began to disband, breaking into small groups in a desperate bid to forage for food or to navigate their way to safety in northern Luzon. At the end of May, the Shimbu Group still boasted a strength of nearly 26,000 men, over half of its total personnel as of February 20. However, the remaining survivors were not the elite forces they once were. The relentless campaigns by the 11th and 14th Corps had decimated the best-trained and most well-equipped units, leaving behind a shell of what had once been a formidable fighting force. Of the approximately 13,000 survivors still organized into units, their combat effectiveness had deteriorated so significantly that it's worthy of mention only in passing. Meanwhile, about 13,000 others were struggling to survive without proper organization; roughly 5,000 of these were receiving whatever limited medical treatment the Shimbu Group could provide. The remaining 8,000 men had essentially lost all structure, scattering into small groups to forage for food or attempting to make their way north to Luzon, where they hoped to find safety and sustenance. The supply situation faced by the Shimbu Group at the end of May was even more dire than its personnel situation. They had been unable to transport significant portions of their vast stockpiles of supplies into the Sierra Madre mountains, a shortfall that would prove catastrophic for their survival. The only supplies they still possessed in any quantity were ammunition for small arms and machine guns, alongside medical materials for treating combat wounds. The most pressing issue, however, was a critical lack of food. The early loss of several key agricultural regions, including the Bosoboso Valley, the shores of Laguna de Bay, the Santa Maria Valley, and the fertile Infanta region, had deprived the Shimbu Group of expected food stocks. Most of the supplies brought out of Manila had already been consumed. For instance, the organized remnant of the Noguchi Force could currently allocate a meager two ounces of rice per day for each man—a portion that would undoubtedly vanish by mid-June. The Kobayashi Force fared little better, while the Kawashima Force managed to issue slightly more, around six to eight ounces of rice daily. The troops were gradually reduced to scavenging for survival, resorting to eating roots, bark, grass, and whatever food they could find in long-abandoned Filipino gardens. It's worth noting that after just a few days in June, there wasn't a single pig, carabao, or dog left alive within sight of the remnants of the Shimbu Group. Recognizing that mere existence was the overarching challenge, General Yokoyama hoped to regroup his organized units and move them into areas where they might have some chance to cultivate food, scattering them through the challenging terrain of the Sierra Madre. This desperate strategy highlighted the dire straits faced by the Shimbu Group as their chances for survival dwindled. Meanwhile, the Noguchi Force received orders to transfer its main strength to the mountainous region along the eastern shore of Laguna de Bay, where some of its elements were already positioned. This shift aimed to gather their forces in a more favorable terrain, potentially allowing for better access to resources. The Kobayashi Force was tasked with establishing a defensive sector in the area north of Mount Purro and east of Wawa. In a coordinated effort, the 31st Infantry, minus its 3rd Battalion, along with various miscellaneous troops from the 8th Division, were ordered to occupy positions north of the Lenatin River, enhancing their defensive capabilities in a strategic location. The remnants of the Kawashima Force, already in the process of withdrawing from the Ipo Dam area, were instructed to relocate to the mountains east of San Miguel, approximately 22 miles northwest of Ipo. This area was believed to have more abundant food supplies, crucial for the survival of their forces. However, as circumstances unfolded, this transfer later proved impossible. Unable to move effectively, the bulk of the Kawashima Force remained entrenched in the area surrounding Mount Inuman, where they faced mounting challenges in sustaining their troops. In the following month, General Hall directed the 38th Division and Major Edwin Ramsey's 2nd Provisional Regiment to pursue the remnants of Yokoyama's forces as they moved eastward toward Santa Iñez. Meanwhile, the 112th Cavalry employed various mountain and river valley trails to mount a converging attack from the south. They encountered light opposition and successfully captured the town on June 9, further consolidating their gains in the region. At the same time, patrols from the 43rd Division reported no signs of organized resistance north and east of Ipo Dam. The 2nd Cavalry Brigade, alongside Anderson's guerrillas, effectively dispersed the last organized remnants of the Kogure Detachment and the remaining Japanese naval units at Lamon Bay. By the end of June, the only indication of organized Japanese resistance in an area extending five miles north and ten miles east of Wawa Dam was found in the Lenatin River valley, approximately three miles north of Santa Iñez. This development forced the remnants of Yokoyama's forces into trackless and only partially explored wilderness, significantly complicating their ability to regroup or launch further operations. The operations throughout June were costly for Hall, resulting in approximately 110 men killed and 370 wounded. In contrast, Japanese losses during the month were staggering, amounting to 7,540 killed or found dead, alongside 1,105 captured.  Looking back north, General Yamashita aimed to avoid a similar fate for his northern forces. Ever since the fall of Baguio, he had been meticulously planning for the ultimate withdrawal of the Shobu Group deep into the Cordillera Central.  On May 5, less than two weeks following the fall of Baguio, General Yamashita disseminated an outline plan for future operations to the major components of the Shobu Group throughout northern Luzon. His strategy was built on three fundamental premises: Estimation of Enemy Actions: Yamashita assessed that the 6th Army would concentrate its main effort on a northward drive along Route 5, anticipating that General Krueger would only launch secondary attacks toward Bontoc via Routes 4 and 11. This understanding allowed him to anticipate the flow of enemy movements and allocate his resources more effectively. Timing for Resource Stripping: He calculated that the Shobu Group would have approximately three months during which it could strip the Cagayan and Magat Valleys of the essential food and military supplies needed for a protracted stand in the mountains. During this period, the group aimed to transport this matériel into the Cordillera Central through the junction of Routes 4 and 5, located near Bagabag, 25 miles north on Route 5 from Bambang. Control of Key Routes: Yamashita recognized that the success of his planned withdrawal and future delaying actions hinged on maintaining control over the Routes 4-5 junction for as long as possible. He estimated that his defenses south of Santa Fe would be robust enough to hold until mid-June. Additionally, he planned to construct new defensive positions across Route 5 between Santa Fe and Bambang, enabling him to contain the 1st Corps south of Bambang until the end of June. Most crucially, he believed that he would be able to retain control of the Junction of Routes 4 and 5 until the end of July, which was essential for his operational strategy. His initial perimeter encompassed the vital Route 11 terminus of the Baguio-Aritao supply road, as well as key locations such as Bessang Pass, Bontoc, Banaue, Oriung Pass, and Santa Fe In his May 5 plan, Yamashita outlined the necessity of holding the Salacsac Pass-Balete Pass line until mid-June while constructing additional defenses between Santa Fe and Bambang. After mid-June, the Japanese forces were to withdraw to a second perimeter, extending through Ambuclao, Mankayan, Sabangan, Bontoc, Oriung Pass, and Bambang, strategically positioning themselves for potential future engagements. Yamashita understood that these defenses would need to hold until July, when the defenders would be expected to retreat to his last-stand positions centered around Bokod, Mankayan, Polis Pass, the Rayambugan Farm School, and Bambang. He anticipated that the Shobu Group would be compelled to hold their ground until annihilation at these key locations. On April 27, the 103rd Division received orders from the Area Army to transfer its main strength to the Cauayan-Cabagan area, leaving behind only the Yuguchi Detachment 80th Brigade Headquarters in Aparri, which comprised a meager two battalions of nuclear infantry. Yamashita's plans called for virtually abandoning the Cagayan Valley, temporarily retaining only the 103rd Division, which was significantly outnumbered and equated to less than two American Regimental Combat Teams (RCTs), particularly since the Araki Force was stationed in the Cervantes area. The primary duty of the 103rd Division would be to gather all available resources in the valley, including rice and livestock such as carabaos, and dispatch these supplies into the Cordillera Central through Bagabag. Once this crucial task was completed, the division would also withdraw into the mountains, aligning with Yamashita's broader strategic objectives. Yamashita's decision to abandon the Cagayan Valley made logical sense. He realized that the forces he had remaining could not hold the valley for much longer. Additionally, there seemed little necessity to maintain a strong presence there any further. Initially, he had kept units in the valley to harvest and gather food, deny the Allied Air Forces of the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) the use of airfields for strikes against Formosa and Okinawa, and hold onto Aparri in the hope that supplies and reinforcements might still reach Luzon. However, by early May, Yamashita concluded that the situation at Okinawa was largely resolved, negating any strategic purpose behind holding the valley airfields. The hope for reinforcements had long since faded, and crucially, his troops had already gathered the early rice harvest from the valley. With no new crop expected to come in until late September, Yamashita recognized that he would not be able to harvest this future crop, further solidifying his decision to withdraw. Yamashita also ordered the 79th Brigade to take over the defense of Banaue, while directing the 105th Division to defend both the Magat Valley and the Bato Bridge area against potential airborne attacks. However, by the end of May, the situation deteriorated significantly: Santa Fe had fallen, and the retreat of the 10th Division had devolved into a chaotic rout. This development put the defenders at risk of allowing the enemy to reach Bambang before they could establish any strong delaying positions south of the town. In response, Yamashita ordered the 10th Division and the 2nd Tank Division to assemble for a defensive stand across Route 5 at Bato Bridge. He also repositioned the 105th Division to the Rayambugan Farm School and directed the 103rd Division to occupy the vacated defenses at Oriung Pass. Despite these strategic maneuvers, time was not on their side. General Krueger wasted no time launching an aggressive pursuit northward, immediately sending the relatively fresh 37th Division to drive straight up Route 5 from Santa Fe to Bagabag. This force was then to swing east through Oriung Pass into the Cagayan Valley, continuing its advance north along Route 5 toward Aparri. To prepare for a larger offensive, Krueger also intended to use the 25th and 33rd Divisions in the initial assault against the Japanese home islands. To this end, he directed the 32nd Division to take over operations in the Baguio area, while the 6th Division was tasked with relieving the 25th at Santa Fe before striking northwest up Route 4 into the deep Cordillera Central, pursuing the Japanese forces further into the mountainous terrain. Finally, Swift was ordered to execute limited attacks up Route 11 from Baguio, maintain the guerrilla offensive against Cervantes, and deploy the Connolly Task Force to follow Route 3 around the northwest tip of Luzon to secure the Aparri region. Leading the charge, the 129th Regiment of the 37th Division advanced north from Santa Fe on May 31, quickly encountering a reinforced provisional anti-tank unit just south of Aritao. This unit managed to delay the town's capture until June 5. However, the following day, Bambang fell without resistance, and the 129th faced only token opposition at Bato Bridge before ultimately reaching Bayombong on June 7. On June 8, the 145th Regiment took over the lead, and by nightfall, they had seized the crucial junction of Routes 4 and 5 near Bagabag without a fight. Advancing further, the 145th crossed the Magat River on June 9 and pressed toward Oriung Pass, where they rapidly engaged the reinforced 179th Independent Battalion. Although the outgunned and outnumbered defenders valiantly delayed the advance, the 145th pushed through the pass along Route 5 and secured it late on June 12. This breakthrough prompted the bulk of the 103rd Division to decide on a strategic retreat toward the Bontoc-Natonin area, while the remnants of the 4th Air Division abandoned Echague to join this withdrawal. By the evening of June 13, the 145th finally halted its advance at Santiago, while the 148th Regiment worked to neutralize the remaining Japanese positions at Oriung Pass. With these positions secured, the offensive resumed, resulting in the fall of the Echague airbase on June 14, followed by the occupation of Cauayan two days later. As we can see, neither the 10th Division nor the 2nd Tank Division managed to reach Bagabag in time to impede the American advance; the latter was assembling along the Bambang-Pingkian road. On June 12, the 20th Regiment initiated a southwest drive along this road from Bambang. Two days later, elements of the 126th Regiment began pushing west toward Pingkian from Aritao, thereby applying significant pressure on Iwanaka's beleaguered troops. Meanwhile, the 10th Division had become hopelessly cut off east of Route 5 and had retreated to the Old Spanish Trail south of Aritao. On June 11, the 25th Division launched a two-pronged attack against this isolated group, forcing General Okamoto's remnants to retreat eastward deep into the Sierra Madre. In the meantime, General Clarkson dispatched the 130th Regiment up Route 11, where they encountered the 58th Independent Mixed Brigade, which was only capable of weak resistance. Poor weather conditions hindered the 33rd Division's operations in the following days, but by June 15, elements of the 130th Regiment had swung east along the Baguio-Aritao supply road and reached Ambuclao on the Agno River. To the north, Volckmann continued his offensive throughout June, deploying the 121st Regiment to clear Route 4 and secure the northern half of Lamagan Ridge. The 15th Regiment was tasked with advancing to seize Upper Cadsu Ridge and then moving generally northeast along the south side of Route 4. Additionally, the still-arriving 66th Regiment aimed to secure the area south of Butac