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Founded in 1986
Founding Publisher/Editor:
Lito A. Gajilan
Columnists:
Atty. Michael J. Gurfinkel
Joseph G. Lariosa
Gani P. Tolentino
Ted L. Reyes
Atty. Reuben S. Seguritan
Photographers:
Butch Gata
Sheryl Garcia
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not reflect the opinion of the paper nor that of the publisher
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For the past 20 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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To tell us what you think about Filipino Express Online or to comment on the stories published here, E-mail us at Filexpress@aol.com
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KIDNAP CAPITAL OF THE WORLD?
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THE kidnapping of Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi on June 10 in Payao, Zamboanga Sibugay reportedly by a renegade leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front once again brought to the limelight the growing reputation of the Philippines as one of the kidnap capitals of the world.
According to international company providing kidnap and ransom insurance to the Lloyd’s of London, the Philippines is the fifth worst kidnapping country in the world. The Hiscox Kidnap Monitor showed that RP is behind Colombia, Mexico, the former Soveit Union and Brazil in terms of number of kidnappings from 1992 to 1999.
In 1996, however, the Philippines topped the list of countries with major kidnapping problem. In 1994, 1995, 1997 and 1998, it ranked second. In 1999, the Philippines had the fifth highest incidence of kidnapping.
That kidnapping has become a major industry in the Philippines is already an accepted fact in our society. But that we are among the countries with the most number of kidnapping incidents is a very shocking piece of information. We know weâ’re bad, but we didn’t know we were that bad.
Kidnapping for ransom became a major concern in the late 80s, when then-President Corazon Aquino started to clean up the pro-Marcos military, then a very powerful institution that has a stranglehold on almost every aspect of the nation’s lifeline. It was widely believed that former military men, kicked out of service or deprived of their former illegal sources of income during the Marcos years, turned to kidnapping-for-ransom to maintain their lifestyles.
The situation grew worse in the early 90s when both the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front entered into peace talks with the government. The end of the war in Mindanao meant former rebels, still in possession of powerful guns, had nothing to do and no clear source of livelihood. Moreover, hardcore members became disgruntled and broke away and dedicated themselves to embarrassing both the MNLF and the MILF.
The result? The rise of powerful kidnap-for-ransom syndicates.
Not even President Ramos, a former Armed Forces chief, and President Estrada, a movie tough guy who has been talking tough against kidnappers, could arrest the rising menace posed by kidnap-for-ransom gangs. And with the government’s inability to stop them, these syndicates have become bolder and daring through the years. One glaring example was the daring kidnapping of American and European tourists in the neighboring Malaysian island resort of Sipadan in 2000.
Bossi is the third Italian priest kidnapped in Zamboanga Peninsula in the past ten years. Moro rebels kidnapped Fr. Luciano Benedetti, 52, in Zamboanga del Norte province in 1998 and held for nearly 10 weeks until he was freed in exchange for a huge ransom from the government. In 2001, renegade MILF rebels snatched Fr. Giuseppi Pierantoni, 44, from Bologna, in Zamboanga del Sur. He escaped from his abductors after six months in captivity.
With the resurging audacity of the local kidnap-for-ransom gangs, it is not hard to imagine that it won’t take long before we snatch from Colombia the infamous distinction of being the kidnap capital of the world.
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Editor’s Note: REUBEN S. SEGURITAN has been practicing law for over 30 years. For further information, you may call him at 212 695 5281 or log on to his website at www.seguritan.com
PROFESSIONALS and other skilled workers received surprisingly good news just over a week ago when the State Department announced that visa numbers for all employment categories except the category for unskilled workers would be current in July 2007.
This means that beneficiaries of approved petitions or labor certifications filed under any of the abovementioned categories, no matter when the priority date is, would be eligible to file for adjustment of status (I-485) and obtain benefits.
These benefits include employment authorization and travel permit and they will be available to the applicants for as long as their applications are pending. In addition, they may be able to change jobs or employers in the same or similar occupation if their I-485 applications have been pending for at least 180 days.
The announcement was intended to induce the filing of adjustment of status cases with the USCIS and to maximize number use under the annual numerical limit.
As late as last month, the cutoff date for 3rd preference was May 8, 2001 for India and August 1, 2003 worldwide, including the Philippines. The last time that visa numbers for all employment-based categories were current was December 2004.
But the State Department was quick to point out that the current availability could last only for a short period. Retrogression could likely occur this October if not September. And when retrogression comes back it will be severe.
