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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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NEW YORK CITY -- Opposition to a Senate compromise immigration bill grew this week, with a Filipino advocacy group, labor unions and Hispanic groups saying the deal brokered by leading US senators and the White House was bad for workers, families and employers.
The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON) the national network of Filipino organizations in the United States, rejected the current Senate bill, also known as the Secure Borders Economic Opportunity, Immigration Reform Act of 2007.
“We need to see the immigration bill for what it is -- anti-family and pro-mass deportation.” said NAFCON lawyer Cristina Godinez.
The League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the country’s oldest and largest Hispanic groups, said it opposed the plan’s limits on family-based immigration. The AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and La Raza, another Hispanic group said they would work to change the proposed law as it moves through Congress.
NAFCON has consistently called for unconditional legalization for all undocumented persons, swift family reunification measures, and the demilitarization of the border.
It pointed out that the Senate bill contains provisions that will adversely affect Filipinos who comprise the third largest immigrant community in the United States.
“There is a lot of reluctance to criticize the Senate compromise bill because it represents how far the conservative Republicans have gone toward conceding that the undocumented population should be legalized,” states Godinez, an immigration lawyer based in Manhattan.
“But we should not accept the bill solely because conservatives stepped away from their anti-immigrant comfort zone, ” Godinez added.
NAFCON said that the Senate proposal will end up driving millions of undocumented immigrants deeper underground. There are approximately one million undocumented Filipino immigrants (also referred to as ‘TNTs’) in the United States.
“There is no reason for an undocumented immigrant family to surface under the proposed measure because it is nearly impossible for them to obtain green cards,” Godinez remarked.
She explained that after passing background checks, TNTs who have been in the US since January 1, 2007 can obtain a Z visa initially good for four years and renewable indefinitely.
“Z visa holders must pay $5,000 in fees and fines, wait for the eight-year backlog to clear up and have the head of family leave the US to apply for a green card outside,” Godinez said.
“The so-called ‘touchback’ provision is onerous and unnecessary,” Godinez said. “It serves no other purpose than to tear the immigrant family apart and punish them all over again for being in undocumented status.”
She added that there is no appeal or review mechanism if the green card application from outside the US is denied.
Godinez said the Z visa program does not begin until “trigger” events in the form of border security measures are implemented. “This delays the legalization of TNTs and perpetuates their further exploitation in the workplace and elsewhere,” she said.
NAFCON also decried the drastic shift of the Senate bill away from family immigration.
Family immigration categories that have been traditionally relied upon by Filipino Americans and immigrants will be removed, specifically those pertaining to children and siblings of US citizens and unmarried adult children of green card holders.
On Wednesday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to slash the number of foreign workers who could come to the U.S. on temporary visas. It also endorsed toughening the security measures that would have to be in place before millions of illegal immigrants could begin gaining permanent legal status or a new temporary worker program could be launched.
The measure faced new challenges as Democrats sought to loosen its limits on family-based immigration and Republicans proposed further security measures.
The guest worker program would be capped at 200,000 a year under the Democratic proposal approved Wednesday, which passed 74-24 over strong opposition by the Bush administration.
The original plan provided for 400,000 worker visas annually, plus an option to increase that number to 600,000 if market conditions demand it.
A townhall meeting to discuss the Senate immigration reform bill will be held on Sunday, June 10, 2:00 pm at the Philippine Forum’s Bonifacio Hall in Elmhurst, Queens.
The Philippine Forum, an 11-year old community service organization and a founding member of NAFCON, is located on 54-05 Seabury Street in Elmhurst, Queens.
To get to the Philippine Forum office, take the V, G and R trains to Grand Avenue/Newtown Station in Elmhurst, Queens. Exit on Southside of Queens Boulevard. Walk towards 54th Avenue and turn left on Seabury St . Take the side entrance to the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown.
For more information, contact Philippine Forum at 718-565-8862, or email philforum96@yahoo.com.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A judge revoked bail for Filipino priest Rodney Rodis, who is accused of stealing as much as $1 million from two Roman Catholic churches in rural Virginia.
The Philippine Star reported that the judge ruled on Monday that Fr. Rodis, 50, of the Order of St. Camillus violated the terms of his $25,000 bond when he traveled to New Mexico last month to visit his family, who had been living with him before his troubles began.
He will be held at Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange County.
Rodis, who became a priest in the Philippines in 1986, worked for the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, which serves most of the state of Virginia before he was assigned in 1993 as pastor of St. Jude church and Immaculate Conception church in Louisa County.
When a $1,000 church donation was reported missing in 2006, authorities launched an investigation and found out that Rodis, 50, lived a double life.
