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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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MANILA -- It’s final.
Passers of the June 2006 nursing licensure exam intending to work in the United States will have to retake the leakage-tainted portions of the test and pass it to be eligible for VisaScreen Certification, an immigration requirement to obtain work visa in the US.
A task force from the Philippines failed to convince the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) International in a meeting Monday night, March 5, that a retake won’t be necessary.
In a statement posted on its website March 5, CGFNS stood firm on its February 14 decision to deny VisaScreen Certification to the June 2006 passers of the Philippine nursing licensure exam.
The task force led by Bacolod City Rep. Monico Puentevella met “in extended discussion” at the CGFNS headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA with CGFNS Board of Trustees president Dr. Lucille Joel, chief executive officer Dr. Barbara Nichols, and counsel to CGFNS John Ratigan.
“After listening to and reviewing the concerns of the delegation, Joel and Nichols explained that CGFNS’s decision was based on the requirements of US law and was not subject to re-negotiation or further review,” the CGFNS statement said.
“As Dr. Nichols advised [Professional Regulation Commission chair Leonor Tripon Rosero, the decision on this issue made and announced by the CGFNS Board of Trustees on February 14 was unanimous,” it further stated.
“That decision is final, and will not be reconsidered,” it declared. “The Philippine delegation accepted that fact.”
Puentevella’s group had asked President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to defer decision for a retake of Test 3 (Medical Surgical Nursing) and Test 5 (Psychiatric Mental Health) in compliance with the CGFNS decision on February 14 to deny VisaScreen Certification to the Filipino nurses who passed the June 2006 exam.
Earlier, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol said the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) should already set the date for the exam retake without waiting for an executive order to be signed by Mrs Arroyo.
Presidential Chief of Staff Joey Salceda said the Arroyo government can shoulder the cost of the exam retake by drawing money from the contingency funds.
All 17,323 passers in the June 2006 nursing licensure exam had been sworn in as licensed nurses on the basis of a decision by the Court of Appeals in October.
Some 1,687 of the passers who qualified after a re-computation of the compromised test results took Tests 3 and 5 along with the regular batch of first-time examinees last December 2 and 3, 2006.
“The sooner the responsible authorities in the Philippines move forward to implement the steps for a re-take of Tests 3 and 5, without the need for Philippine nurses to surrender their current licenses in order to do so, the better it will be for all concerned,” the CGNFS said.
“We hope that is the message the delegation will take back to the Philippines -- that the time for challenges and delegations is past,” the CGFNS said further.
Puentevella left Sunday morning for Philadelphia with Rosero, Dr. Remigia Nathanielz representing the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and Philippine Nurses Association, and Renato Aquino, leader of the Alliance of New Nurses that is against a retake.
Interviewed the day before departing for the US, Puentevella said the team was aware that it was faced with what he described as “mission impossible.” Nonetheless, he said it was willing to take the last remaining opportunity to personally appeal the decision for the possibility of reconsideration.
“We are doing this for the sake of 17,000 families, not just the nurses, but their families who are suffering because of this decision,” Puentevella said.
“We just want to take this one last chance. If we succeed, well and good. If we don’t succeed, at least it can be said that we tried our best, but our best wasn’t good enough,” he said.
During the meeting in Philadelphia, the CGFNS officials explained to the Philippine team that the February 14 decision “was based on US law, and what US law required of CGFNS in the circumstances of the June 2006 examination.”
“The key question was not what Philippine authorities did, but what US authorities would have done in similar circumstances,” the statement said.
Drs. Joel and Nichols also explained to the task force that CGFNS determined that the controversy “was handled in a way that was not comparable to the way it had been handled in the US.”
Further, it said CGFNS has been gathering information on the issue almost since it occurred in June. In fact, the announcement noted that Dr. Nichols led a fact-finding team to Manila in September 2006 for that purpose.
“CGFNS has been well and thoroughly informed of developments throughout this process,” it said.
As early as October 26, 2006, CGFNS said it already questioned the eligibility for VisaScreen certification of the Philippine nurses who passed the June 2006 nursing licensing exam based on the widespread allegations that it had been compromised.