and swing to the east on the 15th's right flank. As a result, both Lamagan Ridge and Lower Cadsu Ridge were cleared by June 5, with the 15th Regiment then turning its focus toward Upper Cadsu while the 121st Regiment advanced directly toward Bessang Pass. Volckmann's Provisional Battalion launched an attack on Magun Hill and, after a series of minor setbacks, succeeded in clearing much of the area by June 10. On that day, the 121st Regiment initiated a final assault toward Bessang Pass, advancing from the west and southwest. The following day, the Provisional Battalion began pressing in from the north and northeast. Meanwhile, the 15th Regiment overran the last organized resistance on Upper Cadsu on June 12, just as the 66th Regiment was reaching the southwestern corner of the ridge. Supported by artillery, the 121st finally overcame the last organized defenses at Bessang Pass on June 14, establishing contact with the Provisional Battalion east of the pass. On the same day, the final pockets of opposition crumbled before the 15th and 66th Regiments south of the pass. Consequently, the remnants of Japanese forces fled east along Route 4 toward Cervantes, pursued by elements of the 15th and 121st Regiments, which successfully secured the town before dark on June 15. During this final offensive, the guerrillas suffered losses of 119 men killed and 120 wounded, while exaggerated estimates placed Japanese losses at around 2,600 killed. At the same time, by mid-June, the guerrilla 11th and 14th Regiments had cleared almost all the valley west of the Cagayan River, stretching from Cauayan north to Aparri. They also gained complete control over Route 11 from Bontoc to the valley, effectively preventing the 103rd Division from joining Yamashita's last-stand positions. Meanwhile, the Connolly Task Force, after a largely uneventful march, approached Aparri and began an attack on June 11 to clear the last Japanese forces from the area. The last event forcing Yamashita to alter his plans came on 13 June, when the 6th Division's 63d Infantry began probing northwest up Route 4 from Bagabag. The reconnaissance foreshadowed a push that Yamashita especially feared, since Route 4 provided direct access to the deep Cordillera Central. The 105th Division, with defenses across Route 4 at the Rayambugan Farm School, did not have sufficient strength to hold the highway, Yamashita knew. Recognizing that he could not hope to maintain control along any of the three perimeters he had established in May, Yamashita issued new orders for a strategic withdrawal to a last-stand area. This new perimeter would be set up along the inhospitable valley of the Asin River, positioned between Routes 4 and 11. Accordingly, the orders were as follows: The 105th Division was to retreat from Route 4 to the Pacdan-Antipolo line. The 2nd Tank Division was to move north and hold the line from Tubliao to Antipolo. The 23rd Division was tasked with defending along the Adaoay-Bokod line. The 58th Independent Mixed Brigade was to hold the Agno Valley from Buguias south to Adaoay. The 19th Division was to consolidate the bulk of its forces into the Agno Valley, defending the river line from the Loo Valley south to Buguias. The 79th Brigade was assigned to defend Route 390 at Hapao. Once this last-stand perimeter collapsed, Yamashita planned for all remaining forces to retreat into the barren Asin Valley between Toccucan and Kiangkiang, prepared to fight to the death. The area behind this new last-stand perimeter boasted excellent defensive terrain, and Yamashita estimated that most of his units had sufficient ammunition for machine guns, mortars, and small arms to hold their positions for an extended period. However, the Shobu Group faced dire challenges: they were virtually out of medical supplies, had no clothing stocks, and their food reserves would be completely exhausted by mid-September. If they were not annihilated by the advancing Filipino-American forces, the Shobu Group could only anticipate a slow death by starvation and disease. Now, it's time to shift focus from the Philippines and head to Borneo to cover the preparations for the invasion of Balikpapan, codenamed Operation Oboe II. As the 9th Australian Division completed its tasks in North Borneo, General Milford's 7th Australian Division was assembling at Morotai for the upcoming invasion scheduled for July 1. Milford's plan entailed an amphibious assault on a two-brigade front between the Klandasan Besar River and Klandasan town, where the Japanese had established their strongest defenses.  In June, it was estimated that approximately 3,900 troops were stationed around Balikpapan, composed of: 1,500 in mobile units. 2,400 in anti-aircraft, air force, and base units. Additionally, there were 1,100 Japanese workers, 2,400 Indonesians, and 1,000 Formosans present. Near Samarinda, it was believed there were about 1,500 troops, plus possibly a battalion that had recently arrived from Tarakan. Experience had demonstrated that when estimating the strength of the enemy's resistance, every Japanese and Formosan, whether part of a fighting unit, base unit, or civilian labor group, had to be regarded as a combatant. Key defensive features included: At least 18 coast-defense guns, primarily located on ridges overlooking the sea. 26 heavy dual-purpose guns and 78 medium and light anti-aircraft guns. Offshore, between Klandasan and Manggar, rows of stout poles were driven into the seabed, horizontally braced with timber, and protected with barbed wire. An almost continuous anti-tank ditch, from 12 to 14 feet wide, extended above the beach from Stalkudo to Sepinggang. Extensive trench systems, with many tunnel openings, were detected on the ridges overlooking Klandasan. Numerous concrete strongpoints and a continuous line of bunkers lined the beach's fringe. This area was among the most strongly fortified that the Australians had encountered during the war. Indeed, Air Vice-Marshal Bostock, responsible for air support of the landing, cautioned the Prime Minister in a letter that these meticulously prepared defenses might result in Australian casualties comparable to those experienced during the landing at Gallipoli. It appeared that the Japanese had established their main defenses on the slopes overlooking the beaches from Klandasan to Stalkudo. The Australian staff believed the Japanese would attempt to contain the invaders within their beachhead area for as long as possible, before withdrawing inland, either south to Bandjermasin or overland to Bintulu in Sarawak. Additionally, it was anticipated that the enemy would direct burning oil onto the beach unless the oil tanks were destroyed during the preliminary bombardment. Brigadier Ivan Dougherty's 21st Brigade was to land with one battalion on Green Beach, while Brigadier Frederick Chilton's 18th Brigade would go ashore with two battalions on the Yellow and Red Beaches. Once a beachhead was secured, the 18th Brigade would seize the high ground dominating the town and clear the harbor for use, while the 21st Brigade would advance along the coast to capture the airstrips. Additionally, Brigadier Kenneth Eather's 25th Brigade, held in reserve, was set to land on July 2 with the likely objective of thrusting inland along the Milford Highway. Although Admiral Barbey favored a landing site farther east, possibly at Sepinggang, where their ships could be positioned more safely and further from Japanese coastal defense guns, Milford countered with sound reasoning: “Why land up the coast and have to fight miles through jungle, which suits the enemy, when you can go straight in under heavy supporting fire, which the enemy can't withstand, in comparatively open and favorable country?” Supported by General Morshead, this plan received approval, and by June 16, the 7th Division was successfully assembled at Morotai. Admiral Noble's Task Force 78 would once again transport the Australian troops to the landing area, supported by Rear-Admiral Ralph Riggs' cruiser group and Rear-Admiral William Sample's escort carriers. Against the Japanese defenses, Admiral Kamada's 22nd Special Base Force consisted of approximately 3,900 troops, with 1,500 in mobile units and 2,400 in anti-aircraft, air force, and base units, in addition to an estimated 4,500 laborers. In preparation for the invasion, aircraft from the Royal Australian Air Force and the 5th and 13th Air Forces began bombarding enemy defenses and storage tanks on June 4. These attacks intensified a week later as they specifically targeted Japanese gun positions. On June 15, Noble's minesweepers arrived to clear the sea around Balikpapan of magnetic mines, but faced losses, with three ships sunk and three damaged during the operation. Ten days later, American underwater demolition teams began working to locate and breach the underwater obstacles, often under heavy gunfire. To further confuse the enemy, efforts were made to create the impression that the landing would occur at Manggar. This included spreading rumors, landing a reconnaissance party in that area, and demolishing underwater obstacles at both Manggar and Sepinggang. Finally, on June 26, Noble's convoy set sail from Morotai. After an uneventful voyage, they reached Balikpapan unmolested just before dawn on July 1. During the morning, Riggs' cruisers and Noble's destroyers shelled the landing beaches and the defenses behind them, continuing the bombardment until the first waves of landing craft were within 1,300 yards of the shore, at which point the fire shifted to the flanks and rear of the enemy positions. About an hour before the landing, a combined rocket barrage and low-level airstrike were executed, followed by a second rocket barrage just ten minutes before the troops hit the beaches. In total, during the 20 days leading up to the assault, the Balikpapan-Manggar area received 3,000 tons of bombs, 7,361 rockets, 38,052 shells, and 114,000 rounds from automatic weapons, all aimed at crippling the formidable Japanese defenses. Covered by a successful bombardment, the assault waves finally hit the beaches just before 09:00. However, due to navigation errors, the troops were put ashore at the wrong locations. The 2/27th Battalion landed on Yellow Beach instead of Green Beach and quickly captured the Ration, Romilly, Rottnest, and Charlie's Spur positions. The 2/12th Battalion landed on Red Beach instead of Yellow, necessitating a northeast swing to take over Ration and reduce the remaining Japanese defenses in the area. A platoon was also detached to push inland along Vasey Road to seize Portee, while other elements secured Parkes, Plug, and Blyth's Junction. The 2/10th Battalion, correctly landing on Red Beach, rapidly seized the high ground in front of them. Patrols found Prudent and Petersham Junction to be unoccupied. The 2/10th then assembled at Petersham Junction and captured the lower slopes of Hill 87, successfully taking the hill under assault by noon. Meanwhile, Dougherty landed his reserve units, which also came ashore further west than expected on Yellow Beach. The 2/16th Battalion quickly assembled at Ravenshoe and captured Record, Pigeon, and Mount Malang. By 11 a.m. the battalion was on Ravenshoe, whence Malang and Pigeon were visible. Advancing under sharp fire Captain Madigan's company on the left took Record about 4 p.m., killing 46 Japanese. At 4.5 Captain R. H. Christian's company launched a concerted attack on Malang, sup-ported by the fire of artillery, mortars and machine-guns, and using a flame-thrower. The hill was taken and 40 Japanese were killed. The Australians lost four killed, including the leading platoon commander, Lieutenant Armstrong, and 14 wounded. By nightfall the 2/16th held a line through Malang, Pigeon and Record. It had lost 6 killed or died of wounds in the day and 24 wounded; 86 Japanese dead had been counted.  The 2/14th Battalion advanced swiftly to secure a bridgehead over the Klandasan Besar and seized the Stalkudo ridge. The 2/5th Commando Squadron passed through this bridgehead and attacked northeast but encountered heavy opposition. Returning to Hill 87, the 2/10th Battalion assaulted and captured Parramatta in the afternoon, aided by artillery and tanks, while patrols further secured Newcastle and the Cracking Plant by dusk. A patrol led by Sergeant A. A. Evans was sent out from Davey's platoon towards Newcastle. They silenced a bunker with a flame-thrower, and came to a house from which Japanese were firing. They overcame this position with grenades and small arms fire and then moved on to New-castle. As Evans reached Newcastle he saw the surviving Japanese making off towards Portee. Davey's platoon now occupied Newcastle and the other platoon took up positions on Parramatta. The seizure of Parramatta gave the 2/10th observation over the low ground to the north and the northern end of the town, and tied the battalion in with the 2/12th on Portee; the Japanese were now in a very poor position to counter-attack from the western end of the beach-head. Lieutenant Russack of Sanderson's company led a patrol to the Cracking Plant where it silenced a Japanese pill-box. This patrol was strafed by American aircraft, but worse was to follow. At 4.55 American carrier-borne aircraft made a run over Parramatta from the west and dropped bombs and fired rockets across Hill 87, which had then been in the hands of the 2/10th for four hours and a half. Much of this fire landed in the area into which Captain Brocksopp's" company ("D") had moved and where Daly's command post was established. Three were killed, including Lance-Sergeant Hackett, a veteran of several cam-paigns, and 14 wounded, including Major G. R. Miethke and two other officers. Air panels were displayed in all platoon areas after this. Daly decided to hold that night as far forward as Newcastle, on which he placed two platoons plus a platoon of the 2/1st Machine Gun Bat-talion, all under Captain Bowie. In the day the battalion had lost 13 killed and 30 wounded, but 216 Japanese dead were counted. That night 24 more Japanese were killed while trying to penetrate the Australians' positions and no Australian was hit. All night there were fires round about where houses were burning, and the blazing oil tanks on the Tank Plateau 600 yards to the west of the Parramatta ridge lit up the landscape. Finally, Brigadier Chilton also landed the reserve 2/9th Battalion on Red Beach and sent it west in the afternoon to occupy Klandasan town, leading to the capture of Santosa Hill by nightfall. Thus, the Australians successfully landed at Balikpapan and secured a sizable beachhead, marking the beginning of what would become a fierce and challenging battle. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. In June 1945, American forces, led by Generals Eichelberger and Krueger, fought fiercely against Japanese troops in Luzon, achieving significant victories despite heavy resistance. The tide turned as they captured key positions, restoring hope to Filipinos. Meanwhile, preparations for the Balikpapan invasion intensified. The 7th Australian Division readied for an amphibious assault on July 1 against well-fortified Japanese defenses. Despite facing strong opposition, the Australians successfully landed at various beaches, seizing vital ground.

