♪ robert handa: hello, welcome to "asian pacific america." i'm robert handa, your host for our show here on nbc bay area and cozi tv. it is time for all of us to join the bay area's filipino-american community to celebrate its history, culture, and achievements with the 25th annual pistahan festival and parade. was that close? male: that's great. robert: all right. we'll start with a look at what's ahead for the festival and parade coming up august 11 and 12 in san francisco, and why it's billed as the world's largest filipino-american celebration. we'll see the entertainment plan, which will include music, dance, food, martial arts, and comedy. then even more vationhis year, seven highly interactive pavilions, a project that organizers say separates them even more from other festivals. and we close with a live cooking demonstration as we spotlight

the variety of food availabl.ri all of this on our show today. well, this is the 25th annual pistahan festival and parade. i had the honor of emceeing the event during one of those years, and it is truly a fun, colorful blend of the old and the new. with me are two familiar faces who've been a big part of that tradition. first the pistahan president, al perez, not only a leader in this event but in many other areas of the community. something we can also say about the pistahan parade director, john espiritu, a san francisco native who has done many jobs with the celebration, now serving his second year as parade director. so, welcome back. al perez: thank you so much for having us. robert: now, you know, i was joking a little bit at the beginning, but we were talking before this show, pistahan, pistahan. we've been hearing a lot of different pronunciations from different filipinos. al: yeah, yeah. robert: okay. so, but we all try to stay on course here with the way you were telling me. yoth? al: yeah, we're very excited. it's our 25th milestone year of celebrating international celebration of filipino culture and cuisine.

so yeah, we're very proud, especially being an all-volunteer organization. it's exciting for us. robert: yeah, what about this year? john, what's going to be happening? john espiritu: so, we like to start off our celebration with the parade. so, parade's going to be august 11. we're going to be going down market street, starting off at civic center plaza. parade is a--it's a journey organization-wise. it's a big thing that we have to plan, and we start off as early as november, december, like a couple months after the pistahan ends in august. and so, you know, we're looking--our goal is to shine light on our culture, to showcase how we are and i think we'll be able to do so. we have over 60 different organizations that we're going to be featuring. you're talking jeepneys, you're talking cable cars, over six floats. we have cultural dancers, we'll have stormtroopers. so, it's a mix of san francisco culture as well

asip so, it's super exciting. robert: i know, and it is very crowded. we don't want to discourage people, we want them--it's all worth the trouble, but they should know logistically what in terms of getting there? get early, things like that. al: yeah, the parade starts at 11. we have an opening ceremonies at 10 o'clock. so yeah, it's very--it's at civic center plaza, so it's very close to public transit. robert: you know, we were talking a little bit earlier, and i mentioned the old and the new, you were mentioning a lot about that kind of thing and getting the community involved and everything. just keeps building though every year, huh? is it--i mean, i think the bay area probably has maybe, if not the largest, the most active filipino-american communitouat'sorrect. yeah, yeah, being in san francisco bay area, there's a lot. now, i guess the filipino community's the largest asian minority in the us. so yeah, so we're very privileged and very happy to be part of this city that's ry and sous

filipino culture is really great. that gd here, which isn't always the case in some of the ethnic or cultural festivals s but the young people have been a part of this, and they've bought into it early on. al: yeah, our organization is very--or the planning committee's definitely multigenerational. so yeah, we really embrace that, and we want to celebrate the multigeneration and diversity in our community. and that's reflected in our programming. robert: yeah. of course, you know, one of the things we always talk about too is that it isn't just for the filipino-american community. they come out, they get involved, and they enjoy it, but it's also i see other communities, you know, many other culturals--cultured people john: i think that's one of our motivations too. we want to be able to showcase to not only filipinos, but to all dsi this is our--this is who we are. and when we see non-filipinos in our parade,

it's what motivates us to work hard on our parade, so. robert: yeah. and that pride is really something that you stress, huh? i mean, it isn't just enjoying yourself, you really want to make sure that the community takes pride in what's achieved and what it's--what's happened. al: that's part of our mission as an organization is to help broaden awareness and deepen understanding of filipino culture, to spark that cultural pride and to foster community empowerment. robert: yeah, i'm already looking forward to seeing you guys there and enjoy the festivities, all right? congratulations. al: thank you. john: thank you so much. robert: okay, well, the 25th annual pistahan or pistahan parade and festival, august 11 and 12 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. the festival is at yerba buena gardens and jessie square in the soma, south of market neighborhood of san francisco. as you heard, market street from civic center to yerba buena gardens. visit our website for more details. and coming up, a closer look at the entertainment in store at the pistahan festival, stay with us.

