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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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WASHINGTON DC. -- Filipino immigrants in the United States are in an uproar over a plan by President George Bush to scrap family-based immigrant visas, the ABS-New Channel reported Friday, April 20.
US President George Bush will reportedly move for the elimination of all family-based immigrant visas as part of “draconian measures” to revise the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA).
The White House’s hardening stand clashed directly with US House Resolution 1645 which provides for comprehensive US immigration reforms. The US measure aims, among others, to eliminate the backlog in family-based visa applications, especially for spouses and unmarried children of legal permanent residents (so-called “green card holders”) 21 years old and younger.
Jon Melegrito, executive director of the National Alliance for Filipino Veterans Equity (NAFVE), warns the White House move will have severe repercussions for the Filipino-American community and their families in the Philippines.
Stephen Legomsky of the Washington University School of Law told a hearing of the US House subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law on Thursday “these separations virtually invite illegal immigration”.
Melegrito accuses US President Bush of “playing politics” with the proposed immigration reform package by offering to scrap family-based visas. Many see it as old-fashioned DC horse-trading to prod hard-line Republicans to support the reforms.
Curiously, much of the Bush package such as a guest worker program and allowing undocumented workers to stay in the US after paying fines, have drawn wider support from Democrats than from his own party.
Republicans have taken the tack that prevention and intensified enforcement – like building a wall across the Mexican border – was the way to go. There’s an estimated 250,000 undocumented Filipinos in the US and they would obviously be anxious about any fresh crackdown on illegals.
Muzzaffar Chishti, Director of the Migration Policy Institute, testified, “With very few options for entering legally through employment-based visa categories, intending immigrants could try to enter through the family-based categories…but the wait list for many of these categories are prohibitively long.”
“In the absence of legal channels, immigrants entering our labor market have come to rely on illegal channels,” Chishti told the congressmen.
The pressure is only sure to mount as so-called Baby Boomers near retirement.
This and a combination of normal attrition and economic expansion are expected to create 65 million new jobs by the end of the decade, a demand the local workforce can barely fill.
Fil-Am groups are joining a large immigration rally here on May 1, dubbed the “Great American Boycott”.
Organizers are asking protesters to stay off work and shopping malls and march on the streets of D.C. The divergent immigrant groups are driven by their own agenda and priorities.
“Families should be together as soon as possible, and they should shorten the time between applying for the visa and getting it here,” said Rozita Lee, vice chair of National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA).
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Arroyo has asked President George W. Bush to support efforts in the US Congress to pass legislation that would enable Filipino World War II veterans to receive “benefits they truly deserve.”
In a letter to Bush, the second one she has sent him on the veterans issue in three years, Mrs. Arroyo assured the US leader that the Philippine government “will continue to provide these veterans with pension benefits and medical care even after legislation is passed in the United States granting them pension.”
Some Congress members are reluctant to support US pensions that will raise the veterans to a higher economic level than the average Filipino population or relieve the Philippine government of its responsibility to them.
“We believe in shared responsibility as far as the veterans are concerned,” Philippine Ambassador to Washington Willy Gaa said, the Philippine Star reported.
He said since 1990 the government has been paying veterans a monthly pension of P5,000 “so it’s the turn of the US to put up its share.”
At issue is the economic well-being of some 20,000 veterans – 13,000 of them living in the Philippines and 7,000 in the United States – who have been seeking non combat-related disability pensions over the past 60 years.
President Arroyo’s letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Philippine Star, began with a mention of the RP-US cooperation in the war against terror.
“Working closely and with the support of your military, security forces have captured or neutralized key al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Mindanao. We have blocked the spread of terror to the rest of the region and quashed terrorist hopes of establishing an extremist pan-Asian Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia,” said the letter dated April 5.
Mrs. Arroyo said the sacrifices made by the brave men and women from both countries in winning the war on terror reminded her of the courage and valor of another group of brave soldiers that fought together with American soldiers – the Filipino World War II veterans.
She said thanks to strong bipartisan support from both Houses of the US Congress, the veterans were poised to receive what was rightfully theirs.
“Given their contributions to preserving democracy and given that our historic and strategic cooperation continues in fighting challenges to the values and ideals that we all share and hold dear, it is my hope that you will support these efforts in Congress to pass legislation that would allow our Filipino veterans to obtain the benefits they have long sought for and truly deserve,” she said.