Applicants have therefore a limited time to prepare their documents in support of their I-485 applications. Along with their approved I-140 petitions or labor certifications they need to present proof of their lawful status in the US unless they are eligible under Section 245(i) or 245(k).
Section 245(i) refers to beneficiaries of labor certifications or immigrant visa petitions that were properly filed on or before April 30, 2001.
Section 245(k) allows certain employment-based applicants with expired status to file provided that they have not been out of status for a total of more than 180 days.
Schedule A aliens such as registered nurses and physical therapists who are exempted from the labor certification requirements may benefit if they are in the US. But they have time constraints if they are just starting the green card process.
The prospective employer has to file the prevailing wage request which could take 3 weeks in New York and then post the job availability notice for 10 business days.
At least 30 days must pass after the posting before the I-140/I-485 application.
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Behind The Mind Of A Racist
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CHICAGO, Illinois -- Among the main beneficiaries of the Internet Revolution are those ubiquitous non-profit organizations which want to make a difference even as they struggle to accomplish so much in so little time with so little attendance of their members during meetings -- the so-called “listserv,” a mailing list server developed by Eric Thomas in 1986, that automatically broadcasts email messages to everyone on the list.
It is similar to a newsgroup or forum, except that the messages are transmitted as e-mail and are therefore available only to individuals on the list.
Like any other non-profit organizations, the National Press Club of the Philippines in the United States of America (NPC-Phil. U.S.A.) members carry on with their business in absentia by exchanging messages thru their own listserv.
The members were just trying to let a decision of their board on an emotional issue sink into their heads when their listserv moderator got a reaction from the decision from a non-member.
As a moderator, I exercised my discretion to post the reaction in the listserv for all the members to see.
But what was funny with the reaction was that instead of sticking to the issue, the e-mail writer was re-framing the debate to another topic – the Iraq War.
Racial slurs
The e-mail writer, whom I will not identify to thwart a possible publicity stunt she might have set herself out to accomplish at our expense, upbraided the members of the NPC-Phil. U.S.A. board for not extending due process to a former NPC-Phil. U.S.A. member, who removed his own email address from our listserv, before we can investigate and impose a sanction on him for posting racial slurs on the club listserv that are unfair to Filipino veterans, Blacks and other minorities.
I am not identifying either our former member so he will not profit for elevating to the listserv a piece of his stinking mind, which in the word of our colleague, is fit only in the “toilet.”
The e-mail writer was telling us, if members of our group were slugging it out in a boxing fight, our members should go after the fighters, who are outside the boxing ring.
Instead of telling our former member, who posted words that are discriminating and insulting against certain groups of people, to support his claims and if he fails to do so, our former member should undergo some counseling that could modify his racist views, the e-mail writer compounded her mistake by threatening to haul our board to a court of law that does not even exist.
Inserted emails of her allies
But what is funnier with the e-mail writer was that when she sent us her second e-mail, she included the e-mail addresses of her allies. This means that if we responded to her second e-mail and kept the e-mail addresses of her allies in our reply to her, her allies will be feasting in our private exchanges.
They can post our private exchanges for all the world to see, which one of them did!
Because of our miscues, members learned a costly lesson that if they are sending away an email, they should be very extra careful to verify the email addresses in their headers first before pressing the “send” button.
But if there was a redeeming value to this story, our former member wrote to one of our officers that there were “mistakes” committed on his part and on the club’s part.
I surmised our former member, born, raised and schooled in the Philippines, who claims to be a retired member of the U.S. Navy, must have been bothered by his conscience when I told the e-mail writer to tell him that he owes tons of gratitude to the Filipino veterans, whom he hated big-time.
I told the email writer that the U.S-Philippine Military Bases Agreement in 1947 was renewed by the U.S. Congress because of the heroism and blind loyalty by the Filipino Veterans to the United States during World War II.
In that agreement, a little-known rider was inserted that extended the acceptance of Filipinos into the U.S. Navy. Now you all know why people espouse racist attitude –- they are ignorant of facts and issues.
(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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“WHOEVER learns to use a letter brush will never need to beg”, Chinese sages taught. But today, returns from schooling are shrinking in the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Thailand, says Asian Development Bank.
The four churn out “educated workers faster than they are creating jobs in sectors that historically hired them”, notes a new ADB study : “Education and Structural Change In Four Asian Countries.”
“Wage returns to basic education have fallen at almost every level of the primary and secondary school system,” cautions this special chapter in the bank’s annual review : “Outlook 2007”. Thus, “the power of existing basic education systems to combat wage inequality has been reduced.”