Filipinos are helpful to family and friends. Pinapahalagahan pa natin lalo ang kaugaliang ito dahil alam nating importante ito para sa Diyos (Proverbs 17:17; 31:15). But how about helping others not related to us, especially the poor? Mahalaga din kaya sila para sa atin — at sa Diyos?All Rights Reserved, CBN Asia Inc.https://www.cbnasia.com/giveSupport the show

Stay informed, stay connected — SBS Filipino shares the news and stories that matter to Filipinos in Australia. - Hatid ng SBS Filipino ang mga balita, impormasyon at kwento ng mga Pinoy sa Australia.

HEADLINES: Most Filipinos back return to ICC – poll | July 1, 2025Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net Follow us: Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital Check out our Podcasts: Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcherTune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein #TheManilaTimes#KeepUpWithTheTimes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Hustleshare – Emil Eriksen is the founder of &you—a digital health platform built to meet the everyday needs of Filipinos through online consultations, expert care, and discreet nationwide delivery. With a vision to build a fully localized, end-to-end healthcare system tailored for Southeast Asia, Emil shares how &you is redefining access to care—starting in the Philippines. From early startup wins in Europe to costly missteps with a legacy brand, Emil reflects on the highs and lows that shaped his journey. Discover why he walked away from partnerships, how he scaled fast as a solo founder, and what it takes to build a high-growth company designed for emerging markets.Resources:LinkedIn (Emil Eriksen) : https://www.linkedin.com/in/emileriksenandyou/LinkedIn (&you): https://www.linkedin.com/company/andyouph/Website: https://andyou.ph/Links/Sponsors:OneCFO: https://www.onecfoph.co/Hustleshare is powered by Podmachine Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stay informed, stay connected — SBS Filipino shares the news and stories that matter to Filipinos in Australia. - Hatid ng SBS Filipino ang mga balita, impormasyon at kwento ng mga Pinoy sa Australia.

