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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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Is immigration bad for the US?
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ACROSS America, there is still a lingering resentment and fear of immigrants. Much of these sentiments can actually be traced to long-standing myths about immigrants and their negative impact on the US economy.
The most pervading misconception about immigrants is that they are a drain on the economy. On the contrary, immigrants actually contribute a lot to the nation’s economy, which, according to the National Research Council (NRC), could be as high as $10 billion per year.
The average immigrant actually pays $1,800 more in taxes than the cost of the public benefits, such as health care and education, that he or she receives. A study by the University of Florida in 2001 showed that the average immigrant actually paid 25 percent more taxes than do a citizen: $5,485, compared to $4,180.
Undocumented immigrants are actually subsidizing the US social security. The Social Security Administration has an Economic Suspense File – contributions that cannot be matched to workers’ names and social security numbers – that had accumulated $463 billion as of 2002. This is due largely to undocumented immigrants who pay their dues but cannot claim benefits.
Another erroneous belief about immigrants is that they are stealing away jobs from Americans. The reality is that the American workforce is aging and the population is not growing fast enough to fill the jobs. From 2002 to 2012, the number of Americans 55 years and over is projected to increase by nearly 50 percent; those aged 25 to 54 will rise by only 5.1 percent.
Without the infusion of immigrants into the labor force, many industries would not have enough manpower to sustain their operations. A labor shortage could force companies to shut down, which in turn could adversely affect the US economy.
If indeed foreign workers are crowding out Americans for jobs, then the number of out-of-work Americans ought to be high. But the Pew Hispanic Center reported in late March that even though undocumented immigrants hold about seven million jobs, the US unemployment rate was at a low 5.4 percent.
Unfortunately, lawmakers in both Houses of Congress hostile to immigration have done an excellent job of perpetuating the myths and obscuring the realities about immigrants in the United States.
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NEW YORK --- In a piece that appeared in this space in October 2003 titled “Hidden Agenda,” I wrote about the relationships that politicians have with other officials and their friends and foes in pursuing their own interests and in accomplishing their objectives.
In that column, I gave the example of visiting national leaders who were candidates to the Philippine presidency in 1998. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was then a senator, and then-Speaker of the House Jose De Venecia were guests of honor of the Philippine Independence Day Council (PIDC) in 1997. Bobby de Ocampo, former Secretary of Finance, was also in town, marching in the parade.
Although De Venecia was endorsed by then-President Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph Estrada, who was then vice president, was elected president. A twist of events later, Vice President Arroyo assumed the presidency and De Venecia was elected congressman from Pangasinan and reclaimed his previous post as Speaker.
Today, we see how things have changed between the President and the Speaker after both were having initial differences in legislative priorities. We also saw how the president, who was then opposed to a constitutional change, has now shifted her position to supporting charter change.
In international relations, we also see how nations change their positions on issues that may affect their own interests. We’ve seen this happen between U.S. and Iraq, between U.S. and Iran, between U.S. and China and many other situations where the interests of a state come first.
In business, it’s no different. Corporations protect their own turf, guarding closely and warding off any hostile take-over by competitors. And if they feel that potential mergers would be in the best interests of their stockholders and assured of not violating anti-trust laws or government restrictions, they are quick to pursue to close a deal.
In layman’s term, perhaps we may describe this apparent ambivalence in nations’ and corporations’ conduct towards their counterparts as: “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” But Lord Palmerston, an English statesman in the 18th century, captured that expression best. He said: “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” Whether it is politics or economics or both that steer their actions, it is easier to understand why they do things the way they do.
But when this view of nations and corporations is brought down to a personal level such as those leaders who claim that their involvement in the affairs of the community is paramount and selfless, we find ourselves in a rude awakening. It becomes more difficult to figure out what their true intentions are.
Or as some people say: “We’ve known them for a long time; we know what they’re up to. It’s their personal interests that come first.” There are leaders, however, who are not pretentious but caring and bold enough to humble themselves before anyone else and even to their peers.
They shun publicity of their accomplishments because they know that whatever they do is not to their credit or benefit but to those people who have helped them pursue their dreams that impact the lives of many others, not only their own.
