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For the past 21 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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THE family of retired NYPD officer and 9/11 responder Cesar Borja Sr. lead friends, colleagues and government officials in paying last respect to the fallen WTC hero. From left: sons Ceasar Jr., 21; Evan, 16; wife Eva; and daughter Nhia, 12. (Exclusive photo: Filipino Express)
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NEW YORK CITY -- Just hours before his son got the chance to raise awareness for sick 9/11 first responders at last Tuesday night’s State of the Union Address, Filipino Cesar Borja, Sr. – a retired city police officer – succumbed to pulmonary fibrosis after fighting for his life at Mt. Sinai Hospital.
His son, Ceasar Borja, Jr. attended the president’s address as Senator Hillary Clinton’s guest, just 3 hours after learning of his father’s death. (More photos on Page 10 of hardcopy edition)
In a heart-wrenching moment, Borja Jr., 21, donned the NYPD-issued pea coat of his beloved father and, as a guest of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, took a seat in the galley reserved for honored visitors in the Capitol. Borja had learned of the death of his beloved dad, Cesar Borja, 52, in a phone call while eating dinner at a Washington restaurant with friends around 6:30 p.m.
Borja, Sr., 52, of Bayside, Queens, worked long hours at the World Trade Center site in the days and weeks after the September 11th attacks. He had been in intensive care awaiting a lung transplant.
Earlier in the day, Borja, Jr., a student from Hunter College, explained why it was so important for him to go to Washington.
“The reason why I’m here in Washington DC is to prevent anything like this from happening again. That anyone going through what my family is going through may not have to do it, because they will be properly diagnosed the first time around,” he said.
“My father was misdiagnosed in 2002 and 2003 as having asthma or allergies. it turned out to be pulmonary fibrosis, and now we’re paying the price for improper medical attention that my father could have been receiving if the government paid more attention to the World Trade Center heroes and their plight.”
“I think our country owes a solemn duty to the people who were injured because of what they did or even how they were impacted coming out of the attacks of 9/11,” said Clinton.
Borja Sr. worked 16-hour shifts at the World Trade Center site in the days and weeks following the attacks of 9/11. Borja retired from the NYPD in 2003. Shortly after retiring, he contracted a nasty cough that he was unable to shake.
“They were saying allergy, asthma, and they would give him medication that wouldn’t give him relief. Only after the biopsy did they realize he had pulmonary fibrosis,” said Borja Sr.’s wife Eva Borja.
Doctors discovered Borja Sr.’s lungs were covered with the characteristic scar tissue of the lung condition. While the exact cause of the disease is unknown, some believe that it can develop in reaction to microscopic injury, according to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation.
Borja Sr.’s family believes he caught the disease in the line of duty. He had been a city police officer for two decades, during which he had perfect attendance. He retired from the force, but when his health took a turn for the worse, he needed oxygen tanks to breathe and was finally admitted to Mount Sinai in December.
Doctors said that even with a lung transplant, his chances of survival were slim.
Borja Jr., who breaks down when he talks about his father, is joining other families and local lawmakers who are calling on the Bush Administration to set aside funding for September 11 health monitoring and treatment programs before the funding already allotted dries up this summer.
“Whenever I needed to be rescued, my dad was there to save me,” said Borja Jr. “None of my friends, none of my other family members were there for me like my dad. That’s why I’m fighting for him. That’s why I am going to Washington D.C.”
As his father’s life ebbed, Ceasar Jr. - who spells his first name differently than his dad - became a heart-wrenching national symbol of the struggle of ailing 9/11 workers and their kin.
Senator Clinton called Cesar Borja’s death a “terrible tragedy” - while hailing his son as “a courageous and remarkable young man.”
Clinton is hoping Borja Jr.’s case will provide a much-needed wake-up call.
“[Ceasar Borja’s] sense of duty to his father and to the mission that brought him to Washington is inspiring and heartbreaking,” said the senator, who recently entered the presidential race.
“This is a call to action,” said Clinton. “I’ve spoken with the White House at length encouraging them to put into the president’s budget money to continue the treatment program that has now started.”
Still, while Borja Jr. attended last night’s address, the effect that his dad’s death had on him was clearly visible.
So while he was initially given one seat by Clinton, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) wound up also offering one of his seats so that a Clinton staffer who handles 9/11 issues, Christine Falvo, could sit next to him to comfort him. (with reports from NY1 and New York Post)
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MANILA -- The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has confirmed that the corpse recovered in Patikul, Sulu province last year is that of slain Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) leader Khadaffy Janjalani.
