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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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TO SAY that the Philippines is a God-forsaken country is not an exaggeration.
The landslide that buried the village of Ginsaugon in Saint Bernard, Southern Leyte on Friday, February 17 was a jolt that forced us to take a long, hard look at the earth-shaking truth that the Philippines is the most disaster-prone country in the world.
According to the Belgium-based Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters of the Université Catholique de Louvain (CRED-UCL), an average of 12 natural disasters, or one per month, has descended on the Philippines since 1986.
An average of 20 typhoons, two of which are supertyphoons, visit the Philippines annually, said our weather bureau, PAGASA.
There were 63 earthquakes that caused major destruction from 1589 to 1983. From 1984 to 2000, there were eight killer quakes that rocked the country.
With a 13,5000-kilometer coastline that is the longest in the world, Philippine coastal areas, particularly those in southwest Mindanao, are vulnerable to tsunamis as high as four meters. Most of these tsunamis are caused by nearby earthquakes.
Volcanic eruptions are also quite frequent; the Philippines have more than 200 volcanoes, at least 17 of which are considered active. In the last 25 years, five of the principal active volcanoes erupted – Canlaon, Bulusan, Taal, Mayon and Pinatubo. From 1986-1995, there were six significant volcanic eruptions.
The CRED-UCL study listed seven of the most disaster-prone countries in the world: Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar (Burma) and the Philippines. And our beloved country has the unenviable distinction of being on top of the unstable heap. Nearly 50 percent of natural disasters that hit these countries have been recorded in our archipelago.
Now, why are we dwelling on our misfortune? Of course, anybody who has lived in the Philippines knows this truth by experience. And that is our point: Despite knowing that the country sits helplessly in the middle of the Typhoon Belt, right smack on the Paciific ring of fire and top of the very unstable Indian, Eurasian and Pacific plates, the government has not done anything in terms of disaster preparation.
No one can prevent a natural disaster from happening. But the government can sure can do a lot in minimizing human casualty.
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NEW YORK --- Yesterday I had two options where to go to enjoy good entertainment after a hard day’s work.
First was to go home and watch Filipino American Jose ‘Sway’ Penala belt out his piece at Fox’s “American Idol.” And second was to attend the first community meeting of the Philippine Independence Day Parade Council, Inc. (PIDCI) at the Consulate.
It wasn’t really a difficult choice to make. I found out that I can be in both places and still have the benefit of listening to the songs of the 12 male “Idol” contestants and to the reports of committee chairpersons involved in the preparation of 2006 independence parade.
The state of community attendance at the PIDCI meeting was dreadful, which means that whoever is in-charge of inviting people has to do more than the ordinary. I was expecting that all board members were present but some may have forgotten this important day and went some place else.
Although I could not count by my fingers people that were there, I could quickly estimate the number of empty chairs which abound. From the back row where I sat I had a good vantage point -- I know you’re waiting for this moment – and found that there were less than 50 people in attendance.
So now you can deduce that basically, only board members and committee members were around including a few guests. What happened to some 200 heads of member-organizations that are in the roster of PIDCI? Doesn’t this drive the point that it is only on election day that people show up?
On my way up to the Kalayaan Hall, I exchanged greetings with two well known civic leaders.
“Good to see you here,” the lady said. And I responded quickly, “Good to see you, too. Are you staying here until the meeting ends?”
The other woman demurely said, “No, we’re only for shumai.” I thought I heard her correctly and asked: “Will they be serving shumai after the meeting?”
I almost died laughing to hear her say: “No, I meant shumai as in ‘show my face’. We still have another appointment to go to.” And sure enough, they left mid-way during the meeting.
That was the sign that I was in for good entertainment that evening. And as I sat beside some few friends, somebody said jokingly: “I might be compromised to be seen seating with you.”
To which the other fellow remarked: “Who cares? At least both of you are not caught in a compromising position.” We all had a good laugh at that and the meeting went on with committee chairs or members rendering their oral reports.
I have serious concerns regarding attendance. If this was proof of how people show their involvement in the business of the organization, then they deserve the administration they have.
