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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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NEW YORK -- All this little boy wants for Christmas is a lifesaving bone-marrow transplant - but finding the right donor has become a race against time.
The friends and family of Harrison Leonardo, the 2-year-old son of a San Francisco firefighter and a native Long Islander, are pleading for a holiday miracle - that someone, anyone, who is a matching donor will come forward, according to a New York Post report.
“It’s a terribly desperate situation, and it’s so easy for a potential donor to provide that match,” said Harrison’s cousin Micah Morrison, who lives in
the East Village.
Harrison, who loves dinosaurs and cartoons, was diagnosed earlier this year with rare acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), which typically strikes older people.
He is hospitalized in a special, pressurized, isolation ward at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, Calif. Only his family can visit, and doctors aren’t sure how much longer he can survive without a transplant.
Harrison’s parents - Fireman O.J. Leonardo and Long Island native Stephanie Isaacson - have expanded their nationwide hunt for a matching donor to New York.
A drive to find a donor was held on Wednesday, December 21, at the interior-design store Desiron at 151 Wooster St. in Manhattan.
“Anyone who donates [a test swab] needs to say that it’s for Harrison Leonardo and it should be expedited through the National Bone Marrow Donor Program,” said Harrison’s aunt, Jennifer Isaacson.
The test to find Harrison’s miracle match is painless and takes no more than 10 minutes.
Finding compatible donors and recipients for bone-marrow transplants is usually difficult, but in Harrison’s case the search is even tougher because a suitable donor would probably be, like Harrison, of mixed Filipino and Caucasian parentage.
Potential donors can get more information at www.helpharrison.com, www.dkmsamericas.org or by calling 1-866-340-3567.
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McALLEN, Texas – For two years now, Christmas has been merry for 200 Filipino teachers who were allegedly recruited illegally by a Filipino recruitment agency for teaching jobs in Texas in 2003.
Now gainfully employed and making their mark as exemplary teachers in the educational system of the United States, two of them talked of their strong faith in God, the widely known Filipino resilien-cy and the pakikisama (solidarity) of the Filipino community here, which they said sustained them throughout their ordeal.
Special Education teacher Cherrilyn Estacio recalled how she just kept on reading the Bible and the book, “Purpose-Driven Life,” for the entire four weeks she, and 20 other colleagues, had to endure in uncertainty, when they were told by their agency that the teaching jobs promised them upon their arrival in El Paso, Texas were not available.
“I needed strength and constant encouragement to sustain me in our very discouraging situation, so I read the Bible and the Purpose-Driven Life daily,” Estacio said.
Having to make ends meet with almost no money was a harrowing experience for the conned Filipino teachers.
Estacio recalled how she and a co-teacher had to engage in a lengthy discussion whether to spend one dollar so they can buy a burger. They ended up agreeing to contribute 50 cents each.
Stricken by guilt for having spent a “luxury” item, they brought the burger to their rented apartment so they can share it with their eight other co-teachers.
Estacio was among the batch of 20 teachers recruited in 2003 by the Omni Consortium Incorporated to work in El Paso.
Two other batches arrived later, bringing the total to 70 teachers in a span of six months.
Complaints made by several teachers about their predicament led the Federal Bureau of Investigation to step in. Its investigastion concluded that the agency is engaged in alleged illegal activities.
As a result, Omni Consortium’s CEO Florita Tolentino, President, Noel Tolentino, Officers Angelica Tolentino, Cesar Librodo and Owen Cruz were charged before the El Paso court district with 200 counts of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling and visa fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering for persuading 273 Filipinos since 2002 to pay them $10,000 each, for well-paying teaching jobs in Texas.
Also charged with conspiracy to commit interstate transportation in aid of racketeering, were two former West Texas public school administrators and an elementary school principal, for sponsoring work visas of dozens of the teachers in exchange for free trips to Asia.
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ROOKFIELD, Massachusetts — A Filipino woman from Brookfield is in custody in Los Angeles, charged with kidnapping her two young sons after she allegedly took them on a cross-country flight to California Monday with the intention of leaving the country.
Police said the boys’ paternal grandmother has legal custody of the children, and discovered they and many of their belongings were missing from her home on Devils Elbow Road Monday afternoon. She alerted police, who said they were minutes from issuing an Amber Alert when they learned the mother and children were on a plane bound for the West Coast.
Brookfield Officer Christopher P. Welsh said police were concerned because the children are 9 months and 23 months old. Both suffer from medical conditions and require specialized care, he said. One has a bronchial condition that is treated with medication.
“One of the children has cerebral palsy,” he said. It was unclear why the parents do not have custody of their children, according to the Worcester Telegram.
According to a statement from Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte, police learned that the father of the two boys, Carl J. Huber Sr., 31, of Palmer, joined the children and their mother, Edarrel Huber, 30, in a taxi ride to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn.
Neither of the Hubers is licensed to drive, police said. The mother and children boarded a Delta Airlines flight to Los Angeles, and the father returned to his Palmer home.
Officers talked with the cab driver, who told them Ms. Huber had discussed her travel plans.
