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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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JERSEY CITY -- Benjamin Gavina, who was sentenced to a maximum 10-year prison term for beating to death an off-duty Jersey City policeman with a lead pipe in 2001, is now a free man.
Records from the New Jersey Department of Correction showed that Gavina, who together with his younger brother Alfredo was tried for the Fourth of July death of Jersey City policeman Domenick, Infantes, was released from the New Jersey State Penitentiary in Trenton on Friday, June 15.
Alfredo was found not guilty of the murder charge.
The Filipino Express tried to contact him and his family from their known addresses and contact numbers but was unable to reach any of them.
The case against the Gavina brothers became a celebrated case within the Filipino American community, as leaders and organizations campaigned to help the brothers get a fair trial and to raise money for their defense fund.
The case stemmed from a confrontation between the Gavina brothers and Inocentes that began with an argument over fireworks that were being set off at the Gavina home on Williams Avenue in Jersey City.
Officer Infantes, who had grown up on Williams Avenue, was attending a celebration next door.
When Infantes tried to break up the argument, the police said, the Gavina brothers attacked, swinging metal pipes. Law enforcement officials said they think that Benjamin beat
Infantes, while Alfredo hit the officer’s friend, Brian Belka, in the head.
Belka later needed 50 stitches for his wound. A police officer who came to the scene was also injured.
The police said that Officer Infantes was not carrying a gun, but that he identified himself as a police officer and showed his badge.
Both of the Gavinas have been charged with murder.
The police said the beating occurred about 9:30 p.m. on July 4, when Officer Infantes was attending a holiday celebration at a friend’s house on Williams Avenue.
A separate celebration was taking place next door, at 127 Williams Avenue, where the Gavinas live, and the police said an argument broke out over fireworks being set by children there.
The police said that Officer Infantes, who was not carrying a gun, tried to intervene but was attacked even after he had drawn his badge and identified himself as a police officer several times. Although Officer Infantes was technically off-duty at the time, officials said he was attacked in the line of duty.
In October 2003, the two brothers were found not guilty of murder. Benjamin, who was 45 at that time, was found guilty of the least severe homicide charge he faced - reckless manslaughter - while then-42-year-old Alfredo was cleared on all charges.
In February 2004, Benjamin Gavina was sentenced by then Hudson County Judge Kevin Callahan to the maximum possible prison term: ten years and six months.
From the time of his arrest in July 2001 to his release on June 15, Gavina spent about six years in jail.
During the trial, defense attorneys argued that the brothers were acting in self-defense after Infantes and Belka attacked Alfredo Gavina on his property.
Three of the four boys who were setting off the firecrackers - 15-year-old Alfred, son of Alfredo Gavina; 12-year-old Ralph, son of Benjamin Gavina; and 15-year-old John Raymond Mendoza - told jurors that the Gavina men were attacked by Belka and Infantes.
The boys said Benjamin Gavina asked Belka what was going on and Belka grabbed him and punched him in the head.
Alfred Gavina testified that when his uncle approached Infantes and said “We don’t want trouble,” Infantes responded, “(expletive deleted) you.”
On Thursday, lawyer Emerito Salud, founder of a Jersey City-based organization that raised more than $10,000 toward the Gavinas’ $300,000 defense costs, reiterated his stance that Benjamin Gavina should not have been found guilty of the murder charge.
“The two brothers were tried with the same set of evidence,” he said.
“Why is it that Alfredo was found not guilty and Benjamin guilty?”
A report also reached The Filipino Express last week that Jersey City policemen on the beat were told that Gavina has been released and to keep a lookout for him in the vicinity of his known addresses.
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CHICAGO – The United States government has asked the U. S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. to dismiss the class action suit seeking benefits, filed by six Filipino World War II veterans and their next of kin, “for lack of jurisdiction and failure to stake a claim.”
The veterans filing pro se (without a lawyer) have asked Judge Thomas C. Wheeler to grant them benefits equal to those American veterans, who fought with them side by side against the Japanese during WW II.
Jeanne E. Davidson, director; Donald E. Kinner, assistant director, and Kenneth S. Kessler of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Commercial Litigation Branch of its Civil Division told Judge Wheeler that the plaintiffs’ “cannot establish jurisdiction as there is no money-mandating statute to support their prayers for back pay and related benefits.”
The battery of lawyers for the U.S. government told the plaintiffs – Rev. Fr. Prisco E. Entines, Justina Corcelles Hernandez, Francisco Gutierrez Ferrer, Julieta Taboada Abella, Maria Lapay Laurenciano and Wenceslao N. Rodriguez – that because their claims accrued more than six years before these complaints were filed, they are barred by the statute of limitations.”
The U.S. government lawyers added that because “the demand for benefits like those claimed by plaintiffs has been extensively litigated in this circuit and others and found to be without merit, leaving no doubt that plaintiffs have failed to state claims for which relief can be granted.”
The government lawyers told the court that although the Philippines was ceded by Spain and became a territory of the U.S. under the Treaty of Paris, the Philippine Independence Act of 1934, providing for eventual Philippine independence and creating in the interim a Commonwealth of the Philippines, until it became independent on July 4, 1946, the Philippines has been described as “unique” in that “although not in all aspects a “foreign territory, the Philippines is a “foreign country for many purposes.”
Among them, Filipino citizens were treated as “aliens” for immigration purposes; “foreign service officer assigned to the Philippines were treated as if stationed in a foreign country and the Act of 1934 defined United States as excluding the Philippines.
