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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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Toronto, CANADA --- "American Idol" finalist Jasmine Trias will be a featured performer during the Mabuhay Philippines Toronto Summer Festival and Parade 2005, it was announced here yesterday.
Toronto Philippine Consul General Alejandro B. Mosquera announced said that the Philippine Independence Day Council (PIDC) headed by Jose "Pempe" Saavedra was able to enlist the services of Miss Trias during the Festival celebration on August 20 this year.
Ms. Karen Pascual Binaday, Festival chair and press relations officer, broke the news when she reported Wednesday (May 11) at the weekly radio program, "Radio Pinoy" (8 p.m. to 9 p.m. 101.3 FM) hosted by Mr. Jess Cabrias in Toronto that the "American Idol" finalist Jasmine Trias will headline the entertainment portion of the Festival. She said Trias’ father, Rudy, has finalized the contract with the Festival organizers.
It will be the first time for Miss Trias to visit Canada.
The other PIDC events lined up for this year are the holding of the Miss Philippines 2005, Miss Teen Pageant and Mabuhay Star Babies at Rembrandt Hall here on May 15; the holding of the Little Miss Philippines pageant on June 5th at the Korean Cultural Centre; the PIDC/Kalayaan Independence Day Gala at the International Plaza Hotel on June 11; the "Salu-salo sa Earl Bales," a Filipino community picnic, at Earl Bales Park on June 16; the Mabuhay Idol Singing competition semi-finals at Hacienda Restaurant on July 16; the Mabuhay Cup Basketball Tournament at the University of Toronto Athletic Department on on July 22 and 23; the Art Exhibit by the Philippine Artists Group at the Nathan Phillips Square Rotunda from Aug. 13 to 19; the "Sunnyside Sundays" at Sunny Side Park and the Mabuhay Parade through Lakeshore Boulevard, Toronto on Aug. 14; and the "Mabuhay Philippines! Toronto Summer Festival at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre with special guests, Jasmine Trias on Aug. 20; and the Philippine Night at the Royale Ontario Museum on Jan. 2006.
Philippine Ambassador to Canada Francisco L. Benedicto based in Ottawa, Ontario will lead in the observance Mabuhay Philippines Toronto Summer Festival, which celebrates “the immeasurable contributions of Filipinos to Canada is meant to unite the community by providing platform that allows us to put our best foot forward and to show the strength and influence of the fourth largest minority group in the country.”
Saavedra appealed to Filipinos and Filipino Canadians to take part in Santacruzan, Mabuhay Cup basketball tournament, festival parade through Lakeshore Boulevard; to contribute talents and/or performers that would like to perform at the picnic and festival; and assist in showcasing the distinct regions of the Philippines.
To cover cost of the Mabuhay Festival, tickets will be sold at Canadian $10 each.
The 17-year-old Trias, of Filipino parents, was born in Mililani, Hawaii. She will be performing at the Six Flag Magic Mountain at the Filipino-American Funfest at 26101 Magic Mountain Parkway at Valencia, California on June 4. She will have Dessa and Jonathan Badon as backup with an “OPM tribute to songwriter Cecile Azarcon..
She just came from the Philippines, where she recorded songs for the Philippine album and a music video. Then, she will be in Los Angeles, California from May 25 to June 3. After her album is released on July 12 in the US, the same album, which has Filipino songs, will be released in the Philippines in August.
Jasmine will be shooting her first movie this summer, according to today's Honolulu Advertiser. Jasmine expects to play a singer and drummer in the movie, called "All Girl Band.” She also hopes to play original music.
Her fan website says Jasmine will promote her new album on American Idol during the two-part May 24 and May 25 finale. Her first single, "Excuses" is now available for listening pleasure in Jasmine's official MySpace profile! However, the song cannot be downloaded so fans can purchase her album on July 12.
Her website says Jasmine paid [the Philippines] a visit late last year, where she was greeted “with lots of love, flower power, and a ton of endorsements. While her ads for Smart, Bench, and McDonalds give us a regular Jasmine fix, [Hawaii] now also [got] their Jasmine dose with her endorsements for Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in the Islands of Hawaii." (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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NEW JERSEY --- Aiming to attract business people to invest in the Philippines, Filipino American entrepreneur Cara Salas Arevalo, CEO of Georgetown Co., will bring American entrepreneurs to the Philippines during the Ambassador and Consul General’s tour in the Philippines on July 13 to 19.
"I want to bring people to share our food , culture and manufacturing business. More people should come over to the Philippines," said Arevalo.
Arevalo’s Georgetown based in New Jersey , Philadelphia and Washington, D.C .manufactures accessories and nice, elegant clothes to well-heeled buyers in the area. She just opened a factory in Philadelphia last month to create and design clothes for wholesale and retail buyers in the U.S.