He had passed himself off as a family man with Joyce Sillador-Rodis as his wife, and together with three daughters they lived in Spotsylvania, about 40 miles from the two churches where he was pastor.
The woman and the three children left for New Mexico after a grand jury indicted Rodis in January on 13 counts of embezzlement. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in jail.
Rodis, 50, is accused of stealing from his former parishes, St. Jude and Immaculate Conception Catholic churches. Police have said the thefts may have exceeded $1 million. The Free Lance-Star reported.
Rodis was indicted on the first embezzlement charge January 8. An arraignment on that charge had been scheduled on March 12, and Louisa defense attorney Jack Maus had indicated that Rodis might plead guilty.
The arraignment was pushed back after the Louisa Circuit Court grand jury indicted the former priest on the 12 additional chargeson March 12. The change frustrated several parishioners there to watch.
“It’s going to go on for years,” said St. Jude parishioner Ellen McGough. “They keep delaying and delaying.”
Maus said after court that the case is going through the legal system as normal. “The wheels of justice move slowly,” he said.
The initial indictment accused Rodis of stealing from the churches between September 2001 and October 2006. The March 12 indictments charge him with stealing during 12 separate six-month periods between September 1995 and September 2001.
Rodis was out on a $10,000 bond.
He lives in the Sheraton Hills area of Spotsylvania County. He is a native of the Philippines and had to surrender his passport to get bond.
He had been living with 44-year-old Joyce Sillador and three girls, but those four recently moved to New Mexico. Rodis remains to face the charges in Louisa. Neighbors assumed Rodis was married with children. They have said they didn’t know Rodis was a priest. Maus said Rodis is not married, but the attorney has referred to Sillador and the girls as the priest’s family.
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HONOLULU, Hawaii -- A Filipino is currently making big news on the island paradise of Hawaii.
Henry Jacinto Calucag, 58, is in the news not for a great achievement Filipinos could be proud of, but because he is on trial this week allegedly for assuming his dead friend’s identity and stealing his properties.
Calucag was on America’s Most Wanted, and was described as a “bank fraud convict” for his involvement in a “trail of theft, fraud and disappearances” over the last 10 years.
Police in Hawaii said three of Calucag’s business partners all went on separate trips to the Philippines to buy property, but none of them ever returned home.
Police finally cornered him on September 3, 2006 after a polo match in Honolulu where he was known as Hank Jacinto.
AMW’s website said Calucag used several aliases – Ponce Enriquez, Bill Franco, Ricky Bonze, Hank Calucag, Henry Calucag, Henry Ponce Calucag, Henry Ponce Calucag Jr., Henry Y. Jacinto, Hank Calvcag, Henry Ponce Calvcag Jr, Blu Franco, Henry P. Jacinto, Enrique Jacinto, Enrique Ponce Jacinto, Hank Jacinto, Henry Jacinto, Herman Rubirosa and Hernon Rubirosa.
Prosecutors in Hawaii have called him a “career criminal” who duped and conned Hawaiian businessmen for years and that the ventures he started in the Philippines point to more of the same.
“With his capture, they hope that a prolific con man’s legacy of deceit has been ended,” AMW said.
During Monday’s trial, Christopher Elwin, a brother of Kauai businessman John Elwin who disappeared after he left Hawaii for a trip to the Philippines in May 2006 with Jacinto, revealed that Elwin had money in Swiss bank accounts when he died.
Elwin’s body was found in a province outside Metro Manila with gunshot wounds to the head and chest.
At the continuation of the trial on Tuesday, Elwin’s girlfriend, Kirsten Flood, said Calucag called her months after Elwin’s death with a disturbing information that “John had women pregnant in, like Southeast Asia, somewhere.”
A report on Hawaii broadcast channel’s website said the defense was trying to portray Elwin as a womanizer who had enemies in the Philippines.
The report said Calucag claimed that Elwin gave him a property in Kauai to pay off a large debt, but a Kauai police officer said on Monday that the Filipino did not tell him about the debt when he interviewed him following his arrest in September.
Police earlier said Elwin had cash assets worth more than a couple of million dollars when he died.
According to the case profile in AMW’s website, Hawaiian police found out that apart from Elwin, two of Calucag’s business partners – Arthur Young and Douglas Ho – also disappeared on a trip to the Philippines.
Young disappeared in 1990 while Ho traveled with Calucag in 2004 and was reported missing by his family in January 2005.
Money, property, or both money and property of the three men allegedly ended up in Calucag’s possession after their disappearance or death.
“Investigators on the Calucag case say he’s a master con artist who may be responsible for swindling millions of dollars in cash and property away from their rightful owners,” the case profile stated.
Calucag is facing first-degree identity theft, first-degree theft, and fraud for allegedly forging a document to assume title of a Kauai property that belonged to Elwin.
