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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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Immigrants as terrorists?
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SINCE the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the immigrant community has been bearing the brunt of the U.S. government’s attempt to catch a terrorist. The post-9/11 atmosphere of fear has brought into light anew long dormant and deeply held myths about immigrants, especially the undocumented ones, who have been typecast as threat to national security.
But despite a myriad of measures targeting the undocumented immigrants, enforcement agencies have failed to come up with a single terrorism prosecution. The U.S. government can reduce the number of immigrants, legal or otherwise, to zero, and still it won’t be able to stop terrorists from slipping into the country on non-immigrant visas.
The Cato Institute said that of the 30 million foreigners who entered the country in fiscal year 2000, fewer than one million were would-be immigrants; 29 million came as tourists, business travelers and students. None of the 9/11 terrorists were immigrants; all 19 of them held non-immigrant tourist and student visas.
Moreover, all these post-9/11 measures that the US. government has been enforcing and plans to enforce against immigrants, especially those undocumented, may eventually drain the U.S. economy, Arresting and deporting “undesirable aliens” would cost the government a whopping $206 billion in five years, according to the Center for American Progress.
The fact that there are 11 million undocumented immigrants is definitely a national security concern. But rather than arrest and deport them, a better option would be to provide them with a path to legalizing their stay here.
By giving them the chance to earn the right to stay here permanently, the government is not only bringing them out of the shadows but is enabling them to become more productive contributors to their adopted country’s economy.
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NEW YORK --- Many years ago, as a student vying for an office in the student council, the catchphrase that our group chose was “Rebirth of Leadership.” We preferred that slogan over other suggestions because we shared a common belief that a rebirth of leaders was needed in our school.
It was our team’s vision to establish a pool of leaders to serve the council in the years to come. And we thought that if we were to accomplish that goal, we had to start involving freshmen students in the process.
Our slate won hands down. In a post-election assessment, we found that our team won not only because we had a representative from each grade level but also, our slogan communicated a message that was refreshing, challenging and appealing. We left a legacy that was carried on by those who followed us year after year.
It was that “rebirth” experience that encouraged me to dabble in politics even after I arrived here. But it was my experience in Jaycees, especially in the state, national and international arena that honed whatever skills I acquired back home.
What was truly fulfilling was the feeling that a Filipino had led a group of Americans as well as folks of diverse national origin in the world’s leadership organization of young people. To have won over other candidates in an election was a feat by itself and re-assuring of the capabilities, which we Filipinos have.
This Easter, as I reflect further about the past and recall my recent conversation with my good friend, Ralph Amador, I find that the earlier “rebirth” experience is now a fleeting memory.
As I shared a story with Ralph, it was time to move on to another “rebirth” experience which I had when my father passed away in 1999 and the birth of my daughter -- both events happening around the same time.
Seldom do we find comfort in ourselves when such an event happens in our lives. But to me, I found peacefulness in them; this was an unexplainable occurrence that made me grow spiritually.
And I hear the words of my father, in my rare conversations with him, ringing in my ears: “Religion does not guarantee salvation; it is your personal relationship with Christ Jesus as your Lord and Savior.”
I thought about it for a long while until 9/11 incident struck. That woke me up from my lingering doubts and opened my eyes to see a new beginning, my mind to a new understanding and my heart, to receive what I have long ignored. 9/11 was like an emergency call of my faith, and a blessed re-assurance of an eternal life.
I was ignorant of this re-awakening until my curiosity led me deeper to find the truth behind Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, a man with a legal mind who was a Pharisee as related in the Book of John. Jesus told him, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
Perplexed, Nicodemus asked: “How can a man be born when he is old?” And he showed his sarcasm saying: “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born.”
Jesus response to him was swift and authoritative: “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
“You should not be surprised at my saying, you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Just as Nicodemus, a highly regarded teacher, did not understand what Jesus said, many of us --“although we claim to be Christians “ -- do not understand it either.
“We speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony,” Jesus said. “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven. “ the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
Those words alone, which proved as a “lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path,” were enough to convict me of a rebirth that is worth pursuing; a rebirth that reconnects us to the truth of our being; and a rebirth that leads us to understand that Jesus did not tell us to follow a specific religion but that He said: “Come follow Me.”
That is the greatest rebirth I have experienced.
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Barefoot procession on a Holy Week
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Chicago, ILLINOIS --- By this time of the year last year, I was spending the Holy Week in my hometown in what is now Sorsogon City in the province of the same name in what is the most southern most part of Luzon in the Philippines.
It was my first homecoming to the Philippines in five years. In my previous three other trips to the Philippines in four years before, oftentimes, I didn’t have the chance to visit my home town if I had unfinished business in Manila. So, hanggang pier lang ako. (I was often stranded at the terminal en route to Sorsogon.)