Police were granted a warrant for Ms. Huber’s arrest Monday night. Los Angeles International Airport police officers and FBI agents were notified, and she was arrested when the flight arrived there about 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The children were in the care of the Department of Youth services in California yesterday and are scheduled to return home today with their grandmother, who flew to Los Angeles yesterday.
Police said it is still unclear whether Mr. Huber played a role in the kidnapping. He had not been charged yesterday and the investigation is continuing, Officer Welsh said. Mr. Huber was interviewed by Palmer police Monday.
Conte said his office is awaiting notification from authorities in Los Angeles to see whether Ms. Huber will waive extradition to Massachusetts.
A complaint for two counts of kidnapping of a minor was issued in Western Worcester District Court in East Brookfield. When she returns to Massachusetts, Ms. Huber is to be arraigned on felony kidnapping charges.
Ms. Huber, who was born in the Philippines, is in the United States legally, but is not a citizen, police said. She could face deportation if convicted, they said.
The search for the mother and two sons was a multi-jurisdictional investigation that began with local police and soon included Massachusetts and Connecticut state police and the FBI.
Officers Welsh and Steven J. Fernstrom initially responded to the call, and began working with other agencies to find the children. Mr. Conte credited the combined efforts of state police detectives, Brookfield Chief Ross B. Ackerman and his department, state Trooper Nicole Morrell, and the state police Amber Alert coordinator for the safe return of the children.
Department of Social Services officials from Massachusetts and California, Los Angeles police, Los Angeles International Airport security personnel and Palmer police also assisted.
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SANTA CLARA, California -- Of all the telephone text messages from the United States that Analiza Mostera receives in the Philippines, few are more welcome than the ones that say, “You will get your remittance.”
Those messages have arrived each month since her sister-in-law in Santa Clara, California, Glory Gagarin, began sending money through an innovative service that allows customers to transfer cash by telephone.
Developed by the Philippine wireless telecommunications giant Smart Communications, the system of using text messages to transfer cash now delivers at least $50 million a month to families in the Philippines, according to a report by Washington-based lender International Finance Corp.
Much of that money is sent home by Filipino temporary contract workers in Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Singapore. But dozens of Bay Area Filipinos also use the service, which is quicker and cheaper than sending money through traditional international bank transfers or by Western Union.
“It has been fast and reliable, and our money gets there -- that’s the bottom line,” said Gagarin, a quality analyst for a medical device company in Santa Clara.
Gagarin and her husband, Julius Dy, have used the service, called Smart Money, for more than two years.
Every month Gagarin goes to the Santa Clara office of Dollar America eXchange, a money-transfer firm under contract with Smart Communications, and fills out a remittance form.
On her latest visit, she wanted to send $170 to the Philippines, and was charged $8, the fee for sending amounts as high as $500. To send amounts from $500 to $1,000, the maximum allowed per transfer, the fee is $12.
Minutes after DAX’s system encoded Gagarin’s latest transaction, sister-in-law Mostera received the text message telling her the remittance was on the way. The message included Mostera’s 16-digit Smart Money card number.
Mostera then activated her Smart Money debit card account using her mobile phone. Moments later she received a text message telling her the money had been electronically loaded onto her card.
With the transfer completed, Mostera was free to withdraw cash from her card at ATMs at more than 10,000 locations in the Philippines, including many malls and McDonald’s restaurants. Across the country, more than 3 million Filipinos subscribe to various Smart Money services and are therefore eligible for the debit cards, which can also be used to make purchases.
Because Mostera lives in a small city about 230 miles southeast of Manila, she had to take a bumpy bus ride to the provincial capital, Legazpi City, to reach the nearest ATM. She also had to share with Gagarin the messaging costs, which added $1.21 to the $8 transfer fee.
Still, for her and many other Filipinos dependent on remittances from relatives working abroad, text-message transfers are cheaper and more convenient than the alternatives.
David Landsman, executive director of the National Money Transmitters Association in New York, said the text-message money transfers represent “the evolution of the stored-value card technology.”
The Philippines was an obvious place for the evolution to occur, given the huge popularity of text messaging there and the large number of people who receive regular remittances from abroad. According to bank data, nearly 8 million Filipinos in more than 100 countries sent nearly $100 billion home in the past 30 years.
Smart Communications is not the only company to offer an alternative to the traditional banking and money-transfer channels. Smart’s chief rival, Globe Telecom, also has a text remittance product called Globe G-Cash, which is expected to enter the U.S. market next year.
Although convenient and inexpensive, text-message money-transfer systems have come under scrutiny as possible conduits of cash for terrorists.
The Paris-based money-laundering watchdog Financial Action Task Force took notice of the technology in 2005 when the Philippines was still on the task force’s list of Non-Cooperating Countries and Territories. The task force regarded the transfers as a high-tech version of the hawala, the often unlicensed global financial system that’s reportedly a channel for terrorist money.
Vicente Aquino, executive director of the Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Council, said the text-message transfer technology complies with rules against money laundering. (MediaNews)
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