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For the past 20 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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JERSEY CITY -- It did rain on the Filipino community’s parade, but it was not enough to dampen the Filipinos’ community spirit as thousands still join the Filipino American Friendship Day parade and fair on Sunday, June 25.
Garbed in traditional Filipino wear -- the men in their elegant barongs and the women in their colorful baro’t saya, kimona and gowns -- Filipino Americans turned Montgomery Street into a pageantry of colors as they marched to celebrate 60 years of Philippine- American friendship.
“Sixty years ago, Filipinos fought against the Japanese for freedom and years of partnership have continued. We have become great friends,” said Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy. “This is a great day to honor the friendship between our peoples,” said Healy, who joined the parade wearing a traditional embroidered Barong Tagalog.
Healy proclaimed the month of June as Philippine month in Jersey City in a special ceremony a few weeks ago. The Philippine flag was raised at the Jersey City Hall on June 10 and will remain flying until July 4.
On July 4, 1946, the United States recognized Philippine independence and sovereignty after about 50 years of occupying the islands as its colony in Asia.
This date is celebrated in the Philippines as Philippine-American Friendship Day.
Aside from Mayor Healy, among the officials who were present in the Jersey City parade were Consul General Cecilia Rebong, Jersey City Deputy Mayor Ador Equipado, and Philippine congressman Hermilando Mandanas.
The parade culminated at the Exchange Place, where booths selling Filipino food and products were set up and where performances were lined up for the day.
Jazz singers led by mother-and daughter Annie Brazil and Rachel Anne Wolfe sang songs of love and hope.
Filipino American Broadway star Julie Danao -Salkin (of “Lennon”, “Aida” and “Saturday Night Fever,” fame) sang “God Bless Our Love “ and “Grow Old With Me.”
“I’m greatly honored to be here. It’s fantastic to perform for Filipinos,” said Danao-Salkin. Salkin is organizing Filipino American singers to star in off-broadway play late this year.
Cultural group BIBAK rocked the stage with their ethnic dances on courtship and marriage. Clad in G-strings and in red and black, white native shirts, the men used gongs while the ladies moved rhythmically with colorful handkerchiefs, swirling their hips to the tune of the gongs.
Members of Ati-Atihan Northeast danced to the tune of drums.
“It’s a milestone celebrating sixty years of friendship with America. This is our once-a-year chance to get together and show our unity as a community,” said Equipado.
Consul General Rebong said the Filipinos are also celebrating 100 years of immigration to the US.
“The Filipino community has done a great job. Our relationship with the U.S. is mutually beneficial; America is helping us to improve our lives, and Filipino Americans here contribute to help in the economy, “ said Mandanas, who flew from the Philippines to attend the festivities.
Mandanas also paid tribute to Filipino American world war II veterans who fought side by side with American troops from 1942 to 1946 against Japanese troops.
Domingo ‘Jun’ Hornilla, Grand Marshal of the parade, said he was elated by the success of the festival despite the late afternoon drizzle.
“I’m proud growing up in American and Filipino cultures. It’s fun to parade on a float,” said Erika Hughes, 17, this year’s Miss PAFCOM.
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JERSEY CITY -- Stickfighting has long been the national sport of the Philippines, but is little known in this country.
Four members of a Jersey City stickfighting academy are hoping to help put the city - and the country - on the stickfighting map when they compete in the sport’s World Championships in Orlando, Florida.
They are part of an 18-member squad that will compete against teams from around the world from July 2-7.
Three of the team members of the Philippine Integrated Martial Arts Academy (PIMA) - in Jersey City are in their 30s. Scott Irslinger is a machinist when not stickfighting, Leo Casayuran is a contractor and Arturo Tolentino a school nurse.
The “phenom” of the team, however, is Josh Pebes, an 18-year-old college student who is a former world champion in forms, single stick and double stick, according to Keith Kelly, one of the instructors at the academy, located at 779 Bergen Ave.
All are Jersey City residents except Irslinger, who is from Scotch Plains.
The school, led by Grand Master Guro Dong Cuesta, has about 75 members starting as young as 5.
For those unfamiliar with the sport, a stick 29 inches long and an inch thick is the primary weapon for competition.
Competitors wear a grated helmet that has heavy leather which covers the shoulders and a heavy vest that covers the arms a little past the elbows and which comes down almost to the knees. They also use specialized gloves and elbow pads.
A bout consists of three one-minute rounds. Competitors score by striking their opponent anywhere that is covered by the helmet or vest, including the arms and hands. Ten points wins the match.
There is also double stick competition in which two sticks are used by each fighter and team fighting, in which each member of the three-man team fights for a minute in non-stop action, said Kelly.
The four Jersey City team members qualified for the U.S. team by winning the regionals in Jersey City in November, said Kelly, and then excelling in competition against nearly 2,000 opponents in the nationals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in February.
“In the Philippines there are a lot of stickfighting schools, but they weren’t organized to leave the country until some of the masters got together and made it more organized,” said Kelly. “Guro Dong Cuesto is considered second in the world organization and was sent here to train and spread the art.”
The school also teaches other martial arts, such as cardio kickboxing, which Kelly said “is very popular with a lot of parents who don’t want to do hardcore martial arts.”
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MANILA -- When it rains, it pours.
Four new impeachment complaints were formally filed at the House of Representatives over the week against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Aside from vote-rigging and corruption allegations, Arroyo is now being charged with attempts -- later judged unconstitutional by the Supreme Court -- to crack down on anti-government protests and block investigations into alleged wrongdoing.