“The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) test, which was witnessed by three officers from PNP (Philippine National Police) Crime Lab, states that the cadaver recovered last December 27 is that of Khaddafy Janjalani, the acknowledged leader of the Abu Sayyaf Group,” Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, AFP chief of staff, told reporters at Camp Aguinaldo.
Esperon said the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) test results were “conclusive.” The test compared samples taken from the recovered corpse and Khadaffy’s older brother Hector Janjalani, who is detained in Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig.
The report was received by Esperon on January 20.
With this development, Esperon said the core of terrorism in the Philippines has been eliminated. “We have neutralized the center of gravity of terrorism in the Philippines,” he said.
Elements of the Third Marine Brigade under the command of Brigadier General Juancho Sabban on December 27 recovered the skeletal remains of Janjalani in a makeshift grave in the jungles of Patikul, Sulu.
The Marines found the remains with the help of two arrested Abu Sayyaf members.
Marine Spokesman Lt. Col. Ariel Caculitan said the two informants revealed that Janjalani perished following a clash with Marine troops last September 4, which also left six Marine soldiers and an unknown number of other Abu Sayyaf fighters dead.
The two said they were with Janjalani when he died and were involved in his burial.
Janjalani grew up in Isabela City in Basilan with brothers Abubakar Abdurajak and Hector. Abdurajak, an Afghanistan war veteran, was killed in a firefight with the military in Basilan. Hector, on the other hand, was captured.
Prior to his death, Janjalani was on a US list of most wanted terrorists and had $5 million bounty on his head. He was wanted for a series of beheadings, bombings and abductions in Mindanao. Esperon added that there would be no let-up in the hunt for other members of the bandit group as more troops are deployed in the Sulu and Basilan area.
“Operations Ultimatum is working,” added the Armed Forces chief, referring to the implementation of the military’s latest operational plan to crush the ASG.
He said there were reports that Abu Sayyaf bandits have split into several smaller groups in an effort to escape the government’s offensive.
Malacañang on Friday was optimistic that the government is close to disbanding the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah groups with the reported deaths of their members this week.
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MANILA -- True to form, Janice Del Rosario arrived back in the Philippines in designer clothes, sunglasses and a smile. She left minutes later in handcuffs for the same Manila-area jail where she had met her husband years earlier.
The question now for the dozen or so victims out $2 million after Del Rosario’s deportation is whether they can get the justice in the Philippines they say was denied to them in Canada.
Del Rosario, 44, and her husband, Kaye Gravador Del Rosario, 33, face a slew of fraud charges in their homeland where they stand accused of bilking some 200 police and military officers of $7 million in a pyramid-type scam.
The couple deported from Canada last weekend for a string of estafa cases in that country has also been charged with fraud in Toronto.
After appeals from their victims, mostly Filipinos or foreign nationals married to Filipino women, the Toronto police finally sued Janice and Kaye del Rosario for tricking people they befriended in Canada to invest in her business of buying and selling high-end jewelry, then running away with at least C$2 million of their savings.
The Canadian government deported Janice and her husband Kaye to Manila last weekend on the basis of an arrest warrant from the Quezon City regional trial court for a string of estafa cases here in connection with a pyramid-type scam.
The Quezon City police is preparing to charge the couple with syndicated estafa, a non-bailable offense that carries a life sentence.
The couple, who arrived Sunday with their two boys, are being held at a Quezon City jail where Kaye once worked as a jail guard and Janice was allegedly serving time for fraud.
The children, aged 13 and 8, are staying with relatives.
“She arrived looking like a movie star, and immediately got herself a top-notch lawyer,” said Cecilia Ramos, a Toronto mortgage broker who is out more than $90,000 in her dealings with Del Rosario. “I can’t believe our money is going to pay for her lawyer there.”
The Del Rosarios have retained prominent human rights lawyer Rene Saguisag to fend off the fraud charges. The former Philippine senator has handled many of the country’s controversial cases.
The chief of the police detachment where the couple is being held is Supt. Constante Agpaoa, who has accused the Del Rosarios of bilking him, his wife and several relatives of $180,000 before they fled the country in March, 2003.
Agpaoa was at the airport to personally serve the arrest warrants. Police have received numerous complaints from people claiming the couple victimized them nearly four years ago.”We are looking at laying charges of syndicated estafa, (grand scale fraud) for which there is no bail,” Agpaoa said.
Officials from the National Bureau of Investigation are combing through a number of arrest warrants for Del Rosario from different parts of the country including one for prostitution dating back to 1997.
Janice Del Rosario used the aliases Floredeliza Kong Pace and Floredeliza Tayzon, Agpaoa said. “They are one and the same person.”
In the Philippines Del Rosario is accused of defrauding dozens of people through a company that made car and home loans to police and military personnel, and of obtaining personal loans by offering sky-high interest rates.
