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Founded in 1986
Founding Publisher/Editor:
Lito A. Gajilan
Columnists:
Atty. Michael J. Gurfinkel
Joseph G. Lariosa
Gani P. Tolentino
Ted L. Reyes
Atty. Reuben S. Seguritan
Photographers:
Butch Gata
Sheryl Garcia
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not reflect the opinion of the paper nor that of the publisher
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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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To tell us what you think about Filipino Express Online or to comment on the stories published here, E-mail us at Filexpress@aol.com
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ELECTION is usually the time when the public exercises its right to choose the leaders whom it believe are the right people who will provide a better life for the nation.
But in this coming May elections, particularly the senatorial race, do the Filipino people really have a choice?
There are two major parties running: the pro-Gloria Arroyo so-called Team Unity, and the Erap Estrada-backed Genuine Opposition.
It can be recalled that former President Estrada was booted out of power in 2001 because of allegations of rampant corruption. In 2005, President Arroyo nearly followed Estrada’s footsteps out of Malacañang because of widespread accusations that she cheated her way to victory in the 2004 presidential elections.
As such, it is not hard to assume that voting for the Gloria Arroyo party could mean condoning her alleged electoral abuse. And vice versa, supporting Estrada’s Senate 12 could be construed as letting him get away with the charges he is accused of.
What if the individual voter is someone who joined the throng at EDSA to demand Erap’s ouster, and later joined the call for Arroyo’s resignation or impeachment?
Compounding the problem is that neither party have a clear program of action. The opposition’s basis of unity is merely their hatred for Gloria. The pro-Gloria team is united by their being snubbed by the opposition and the convenience of running under a resource-rich administration party.
The pro-GMA and the pro-Erap divide in this coming Senate elections only confirmed the long -held belief that there is no real platform-based party system in the Philippines. Political scientists have always decribed the political party system in the Philippines as “tweedle-dum, tweedle-dee” - meaning, there is no fundamental ideological difference between or among existing parties.
What we have is actually a politics based on personalities who are running under political parties not because they believe in them but because they offer convenient vehicles for the politicians’ political ambitions.
The thing, however, with personality-based parties, is that they live and die with their creators. Unlike parties deeply rooted in ideology, personality-based political parties come and go. Classic examples would be Marcos’ Kilusang Bagong Lipunan and the Aquino-Cojuangco’s Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino.
KBL was virtually a monolith during the heydays of Marcos, while LDP lorded it over during the term of President Aquino. But KBL collapsed when Marcos was booted out of power in 1986, while LDP became a mere shadow of its own self when Aquino stepped down in 1992.
Perhaps that is the only good thing about personality-based political parties.
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Dilemma of RNs, PTs who are Out-of-Status
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Editor’s Note: REUBEN S. SEGURITAN has been practicing law for over 30 years. For further information, you may call him at 212 695 5281 or log on to his website at www.seguritan.com
THE visa retrogression that hit Schedule A occupations last November like registered nurses (RNs) and physical therapists (PTs) has made a tremendous impact on the influx of immigrant workers to the US.
The unavailability of visa numbers in general has created tremendous difficulties in particular for foreign RNs and PTs in the US who wish to adjust their status to permanent residency. We have received several inquiries from them and they usually fall under either one of two situations.
There are those who have passed their licensure exams and have found employers willing to sponsor them for adjustment of status to permanent resident. There are also those who were able to file their adjustment applications before the retrogression but their applications were denied because they could not submit their Visa Screen certificates before the deadline set by the USCIS.
Quite a number of these foreign RNs and PTs have overstayed their temporary visa status.
In an ideal world where immigrant visa numbers are still available (or at least where they would definitely be available within 6 months from expiration of their status), these foreign RNs and PTs could invoke Section 245 (k) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This provision allows them to apply for adjustment of status within 180 days from the time their authorized stay expired provided they have not otherwise violated the conditions of their stay.
But the situation at present is far from ideal. There are no available visa numbers for them and no one can tell when Congress will get around to legislating additional visa numbers.
Unfortunately, this puts those who have overstayed their temporary visas in a very tight spot. If they leave the US because they cannot adjust status, the 3-year / 10-year bar will kick in and they can kiss their dreams of getting a job in the US goodbye.
Under immigration laws, those who have overstayed their temporary visa for over six months but less than a year will be barred from reentering the US for 3 years, while those who have overstayed for more than a year will be barred from reentering for 10 years.
