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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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NEW YORK --- Two Philippine-based human rights lawyers went to the United Nations headquarters in New York on Thursday, March 16, and filed a complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for violating international human rights laws.
The lawyers, Edre Olalia from the International Association of Peoples Lawyers in the Philippines (IAPLP) and Marie Hilao Enriquez, from the human rights group Karapatan, accused President Arroyo of violating provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
The two lodged their complaints before the secretary of the UN’s Human Rights Commission.
Olalia said he also submitted a letter-complaint from the United States chapter of the party-list group Bayan Muna to ICCPR special rapporteur Rivas Posada concerning the arbitrary detention of Anak-Pawis party-list Representative Crispin Beltran.
Beltran is among 16 alleged conspirators of the foiled coup on February 24 whom the police slapped with rebellion charges. Beltran was arrested a few hours after President Arroyo declared a state of emergency and remains to be in police custody.
Among the alleged cases of human rights violations committed by the Arroyo government cited in the complaint were the summary executions of human rights workers Eden Marcillana and Eddie Gumanoy in Mindoro in 2003; of Choi Napoles in 2002 in Mindoro; and of Karapatan human rights worker Evangeline Hernandez in Compostela Valley.
Olalia said the blatant disregard for human rights in the Philippines under the Arroyo administration gave them no recourse but to seek help from the international body.
He added that by going to the UN, Philippine human rights advocates hope to drum up international attention to the worsening human rights situation in the Philippines.
Olalia and Enriquez also met with the ICCPR’s special rapporteur to discuss the UN’s concluding observations regarding the Philippine government’s 2003 report about its compliance of the ICCPR.
The Philippines is a charter member of the United Nations, and is among the signatories of the 1966 ICCPR.
Complaints against a member state’s violation of the ICCPR can be filed by an organization or by an individual.
Olalia and Enriquez also made the rounds in the city last week, speaking in forums organized by Filipino American and lawyers groups to explain their actions against the Arroyo government.
On Tuesday, Olalia and Enriquez, spoke before a forum on the Philippine situation organized by the International Action Center, a coalition of progressive Filipino organizations in New York City.
On Wednesday, the Community Service Society also held a forum on Philippine human rights situation with the two lawyers as speakers.
Enriquez is the secretary general of Karapatan, an alliance of organizations promoting people’s rights. She was victim of human rights violations herself during the martial law government of the late President Marcos.
She played a key role in the historic class-action lawsuit filed by 10,000 victims of human rights violations in the Philippines against the Marcos estate.
Olalia is currently the chief legal consultant for NDF-nominated panel of the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC).
Members of the JMC the group are jointly appointed by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF). It is tasked to oversee the implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).
Olalia is also currently the vice president of the IAPLP.
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Former president Joseph Estrada (left)
and Senator Panfilo Lacson (right).
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MANILA --- The United States has set in motion the possibility of having former President Joseph Estrada and Senator Panfilo Lacson and San Juan Mayor Jose Victor (JV) Ejercito extradited to the US in connection with the White House and FBI spying scandal involving Filipino American Leandro Agoncillo. Official sources in Manila said the US had conducted wiretaps against the three, who have been reported to have received classified information from Agoncillo.
The US Embassy sent a diplomatic note dated February 1 to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) transmitting “legal Notices of Interception of wire and/or electronic communications for Joseph Estrada and JV Ejercito.”
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that Senator Lacson had also been subjected to wiretapping.
“The embassy requests assistance from the [DFA] in serving the notices on these individuals. The embassy also requests confirmation that the Department has been able to do this,” the note said.
Lawyers said that the notices were intended to alert the recipients that they could be implicated in the spying controversy and could be brought to the United States to face charges under an extradition treaty between Manila and Washington.
Aragoncillo, 46, an intelligence analyst of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Michael Ray Aquino, 39, a former police senior superintendent and Lacson aide, were arrested in New Jersey and New York, respectively, last September on espionage charges in connection with the alleged passing of classified information to Filipino opposition leaders.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of imprisonment for 25 years.
In all, 150 documents, including 37 classified as “secret,” were allegedly transmitted to the Filipino leaders from May to August 2005.
Last October, ABC News reported that Aragoncillo had also pilfered documents from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney in what it said was the first case of spying in the White House. Some of the documents were reported to be damaging to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was described as weak and overbearing.
Estrada has admitted getting documents from Aragoncillo, but stressed that these did not seem to be sensitive information. Lacson, Senate Minority Floor Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and Rep. Roilo Golez of Parañaque City also acknowledged receiving e-mails from either Aragoncillo or Aquino.
Asked if he got the legal notice, Estrada said, “No, I have not received any. Maybe they brought it to Polk [his house in San Juan] address, but my lawyers should have brought it here if there’s any.”
Estrada is held in detention in his rest house in Tanay town, outside Manila, while being tried for plunder and other crimes.
When asked if this would mean that he was going to New Jersey, Estrada said, “Okay ‘yun, ha?”
Ejercito said he had received a notice from Interpol, through the National Bureau of Investigation, informing him that he had been a recipient of information from Aragoncillo.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
Lacson confirmed he received the notice in December but shrugged it off as “a matter of statutory procedure.”
He said the notice simply told him that his e-mail account had been found in a laptop seized from Aquino. He said he had thrown the paper away.