Obviously, community interests are not the same as personal interests. And the difference between the two, no matter how obvious, is the defining line which some leaders fail to draw or understand.
Some people who think of themselves as “community” leaders are driven not because of economics or politics but by their social and esteem needs.
They long for a sense of belonging, for friends, self-respect, attention, recognition and reputation.
In their quest for a sense of recognition and reputation, however, they fall into their own trap of being high and mighty. Instead of embracing humility, they flaunt their arrogance, which only confirms their relentless thirst for attention.
Hence, their sense of community diminishes as their need to protect their own interests increase. No permanent friends. No permanent enemies. Just permanent interests.
We’ve seen how permanent interests of these people permeate in our midst, which influences and affect other people. Friends abound as well as foes.
But they are short-lived for as long as their own interests remain safe.
Friends transform into foes and foes into friends as convenient as these folks change their clothes. In other words, the status of allies and enemies keep changing.
When it concerns nations or corporations, there are no permanent friends. No permanent enemies. It’s only business. But for individuals with a hidden agenda and who continue to proclaim themselves as “community” leaders, there are no permanent friends.
No permanent enemies. Just permanent interests.
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Attaining political maturity
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Chicago, ILLINOIS --- Politics is supposed to be played like a game of sports.
If you and your opponent play by the rules, then, you have to accept the result. No, ifs and buts about it.
This was demonstrated recently by Ron Gidwitz, the opponent of Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka in the primary for the race for Republican governor. Gidwitz immediately conceded defeat the morning after the elections and showed his support to his erstwhile opponent by giving her a campaign donation check to support her race against incumbent Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
This sportsmanship showed by Gidwitz is not a weakness. It is a sign of strength called political maturity.
Gore has it
A more visible example of this variety was, of course, the concession made by erstwhile U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who gamely accepted his loss after a protracted recounting of disputed elections ballots in the state of Florida in 2000.
What is even remarkable is that although Gore amassed more popular votes than then Gov. George W. Bush, Gore had to concede to Bush when Bush was able to collect more votes than Gore from the Electoral College, which determines the US presidential winner.
Concession in RP not in political dictionary
In the Philippines, concession is a word yet to be invented by its politicians.
During the last four presidential elections in the past two decades, at least three losing presidential candidates had filed one after the other elections protests against the winners.
When President Marcos lost in the snap elections in 1986, he filed an election protest. But Marcos was forced into exile before his protest was resolved.
And so when then Sen. Merriam Defensor lost to then Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos in the 1992 presidential race, Ms. Defensor filed an election protest against Ramos. But her protest became moot when the protest was still pending resolution as Ramos was winding down his six-year term of office.
Movie actor Fernando Poe, Jr. and his running mate, Sen. Loren Legarda, lost in the 2004 presidential elections, Mr. Poe and Ms. Legarda both filed elections protest against their respective opponents for massive cheating. While Mr. Poe died before the presidential electoral tribunal could start deliberating on his protest, Ms. Legarda’s protest against Vice President Noli de Castro appears to be moving forward.
I would say that if we go by precedents, Legarda’s protest is going to be both expensive and futile exercise. Her protest could drag at a glacial pace and could be resolved only by the time De Castro’s term is over.
Everybody is a winner
It has now become a given that in Philippine political elections, all candidates are winners. To save face, losers will go in a denial mode and will tell the world that they were cheated by their rivals.
With this state of affairs, it is safe to assume that Filipino politicians are perhaps half a century away or more before they can accept their losses in their elections.
And even among Filipino Americans, running civic organizations, they still cannot kick the habit of protesting election losses that they adopted from politicians in the Philippines.
When Rey Sapnu was expelled by the Filipino American Council of Greater Chicago (FACC) for failure to turn in FACC properties and documents in 2002, Sapnu tried to save face by asking the Cook County court in Chicago to allow him to serve for the next four years as an ex-oficio member of the FACC board that is a privilege of an outgoing president.
Instead of accepting defeat like other American politicians do, Sapnu did not go away quietly. Unfortunately, Sapnu can no longer claim any victory because even if his injunction suit filed against FACC prospers as it is still pending, he can no longer sit on the FACC board as the four-year term he craves to hold will be over by May, 2006.