Arevalo's Georgetown has been in the business since the late 80's. She hopes to buy from Philippine manufacturers more creatively-designed jewelry and bright spring clothes in the Philippines and distribute it in the U.S. and Carribean countries. She’s tying up with a Cebu-based manufacturer to supply her with charming accessories.
Arevalo will bring the following business people to the Philippines on investment tour:
Kyle Mahoney-antique and treasures boutique owner in Philadelphia; Catherine Fasy, owner of Vintage shop in Philadelphia; Loreta Liberi, owner of specialty women stores in NJ; Marietta Vannozzi, owner of restaurant and catering business in NJ; Rosie Bacchus, owner of gold, silver and stone jewelry in NJ; Ursala Garnett, owner of a boutique shop in Delaware and Deniz Tezcan, general manager of Echo Fashion in Delaware.
The group will also travel to China to explore investment opportunities. Arevalo is a regular importer from China, Canada and Europe. Her accessory and clothes business is lucrative and growing 45 to 60 percent annually.
“Being a Filipino, you should not be scared of going back there. We have to bring trade and people there," said Arevalo.
Consul General Cecilia Rebong announced earlier, that Philippine Ambassador to the United States, Albert del Rosario, and all the Philippine Consuls General in the U.S. have put together a project designed to promote Philippine tourism and help boost the domestic economy.
Emma Ruth Yulo, tourism director said The Ambassador and Consul General’s tour would bring in 400 delegates. This business and tourism project is especially for those who have not been to the country for sometime, and a unique and inexpensive way of revisiting their homeland. The project is being undertaken in collaboration with the Philippine Department of Tourism. The package tour consists of two parts, travel and meeting government officials and businessmen and tour of beaches, mountains and beautiful destinations in the Philippines.
"What is interesting about the tour is that it will be led by Ambassador himself and all the Philippine Consuls General to the U.S," Consul General Rebong said. "We will practically serve as unofficial ‘tour guides’ of those who will be participating as they visit the country’s top tourist destinations. Rebong also said the tour includes a stop at the Presidential Palace in Malacanang for a call on the President.
"This tourism initiative aims to highlight the Philippines as a safe and attractive global travel destination. Our country has a lot to offer, both man-made and natural attractions, to foreign tourists. Every Filipino has many reasons to be proud of his cultural heritage and confident to tell stories about his country among his friends or colleagues. The word-of-mouth campaign is not only an inexpensive medium to generate the interest of their friends and colleagues to visit our country but is also a powerful way to project our rich historical and cultural heritage among other ethnic groups, " said Philippine Ambassador Albert del Rosario.
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Amid rising human rights violations, including the killing of 13 journalists in the Philippines last year, over 200 members and supporters of Gabriela Network (Gabnet), held a vigil in six U.S. cities last Friday to protest the “war of terror” in the Philippines.
Held in six U.S. Cities—Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle, over two hundred participants and more than twenty endorsing organizations, held a vigil and called attention to the intensifying political repression in the Philippines. Protestors reported that more than three hundred political killings and abductions occurred from 2001 to the present; one-hundred cases of human rights violations, affecting 23,252 victims in ninety-one communities from January to March 15, 2005; thirteen journalists killed last year, making the Philippines the most murderous country in the world for the media; murder of eleven women of GABRIELA, a national alliance of more than two-hundred women’s organizations in the Philippines, and of its electoral arm GABRIELA Women’s Party.
GABNet members and their allies in every participating city, memorialized the untimely deaths of their comrades in struggle, by carrying eleven makeshift tombstones that bore the names of the eleven women killed and by recounting the circumstances of their deaths, their personal stories and political involvement. Gabnet said the protests were also a criticism of President Gloria Arroyo’s complicity and an objection to President Bush declaration of the Philippines as the second front in the global “ war on terror.”
The protests in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco were held in front of Philippine Consular offices. Portland’s was held in the city’s Federal Plaza. Seattle’s was at the Westlake Center and Carlos Bulosan Exhibit Community Room. In Los Angeles, the women gagged themselves with black cloth to symbolize the curtailing of press freedom and the attacks on those who dissent. They approached a Philippine Consulate staff and handed placards that contained narratives about the women killed. Women in San Francisco wore purple veils that represented both the mourning for those who have died and the great trauma they have experienced. The program in New York included a chorale reading of the martyred women’s names and how they were killed. GABNet members and supporters refused to be intimidated by several calls from local authorities and the presence of federal agents who took names and pictures of the protestors.
“The nationwide vigil was yet another testament to the strength of GABNet and the support we get from women's and progressive groups,” said Annalisa Enrile, Chairperson of GABNet. Referring to the process by which the nationally coordinated action was organized, Enrile said, “I am most proud of, and at the same time humbled by, GABNet’s consistent practice of what we call ‘democratic command’.” (Rita Villadiego)
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