“The CGFNS Board of Trustees directed its staff and counsel to review and assess whether the licensure process based on the challenged results of the June 2006 exam is ‘comparable’ with that required for nurses licensed in America, as required by US law,” it explained.
“CGFNS then made a final determination on February 14, 2007 that the licensure process was not comparable and moved to deny VisaScreen certification for Philippine Nurses Who Passed the Compromised June 2006 Philippine Licensure Examination,” it further said.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told Congress on Wednesday, March 7, slammed the US’ immigration policies and urged lawmakers to scrap the limits on temporary visas for skilled workers.
Gates said with its policy for restricting the entry of skilled workers, the US is shutting the door on the best and the brightest at a time when the country needed it the most.
Gates said the nation’s economy depends on keeping the country’s borders open to highly skilled workers, especially those with a science or engineering background.
Federal law provides 65,000 H1-B visas for scientists, engineers, computer programmers and other professionals every budget year. High-tech and other employers say that’s not enough.
“Even though it may not be realistic, I don’t think there should be any limit,” Gates said, adding that Microsoft hasn’t been able to fill approximately 3,000 technical jobs in the United States because of a shortage of skilled workers.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said the issue would be addressed when Congress takes up broad immigration reform legislation this session. President Bush has expressed support for raising the visa cap.
Gates continued his lobby for more H1B visas in another forum.
“The theory behind the H-1B (visa) - -that too many smart people are coming - -that’s what’s questionable,” Gates said Wednesday, March 7, during a panel discussion at the Library of Congress.
“It’s very dangerous. You can get this idea that the world is very scary; let’s cut back on travel...let’s cut back on visas.”
Immigration quotas on H-1B visas have long been a sore spot for Microsoft and other technology companies. But, Gates said, the increased caliber of research institutions in China and India means that curbs on immigration and guest-workers will pose a greater threat to America’s competitiveness than ever before.
Gates’ comments verged on sarcastic. He said that “it’s almost an issue of a centrally-controlled economy versus” and then trailed off. “I’d certainly get rid of the H-1B visa caps,” he added when asked what he would do if he could write U.S. laws. “That’s one of the easiest decisions.”
Gates said even Canadian employees have received similarly poor treatment: “It doesn’t make any sense. We’ll have Canadians sitting on the border until some bureaucratic thing happens.”
He said that for fiscal year 2008, H-1B visas are expected to run out next month. The current cap of 65,000 for H-1b visa was arbitrarily set by Congress. This means that U.S. employers will not be able to get H-1B visas for an entire crop of foreign U.S. graduates.
He said that barring high-skilled immigrants from entry to the U.S. and forcing the ones that were here to leave because they could not obtain a visa, ultimately forces U.S. employers to shift development work and other critical projects offshore.
Gates urged Congress to approve the path to permanent resident status for highly skilled workers.
“We have to welcome the great minds in this world, not shut them out of our country,” Gates said. The Senate panel headed by Senator Edward Kennedy was creating policies that would lead to “Strengthening American Competitiveness for the 21st century” with Gates as the principal witness.
An organization of Filipino domestic workers, Damayan, wlecomed Gates’ pronouncement.
“ The fact that this issue( the insufficient number of H-1B visas ) has gotten the attntion of America’s top billionaire speak loudly about the need of corporate America for foreign high skilled workers,” Damayan said in a statement. -- with a report from Rita Villadiego
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MANILA -- The Department of Foreign Affairs has made an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court that it be allowed to proceed with an electronic passport project, saying the risk that no passport booklets could be issued after June 2007 “is real and imminent.”
In the petition, the DFA, together with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, said there was no way they could produce new passport booklets as the “2007 General Appropriations Act does not provide for the production of the old passports.”
“The current supply of old, handwritten passport booklets would run out before June 2007. The risk that no passports could be issued after June 2007 is real and imminent,” the two government agencies told the high tribunal.
“The government simply cannot allow the chaotic event to occur -- being hostage as it is by an improperly issued writ of preliminary injunction,” they said in their petition.
The DFA issues 7,500 passports a day or some two million a year.
