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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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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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SUBDIVIDED HOUSE. Mona Lisa Daos (inset) runs this two-storey house at 265 E. Chester ST. in Long Beach, Nassau County, NY as a 16-room boarding house with 29 occupants. (Photos courtesy of Newsday)
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LONG BEACH, New York -- A Filipina landlord is facing a $30,000 increase in her property tax bill after city officials accused her of operating an illegal rooming house where 29 tenants were crammed into 16 units in a two-family house.
Long Beach Zoning Inspector Richard Schuh called the house at 265 E. Chester St. “one of the worst rooming-house situations this city has seen in quite some time,” Newsday reported.
Nassau County Assessor Harvey Levinson said it was one of the worst illegal conversions of a private home into a rooming house in county history, and he said he would move to change its tax status from residential to commercial.
Landlord Mona Liza Daos is now paying $7,905.25 in combined city and school taxes on the $786,000 property, a spokesman for Levinson said Friday. That will increase to $37,975.43 if the assessor’s office can make the switch for next year’s tax rolls, the spokesman said.
Authorities discovered the rooming house Feb. 2 as Schuh and an inspection team were wrapping up a night shift, and decided to make one last stop at 265 E. Chester St. to follow up on an anonymous complaint.
Inside the two-story home just a couple of blocks east of City Hall, the team found 29 people crammed into 16 separate rooms, sharing two bathrooms and two kitchens, according to a complaint filed Friday in City Court in Long Beach.
Daos’ lawyer, Maria Aramanda, said in a statement released later that Daos came from a Filipino community, “where family and friends take care of each other, especially those in need ... She is not a profiteer who capitalized on providing housing.”
“I got on the phone -- It was about 11 p.m. -- and said: ‘Boss. You’d better get down here,’” Schuh said he told Buildings Commissioner Scott Kemins.
On the second floor, they found a fairly typical tenant: Bruno, a Russian immigrant who told them he paid $800 a month for the 10-foot by 15-foot room he shared with his wife and two children.
They said the man told them that his family shared a kitchen and bathroom with tenants in the other six room on that floor.
Rents apparently ran from a low of $275 a month to a high of $800, and Daos took in an estimated $100,000 annually, in cash, according to Levinson.
Levinson appeared in court Friday, Februray 9, and told Judge Stanley Smolkin that the case was being referred to state and federal tax authorities.
Daos stood silently next to her attorney, Aramanda, who said her client was trying to fix the 16 code violations lodged by the city and relocate the tenants.
Schuh and Kemins said outside the courtroom that the illegal rooming house might have escaped notice for more than a year, in part because most of the occupants were immigrants who did not own cars.
The initial complaints about illegal conversions of homes to rooming houses often come from neighbors when parking spaces become difficult to find, they said.
They said it would be up to the landlord, who faces fines up to $2,500 for each violation, to deal with any tenants who might have to be moved out.
They also found something unusual in two of the rooms -- webcams. Tenants told them they were hooked to satellite dishes on the roof, and connected them to family in their native countries.
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JERSEY CITY -- Filipino American Achilles “Butz” Amante, his three sons and his sister have been indicted on charges they conspired to steal $573,383 from NJ state by submitting fraudulent applications for 745 Homestead Rebate checks.
Attorney General Stuart Rabner and Criminal Justice Director Gregory A. Paw said all six of the defendants were indicted by a state grand jury on charges of first-degree conspiracy, first-degree money laundering and second-degree theft by deception.
Paw identified the defendants as Achilles “Butz” Amante, 55; his sister, Matilda Amante Ramos, 56; and his three sons, Aristides Amante, 27, Amorito “Angelo” A. Amante, 33, Aloysius M. Amante, 31, and American Paul Sarris, 50.
The indictment was returned on Feb. 5, but was sealed until Friday pending execution of arrest warrants.
On Tuesday, February 6, state investigators from the Division of Criminal Justice - Major Financial Crimes Bureau arrested Matilda Amante Ramos, Aristides Amante and Angelo Amante in Jersey City.
They were assisted by agents from the U.S. Social Security Administration and the Jersey City Police Department.
On Wednesday, February 7, state investigators arrested Aloysius M. Amante in Somerville.
The defendants were transported to Mercer County Jail, where they were being held in lieu of bail. Sarris and Butz Amante remain at large.
Filipino American community leaders said Butz Amante had returned to the Philippines many years ago, but his business had been managed by his children.
“The indictment alleges that these defendants were systematically stealing funds intended to assist property taxpayers in New Jersey,” said Attorney General Rabner.
“As our state works to provide comprehensive property tax relief for New Jerseyans, we’ll continue to work with the Division of Taxation to investigate and prosecute those who try to defraud these programs,” he said.
Matilda Amante Ramos ran a travel agency, while all of the other defendants operated their own financial service companies offering tax preparation services.
Between August 2001 and September 2003, the six defendants allegedly filed 745 false Homestead Rebate applications with the State of New Jersey, including multiple applications for each of 15 residential and commercial addresses they rented in Jersey City.
The defendants allegedly filed the applications using names and Social Security numbers obtained from tax preparation clients, without permission of the clients.
The defendants allegedly laundered the $573,383 in stolen funds by depositing the rebate checks in various commercial bank accounts maintained for their businesses.
The indictment is merely an accusation and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. First-degree charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in state prison and a criminal fine of $200,000, while second-degree charges carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $150,000.
Many Filipino Americans were shocked when they learned about the case against the Amantes.
Ronnie Lapuz said for many years he had allowed Amante’s accounting firm — Mabuhay Accounting -- to do his tax return papers.