Arroyo abetted “the assassinations and summary executions of 690 political dissenters, 42 media practitioners, involuntary disappearance of 176 people, the torture of 320 people in the hands of government authorities and the illegal arrests of hundreds of people,” according to a portion of the complaints.
Arroyo has denied any wrongdoing, and resolutely refused to quit.
Military and police officials have also denied the accusations and challenged their accusers to produce evidence and file cases in court after Arroyo ordered an investigation.
The first complaint was filed by private individuals on Monday, June 26.
On Tuesday, June 27, former Vice President Teofisto Guingona filed another impeachment raps vs. the President.
On Wednesday, a third impeachment complaint was filed by Caloocan City Bishop Deogracias Yniguez.
The fourth complaint was filed by students on Thursday, June 29.
Opposition lawmakers, Minority Floor Leader Francis Escudero and San Juan Representative Ronaldo Zamora, endorsed the first complaint.
The lead complainants include former social welfare secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman, former presidential adviser for the peace process Teresita Deles, former congresswoman Luwalhati Antonino, former transportation secretary Josephine Lichauco, Zenaida Quezon-Avancena, artist Lea Navarro, and Father Joe Dizon, among others.
Guingona’s son, Bukidnon Rep. Teofisto Guingona III, endorsed the ex-vice president’s complaint.
Bishop Yniguez’s complaint was endorsed by Akbayan Party-list Rep. Loretta Ann “Etta” Rosales.
Marlen Abigail Binay, daughter of Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay and leader of Youth Demanding Arroyo’s Removal, filed the students’ complaint before the office of House Secretary-General Roberto Nazareno.
Davao Rep. Elias Ruy Lopez endorsed the students’ complaint.
Several students of the University of the Philippines Diliman and Manila campuses, St. Paul’s College and Mapua Institute of Technology signed the complaint.
Relatives of several activists killed since Arroyo took power have also signed the complaint, said Leah Navarro, a spokeswoman for the group.
“This is for my mother and father and all the victims,” said Arman Albarillo from Bayan, whose parents were found shot dead after they were taken from their house by Army troops in 2002.
“The new complaint will emphasize graft and corruption and human-rights violations allegedly committed by the Arroyo administration, including media oppression and the spate of killings of journalists and activists,” said the House deputy minority leader, Rep. Allan Peter Cayetano, who serves as impeachment team spokesman.
At least one-third votes of the total membership of the House is needed to send the case to the Senate for trial.
The Constitution allows only one impeachment proceeding against a president in a year, and anti-Arroyo groups waited for the one-year limit to end on Monday before filing a new case against a backdrop of small but persistent protests and coup rumors.
The complainants lined up as early as Sunday with pillows and sleeping mats before the door of the House secretary general, an official assigned to receive impeachment complaints.
Arroyo’s lawyer, Romulo Macalintal, has asked the House to dismiss any new impeachment bid against the president until the Supreme Court has resolved questions over last year’s case. (MNS)
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — With the House and Senate stalemated over how to overhaul immigration law, the contours of one potential path to an agreement have begun to emerge.
The House has approved a bill that focuses on improving border security and cracking down on illegal hiring. Many of the conservative Republicans who are dominant in the House have said that these security measures must be firmly in place before the House begins discussions about elements of a Senate-passed bill that would create a guest worker program and offer steps to citizenship for most illegal immigrants now in the U.S.
The Los Angeles Times reported that some Republican senators are now suggesting — though gingerly — that they would be willing to agree to some kind of timetable in which goals related to border security and law enforcement must be met before the guest worker and citizenship programs that the senators favor could begin.
“The idea that we’ll look at some sort of trigger before we implement everything else is worth some discussion,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who wrote part of the Senate plan that would offer legal status to many illegal immigrants.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an architect of the Senate legislation, said that the Senate bill, in practice, would put border security ahead of other new immigration measures.
“Interior enforcement and border enforcement will go first.... It’s going to take 18 months to two years to put the infrastructure in place to deal with guest workers,” McCain said. He added that the same was true of the proposed Senate program to create a path to citizenship for most of the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who would lead any negotiations with the House, was quoted even more directly by the Washington Times newspaper on the idea of putting in place border security and law enforcement measures before other elements of an immigration package.
“It may be down the line that we will come to some terms on a timetable, with border security first and employment verification first,” Specter was quoted as saying in the newspaper’s Tuesday editions. Specter, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, could not be reached for comment Tuesday, June 27.
Left unclear in the still-emerging conversation is whether senators would agree that specific border security and law enforcement goals or targets would have to be met before a guest worker or legalization program could begin.
It is also unclear whether the House would accept a step-by-step approach. Many House members say they oppose any citizenship program as an unwelcome “amnesty” for people who broke the law by crossing the border. Others say that guest worker programs undermine wages and job availability for native workers.
Still, some senators appealed Tuesday, June 27, for House members to join them in negotiations to resolve the significant differences in the House and Senate visions of immigration policy. Those negotiations were expected to begin, but the House said last week that it wanted to hold a new round of hearings across the country on immigration before starting talks with the Senate.
“We are willing to negotiate with those who have specific disagreements with the Senate bill,” McCain said Tuesday.
The senators’ appeal to the House came as the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $31.7 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and its efforts to strengthen the borders in the fiscal year starting in October.
The funding is almost 5 percent more than last year’s levels, with border protection allocated $65 million more than President Bush had requested.
“We focused aggressively on border protection,” said committee chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.).
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