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For the past 17 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
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Court rules that claims of Filipino workers who died, injured in Miami 2003 ship explosion must be resolved in RP - not in US
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Ahdi Comedia, a Filipino cook aboard the SS Norway that exploded on May 2003 in Miami, is among the survivors who lose lawsuits against the Norwegian Cruise Lines.
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Miami, FLORIDA, January 21, 2005 --- The families of Filipino cruise ship workers injured and killed during the May 2003 ship explosion here lost their settlement case and ruled Tuesday by a Miami federal court to resolve their claims in the Philippines.
Instead of suing in the United States, Tuesday's decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said Filipino seafarers in Florida must now file their complaints with a mediation board in the Philippines.
The decision on the case, the Associated Press said, will have a “far-reaching consequences for Filipino seafarers, who make up almost one-quarter of the workforce in the world's shipping industry.”
Curtis Mase, attorney for Norwegian Cruise Lines, who was quoted Wednesday in the Sun-Sentinel report, said “the company was not surprised by the decision.”
The May 2003 explosion killed eight Filipino crew members, after a boiler exploded on the SS Norway — owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines — in Miami. About 20 others were burned in the worst accident aboard a cruise ship in U.S. waters in at least two decades. None of the 2,135 passengers aboard the ship, however, were injured and all were evacuated without incident.
Days after the explosion, the families of the dead and injured Filipino ship workers filed lawsuits against Norwegian Cruise Lines seeking more than $10 billion.
One of the six injured Filipinos, Abdi Comedia, who sought $1 billion in punitive damages and $1 million in compensatory damages from Norwegian Cruise Line and its Malaysian parent company Star Cruises, contended that since the company is headquartered in Miami and the explosion happened there, the suits should also be heard in the United States.
The lawsuit described the 41-year-old SS Norway, once a famed transatlantic liner name Le France, as “an ancient, dangerous vessel with a long history of safety problems which should have been sent to the scrapyard years ago.”
“It was like having a time bomb waiting to explode,” Bill Huggett, who filed the lawsuit, said in a statement in May 2003.
The Norwegian company, in the hope to avoid complications, offered in June 2003 a settlement of between $8.5 million and $13.7 million whether the company won or lost. However, the Filipino survivors rejected the offer.
In October 2003, it turned out to be a costly decision when U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz ruled that the case must be heard in the Philippines to comply with the terms of contracts that workers and recruiters for the cruise ships in Manila signed with the Philippine government.
Maritime analysts and researchers said the court decision is a victory for cruise ship owners who operate in and out of Fort Lauderdale and Miami. — Information from The Sun-Sentinel was used to supplement this report.
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NEW YORK, January 21, 2005 --- In their own compassionate ways, Filipino and other Asian students here have pooled in their resources and contributed last week at the New School University’s relief campaign for the survivors of tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India and Thailand.
“With shattered lives, homes and futures, the tsunami survivors are facing the daunting task of rebuilding their lives,” said April Dequito, a Filipino graduate student at New School Universit (NSU). “I and my family have been blessed to have healthy lives, and so in my own small effort, it’s time to give back.”
Dequito said that active compassion is what the survivors need in this time of crisis, adding that she and other Filipino students are already reaching out to students for the tsunami survivors.
Next month, the Student Human Rights Group of the Graduate Program in International Affairs of NSU will line up campaigns and events as venues for mobilizing support for the tsunami survivors.
“We have scheduled film showing and cultural presentations in February and March, so we can raise funds, and at the same time, provide awareness on how disaster response should be handled,” said Vandana Nagaraj, a graduate student, who is of South Asian Indian descent. “In this post-apocalyptic environment, our small activities in school will still mean the difference between life and death for many survivors.”
Nagaraj, whose relatives still live in India, said that millions of survivors are desperate for food, water, shelter and medicine.
“While over half a billion dollars of aid is pouring into the region, much of it has been slow to reach the affected areas because of the lack of coordination between government and aid agencies,” she said.
Early in January, the Unites States made an initial pledge of $35 million. The European countries seemed to be outbidding one another, with France’s pledge of $57 million and Britain’s $95 million.
“These pledges are nothing if they are not trickled directly to the poor majority who are hardest hit by the tsunami,” Nagaraj added. “We believe in the resilience of the people to continue to improve and get on their feet.”
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WASHINGTON, January 21, 2005 --- Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Torrance) has re-introduced the “Filipino Veterans Fairness Act,” a bill that would provide Filipino World War II veterans with monthly disability pensions in United States and in the Philippines as well as educational and employment benefits for their dependents.
McDonald re-filed her bill as House Resolution H.R. 170. It was a result of her previous years’ meetings with the leaders of the 35,000 Filipinos in her district and with Philippine government officials, including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
McDonald is also a key leader of the Philippine-US Friendship Caucus in Congress.