Another example of a Filipino community activist, who thought he can win an election protest, was Bobby M. Reyes of Los Angeles, California.
When Mr. Reyes cried that leaders of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations stole his election as NaFFAA regional chairman during an election in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2000, instead of conceding defeat, Reyes launched a scathing and massive email campaign, proclaiming to high heavens that he was a victim of conspiracy. Like, Sapnu, Reyes, now the chairman of the Kalayaan (Independence) 2006 celebration in Los Angeles, was also expelled as a NaFFAA member.
Although, Reyes’ one-man assault against NaFFAA national leaders raised the level of the necessity of bringing about election reform among civic organizations, one thing that Filipino American leaders and Filipino politicians should work on is to accept defeat with dignity and grace by immediately conceding defeat and supporting the winners. No if’s and but’s about it.
lariosa_jos@sbcglobal
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THEY call it “diaspora philanthropy” -- efforts by often homesick overseas migrants to support development initiatives in the poverty-strapped homeland they left. And it is innovative -- and it has grown over fivefold in as many years.
Pooled by Filipinos abroad, the gifts, donations and services are different from “remittances” (funds whittled from pay packets of overseas workers and sent, on a more or less regular basis, to families left behind). They are “unilateral cash gifts, goods and services.” Some seek to jump-start projects in economically stagnant places the migrants fled from. Others cascade, helter-skelter, into a bewildering range of beneficiaries: schools, hospitals, churches, NGOs, town plazas and emergency relief. Aid for Southern Leyte mudslide victims is only the latest.
There are many ways to gauge this development. One is from the increasingly precise way the Central Bank tracks the inflow of funds under Worldwide Balance of Payments Manual rules. Another is from the equally telling “worm’s eye” view of individual donors.
Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) sent $7.639 billion directly to their families in 2003, Central Bank figures show. “Diaspora philanthrophy” that year funneled $218 million here. This “figure is the highest in five years,” Jeremaiah Opiniano of the OFW Journalism Consortium writes.
In 1999, that was only $45 million. At exchange rates prevailing then, that was P11.8 billion injected into the economy.
The data indicate “there’s a large untapped resource of philanthropic funds from the diaspora,” especially for non-profit programs, says Tito Gonzalo Rivera of Ayala Foundation Inc. (AFI). “Civil society groups can now have an idea of the playing field.”
Diaspora resources “could be a source of funds which could help in the development of the countryside,” notes Asian Development Bank consultant Ildefonso Bagasao. These philanthropic transfers are mostly “unorganized.”
“Many civil society groups have yet to look at overseas Filipinos as a resource,” he writes. Studies are needed to pinpoint “what prevents overseas Filipinos from giving more.”
Bureaucratic sludge, lack of accountability, petty politics and corruption, answers a graduate of the University of the Philippines who is now a New York-based executive. (Names are disguised given the “nuances of small-town jealousies.”)
“Some friends and I started a book-lending program, in the town where I spent the first 16 years of life. ‘A’ town is 25 minutes away from ‘B’ City. Third grade students there can’t read. And when they finally do, they don’t grasp what they’re reading, hampered by dearth of reading materials.
“We’ve learned from failures of just stocking libraries. There’s successful experience with a free book-lending program that operates like a library. More students come [to the program] than to school libraries [which are] closed after office hours and weekends.
“But we don’t work through the local government. Involvement with politicians is a kiss of death, we decided early on. As a courtesy, we’ve informed the LGU [local government unit] of our initiatives. We doubt if we’ll get a reply, considering ‘wala silang makuhang mehora’ [they can’t skim off anything].
“Friends sent tons of books through local government and civic groups. But when they visited, they couldn’t trace their donations. California colleagues complain their container shipments of books are gathering dust, months after arrival. Clearance is snail-paced. And too many people bicker on how to distribute them.
“We’re not deluged with help from this end. Funny, Americans are more enthusiastic about donating than Filipinos. To pay for shipment, we hit family, relatives, and every friend we’ve made in our life. It’s easier to raise money than civic consciousness, especially when volunteers are needed.
“History teaches us we have a culture of volunteerism. But latter-day Filipinos have a strange sequence of volunteering. They shuffle on the sidelines, look from the corner of their eyes. And when they see something is happening, ‘ayan, papapel’ or ‘poporma na’ -- but only after the heavy lifting is done.