robert: it's time to talk pistahan entertainment, and there's a lot of it. with us first, the pistahan festival director genevieve jopanda, someone deeply involved in the community and of course pistahan for many years. and is also chief of staff for our friend, board of equalization vice chair fiona ma. and also here, the pistahan entertainment project director, em angeles or angeles, a proud volunteer who brings global marketing experience with her. and you know, i've been saying it so many different ways here, it's becoming kind of like a running thing here, but welcome to the show though. genevieve jopanda: thanks for having us, robert. robert: give us a little quick overview in terms of what--when we say entertainment, what are we talking about? what's the kind of the goal of when you--what you're trying to mix together? genevieve: sure, em angeles is our entertainment director, so i'll have her speak to that. robert: okay. em angeles: for basically in regards to our main would say goal would be just entertain,

promote the culture, the beauty of its dances, and just the talent of it all and everything like that. so, it's been--it's been quite the task in promoting that, but it's quite the joy-- robert: you're bringing in some acts from the philippines, from manila i understand, right? em: exactly, the tfc hour, our main headliner, is there. it's going to be martin nievera along with darren espanto. they're going to be closing up our--which will be on sunday in fact. so, they have their own hour, and they actually close up the weekend for us. robert: the entertainment's pretty crucial, obviously. how big a job was it to kind of cooryou wanted to get?to findtht genevieve: well, the filipino channel has been our partner for a long, long time. and we actually planned on doing this for six months ahead, and we work with them in terms of who our big acts will come here from the philippines. and actually, the tfc hour on sunday, which is the hour that closed down the festival,

is aua at our festival, so thousands of people. so, i know al may have mentioned earlier that we actually attract between 80,000 to 100,000 people over the weekend. robert: wow. now, how do you coordinate that? what's the format in terms of where people are going to be and--are there going to be acts performing simultaneously? or do you have it structured so people can keep going from one to the other? how do you juggle that entertainment? em: we do have a main stage. that's pretty much where everyone's going to be performing at. and usually on saturdays are the cultural dancers, as well as some instrumentalists-- group, where the traditional guitar. and on sundays, it's usually the up and coming local artists, robert: yeah, we were talking a little bit earlier with al and john about the--how many young people come out to thet. and then you have, of cour, tn. is that a pretty easy mix? young people come out to thet.

is there a real melding when you put all the acts together? actually something that we pride ourselves on. a lot of our volunteers are actually, you know, young students in high school all the way up to our elderly seniors who run our dance pavilion. and so, we have about 400 volunteers that help us every year. about 75% of them come back every year. and it's actually a family-friendly event, so we do have people that come and bring their grandparents, or their parents, or their children to help out together. and you'll see later on we have a family that's going to do a food demonstration that volunteer with us ever other communities actually come out to this festival. and that's kind of a way to kind of get oriented tolt the culture, even if you're not within the community, huh? em: exactly that because they have various different dance suites from either different provinces and such and different--if anything, like for like the malong dance,

it's like a--the traditional you see like with bamboo sticks. things like that, so you'll see it's more than that. robert: yes. oh, absolutely. and it's a lot of fun, that's the most thing that we want to emphasize, huh? em: definitely. robert: all right, well, thank you very much. looking forward to seeing all that entertainment out there. em: wonderful, thank you very much. robert: all right. well, next up, a unique feature for this year, the innovation pavilion spotlight. you'll want to hear about that, so stay with us.

by living off the grid. completely. you could generate your own energy, at home. maybe you could save energy by weaving your own shoes... out of flax. or... just set the washing machine to cold. do your thing, with energy upgrade california.

festival because it's a unique attraction, the pistahan innovation pavilion project. joining us is mary jane cordova-ly, the festival manager, a driving force for pistahan the past decade. and the innovati as well as michiko wagner, also the co-manager of thoj thank you all for being here. mary jane, give me an idea sort of the overview first, the seven pavilions. what are we talking about there? mary jane cordova-ly: so, we have seven great pavilions. chris and michiko are part of one of the seven, and we have an art pavilion featuring this year three artists, local artists: tony remington, trinidad escobar, and carmela susero.