At a time when amendments to the by-laws are being discussed at the committee level and finally presented for ratification by PIDCI membership, it is important that member-organizations show up (not shumai) to voice their concerns and express their ideas.
If the impact of the proposed changes in the by-laws were not taken with serious consideration by the members, they shouldn’t complain why a few handfuls approved of them. And this handful could just be members of the board and their close friends who happen to hold proxy-votes.
And that’s definitely not an entertainment we would like to enjoy.
I tell you meetings could be a bore especially when one talks less and another talks more. You could tell who’s upstaging who. But that doesn’t matter, I guess, if the final product of their efforts is translated into holding an independence celebration we all could be proud of.
That’s good for the community, good for the Consulate, and good for us Filipinos. Just as Consul General Cecilia Rebong said, “At the end of the day, we are the ones affected.”
I twitched in my seat hearing more of the same midway through the agenda. I discretely left the room in search for another entertainment – something that would further ease me from a long day at work.
And as I reached home to view “American Idol” which I stored in my TiVo, I was ready to hear a few good songs and banters from the show’s judges. Part of entertainment, you see.
I curiously waited to watch 28-year old Jose “Sway” Penala of South San Francisco perform. Nicknamed Sway, I’ve learned that he is in the real estate business in the Bay Area who moved there when he was a teen-ager.
He was quite good in his performance last night and I hope he carries on with it like another Jasmine Trias, a previous Fil-Am “Idol” finalist. And while you’re being entertained, don’t forget, vote for Sway.
Just as your involvement, attendance and vote in PIDCI’s activities is important, your vote for Sway is no less than important. On another note, I have a feeling that Bobby Benette, another “Idol” hopeful is also a Filipino-American. We’ll have to check on that.
Meanwhile, that’s entertainment for you.
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Bring on People Power III!
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Chicago, ILLINOIS --- Like a business activity, the 1986 People Power Revolution that made the Philippines a template of a peaceful transfer of power appears to have buckled under the law of diminishing return.
Instead of becoming an effective means of mounting a revolution from the top, People Power appears to have lost its luster on the 20th anniversary this week of its launching.
After being replicated in other countries, like South Korea, Germany following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Tien Ann Mien Square massacre and, of course, the People Power II that toppled the Estrada Administration and installed then Vice President Arroyo into the presidency, the Filipino People Power appears to be taking a back seat.
All In The Family
It’s very hard to tell when the Filipino people will again troop back to the street dramatizing the pent-up emotion that drove President Marcos from power in 1986 and installing in his place Cory Aquino.
It has now become a 64-million dollar question: Why are the Filipino people not showing up on the streets despite the alleged glaring cheating of President Arroyo as documented by the “Hello Garci” tapes, the involvement of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and his son Mikey and Mikey’s uncle, Iggy, in the multi-million peso jueteng scandal and the mismanagement of the country?
What will it take for the Filipino People to turn up in droves and to tell Mrs. Arroyo to cut it cleanly?
Will the upcoming charter change debate being promoted by People Power I main player, former President Fidel V. Ramos, and being embraced by Mrs. Arroyo, really be the magic bullet that will ultimately supplant the People Power mechanism of ridding the country of its unwanted leader?
Judging by the way the majority of the Philippine congressmen absolved Mrs. Arroyo of stealing her election in the “Hello Garci” tapes, it is very clear that by promoting “cha-cha,” Mr. Ramos is playing into the hands of Mrs. Arroyo.
Monkey and the Turtle
While Mr. Ramos is expecting Mrs. Arroyo to lose out her leadership in the parliamentary form of government, Mrs. Arroyo is like the turtle in the grammar school fable of the “Monkey and the Turtle.” Like the turtle, Mrs. Arroyo concealed her glee when the monkey opted to threaten the turtle to be thrown into the river, instead of fire.
Mrs. Arroyo knows that if the same crop of congressmen will be elected as members of parliament -- there is a likelihood that they will only win if she bankrolls their elections -- and she can depend on their votes again so she can be voted back to power as Prime Minister in the new Philippine unicameral Parliament.