But last year, I was personally invited by my famous kababayan (town mate), Ms. Loida Nicolas Lewis, to go to Sorsogon City when she learned that I was in Manila. Of course, it was an offer I could not refuse. Ms. Lewis co-owns one of the better hotels -- the Fernando Hotel -- in the city that expanded its territory by absorbing the adjoining Bacon town to the northeast.
Reforestation Meeting
My fellow Chicagoan, Marlon L. Pecson, a director of the Chicago-based NPC-Phil. U.S.A., which I head, and of Legazpi City, who was also in Manila at the time, was also invited by Ms. Lewis to visit Sorsogon.
But before Marlon and I took off for the eight-hour overnight air-con bus to Sorsogon, we were asked by Ms. Lewis to take a sidetrip in Legazpi City, where her younger sister, Miss Imelda Nicolas, was presiding over a regional meeting of Bicol provincial governors and forestry regional officials on reforestation. Imelda was at the time the chair of the National Anti-Poverty Commission of President Arroyo.
It was a blessing in disguise for Marlon because he was able to touch base with his brother and sister in their big family Pecson building in the heart of Legazpi City.
At the reforestation meeting, we were able to press flesh with Sorsogon Governor Raul Lee and Albay Gov. Fernando Gonzalez.
Homeward Bound
The following day, we proceeded to my old and one and only hometown of Sorsogon. At the hotel, Ms. Lewis introduced me to her youngest brother, Francis, a lay minister.
Although, it was Holy Week, I noticed that Ms. Lewis was living a very structured environment. Translation: her schedule was fully booked for the week. Because, government offices are closed for most of the week, it was government and military officials who would come to see Ms. Lewis at her hotel, managed by former Sorsogon Mayor Fernando, Jr. and Mrs. Celia Duran.
I guessed Ms. Lewis was fronting for her younger sister, who could officially transmit their complaints to Malacanang. Ms. Lewis also has a red line to Malacanang.
As a volunteer and an unofficial chair of the Sorsogon provincial tourism council, Ms. Lewis has also become sounding board for people, who were wrongly suspected to be members of the outlawed New Peoples Army.
As a lawyer, Ms. Lewis would tell arresting military officers to protect the civil rights of the suspected NPA members. She even knocked late in the evening personally on the door of a nightclub blaring very loud Karaoke music to lower the volume.
The loud music had given neighbors sleepless nights. I, myself, was even surprised that instead of calling the police, Ms. Lewis would take matters in her own hands.
Sorsogon Museum
But really, the main reason Ms. Lewis invited me over to Sorsogon was for me to cover the conversion of what used to be the Sorsogon Provincial Hospital building into the future Sorsogon Museum and Heritage Center for my news outlets. Ms. Lewis is the chairperson of the Balikbayan Sorsogon USA, which is raising funds for the construction of the museum. The 2006 Mrs. Balikbayan Sorsogon beauty contest is one of the museum’s fund-raising efforts.
The contestants for this pageant must be married Sorsoguenas, regardless of age, who were either born or had grown up in Sorsogon or whose mother or father was born or had grown up in Sorsogon and who are now based outside the province or are now overseas.
Ms. Luz Nunez of Gubat, Sorsogon and manager of Chicago’s real estate and travel agency and Fishpond restaurant, was among those scouted by Ms. Lewis to join the contest.
Barefoot Procession
Of course, I did not miss watching the barefoot procession, perhaps, the only one of its kind in the Philippines, if not the world, where Sorsoganons and visitors walk around the downtown city streets coming from and going to the Sts. Peter & Paul church on Good Friday night. Believe it or not, Ms. Lewis, a true-blue Sorsoganon also joined the procession in what else, in barefoot, too. Walking barefoot is in deference to Jesus Christ, who was being laid to rest on a Good Friday.
This procession of different icons of life-size Christ and saints owned by the well-to-do families in the city has been a tradition of Sorsogon for as long as I can remember. And I never heard anybody ever stepping into a nail or a broken glass or a sharp object on the long, winding concrete road that would cause injuries to procession devotees. If the injury-free barefoot procession is not a miracle of the Holy Week in Sorsogon, I don’t know what is.
(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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IS THIS a nation on crutches?
Local governments hobble on Internal Revenue Allotments from “Imperial Manila,” shoving their expanded powers to raise taxes under the carpet. The military leans on hand-me-downs from the United States. And many families survive on what their “best and brightest” can scrape up from their earnings as overseas workers.
Presidential spokesperson Ignacio Bunye pooh-poohs an Asian Development Bank warning that over-dependence on migrant remittances, consumption and sluggish investments were stunting potentials to dent poverty and joblessness.