“What puzzles me is why many retired teachers -- some of them still young -- are not involved in activities that help educate the children. The list of things that they can do is endless.
“In Guimaras, Iloilo, there’s a reading remedial program supported by Save the Children Federation. Conducted by schoolteachers and volunteers, it’s getting good results. Now, why can’t my town ‘A’ copy that?
“Recently, we read here in New York of Eugenia Apostol’s ‘Education Revolution’ initiatives. Surely, retired teachers’ associations can support its “Mentoring the Mentors” and other similar programs. A lot of these initiatives do not need a lot of financing. Time and commitment are just what it takes.
“Education volunteerism is a hard sell. Other projects have ‘donated by’ signs, with names of the ‘philanthropists’ splashed all over. But how does one portray reading’s benefits in the life of a young child? “Oh, I’m not complaining what I have gotten myself into. I know these things would make a tiny difference, if at all. But if that’s the best I can hope for, that’s good enough for me.”
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Immigration reform takes center stage
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THERE were massive demonstrations and marches, some reaching more than 500,000 people. It dominated the headlines in mainstream newspapers and television news programs. Finally, reforming U.S. immigration laws is the hottest topic in Congress and around the U.S. Various proposals are being introduced and debated, concerning what to do with the approximate 12-14 million illegal aliens in the U.S. This week, a Senate committee (the Senate Judiciary Committee) approved a proposed law that could possibly allow illegal aliens to finally legalize their status. That Senate Committee proposal now goes to the full Senate for debate.
The House of Representatives (the other branch of Congress) passed its own proposed law, which focuses on enforcement, but did not include any provisions granting immigration benefits to illegal aliens.
But please be aware that these are only proposals. They are not yet law.
Unless and until a proposal passes both the Senate and the House, and is signed by the president, it is not a “law”. It is only a “proposal”.
Typically, a proposed law is introduced into either the House or the Senate. If that proposal is passed by either the House or the Senate, it then goes to the other legislative branch to be voted on. If the House or Senate have proposals that are different, they must come to agreement on a single version of the proposed law, and eliminate anyconflicting portions. Once a single, agreed-on proposal is approved by both the House and Senate, it then goes to the president for signature.
At the present time, there are several proposals in the House and Senate, and now the debate begins on which provision (or version) will be agreed on.
The proposal from the Senate Judiciary Committee includes the following main points:- It creates a guest-worker program, that would offer illegal aliens a path to green cards and eventual citizenship.
- As part of the path to “legal” status, aliens would have to, among other things, pay back taxes and a penalty/fine.
- It would allow up to 400,000 new visas annually for foreign workers to enter the U.S., for up to three years. The visas could be renewed, for a total stay of six years. This program would allow visas for the worker’s family and a path to permanent resident status (green card) if the alien learned English (which most Filipinos know already), among other requirements.
- It would offer 1.5 million “blue cards” to workers who would work in the agricultural fields (picking and harvesting crops) at least 100 days a year, in order to create a legalized work force for the agricultural industry.
- As many 14,000 new border patrol agents would be hired by 2011. The proposal from the House of Representatives includes the following:
- It would be a felony (very serious crime) to be a TNT. Now, it is just a civil (not criminal) violation of immigrations laws.
- Employers would be required to confirm the authenticity of an employee’s social security number from a national database, or face very stiff fines.
- There is no provision for granting any kind of immigration benefit (or “amnesty”) to illegal aliens.
As you can see, there is a vast difference between these two proposals. I urge you to write to your Senators and Members of Congress, urging them to agree on the proposal by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would allow illegal aliens a path to legalization.
Once again, I emphasize that these are only proposals, so that you should not be running around asking, “Can I file right now?” Any proposal must be enacted into law and signed by the president. We will continue to monitor these developments, and let us hope that a law will pass that grants benefits to illegal aliens.
Michael J. Gurfinkel has been an attorney for over 25 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
Four offices to serve you:
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219 North Brand Boulevard
Glendale, California 91203
Telephone: (818) 543-5800
SAN FRANCISCO:
966 Mission Street
San Francisco, California 94103
Telephone: (415) 538-7800NEW 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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