Calucag claimed to own ProNetwork Center, a successful tech company that allegedly engaged in business with the Office of Homeland Security. Its office address, police found out, was a single mailbox in the Philippines and there was no Homeland Security contract.
Prior to his arrest in September, the company’s website, AMW said, boasted of an annual revenue of $65 million, employed 63 people and contracts with the US Department of Defense. After the arrest, the company website no longer mentioned Hank Jacinto or ProNetwork’s annual earnings and reduced the staff to only 16.
Before venturing into ‘“business” in Hawaii, Calucag was said to be driving a beat-up car in the Philippines, lived above a friend’s paint shop and, at one time, borrowed a small amount from another friend.
AMW said Calucag had known Elwin way back in 1994 when he was able to move within the elite polo community in Hawaii, using the alias Hank Jacinto. At one time, it was said that Calucag was asked to leave a polo club after he was accused of stealing a pair of one-of-a-kind riding boots from another club member.
In 1995, he reportedly pleaded guilty to five counts of bank fraud for depositing five bogus checks into accounts he opened using false names and withdrawing the money. He spent eight months in federal prison for the offense.
After that, he supposedly served an additional 16 months in federal prison after admitting that he bought a sport utility car and obtained leases on computers using aliases and false credit histories while on parole.
Two months after his arrest in Honolulu in September last year, America’s Most Wanted said its agents traveled to the Philippines to investigate the businesses Calucag established in Hawaii.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A 41-year-old Filipino who worked as driver at the Micronesian Embassy in Washington DC is facing 13 criminal charges before the Supreme Court in Micronesia in connection with the smuggling of at least 50 Filipinos into the US purportedly in conspiracy with former Micronesian ambassador to the US Jesse B. Marehalau.
The Kaselehlie Press reported on Tuesday (Manila time) that Attorney General Marstella Jack filed the cases on May 14, the first day in office of the Federated States of Micronesia President Manny Mori.
Micronesia is an island state in the North Pacific Ocean with roughly 120, 000 people. From Page 1
“The 13 charges look like a laundry list for white collar criminals including two counts of bribery in official and political matters, one count of criminal conspiracy, four counts of over-obligation of government funds, two counts of tampering with public records and information, and four counts of theft against the government,” Jaynes noted.
The former Micronesian ambassador and Filipino Enrico Calderon face a total of $800,000 (equivalent to P37 million) in fines and 170 years in prison if, and when, convicted of the charges. They can also be disqualified from holding any position in government if convicted of the charge of tampering with public records.
Calderon, alias Amang, was indicted in New Jersey in May 2006 on related charges that he altered stolen passports to help smuggle Filipinos into the United States between December 2004 and January 2006.
Another Filipino, Roehl Rivera, from Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija (Philippines) was charged as a co-conspirator of Calderon, who lived in Springfield, Virginia, in doctoring stolen passports from the Micronesian embassy. Rivera, an immigrant, was charged for escorting holders of the altered Micronesian passports from the Philippines to the US via Hong Kong.
He pleaded guilty in June to the charge that he helped smuggle more than 25 Filipino illegal aliens into the US through Newark Liberty International Airport, and implicated Calderon, who was indicted in May 2006.
Rivera had said he escorted Filipinos into the US on stolen third-country passports between May 2005 and January 2006 on Continental Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Newark in New Jersey.
Rivera said a doctored passport is sold at between $10, 000 (equivalent to P470, 000) to US$15,000 (P695, 000). Illegal immigrants often pay huge sums of money to human smugglers and endure harsh conditions just to be able to enter the US in the hope of finding good paying jobs, or to join other family members there.
Travelers with Micronesian passports, unlike those from the Philippines, are not required to get visas from the United States to enter the country. Micronesia and the US have an agreement that allows holders of its passports to live and work in the US without having to secure a visit or work visa.
Calderon and Rivera were charged in New Jersey because customs agents caught Rivera and three aliens he was escorting in January 2006 traveling with altered Micronesian passports. In the indictment sheet downloaded from the US Department of Justice website, Micronesia was simply referred to as “Country M.”
In the cases filed before the Supreme Court in Micronesia, it was indicated that Marehalau and Calderon conspired in the alleged illegal activities between October 1, 2001 and September 30, 2006.
Fletcher Poll, a certified fraud examiner, believed there is basis to “strongly suspect” that Marehalau and Calderon “committed the offenses charged” in the criminal information.Poll had requested an arrest warrant for Calderon, who is serving time in a Federal Institution in New Jersey following his confession to US law enforcement officials in August 2006 that he doctored sample Micronesian passports in order to illegally smuggle more than 50 Filipinos into the US from December 2004 to January 2006.
Calderon implicated Marehalau into the smuggling scheme.
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