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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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MANILA -- Former senator Gregorio ‘Gringo’ Honasan, who has been in hiding after he was accused for allegedly planning a failed coup plot on February 24 against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, has been captured in a posh subdivision in Quezon City, police said.
Senior Superintendent Asher Dolina, chief of the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) for the National Capital Region, confirmed that Honasan was arrested at the Green Meadows subdivision at about 2:45 a.m.
Dolina said he could not give further details of the capture of the elusive fugitive pending the return of the warrant to the Makati Regional Trial Court which issued the order for Honasanís arrest. No bail has been recommended for Honasan.
“The team arrested him after a brief chase,” PNP chief Director General Oscar Calderon told a news conference.
Honasan, 58, sustained a deep cut in his right foot and a sprain in his left foot after he tried to elude arrest by jumping off from the second floor of the townhouse reportedly owned by a certain Ingrid Ramos in Green Meadows, a dzBB radio report said.
Initially detained at the CIDG headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City, he was later discreetly transferred to the PNP General Hospital where he was treated.
He was accompanied by his wife Jane.
He had evaded a nationwide manhunt for nine months, forcing a frustrated police leadership to offer P5-million ($100,000) bounty on his head.
Shortly after he went into hiding earlier this year, he went on public television to declare he would never surrender and called on Arroyo to step down.
A television footage showed the white-haired Honasan being treated inside the hospitalís emergency room. The cut on his right foot required 20 stitches.
It was learned that Honasan will not be brought to the Makati RTC as earlier planned as he has to be confined at the hospital.
The arrest warrant will instead be sent to the court which is to decide where Honasan will be detained. A five million-peso reward awaits the informant who tipped the police on Honasan’s whereabouts.
Honasan is also linked to a 2003 mutiny by some 300 junior officers and men who took over an upscale apartment hotel in Makati City to demand the resignation of Arroyo.
In the 1970s, the charismatic Honasan was aide-de-camp to the then defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile, the enforcer of then president Ferdinand Marcos’s brutal martial law.
But in 1986 Honasan led a cabal of colonels, backed by Enrile, to foment popular unrest against the dictator. Marcos discovered the plot and Honasan and Enrile holed out at the military headquarters and called on civilians, the church and the media for protection.
Honasan however would also later turn on Aquino, leading several bloody coup attempts. He was captured in 1987 and held in a prison ship only to make a spectacular escape.
In 1989, Honasan and his allies launched their deadliest coup attempt yet, occupying key points in the capital and even major airbases, and using captured aircraft to bomb the presidential palace.
Honasan however was given amnesty when Aquino stepped down and replaced by former police general Fidel Ramos, who was also a key player in the 1986 revolt against Marcos. (MNS)
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NEW YORK CITY -- It was 12:20 p.m. on a recent Monday, and the Rev. Norberto Cordovez, the assistant pastor at the Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz, was preparing to celebrate Mass. Wearing an emerald stole atop his white robe, he peered out at the 36 empty wooden pews. Then, almost as if he were speaking to himself, he began reading from the Bible.
Ten minutes later, a lone elderly woman walked in and took a seat. This time, at least, Father Cordovez would not have to finish Mass by himself.
“It’s good if two come,” he said after the service. “And we are lucky if five come.”
This is not how the Rev. Erno Diaz, the pastor, envisioned the attendance level when the chapel opened last year, The New York Times reported. But the chapel has been a victim of the fact that almost no Filipinos live in its neighborhood.
Housed in a brown brick building on Broome Street near Mulberry Street, part of an expanding Chinatown, the chapel was intended as a gathering place for the city’s growing Filipino population. According to the 2000 Census, New York is home to 50,000 Filipinos, most of them Roman Catholic.
If local Filipinos crave garlicky chicken adobo, they can stroll down Roosevelt Avenue near 69th Street in Woodside, Queens. If they want news from home, they can pick up a copy of The Filipino Express. But to worship in a setting where specific traditions of their culture are observed, like singing hymns in vernacular and attending 5 a.m. Masses for nine days before Christmas, Filipinos’ option for years was a bare-bones room in a Midtown office building that the New York Archdiocese had made available.
After a decade of lobbying, Father Diaz persuaded the archdiocese to establish a chapel to serve this population. Named after the first Filipino saint, the chapel opened in September 2005, and while all worshipers are welcome, its services are designated especially for Filipinos.