There are currently two bills in Congress – House Resolution 760, also known as the Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2007, and its companion bill in the Senate, S57 – that seek to reverse the 1946 US Rescissions Act and award veterans’ benefits to Filipinos who fought with Americans during the Second World War.
Indications are that the bills will pass if not this year then hopefully before the 110th Congress ends in 2008. The main uncertainty seems to be on the sum the veterans should get.
Supporters are pushing for a monthly pension of $800.
At a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing last month Ronald Aument, deputy undersecretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, said paying even a portion of the full veterans benefits would cost at least $4 billion over 10 years.
Veterans who live in the Philippines and receive full benefits would have a much higher standard of living compared with the rest of country’s population, he said.
“VA benefits paid to beneficiaries living in the United States, such as US veterans, do not enable those beneficiaries to live higher than the general US population,” he said, adding “we do not support the bill because it would disproportionately favor Filipino veterans over US veterans.”
The head of the Veterans Affairs Office at the Philippine embassy, retired Maj. Gen. Delfin Lorenzana, said Aument used outdated figures and included in his estimates such items as administrative costs, widows and dependents indemnity compensation and travel costs and access to VA hospitals in the US for those who would want special treatment not available in the Philippines.
“He threw in everything including the kitchen sink in his calculations,” Lorenzana said.
He said a law passed by the Philippine Congress in 1990 stipulating the automatic suspension of the monthly P5,000 pension paid by the government to veterans should they receive US pensions may have to be amended.
Embassy officials would be meeting soon with staff of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Senate and House Veterans Affairs Committees “to hammer out what is the equitable amount - so that veterans in the Philippines can also enjoy the same level of comfort or ease of life experienced by US veterans.”
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EVERETT, Washington -- A Filipino American woman accused of living as a teenage boy and molesting a Filipino American girl has pleaded not guilty to third-degree child molestation.
The trial for 30-year-old Lorelei Corpuz has been set for June first in Snohomish County Superior Court.
She also had been charged with two counts of third-degree child rape, but prosecutors dropped those counts on Saturday.
In 2005, Corpuz allegedly posed as 17-year-old Mark Villanueva, telling a 14-year-old girl’s family that Villanueva’s mother had died of cancer and his father had killed himself.
Prosecutors said Corpuz was allowed to move in with the family, but then beat and molested the girl.
Prosecutors are also reviewing a case in Kitsap County in which Corpuz, again posing as a male, was charged with domestic assault after a 16-year-old girl told police her boyfriend had bitten and punched her.
At the time, police did not pursue a rape charge because they did not believe there was a necessary age difference to merit statutory rape.
Corpuz graduated from Pearl City High in 1995 and was a color guard for the Charger Marching Band for three years. She was also a member of the school’s Filipino Youth Club.
For her senior quote in the 1995 Pearl City High School yearbook, Corpuz wrote, “Live your life the way you want to and not the way society wants you to.”
Until her arrest three weeks ago, Corpuz, 30, was living as a teenage boy with the family of her 16-year-old girlfriend in Everett, Wash.
Police told the girl on April 1 that the person she had known for the past 18 months as Mark Villanueva, her 17-year-old boyfriend, is really an adult woman.
Corpuz told a police detective, “I am still exploring whether or not I should become a lesbian,” according to the Snohomish County prosecutor.
On Monday, the prosecutor charged Corpuz with child molestation in the third degree. The charge is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Corpuz is expected to be arraigned on the charge in state Superior Court next week. She remains in Snohomish County Jail in lieu of $150,000 bail.
The charge stems from actions that allegedly occurred before the girl turned 16, the age at which a person can consent to sex with someone at least four years older under Washington state law.
The girl told police she had sex with Corpuz, including intercourse, but had never seen her genitals, according to a court document from the Everett Police Department. The girl said Corpuz beat her regularly when her father was away at work in Alaska, and bit her on the back twice, leaving a scar, the document said.
The girl also told police Corpuz claimed to be an orphan because her mother died of cancer and her father committed suicide. The Star-Bulletin located Corpuz’s parents, who reside on Oahu, but they declined to comment for this article.
