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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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WHEN the late unlamented President Marcos declared martial law 34 years ago on September 21, his single-minded intention was to perpetuate himself in power. But Marcos has long been gone, booted out of power a little over 20 years ago. But the legacy of his one-man military rule lives on -- the politicization of the Philippine military.
To consolidate his martial law powers, Marcos closed down Congress, shut down the press, detained senators, congressmen and journalists, and maimed and killed critics, activists and even innocent citizens. Of course, he cannot do all these alone. To undertake all these hatchet jobs, he has to rely on the military. By carrying out his behest, military officers loyal to him were richly rewarded. And with the absence of duly constituted civilian authority, armed forces and police officers had evolved into centers of political power.
The military, indeed, has become Marcos’ own Frankenstein’s monster. And the sad thing is, with Marcos dead, it is the people who are left to deal with the Marcosian creation known as a politicized military.
From the People Power Revolution of 1986 to the aborted coup of February 2006, the military has been a key player in Philippine politics. Marcos’ successor, Corazon Aquino, barely survived seven coup attempts. In EDSA 2, it was the military’s defection that turned the tide and led to the ouster of former President Joseph Estrada. In Mrs. Arroyo’s five years in power, she has quelled two attempted military putsch.
The military’s acquired distaste for civilian authority is reflected not only in its notion that it can make and unmake governments, but also in its belief that it operates above the law. Under Marcos, the military arrests, tortures and kills civilians and Marcos’ political opponents with impunity. Under Mrs, Arroyo, the military arrests, tortures and kills civilians and political opposition with arrogance and total disregard for due process.
And because it is so used to dispensing power, the military will always pose a serious threat to Philippine democracy. Having known how it feels to inhabit the corridors of power, it will never go back to the barracks. It’s like the proverbial genie who’s been let out of the lamp.
Ironically, it was Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, one of Marcos’ erstwhile most trusted martial administrator, who best described the problem posed by the power-hungry military when he said: “It’s like riding the tiger. You can ride it, but you cannot get off because the tiger will devour you.”
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Fil-Am community publishers should unite!
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CHICAGO, Illinois – Some Filipino American community publications in the Chicago area have a decision to make. They have to take some actions if they want to cover sensitive cases without using too much of their adrenalins, resources and most importantly, their time.
I am talking about the behavior modification that they can impart on the Chicago Immigration court handling the Bolante case.
Imagine, after assurances from the spokesperson of the US Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review that the hearing last Wednesday, Sept. 13, on the deportation case of Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Izada Bolante, will be open to the public, notably the media, reporters and cameramen and other interested non-parties flew all way from their West coast enclaves and even a lawyer from the Philippines had to travel to Chicago just to get a glimpse of the conduct of the controversial immigration case.
Rude welcome
What did they get? A very rude unwelcome mat but of course!
I can just imagine Mr. Bolante exchanging high-fives with his lawyers inside the court room when his high-powered and handsomely-paid lawyers were able to win a ruling from the immigration judge, excluding the public from the court room.
If they want to stop Mr. Bolante from hiding his alleged duplicity in siphoning millions of pesos or tens of millions of dollars from the Philippines and possibly from the US government, it’s time for the community publishers and friends to act.
Even if they do not see eye to eye with each other, these publishers should come together and combine their resources to look for a good lawyer who can help them file a case in court, seeking to open the deportation case of Bolante to the public.
All they have to do is to look east and get inspiration from the leading case filed by the Detroit Free Press, et. al against John Ascroft, et al in 2002 before the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan’s southern Division, where Judge Nancy G. Edmunds granted the Detroit Free Press’ motion for preliminary injunction to have access inside a court room of an immigration judge trying a deportation case while denying the US government’s motion to dismiss the complaint “for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”
In her ruling on April 10, 2002, Judge Edmunds denied the Justice Department’s claim “that secrecy was more necessary than individual rights.” The government immediately appealed but in the meantime, the hearings had to be open.
Let the public in
On April 19, 2002, the government announced “it would no longer seek a stay of Judge Edmund’s ruling,” meaning that any hearing in Haddad’s case that are held before the 6th Circuit Court must be open if the government cannot show to the immigration court that a portion of the hearing must be closed to “advance national security interests.”
On October 1, 2002, when many supporters and news reporters attended Haddad’s bond hearing, they were surprised when Immigration Judge Robert Newberry, closed the detention hearing despite Judge Edmunds’ ruling. Appeals were immediately filed by the Detroit Free Press and others but bond was denied for Haddad on Oct. 24, 2002.