It is still hard to say at this point when Congress will get around to passing the immigration reform law that would ease the visa backlog. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the Judiciary Committee Chairman who led the passing of the Senate immigration reform bill last year, had reportedly discussed with Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) the need to get the bill done within the year.
As with most things, timing is crucial. Foreign RNs and PTs are well advised to consult an immigration attorney to discuss their options and hopefully, provide answers to the dilemma created by the visa retrogression.
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CHICAGO, Illinois – Away from the public radar, Chicago, Illinois was host to a two-day workshop last week called “Ethnic Media Watchdog Workshops” under the co-sponsorship of the Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., the McCormick Tribune Foundation and the New America Media.
But for about 50 ethnic journalists, like this columnist, the workshop, though underpublicized, was an event you would attend and drop anything you are doing.
So important was the workshop to this bunch of journalists that even one them, Miss Amee Enriquez, editor of Asian Journal, left the warm climate of Los Angeles, California and traveled to the frigid Chicago for the event.
When I asked Amee if her trip was well worth it, she told me that she enjoyed every minute of it.
Indeed the handful of Filipino American journalists, mostly members of the Chicago-based National Press Club of the Philippines in the United States, who got wind post-haste about the workshop, learned a thing or two that were helpful to their trade.
Guidestar.org
Jerry Clarito, one of those from the NPC-Phil. U.S.A., who attended the workshop, realized that the oft-repeated allegations posted by Los Angeles activist Bobby M. Reyes on the Internet, nagging the officers of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations to make public its accounting records, can be easily accessed by registering in the website of guidestar.org.
“You don’t have to pay for a plane ticket to fly to Washington, D.C. nor spend for hotel accommodation when you wanted to inspect the books of NaFFAA.” Mr. Clarito told me, nudging me to relay his message to Mr. Reyes about his “find.” The flaming monotony of Mr. Reyes’ demand to inspect the books of NaFFAA prompted him to coin the acronym, “ATIC,” which stands for the tenets of Accountability, Transparency, Integrity and Credibility.
Of course, workshop participants also learned that the best editor is someone, who is blind. According to one of the resource speakers, if a reporter would construct a story, he should be able to let a blind figure out what you are telling him. The blind should be able to form an opinion by one’s retelling of events.
Nuts and bolts
Of course, the “nuts and bolts” of the workshop is to learn techniques in gathering information in the most inexpensive way, among them subscribing to some websites that yield a treasure trove of information.
As if by design, the members of the NPC-Phil. U.S.A., who attended the workshop, will get another dose of information from one of its resource speakers, who travels all the way from Los Angeles to attend the inaugural of the new officers and members of the press club on March 3 from noon to 4 p.m. at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois.
At this star-studded event that will be highlighted by the induction of officers and members led by its new president, Ms. Yoly T. Tubalinal, publisher-editor of the Chicago-based Fil-Am Weekly Megascene, Atty. Alma Luna-Reyes who is based in from Los Angeles will be discussing the topic, “The Exercise of Reasonable Journalism.”
Ms. Luna-Reyes, publisher of Forum Asia Magazine, will give away a pro-bono advice to journalists on how “expensive libel suits and inconvenient court appearances can be avoided through reasonable but effective exercise of press freedom and privilege.”
She will tell them that this holy grail of journalism, when they can extricate themselves from libel and/or damage suits, could be attained only when journalists learn their rights and are mindful of the responsibilities that come with those rights.
On hand to listen to Ms. Luna-Reyes are Mr. Larry Wert, president and general manager of NBC Channel 5; Mr. Allen Rafalson, president of the Chicago Journalists Association; AAN News anchor Miss Lily Kim, president of the Asian American Media Coalition; Mr. Mike Comerford, senior business writer of Daily Herald; Ms. Rose Tibayan, producer and media adviser of Medialink Worldwide Chicago bureau; Philippine Vice Consul Roberto Bernardo; and artist Mr. Fred DeAsis, who will exhibit his works during a silent auction; and of course the officers, members and guests of the NPC-Phil. U.S.A.
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GIDDY from election syndrome, Cebu finds that its most bandied-about word today comes from Scotland of 1555: “blackmail.” That’s tribute exacted by freebooting warlords in exchange for immunity from pillage.
“Blackmail!” snapped the provincial government, after a city council, dominated by Mayor Tomas Osmeña, approved a resolution that ordered: Freeze clearances for Capitol to develop, on a 2.8-hectare province-owned lot, a modern city-within-a-city to be known as “Ciudad,” unless...
