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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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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate refused midday Thursday, June 7, to shut off debate on the immigration overhaul bill and move toward a vote, leaving the fate of the legislation uncertain and setting up another, all-important procedural vote later on Thursday evening.
The move to end debate was rejected by 63 to 33, as the bill’s backers fell 27 votes short of the 60 needed to invoke what is known as cloture and set up a yes-or-no vote on the legislation itself. according to a New York Times report.
The result was a setback not only for the bill’s supporters but also for President Bush, who has made a comprehensive immigration bill one of his top legislative priorities.
Nevertheless, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, scheduled another, make-or-break cloture vote for late Thursday evening. If that vote also falls short, Mr. Reid is expected to shelve the bill, meaning that changes in immigration law might not be considered again for many months.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and an architect of the bill, vowed to work “all day long” to muster support for this evening’s vote. The day-long debate offered the bill’s opponents a chance to be heard yet again and leave their mark on the bill with amendments.
The midday move to end debate failed chiefly because a significant number of conservative Republicans wanted more time to offer amendments to make the measure more to their liking.
The 33 “yes” votes were all cast by Democrats, except for the one cast by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who won re-election last fall as an independent. Even Republicans who support the overall bill voted against ending debate.
“We are not there yet,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, said of the move to end debate.
“It is not yet ready,” another Republican, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, said of the bill. Some 12 hours before the noontime cloture vote, the bill’s supporters suffered a setback when the Senate voted to put a five-year limit on a new guest worker program that would be created under the legislation. By a vote of 49 to 48 shortly after midnight, the Senate approved the limit, in the form of an amendment by Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota.
The temporary worker program is an important element of the “grand bargain” on immigration forged in three months of negotiations by a small group of senators from both parties.
If the Senate votes on Thursday evening to end debate, the bill will have cleared a major hurdle — but by no means the last one. The House has yet to take up its version of the immigration legislation, and the issue has deeply divided the representatives.
Many conservatives want to do more to restrict immigration and to toughen border enforcement. Many liberals, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, want to do more to protect immigrants’ rights and promote family-based immigration.
The Senate bill, which embodies a fragile compromise strongly supported by the president, would offer most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States the chance to obtain legal status. Supporters contend that it would address the problem of millions of illegal aliens without giving them amnesty; that it will further secure the nation’s borders, and that through its guest-worker program it will help immigrants and American employers. Its opponents have argued that there are far too many deficiencies in its nearly 400 pages.
The vote on Mr. Dorgan’s amendment was a surprise because the Senate had previously rejected a similar proposal.
Employers say they want to hire foreign workers because they cannot find Americans to fill all the jobs in hotels, restaurants, nursing homes, hospitals and the construction industry.
But Mr. Dorgan said, “The main reason that big corporations want a guest worker program is that it will drive down U.S. wages.”
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a co-author of the Senate bill, denounced Mr. Dorgan’s proposal as “an attempt to kill the legislation.”
On Wednesday, the Senate signaled support for other provisions of the immigration bill by rejecting many proposed amendments, including one that would have made it much harder for many illegal immigrants to achieve legal status.
Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, who opposes the bill, said, “The train is moving down the tracks.”
Two amendments intended to reunify families, by providing additional visas for close relatives of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents, failed on procedural votes. The amendments were offered by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, both Democrats.
Republicans raised points of order, saying the proposals violated budget rules because they would increase federal spending with no way to offset the costs.
By a vote of 51 to 46, the Senate on Wednesday rejected an amendment proposed by Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, that could have made hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants ineligible for legal status.
Under Mr. Cornyn’s proposal, gang members, terrorists and other convicted felons would have been permanently barred from the United States and denied immigration benefits. Most significant, the amendment would have denied legal status to illegal immigrants who had flouted deportation orders or been convicted of identity theft or fraudulent use of identification documents.
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NEW YORK CITY -- The beleaguered 26 nurses and one physical therapist who were sued by their employer after they accused it of violating their employment contract recieved a much needed as two major US nurses associations expressed support for the plight.
The American Nurses Association (ANA) and the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) on Monday, June 4, condemned the exploitation of immigrant RNs by unscrupulous U.S. employers and called for better enforcement of immigration laws.
They cited the case of the 26 registered nurses and one PT from the Philippines who say they were brought to New York under false pretenses and denied the rights guaranteed by their employment contract.
When the nurses resigned, they were sued by their former employer and accused of professional misconduct.
On March 22, ten of the RNs were indicted in Suffolk County Supreme Court on charges of endangering their patients. Remarkably, the nurses’ employment attorney was also indicted for conspiracy; they all plead not guilty.
The nurses had been hired through a recruitment agency to work at specific nursing home facilities on Long Island. When they arrived in the U.S., they discovered they actually were working for another agency. Over a period of months, the nurses said, the agency refused to pay them according to the terms of their contracts. They also said they were not properly trained for their new jobs and were required to care for more patients than they believed was safe.
“This case may be just the tip of the iceberg. Nurses who come to the U.S. deserve to have their rights protected,” said Tina Gerardi, RN, interim chief executive office of NYSNA. “Instead, these nurses were placed in the untenable position of being captive to an employer under conditions that did not allow them to provide safe patient care.”
