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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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EL PASO, TEXAS -- Three Filipinos were at the center of federal court proceedings in El Paso, Texas for illegally “importing” school teachers from the Philippines between 2002 and 2004.
Noel Cedro Tolentino, his wife, Angelica Tolentino, and his mother, Florita Tolentino, were indicted on 40 counts of federal offenses including conspiracy to smuggle aliens, visa fraud and money laundering, the Texas El Paso Times online edition reported Saturday, March 10.
The newspaper said the Tolentinos were allegedly involved in “white-collar smuggling scheme” to import Filipino teachers to Texas school districts.
It was learned that the Tolentinos, through OMNI Consortium based in Houston, have recruited 273 teachers from the Philippines, but only fewer than 100 of them actually had jobs waiting for them in Texas.
The jury on the case will start hearing the evidence and testimonies of the Tolentinos on March 19.
The prosecution rested its case last week after more than a month of testimony in the case against officials from the OMNI Consortium, the Tolentinos.
El Paso Times reported that officials from several El Paso school districts who hired some Filipino teachers are key players in the trial.
The government’s case against the Tolentinos includes a series of alleged junkets to the Philippines, all-expenses-paid trips during which school administrators were expected to offer Filipino candidates teaching jobs in Texas.
The Tolentinos stand trial for fraud for making it appear that Filipino teachers were legally hired by Texas school districts. The U.S. Embassy in the Philippines issued visas for jobs that did not exist.
The teachers said they did not know they would end up coming to the United States illegally.
The Tolentinos charged each teacher about $10,000. Many of their recruits had to take on loans to put up the money.
According to the El Paso Times report, government accused the Tolentinos of bribing Texas school district officials with trips to the Philippines in exchange for commitments to hire Filipino teachers.
Last week, Ron Ederer, the lawyer for Noel Tolentino, took offense with the government’s assertion that the trips were bribes.
“It’s like saying I’m going to give you a free trip to Juárez, or worse. To consider this a bribe is a real stretch,” he said. “It’s almost embarrassing to be arguing these things.”
Last year, Mario Aguilar, former superintendent of the Socorro Independent School District, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of failing to report gifts, including a trip to China within the trip to the Philippines, to a public official and was sentenced to one year of probation.
Aguilar’s wife, Vista Del Sol Elementary School Principal Magdalena Aguilar, was also sentenced to one year of probation for receiving a gift.
Raye Lokey, former Ysleta Independent School District associate superintendent for human resources, was sentenced to six months of probation for aiding illegal entry.
The defense contends the trips to the Philippines were working trips.
But prosecutor Bill Lewis said a quid pro quo was involved.
SISD officials who went on the trip testified that there was an understanding that each had to sign 10 letters of intent to hire during the trip.
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BROOKFIELD, Wisconsin -- Dr. Jefferson M. Calimlim, Sr. and his wife, Elnora, also a physician, checked in to two separate federal prison facilities in Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.
This was confirmed Monday, March 12, by Federal Bureau of Prisons employes in the facilities.
Calimlim, Sr., 62, entered the CI (Correctional Institution) NE (Northeast) in Youngstown, Ohio at 1:38 p.m., almost the same time that Dr. Elnora M. Calimlim (nee: Mendoza), 61, checked in to United States Penitentiary Hazelton at Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.
This reporter visited the home of the Calimlim couple at Milwaukee’s suburb of Brookfield together with another Chicago, Illinois-based photojournalist Manny Zambrano seeking comments from family members.
Although two cars – a Toyota Lexus and Altima -- were parked in front of their $1.2-M, five-bedroom English Tudor home, nobody came to the door after repeatedly pressing the door bell.
Both the CI NE Ohio Correction Center and USP Hazelton are low-security facilities that have 1,365 and 1,932 populations, respectively. They are going to be the Calimlims’ quarters for about four years even as they await resolution of their pending appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, Illinois.
Wisconsin’s Filipino American community activist Princess Emraida Kiram, vice chair of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations Region 3 and two other Filipino American women companions drove the Calimlims overnight to both facilities, observing that Mrs. Calimlim was very distraught.
The couple finally relented to go to prison after Judge Rudolph T. Randa of the United States Court of Eastern Wisconsin in Milwaukee denied their Motion for Judgment of Acquittal or Dismissal and their motion for Bond Pending Appeal in an order issued last Feb. 22nd.