On October 15 and 16, 2002, the Immigration Judge held a hearing to consider Haddad’s asylum request. When Haddad’s friends and supporters were not allowed into the building and after considerable protests, the following day the immigration court administrator claimed “’there had been a ‘misunderstanding’” and acknowledged the hearings were supposed to be open.
On Nov. 22, 2002, asylum for Haddad was denied and Haddad’s lawyer filed an appeal.
As the US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the US government’s request to review the 2002 decision by its three judges, allowing the press and the public into the deportation hearing, after a month, Salma Al-Rushaid was turned away from visiting her husband at the Monroe County Jail, citing “heightened levels of security.”
Haddad was deported, finally
On July 14, 2003, Rabih Haddad was taken from jail, still never charged with any crime, and deported to Lebanon, leaving the US government no option to contest before the US Supreme Court Judge Edmunds’ ruling allowing the public and the press into the court room trying an immigration case.
If the Filipino American publishers and the public will continuously protest the “closed door hearing” of the Bolante case, like the case of Haddad, the US government will have no option but to deport Mr. Bolante to the Philippines, where he will be welcomed with open arms by the Philippine Senate, which issued a warrant for his arrest for his duplicity in the disbursement of P728 million (US$14-M) fertilizer fund that bankrolled the election of President Arroyo last May 2004.
Bolante’s character may be different from Haddad, a 41-year-old Lebanon native, who came legally into the U.S. and lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and applied for green card after his non-immigration visa expired based on Clinton’s amnesty program. But the legal process of their immigration case was the same.
On Dec. 14, 2001, Haddad was arrested by INS agents and denied bond as a “flight risk and might pose a danger to the community.”
Haddad was linked to the Global Relief Foundation, which, the FBI believed, had sent money to terrorist groups opposed to the United States (jihadists). But it did not have any evidence that it was organizing terrorist activities.
The report implied that Haddad was deported because the government could not build a case against him or was not willing to test in court the content of any secret information it has gathered.
(lariosa-jos@sbcglobal.net)
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“IN politics, words are deeds,” Columnist George Wills once wrote. And on sidelines of the politically-charged brawl, between the Senate and the Presidential Commission on Good Government, tv cameras caught a heated flap over a single word : “crony”.
Did PCGG commissioner Ricardo Abcede tag Senator Juan Ponce Enrile a crony of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos? Senator Enrile fumed he’s no crony and threatened to sue. However, the Supreme Court order for the Senate to present PCGG chair Camilo Sabio overshadowed this flap. .
So, why does this word stoke so much heat?
Because “crony” has evolved from it’s original “innocently neutral” meaning, replies Ateneo University’s Fr. Joaquin Bernas SJ.
In August 1999, for example, an irritated President Joseph Estrada protested that he had no cronies; but he did have a host of friends. “Was he making a distinction without a difference?,” the Jesuit scholar asked. Crony “originated as a university or college slang somewhere in 17th century England. It simply meant a chum, the kind President Estrada says he proudly has, Fr. Bernas noted.
Thus, Samuel Pepys, in his Diary ( 1655 ) wrote of “my old chum who was a great crony of mine...And from the noun comes the verb to ‘to crony’
Thus we’re told (1873) that the ‘Earl of Delamere and Rollo cronied so completely, Elinor saw very little of her father. “Nothing seems criminal about the original meaning of the word”. So, what happened in between?
“In recent years, crony’ gained notoriety as it became the descriptive title of those who are unfairly allowed to partake of the public bounty under a controlling dispensation”, Fr. Bernas observed. “It has even spawned an ‘ism” – as in ‘cronyism’.
“In the mind of the contemporary public, the meaning which the word ‘crony’ has acquired is clear. It has reference to those who, because of their closeness to the highest authority of the land, benefit financially from, and participate in the plunder of the Philippine economy.
“( Crony ) now has criminal and conspiratorial undertones. People speak freely of its new meaning. It is used to label specific persons, darkly linking them to a President and his regime.”
“Crony capitalism became notorious under President Marcos and the title crony has become a badge of dishonor. But what does crony mean? Are you or were you ever one? And what if you were?”
You’d be filthy rich, President Marcos said in a Time magazine interview on 11 November. 1985. His regime was then in a tailspin from abuses and corruption.
Time : “What about the cronyism in Philippine business that we often read about?”