Unless Governor Gwen Garcia swapped a P3.2-billion worth of provincial lots for a city plot worth P415 million, the mayor said. That’d protect his 5,000 constituents. Otherwise, Ciudad clearances could take a decade. “Deal or no deal?” Osmeña asked.
This swap-or-stew offer is “blackmail,” Provincial Board’s Victor Maambong erupted. “Ciudad is unrelated to the land swap. To use it as leverage is unfair.” But fairness isn’t a priority for a city hall hemorrhaging from its P1.5-million daily interest payment for Osmeña’s “imploding” yen loans. A value-for-value swap, as Capitol suggests, would financially “dislocate us,” the mayor argued.
It would. Osmeña wangled a P1.9-billion loan, for a reclamation project, from Tokyo when a dollar fetched P26. Serial devaluations ballooned that IOU to P6.3 billion. Every city resident today is handcuffed to a debt burden of P60,654 – compared to the P44,548 for 85 million Filipinos.
Nothing rattles the business sector more than when merit-based rules are held hostage, “in exchange for immunity from pillage,” by political whim.
But “there’re no standards,” even for Cebu City Charter Day honorees, Osmeña explains. “I pick whoever is meritorious.” Thus, he anointed his close-in security cop, garlanded with murder charges, as co-honoree, together with the Philippine President. “It’s a question of dosage,” he said of the criteria in judging not Viagra, but 172 summary executions by vigilantes.
The city council long swapped the duty to question policy for comfortable subservience, Sun Star noted. “This is a harem of eunuchs.” So, did Osmeña expect the lady-governor also to cave in to swap-or-stew threats?
“Watch me,” Governor Garcia replied. For a start, she (a) reminded City Hall that the province owned the landmark Fuente Osmeña; (b) issued eviction notices to offices occupying province-owned properties, from the Cebu City Police Office to the Center for Rehabilitation of Drug Dependents; (c) closed two access roads carved from provincial lots.
“We’ll open those roads under Local Government Code powers,” Osmeña fumed. The mayor has a point there. The courts, in fact, whacked him for barricading a road his city did not own: the national government’s six-lane 12-kilometer South Coastal Road.
The almost half-year barricade burned millions in lost revenues, gas, time, and tempers for thousands of commuters.
“I didn’t close that road but merely regulated it,” Osmeña claimed after the court ordered his bus-barricades out.
“Why not relocate affected occupants in the city’s 296-hectare South Reclamation Project?” multi-awarded DySS commentator Bobby Nalzaro suggested. “We don’t want hostile tenants,” was the curt reply. City Hall will fight for the embattled families to the last square meter – of somebody else’s property.
In a land brawl, however, a Torrens title is the trump card. And the governor played it early. “I’ll make it easier for the mayor. He does not have to give up property, nor go down on bended knees (as he offered). I’ll directly deal with the 2,725 affected occupants. The lot swap does not need to go on... End of story.”
That surgically excised Osmeña out of the negotiations. “The decision was like manna,” he said. Well, not quite. This is a long-term problem where major factors are subtle. Smell the demographics. Migrants swell Cebu’s population at twice the national rate. That ratchets pressure for an urban policy that swap-or-stew governance hasn’t crafted.
A sprawling metropolis like Cebu needs leaders of vision and whittled-down egos to mesh efforts. Capitol is flexing property and treasury muscle after stagnation under Governor Pablo Garcia – the lady governor’s father. Cebu City is hamstrung by debt and feudal governance. Leaders of varying integrity and competence govern next door cities of Talisay, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu. Without exception, they have sour relations with Osmeña.
The “quiet revolution” in governance is for local governments to trim sails, stop doles, and harness the private sector in partnership models, Asian Development Bank notes. “The powerful desire of the poor to acquire and use assets, to improve well-being and reduce their vulnerability” can be a powerful force to move beyond 19th century municipal structures.
“When elephants fight, the grass is trampled.” So, cooler heads, like Ricardo Cardinal Vidal and Deputy Speaker Raul del Mar, quietly grope for solutions. Swap is out. But “as a sign of good faith,” the governor pledged to stop evictions while Capitol negotiates with the occupants.
He’d complain to the President about eviction notices for national offices, Osmeña said. Are they not occupying “friar land” owned by the national government? She can even flip-flop and reverse her certification as urgent that enabled Congress to approve Representative Raul del Mar’s bill (No. 4993), which recognized titles of private owners to former friar lands.
