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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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Marcos, Estrada and Arroyo
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THROUGHOUT the 21 years that the late President Ferdinand Marcos ruled the country, he has gained a reputation for being a dictator, and a despot. During his reign, the phrase “human rights violations” became synonymous with his name.
But compared to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Marcos is a weakling. Despite his regime’s notoriety for silencing dissent, Marcos allowed pro-Ninoy Aquino rallies which were also outpourings of people’s disenchantment with his rule. Despite widespread allegations that he and his dreaded military summarily executed thousands of people who were fighting his regime, or who were just simply caught in the crossfire, Marcos in the end showed respect for human lives.
In 1986, the late unlamented strongman had a chance to order the bombing of the crowd that gathered at EDSA, but he held back. And finally, rather than go on a rampage, he decided it was time to go and hurriedly flew out of the country. Perhaps in the end, Marcos must have felt morally accountable.
Even Joseph Estrada, who is far more popular than Marcos when he stepped down, knew when it was time to go. He could have done a lot of things just so he could cling on to power -- block the impeachment, disperse the rallies against him, or call on his rabid supporters to defend him against the protesters. But he did not. In the twilight of his presidency, Estrada showed his respect for the law.
Arroyo, however, feels no moral accountability nor compunction to respect the law. Her “calibrated preemptive response” and “no permit, no rally” policies in dealing with protest actions is a clear violation of the Constitution. “No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of the press, of speech and of peaceable assembly,” the Constitution clearly states.
She violated the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government when she asked the Senate to stop its investigations into the various scandals involving herself and her family and into anomalous transactions that her administration has entered into. She is interfering with the work of a co-equal branch of government when she banned government officials from appearing in Senate hearings.
Like Marcos and Estrada, Arroyo has read the writings on the wall. But unlike Marcos and Estrada, Arroyo will not go gently. She is hanging on, and is using all the available powers of the presidency for her to remain in the Palace.
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NEW YORK --- Mac Villapando, president of Quezon Province Association and a candidate that ran as a board member of the Philippine Independence Day Council, Inc. (PIDCI) with the team of Ludi Hughes, is a reasonable person.
In his letter to me, he argues and defends quite convincingly, his position on issues about the recent PIDCI election in reaction to my recent column, “The beginning of the end” [The Filipino Express edition Oct. 17-23, 2005.]
Unlike some people who are elated to be named outstanding Asian Americans but behave like an attack dog frothing in the mouth in pursuit of its prey, Villapando takes the high road. His reply does not delve on personal but relevant public concerns; foul language is also not used, which reveals what comes out naturally from the goodness of his heart.
To my mind, Villapando understands better the reason why ideas, opinion and issues have to be ventilated and discussed openly in our community without fear and intimidation but observing the bounds of ethics and modesty.
In his letter, he tackles substantive issues that he thinks I have raised in my column. In a non-confrontational fashion, he explains why his team had decided to file a lawsuit against PIDCI, its president, Nymia Lacebal and 10 John Does.
Mac, as his friends call him, writes that the PIDCI executive board was given letters requesting immediate action on “some irregularities observed in the campaign process, specifically dealing with new PIDCI membership and processing.”
To the dismay of Hughes’ team, these letters were ignored, which compelled them to do what was necessary.
I agree with Mac that their letter should have been responded to. As a courtesy, Lacebal should have replied or at least, she should have directed the request of Mac’s team to the appropriate committee to respond. I cannot read Lacebal’s mind but I think her inaction has put the organization at risk.
But as I pointed out during the town hall meeting, the responsibility of screening and processing all new membership applications was in the hands of a membership committee co-chaired by two board members, Angie Cruz and Rommel Rivera, and Juliet Payabyab, supposedly representing the community at large.
Both Cruz and Rivera are known to be supporting Hughes and Payabyab, apparently supporting the other camp. If there are allegations of irregularities in the process, shouldn’t Cruz and Rivera know?