The couple were convicted of four counts of conspiracy to obtain labor and services by threats of harm and physical restraint; obtain the labor and services of a Filipino national by threats of serious harm to and physical restraint; concealing an alien from detection for the purpose of private financial gain; and conspiracy to conceal an alien from detection for the purpose of private financial gain.
In denying the motion for Judgment of Acquittal or Dismissal on Counts 1 and 2, Judge Randa said “no new facts and law are offered to alter the Court’s original conclusions.”
In denying the “Bond Pending Appeal,” Randa said, “None of those arguments (cited by the defendants) carried the day then, nor do they do so now in establishing a substantial issue that would likely result in a reversal or a new trial.”
The couple was found guilty of all four counts last May for imposing forced labor on an illegal immigrant they harbored as a maid in their eastern Wisconsin home for 19 years.
Their son, Jefferson M. Calimlim, 32, who was accused of conspiring to harbor an illegal alien, was sentenced to three years probation, including four months of house arrest with an electronic monitoring device, and fined $5,000. He was found guilty of one-count of harboring an alien but acquitted on two other charges. But their son did not appeal Judge Randa’s verdict.
During the trial, the maid, Irma Martinez, and her parents, Juan H. Martinez, 69, and his wife Ceferina, both of Gainza, Camarines Sur, whom the US government had flown to the US from the Philippines, testified in court by staying in Chicago while preparing for trial.
The conviction of a forced labor without employing violence of the Calimlims is believed to be the first in the nation.
Randa also ruled that Miss Martinez is entitled to restitution worth $934,420 for working 15 hours a day and being underpaid well below the minimum wage during the last 19 years by the Calimlims.
As immigrants for more than 30 years, the Calimlim couple is deportable to the Philippines for failure to naturalize as US citizens after they step out of prison.
It was the divorced wife of Christopher Jack Calimlim, the younger brother of Jefferson Junior by two years, Sherry Bantug, who placed a distress call at the hotline of the Department of Homeland Security in the Summer of 2004 that “a woman is living in the Brookfield home of the Calimlim couple.”
In the early morning of Sept. 29, 2004, Federal agents knocked at the door of the Calimlims and rescued Martinez from basement.
Martinez came to the US on July 21, 1985, at the age of 18 and did not speak English, accompanied by Elnora’s father, Dr. Jovito Mendoza. Martinez is a “3rd or 4th” cousin of Elnora.
Dr. Jefferson N. Calimlim’s parents Bernardo and Violeta Calimlim are from Dagupan City in the Philippines. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
(EDITOR’S NOTE: In a photo that came out in Issue 9. February 26-March 4 issue of this paper, Dr. Eufrocinia Susom was erroneously identified as Dr. Elnors Calimlim. We apologize for the error.
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NEW YORK CITY -- There is a snowballing support for the the passage of legislation introduced last week by Senator Barack Obama that would put a stop to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) proposed 66 percent hike in fees for immigration and naturalization applications and petitions.
New York Council Members Hiram Monserrate and Miguel Martinez, New York State Assemblyman Jose Peralta and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) have expressed support for the bill.
Filipino American immigration lawyer Reuben Seguritan also welcomed the introduction of the Citizenship Promotion Act of 2007 (S. 795/H.R. 1379) in both chambers of the US Congress.
“By proposing to obtain federal funding, USCIS will no longer be totally dependent on filing fees for its operational needs. The bill reflects a willingness to welcome new Americans, with measures to improve the citizenship test administration; outreach activities to help legal immigrants apply for citizenship; and ease the citizenship application backlog by enhancing the background check capacity of the USCIS,” said Seguritan.
He said Congress is testing the waters with this bill. Immigration reform is a contentious issue. But it is also one that needs immediate action. If Congress and the American public will support this bill, then the prognosis for the immigration reform bill introduced by Senator Kennedy would be good. The positive news gathered support among immigrants group as President Bush’s urged immigration reform in his speech in Mexico “We might see major changes in the immigration system soon,” he added.
“The Citizenship Promotion Act would put a quick and justified end to a shortsighted decision to balance the budget on the backs of hard-working immigrants,” said Monserrate. “Simple logic dictates that raising fees will decrease the number of applicants. In a city that is 40% foreign-born, this policy will essentially shut the door on citizenship and legal immigration in our communities.”