Her victims in Toronto say she showered them with kindness, then tapped them for loans promising a return of 10 per cent for just 10 days.
Just hours before she was hustled aboard an Air Canada flight to Manila, Del Rosario was blaming her “investors” for her problems.
The fact they demanded their money back after learning she was being deported, forced her business to collapse, and she had no choice but to go into hiding. To add insult to the financial hurt, the Toronto victims say they were advised that Toronto police have laid fraud charges against Del Rosario, something they refused to do while she was still here.
“I don’t understand why they wouldn’t lay charges. The evidence didn’t change after she left the country,” said Ramos, the mortgage broker whose husband, Michael Labrecque, also loaned Del Rosario $30,000. “I am hurt and I am angry.”
“We’re outraged and disheartened,” Ramos said in an email sent to Police Chief William Blair late last week asking he intervene to ensure criminal charges were laid. The email was referred to a deputy chief for consideration.
Del Rosario left the country without telling any of her alleged victims here what happened to the approximately $2 million she took from them. Criminal charges would have staved off the deportation pending disposition of the charges in court.
Luigi Chiarotto, a 75-year-old pensioner who claims he is out $1.2 million in loans to Del Rosario, said a fraud squad investigator called him to inform him that charges have now been laid.
The Del Rosarios fled to Canada in 2003, alleging crooked police in the Philippines were constantly shaking them down for payoffs, and even tried to kidnap one of their children. An immigration adjudicator later turned down their request for asylum after finding the couple had fabricated much of their story.
A Canada-wide warrant was issued for their arrest after the couple failed to show up for deportation on Nov. 15. Janice Del Rosario was arrested last Monday, and her husband gave himself up three days later.
In the months leading to their departure, Del Rosario was desperately seeking ways to stave off the deportation, including offering three Filipina friends $25,000 if any of them would marry her 25-year-old son, who is here on a student visa.
One woman, who wants to remain anonymous, said Del Rosario offered her $25,000 if she would wed her husband, Kaye, in a marriage of convenience.
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MANILA -- Charlie “Atong” Ang, a former bosom friend of former president Joseph Estrada, has admitted that he and the deposed leader plotted to divert a P130 million tobacco excise tax. Ang made the disclosure in a motion he filed Wednesday, January 24, before the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court seeking a plea bargain on the plunder charge with which he is accused with Estrada.
In the motion, Ang promised to “return the amount of P25 million (US$510,000; €391,104) he personally took and enjoyed from the amount of P130 million he conspired with accused Joseph Estrada” to divert.
The former consultant of state-owned Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), who fled to the United States after Estrada’s downfall but was handed over by Washington last year at Manila’s request, had earlier claimed a share of the money was given to Estrada, his wife Senator Luisa “Loi” Ejercito, and their son, Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada.
Special prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio called Ang’s plea bargain bid “very significant” and said that although the plunder case against Estrada has already been submitted for resolution, Ang’s motion “will form part of the records of the case.”
Ang’s motion, he said, proved that “the allegations in the charge sheet are correct and… shows we have enough to ensure the conviction of Estrada.”
He said Ang is willing to plead guilty to charge of corruption a public official, which carries the maximum penalty of three to six years in jail.
Ang “does not want to be convicted for plunder,” which is a capital crime, Villa-Ignacio said.
The Sandiganbayan Special Division, which is hearing the plunder case, has scheduled a hearing on Ang’s plea bargain motion on Monday.
Estrada’s spokesman Rufus Rodriguez said, however, the deal won’t affect the case since it has not been introduced as evidence against Estrada.
“As far as Estrada is concerned, it does not exist at all,” Rodriguez said.
Estrada is accused of amassing about 4 billion pesos (US$81 million; €62 million) in payoffs from illegal gambling operations, tobacco tax kickbacks and commissions. He also is charged with perjury for allegedly falsely declaring his assets.
He has denied any wrongdoing and accused his successor, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, of conspiring with the country’s elite, Roman Catholic church leaders and some senior military officers to oust him.
Rodriguez said that if Ang is presented as a witness against Estrada, they will confront him with a statement he made during a Senate investigation in 2000 in which he denied there had been any tax kickbacks.
Rodriguez recalled that Estrada’s defense lawyers argued during his plunder trial that it was physically impossible for Ang to carry P130 million pesos in cash -- which would have weighed 130 kilograms (287 pounds) -- into the former president’s suburban residence.
Ang was extradited in November from the United States, to where he fled several months after Estrada was toppled in the 2001 “people power” revolt.
He was among Estrada’s closest associates even before Estrada was elected president in 1998.
Video footage allegedly showing Ang, Estrada and others playing a card game in a local casino has been shown on local television. (MNS)
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