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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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Victim suffers multiple stab wounds
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Jersey City, NEW JERSEY, February 4, 2005 --- Few weeks ago, 15-year-old Anthony Sengco signed up to a volunteer program for the elderly in Hudson County. As an honor high school student, he wants to help the community.
But last week, while walking home at about 6:30 p.m. on Manila Avenue, two young teen-aged boys in black ski masks, believed to be members of a gang, stabbed Sengco eight times in the back and many times in the arms and hands, wounding him seriously. Because of the wounds, he will not be able to fulfill his goal to participate in the elderly program.
 “I felt blood. I have lots of bruises in the head and in the eye part,” said Sengco.
His assailants, whom Sengco described as “Asians and about 16 and 18 years old, used an ice pick to stab him. Although the stabbing was not fatal, the ice pick hit part of his lungs.
Until this time, he said, he could not move four of his fingers in his right hand because of the wounds.
“I saw him soaking in blood. I didn’t call 911 but rushed him to Christ Hospital,” said Tancie Sengo, the father of Anthony. He said that after stabbing his son, the gangsters sped off with a car.
His father said he did not know the motive of the attack because his son was not robbed. “Anthony also has no enemies in school or elsewhere.”
Anthony — nephew of former Jersey City Chief Financial Officer Serafina Sengco —is a junior student at Hudson Catholic High School and member of the honor society. He was scheduled to fly to London late this month to attend a school-initiated program for honor students.
Tancie said his son could not write in school because he could not move his right fingers. “He will go to a hand specialist. I hope he’ll feel better,” he said.
“I don’t have enemies. It’s a gang-related violent attack,” said Anthony.
Over the recent months, meanwhile, several Filipinos had been victims of street crimes but had never been reported, according to Filipino community leaders.
When a police officer stationed on West side Avenue was asked on the phone why such crimes had not been published in mainstream newspapers, he said results are not released until proper investigation is complete.
The police officer, who didn’t want to reveal his name, said he is not allowed to disclose any information because there are law enforcement rules that he needs to follow.
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3 Filipina domestic workers call for justice
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NEW YORK, February 4, 2005 --- When Filipina Windy Dolores, 40, came to the U.S. in 2000, she was full of hope that her earnings could support her two children in the Philippines.
For two years and nine months, she worked for 16 hours a day, seven days a week for a family in Vermont. But despite working like a slave, as she described it, Dolores only earned $200 a week or a measly $2.00 per hour, way below the minimum wage.
 “They treated me like a robot and I suffered verbal abuses,” said Dolores.
Based on her work contract, she said, she would only work as a cook. But in reality, she cleaned a big house, took care of three children and an adult handicap, who is the brother of her employer, cleaned the house, did the laundry, cooked, and walked the dog.
Few weeks ago, she submitted her deposition at the New York Superior Court in which she claimed punitive damages and back wages of more than $120,000.
Dolores said her former employers—Peter and Meredith Stock, of Vermont — stripped her of her human rights when they violated the labor laws in the U.S.
“It’s been very difficult for me , but I’m confident that I would get justice,” said Dolores. She recently got a job to work as a cook in Manhattan and trying to save money to send dollars to her two children studying in the Philippines.
The advocacy group Women’s Workers Project is mobilizing domestic workers and goes to Albany regularly to lobby for the passage of a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights.
The group is pushing for stricter state legislation that would require a living wage of at least $14.00 an hour, health insurance, and paid vacations for domestic workers.
Last month, Filipina Nancy Ventic, 38, filed a federal lawsuit seeking back wages. She said she suffered exploitation and earned only $2 to $3 an hour for 90 hours a week. When she complained of her low pay, she was fired from her job.
Minimum wage in New York is $5.15 per hour.
Ventic said she was mistreated by her former employer, Timothy Andrew, director, who works for Deutsche Bank, and his wife, Jane Moffat.
“I never thought this would happen to me here. I trusted them,” said Ventic. “I want to fight because I don’t want others to go through what I did.”
Ventic was brought to New York in 2001 by her employers in Hong Kong. For three years, she worked in their Upper East Side apartment caring for their two daughters, cooking and cleaning for the family around the clock. For this work, she was paid less than $3 per hour. She was employed under contract, the terms of which were repeatedly disregarded.
Ventic never received overtime pay though she sometimes worked 24 hours per day.
Similarly, Filipina Betty Baoing, 53, recently filed a lawsuit against her employer to get $3,425 back wages. She claimed her employed didn’t pay her a single cent in six weeks of work, when she took care of an elderly.
“I felt so bad, I worked so hard and I didn’t get paid,” said Baoing. She has been working in the U.S. for 13 years now and got her U.S. citizenship last year.
“There are so many abuses happening everyday and there’s a need for protection of domestic workers,” said Aijen-Poo, organizer of Domestic Workers United. “We’re looking forward to victory on all cases we’re handling.”
The advocacy group is also pushing for the passage of the Safe, Orderly Legal Visa and Enforcement Act (SOLVE) pending in Congress, to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants, including domestic workers.