Marcos : “If it were true that special favors were given to some of these people because they are my cronies, then they should still be here, and they should be wealthy. But who are these cronies? If there be any cronies in government, point them out and we will investigate.”
In an Inquirer interview ( December 9, 1998 ) Imelda Marcos pointed those “given by Ferdinand no less than P1 billion each to acquire companies for him...We made them so rich but they got too greedy. Now, they refuse to turn over to us the top firms that the Marcoses rightfully owned.”
Who? The Inquirer reports Mrs Marcos “directed her tirade against the likes” of Lucio Tan, Antonio Cojuangco, Roberto Benedicto, Rolando Gapud, Jose Yao Campos, Herminio Disni, among others.
But “I never figured crony to be a bad word,” Rudolfo Cuenca told Wall Street Journal (November 4, 1983) A golfing companion of Marcos, he parlayed his fledgling Construction & Development Corporation of the Philippines into a giant firm – until People Power I hit.
Did that “bad word” fit Mr Enrile when, by his admission, he faked his car’s ambush to trigger martial law? No? Then, what should be the right word? “Chum?”
“And did President Estrada have cronies in the sense of the word’s contemporary meaning?,” Father Bernas wondered. Ask Mr. Estrada’s former chief of staff, Dr. Aprodicio Laquian, who returned to teaching in Canada.
In his book “The Erap Tragedy: Tales from the Snake Pit”, Laquian identifies five clusters that swirled around the President: from arrow-straight technocrats to his “midnight cabinet. The latter drunkenly caroused with Erap until dawn and squeezed benefits . “At 4 am, I’d be the only one left sober,” Laquian recalls.
In the section titled “The President’s Cronies”, Laqiuan notes Estrada assumed those who were rich couldn’t be considered cronies. These included Eduardo Cojuangco, Lucio Tan, Jose Sel Yulo. “People we were asked to watch out for included: Charlie ‘Atong’ Ang, Wiliam Gatchalian, Jaime Dichavez, Lucio Lao Co and Dante Tan...(Ang, Dichavez and Tan skipped the country ahead of the cops after Edsa II.)
Because of criticism, the President made a show of distancing himself from cronies like Mark Jimenez and Charlie ‘Atong’ Ang. “Despite this announcement, we witnessed the frequent coming and goings of many of the President’s cronies,” Laquian writes.
And when cronies that made up the ‘midnight cabinet” stood up and staggered outside the door, “much has been accomplished that may affect the way things are done in this country”. This resulted in “5K Governance: rule by “kamaganak, kaklase, kumpadre, kaibigan.....at kabit”.
“I can only say that I believe (President Estrada) him when he says he has a wealth of friends”, Fr. Bernas chuckles. By the same token, we can also take Mr Enrile at his word when he insists he’s no crony. He too has many friends.
(E-mail: juan_mercado@paci-fic.net.ph )
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Joc-Joc becomes a bad joke
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THE sad joke is on Joc-Joc Bolante, former Philippine agriculture undersecretary, alleged bagman of the First Couple and so-called designer and implementor of the P728 million fertilizer fund scam.
He may be a marketing wizard. He reportedly made millions for himself and for Prudential Life Plan, the pre-need company he cofounded with businessman Francisco Alba, selling funeral plans.
It takes a lot of skill and careful planning to achieve what he has achieved in business. If he did what he was accused of, perpetrating the humongous plunder that was the fertilizer scam, what happened to his analytical executive mental ability?
We venture to guess that closeness to the power center in government probably clouded his sharp thinking prowess. He overlooked one thing that seemed insignificant but... He forgot to realize that co-mingled with the multi-million peso fertilizer fund was a few million dollars of US aid to farmers. That seemingly little detail probably sealed Joc-Joc inside his present predicament.
Observers conclude that the oversight on the part of Joc-Joc was the link that swept him to involvement in the implementation of the recently promulgated policy of President Bush that the US henceforth would no longer be allowed to be a safe haven for international kleptocrats.
When Joc-Joc succumbed to the temptation to join the governmnent and savor a taste of palatial power, friends and families reportedly asked him why he had to go out to seek trouble. He was a successful businessman. He lived in a P 30-million home in a gated exclusive village. He had a happy family. He could not drive all of his expensive foreign sportscars even if he changed cars everyday. He was elected treasurer of the Rotary International.
Now he is faced with deportation to the Philippines. His US visa was cancelled.
