Chess Columns and Publications

Hi!

Recently, there's not much chess news in our country published in the major dailies like Philippine Star (PS) and Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI). If there is, they're some announcements regarding tournaments here and there.

The networking-game-fixing issue has died down and the one year ban on chess players went off the air. Lunatically, there's not much to write positively about. The BANG's Chess Piece is there, comes out twice a week for Business World but sadly, it takes forever for the site to load up. The weekly column Let's Play Chess of NM Edgar de Castro for PS mostly deals with foreign chess news.

Yes, I have never read any write up from that column about Philippine Chess Scene. 3 years ago, I was a part-time Senior Instructor at Philippine Women's University (The World's First University for Women!) and I once read, during my break, a chess article from a newspaper written by Manny Benitez in the University Library. To be honest, I don't recall exactly whether the paper was Manila Today or Manila Standard. Add to the fact that I got to read the column only once because the following week, I tried to read another article from the same column and I didn't find it.

And so, we go back to the fact that I am having a hardtime looking out and fishing out news for Philippine Chess nowadays. Even the NCFP Chess Caravan is not given a coverage by NCFP. NCFP Forum has one thread for this but it does not say a thing, not even the schedule for the next stop. The NCFP site is a bit inactive compared to other chess sites.

Yesterday, I discovered a new chess publication and it's called The Weekender. It's more of a gazette for Quezon Memorial Circle Chess CLub. The thing is, IT IS NOT FOR SALE. I discovered the online version thru a forum. It is authored by Manny Benitez himself.

Here is the link for Manny Benitez section of the forum Butuang Global: Let's talk Chess.

That's it for now.