By the stroke of luck, Mrs. Arroyo knows that it is in the present crop of senators where she will likely find a serious contender if she tries her luck beyond 2010 presidential elections. Unfortunately for the senators, if they cannot run or if they will not run for parliament in the May, 2007 elections, they will be eventually relegated into the dustbin of history once the new parliament is inaugurated.
Vote And Don’t Leave Voting Place
If the Filipino People will not show up on the street to rid Malacanang of Arroyo from now until May 2007 parliamentary elections, their next chance to do so will be the May, 2007 elections, which is slightly a year away. I know, the Filipino people can’t wait.
The Filipino People Power can easily dismantle the ruling Arroyo administration altogether by voting out all the congressmen who rejected the “Hello Garci” tapes and voting in their place those who supported Arroyo’s impeachment.
They can use the People Power mechanism by going to the polls in droves so nobody, even the entire command of Armed Forces of the Philippines, can intimidate them. They should stay around the voting precinct after they voted so they can guard their votes and guard against cheating. That is what I will call People Power III!
(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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A people scrubbed of memory
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‘THE first step in liquidating a people is to erase it’s memory”, a historian once wrote. Has that come to pass here?
As People Power 1’s 20th anniversary approaches, the “fashion” is to denigrate the massive turnout of unarmed citizens that ended a 14-year dictatorship.
“We made headway in preventing a future dictator from reemerging in the 1987 Constitution”, Unversity of the Philippines sociologist Randy David notes. “But we’re far from eliminating those conditions that make strongman rule a seductive alternative”
Responding to Jaime Cardinal Sin’s call, citizens massed and saved martial law bouncer Juan Ponce Enrile from ending up like Mussolini. He fled when found plotting Marcos’ ouster. In the 2004 campaign, Enrile “apologized” to Ilocano voters for People Power. He forgot?
On a Chile state visit, Joseph Estrada summed up crony preference for amnesia “Ugly parts of our country, like martial law, should be forgotten”. Ang mga pangit at nakalipas should not be commemorated”. “The shonky ex-movie star Joseph Estrada” was ousted by People Power 2, the Australian Finanial Review wrote later.
Historian Horacio de la Costa, SJ, once observed that our history is one of defeats: from the fall of Tirad Pass to the surrender at Bataan and Corregidor. Yet, we commemorate these mga pangit at nakalipas. We err when we consider People Power as one event, however shattering. It is, in fact, a long process by an empowered people, recasting institutions, despite bitter resistance by an avaricious elite.
We are a people of short memories, our critics insist. Surveys report that less than ten percent of students today know Senator Benigno Aquino, much less what he was killed for. The average TV fan can spit out details about “Wowowee” and celebrities. But there’s a “black hole” insofar as torture, salvaging, kleptocracy of the Marcos regime are concerned.
Yet, “all of us must open our hearts to human memory,” Nobel laureate Eli Weisel insisted at the Auschwitz death camp memorial rites. “I do not want my past to become the future of my children...
Amnesia blocks recall of what freedom entails. In a country without memories, wrong became right; falsehood the truth, slavery freedom. “Martial law was the democratic period in our history,” Imelda Marcos says.
Thus, a US senator sneered: “The Philippines is a nation of 60 million cowards and two SOBs.” Then, Corazon Aquino and a handful started to march – and we learned that courage is contagious.
“People Power”,the Guardian notes, is “a post-modern coup d’etat.” It’s manifestations elsewhere are instructive.
In the mid-80s, TV interlocked with satellites. These brought images of Filipinos with rosaries and flowers, blocking tanks, into living rooms the world over. Televised evening news foreshadowed that trend, when it shoved the Vietnam War into American homes. It now does that with the Iraq conflict.
People Power rippled out to South Korea, Chile, Poland, Indonesia, Thailand. Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution” and the Berlin Wall’s followed in 1989. The Soviet Union’s collapse followed.
By 2003, the “Rose Revolution” rocked Georgia. The “Orange Revolution” freed Ukraine last year. Lebanon’s “Cedar Revolution” drove out Syrian occupiers.