That scoffing doesn’t curb a daily exodus of almost 3,000 workers -- including pilots, teachers, doctors and engineers. They signal “the loss of knowledge and high social costs,” the bank said.
Parallel studies show that migration has shut out the country’s poorer regions. And this exclusion will embed further already serious disparities. Income of the richest 10 percent of Filipinos is 20 times the share of the dirt-poor 10 percent.
After Mexicans and Indians, Filipinos are the third largest group of migrants who send money home. Eight out of every 10 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) remit funds regularly, says the ADB study, “Enhancing Efficiency of OFW Remittances.”
Average monthly remittance was $340. In today’s appreciating peso, that comes up to P17,340 monthly. Most is spent for food, school, medicine, TV, cell phones, motorcycles, etc. “Allocations for fiestas and other special occasions were observed.”
“Remittances have been used mainly for excessive consumption,” the study notes. Little has gone to “creating productive capacity.”
Like the widow’s mite, these funds add up. The central bank documented “official remittances” at $7.6 billion in 2003 and $10.0 billion last year.
A World Bank case study, however, tallied what’s funneled via the “padala” system, run by informal money couriers. It found actual inflow crested somewhere between $14 billion and $21 billion in 2002. This much higher estimate is also reflected in ADB studies.
What happens in a nation when 1 in 10 of the population leaves for jobs abroad?
The money that migrants remit has a strong impact on poverty reduction, a 74-country study by the World Bank found. “A 10 percent increase of international migrants, in a country’s population, [trims] the share of people living in poverty by 1.9 percent.”
Wait. Policy Research Working Paper No. 3179 has more. “On average, a 10-percent increase in the share of international migrants in a country’s gross domestic product” whittles the number of indigents by 1.6 percent.
But there’s a big fly in this ointment. “These broad cross-country conclusions may not hold up” here.
“The poorer segment of Philippine society has been largely excluded from the opportunities provided by migration,” asserts “Poverty in the Philippines,” an ADB monograph. “Regions with the highest levels of poverty have the lowest proportions of OFWs.”
Bicol and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao( ARMM), plus Central Mindanao, have consistently been the three poorest regions since 1994. In the ARMM, 68 out of every 100 families are poor. Poverty incidence in Metro Manila, in contrast, is 8.7 percent.
The ADB’s conclusions are anchored on findings that Dr. S. Go presented earlier before the Asia-Pacific Migration Research Network in Fiji. Better-off families tend to receive larger slabs of OFW income, Go noted. These families are mostly clustered in cities, not in the boondocks where penury is pervasive.
The fact is, there “were four million more poor individuals in 2000 than in 1985,” the ADB monograph notes. There’s been very little overall change in rural poverty. “Nearly half of families remain income poor.”
“International migration may actually exacerbate the inequality problem in the Philippines,” Go cautions. Hence, it is urgent to craft “policies that channel remittances into more productive investments to fuel pro-poor policies.”
We have, however, a shoddy track record of dissipating financial windfalls. There was rhetoric of creating perpetual trusts for World War II damage payments by the US and Japanese war reparations. Little came of that. Most were frittered away in consumption. And piranhas had a field day.
Both the administration and the opposition haven’t faced up to the social costs of nearly 10 percent of the population working abroad. “Families are often apart for long periods of time and social capital can break down”.
Remittances, nonetheless, offer a “predictable flow of more than $7 billion yearly,” the ADB points out. “There exist opportunities to scrutinize these flows for development initiatives.”
Some preliminary thought has been given to measures that could tap OFW funds more usefully. These range from opening remittance windows in Philippine banks in host countries with large OFW concentrations to tax incentives for remittances investments.
“Mobile telephone operators introduced programs that allow OFWs to transfer value by means of text-messaging to beneficiaries in the Philippines. ADB believes [this can] reduce the costs of remittances. It is also a precedent for other ... countries.”
“Two thirds of OFWs originate from the provinces... Rural and thrift banks, cooperatives and micro-finance institutions could play a greater role.”
But precious little hands-on work in getting a policy framework in place has been done so far. The government settles for cheaper OFW hero rhetoric. Politicians prefer their crutches of constitution tampering or ouster of the regime.
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GMA to clash head-on with the Church
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GLORIA Macapagal Arroyo’s political strategists must be scraping the bottom of the barrel, searching for ways to ram Charter Change into the throat of the people. No matter what her spinmasters say, there’s just one objective. Her political survival.
Skirmishing with her opponents in the House of Representatives proved as easy as an amphibian leaping into a pond. All she needed were elementary trapo skills. And money. Lots of money.
With her consummate ability to pervert, nay disregard, the law, budget restrictions simply disappeared. And the national treasury became available for plunder.