“We need to pass the bill of rights and SOLVE act. We need to link these abuses to a larger fight,” said Filipina Carolyn De Leon Hermogenes, organizer of Women Workers Project.
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Chicago, ILLINOIS, February 4, 2005 --- The survivors of the six Filipino crewmen who were killed and four other Filipino seamen injured when Norwegian Cruise Lines’ S/S Norway’s steam boiler exploded on May 25, 2003, while moored on the Port of Miami have 21 days from the adverse ruling of their case to file a “petition for re-hearing.”
Tonya Dumas, docket clerk of the Circuit Court of Appeals, told this reporter the Filipino seamen have until Feb. 8, 2005 file a “petition of rehearing.”
The United States Court of Appeals 11th Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia affirmed last Jan. 18, 2005 the decision of a US Southern District Court in Miami, Florida that it “it properly granted NCL’s (Norwegian Cruise Lines’) motion to compel arbitration” in the Philippines, not in the United States.
The 32-page ruling handed down by a panel of three judges composed of Chief Judge J.L. Edmonson and Circuit Judges Charles R. Wilson and Jane A. Restani staved off efforts by the Filipino seamen aided by high-powered Miami lawyers to collect $10-Billion in punitive and compensatory damages against the luxury liner “for negligence and unseaworthiness under the Jones Act and for failure to provide maintenance, cure and unearned wages under the general maritime law of the United States.”
Bruce Rogow and Beverly A. Pohl, lawyers of the Filipino seamen did not respond to email messages seeking comment. Christopher John Bailey, one of the lawyers for NCL, responded in an email, saying “we cannot respond to your inquiries. It is the policy of Norwegian Cruise Lines to decline comment on matters in litigation.”
On the other hand, Benjamin Warren Pope, an Atlanta-based lawyer retained by the Philippine government to represent the Department of Labor in the case, said in an e-mail that, “All inquiries from the Philippine government on this matter should be directed to the Secretary of Labor, the Honorable Patricia Santo Tomas.”
The bone of contention in the consolidated case pending before the Circuit Court of Appeals was the validity of the “terms of a standard employment contract executed by the crewmembers and representatives of NCL in the Philippines between August 2002 and March 2003. The Philippine government regulated the form and consent of such employment contracts, as well as other aspects of the seamen hiring process, through a program administered by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), a division of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) of the Republic of the Philippines.”
Each crewmember signed a one-page standard employment agreement created by POEA, setting basic terms and conditions of the crewmember’s employment, including the duration of the contract, the position accepted, and the monthly salary and hours of work. Under one of the terms of this agreement, it requires “arbitration ‘in cases of claims and disputes arising from [the seaman’s] employment,’ through submission of the claims to the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), voluntary arbitrators, or a panel of arbitrators.”
In their filings, seamen “dispute that the crewmembers saw the arbitration provision or had it explained to them (but), copies of the Standard Terms provided to the district court by NCL indicate the crewmembers initialed or signed the Standard Terms.”
In their affidavits, managers of various manning agencies licensed by the POEA to recruit seamen attested that “(1) they explained the employment document to the seamen in their native language; (2) the seamen had an opportunity to review the documents; and ( 3) the seamen were required to attend a Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar for seamen, which was conducted in both in English and Filipino languages and which reviewed, among other subjects, the Standard Terms and the dispute settlements procedures provided for in the employment contract.”
The Court of Appeals ruled that if you sign an agreement without reviewing it, you should be ready to accept its consequence. The only time you can get out of the agreement is, if it is “null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed.”
On Oct. 14, 2003, Southern Florida US District Court Judge Patricia A. Seitz granted NCL’s motion to compel arbitration and denied seamen’s motion to remand the case to state court. Seitz also ordered that the parties “submit to arbitration in the Philippines pursuant to Section 29 of the Standard Terms and retained jurisdiction to enforce or confirm any resulting arbitral award.”
The seamen then appealed Seitz’s ruling, invoking the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, saying that their “crewmembers’ employment agreements were shielded from arbitration by the seamen employment contract exemption contained in section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act.” (For comments, e-mail to: lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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NEW YORK, February 4, 2005 --- The New York District Citizenship and Immigration System (CIS) ended Jan. 27 its pilot processing program for spouses of U.S. citizens.
That means most U.S. citizens spouse cases filed in December will go through regular processing and waiting period of 18 months to two years from the date of filing for interviews.
Cases already scheduled for interviews through March 29, 2005, will still be processed under the old program.
The New York CIS, before the new ruling, tried to interview applicants within 90 days, and decide cases at those interviews, granting permanent residence in approvable cases on the spot.
Matthew Dunn, chairman of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, New York Chapter, was quoted in a report that New York CIS ended that program without a warning.
For thousands of applicants, the end of the pilot program is a big disappointment, particularly to those who filed duplicate applications and paid additional fees just to qualify for the program.
Disappointed, too, are the new applicants hoping to get permanent residence quickly without having to file employment authorization or work permission.
With the new ruling, immigration lawyers say it would mean more work for CIS and more expense for applicants.
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