These two board members are accountable and should not claim their lack of computer skills or the volume of work involved as impediments to exercising their authority and responsibility. In the first place, why would they volunteer themselves to co-chair this committee if they are unable to perform their role?
Out of curiosity, did Cruz and Rivera allow new applications to be processed and recommended to the board for approval without proper documentation? Similarly, did Payabyab do the same?
Mac says that their objective [in filing a lawsuit] was “to seek fairness, justice, and honesty, and to cure anomalies in the PIDCI campaign and election process.” That is a fair statement. However, I want to point out that in any organization, these concerns are addressed in its by-laws, policies and procedures promulgated by officers, board members and members.
This brings me back again to the responsibility and accountability of Cruz, Rivera and Payabyab as co-chairs of the membership committee. If they had endorsed their review of the new applications to the board, should the board micro-manage the role of a committee?
Mac further states that “it has never been our intention to divide the Fil-Am community. Rather we are seeking the truth and rightfulness. We want to uplift the quality of the PIDCI candidates’ statesmanship.”
Mac’s viewpoint is a reasonable explanation and aspiration. I doubt, however, if filing a lawsuit to seek the truth and uplift the quality of the PIDCI candidates’ statesmanship were the means to justify the end. As it is, the court of public opinion does not favor his team’s action. The question asked is: why impose a monetary claim of one million each for three of the four causes of action being sought?
Mac assumes that “I present inaccurate information that mislead readers.” However, he does not point out which information from my column is inaccurate. Therefore, his claim is without basis.
What I like best in Mac’s letter is his wish that our community will be better “pag natapos ang gusot na ito” (when this problem ends.)
I and perhaps the entire community fully agree with him. That was the reason I posed the question: “will this be the beginning of the end?”
It is up to the readers to make their own conclusion on what that statement means to them. But quite frankly, I value Mac Villapando’s reaction to my column. He proved himself that he could be a rare cut above the rest – truly a committed community leader and a gentleman.
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MacArthur’s broken promise
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Chicago, ILLINOIS --- When Gen. Douglas MacArthur kept his pledge to retake the Philippines from the hands of the Japanese Occupying Forces 61 years ago on Oct. 20, this year, it was only a fulfillment of half his promise.
Two months before the Japanese Forces closed in on the embattled US Army general in his headquarters in Corregidor, MacArthur tried to boost the morale of the Filipino World War II soldiers by promising them an equal pay with their American counterparts after President Roosevelt mobilized the Philippine Commonwealth Army as the US entered World War II following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. MacArthur would later escape to Australia and he promised to return.
Radio Message for Equal Pay
It was on February 22, 1942 when MacArthur recommended to his Commander-in-Chief the equalization of Philippine Army pay scales with the United States Army in a “Radio RN-3” message to the US War Department. His plea was approved by President Roosevelt on March 11, 1942 as the War Department sponsored a legislation introduced as S. 2387, which passed the Senate on March 30, 1942, and reported out favorably by the House Military Affairs Committee on May 7, 1942.
The introduction of this legislation, which I call the carrot, was given much publicity, and Filipino soldiers of the US Armed Forces took great heart and strength from such news that in the face of almost impossible odds, they were able to accomplish their mission for that war.
Bad Faith
But in the weeks following the loss of great many lives in the falls of Bataan and Corregidor, the United States in utter bad faith breached MacArthur’s contract with the Filipino soldiers when it determined in a government memorandum dated July 30, 1942 that there was no longer a “need ... from a strategic or economic consideration ... to equalize the pay and allowances of .... the Philippine Army with that of the Army of the United States ....,” making a recommendation to Congress that equalization of pay bill was not necessary anymore.
The US Congress, however, waited four years before it finally broke the hearts of the Filipino soldiers, who were waiting for their “back pay,” when it inserted a rider on a legislation passed as the First Supplement Surplus Appropriations Rescission Act. P. L. 79-60 Stat. 14.