The legal notices to the Estradas were issued by Judge Jose Linares of the US District Court of New Jersey.
The notices stated that the interception happened between Aug. 22 and Sept. 12, 2005, “by on or about which date all original recordings were sealed by order of this court.”
“During the period of authorized interception, wire and/or electronic communications to or from your telephone and/or communications were intercepted,” the notices stated.
The sources said Lacson also received a similar notice.
A diplomatic source, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the legal notices were in line with the requirements under US law to notify persons who had undergone surveillance.
When asked whether the notices could be taken as a signal that its recipients faced prosecution, the source said, “We don’t know at this point. It should be taken at its face value -- as notices.”
One lawyer said, “It’s like a warning to them to take the matter seriously, that they cannot ignore this and that anything can happen. It’s actually favorable since they will no longer be taken by surprise by whatever legal action may follow.”
The source said the “prudent thing” for the Estradas to do was to consult with a US lawyer practicing in this field and make inquiries of the prosecutors if necessary.
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Jersey City, NEW JERSEY --- A Filipino American serviceman who was earlier deployed in Afghanistan was found “not guilty” of murder in the first degree by a jury after a two-day trial in Hamilton, Texas, according to defense lawyer Robert Glasgow.
Christian Mariano, 23, son of Manila-born and Bayonne, New Jersey-based parents, avoided prison terms of from “five to 99 years after convincing the jury that he stabbed to death Khyle Dittrich in self-defense,” Glasgow added.
It was retired Judge Don Lenard of the 220th District County Court in Hamilton who presided over the trial after presiding Judge James Morgan begged off from the trial to accompany his wife who is being treated for cancer.
Prosecuting District Attorney B.J Shepherd said he did not see anything wrong with the acacquittal of Mariano, who was invited by a friend to go to a parking lot at a rural county road south of Hamilton, 50 to 75 miles from Fort Hood, a US Army base.
It was sometime on August 27 last year when somebody from behind tried to choke him during an altercation with several young men at about 11:00 p.m. and told him “you are going to die.”
Instinctively, Mariano stabbed his attacker, who turned out to be Dittrich, with a four-inch pocket knife, which pierced Dittrich’s right lung. Dittrich died four days later at Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas.
Mariano, 180-pound, was later charged with murder of Dittrich, 19, a 240-pound construction worker from Gatesville, Texas.
Bond was originally fixed at $300,000 but this was later reduced to $75,000. Mariano was never released from prison.
He was tried by a jury starting on February 28. The following day, Wednesday, March 1, the jury, taking only two hours to deliberate, acquitted him.
Mariano was a US Army Specialist, who just returned from combat in Southwest Asia. He served in Afghanistan in 2003.
The son of Nestor and Claire Mariano of Bayonne, NJ, Mariano was born in Amarillo, Texas before the Mariano family moved to New Jersey.
The Mariano family broke out in cheers and tears as the decision was read. Present at the trial were Christian’s parents Nestor and Clarissa; siblings Christopher, Catherine, and Christine; and supporters from the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA).
Lawyer Arlene Machetta, chair of the Southwest Region of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, described the acquittal of Mariano as “the light of justice, equity and fairness (that) shining through Christian Mariano.”
Machetta said it was Nap Ramirez, NaFFAA’s chairman of Tarrant County Veterans Affairs chair for Region 6, and Army Col. Alfred Faustino, vice chair of veterans affairs, who jointly informed her of Mariano’s acquittal.
Ramirez said, “this is another testament to the efficacy of our judicial system, the power of collective prayers and the bayanihan spirit of our Filipino people.” Ramirez mobilized a dedicated group of volunteers to help Christian Mariano in his “darkest days, including fund-raising events, the jail visits and Bayanihan spirit (that shined) thru.”
Another Mariano supporter, retired US Air Force serviceman R. Sonny Sampayan of New York, also responded to calls for help in the case by spreading the word around about Mariano’s case.
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Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA --- Nora Aunor, the country’s most popular film and music star in the 60s and 70s, has left Los Angeles county’s drug court treatment program and will enroll in a different program that allows her to travel for concerts, officials said.
“The woman was in full compliance” during her time in drug court, said Aunor’s attorney, Claire Espina. “She tested clean every time.”
Aunor, 53, was arrested March 30 at Los Angeles International Airport after security screeners allegedly found eight grams of methamphetamine and a glass pipe in her carry-on bag.
She was accepted into the county’s drug court program in December, at which time criminal proceedings against her were suspended.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Bernard Kamins on Thursday, March 9, granted a motion by Aunor’s attorney to let her leave drug court. He scheduled a March 29 hearing before another judge so she can enter a drug diversion program.
Criminal charges against Aunor will be dismissed if she successfully completes that program, according to the district attorney’s office.
Aunor, whose real name is Nora Cabaltera Villamayor, has upcoming concerts in San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Ohio, and also must travel to meet the requirements of her visa, Espina said. Aunor retains her Philippine citizenship, but has spent much of her time in recent years at her home in Linda Vista, several miles north of San Diego.
Known as “The Superstar” to her fans, she has appeared in more than 170 films and recorded more than two dozen albums, including scores of hit singles.
On screen, she has starred with leading men of her time, including Joseph Estrada, who became the country’s president.
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