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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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WHAT really happened?
In the aftermath of the Philippine government’s hasty postponement of the 12th summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), doubts have begun to crop up as to the real reason or reasons for the decision to pull the plug.
The official line from government spokespersons was the brewing storm that was supposed to gatecrash the opening of the summit. But typhoon Seniang -- coming at the heels of a powerful typhoon, Reming -- skirted Cebu City, the summit’s venue, effectively shredding into tiny pieces whatever credibity the “storm-is-coming” excuse the government bandied about.
The country’s weather bureau, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Authority (PAGASA) did not advise Malacañang to postpone the summit; it actually said that the coast is clear for the holding of the annual meeting of the region’s heads of state. But for Mrs. Arroyo, Seniang was perfect storm, a perfect smokescreen for calling off the summit.
Days before the opening of the regional meeting, three countries closely allied with the Philippines in the fight against international terrorism -- the United States, Britain and Australia -- issued a warning based on intelligence reports that an al-Qaeda-allied group is out to carry out terror attacks to disrupt the ASEAN summit.
The Philippine government, of course, downplayed the warnings, but it blows the mind as to why governments the Philippines is closely allied with would issue security warnings on the eve of the most important international event the country was hosting in recent years. Surely, the US, Britain and Australia were not just out to embarrass the Philippines.
Also, the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has called for a mammoth prayer rally the day after the summit. The rally, which is now gathering its own storm, is poised to oppose any move by Mrs. Arroyo and her subalterns to mess with the Constitution, either by people’s initiative, constituent assemby, or constitutional convention.
Surely, Mrs. Arroyo would not want her unpopularity with the people unravel before her guests. And then again, she cannot employ her unconstitutional Calibrated Preemptive Response (CPR) to break up rallies, since that would undermine her government’s chosen theme of “one caring and sharing community” for the ASEAN summit.
To a certain extent, these reasons may be valid enough justifications to postpone the summit. But the government must come clean and say the real reason for pulling the plug.
In doing so, it would be able to start to mend its the tattered image it incurred in resetting the summit. More importantly, it would assuage the feelings of those who worked hard to ensure the success of the aborted summit, especially the people of Cebu.
The people have the right to know.
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Can Rep. Filner push the envelop on Filipino Equity Bill?
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“To whom much is given, much is expected, much is required, and much is demanded.” -- Luke 12:39-48
CHICAGO, Illinois – Will the ascension of Rep. Bob Filner (Dem.-CA-51) into the chairmanship of the US Congressional Committee on Veterans Affairs do the trick for the passage of the Filipino Equity Bill?
As if by design, Filner’s announcement of his assumption into office of the influential committee came at a time when Philippine Ambassador to the US Willy Gaa was assembling for two days on the eve of the 65th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attack 60 veteran advocate leaders from across the country in Washington, DC led by brand new NaFFAA national chair Alma Q. Kern and Ms. Kern’s predecessor Atty. Loida Nicolas Lewis to draw up strategy on how to get the long-ignored bill seeking full benefits for both Filipino veterans in the Philippines and Filipino American veterans past the committee and take it into the well of Congress for floor debate.
But like any other big-budget money measure, the Filipino Equity Bill has to go thru the eye of the needle.
The only way for Congress to pass it is to create a snowball effect that will show that Filipinos and Filipino Americans are behind this measure. This means that Filipino Americans had to pull all the strings by calling their respective area congressmen and senators to lobby them into passing this bill.
Groundswell of Support Needed
As a veteran White House watcher told me, even if President Bush would like to sign this bill, a groundswell of support showing the Filipino American community unity behind this bill should be the first order of business before Mr. Bush could endorse it.
Perhaps, Mr. Filner can appoint a Study Group or reconstitute a fact-finding commission on the status of the bill, including its brief historical background, so the bill can be properly appreciated by the legislators.
Let’s face it, most of the congressmen and senators may no longer have a good memory of the heroic exploits of our World War II veterans. They have no idea why the Filipino veterans deserve these benefits.
Even congressmen, who saw action in the Philippines during World War II, have a warped perspective of the war.