Everett police arrested Corpuz on April 1 on an outstanding traffic warrant, said Sgt. Robert Goetz. They pursued child rape and child molestation charges after interviewing Corpuz’s teenage girlfriend and determining her age. When police arrested Corpuz, the girl was with her.
Corpuz is being investigated for a similar situation involving a young girl in another jurisdiction and for numerous thefts and frauds in Snohomish County, according to the prosecutor. She assumed the identity of a fictitious 17-year-old, opened a bank account under that identity and wrote bad checks on the account, the prosecutor claims in an affidavit submitted in court.
The affidavit says Corpuz claimed to be homeless, did not have a job and was apparently surviving on money sent to her by her mother and by passing bad checks.
Corpuz has been living in Washington for 10 years, said people who know her.
Her Washington state criminal record dates to 1999. She has two convictions, from a 2001 case for attempted second-degree theft and for driving in 2003 with a suspended license, according to court records. Both are misdemeanors.
She was enrolled at Leeward Community College for one academic year, from August 1995 to May 1996, before moving to Washington.
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NEW YORK CITY -- The two sons of Felisa “Fely” Garcia, the 58-year-old Filipino domestic helper found dead in her rented room in Bronx last month, are flying to New York to claim the remains of their mother for burial in her hometown in Batangas, the Philippines.
The Philippine Forum, a community organization based in in Queens, New York, through its domestic worker’s organizing project Kabalikat, said it has helped Garry and Gliff Garcia raise money to bring the remains to the Philippines for burial.
A community farewell and public wake organized by the Philippine Forum and Kabalikat Domestic Workers Support Network is set for Sunday, April 29, at the Greenwich Village Funeral Home.
Fely Garcia was found dead in her Bronx home on March 14, 2007. Many believe that the New York Police Department and the Philippine Consulate in New York had mishandled the initial investigation of the case.
Garcia’s death was reported as a suicide as police found four pieces of paper in her room that was believed to be a suicide note.
She reportedly complained of being harassed and abused by her employer while working as a caregiver for an elderly woman at the Bronx.
The group said Garcia’s employer cited on her suicide note ought to be investigated and prosecuted, if found guilty.
They also asked for full disclosure of the results of the investigation on her death to the Filipino community in New York.
Kabalikat also accused both the NYPD and consulate authorities of showing lack of consideration by failing to alert Fely’s family back in Batangas, Kabalikat said in a press statement.
Garcia’s family doubts the NYPD’s conclusion that Fely committed suicide.
The Philippine Forum has been campaigning for weeks for Consulate-sponsored repatriation and burial, demanding as well a second investigation of the case.
The Philippine Consulate has reportedly offered a partial repatriation fee of $4900, Kabalikat said in its statement released to Filipino American newspapers in the New York-New Jersey area.
But Kabalikat said the amount is not enough, and that the Consulate should shoulder the transportation of the remains all the way to Batangas, not just to Manila.
The Consulate has not offered any amount for burial fees, Kabalikat said.
Through the help of the Philippine Forum, Fely’s two sons were able to secure visas to come to the United States and to raise money for round-trip airfare from the Philippines.
The Philippine Forum insists the government should have a standard policy on financial, legal, and other forms of assistance in case of deaths of overseas Filipino workers.
It pledges to step up the campaign to achieve this.
Philippine Forum-Kabalikat has also been raising community funds to help alleviate the family’s financial burden.
Damayan, another grouping composed mostly of domestic workers in the United States, likewise raised suspicion of foul play in the death of Garcia.
“We share in the grief of Fely’s children in Barangay Dacanlao, Calaca, Batangas and the cry of the Filipino migrant domestic workers in New York for truth and justice,” said Ana Liza Caballes in launching the online petition that invites potential witnesses to come forward and shed light on Garcia’s death.
The Greenwich Village Funeral Home is located on 199 Bleecker Street between 6th Ave and McDougal.
The funeral home is accessible via A, C, E, F, V trains to West 4th; and via M4 bus to West 4th St.
Philippine Forum-KABALIKAT has also been raising funds to help alleviate the family’s financial burden.
Donations can be forwarded to the Philippine Forum, (make checks payable to the Philippine Forum, write Justice for Fely on the memo) at 54-05 Seabury Street , Elmhurst , New York 11373.
To sign the Justice for Fely Garcia online petition, visit http://www.petitiononline.com.
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