“Nevertheless, the U.S. retained plenary and unrestricted power over the Philippines until its sovereignty over them was formally withdrawn in 1946.”
Among other things, the Act of 1934 reserved to the U.S. the power to maintain military bases and armed forces in the Philippines and upon orders of the President of the U.S., the right to “call into service of such armed forces all military organized by the Philippine government.”
It was under this authority that President Roosevelt by an Executive Order of April 26, 1941 did call “into service of the armed forces of the U.S. all military organized by the Philippine government for the period of the imminent WW II emergency and placed that military under the command of general officers and commandant of the U.S. Army and Navy.”
In October 1945, at the end of WW II while the U.S. Congress was considering a $200-M appropriation for the support of the Philippine Army during the War, the Chairman of the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriation sent a letter to the Director of the Veterans Administration, inquiring on the potential cost of veteran services of Filipinos, and was told that it “would amount in the long run to approximately three billion dollars.”
Three senators of the subcommittee – Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee, acting chairman; Richard B. Russel of Georgia and C. Wayland Brooks of Illinois – introduced an amendment, reducing the “liability for veterans from $3-B to $500-M, limiting benefits to pensions on account of service-connected disability or death at the rate of ‘one Philippine peso for each dollar otherwise authorized.’”
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JERSEY CITY -- Consul General Cecille Rebong and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy will lead the host of Filipino and American leaders who will grace the 17th Philippine Independence Day Parade and Festival in Jersey City on June 24.
Special guest of the annual celebration is Philippine Education Secretary Nestor Sunga, who will fly from Manila to join the festival.
Other dignitaries expected to grace the event are: Jersey City Councilman Robert Brennan and State Senator Sandra Cunningham.
Rebong and Healy will lead in the ribbon cutting ceremony at Mallory and Montgomery Streets near the U.S. military armory, at 9:00 a.m., Sunday, June 24, to celebrate Philippine Independence Day.
A mass will be held at 8:00 a.m. , Assembly for the parade will begin at 10:00 a.m. The parade will start at 11:00 a.m.
Singers and dancers have been lined up to entertain the crowds at the Exchange Place in Jersey City, along the Hudson River.
Finalists to the Filipino Singing Idol Contest will be among those who will peform at the Exchange Place.
There will also be a street fair and flea market at the Exchange Place. Businesses selling native products, food and delicacy, and offering various services will set up booths on the festival ground.
The parade aims to showcase the contributions of Filipino Americans in New Jersey.
Floats are expected to portray the history of Philippine-American relations.
“This will be a joyous celebration of Philippine American Friendship Day. We invite everybody to participate in this momentous occasion,“ said Francis Sison, overall chairman of PAFCOM 2007, organizer of the parade and festival.
“As Filipino-Americans take a more visible role in America, the Philippine-American Friendship Committee is committed to playing a key and constructive role. For today, we urge everyone to cheer on the Parade participants, renew our pride in our heritage and, enjoy ourselves at the festival,” he said.
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MANILA -- He may have tendered his resignation with The Vatican, but Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales left for abroad Sunday night for a busy official schedule in the United States and Italy.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila website said Monday night that Rosales will spend the first part of a two-week trip in the United States to celebrate Masses with Filipino communities.
He will then head for Rome to attend a meeting of Cardinals in the Vatican. With him in the trip is his secretary Fr Reginald Malicdem.
Rosales’ first stop is San Francisco where he will visit with members of the Rosales clan on June 19 and with the staff and officials of the Philippine Consulate on June 20.
Rosales will celebrate Mass at the St. John the Baptist Parish in Milpitas in San Jose, California, whose pastor is Fr Norman Segovia the vicar for Filipino clergy of the Diocese of San Jose.
He returns to the Bay Area for masses at the St. John the Evangelist Church in San Francisco on June 21 at 9 a.m. and in the afternoon of the same day at the St. Anne of the Sunset Parish Church in San Francisco, where he will talk about Pondo ng Pinoy.
The prelate will then have dinner with the Filipino community in the Bar Area.
On June 22, Rosales will proceed to Washington D.C. where he will be formally welcomed at a reception at the World Bank by Msgr. Walter Rossi, Rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Theodore Edgar Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C., Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America, Fr. Joseph Holcomb, Director of Pilgrimages, Msgr. Godfrey Mosley, Spiritual Adviser of Birhen ng Antipolo, and priests and lay leaders of the archdiocese.
Highlight of his visit in this state is to preside at the Mass for the 10 th Annual Filipino Pilgrimage of Our Lady of Peace & Good Voyage (Birhen Antipolo) at 2 p.m. on June 23.
“Cardinal Rosales was personally invited by a group of Filipino American devotees of Our Lady led by Msgr. Rossi when they visited the Philippines and made a courtesy call to him in February 2006,” RCAM said.
Rosales will also visit various community leaders in the Metropolitan Washington DC area, celebrating Mass at St. Columba Church in Maryland on June 24.
He will visit the offices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on June 25 and will be welcomed by Msgr. David Malloy, USCCB General Secretary and its Filipino employees led by Cecile Motus.
The Cardinal’s next stop is Chicago where he will meet with Filipino Community at the Our Lady of Ransom Parish Church in Niles, Illinois.
On June 28, he departs for Italy where he will celebrate Sunday Mass on July 1 with Filipinos in Milan.
He will attend a meeting at the Vatican of the Council for Economic and Organizational Affairs of the Vatican City State on July 2 and 3. He is expected to be back in Manila on July 5.
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