Rep. Hyde is Dead Wrong
Retiring Rep. Henry J. Hyde (Rep.-6th-IL) who fought alongside Filipino veterans in the Philippines during the war argues that during World War II, the Filipinos were fighting for their country, the Philippines, not the Americans.
But Mr. Hyde, who never endorsed the bill, of course, is flat out wrong. World War II in the Pacific Theater was a war of superpowers – a proxy war between the United States and Japan.
The Philippines was merely caught in crossfire – an innocent bystander. The Philippines never declared war with Japan. It was the United States which did.
As a colony (actually Commonwealth) of the United States, the Philippines was left with no choice but to side with the Americans in the war with Japan.
Because of the presence of the US military bases in the Philippines, the Philip ines was the first target by the Japanese invasion, killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos and turning Manila into the most devastated capital in the world second only to Warsaw.
RP Would Have Been Treated with Kid Gloves
If the Philippines were a neutral country, like Switzerland, Japan might have treated the Philippines with kid gloves. If President Roosevelt did not force the Filipino soldiers to join the US Armed Forces of the Far East, the Filipino soldiers would just have been watching from the sidelines (and not sustaining heavy casualties nor damage to properties) instead of delaying the surrender of the undermanned American soldiers from the highly trained Japanese Invading Forces.
But because Roosevelt’s military order made the Filipino soldiers liable for violation of Article of War No. 56, which carries death penalty for insubordination, the Filipino soldiers were forced (did not volunteer) to fight the Japanese.
But instead of paying the Filipino soldiers the same amount of compensation to US and other Allied soldiers, the Filipino soldiers got crumbs – only half the salary of 65 other countries under the Allied Forces.
Since the Filipinos were never paid for their war services for the three war years, if you compute the back pay plus interest, this amount should be very sizable by now that the US can only pay the Filipino soldiers in installment equivalent to at least $800 a month for life plus an apology.
US Congress Dodges Paying Vets
Unfortunately, the US Congress tried to dodge paying the Filipino veterans by passing the Rescission Act in 1946 after the war although there was an existing law at that time that defined the salary of soldiers under the US Command regardless of race, nationality, etc.
I believe the Rescission Act of 1946 was illegal under the US Constitution, which provides that “no bail of attainder or ex post facto law” can be passed.
If it is proven in a court of law that the US Congress knowingly passed the Rescission Act despite provision of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which provides for uniform salaries to those inducted into the US Armed Forces “regardless of race or color” required in the “national interest,” the US Congress can be held liable to pay for punitive damages.
I suppose the US Congress will find it cheaper to pass the Filipino Equity Bill than to pay for punitive damages.
(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net
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“SUPPOSE you were an idiot,” Mark Twain once wrote. “And suppose that you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself….”
Mark Twain’s comment sums up the sentiment of many who gagged when congressmen shouted approval for House Resolution 197 even as the gallery booed. HR 197 forms Congress into a constituent assembly that’d revise the Constitution, scrap the Senate and install a parliament, “upon a three-fourths vote of all its members.”
To railroad “con-ass”, Speaker Jose de Vencia, Luis Villafuerte and administration congressmen first rewrote a House rule. They scrapped a provision that charter changes, proposed by the House, must follow procedure for legislation, i.e. the Senate must concur. Changing an internal rule of one house, the congressmen claim, alters the present two house structure.
It does not. Rep. Francis Escudero pointed out, rightly, that other rules, on the books, implement a bicameral system. Take bicameral conference committees. Their decisions, say, to change the name of a street or a school, in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s home province, must be confirmed by both Senate and House, before they become law.
“There can be no charter change without participation of the Senate,” constitutional expert Joaquin Bernas, SJ. writes.
“We can debate about the manner or extent of Senate participation.” (Voting separately, as most senators insist. Or accepting a House invitation for a joint session … to propose amendments to the 1987 Constitution.).
“But the Senate can not be excluded altogether,” Fr. Bernas explains. “This is because Charter change proposals have been committed, by the Constitution, to Congress which is a bicameral body.” This the constitutional minefield that the Supreme Court, now led by Chief Justice Ricardo Puno, must tread through.