If you really want to understand yourself, look back. In a country where many of us grow up knowing little about our family or national history, discovering where we come from can help us feel more grounded, confident, and proud of who we are. And in this age of misinformation and historical revisionism and distortion, learning how to tell truth from propaganda has never been more important.Genealogist and historian Mona Veluz, a.k.a. TikTok viral educreator Mighty Magulang, the “ninuno hunter,” makes Philippine history accessible and fun. A former corporate executive, she now dedicates her time to helping us Filipinos explore our roots, understand our identity, and reconnect with the powerful stories that define us.For any collaboration, brand partnership, and campaign run inquiries, e-mail us at info@thepodnetwork.com.

Last time we spoke about the victory at Okinawa.. As American forces led by General Buckner advanced, they captured strategic key points, driving the Japanese into a desperate retreat. Despite overwhelming odds, the remaining Japanese defenders, embodying the samurai spirit, fought to the bitter end, hoping to gain time for their homeland's defenses. On June 21, faced with inevitable defeat, Generals Ushijima and Cho chose to commit seppuku in honor of their duty. Their tragic decision underscored the deep commitment to their cause, an adherence to the warrior code. By this point, countless Japanese soldiers surrendered, acknowledging the futility of their fight. As the month drew to a close, the Americans secured Okinawa, a hard-won victory shadowed by staggering casualties, more than 107,000 Japanese lives lost and significant American losses. This battle not only symbolized the relentless spirit of those who fought but also the tragic costs of war, forever etched in history as a vivid reminder of sacrifice and the haunting price of conflict. This episode is Liberation of Luzon Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  For most, the battle of Okinawa basically ends the Pacific War, but the truth is the war was raging all over the place. The second most noticeable place would be Luzon, where the remnants of General Yamashit'as 14th Area Army were still resisting in the northern and eastern mountain ranges. Yet here too, the curtains were beginning to fall. As we last left off, it was mid-April 1945, and the fierce struggle for the liberation of Luzon was reaching a critical phase. General Eichelberger's 8th Army was actively engaged in offensives across the Visayas and Mindanao, while General Krueger's 6th Army focused its might on two primary sectors in Luzon. The stakes were high, the liberation of Luzon was crucial for securing Manila and restoring the Filipino government that had been disrupted by the war. In the northern sector, General Swift's 1st Corps was grappling with General Yamashita's formidable Shobu Group, who were entrenched in this mountainous terrain, making the fighting particularly arduous. Meanwhile, General Hall's 11th Corps was applying relentless pressure on the opposing Shimbu Group, led by General Yokoyama, in the vital areas east of Manila. Starting in the northern reaches of Luzon, we find General Clarkson's 33rd Division making tangible advances, having secured Route 11 up to Camp 3, as well as segments of the Galiano Road and the Tuba Trail. This area, known for its treacherous paths and thick jungle, posed significant challenges, but the troops pressed on. Northward, General Beightler's 37th Division was also on the move, with its 129th Regiment overcoming all enemy resistance along Route 9, reaching the critical town of Sablan by April 14. Not to be overlooked, Colonel Volckmann's guerrilla 121st Regiment had carved a path up Route 4 to the strategically important Bessang Pass, known for its rugged terrain that offers a natural defense. General Mullins' 25th Division was making notable progress towards Balete Pass, gaining crucial footholds on Crump Hill and Myoko Ridge. These positions were essential as they provided elevated vantage points over the surrounding valleys. On the western front, General Gill's 32nd Division had successfully secured the western Salacsac Pass but still faced stiff enemy positions in the eastern pass, where Japanese forces were well-prepared to defend. With the arrival of the bulk of the 37th Division in early April, Swift was poised to launch a dynamic two-division drive towards Baguio, a city nestled in the mountains that had become a strategic goal due to its position and resources. While Clarkson's units continued to engage in patrol actions in the Arboredo, Agno, and Ambayabang River valleys, there was limited progress in these areas. However, the 129th Regiment initiated a decisive attack on Sablan on April 11, successfully breaching Japanese defenses there by April 14. On that pivotal day, the 148th Regiment took charge of securing Route 9 through Calot, a vital corridor for advancing troops. Meanwhile, the 130th Regiment encountered fierce resistance as it pushed west of Asin along the Galiano Road, exemplifying the tenacity of Japanese forces determined to hold their ground. As the battle raged, General Yamashita was already strategizing to evacuate Baguio. By April 19, he made the decision to relocate to the Bambang front, leaving Major-General Utsunomiya Naokata, one of his trusted chiefs of staff, in command of the remaining forces.  Despite the growing pressure on Route 9, the Japanese command seemed out of touch by the second week of April 1945. They inaccurately assessed that the primary thrust of General Swift's 1st Corps would come along Route 11, allowing them to become complacent. This misplaced confidence led to a failure to redeploy troops to counter the increasing threat on their right flank. Instead of fortifying their defenses, they appeared to adopt an inexplicable, almost defeatist attitude, unusual for a military as disciplined as the Imperial Japanese Army. Compounding this lack of urgency was the intense effort from the 14th Area Army headquarters to evacuate civilians and supplies from Baguio, a city perched high in the Cordillera Central mountain range. This evacuation served as a clear signal that the situation was deteriorating, yet the Japanese command remained strangely passive. Yamashita's mindset regarding the unfolding crisis was evident when he made personal preparations to depart for the Bambang front on April 19. In a move echoing his earlier strategy for the Bambang area, he established an independent command for the Baguio front before his departure. Utsunomiya's responsibilities also included nominal command over the 19th Division, stationed north of Baguio, but his control was hampered by significant communication difficulties that plagued the Japanese forces. The first notable action Utsunomiya took was to relieve the 58th Independent Mixed Brigade from the 23rd Division's control, seeking to streamline command. Under Yamashita's directive to hold Baguio for as long as possible before retreating to a new defensive line, Utsunomiya issued an order for all troops along the existing Main Line of Resistance  "hold out to the last man." His tone betrayed the grim reality, coming across as almost ironic given the mounting pressures they faced. Meanwhile, General Sato's 58th Independent Mixed Brigade was frantically working to fortify defenses along Route 9, southeast of Calot. However, their efforts came too late to prevent the 148th Regiment from swiftly capturing Yagyagan on April 15, gaining a crucial foothold in the area. In response to this setback, Sato began sending reinforcements to the Irisan Gorge starting April 16, apparently under Utsunomiya's orders. This narrow, treacherous gorge, surrounded by steep cliffs, was seen as a pivotal point for a last-ditch defense. The Japanese troops managed to repel the initial assaults from the 148th Regiment on April 17, but as night fell, the Americans executed a series of enveloping maneuvers, ultimately securing Ridge A. The following morning, the 148th seized Ridge C; however, their frontal assaults against Ridge B were met with fierce resistance and ended in failure. On April 19, the tide began to turn. After a devastating air strike and concentrated artillery fire that neutralized most of the Japanese positions on Ridge F, the Americans finally captured Ridge B. Concurrently, other American units seized Hills D and E, effectively cutting off the Japanese retreat route. The relentless pressure continued, and the next day, Ridges F and G were subjected to intense attacks, which ultimately resulted in their capture. This relentless campaign forced the Japanese to withdraw to Ridge H, where they continued to regroup. After heavy bombardment, the Irisan Gorge was finally cleared on April 21, sending the surviving defenders scrambling in retreat. As these operations unfolded, the 130th Regiment was busy repositioning two battalions from the Galiano Road to the junction of the Yagyagan Trail along Route 9, poised to mount a coordinated attack on Asin from both the east and west. On April 22, they launched their offensive, catching the Japanese defenders by surprise and effectively dismantling their defenses. By the afternoon of April 23, the Galiano Road was opened for American forces, marking a significant advancement in their campaign. Concurrently, the 129th Regiment had taken over operations from the 148th Regiment and advanced against only scattered resistance, making significant progress as far southeast as the junction of the highway and the Galiano Road. However, their advance was ultimately halted due to concerns about a potential threat from the north. Seizing on this hesitation, General Utsunomiya decided to leave small delaying forces at Trinidad and Baguio, while initiating a general withdrawal to the north and northeast. With Utsunomiya's defensive lines weakened, American patrols were able to enter Baguio on April 24, met with surprisingly little resistance. By April 26, the 129th had effectively secured most of the city, facing only negligible opposition. Simultaneously, elements from the 123rd and 130th Regiments worked diligently to eliminate the remaining Japanese defenses on nearby Mount Calugong, along the Tuba Trail, and on Mount Mirador, ensuring the area was cleared for further American operations. Despite these American successes, Utsunomiya managed to escape with approximately 10,000 troops to the Baguio-Aritao supply road, a crucial evacuation route for Japanese forces. As the end of April approached and into the first days of May, the 37th Division continued to mop up the surrounding areas, further securing Trinidad. Meanwhile, the 33rd Division also pressed forward, capturing the Balinguay-Itogon-Pitican sector, enhancing their control over the region. Looking eastward, General Gill's demoralized 32nd Division was still engaged in fierce fighting through the Salacsac Pass, hampered in their advance along the Villa Verde Trail.  