It's the season of the Stars and Stripes and the Maple Leaf as we welcome a week of national celebrations. About a dozen country, including Canada and the United States, are celebrating special occasions in the next five days - ranging from Independence Day to Republic Day and Flag Day. Pomp and pageantry, parties and picnics will be held in this celebration of nations and people around the world as they showcase once more their national identity and character.

Former STAR writer Odette Montelibano, who is now based in Toronto, sent us an article about an online portal that recognizes Asian artists in North America, apparently her way of celebrating Canada Day from the context of immigrants who have made the country their second home and in line with the effort of keeping the Filipino and Asian spirit burning within themselves even if they are thousands of miles away. Filipinos, totaling more than 150,000, from the third largest group of immigrant community in Canada, behind the Chinese and the Indians. The figures are even higher in the United States - more than two million today. The United States in the past decade has been on the receiving end of the wave of Mexican and Asian migration - particularly from the Philippines, India, Vietnam and China.

Our back-page feature focuses on the winning entries in the Environment Week photo contest where a diverse group of photographers submitted more than three dozens of entries.

Today is D-day for 25 young men vying for the island-wide Hari ng Negros title. On its fifth year, the competition also brings together its four past winners, three of whom are featured in our centerspread Q&A interview.

Ingenuity was the name of the competition when seven local beauties competed for the festival queen title in a northern Negros town. The gown parade showcased materials made of the locally-produced pandan material in the celebration which has re-invented itself to focus on the promising weaving industry.

A toast to Calatrava and its residents as they re-discover their identity as a town and a people. And cheers too, as we mark, in our own quiet ways, to the Fil-Am Friendship Day on the 4th of July, when the Stars and Stripes jubilation takes the center stage from the U.S. coast to coast and other parts of the world where Uncle Sam's generations have found their second homes.