It provided that “service in the organized military forces of the ... Commonwealth of the Philippines, while such forces were in the service of the Armed Forces of the United States ... shall not be deemed to have been active military, naval or air service for purposes of any law ... conferring rights, privileges or benefits... .”
U.S. Owes Filipinos an Apology
Why the US Congress waited for four years? Nobody knows. But if it took the carrot away from the Filipino soldiers in the middle of the war, the Japanese could have used the American betrayal of the Filipino soldiers a propaganda tool that could have turned the tide of World War II against the U.S. Armed Forces.
The recent news about the US Justice Department apologizing to Hungarian Holocaust survivors whose possessions were stolen by U.S. soldiers at the end of World War II after the Allied forces seized what became known as the “Gold Train” should be a good opportunity for the US government to redeem itself by extending its apology also to the Filipino soldiers and use its influence to pass the Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2005 pending in the U.S. House of Representatives as H.R. 302 IS and the US Senate as 146 IS.
The $100-M appropriations for the “back pay” to back up the promise of General MacArthur to the Filipino soldiers in 1942 would not have been necessary if only MacArthur never made such a pledge.
For Filipinos to avoid the unnecessary loss of thousands of lives and millions of property lost, they could have just stayed neutral during World War II. After all, World War II was a war between the two economic superpowers (Americans and Japanese). The Filipinos were mere innocent bystanders.
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San Francisco, CALIFORNIA --- When one revisits family or old friends, as the wife and I are now doing, laughter at these reunions, is always laceed with intimations of mortality. Even good things end, . Will these partings be well made?
To visit children in Michigan, California and New York, the wife and I finally dusted off unused travel passes. Over the years, our son Francis, a Northwest Airlines pilot, sent them over.
We’ve repeatedly put off these trips. Age squelches the travel itch., Rebound from jet-lag now takes longer.. One winces at 17-hour flights, despite individual tv sets in chairs with built-in massage systems.
But now our joints creak. Before they finally crumble, we better go, the wife and I finally agree.
Come in early autumn, say Francis and Tricia over Skype. Late summer days can be glorious. And leaves change their colors. “I’m flying in from New Delhi,” weighs in Marixie our youngest daughter. She’s a United Nations officer. “We’ll go for autumn foliage in upstate New York.”
And from Malou in Palo Alto, comes the clincher: “Your grand-daughter Alexia is asking when are Lolo and Lola coming?”
Every trip jolts you with reminders on the changes sweeping the world of your children.
Our grand-daughter Alexia is now four. She’s fluent in English and French. At the Chinese dim-sum restaurant, she thanks the cashier in Mandarin: Xie-xie.
“Oh, you’re Asian”, squeals the delighted lady at the blonde kid with light-brown eyes. Her doctor-dad ( originally from Sweden but trained at Stanford) has a number of Chinese patients. Alexia has Chinese lessons.
The wife and I are pleased. Of course, But there’s sadness too.. We see Alexia in what we read, on the long flight over the Pacific, in “Equity and Development”. – the World Bank’s 2006 annual analysis of development issues.
The analysis speaks of “inequality traps – where the cycle of underachievement continues.” The playing field is far from level for kids like Alexia in the US or 4-year old Claudia in a Philippine slum.
For kids in less-developed countries, infant mortality is four times higher for the poor than for the rich. Philippine infant deaths are triple that of Malaysia. Babies of indigents are at much greater nutritional risk.
“The main scourge here is ‘primary complex’ or tuberculosis,” says Sister Ruth, and community of six Mother Teresa nuns minister to abandoned children in Pasil, a Cebu City slum. Alexia gets all needed immunization shots. Claudia doesn’t even have a birth certificate..
Many never reach grade school. If they get to grow up, their schools are substantially worse than those attended by children of “gated enclaves” or abroad. Similar inequalities exist in access to credit, even in coverage of the law.”, says the report.
These adverse effects are reproduced, time and time again --- worse, across generations. Ill-fed wizened mothers give birth to dwarfed children, the Asian Development Bank notes.