Ecuador cloned our noise-barrage against Marcos and sent its president packing. In Mexico, 1.2 million people silently marching forced President Vicente Fox to scrub fake charges against his opponent. Mass protests yanked out presidents in Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Haiti.
But not all People Power golpes have happy endings. People ignored Erap when he tried to incite EDSA 3 and 4. Filipinos will risk all for a cause, but not for a souse.
People Power remains democracy’s weapon of last resort. “Those who answer its call,” David writes, “must work hard to prepare the ground” through good governance.
( E-mail : juan_mercado@paci-fic.net.ph )
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The March 2006 priority dates
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The priority dates for family petitions by US citizens did not move, but those filed by immigrant parents moved forward by at least seven days, as shown in the March 2006 monthly Visa Bulletin.
The priority dates for employment-based petitions for professionals and skilled workers moved forward by nine days, but those of unskilled workers did not move.
Petitions by Citizens:
The priority date for the First Preference Category, F-1
(unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens, over 21 years of age) did not move at all, and remained at
August 22, 1991.
The
Third Preference Category F-3 (married sons and daughters of United States citizens
) also did not move, and remained at
February 8, 1991
(Note: There is now a difference of 6-1/2 months in priority dates between unmarried and married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens.).
The
Fourth Preference, F-4 (brothers and sisters of United States citizens)
also did not move, and remained at
October 1, 1983 .
Petitions by Green Card Holders :
The
Second Preference, F-2A (spouse and minor children below 21 years of age, of green card holders ) of Family-Based Petitions
moved forward by 14 days, from February 8, 2002, to
February 22, 2002
.
The
Second Preference, F-2B (unmarried sons and daughters, over 21 years of age, of green card holders), moved forward by seven days, from July 1, 1996 to
July 8, 1996
.
Petitions by Employers:
The
Third Preference (professionals and skilled workers)
of Employment-Based Petitions (Labor Certification), moved forward by nine days, from April 22, 2001 to
May 1, 2001. The
Third Preference (non-skilled workers)
, did not move and remained at
October 1, 2001
. The priority date for
Schedule A workers (nurses/physical therapists)
is current.
Each month, the Visa Office of the State Department publishes the priority dates for that particular month. This means that visas would now be available for persons
whose priority date is
earlier than the cut-off date listed below
.
The
March 2006
priority dates for the
Philippines are as follows:
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FAMILY CATEGORY: |
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Priority Date: |
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First Preference |
Unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens
(over 21 years of age)
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August 22, 1991
(In February 2006, the priority date was the same.)
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Second Preference |
2A. Spouse and minor children
(below 21 years old) of green card holder
2B. Unmarried sons and daughters (over 21
years old) of green card holder
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February 22, 2002
(In February 2006, the priority date was February 8, 2002.)
July 8, 1996
(In February 2006, the priority date was July 1, 1996)
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Third Preference |
Married sons and daughters of
U.S. Citizens |
February 8, 1991
(In February 2006, the priority date was the same.)
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Fourth Preference
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Brothers and sisters of U.S. Citizens
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October 1, 1983
(In February 2006, the priority date was the same.)
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LABOR CERTIFICATION: |
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Third Preference |
Professional/Skilled Workers |
May 1
, 2001
(In
February 2006, the priority date was April 22, 2001.) |
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Schedule A
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(Nurses/Physical therapists)
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Current
(In February 2006, the priority date was also current.)
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| Other Workers |
Non-Skilled workers |
October 1, 2001
(In February 2006, the priority was the same.)
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WEBSITE: www.gurfinkel.com
LOS ANGELES:
219 North Brand Boulevard
Glendale, California 91203
Telephone: (818) 543-5800
SAN FRANCISCO:
966 Mission Street
San Francisco, California 94103
Telephone: (415) 538-7800
NEW YORK:
60 East 42nd Street
Suite 2101
New York, NY 10165
Telephone: (212) 808-0300
PHILIPPINES:
Heart Tower, Unit 701
108 Valero Street, Salcedo Village
Makati, Philippines 1227
Telephone: 894-0258 or 894-0239
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