The DFA has planned to implement the e-passport project this year and did not order for the replenishment of the old passports. The e-passport will upgrade the current passport to one that is biometric and interoperable with systems throughout the world.
But the project has been on hold after the Pasig regional trial court issued in February a temporary restraining order based on the petition of the BCA Corp., which in 2000 signed a build-operate-transfer (BOT) agreement with the DFA for the machine-readable passport/visa project (MRPVP).
At the same time, they said the issuance of a new five-year passport “would be impractical” since by 2010 it would no longer be acknowledged as a travel document because it falls short of the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) specifications setting no less than the e-passport as the standard passport by 2010.”
“Inevitably, passport-holders, regardless of the five-year expiry, would have to secure an e-passport before 2010. It is therefore, imperative, that the e-passports be made available soonest,” they explained.
“Without a travel document that is compliant with international standards within the specified period, traveling Filipinos and the more than eight million overseas Filipino workers (would be adversely affected,” the petition said.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Eleven Filipino human rights advocates are on their way to Washington, D.C. to present a report on the unabated and unpunished series of politically motivated murders in the Philippines and to ask US Church leaders and the US Congress to exert pressure on the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to put an end to the killings.
Since January 2001, the number of persons killed in political assassinations has reached 833, according to a Philippine human rights group, Karapatan (literally, “right” or Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights). For 2006 alone, 207 were felled by extra-judicial killings, which translates to an average of four persons killed per week.
The delegation will meet with leaders from the different Church denominations in the United States during an International Ecumenical Conference on Human Rights in the Philippines on March 12-14 at the National City Christian Church in Washington, D.C.
Members of the delegation will also present the report on human rights situation in the Philippines to US congressmen and senators on March 14. The group will meet with members of the Senate Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs chaired by Senator Barbara Boxer, and the House Committee on Foreign Relations chaired by Rep. Tom Lantos.
The conference is sponsored by the Philippine Working Group, under the auspices of Church World Service - Asia Pacific Forum, and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP).
Prior to the international ecumenical conference, the Philippine delegation will attend the Ecumenical Advocacy Days, a gathering in Washington, D.C. of church advocates concerned with the US government’s foreign and domestic policies.
The report, “Let the Stones Cry Out”: An Ecumenical Report on Human Rights in the Philippines and a Call to Action”, was released by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP). The 86-page report does not only detail some of the cases of political killings, but also studies the chilling pattern and alarming proportions with which these assaults on life were perpetrated.
The NCCP said report links the unbridled political killings to the Arroyo government’s counter-insurgency program. “The manner by which the victims were executed or abducted was done professionally and systematically, establishing a connection between the national security strategy and the incidents of violations,” the NCCP said in the report.
The document likewise mentioned the poor record of the Philippine government in complying not only with the procedures required of a member of the United Nations but also of its failure to adhere to its declared commitments to the UN Human Rights Council.
The report released by the NCCP is the latest one to pin the responsibility for the killings to Philippine military and security forces. On February 21, Prof. Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, asked the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to “acknowledge” its involvement in the extra-judicial killings and conduct a “genuine” investigation.
The UN Special Rapporteur spent 10 days in the Philippines to conduct an investigation on the extra-judicial killings and related violations of human rights and held meetings with President Arroyo and other government officials as well as human rights groups and families of the victims.
On Tuesday, March 6, the US State Department, in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2006, said that during the year, a number of unexplained killings in the Philippines were committed “apparently by elements of the security forces.”
The human rights situation in the Philippines has gone so bad that even the commission formed by President Arroyo herself to investigate the political killings came out with a report naming a retired Philippine Army general – Gen. Jovito Palparan, along with other generals – as the “prime suspect behind the extra-judicial killings” in the country. The commission, headed by a former Supreme Court justice, called on President Arroyo to punish those who were responsible for the killings.
The victims were killed for their political beliefs, for exercising their freedom of expression and for opting to live by their Christian mission of serving their fellow brethren. Among those killed were lawyers, human rights defenders, journalists, church leaders, local officials, community leaders and organizers, students, peasants, indigenous leaders, workers, professionals, women and even children.
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