During the second week of April 1945, observers from the 6th Army headquarters reported alarming morale issues within the 32nd Division, echoing concerns that General Krueger had personally noted during previous visits to the front lines. The soldiers of the 126th and 128th Regiments were on the brink of complete mental and physical exhaustion. Front-line troops, many of whom had spent significant time overseas, were becoming overly cautious, possibly from the toll of constant combat. Conversations among the men frequently centered around one urgent topic: their rotation back to the United States. The once aggressive spirit characteristic of these combat troops was waning rapidly. With dwindling numbers and pervasive personnel issues, it was clear that the division would struggle to mount any spectacular gains in the coming days. If they couldn't quicken their pace along the critical Villa Verde Trail, reaching their objective, Santa Fe, by the targeted date of June 1 appeared increasingly unlikely. Delays would be catastrophic; they risked being trapped on the trail by the heavy rains of the impending wet season, which typically began in late May. Such circumstances would severely hinder their ability to withdraw and salvage their equipment from the treacherous mountainous terrain. Meanwhile, the Japanese forces retained key terrain advantages, allowing them to economically utilize their troops and reinforce their front lines almost at will. In stark contrast, the rugged landscape severely restricted the 32nd Division's maneuverability, forcing them to repeatedly launch costly frontal assaults with their diminishing strength. While terrain and weather conditions presented significant challenges, the growing personnel crisis loomed as a critical factor likely to further limit the division's progress in the days ahead. Compounding their challenges, General Iwanaka's reconstituted 2nd Tank Division had suffered heavy casualties, leaving General Konuma unable to provide further reinforcements. On April 17, the rested 127th Regiment finally began its move to relieve the beleaguered 128th Regiment at the western pass, launching operations to clear the last remnants of Japanese forces from the Hill 506-507 area. Although Hill 506B fell rapidly on April 19, and Hill 507C was captured three days later, American forces struggled to completely clear Hill 507D until May 2, underscoring the tenacity of the Japanese defenders. Despite the challenges, enough ground had been cleared by April 26 for the 2nd Battalion to initiate a drive east along and south of the Villa Verde Trail, aiming for the strategically important Hill 508. The Japanese forces, sensing this new threat, responded with fierce counterattacks from both the east and north, managing to delay the American capture of Hill 508 until April 29. The intense fighting illustrated the importance of this elevation, which offered vital visibility over the surrounding landscapes. In the days that followed, the 2nd Battalion expanded its control over Hill 508, establishing a defensive block on the Villa Verde Trail to the north while successfully repelling a series of heavy Japanese counterattacks. Meanwhile, the 3rd Battalion made significant strides by attacking and capturing Hill 509, further consolidating American positions in the area. Simultaneously, the 2nd Battalion of the 126th Regiment launched an offensive south from Hill 511, seizing Hill 515 on April 24. They advanced into the area north of Hill 508 while the 1st Battalion navigated through the rugged terrain of Hills 513 and 514, pressing southward to Hill 516. Their advance culminated in the capture of the crest of Hill 525, where they established a critical block on the Villa Verde Trail. However, the cost of these advances was significant. Due to the heavy losses incurred during these operations, the barely rested 128th Regiment began the process of relieving the exhausted 126th on May 3. Shortly after, the 128th's 2nd Battalion launched an assault southeast, successfully capturing Hill 526 on May 7, while some elements initiated a drive towards Hill 527. To the further east, General Mullins' 25th Division was persistently pushing its Santa Fe offensive against stubborn Japanese resistance. In a stroke of fortune, a successful aerial reconnaissance mission revealed that ground located just 1,000 yards west of their position might offer a more favorable route of advance to Balete Ridge, providing a welcome alternative to the challenging Myoko mass itself. On April 22, a reconnaissance force from the 27th Regiment successfully moved undetected to the southern slope of Balete Ridge, positioning themselves for a critical advance. The following day, the rest of the 2nd Battalion began to push toward Lone Tree Hill, while other units continued to exert pressure on the entrenched Japanese defenses at Myoko. Moving forward with enthusiasm and encountering negligible resistance, the Americans reached Lone Tree Hill on April 25, effectively bypassing the main concentrations of enemy forces. By April 27, the 2nd Battalion had advanced an impressive half mile beyond Lone Tree Hill, with its forward elements only three-quarters of a mile from Balete Pass. However, they were compelled to halt their advance due to the potential threat of an enemy counterattack looming on the horizon. Meanwhile, on April 23, the 35th Regiment began its ascent up Kapintalan Ridge, steadily making progress despite the challenging terrain. By April 27, their leading troops had reached a prominent knob located midway between Route 5 and Lone Tree Hill. The 161st Regiment was also making strides, continuing its attack northward towards Kembu Ridge, where they successfully secured Hill 4625 and the entirety of Highley Ridge by April 28. On that same day, the 27th Regiment began reinforcing their positions on Lone Tree Hill, while elements of the 2nd Battalion initiated a southwest push along Kapintalan Ridge to support the 35th Regiment advancing up Route 5. However, they encountered a formidable strongpoint and were only able to gain 350 yards of new ground northeast from the knob. Simultaneously, elements of the 27th Regiment advanced a modest 500 yards southwest by May 4, indicating the ongoing struggle. That morning, the 1st Battalion of the 161st Regiment seized the southeastern nose of Kembu Ridge, securing a valuable tactical position. At the same time, the 2nd Battalion pushed troops onto the ridge, extending their reach half a mile to the northwest, further consolidating American control in the area. As a breakthrough appeared imminent, General Krueger began dispatching Beightler's 37th Division to the Bambang front on May 2, with all elements of the division departing the Baguio area just three days later. With these reinforcements securing his rear and taking control of the Myoko massif, General Mullins ordered the 27th and 161st Regiments to concentrate their forces for a coordinated attack aimed at enveloping Balete Pass from both the east and west. On May 5, the 161st swiftly broke through Kembu Ridge and advanced to Haruna Ridge, while the 27th Regiment pushed west-northwest along Wolfhound Ridge. However, they faced fierce resistance, gaining only 350 yards against tenacious Japanese defenders. On May 8, Company I successfully launched a southwest offensive from their stronghold along a bare-crested ridge, while Company A deployed on Kenbu Ridge and began ascending the final sections of the Digdig River gorge. The following day, these two companies finally made contact with each other and linked up with the 161st on Haruna Ridge. By May 10, Wolfhound Ridge was secured, coinciding with elements of the 35th Regiment completing the clearance of Route 5 from Kapintalan to the pass. In the meantime, the 35th Regiment, along with units from the 27th, continued their assault on Kapintalan Ridge, which was ultimately secured by May 13. Meanwhile, the 148th Regiment renewed its attacks on Myoko Ridge, where Japanese resistance began to collapse by May 11. With these gains, Balete Pass was now secure. The Americans had incurred 565 men killed and 1,745 wounded during the drive, while General Okamoto's 10th Division experienced catastrophic losses, with nearly 7,000 men killed and a complete breakdown of their control and communications. Reflecting on the situation in Salacsac, by May 8, the Japanese position was deteriorating rapidly. In response, General Iwanaka made the critical decision to dispatch troops aimed at cutting the supply line to the 2nd Battalion of the 128th Regiment, with the intention of safeguarding his main stronghold at Mount Imugan. On that day, the 1st Battalion of the 128th Regiment began to push eastward, facing strong resistance, while elements of the 2nd Battalion moved west from Hill 526, struggling to make any significant progress. By May 10, Japanese forces successfully severed the track between Hills 525 and 516, forcing much of the 128th and one battalion of the 127th Regiment to allocate considerable resources to eliminate the Japanese pocket that had formed in that area. Meanwhile, the 33rd Division was left disheartened as it found itself assigned a holding mission to secure the Baguio-Bauang-San Fernando area. Their operations were limited to minor local gains and long-range reconnaissance, which did little to impact the overall situation.  During May 1945, the only significant action undertaken by the 33rd Division took place along a trail connecting Santa Rosa in the Ambayabang Valley to Tebbo, located on the Agno River five miles south of Pitican. The division focused its efforts on clearing Japanese forces from the high ground situated between the main trail and the upper reaches of the Ambayabang Valley. On May 9, a battalion of the 130th Regiment advanced south from Baguio via Pitican and reached Tebbo, only to find the barrio abandoned. Meanwhile, on May 5, the 136th Regiment began its advance up the Ambayabang Valley. Approximately three miles south of Tebbo, they became embroiled in a ten-day battle, resulting in the deaths of a few hundred Japanese troops. However, these enemy forces posed little threat to the 33rd Division, their primary mission being to block American attacks toward the Baguio-Aritao supply road from the south. As the rainy season approached, 1st Corps and the 33rd Division had long since abandoned plans to use the valley as a route of advance against the Japanese supply lines. Consequently, the 136th Regiment relinquished the terrain it had gained along the valley and the trail to Tebbo almost immediately after capturing it. By May 15, all troops of the 33rd Division began their withdrawal, a challenging task compounded by heavy rains that had transformed the Pitican-Tebbo trail and the trails in the Ambayabang Valley into quagmires. The final destruction of the Japanese blocking force in the valley had little impact on the strategic plans or dispositions of 1st Corps or the Shobu Group, as the Japanese quickly replenished their outposts. By the end of May, the 33rd Division was left executing reconnaissance missions without significant enemy contact or major advances. The division remained in a state of restless anticipation, awaiting developments on the Bontoc and Bambang fronts before the 6th Army would authorize a new drive deeper into the rugged mountains of northern Luzon. Turning to the north, the guerrilla 121st Regiment achieved a significant victory on April 21 by overrunning the last Japanese positions on Lamagan Ridge. About a week later, they completed their occupation of Lower Cadsu. However, during the first part of May, the 121st Regiment faced formidable challenges as they advanced over steep terrain against increasingly fortified Japanese defenses, bolstered by reinforcements from General Ozaki's 19th Division. In the south, Hall's 11th Corps made good progress throughout mid-April, successfully pushing General Yokoyama's 41st Army, previously known as the Shimbu Group, further east from Manila. Concurrently, General Hurdis' 6th Division continued its offensive against the Kobayashi Detachment at Wawa Dam, achieving a notable success by securing the crest of Mount Mataba on April 17, marking a significant tactical gain in the ongoing battle. Despite General Hurdis' hopes to swiftly advance against Mount Pacawagan and Wawa Dam, persistent personnel issues forced him to halt any offensive actions until the 145th Regiment could relieve the 20th Regiment in the Montalban area. The 145th eventually began its assault on Pacawagan on April 21. However, even with effective supporting fire that destroyed much of the enemy's defenses, American forces struggled to secure a foothold on the mountain until the end of the month. Meanwhile, the 1st and 63rd Regiments continued to hold their occupied ground until they were relieved late in April by the 151st and 152nd Regiments of General Chase's 38th Division, which then officially assumed control of the offensive operations. In the southern part of Manila, significant water supply problems prompted General Hall to redeploy General Wing's 43rd Division northward in preparation for an offensive against Ipo Dam.  