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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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Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA --- Filipino superstar Nora Aunor, who was arrested in Los Angeles earlier this year for shabu or methamphetamine possession, has asked to enter a drug diversion program to clear the charges, prosecutors said on Thursday, December 15.
Aunor sought permission from a judge earlier this week to enter the one-year program, which calls for a judge to dismiss the charges if a defendant fulfills certain requirements, which typically include substance abuse treatment.
“We agreed to allow her to go into drug diversion,” Los Angeles County District Attorney’s spokeswoman Jane Robison said of the film and pop star, who is charged under her real name, Nora Cabaltera Villamayor.
Aunor, who is known simply as “The Superstar” in the Philippines, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on March 30 after a federal baggage screener found 6.7 grams of methamphetamine in her duffel bag.
She was charged with one count of possessing a controlled substance and freed on $10,000 bond. Though prosecutors, who were initially unaware of her celebrity status, have not opposed her application for the diversion program, she must get permission from a judge.
“There is an eligibility process for drug court,” Robison said. “It’s up to the judge in drug court to determine if she’s eligible.”
Aunor was in court on Thursday, accompanied by her attorney and an interpreter, but a hearing into the matter was postponed until December 22. Her attorney could not be reached for comment. By then, Aunor will know if she will be eligible to enroll in a drug diversion program.
Judge Bernard Kamins of the Superior Court of Los Angeles in California will make a determination during a hearing on Thursday at Division 147 whether to grant the request of Miss Aunor to enroll in a drug program.
Because Aunor is charged with one-count of possession of controlled substance, a source at the Los Angeles County Drug Court office said Judge Kamins is likely to grant Miss Aunor’s request to enroll in a drug program.
She was allegedly found in possession of methamphetamine substance or “shabu” weighing 7.7 grams hidden in a film container inside her carry-on bag and a glass pipe used for inhaling “shabu” wrapped in a T-shirt she was carrying.
The charge against Miss Aunor will likely be conditionally dismissed once she is accepted in the program. But she has to “graduate” in an outpatient drug program that will be drawn by a team composed of the judge, court administrator, clerk, prosecutor, public defender, treatment provider representative and other staff who will monitor her treatment.
If she graduates from the program, her arrest and court records are going to be expunged. If not, the charge against her stays.
Though she is little-known in the United States, Aunor is considered a top star in the Philippines, where she was born into poverty and first gained fame at 14 after winning a national singing competition in the late 1960s.
She has made about 170 films and recorded dozens of hit pop singles, filling arenas with devoted fans.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times in September, Aunor said she had been living in the San Francisco area since 2004 to gain a measure of anonymity and had put her faith in God to see her trough the drug charges.
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New York City, NEW YORK --- A Filipino American was sentenced to more than three years in prison after a US court found him guilty of smuggling arms weapons parts to Mindanao that may have ended up in the hands of individuals and groups linked to terrorist organizations.
Fernando Sero, 40, of Yonkers, New York, was sentenced to 40 months in prison on December 15 by United States District Judge Charles L. Brieant.
Sero had earlier pleaded guilty of shipping the materials in violation of the US Arms Export Control Act over a span of three-years.
He claimed to be helping Christians in Mindanao who are under attack by armed Muslim groups.
According to court records, Sero admitted shipping the items including parts of AK 47, G3s, HK-94 and M-16 assault rifles, and were sent without U.S State Department licenses on four separate occasions – September 9, 11 & 12 of 2003, and on March 22, 2005.
Court records show Sero purchased the items and shipped them to Mindanao in sealed containers using falsified documents.
They are then assembled together once reaching their destination in Mindanao, and sold to buyers he claimed to be Christian militias and local government officials.
Richard Willstatter, Sero’s attorney, earlier said the Fil-Am had a gun store in Cotabato City.
“That’s why he sold some weapons parts to people who needed weapons parts. But they were not terrorists.They’re trying to protect themselves from terrorists,” Willstatter said.
The police had placed Sero under surveillance months before his arrest. He was taken into police custody after a domestic violence incident in which he held a gun to his wife’s head. He was also involved in a standoff with the Yonkers Police Department.
As a result, four of his shipments were intercepted by U.S. and Philippine authorities between September 2004 and March 2005, which finally led to his indictment in a federal court.
However, Sero also admitted he had several other shipments that skirted intercepts.
Martin D. Ficke, Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforment (ICE), commended Assistant U.S. Attorney Perry Carbone, the ICE foreign attaché in Manila, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for their key role in the investigation.
Philippine authorities, with assistance from US security and law enforcement agencies, had intercepted Sero’s shipments four times since 2003, seizing assault rifles, such as AK-47s, M-16s, HK-94s and weapons parts and ammunitions, he said.
Sero hid the weapons in sealed boxes containing household items, such as light fixture and electric car cooler. When the arms arrived in Mindanao, the weapons were reassembled and sold at profit, said US embassy in Manila spokesman Matthew Lussenhop.
The Philippine National Police was quick to link Sero’s guns shipment to the terrorist groups operating in Mindanao.
But Lussenhop refused to say whether the weapons were sold to Muslim separatists and communist rebels fighting the government for nearly 40 years that had killed more than 160,000 people and slowed rural development in the Philippines.
The Philippines, battling Muslim and communist insurgencies, is a former US colony and a major ally to Washington’s war on terrorism in the region.
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New York City, NEW YORK --- Just like your typical New Yorker, Filipinos in The Big Apple braved the MTA strike and tried to make the best out of the situation as they go about performing their respective obligations in their workplaces.
Workers of New York’s Metro Transit Authority that operates the subway and buses in the city went on strike on Tuesday, December 20.
The strike, which ended 60 hours later on Thursday, forced the more than eight million people of New York to be creative in getting to work and school and then going back home.
Many reported walking several miles, crossing inter-borough bridges to get into Manhattan, while others planned car pools, or were forced to offer rides to strangers, or hitch-hike. And Filipinos were definitely among them.
Maria Carmen Norro, a special education teacher in Long Island City, did not mind walking 10 blocks for three days to reach the school where she teaches.
“Its part of the teaching package,” she explained.
She admitted to being excited, in a way, of having experienced the historical importance of the transport strike. The last time the Transport Workers Union went on strike was about a quarter of a century ago.
Couple Rommel and Janice Cardenas, a nurse and hotel employee, respectively, made an arrangement with friends with which they shared a ride to Manhattan.
Ieda Reyes, a Filipino nurse, opted for a less stressful scenario. She decided to stay at the New York University Hospital where she works for the entire duration of the strike.
Though many Filipinos in New York have their own vehicles, most use them only on weekends or when travelling out of New York. Majority normally just take the subway, which is way more practical and economical.
Albert Petallar of Brooklyn, however, had no choice but to use his car in going to work and driving his teacher wife to work. As a result, he has been arriving home later than usual during the three days of the strike.
Others, like teachers Rose and Terry, spend $50.00 each in going to the Bronx and back to Queens. Both don’t mind the cost because its not much better than being absent and miss school.
Norro, for her part, was even cited by her school superiors as a model for arriving in school early despite the strike, and despite just walking all the way.
“Thats one of the distinguishing marks of Pinoys working outside of the Philippines. We excel even in trying and difficult times.” Norro said.
The transit strike, the first in 25 years, began at 3:00 a.m. Tuesday after negotiations between the TWU and the MTA broke down.
The TWU ended the strike late Thursday afternoon.
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