He is being held by the American immigration authorities. He does not want to return to the Manila and so is seeking political asylum. But due to lack of basis for being granted asylum status, that seems an impossibility. Is he afraid to face the Philippine Senate which is investigating the fertilizer scam and has issued an order for his arrest for his refusal to heed its summons?
He should not be afraid of the communist New Peoples Army. When he applied first for asylum status, he claimed the NPAs are after him. The NPA right away publicly issued a disclaimer. We believe they want Joc-Joc to suffer more by making him face the music by returning to Manila because they alleged he stole money of the small farmers.
Joc-Joc hired an American law firm, reportedly one of the most expensive in the US to explore the legal maze for a way out of his predicament. We are reminded of a small rodent caught inside a small trap frantically darting everywhere trying to locate a way out to freedom.
After consuming prohibitively expensive hours devising a strategy for Joc-Joc, the American lawyers came up with a solution. They sent a feeler to the group of Filipino lawyers helping to fight Bolante’s efforts to be allowed to stay in the US. They also sent a similar feeler to Senator Magsaysay, chairman of the agriculture committee, Philippine Senate, that is investigating Joc-Joc. The feeler: Could they help Bolante get his US visa reinstated, if Joc-Joc agrees to tell all to the Philippine senators?
Senator Magsaysay and the Filipino law group headed by Harry Roque had a similar retort. They don’t trust Joc-Joc. Sing first. They’ll help afterwards.
If Joc-Joc accepts the counter offer, then there might really be a ground for granting him political asylum. As a matter of fact, one of his costly lawyers reportedly made a remark that is pregnant with dire implications.
If none takes up Joc-Joc on his desperate offer, he might just disappear. The counsel implied, of course, that Joc-Joc would become an international fugitive, go hide in a country where he could not be extradited, and be lost forever to the Senate investigators.
Life has become such a cheap commodity in the Philippines. The latest example is the close-in security of opposition Mayor Jejomar Binay, an ex-soldier who because of his calling should be much better equipped in looking after himself. But now, he appears to be the latest extrajudicial killing statistic.
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Immigration court reforms announced
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ON August 9, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced “new measures to enhance the performance of the Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals” (BIA).
These new measures are in response to complaints about immigration judges who are “failing to display temperament and produce work that meets the Department’s standards.” In other words, many people were complaining about immigration judges’ behavior and decisions.
These new measures were designed to improve the quality of their work and performance. The new measures include the following:
Performance Evaluations: The Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) will periodically review the work and performance of each immigration judge and member of the BIA, in order to evaluate whether any immigration judge or Board member may need “improvement”.
Immigration Law Exam: Immigration judges and Board members appointed after December 31, 2006, will be required to pass an exam on key principles of immigration law, before they begin to rule on cases.
Sanction Powers: Immigration judges will be able to sanction (impose monetary penalties) on attorneys or aliens for making false statements, frivolous behavior, and other gross misconduct. The BIA will also have power to impose monetary sanctions against people for gross misconduct.
Increased Resources: The Department of Justice (DOJ) will seek budget increases for FY 2008, which will enable them to hire more immigration judges and law clerks, along with staff attorneys to support the BIA. In addition, the BIA will be increased by four additional Board members.
Technological and Support Improvements: These measures are aimed at the Immigration Courts’ ability to record, transcribe, and interpret court proceedings. These would include: - Replacing the Immigration Courts’ current tape recording system with a digital recording system
- Strengthen transcription of oral decisions
- Strengthen interpreter selection
These are only a few of the proposals designed to improve the quality of immigration judges’ and BIA’s work and performance. However, I hope that you never reach the point of having to be in front of an immigration judge in the first place. Remember, even if your case is in front of a nice and scholarly immigration judge, if you’re not entitled to immigration relief, you could face removal/deportation.
That is why it is important for you to seek the advice of a reputable attorney, who can evaluate your situation (either before or after you are put in removal) to see if there are valid, legitimate ways for you to remain in America and pursue your American dream.
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:
LOS ANGELES:
219 North Brand Boulevard, Glendale, California, 91203 Telephone: (818) 543-5800
SAN FRANCISCO:
966 Mission Street, San Francisco, California, 94080 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
(This is for informational purposes only, and reflects the firm’s opinions and views on general issues. Each case is different and results may depend on the facts of a particular case. All immigration services are provided by an active member of the State Bar of California and/or by a person under the supervision of an active member of the State Bar. No prediction, warranty or guarantee can be made about the results of any case. Should you need or want legal advice, you should consult with and retain counsel of your own choice.)
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