By mid-April 1945, an acute water shortage had developed within the city of Manila. General MacArthur informed General Krueger about the dire situation, noting that south of the Pasig River, Manila had access to no water sources except for that supplied by Army tank trucks and shallow, often contaminated wells. This shortage significantly hampered sewage disposal throughout the city, as water pressure from the overtaxed Novaliches Reservoir, the only reliable source was insufficient to carry off waste. As a result, flush toilets were frequently clogged, forcing many citizens to resort to using gutters and esteros for defecation. Restaurants and nightclubs, which were heavily frequented by off-duty American troops, struggled to maintain even minimum sanitary standards. The situation was exacerbated by a steady influx of military units and civilians into the metropolitan area, raising concerns about the imminent threat of severe epidemics breaking out in the city. On April 19, MacArthur suggested to Krueger that the 6th Army could resolve Manila's water supply crisis by seizing "the reservoir in the Montalban area." He inquired how soon the installation could be captured. This query puzzled Krueger, who was aware that the only true reservoirs linked to the Manila water system were located west of the Marikina River and had been under American control since February. Furthermore, Krueger understood that Wawa Dam, the nearest water supply installation to Montalban, was no longer connected to the metropolitan system. He subsequently asked MacArthur if by "reservoir in the Montalban area," he meant Ipo Dam, the only major water installation still in Japanese hands. Krueger's question seemingly led to further examination of Manila's water system at General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area (GHQ SWPA). On April 22, MacArthur radioed back to Krueger, confirming that Ipo Dam was indeed the preferred objective. He emphasized that capturing the Ipo installation would effectively solve Manila's water supply problems. Upon receiving this directive, Krueger ordered the 11th Corps to launch a drive on Ipo Dam as soon as possible. This shift in forces meant the 112th Cavalry Regiment had to move south to take over the vacated positions. General Wing conducted a reconnaissance-in-force that revealed the Kawashima Force's defenses south of Route 52 were considerably weaker than those around the main highway. In light of this intelligence, the plan for assault was set into motion. On the night of May 6, the 103rd Regiment was ordered to advance towards Mount Katitinga and prepare to attack the dam. Supporting this effort, the 172nd Regiment would strike across a two-mile-wide front to the left of the 103rd towards the dam, while the 169th Regiment was tasked with demonstrating along Route 52 to pin down Japanese forces in the Bigti region. Additionally, Marking's Fil-American Yay Regiment at Norzagaray was to make a feint drive eastward north of the Angat River, targeting Mount Kabuyao. During the first three days of May, General Chase conducted probing attacks in preparation for a concerted offensive aimed at Wawa Dam, which was set to begin on May 4. Simultaneously, General Yokoyama observed what he believed to be a slowdown in enemy progress, leading him to conclude that American forces must be redeploying northward or evacuating from Luzon entirely. This prompted him to prepare a limited counteroffensive, consisting of a series of harassing and delaying actions designed to pin down enemy forces on this front. Consequently, Yokoyama was not anticipating a major offensive on May 4. However, on that day, the 145th Regiment managed to gain up to 1,000 yards along the northern and northeastern slopes of Pacawagan, while the 152nd Regiment advanced approximately 500 yards northward along Woodpecker Ridge. Although these territorial gains were not monumental, Yokoyama became increasingly concerned about the strength of the American attacks and made the urgent decision to launch his counteroffensive. As Japanese forces hurried to reposition for their counterattacks, the 145th Regiment struck eastward, successfully seizing the rocky summit of Mount Binicayan. Meanwhile, the 152nd continued its efforts along Woodpecker Ridge. This coordinated assault completely surprised General Kobayashi's troops, rendering their planned counterattack impossible as they were forced to shift their focus to defending their critical positions. In the southern sector, General Kawashima dispatched one battalion toward Montalban; however, the heavy air assaults that preceded Wing's offensive made it impossible for the Japanese unit to organize effectively for their attack. Adding to the Japanese troubles, the remnants of the Noguchi Force were unable to provide any significant reinforcements. Despite the surprise and disarray among the Japanese defenders, they could not prevent the 145th from capturing the crest of Binicayan on May 9. The troops stationed on Woodpecker Ridge experienced some success by halting the advance of the 152nd and initiated a week of increasingly aggressive dawn and dusk raids starting on May 14. Recognizing the futility of the ongoing conflict, which had resulted in over 1,300 Japanese casualties, General Yokoyama ordered an immediate withdrawal of all units involved on May 15. However, these orders would not reach the front lines until a week later. In the meantime, capitalizing on the element of surprise achieved during the night attack on May 6, General Wing launched an offensive that made excellent progress. The 103rd Regiment rapidly gained control of the western slopes of Katitinga and advanced swiftly along the ridgeline toward Hill 1000. Meanwhile, the 172nd Regiment reached the foot of a rocky ridge two miles southeast of Bigti, and the Marking Regiment encountered no resistance as it marched over seven miles eastward, ultimately halting just a mile and a half northwest of Kabuyao. The only significant resistance encountered occurred at Hill 535, where elements of a guerrilla unit were repelled by Japanese defenders. The unexpectedly weak Japanese opposition prompted the 43rd Division to sustain its offensive momentum without pause. By May 11, the 103rd had secured Hills 805 and 810, while the 172nd was probing Japanese defenses on Fork Ridge and advancing to the southwestern slopes of rocky Hill 815. The Marking Regiment had successfully overrun Kabuyao, though they were unable to capture Four-Corner Hill. At this point, Japanese resistance began to stiffen as American forces clashed with General Kawashima's main defenses. In response, Wing ordered the 169th Regiment to mount a limited attack on Osboy Ridge and directed the Marking guerrillas to launch a strong assault toward Ipo. Supported by artillery, Colonel Marcus Augustin succeeded in breaking through Four-Corner Hill on May 12, marking a critical turning point in the offensive. Unaware of Kawashima's precarious situation, Yokoyama directed the Kawashima Force to initiate a new counterattack against the left and left rear of the 38th Division, deeming the situation for the Kobayashi Force to be more critical. As a result, Kawashima was compelled to divert one battalion for this unnecessary assault, which weakened the Japanese defenses. This strategic miscalculation enabled General Wing to make significant gains on May 13, with the 103rd Regiment capturing Hill 860, the 172nd clearing much of Hill 815, and the Marking guerrillas seizing the summit of Hill 803. The extent of these advances prompted Kawashima to ultimately disregard Yokoyama's orders and recall his assault battalion. This battalion promptly mounted a counterattack against the Americans in a futile attempt to regain lost ground, managing only to restrict the 103rd and 172nd Regiments to minor gains on May 14. Simultaneously, Colonel Augustin's patrols crossed the Angat River unopposed, discovering that the dam remained intact and the powerhouse on the south bank was largely undamaged. However, the patrol force, too weak to hold these installations, retreated before dawn to the crest of Hill 803, where the remainder of the regiment was occupied with mopping up remaining resistance. Looking further south, General Griswold's 14th Corps had already secured most of southern Luzon and had successfully landed General MacNider's 158th Regiment in the Bicol Peninsula. In response, the remnants of the Fuji Force and the depleted Kogure Detachment decided to evacuate the open Santa Maria Valley, opting to retreat to more defensible positions at the Kapatalin Sawmill. This allowed Griswold to move the 7th and 8th Cavalry Regiments into the valley, with the former beginning a drive along Route 455 on May 6. Following a heavy air and artillery bombardment, the cavalrymen launched their assault on the sawmill on May 9 and swiftly overran the enemy defenses by mid-afternoon. After a brief pause to reorganize, the 7th Cavalry advanced up Route 455, leaving their vehicles behind, and reached Lamon Bay by May 13. Meanwhile, on the Bicol Peninsula, progress had been agonizingly slow throughout late April. It wasn't until April 28 that the Cituinan Hills were fully secured, leading to the collapse of organized Japanese resistance in the region. Following this, the 158th Regiment began moving northwestward toward Iriga and San Agustin, rapidly overrunning the remaining weak enemy positions along Route 1. Progress continued to be painfully slow, and it was not until 28 April that organized Japanese resistance finally collapsed. The task of clearing the Cituinan Hills cost the 158th Infantry approximately 40 men killed and 235 wounded; the Japanese lost almost 700 men killed in the region. Although the 158th RCT did not know it, the reduction of the Cituinan Hills marked the end of large-scale organized resistance on the Bicol Peninsula, where no more than 1,400 Japanese remained alive as of the end of April. Simultaneously, the 5th Cavalry Regiment captured Calauag on April 14 and began a two-pronged advance toward San Agustin by the end of the month. On May 2, San Agustin was finally taken as elements of both regiments converged there. Guerrillas had informed XIV Corps, which acquired control of the 158th RCT on 22 April, that a Japanese force of some 2,500 men was dug in along the slopes of Mt. Isarog, an extinct volcano centering eight miles northeast of San Agustin. This report the 5th Cavalry and 158th Infantry proved false in a series of patrol actions between 2 and 15 May. The next day, the 16th, General MacNider radioed to General Griswold that the Bicol Peninsula was secure and that no signs of organized Japanese resistance remained. The two regiments continued patrolling for some weeks until, on 6 June, the 5th Cavalry returned to southern Luzon. The 158th RCT busied itself with the problem of reorganizing and equipping guerrilla forces and in mid-June turned over responsibility for further mopping up to the Filipinos. To that time the operations to clear the Bicol Peninsula had cost the USArmy units involved approximately 95 men killed and 475 wounded. The Japanese had lost over 2,800 killed and 565 captured, including 350 Formosan labor troops whom the Japanese Army had left to fend for themselves. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. In June 1945, amidst the Pacific War, American forces sought to liberate Luzon from General Yamashita's entrenched troops. Under Generals Eichelberger and Krueger, the 8th Army faced fierce resistance in the mountains and vital routes. As Japanese defenders struggled, the Americans advanced strategically, leading to fierce battles across treacherous terrain.  The turning point came with the seizure of Baguio, crucial for the campaign.