Elected officials and community leaders called on the newly Democratic Senate and Congressional leadership to quickly pass the legislation to prevent the proposed fee increase from taking effect.
“The exorbitant increase in immigration services fees is but another example of making the ‘American Dream’ unreachable to immigrant communities,” said Assemblyman Jose Peralta of Queens.
“Last year, we witnessed the disaster created by the immigrant debacle. In 2007, the new Democratic leadership must demonstrate new and bold initiatives to address the growing immigrant community in our Nation. We are here today for just that, new initiatives.”
Obama introduced the (CPA legislation to remove many of the obstacles in the path of legal permanent residents who are eager to become full Americans. The legislation would halt the USCIS’ proposed hike in the fees to start the naturalization process by including funds for the agency in the annual federal budget.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Filipino members of an ecumenical human rights delegation urged US senators and congressmen to review US military aid and development assistance to the Arroyo administration to make sure that these are not helping and aiding the Philippine government to violate human rights and further the extrajudicial killings in the country.
Two of the nine-member delegation testified during a hearing on extra-judicial killings by the US Senate Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) in the afternoon of March 14. The hearing on the political killings in the Philippines was the first conducted by the subcommittee under Senator Boxer.
Earlier in the day, the delegation met with the staff of the House Committee on Foreign Relations chaired by Re. Tom Lantos (D-California) in a closed-door briefing.
The delegation, which calls itself the Ecumenical Voice on Peace and Human Rights in the Philippines, likewise called on the US Congress and Church leaders to urge President Arroyo to put an end to the extra-judicial killings that has claimed the lives of 836 people.
The two members of the delegation who testified were Marie Hilao-Enriquez of Karapatan and Rev. Eliezer Pascua, general secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines.
The ecumenical delegation came to the United States to help their US-based and international partners , mostly Churches and ecumenical agencies in the US to bring to the attention of their government the many human rights issues in the Philippines. These partners have been educating the US public and advocating before US legislators changes in US foreign policy on the Philippines.
The delegation also presented a new human rights report on the Philippines to the Senate subcommittee and the House committee. The report was earlier presented to Church leaders at the International Ecumenical Conference on Human Rights in the Philippines in Washington, D.C., from March 12 to 14.
Both the Senate hearing and the House briefing were secured by the concerted efforts of church and ecumenical bodies led by the Rev. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and a former member of Congress, and grassroots organizations in the US that lobbied their respective members of Congress to have the committees of Sen. Boxer and Rep. Lantos hold these meetings at the time that the high-level church delegation from the Philippines is in Washington, DC.
The Philippine report, “’Let the Stones Cry Out‘: An Ecumenical Report on Human Rights in the Philippines and a Call to Action.” was prepared by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP). The 86-page report details cases of political killings and studies the chilling pattern and alarming proportions with which these assaults on life were perpetrated.
The report links the unbridled political killings to the Arroyo government’s counter-insurgency program. “The manner with 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 says in the report.
The document likewise mentions 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 to be released by the NCCP is the latest one to pin the responsibility for the killings to Philippine military and security forces.
The ecumenical delegation also called on the US Senate and House panels to:
Ask the Philippine government to bring to justice members of the military, the police and its agents “against whom there is credible evidence of human rights violations”.
- Call upon the Philippine government to comply with its obligations under international law and rescind its national security policy under its current counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism campaign.
- Call on the Philippine government to respect and protect the internationally recognized rights of farmers, workers, indigenous peoples, national minorities, women, youth, children, migrants, human rights defenders, and lawyers enshrined in general and specific international instruments and standards.
- Conduct an investigation, review and reexamination of the US security cooperation and military assistance and aid to the Philippine government and ensure that this does not support the national security policy that exacerbates the violations of human rights including the killing of churchpeople and human rights activists.
- Review US development assistance to the Philippine government as well as trade and economic arrangements to make sure that these do not exacerbate social and economic inequities that aggravate the prevalent violations of human rights.
- Ensure that any future US military appropriations and economic and official development assistance to the Philippine government be conditioned to a strict adherence to international laws and standards of human rights and good governance and on the demonstrated promotion of human rights.
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