“Won’t you come into my parlor?,/ Said the spider to the fly”, the nursery rhyme goes. Except for Senator Miriam Santiago, plus two or three others, majority of senators will spurn the House invitation for a joint session, President Manuel Villar says. In fact, legal experts, like Senator Joker Arroyo, have kept their black robes pressed for a predictable Supreme Court battle against a House-only constituent assembly.
With or without the senators, the “cha-cha” express will leave. And congressmen will propose, as a start, suspending the May 2007 elections. (So, were you one of those conned into believing that “No El” was dead?). They’d then anoint themselves members of an interim parliament, extending their own terms of office for six months – for the moment.
In addition, they’d also dismantle limits on terms of office. That way, they can be candidates forever. “In a parliamentary system, there are no such restrictions,”, Rep. Constantino Jaraula blustered without blushing. This is raw self-seeking greed.. Where avarice rules, “hypocrisy becomes good taste”, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw.
Filipinos do better with a pithy word : garapal. Of course, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ president did not use garapal in his scathing denunciation of HR 197. Jaro archbishop Angel Lagdameo described con-ass as “fraudulently illegal and scandalously immoral.” The National Council of Churches, the mainstream Protestant umbrella group, will join the December 15 prayer rally being organized by the CBCP.
Civil society earlier refused to hit the streets in response to calls by discredited opposition leaders like the detained Joseph “Erap” Estrada, “Magdalo” mutineers, and communists trying to hitch-hike on every protest. Their State-of-the-Nation demos flubbed. But will anger over cha-cha, this time, strike a different reaction?
It will partially depend on how the brawl before the Supreme Court plays out. And how will abstract issues, like Senate and House voting separately, translate into relevant concerns of the citizen?.
The Davide court built public confidence by it’s decisions on heretofore untouchable interests, like the coco-levy loot that Marcos cronies hoarded. And Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr set impeccable standards of fairness in the Estrada impeachment trial.
The Panganiban court demonstrated independence when it struck down Arroyo executive orders on pre-emptive calibrated response and blanket shields for executives from testifying before Congress. It junked the “people’s initiative” to revise the Constitution as a “gigantic fraud.” Unless proven otherwise, there is every reason to assume that the Puno Court will be equally independent and forthcoming.
With it’s 231 members, the House says there is no need to vote separately. No way, the 23-member Senate says. The reason for a separate vote is: “Congress is a bicameral body and was made such after an intense debate in the 1986 Constitutional Convention,” as Fr Bernas explains.
“The Constitution leaves the devising of procedural rules” to a conass or concon --- “provided that the rules do not transgress the bicameral character of Congress.”
Common folk will simplify that constitutional puzzle into a question of fairness. For now, they agree with what Will Rogers once said: “We have the best Congress money could buy.”
(email : juan_mercado74@yahoo.com)
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Gloria, De Venecia miscalculate
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THEIR heads inflated, drunk with power, and arrogant beyond reason, the Charter Change duo felt their goal seemed within reach.
They had tested the Supreme Court and their People’s Initiative almost made with with a hairline 8-7 vote. And with Chief Justice Panganiban retiring to be replaced by Justice Reynato Puno, one of the Negative 7s, and with surely more incentives to be danagled before the 8 Positives, the Cha Cha tandem could almost smell the sweet smell of victory.
So they went ahead with their final push. The administration members of the House illegally amended their internal rules to accommodate the Constituent Assembly minus the Senate and announced the convening of the assembly the following week. And in their minds, voila! they have a charter change, they’ll cancell the May 7 elections, extend terms, and replace the presidential-bicameral with parliamentary-unicameral.
But wow, wait, wait. The boldness and the audacity of GMA and JDV’s move proved to be the much awaited spark that will mobilize the people to rise in protest. The Church, civil society, the militants, the left and the right, etc. etc. vowed to go out on the streets within the week, permit or no permit.