Stay informed, stay connected — SBS Filipino shares the news and stories that matter to Filipinos in Australia. - Hatid ng SBS Filipino ang mga balita, impormasyon at kwento ng mga Pinoy sa Australia.

Nos habéis preguntado mucho por qué tenemos tan poca vergüenza, donde verguenza es regularidad con las publicaciones. Pues menos quejitas, chavales, que somos el único podcast que publica en verano para pagar nuestras penitencias del curso. Volvemos después de un mes con cositas que han ocurrido en nuestra ausencia: - Nuestras runas fallan estrepitosamente (qué osadía) y Melody no gana Eurovisión. Tampoco gana el cariño de toda esta gente porque después de su vuelta a España se viene comportando como tremenda circa. - Las influencers se meten en estafas piramidales por un lado y se presentan en recepciones reales por el otro. ¿Querría Letizia saber cómo quitar esas manchas imposibles del sofá que hizo Felipe un día que se puso ciego de Filipinos mientras veía las Tentachonis? Hubiese sido una fantasía, pero de momento parece que La Casa Real falla más que una escopeta de feria invitando a la peña. - Finaliza Supervivientes y estamos todas hasta el gran higo del oriente con el fenómeno Montoya. Todo lo que sube rápido baja más rápido todavía, así que el chico resultó ser un egocéntrico y más pesado que una vaca en brazos y ha tenido que desertar de la tele. Normal. - Alejandro Sanz, para sorpresa de absolutamente CERO PERSONAS estaba medrando con chiquillas barely legal y luego se ha levantado meado, como no podía ser de otra manera. Todo esto y muchísimo más, es decir, contamos nuestras mierdas, comentamos la incoming III Guerra Mundial, el maquillaje del perrosanxe y muchísimo más en el nuevo episodio de tu podcast estival favorito. A querernos!!!!!

Stay informed, stay connected — SBS Filipino shares the news and stories that matter to Filipinos in Australia. - Hatid ng SBS Filipino ang mga balita, impormasyon at kwento ng mga Pinoy sa Australia.

Stay informed, stay connected — SBS Filipino shares the news and stories that matter to Filipinos in Australia. - Hatid ng SBS Filipino ang mga balita, impormasyon at kwento ng mga Pinoy sa Australia.

NEWS: 150 Filipinos in Israel want to return home | June 19, 2025Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.netFollow us:Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebookInstagram - https://tmt.ph/instagramTwitter - https://tmt.ph/twitterDailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotionSubscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digitalSign up to our newsletters: https://tmt.ph/newslettersCheck out our Podcasts:Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotifyApple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcastsAmazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusicDeezer: https://tmt.ph/deezerStitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcherTune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein#TheManilaTimes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Stay informed, stay connected — SBS Filipino shares the news and stories that matter to Filipinos in Australia. - Hatid ng SBS Filipino ang mga balita, impormasyon at kwento ng mga Pinoy sa Australia.

NEWS: Stay away from rallies, Filipinos in LA told | June 16, 2025Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.netFollow us:Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebookInstagram - https://tmt.ph/instagramTwitter - https://tmt.ph/twitterDailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotionSubscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digitalSign up to our newsletters: https://tmt.ph/newslettersCheck out our Podcasts:Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotifyApple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcastsAmazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusicDeezer: https://tmt.ph/deezerStitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcherTune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein#TheManilaTimes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rudy Corpuz, Jr. has been a fixture in the San Francisco community as the founder of United Playaz. His work focuses on violence prevention and youth mentorship, headquartered in the SoMa District. As the child of Filipino immigrants, Rudy struggled with identity issues and began getting into trouble at an early age. This led him towards selling and eventually using drugs, which landed him in jail. After turning his life around, he got a job doing outreach to Filipino gangs who were involved in riots at Balboa High School. After helping bring Black, Samoans, and Filipinos together at the school, Rudy started United Playaz.--For promo opportunities on the podcast, e-mail info@historyofthebay.com--History of the Bay Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZUM4rCv6xfNbvB4r8TVWU?si=9218659b5f4b43aaOnline Store: https://dregsone.myshopify.com Follow Dregs One:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1UNuCcJlRb8ImMc5haZHXF?si=poJT0BYUS-qCfpEzAX7mlAInstagram: https://instagram.com/dregs_oneTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@dregs_oneTwitter: https://twitter.com/dregs_oneFacebook: https://facebook.com/dregsone41500:00 How Dregs met Rudy05:42 Philippines to SF10:52 SoMa & Manilatown18:57 Identity crisis24:26 Crack era31:20 Life in SoMa35:31 Asian gangs40:24 Dope game, jail, addiction52:34 Making a change56:52 Filipino gang prevention1:08:53 United Playaz1:13:22 Working with the youth1:17:24 SoMa today

You can Google “why hire from the Philippines” and get a bunch of random opinions. That's not what this is.I've been outsourcing since 2005—back when there was nothing out there about outsourcing. No guides, no YouTube experts, no frameworks. Just trial and error.I've hired from India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico… you name it. And it's not about cheap. It's about what actually works—better than anything else I've tried.This isn't a recycled “Top 9” list. This is 20 years of hiring wins, mistakes, breakthroughs—plus thousands of other business owners who figured it out too: Filipino VAs are just different.So why do I keep going back to the Philippines—again and again?

First generation Filipinos who migrated in Darwin during the seventies and eighties remain active members of the community. Many are participating in activities geared for seniors as part of the Filipiniana Senior Citizens Association Incorporated. - Patuloy ang aktibong pamumuhay ng Pilipino seniors na nag-migrate sa Darwin noong Dekada 70s hanggang 80s. Marami sa kanila ay bahagi ng Filipiniana Senior Citizens Association Incorporated.

Stay informed, stay connected — SBS Filipino shares the news and stories that matter to Filipinos in Australia. - Hatid ng SBS Filipino ang mga balita, impormasyon at kwento ng mga Pinoy sa Australia.

The Randomizer thrust Shiri Appleby back into Munchstory for the second time in three months in "Dearly Beloved," Episode 19 of Season 20. If you want an SVU where the entire field of psychotherapy called into question by a perpetrator/victim combination for whom the concept of truth is akin to cheap toilet paper you stole from your job, then this is the episode for you. Do good therapists tell their patients/victims that they suffer from erotic rape fantasy disorder? Short answer: no. Long answer: well, how's about you take a listen?Sources:Snuff Box - “Suicide Part IV (The Empty Room)” on YouTubeMusic:Divorcio Suave - "Munchy Business"Thanks to our gracious Munchies on Patreon: Jeremy S, Jaclyn O, Amy Z, Diana R, Tony B, Zak B, Barry W, Drew D, Nicky R, Stuart, Jacqi B, Natalie T, Robyn S, Christine L, Amy A, Sean M, Jay S, Briley O, Asteria K, Suzanne B, Tim Y, John P, John W, Elia S, Rebecca B, Lily, Sarah L, Melsa A, Alyssa C, Johnathon M, Tiffany C, Brian B, Kate K, Whitney C, Alex, Jannicke HS, Roni C, and Nourhane B - y'all are the best!Be a Munchie, too! Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/munchmybensonBe sure to check out our other podcast diving into long unseen films of our guests' youth: Unkind Rewind at our website or on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcastsFollow us on: BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Reddit (Adam's Twitter/BlueSky and Josh's BlueSky/Letterboxd/Substack)Join our Discord: Munch Casts ServerCheck out Munch Merch: Munch Merch at ZazzleCheck out our guest appearances:Both of us on: FMWL Pod (1st Time & 2nd Time), Storytellers from Ratchet Book Club, Chick-Lit at the Movies talking about The Thin Man, and last but not least on the seminal L&O podcast …These Are Their Stories (Adam and Josh).Josh debating the Greatest Detectives in TV History on The Great Pop Culture Debate Podcast and talking SVU/OC and Psych (five eps in all) on Jacked Up Review Show.Visit Our Website: Munch My BensonEmail the podcast: munchmybenson@gmail.comThe Next New Episode Once We're Back from Adam's Paternity Leave Will Be: Season 16, Episode 14 "Intimidation Game"Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/munch-my-benson-a-law-order-svu-podcast--5685940/support.