Gerardi said NYSNA became aware of the nurses’ situation in May 2006 and assisted them in getting a hearing before the State Board for Nursing after the recruitment agency accused them of professional misconduct.
“They couldn’t get work because the issuance of their licenses was on hold pending investigation of an allegation of patient abandonment,” Gerardi said. “Those charges were dismissed by the state board. We are greatly concerned these RNs are now being prosecuted for the same actions.”
“The real patient endangerment lies in the deplorable conditions that led the nurses to leave. After exhausting all possibilities to resolve their concerns with the facility and the agency, the community’s full support because they refused to remain in a situation where patients were being denied the kind of care and staffing they deserved,” said ANA President Rebecca M. Patton, RN, MSN, CNOR.
The nurses’ plight has become a cause célèbre in both the Philippines and the New York City Filipino community.
The nurses, now known in the community as Sentosa 27 ++, participated in the New York Philippine Independence Day parade on June 3, and brought their issue to the Filipino American and nursing communities.
The nurses marched down Madison Avenue in a colorful hundreds-strong contingent of Filipino families that was well received by loud applause by parade watchers from the sidewalks.
The health workers, along with the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON) launched a national week of action in pursuit of their demands last Sunday in New York City during the Philippine Independence Day Celebration (PIDC).
Solidarity events for the Sentosa nurses are also set to take place this same week in San Francisco, Chicago, and elsewhere.
“We are here to support our nurses, to call attention to their reality of their abuse and victimization, and to demand justice and protection from companies such as the Sentosa Recruitment Agency,” stated Rico Foz, Executive Vice President of NAFCON.
Supporting organizations that marched with the nurses include the Philippine Forum, Anakbayan Filipino Youth Collective, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FIRE), Lakas Diwa Filipino Community Alliance of New Jersey, Movement for a Free Philippines, NY Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, Migrante International, New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) and the American Nurses Association (ANA).
The contingent was also marked by the presence of two giant papier maches-- one a Filipina nurse, and the other a personification of Inang Bayan (the Motherland).
Other calls and chants of various social concerns projected by the NAFCON contingent included a call for legalization of all undocumented Filipino immigrants, a call to continue with a second investigation for Filipino domestic worker Felisa “Fely” Garcia, and even Philippine-based social concerns, such as “No to Election Fraud and Violence” and “Stop the Political Killings”.
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MANILA -- The Commission on Elections proclaimed Wednesday night, June 6, 10 winning senatorial candidates, including six from the Genuine Opposition, two from the administration’s Team Unity, and two independents.
Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos presided over the proclamation held at the Philippine International Convention Center, CCP Complex on Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City, the GMAnews.tv reported.
The ten proclaimed as senators, based on ranking, are Loren Legarda (GO), Francis “Chiz” Escudero (GO), Panfilo “Ping” Lacson (GO), Manuel Villar Jr (GO), Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan (ind.), Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino (GO), Edgardo Angara (TU), Alan Cayetano (GO), Joker Arroyo (TU), and Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan (ind.).
Twelve Senate seats were at stake in the May elections.
All the winning senatorial candidates except Arroyo were present at the proclamation. Lacson, Villar, Pangilinan, Angara, and Arroyo succeeded in their reelection bids. Escudero, Aquino, and Cayetano are former members of the House of Representatives. Legarda and Honasan had also previously served as senators.
They will begin their six-year term at noon of June 30.
The Comelec has set aside the proclamation of the last two spots, saying it has yet to canvass 1.17 million votes from four provinces in Mindanao.
On Wednesday, the poll body reset to Friday the canvassing of votes from Basilan, Lanao del Sur, and Surigao del Norte. It also declared a failure of elections in Maguindanao.
At the 11th and 12th places are GO bets Antonio Trillanes IV (10,922,184 votes, as of Monday) and Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel (10,638,186), respectively. Ranked 13th is TU’s Juan Miguel Zubiri (10,510,573). Another TU bet, Ralph Recto (10,228,204), ranked 14th, has conceded defeat.
Ten senators
Legarda (18,069,466 votes), 47, is a former broadcast journalist who also placed first in the 1998 senatorial race.
In 2004, at the end of her six-year term as senator, she unsuccessfully ran as Vice-President alongside the late presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr, an action star more popularly called “FPJ” and dubbed “The King of Philippine Movies” who was President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s closest rival. Legarda protested her loss to another former broadcast journalist, Noli de Castro, who was Mrs Arroyo’s running-mate.
Escudero (17,858,416), 38, is outgoing Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. He was on his third and last three-year term as Representative of the 1st District of Sorsogon province.
He is a son of Salvador Escudero, who served as Agriculture Secretary under the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Lacson (15,261,999), 59, was first elected to the Senate in 2001, ranking 10th. Former President Joseph Estrada, shortly after his election in 1998, appointed Lacson to head the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (Paoctf) and later in 2001, as chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Lacson is a member of Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1971, which has gained some notoriety for producing several officers who took part in the 1986 EDSA “people power” uprising but later led coup attempts against former President Corazon Aquino in the late 1980s.