also, the hinabi project, featuring textiles from northern philippines as well as mindanao. we have our dance pavilion featuring our veterans. if you--if you want to learn how to cha cha cha and line dance, you want to go up there and meet florence mendoza as well as johnny veloso. they are fabulous, fabulous dancers. they'lte they'll teach you how to swing it. and then we have our heritage honoring and other founding members that contributed and influencedout. robert: very good. it's very interactive, huh? that's the key? mary jane: it is, it is, it's very interactive. we have a social media booth this year that will feature a photo booth. so, all of our attendees can come, take a picture of the historic 25th year. so, we're very proud of our 25th year. our sports pavilion featuring filipino martial artists,

eskabo daan. they're awesome, they're going to be in our parade. i'm sure john mentioned it as our parade director. and health pavilion, which is a--it's a popular pavilion. kaiser is one of our long-standing partners, and they do a promise of passport for better eating. they provide frebl screening, so our attendees can-- robert: covering a lot of territory, huh? mary jane: definitely, definitely. robert: well, chris, michiko, give us an idea here in terms of your specialty and what people are going to get. chris peralta: yes. so, we are running the innovation pavilion. and we just want to teach people that tech is not just for tech geeks, but for everyone, right? so, kids, lolos and lolas. so, we have an amazing pavilion agenda this year. so, first of all, we have this little guy, so this is the star wars bb-8 unit.

robert: very good. chris: and we have the filipinos in tech group that will be teaching kids how to code a bb-8 unit. robert: very good. chris: so, this bb-8 unit will be running around or rolling around. robert: does it roll now? chris: yes. robert: oh, let me see, let's take a-- chris: it'll be rolling around in the innovation pavilion. and we'll teach the kids--oops, how. robert: maybe not on a glass table, but you know, but you get--you get the idea. oh, very nice, okay. and what about some of the other things that you brought here? 'cause it's all about sort of star wars, it's all about high teri chris: actually, no. so, we have a lot of sponsors of brands, so we have pixar. so, "incredibles 2," how does animati so, we have pixar in a box, there's going to be a talk. we have sponsors like salesforce, etcetera. we also have facebook and the oculus go. so, you can come to our pavilion for two days and you can see amazing virtual reality content and see what that's all about.

we are also going to be, for people who are participating, we're going to be giving away a bb-8 unit for each of the days. and michiko, we also have two other exciting new additions. michiko wagner: yes, so we have the resume reviews. so, for people who are interested in breaking into tech, we'll have recruiters there who will give them tips, as well as feedback on what they can do to get soave for the elderly, tech support forlas. so, we'll have people on site who are going to be assisting the elders with, you know, how to work facebook or how to facetime their family, things of that nature. robert: i think i heard that was a tech support for grandparents? chris: yes. and we have something very new this year. we call it tangke ng pating, which is a filipino shark tank. so, if you have a great idea, then you can pitch your idea in front of a panel of investors, and they'll give you feedback.

robert: i see, okay, so that's what it is. it's a sort of innovation and a lot of interactivity. but not just for entertainment, huh? the recruiting and all the other things like that, that does make it quite a unique thing. mary jane: it does. robert: all right, looking forward to seeing that. congratulations. mary jane: thank you so much. robert: all right, nice job. kept it on the table. alri it's time for our culinary demonstration live in our studio, so come back all you foodies. you...and mom also gets aoss shoppiback-to-school bag? that's yes for less. ross has the brands you want for back to school. and it feels even better when you find them for less. at ross. yes for less.

you know when you're at ross and you'rhello.... ...and then the price is like, helllooo! that's yes for less. find the latest trends and styles at prices that are a perfect fit. it feels even better when you find it for less. at ross. yes for less. at the pistahan celebrations. with us right now, jennifer villamin, the pistahan culinary project manager, and she has been for several years, mixing it with running pampalasa, the first michelin recommended filipino-american restaurant, which she continues as a trendy popup. and also with us to help with the live cooking demonstration is caroline sadeko, the runner-up in last year's pistahan parent and child cooking contest, along with miles williams, who's actually the star of this whole display here. so anyway, we're going to talk about what's going to be happening there.