“This is transparency,” Osmeña claims, “not blackmail.” There’s that Scottish word again. Or is this just recycled swap-or-stew?
E-mail: juanlmercado@gmail.
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US exports real estate crisis
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THE bursting of the US real estate bubble in 2005 may have a much serious repercussion than at first perceived. It appears its aftermath will not only be local but could escalate into a global problem. And when that happens, the housing problem that America planted will return to our shores as a worldwide recession.
A global economic disaster of similar magnitude took place a decade ago. Russia defaulted on its foreign debts and the well remembered Asian financial crisis developed. The event caused a widespread weakening of global growth. The US suffered a recession. This time around, the spark that will light the fuse to a financial explosion will be the developing deterioration of the US home mortgage market.
Economists Mark Zandi and Juan Manuel Licari of Moody’s recently pointed out the dangers rising from the surging delinquencies and defaults in the real estate market. The two said that investors in other parts of the world succumbed to the temptation and rode on the US housing boom of the last several years.
As early as 2005 we wrote that the real estate industry and the mortgage banking sector went out to paint the town red. They got carried by the housing boom and came out with all sorts of creative products which, in effect, lowered credit standards. There was an unprecedented surge in home sales.. Variable rates. No downpayment. Interests only payments.
A total of $3.2 trillion in mortgages were written. The volume exceeded half of the total volume of US treasury notes.It is estimated that 20 percent of the mortgages taken out were subprime -- loans to borrowers with very poor credit. Being an active realtor ourselves, we personally witnessed the frenzy in the market. Demand pushed home prices up. Commissions went down from 6 to 3 percent in Jersey City. Vacant lots suddenly were being snapped up so new homes could be built and sold for $600,000 and over. Old houses were sold to be torn down and replaced by new units. The newly built houses were being presold even before they were finished.
Mortgage banks allowed borrowers to take out loans without documenting income and without making a downpayment. The subprime lenders were not obligated to follow the tougher regulations that apply to commercial banks. They were able to turn around and sell their mortgage accounts to finance more subprime borrowers.
Towards the end of his term. Fed Chairman Greenspan was still continually raising interest rates to reign in potential inflation. But then, the rising rates started to reverse the prevailing trend. It began to drive borrowers from the market. The number of declined applicants started to rise. Builders of new homes started to experience a slowdown in the market. Real estate agents felt a slower movement of existing units. Presently newly appointed Fed Chairman Bernanke, still wary of inflationary signs, announced continuous rate increases.
With the rate increases in 2006, mortgage delinquencies started to soar. Defaults jumped. Homeowners who encountered amortizing problems have difficulty refinancing or selling their properties. Home prices are no longer increasing in many parts of the country.
In an editorial this week entitled “Mortgage Insecurities”, the New York Times reported delinquency rates are expected to peak next year at over 3 percent, which is well over above the level of the last recession. “Many of these risky mortgages were sold to investment banks who carved them up into complex IOU’s that they sold to investors worldwide. More than 20 percent of global private debt securities is now tied to housing in the US. That works out to $7.5 trillion -- far larger than the market for US Treasuries. So if America’s mortgage market heads south, the losses could be widespread.
“There is not a lot now that can be done about the risks in the mortgage market. But the growing possibility of hard times ahead is another argument for rolling back many of the recent excessive tax cuts, so the government will have more resources available to respond if a crisis comes.”
With the behavior of the lending rates still uncertain, the recovery of the housing market is still up in the air. There are other uncertainties bugging the economic equations such as the troubling nuclear proliferation problem of Iran. Then there is the ongoing muddled Iraqi situation, which remains a threat to the price of oil. The inflation indicators have not sufficiently stabilized to make the Fed decide to ease up on interest rates.
Yes, realtors and mortgage banks will still have to continue cutting down their operating expenses to be sure they are ready when times turn from hard to harder.
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Michael J. Gurfinkel has been an attorney for over 26 years, and is an active member of the State Bar of California and New York, as well as the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Immigration Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He has always excelled in school:
Valedictorian in High School; Cum Laude at UCLA; and Law Degree Honors and academic scholar at Loyola Law School, which is one of the top law schools in California.
WEBSITE: www.gurfinkel.com
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60 East 42nd Street, Suite 2101, New York, NY 10165 Telephone: (212) 808-0300
PHILIPPINES:
Heart Tower, Unit 701, 108 Valero Street, Salcedo Village, Makati, Philippines 1227
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