To become a full-fledged church, a chapel must show that it is economically stable and has a regular congregation. San Lorenzo Ruiz is nowhere near meeting those criteria. That is because although Filipino communities can be found in Midtown, Woodside and especially Elmhurst, Queens, very few Filipinos live in Chinatown.
Father Diaz is struggling to pay the bills. And paradoxically, not only are worshipers sparse on weekdays — on Sundays, Filipino families and organizations sponsor Masses and invite friends and relatives — they are not even necessarily Filipino.
One regular at daily Mass is Gilda Cianci, 91. Every afternoon for the past 72 years, she has descended three flights of stairs from her apartment, and, now with the help of a cane, walked across the street to the chapel.
Cianci, who on this Monday afternoon was wearing a Blessed Mary pin on the collar of her navy coat, was a regular at the Catholic church that occupied the site on Broome Street, Most Holy Crucifix, which for decades served the neighborhood’s Italian-Americans. But she is not dismayed by the fact that the chapel is for the Filipino community. “I come to church to praise God,” she said.
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LOS ANGELES — Filipino American dancing instructor Cheryl Burke and his dancing partner, former football star Emmitt Smith, won the third season of ABC’s hit reality competition Dancing with the Stars.
For Burke, 22, it was the second year in a row she has claimed the Dancing with the Stars mirror ball trophy. As judge Len Goodman proclaimed of Burke, “This girl should be an MVP; Most Valued Partner,” for her ability to choreograph dances highlighting Smith’s natural talent and charm, while bringing out his secret weapon, that irresistible smile.
Smith and Burke dueled with actor Mario Lopez and his dance instructor Karina Smirnoff for the crown. The judges gave the two pairs equal scores going into the finale. Viewer votes determined the winner.
Aside form their dancing skills, the huge fan base of Smith and the support of the Filipino community for Burke were considered as the crucial factors that delivered the votes for the pair.
A few days before the finale, email messages have been circulating within the Filipino American community asking fellow Filipinos to vote for Burke.
“It is awesome,” Smith said after being named the show’s winner, capping off 16 weeks of extensive training and thousands of miles traveled between Dallas and LA.
On Wednesday, judges asked Smith and his professional dance partner — and now two-time Dancing champ — Cheryl Burke to give an encore performance of their Tuesday finale dance, a samba. Smith’s wife, Pat, and other family members were in the audience to cheer him on. Lopez and his partner Karina Smirnoff reprised their freestyle number.
Burke won last year’s Dancing with the Stars Season 2 with celebrity partner Drew Lachey of the pop group 98 Degrees.
She was born on May 12, 1984 and grew up in San Francisco, California. Her mom, Sherrie Bautista-Burke, is from Nueva Ecija.
Smith was a running back for the Dallas Cowboys and won three Super Bowls.
Throughout the training process Smith and Burke developed a close relationship, becoming almost like brother and sister. Burke admitted that when she was initially paired with this year’s partner she had to Google the name Emmitt Smith to find out who the heck this former Cowboy actually was.
“My first impression of Emmitt was that he’s a big guy, and how am I going to get this guy to ballroom dance?” Burke said of her initial meeting with Smith. “I would have never thought that Emmitt would be able to dance the way that he can dance now. From the beginning, he just wanted to be the best possible dancer he can be.”
The two Tauruses, whose birthdays are just a few days (and 15 years) apart, were both bullish in their preparation for each performance, working hard to perfect their dances, while still looking calm, cool and collected.
“I thank you for pushing me even when I did not want to be pushed,” Smith said to Burke of her coaching style -- a style Smith certainly wasn’t used to throughout his football career. “I thank you for being patient even when I was stubborn and I thank you for being you because you being yourself allowed me to be me.” Burke went to the Philippines with her mother after she won Season 2 of Dancing with the Stars. “I had a great time in the Philippines. I met the President who was very nice and warm. She thanked me for making the Filipinos proud and congratulated me for winning. I am proud to be a Filipino. The people were also very warm and friendly.”
She added that she would like to establish an international dance school in the Philippines and in the U.S. “I would like to be able to help other aspiring dancers to realize their dreams and ambitions too,” she said.
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