Stay informed, stay connected — SBS Filipino shares the news and stories that matter to Filipinos in Australia. - Hatid ng SBS Filipino ang mga balita, impormasyon at kwento ng mga Pinoy sa Australia.

A survey says majority of Filipinos want Sara Duterte to address impeachment charges. So, what are the senators waiting for?

As Jezzie and Sigi wrap up Musical May, they dive into Filipinos Taking Over Broadway. On their pop culture catch up they rave over Hacks-Season 4, Thunderbolts, Prime Target, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and what Kellyanne Conway is up to. They segue into their Broadway ep from an earlier season and how Lea Salonga, their queen has found her way back to Broadway and in addition many Filipinos taking over “The Great White Way.” They revel over the representation in  7 musicals with Filipino leads and several who also happen to be Tony nominated. Jezzie sums up how the Filipino language as sonorant and encourages listeners to ‘Sing you heritage.'

JOIN THE WEIRDEST PATREON EVER: https://www.patreon.com/c/TrashTuesdayPodcast Happy summer yall! we’ve got the whole family in the stu - including jules baby sister, isa!! What a treat. The girls talk about boyfriends, jealousy, sibling drama & celebrate AAPI Month as well as Jewish Heritage Month with a competitive, unhinged game of jeopardy that completely goes off the gdamn rails. classic us — enjoy!!! Thank You to Our Sponsor(s): Check out the SKIMS Ultimate Bra Collection and more at https://www.skims.com/trashtuesday #skimspartner* Forhers.com/trashtuesday for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/9vos470a #CashAppPod *Referral Reward Disclaimer: As a Cash App partner, I may earn a commission when you sign up for a Cash App account. *Listen to Esther's New Solo Pod!* https://www.esthersgrouptherapy.substack.com *Visit Ebb Ocean Club & Holiday Shop* https://www.ebboceanclub.com/ for Khalyla’s reef safe and biodegradable hair products! FOLLOW TRASH ON SOCIALS: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itstrashtuesday Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itstrashtuesday MORE ESTHER: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@esthermonster Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/esthermonster/ MORE KHALYLA: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/khalamityk/ Tigerbelly Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCIyIoM_Nd8HtY19fuR_ov2A PRODUCTION: Production Team: Tiny Legends, LLC: https://www.instagram.com/tinylegends.prod/ Stella Young: https://www.instagram.com/estellayoung/ Guy Robinson: https://www.instagram.com/grobfps/ Edited By: Arielle Jade: https://www.instagram.com/jade.rabbit.cce/

Nelson Lumbres is Co-Founder at ICP Hub Philippines. ICP Hub Philippines is an incubator and accelerator for tech projects in the Philippines. ICP Hub Philippines is doing upskilling programs, trainings, hackathons, and code camps to train Filipinos in emerging tech as well as for the new Internet in the Web3 space. Know more about the programs and the community in this episode!In this episode | 01:35 Ano ang ICP Hub Philippines? | 10:30 What is ICP or Internet Computer Protocol? | 18:59 Why is ICP building a community in the Philippines? | 22:45 Who are the organizations behind? | 26:28 What are the programs of ICP Hub Philippines? | 27:43 What are example projects and MVPs done in the programs? | 33:12 Who can join the programs? | 37:22 What is the vision? | 41:03 How can listeners find more information?ICP HUB PHILIPPINES | Website: https://islacamp.ph | Facebook: https://facebook.com/ICPHubPH | Email: lumbresnelson@gmail.comTHIS EPISODE IS CO-PRODUCED BY:SPROUT SOLUTIONS | Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sprout.ph⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Sprout Payroll Starter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/SproutPayrollStarter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | APEIRON | Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://apeirongrp.com |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TWALA |Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twala.io⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | SYMPH Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://symph.co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | SECUNA Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://secuna.io⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | MAROON STUDIOS Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://maroonstudios.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | AIMHI Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aimhi.ai⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠CHECK OUT OUR PARTNERS | Ask Lex PH Academy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://asklexph.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (5% discount on e-learning courses! Code: ALPHAXSUP) | Founders Launchpad: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://founderslaunchpad.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | GumdropLab: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://gumdroplab.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | CloudCFO: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://cloudcfo.ph⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Free financial assessment, process onboarding, and 6-month QuickBooks subscription! Mention: Start Up Podcast PH) | Cloverly.tech: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://cloverly.tech |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ BuddyBetes: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://buddybetes.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | HKB Digital Services: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://contakt-ph.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (10% discount on RFID Business Cards! Code: CONTAKTXSUP) | Hyperstacks: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hyperstacksinc.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | OneCFO: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://onecfoph.co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (10% discount on CFO services! Code: ONECFOXSUP) | UNAWA: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://unawa.asia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | SkoolTek: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://skooltek.co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Better Support: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bettersupport.io⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Referral fee for anyone who can bring in new BPO clients!) | Britana: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://britanaerp.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Wunderbrand: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://wunderbrand.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Fail Coach: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fail.coach⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Drive Manila: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://facebook.com/drivemanilaph⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | EastPoint Business Outsourcing Services: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://facebook.com/eastpointoutsourcing⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Doon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://doon.ph⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Hier Business Solutions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hierpayroll.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | DVCode Technologies: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dvcode.tech |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Mata Technologies: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://mata.ph⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | LookingFour Buy & Sell Online: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lookingfour.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | NutriCoach: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nutricoach.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Uplift Code Camp: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://upliftcodecamp.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (5% discount on bootcamps and courses! Code: UPLIFTSTARTUPPH) | Digest PH: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://digest.ph⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (10% discount on legal services! Code: DIGESTXSUP)START UP PODCAST PH | YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/startuppodcastph⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/6BObuPvMfoZzdlJeb1XXVa⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-up-podcast/id1576462394⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://facebook.com/startuppodcastph⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/StartUpPodcastPH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://phstartup.online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Edited by the team at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tasharivera.com

Prime Minister Mark Carney holds his first cabinet meeting since the federal election.  Industry Minister Melanie Joly says she plans to speak of the head of Honda by the end of day.  US President Donald Trump meets Syria's transformational president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia.  Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan indicted in federal court for allegedly helping an undocumented person evade immigration officials.  Vancouver-based immigration consulting company investigated by Canada Border Services Agency for duping Filipinos out of tens of thousands of dollars.  The International Energy Agency says electric vehicles are becoming cheaper and easier to charge, despite threats of tariffs.  French study finds men produce more climate-changing emissions than women.

The 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis highlighted the nation's triumphs but it also reveled in public exploitation of indigenous Filipinos, who were put on display to demonstrate the "savagery" of other cultures. In addition to the 47-acre "Philippine Village," the Philippine Constabulary Band was also a popular attraction. Piccolo player Pedro B. Navarro was a key member of the band. His great-granddaughter, Mary Lacanlale, an ethnomusicologist at California State University, shares insights about the band, the exploitation of Filipino people at the World's Fair and her ancestor's experience there. She also reflects on the recent dedication of a memorial to the Philippine Village in Clayton.

The famous musician Eyedress joins us fresh off the release of his new album and Coachella run to talk about alt Filipinos, working with Harmony Korine and an array of wild folks, and the persecution that came with wearing tight jeans before everybody else. Join the Patreon for the Yeah But Still reunion with Jack Wagner and Johnny Wardell, bonus episodes, DiddyWatch video special and more. https://www.patreon.com/thebrandonjamelshow?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

The Context of White Supremacy hosts the weekly Compensatory Call-In 05/03/25. We encourage non-white listeners to dial in with their codified concepts, new terms, observations, research findings, workplace problems or triumphs, and/or suggestions on how best to Replace White Supremacy With Justice ASAP. This weekly broadcast examines current events from across the globe to learn what's happening in all areas of people activity. We cultivate Counter-Racist Media Literacy by scrutinizing journalists' word choices and using logic to deconstruct what is reported as "news." We'll use these sessions to hone our use of terms as tools to reveal truth, neutralize Racists/White people. #ANTIBLACKNESS While SoCal and Mexico prepare the avocados and limes for Cinco de Mayo, non-white Filipinos in Vancouver mourn the loss of 8 people when a car was driven through the crowded festival. Gus T. and others initially suspected that the culprit was someone classified as White - both because he was taken into custody alive and because this was a non-white event celebrating counter-racist efforts. However, the person in custody charged for this dastardly act appears to be non-white, not black. This week also marks 50 years since the official conclusion of the Vietnam conflict. The many components of White Supremacy in this "war" are efficiently minimized and omitted