“Education is the lighting of a fire,” W. B. Yeats once said. Philippine Human Development Report, in 2000, and World Bank in 2006, probed education as anchor for humane governance. Inquirer, this month, examined the country’s “deepening school crisis” from classroom shortages to teacher competence.
“Education and Structural Change” does not revisit these issues. Instead, it analyzes how education alters structures in jobs, trade, technology – and lives of people. Some findings:
In these four countries, “education levels rose in almost all sectors and occupations.” Supply of secondary-educated workers is inching forward in India. It’s racing ahead in the other three. But “jobs did not grow organically to absorb the educated”.
“Filipino and Indian agricultural workers are over educated, as are Filipino and ( perhaps ) Thai industrial workers” To land a job here, secondary or college degrees are needed “Some jobs no longer pay a premium for more educated workers.”
About 86 percent of the increase of workers, with lower-secondary schooling, here went into services: like retail trade, hotels, etc -- or were jobless.
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THE military unrest has been rumbling beneath the ground for a long time. The Oakwood mutiny created the breach that allowed us to see and feel the pent up fury that was trying to bubble to the surface. The election of Navy Lt. Antonio Trillanes to the Philippine Senate last month produced a major vent that is causing tremors that are giving major concerns among the military top brass of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
A starting sign is the move among the officers and men of the army’s Third Infantry Division based in Negros, Panay, Cebu and Bohol. Led by Maj. Gen. Jovenal Narcise, the division commander, the group went public to congratulate Trillanes on his unprecedented election victory. Before the Trillanes phenomenon, such an action which constitutes an act hostile to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, would have resulted a demotion or change of assignment or some such dire consequence to Gen. Narcise. It can still happen.
Hobbled by confinement in a military prison cell for leading the Magdalo mutiny, how did Navy Lt. Trillanes conduct a successful election campaign? How did he surmount the awesome problem not only of being a poor imprisoned candidate, but on top of that, running on the lone plank of ousting Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the commander-in-chief of General Esperon, Chief of Staff of the AFP? The feat deserves to be an item in the Guiness Book of Records. The story deserves to be written as a book.
The Trillanes phenomenon goes to show how deep-seated is the negative feeling against GMA and her cohort of generals, not only of the military rank and file but of the rest of the voters. Shortly after the cheering of Trillanes by the Third Infantry Division, a subtler expression of similar sentiments was seen in a statement issued by Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, AFP information chief. Bacarro commented that the men of the Third Infantry Division was just showing their respect of the mandate the Filipino people gave to Lt. Trillanes. Should Bacarro start to look for a new assignment?
Gen. Esperon in the meantime, his macho image stung by the Trillanes phenomenon, is firming up his stand against Trillanes. He said Trillanes’ election as a senator would not affect his case with the court martial. He won’t permit Trillanes to attend sessions of the senate. He wont be allowed bail. Esperon did allow Trillanes to attend the oathtaking in the senate. But as a slap on the institution of the higher legislative body, Esperon kept Trillanes in handcuffs. Don’t go overboard, General. Before you realize it, you won’t just have a senator-in-residence in your military prison camp. You will have a full-blown national hero.
The macho general just cannot bear it everytime he thinks he was outwitted when right under his nose, Trillanes conducted his campaign while in jail. When Trillanes’ followers in the military and their families successfully conducted his campaign. When numerous supporters helped him with donations to finance his run for the senate. They insullted the vaunted intelligence resources of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
And Gen. Esperon must be having nightmares everytime he contemplates the newly acquired power of his prisoner, now a fulfledged senator of the Republic, to deliver speeches exposing shenanigans at Camp Aguinaldo, abuses that he denounced during the Magdalo mutiny for which he was charged and jailed. And this time, he cannot be charged even for libel. He will be clothed with immunity.
We see an ultimate constitutional battle between military and civilian law. The writing is writ on the wall.
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Michael J. Gurfinkel has been an attorney for over 26 years, and is an active member of the State Bar of California and New York, as well as the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Immigration Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He has always excelled in school:
Valedictorian in High School; Cum Laude at UCLA; and Law Degree Honors and academic scholar at Loyola Law School, which is one of the top law schools in California.
WEBSITE: www.gurfinkel.com
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Telephone: (818) 543-5800
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60 East 42nd Street, Suite 2101, New York, NY 10165 Telephone: (212) 808-0300
PHILIPPINES:
Heart Tower, Unit 701, 108 Valero Street, Salcedo Village, Makati, Philippines 1227
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