Equality is one thing, thw World Bank notes. But equity is another.
Equity isn’t about equality in incomes, health, schooling or other assets, the report says.
“Rather, it is the quest for a situation....when personal effort, preferences and initiative -- and not family background, caste, race, or gender -- account for the differences between people’s economic achievements.
“Three basic decisions underpin success of Nordic countries like Norway, Sweden or Denmark,” says Columbia University’ Earth Institute’s Jeffrey Sach. “First, they prioritized education. Second, they built a vigorous private sector. And they made sure no one was left behind.”
That’s the task for us in the Philippines: To make sure Claudia catches up with Alexia.
(E-mail: juan_mercado@paci-fic.net.ph
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Filipinos care about their children’s future
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ONE of the most important reasons Filipinos come to the United States is to provide a better future and opportunity for their children. Parents are willing to work long hours, sometimes at several different jobs, always telling themselves that they are doing it for the sake of their children.
Although these parents are to be commended for their hard work and sacrifice, they become so overwhelmed with their work that they fail to do anything about their legal status. They forget about the long-term consequences that will affect their children’s future in America.
Deep in the parent’s heart, they are always thinking about how their immigration status affects their children. When their children were still young, the children may not have been as affected by their parents’ illegal status, as when they start getting older.
Let me remind these parents about some of the harmful consequences to their child’s future if the parents do nothing about their immigration status:
1. The child will have trouble getting into a fine college. I know that these parents came to America for the educational opportunities of their children. If the parent and the child are in illegal status, the child will have difficulty getting into the good colleges or universities. No matter how smart the child is, he or she would not qualify for scholarships. The child may be a straight A student, and may receive all kinds of scholastic honors. However, the parent’s failure to get into legal status could bring the child’s educational opportunities to a dead stop.
2. The child cannot get a Driver’s License. Under California law, people cannot get an original Driver’s License unless they present evidence of being in legal status. Because of the parent’s and the child’s illegal status, the child will not be able to get a Driver’s License. The child has to take the bus, or ride along with friends (who have Driver’s Licenses because their parents are in legal status).
3. The child will not be able to get a decent job. Perhaps the parent was able to secure a nice, well-paying job, because when the parent applied, the employer may not have been too particular about employees’ immigration status. Or, the parents were probably willing to accept a lower-level job, because they have to make a living to support their children. However, the child will have a difficult time finding a decent job because employers are now very strict as far as employees’ immigration status are concerned.
4. The child will not be able to support his own family. Because of the parent’s illegal status, it could be possible that his or her child would be denied a quality education in America (because he can’t get into college), and be denied the opportunity to work at a well-paying job (because he has no work authorization). How would the child be able to support his own family with a less-than-minimum wage?
5. The parent will continue to be separated from his child. If the parent left his child behind in the Philippines, and has not legalized his status, how can the parent hope to be reunited with his child? Unless the parent becomes legal, there is very little chance that his child will ever be able to be reunited with the parent in America. The parent will not be able to hold or hug his child, or celebrate occasions with his child under the same roof. The parent will just have to be satisfied with long distance phone calls and sending remittances.
These parents should pause for a moment to think why they are here in America. Most probably, it is because of their children, so that their children will have a better future. Isn’t it ironic that by remaining in illegal status, the children of these parents will face a very bleak, instead of bright, future? Why defeat the very purpose for which you came to America in the first place?
I advise people to seek the advice of a reputable attorney, who could analyze their situation and perhaps see ways for them to go about legitimately legalizing their status. They should do it for the sake of their children!
Michael J. Gurfinkel has been an attorney for over 24 years, and is an active member of the State Bar of California and New York, as well as the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Immigration Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He has always excelled in school: Valedictorian in High School; Cum Laude at UCLA; and Law Degree Honors and academic scholar at Loyola Law School, which is one of the top law schools in California.
WEBSITE: www.gurfinkel.com
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