Heretofore quiet groups like El Shaddai made their voice heard and their leader, Mike Velarde, pledged that if their three to five million followers are forbidden to assemble in their accustomed freedom parks such as the Luneta, they will proceed to the streets.
The Catholic Hierarchy pledge to lead the rallies. Ever militant, followers of Jesus is Lord head Eddie Villanueva, estimated at two million, pledged to lead his group. Jose Sison of the Communist Party called on his group from the Netherlands to join the fray.
The latest announcements is that all administration congressman from Metro Manila finally heeded the voice of the masses and announced they are withdrawing their support for the Con Ass. A number of local government officials have sent feelers to Malacanang that GMA should back off on the Con Ass. They are afraid of their political fates in future elections, if they are identified with GMA and Con Ass.
We predict a major wave of resignations from the executive department. They will follow the move of former GMA ally and National Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz who resigned his Cabinet position over the same issue, followed by about half a dozen of his team of undersecretaries and assistant secretaries a few days later.
As we write this, opposition sources reported the Palace are showing signs of backing off. An announcement is expected from De Venecia, who allegedly asked to undertake it to distance GMA from the issue.
Immediately after his appointment as Chief Justice, Justice Puno issued a statement which may have been the last straw to finally persuade the administration to serioiusly consider reversing their stand on Con Ass. In effect, the Chief Justice, who voted down the People’s Initiative, that said issue is a different one from the Con Ass.
He added that what will guide him in making future decisions is the law and not who appointed him.
Meanwhile, everybody is watching the military and police establishments. With the massive display of conviction from the civilian sector, what have they been thinking?
If GMA and JDV back off the Con Ass and hold the May 7 elections as scheduled, the waters could be calmed. But if by their decision to give the issue its final push, they have miscalculated and released the genie from the bottle, then subsequent events become unpredictable.
We may have a new government before yearend.
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Immigration and your children’s future
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ONE of the most important reasons Filipinos come to the United States is to provide a better future and opportunity for their children. Parents are willing to work long hours, sometimes at several different jobs, always telling themselves that they are doing it for the sake of their children.
Although these parents are to be commended for their hard work and sacrifice, some become so overwhelmed with their work that they fail to do anything about their legal status. They forget about the long-term consequences that will affect their children’s future in America.
Let me remind these parents about some of the harmful consequences to their child’s future if the parents do nothing about their immigration status:
1. The child will have trouble getting into a fine college. I know that these parents came to America for the educational opportunities of their children. If the parent and the child are in illegal status, the child will have difficulty getting into the good colleges or universities. No matter how smart the child is, he or she would not qualify for scholarships. The parent’s failure to get into legal status could bring the child’s educational opportunities to a dead stop.
2. The child cannot get a Driver’s License. Under California law, people cannot get an original Driver’s License unless they present evidence of being in legal status. Because of the parent’s and the child’s illegal status, the child will not be able to get a Driver’s License. The child has to take the bus, or ride along with friends (who have Driver’s Licenses because their parents are in legal status).
3. The child will not be able to get a decent job. Perhaps the parent was able to secure a nice, well-paying job, because when the parent applied, the employer may not have been too particular about employees’ immigration status. Or, the parents were probably willing to accept a lower-level job, because they have to make a living to support their children. However, the child will have a difficult time finding a decent job because employers are now very strict as far as employees’ immigration status are concerned.
4. The parent will continue to be separated from his child. If the parent left his child behind in the Philippines, and has not legalized his status, how can the parent hope to be reunited with his child? Unless the parent becomes legal, there is very little chance that his child will ever be able to be reunited with the parent in America. The parent will not be able to hold or hug his child, or celebrate occasions with his child under the same roof. The parent will just have to be satisfied with long distance phone calls and sending remittances.
These parents should pause for a moment to think why they are here in America. Most probably, it is because of their children, so that their children will have a better future. Isn’t it ironic that by remaining in illegal status, the children of these parents will face a very bleak, instead of bright, future? Why defeat the very purpose for which you came to America in the first place?
I advise people to seek the advice of a reputable attorney, who could analyze their situation and perhaps see ways for them to go about legitimately legalizing their status. They should do it for the sake of their children!
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