Lapuz said he used to pay $65 to Amante’s accountants to do his tax returns. “ I was shocked when his children were arrested because I thought what he was doing was legal,” said Lapuz.
A member of Filipino American Chamber of Commerce in Jersey City said he had known in the past that Amante was engaged in illegal activities, and that was the reason he went back to the Philippines.
He said this was the second time Amante was charged with fraud. In the past, Amante was investigated by the IRS in connection with his questionable tax refund operations.
“We have to make sure as business owners that we abide the law. Amante is not our member. I think he is hiding in the Philippines. In times of difficulties, we help each other’s members. But not Amante. His is a serious case,” said a Filipino business owner who is a member of Chamber of Commerce in Jersey City.
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NEW YORK CITY -- Getting married at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day sounds like the stuff of cinematic fantasy, but on February 14, Valentine’s Day, it becamr a reality for Jersey City childhood sweethearts Elaine Magallon and Christian Jorda.
Magallon and Jorda, both 24 and Filipinos, were chosen as one of only 14 couples to be married this year in arguably one of the world’s most romantic settings on Valentine’s Day - 11 years to the day after they started dating.
The two met as sixth-graders at Our Lady of Victories School, on Ege Avenue, and after a few youthful false starts at “going out,” got together for good in eighth grade on Feb. 14, 1996.
The Empire State Building has had a special place in the couple’s romance since their college years, when Jorda would cross town from St. Peter’s College in Jersey City to visit Magallon at Stevens Institute of Technology on the Hoboken waterfront.
“The Empire State Building was my night light,” wrote Magallon in the letter that convinced Empire State Building officials to choose the couple for the building’s Wedding Club, which includes all the couples married at the annual event since 1993.
“When we’re not together and I see (the building), I think of him because we always talked about what the color of the lights might mean for that night.”
Jorda proposed last September by bringing Magallon to their sixth grade classroom under the pretense that their former teacher had photos to give them. When Magallon looked at the back of the four photos from middle school, she saw that they formed the sentence “Will you marry me?”
The couple knew about the Empire State Building Wedding Club from searching online for the meanings of the light colors, so Elaine sent the building a letter with their story and pictures.
“A friend said it wouldn’t hurt to try,” she says. “We couldn’t believe we got picked, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
As Magallon wrote in her letter, “the next time we see the Empire State Building after Valentine’s Day 2007, it will mean so much more than my college night light and our little guessing game.”
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CHICAGO – The Philippines will now be a testing site of the United States’ National Commission for the Licensure Examination (NCLEX), according to Faith Fields, president of the Chicago, Illinois-based National Council of State Board of Nursing, Inc. (NCSBN).
In announcing the decision to a shocked Philippine delegation headed by Commission on Filipinos Overseas Chairman Dante A. Ang over cocktail and dinner hosted by the NCSBN at Chicago’s Intercon Hotel Thursday, Feb. 8, Fields said the members of the 15-person NCSBN board were impressed by the one hour and a half “inter-agency” presentation by the visiting Philippine delegation, which assured the NCSBN that the Philippines can guarantee the integrity of the examinations and the safety of those administering the examinations.
The Philippine delegation assured NCSBN that the nursing examination leakage last June was an isolated case. The perpetrators involved in the cheating have already been investigated and are being prosecuted.
The decision was also guided by the two field trips to the Philippines taken by Donney Dorsey, past president of the NCSBN, last March, followed by Ms. Fields’ visit last October, when she had an audience with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacanang.
“Dr. Ang immediately relayed the message of the good news to Philippine Consul General Blesila C. Cabrera,” according to Philippine Vice Consul Roberto Bernar do, who broke the news to this reporter.
Only a day earlier, Consul General Cabrera hosted Dr. Ang and the Philippine delegation cocktails and snacks at the Consulate, where they explained the objectives of their mission.
“The first NCLEX will likely be held in three months,” according to CFO’s Rino D. Paez, senior emigrant services officer. “The Pearson Vue, which administers the NCLEX in the US and in other countries, will still conduct inspection of buildings for the exam sites and other logistical operations. This will probably take three months.”
Pearson Vue has been conducting three other tests in the Philippines, like G-MAT (Graduate Management Admission Test), and professional testing center for Microsoft certification, in areas, including Mindanao.
Fields, who was accompanied by NCSBN’s Executive Director Cathy Apple and Casey Marks, the board’s associate executive director for business operations, was joined in by Philippine delegation, aside from Ang and Paez, namely, Dr. Carmelita Abaquin, chairperson of the Board of Nursing; Elfren Meneses of the anti-fraud and copyright office of the National Bureau of Investigation; Aris Santos, Chief of Staff of Department of Labor Secretary Arturo Brion; Leah Paquiz and Ruth Padilla, incumbent and past president, respectively, of the Philippine Nurses Association; and Pearson Vue’s consultant, Fraser Kargill.
The fee for taking NCLEX is $300 plus $150 for internal testing. While there is an average of 12,000 Filipino nurses taking NCLEX every year, there were 15,000 Filipino nurses who took NCLEX last year.
Passing NCLEX is the basic requirement to apply for a nursing job in the United States. This test is offered in the United States and other countries namely Hong Kong, South Korea or London, England. Six other countries were added to the list – Taiwan, India, Canada, Germany, Japan and Mexico. The NCSB’s decision Thursday, February 08, makes the Philippines the seventh.
Filipino nurses make up 50 to 60 percent of the total examinees worldwide. About 50 percent of Filipino examinees pass the NCLEX.
Because NCLEX will be held in the Philippines, Filipino nursing examinees taking the tests will be saving a lot of money for their plane tickets and hotel accommodation to such neighboring testing sites as Hongkong, Seoul, South Korea, Taiwan, Guam or Saipan.
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