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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– In the wake of controversies surrounding racial and sexual slurs by radio show hosts, a popular television program on ABC is under fire from various Filipino and Filipino-American groups for an episode that contained a derogatory dialogue against Filipinos.
On last Sunday’s premier of the hit program ‘Desperate Housewives’, Susan Mayer, the character played by Teri Hatcher, was arguing with her gynecologist who thinks she’s hitting menopause. Mayer said, “Can I just check those diplomas because I just want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines.”
The slur against Filipino med schools caused an uproar over the Internet Monday night as an email sent by Filipino-American music artist, Kevin Nadal, urging everyone to sign a petition condemning the incident, spread.
Nadal’s email read:
“This type of derogatory remark is not only unnecessary and hurtful, but is also unfounded, considering the presence of Filipinos and Filipino Americans in the health care industry. Filipinos are the second largest immigrant population in the United States, with many entering the U.S. and passing their U.S. licensing boards as doctors, nurses, and medical technicians.
So, to belittle the education, experience, or value of Filipino Americans in health care is disrespectful and plain and simply ignorant.”
As of press time, there are 50,000 signatures on the online petition form. It can be found on http://www.petitiononline.com/FilABC/.
Wildfire
Reactions online from Fil Am bloggers were swift. Several comments were posted on an award winning blog called ‘Coffee with Amee’(http://coffeewithamee.wordpress.com/), one of which read:
“I just saw the episode and I was really surprised about the comment! I have a lot of respect for not just Filipino doctors, but also Filipino graduates and the comment was just disrespectful and racist. Even though it was meant as a joke, it wasn’t funny anymore.”
A comment on www.poptimesmagazine.com by a user named Kamote stated: “How can they say that Filipino doctors here are inferior? All doctors here in the States take the same exams for licensing, and Filipino graduates pass them like any Harvard or Yale graduate.”
However, some Filipinos posted otherwise.
On Multiply.com, a popular networking website, a user named Markushighway thought the comment has some bearing, he posted: “I think there’s a grain of truth in there somewhere. And the truth hurts.”
Malacañang also demanded ABC network to issue an apology. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the TV show belittled the abilities of Filipino doctors and sent a message that Philippine medical schools produced "substandard, inferior" medical practitioners.
Joining the Philippine government in protest were some medical associations like the Philippine Medical Association as well as various consular offices all over the US.
The Apology
On Wednesday the producers of the hit TV series "Desperate Housewives" has issued an apology, for an insulting line that belittled the practitioners of the medical profession in the Philippines.
"The producers of Desperate Housewives and ABC Studios offer our sincere apologies for any offense caused by the insulting remark in the season premier," ABC Network said in a short statement of apology.
ABC Network added: "There was no intent to disparage the integrity of any aspect of the medical community in the Philippines."
However, some FIl-Am groups dismissed the apology as routine and insincere. Others demanded a complete retraction of the line from the episode.
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CHICAGO – The criminal case against Philippine superstar Nora Aunor for possession of controlled substance and a glass pipe is now stricken off the records unless “she applies for a job as a Los Angeles (California) police officer.”
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James R. Dabney of Department F in Los Angeles told Ms. Aunor in open court Monday, Oct. 1, that “your case is dismissed as if you had not been convicted. You are 99.9 percent clean unless you want to be a police officer.”
Her lawyer, Sherwin C. Edelberg, told this reporter over the phone that “the case against my client has been thrown out. For all intents and purposes, she (Nora Aunor) has no (criminal) record, unless she applies for a job as police officer” where her record might surface. Edelberg’s partner, Claire N. Espina, who also handles the case, was not in court and was said to be indispose.
Edelberg said the 53-year-old songstress also paid $220.00 fine to close the book on a case that started 18 months ago.
Sandi Gibbons, public information officer of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, quoted DA Laurie Blaustein as saying that Ms. Aunor, whose real name is Nora Villamayor, has “completed all the terms of her probation in the drug program under California Law. Her case is dismissed.”
Ms. Aunor was accompanied in court by her aunt, “Manay Belen” Villamayor, her cousin, Maribel Aunor and another cousin and chaperon “Sunshine.” They waited more than three hours before her case was called. But it only took Judge a few minutes to dismiss the case.
The fine is part of “18-month deferred entry judgment” issued last March 29, 2006 by Judge James Brandlin.
Under the deferred judgment, if Ms. Aunor is not arrested for any violation during the 18-month period, “the plea is withdrawn, as if (it was) never made, there is no record of conviction, and the case is dismissed, and arrest stricken from the record.”
Earlier, Atty. Espina, Ms. Aunor’s lawyer said, Nora was granted full credit for all the group sessions she attended in the Drug Court program and was not required to attend any more sessions during those 18 months.
Ms. Aunor also passed in excess of 40 drug tests while under Drug Court and is no longer required to undergo any drug testing. She was to return in October 2007 for the closure of the case unless defense makes a motion for early termination, an option Ms. Aunor did not take.
Ms. Aunor’s guilty plea comes nearly a year after she was arrested for possession of eight grams of methamphetamine (commonly known as shabu) and a glass of pipe in her carry-on bag at the Los Angeles International Airport while she was on a domestic plight to Oakland, California. She was arrested on March 30, 2005.
(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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JERSEY CITY – A Filipino American judge in Jersey City took an unpaid leave of absence amidst allegations of improper handling of parking tickets, The Jersey journal reported Thursday morning, October 4.
In a letter to Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy and Hudson County Assignment Judge Maurice Gallipoli, Judge Victor Sison announced he was taking a leave of absence from his position effective immediately. The Journal also reported that Sison did not offer any reasons for his leave.
Sison was implicated in the ticket-fix scandal on Monday, along with fellow judges: Wanda Molina, Erwin Rosen, and Pauline Sica.
Molina resigned on September 20, while Rosen took a leave of absence on September 26 after allegations that he dismissed a ticket he had been issued. Judge Sica also filed for an unpaid leave of absence on September 28 after sources revealed that she fixed tickets for another judge. The judge in question, according to the Jersey Journal source, was Judge Sison. Judge Victor Sison’s staff declined to comment on the issue.
The allegations against the judges have been referred to the criminal justice division of the state Attorney General’s office, said the Trial Court Administrator Joe Davis of the Hudson County Superior Court.
Only six judges are currently taking cases in the municipal court. However, judges throughout helping out with the backlog left by the absentees.
With reports from N. Clark Judd (Jersey Journal)
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NEW YORK: A New York state judge has refused to throw out criminal charges against 10 nurses from the Philippines who were arrested after they quit their jobs at a Long Island nursing home during a labor dispute.
The nurses resigned without notice from the Avalon Gardens Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Smithtown, on Long Island, east of New York City, during the spring of 2006, forcing the facility to scramble to cover their shifts.
No harm was done to patients, but Suffolk County prosecutors accused the nurses of criminal conspiracy and endangering the welfare of children for leaving their jobs so abruptly. Some of the home's residents included disabled children in a pediatric unit.
State regulators cleared the nurses of any administrative wrongdoing last fall, but the facility hired a lawyer and pressed District Attorney Thomas Spota to file a criminal case anyway.
The judge, Robert Doyle, denied a motion to dismiss the case Friday.
A lawyer for the nurses, James Druker, said they had a right to quit, and are innocent of any crime.
"This is the classic uphill battle, but we're going to fight on," he told Newsday after the ruling.
The nurses had been recruited abroad to work in the United States for three years, but wound up unhappy with their working conditions. Authorities said they quit on the advance of their attorney, Felix Vinluan, who is also charged.
Vinluan and the nurses could face up to six years in prison if convicted on the charges.
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