The military and the police? Double standards and again, lots of money. Promotions for the guilty and the freezers for the innocent. And salary hikes and houses. It’s just money.
The Senate? We predict political maneuvering, backed by the courts, will eventually do the senators in. And the People’s Initiative will get the Cha Cha approved.
Already, with the ink on his appointment hardly dry, the latest Supreme Court justice has declared in media interviews that the highest court’s decision on the constitutional requirement for a PI is not written on stone. It can be changed. And it will be changed, he seemed to imply.
The Church? Well. Soon after the Vatican bestowed the latest red hat to Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales of Manila, the Catholic Bishops Conference seemed to have found its common voice on the proposed Charter Change. CBCP in a pastoral letter said that on this very important issue, the Catholic hierarchy cannot stay on the sideline. The pastoral letter said the issues involved in the proposed constitutional revisions must be aired, explained, debated.
Without this process of educating the people, the Catholic hierarchy would view the Cha Cha with extreme suspicions. Concerned with the economic issues to uplift the masses from the escalating poverty, the CBCP commented that the Cha Cha proposal is too generalized for enlightenment. The political issues are focused mainly on prolonging the tenure of those in power without election.
Strategy-wise, the decision of the administration to have a showdown with the Church on Cha Cha is a big leap. It is doing something which no president has attempted before. And it is in this arena where GMA may finally meet her comeuppance
Drunk with power, GMA’s strategists must have had their brains addled. One of their initial broadsides against the Church hierarchy is that the latter are out of their depths. What do they know about political science? They cannot understand how constitutional amendments work.
One thing the priests know. We are sure they know the difference between pork barrel and pork bellies.
We happened to be reading the conflict that took place in Portugal in the l700s between the anti-church government and the Catholic clergy, with the thousands of pilgrims visiting the site of the Our of Lady of Fatima apparitions caught in between.
Unseen hands had intervened and both sides could not explain how the tide had turned. The soldiers even with the use of force could not turn back the faithful from going through to the sacred site. Eventually, the secular ruler was overthrown and replaced with others who reestablished diplomatic relations with the Vatican.
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When Can A Person Change Employers Without Having To Start Over?
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Q: Many people have been sponsored for green cards by employers through a process called Labor Certification. Their cases may have been filed years ago, and during the time they were being processed, the aliens may have changed jobs or the employers may have gone out of business. Does a person have to start over again from the beginning, or can a new employer take over the first employer's existing labor certification case?
A: In October 2000, former President Clinton signed into law the American Competitiveness in the 21 st Century Act (AC-21), which allowed, among other things, the alien to change employers if the alien's adjustment of status application (Form I-485) had been filed and remain pending for 180 days (six months) or more, so long as the new job, "is in the same or a similar occupational classification as the job for which the petition was filed."
This "portability" provision means that a person would be able to change employers without starting over as long as the Department of Labor had already "certified" the job (approved the labor certification application), the employer's petition (Form I-140) and the adjustment of status application (Form I-485) had already been filed, and the I-485 remained pending for more than 180 days.
Recently, the USCIS clarified the circumstances under which an alien is able to change employers under AC-21 without having to start all over again. In order to be able to change employers (or have a new employer "take over" the existing case), not only must the adjustment of status application be pending for 180 days or more, but the original employer's I-140 petition must have previously been approved . An alien would not be able to avail of the portability provisions of AC-21, and would not be able to change employers (or have the new employer "take over" the case) if:- The original employer's labor certification is pending with DOL ;
- The original employer's petition was never filed or is still pending with USCIS; or
- The original employer's petition was denied or revoked.
Instead, the new employer would have to file a new case (now under PERM), and the alien would get a new priority date based on the filing date of the new employer's case.
This policy clarification from the USCIS is based on a case from the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO), which denied an alien's request to change employers under AC-21 because the original employer's petition was denied.
In that case, the alien in that case had argued that all that was required under AC-21 was that the adjustment of status application (I-485) remain unadjudicated (or pending) for more than 180 days. There was no requirement that the petition be "approved." The AAO disagreed, ruling that in order for the alien to be able to change employers after 180 days, the original employer's underlying Form I-140 petition must have been approved . The AAO was concerned that aliens would file bogus petitions for fake or fictitious employers or jobs, thinking that once the case was pending for 180 days, the situation could be rectified or corrected through a convenient switch of employers later on.
I know how frustrating it can be for people seeking to obtain a green card and achieve their American Dream. If you think you may be eligible to change employers under AC-21, I would recommend that you seek the advice of a reputable attorney, who can evaluate your case to see if a new employer will be able to take over the existing case or whether you will need to start over. But it is important that you know your rights and what is right, which is why I recommend that people retain a reputable attorney rather than trying to do it on their own.
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