but jennifer, give us sort of an overview as well as maybe a couple of the dishes on display that represent what people will see. jennifer villamin: so, like any festival, you're always going to have food. and with pistahan, we have different ways so, one of the main ways you can interact with food is you go through our food court, we'll have little vendors there. you can buy and eat food. and then we're also going to have a tavern, where you can drink a lot of filipino branded beverages. so, we have lambanog, and lambanog is a filipino distilled spirit distilled from coconuts. and they're one of the vendors there at the tavern along with genevieve wines. robert: okay. and these two food things represent what? like the old and the new or something, or kind of like fusion? jennifer: yeah, this is more like modern filipino-american filipino food. so, it's more--it's your old school traditional dishes, but more of with a modern touch. vendors there at the food court. robert: okay, very good. and of course, you'll be overseeing to make sure it's all very authentic, right? jennifer: yeah. robert: well, great to have you here, by the way.

jennifer: taste and quality, yeah. robert: all right. well, now in the spirit of what we see in the filipino culture, the passing on of traditions and recipes to the next generation, caroline will show us how to make a traditional filipino dessert that is popular at the festival, right? caroline sadeko: well, it was popular last year. it was called--it's called maruya, and miles is going to explain what exactly maruya is in our family. be: okay, miles, take itwa miles: so, maruya is basically a--so, it has langka, so what you pour--so, you dice the langka, then after you--after that, you're supposed to put some mochiko, then some mashed bananas. or you could put them in any order, so you could put--you could also put milk, and you put some sweet corn.

robert: oh, sweet corn. miles: sweet corn. then you put some bananas or you can mashed bananas. yeah, mashed bananas. making this before, right? miles: yeah. robert: all right, let's see it. miles: making this before. robert: let's see the expert hands here. just take a look here. jennifer: so, one of the things happenit and this year, we're hang the philippines. so, people are so interested in signing up to compete in the contest. we still have a slot left for families to join. and this is where they showed their dessert last year, at the kids' culinary pavilion. robert: are we seeing one of the champions here? jennifer: runner-up. this is our runner-up right here. yeah, this is their dish right here. robert: all right. now, essentially when you're mixing this all together, how traditional is this dish for people who are not familiar with it? is this the old style? jennifer: it's pretty traditional, yeah. yeah, traditional dessert. it's one of the more not as common, but it is known in a lot of philippines.

robert: then you're going to have to take? sure on the responsibility. caroline: and she's passed on the recipe to miles, and so miles is much more adept l than i was as her daughter.n cooking, or did this kind of get you interested? miles: i was already interested in cooking. robert: what was it about this that made it so interesting to you? miles: 'cause like what made it so interesting was that you put, like, so many ingredients and-- robert: did you have a familiarity with this dessert before you started to cook it? like, was it a favorite of yours and then you wanted to learn how to make it? miles: yes. robert: all right, what do you like about it? what's kind of the flavor? mile the outside is kind of crunchy.

and robert: all right. jennifer, the people are going to be able to learn how to make this at the pavilion, right? or something like this? jennifer: something similar. yeah, yeah. jennifer: yeah, we'll have a few chef demos at the culinary pavilion as well, along with the eating contest. robert: thank you very much for bringing this. this is really colorful stuff here, really colorful stuff. it really looks good. thank you for being here. miles, thank you very much for guiding us through this. all right, well, details on the pistahan festival and parade on august 11 and 12 is on our website, nbcbayarea.com. and we're also on social media, facebook and twitter. so, we want to thank all of our guests, so that's it for today's "asian pacific america." we'll see you next week and at the festival, so thanks for watching.

all right, go ahead and let's finish this up here. caroline: okay, it's time to offer it. robert: so, is this it? caroline: yeah. miles: yes. you could also put some ice cream. robert: oh. oh, i can't dip that in there. that would've been--that would've been bad news, huh? mm, that's very good. that's very good. caroline: thyohavene now. caroline: go ahead. he ate a lot already on the way over here. robert: all right. i'm going to have--so these--my wife is filipino-- and so, she was telling me a little bit about this.

. a miracle. >> are you ordering the mueller investigation to be shutdown? >> our democracy is in the cross hairs. >> this fire is outrunning us. good morning. welcome to sunday today. august 5th, i'm willie geist. president trump back at his new jersey golf club fresh off a campaign rally in ohio last night and gave his latest assessment of russian interference in american elections and handicapped the

midterm you but did not mention one of james after the presidet went after james on