“We welcome the reintroduction of the McDonald bill and the other bills that are expected to re-filed in the House as well as in the Senate,” said Patrick Ganio, 83, the president of the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans, Inc. (ACFV), a Washington DC-based advocacy group of 4,000 members.
“We hope these bills will be the catalysts to a new law that restores the US veterans status and provides equitable VA benefits to our living heroes,” added Ganio, a defender in the Battles in Bataan and Corregidor and a former POW.
The “Fairness bill” was originally filed on May 6, 2003 and provides veteran benefits to the Filipino veterans who fought side by side with American soldiers during World War II.
In addition to providing desperately needed monthly disability benefits, the bill calls for home loan assistance for US-based veterans, educational assistance for their US and Philippine-based dependents, and employment services for US-based veterans and spouses, as well as health care at the Manila VA Outpatient Clinic.
The bill’s key provision provides a VA disability pension “notwithstanding any other provision of law... at rate of $100 per month” to an estimated 15,000 poor Philippine-based Filipino veterans. (MNS)
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NEW YORK, January 21, 2005 --- As Congress is seen to debate the thorny issue of immigration reform bill, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) expressed support on the guest worker program proposed by President Bush.
“What I’m saying is that in the case of the illegal immigration problem, if we have a legal worker program, where people can come and do jobs Americans won’t do, and you could set up a mechanism to do that, where people come, do the job and either stay in that job, if necessary, or at the completion of it go home, instead of a situation like we have today, where there’s no one who will pick lettuce in Yuma today, so you have to have people come illegally to do that,’‘ said McCain in an interview televised on PBS.
McCain disapproves the granting of general amnesty being pushed by the left or the mass arrest of illegal immigrants being pushed by the right.
As the Hispanic community gained stronger voice, the issue of legalizing immigrants has become a crucial issue specifically in Washington.
McCain said despite increasing the agents in the border, in the aftermath of September 11, illegals have continued to come.
In view of big demand for workers who do jobs most Americans won’t do, there is a need to regulate the system properly.
“If people will hire people who come here illegally, they’re going to come here, because they can’t feed themselves and their families where they are,” he added.
 But David Frum of American Enterprise Institute said Bush’s proposal to legalize immigrants would put a downward pressure on wages.
Frum said employers who hire illegal immigrants must pay a higher fine and economic pressures must be exerted to these companies to make illegal immigration less.
He thinks the key to slowing the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. is to cut the supply of jobs available to them.
But illegal immigrants empower the economy. They are highly motivated people who perform back-breaking jobs despite low wages.
“Right, you take away that pool of 15 million illegal workers, you have a huge impact on the labor market. A hugely negative impact on the overall American economy,” Minton Bedodoes of the Economist magazine said.
McCain, Beddoes and Frum were guest panelists during Tucker Carlson show on PBS.
It is estimated that 8 to 12 million undocumented immigrants work in America today, mostly in agricultural farms, construction sites, hotels, restaurants, homes and others work as day laborers. Their work is considered essential to America’s economic health, immigrant supporters believe.
These workers want to be legalized, to be out of the shadow of oppressive working conditions, and enjoy legal workers’ rights.
The proposal of President Bush to grant temporary working permits to illegal immigrants gives hope to these illegal workers.
“Every country has enormous problems with immigration. It’s not easy to solve, but you can’t sit here and dismiss it as a political conspiracy. You have to be constructive about that, and that means getting off both sides of the ideological fence and coming up with something that acknowledges reality and leads you forward in a way that is sensible, morally justifiable and politically feasible,” Bedodoes said.
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 NEW YORK, January 21, 2005 --- A Filipino-American young actress, Giovannie Pico, has just booked a much-coveted role in the latest season of “ER,” an Emmy-award winning TV series on NBC about the drama and challenges faced by the patients and medical team in a Chicago hospital.
Already airing in the US, Giovannie plays the recurring role of Ludlow, a medical student.
Based in San Francisco, California, Giovannie started her acting career in theater. She appeared in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “Peter Pan,” ‘The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Pinocchio.”
Transcending herself into a more mature roles, she did several television commercials, voice-overs and films. Her indie film credits include “Mail Order Bride,” “Love,” “In the End,” “Broken Wings,” “I Adore You,” “Counting the Days” and “Seasons Under the Bridge.”
Giovannie’s latest movie was “American Yearbook,” an independent film about high school bullying in the United States. She played in the movie the role of Amanda Hunter. Though it was originally written for a Caucasian female, Director Brian Ging was impressed with Giovannie’s acting when she auditioned for the role.
Born in Manila and immigrated with her family to the US when she was one year old, Giovannie (Giovannie Anne Cabangis-Espiritu in real life) has also been selected to play a lead role in the San Francisco production of the Eve Ensler’s 2005 “The Vagina Monologues.”
Singer and stage actress Lea Salonga is believed to be the first Filipino actress to have appeared in ER. Salonga played a Vietnamese patient in one of the show’s episodes about two years ago. — Anthony D. Advincula contributed to this report.
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