Villar (15,004,714), 58, is a reelectionist senator. Chosen Senate President in 2006, Villar has said he wants to retain the Senate presidency but may be challenged by other senators.
He was Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1998-2001.
He served three consecutive terms as Representative of Las Piñas City from 1992-2001. At the start of his third term in 1998, he was elected Speaker, coinciding with the term of former President Joseph Estrada.
Pangilinan (14,229,449), 43, won a fresh six-year term after first being elected to the the Senate in 2001.
He ran as an independent. Although he was initially included as a “guest candidate” of the Genuine Opposition but was dropped after failing to appear in its campaign sorties. GO went on to back just 11 candidates for the 12 available Senate seats.
A former broadcast journalist, he is married to Sharon Cuneta, probably the country’s most popular actress.
Aquino (14,052,166), 47, served three consecutive terms as Representative of the 2nd district of Tarlac province from 1998-2007.
He is a son of former President Corazon Aquino.
Angara (12,187,255), 73, won a fresh six-year term. He joined the opposition coalition in the Senate when he was elected in 2001 but bolted to run under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo administration’s Team Unity ticket.
He ran as Vice-President alongside Estrada in 1998 but lost to then vice-presidential candidate Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Angara again successfully ran for the Senate in 2001. He had previously served two terms as senator in 1987-1998, which included being Senate President in 1993-95.
Cayetano (11,560,083), 36, served three consecutive terms as Representative of Taguig-Pateros from 1998-2007.
He is probably best known as a vocal critic of First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, whom he accused of stashing hundreds of millions of dollars in bank accounts overseas. Arroyo has vehemently denied the accusation.
Cayetano becomes the country’s youngest senator and joins his elder sister, Pia, in the Senate, who ran under the administration coalition in 2004.
Their father is the late politician Rene Cayetano, who had also been a senator.
Arroyo (11,381,206), 80, is a reelectionist senator.
Although a senator allied with the administration, he fiercely Mrs Arroyo’s controversial edicts last year, including the calibrated preemptive response (CPR) policy against street protesters and Executive Order 464, which barred government officials from appearing in legislative inquiries without the President’s consent.
He did not attend the proclamation ceremony. (Arroyo is not related to the President’s husband.)
Honasan (11,343,606), 59, is out on bail while facing coup d’etat charges before a Makati court over his alleged involvement in the 2003 Oakwood mutiny.
He was previously elected senator in 1998 but did not seek reelection in 2004.
A former Army colonel who played a key role in the 1986 EDSA “people power” uprising, he later led several coup attempts against former President Corazon Aquino in the late 1980s. He is probably the most famous member of the PMA Class of 1971.
Renegade military forces led by Honasan later signed a peace accord with the government of former President Fidel Ramos and were granted amnesty.
The ten newly proclaimed senators will join 11 incumbents, namely, Rodolfo Biazon, Pilar Juliana “Pia” Cayetano, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Richard “Dick” Gordon, Manuel “Lito” Lapid, Ma. Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal, Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr, and Manuel “Mar” Roxas II.
Alfredo Lim, who is supposed to be only midway in his six-year term as senator, will leave the Senate after he was elected Mayor of Manila. Lim’s departure means that even after all 12 vacant Senate seats are filled, the chamber would have only 23 members.
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TORONTO, Canada -- A jobless Filipino immigrant in Canada has been charged for killing his hardworking wife who was reported missing since May 8.
Orlando Mangaoang, 46, used to work in the poultry industry until he was diagnosed with a heart ailment. He has since been jobless and receives disability pension.
His wife, Editha, 41, disappeared on May 8, and her decomposing body was found on May 23 wrapped inside a box in a parking lot in Richmond, according to a report in Canada’s online news The Province.
The report described Editha as a hard-working mother who worked three jobs as nanny and caregiver to pay the family’s bills. She also regularly went to the River Rock Casino.
The Mangaoang couple has four children aged 13, 15, 16 and 21. They were present, together with 15 other family members when their father was charged with first-degree murder at the Richmond Provincial Court on Monday.
The report did not detail how Orlando killed Editha.
While being charged, the report said, Mangaoang turned to look pointedly at several in the court gallery, but did not appear to look at his four children, who were seated in the first row.
Police said the slim, five-foot-two, 119-pound woman was the family’s sole breadwinner.
“We’re all shocked,” said Pablito Roque, husband of Editha’s cousin Grace Roque.
Shiela Farrales of the Philippine Women Center of B.C. said violence is a problem because immigrants face intense pressures.
“The majority of our community are live-in caregivers,” she said. “Sponsor families are essentially strangers. Domestic workers struggle to survive. We’re stuck in low-income jobs.
“Women are more vulnerable to physical and domestic abuse. One of the effects is violence against women. This is a tragic result.
“When we hear of abuse and even killings . . . it causes us to organize our own community with more urgency.
“It’s hard to hear that one of our Filipino women has died.”
Editha was reported to have left the Mangaoang home on May 8 to go to the River Rock Casino but casino authorities said they have reviewed all their surveillance video from that night and Editha did not seem to have shown up.
Mangaoang was remanded in custody to June 18, according to Ken Spencer’s report for The Province. -
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