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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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MANILA -- A bomb explosion at an entrance of the House of Representatives in Quezon City late Tuesday evening killed four people, including Basilan Rep. Wahab Akbar, and injured at least seven others.
The National Police and the Armed Forces immediately went on full alert.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered Director General Avelino Razon, National Police chief, to personally lead the investigation of the explosion. The President said Razon should "submit periodic reports as warranted."
In a nationwide telecast late Tuesday evening, the President called for sobriety.
Director Geary Barias, chief of the National Capital Region Police Office, said the driver of Gabriela party-list Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan was also killed in the explosion. The driver was identified as Marcial Talbo.
Maan Bustalino, a staff member of Negros Oriental Rep. Pryde Henry Teves, who was also injured in the explosion, expired while being transfered from Malvar General Hospital on Commonwealth Avenue to the St. Luke's Medical Center on E. Rodriguez Sr. boulevard. She was rerouted to the Capitol Medical Center on Quezon Avenue instead where she was pronounced dead. Bustalino, who is from Dumaguete City, is in her mid-30's.
The explosion went off as the House ended its session at past 8 p.m.
“At this point in time I’m saying it’s a bomb, but I can’t say what type of bomb,” said Razon.
Police investigators suspect the bomb might have been placed on one of two parked motorcycles then remotely detonated as Akbar approached his car, fatally wounding him and ripping the motorcycles apart, Barias said.
"It looks like Congressman Akbar was the target," Barias said.
Akbar, a former governor of Basilan province and reportedly a former member of the Abu Sayyaf group, had claimed he was a target of his former comrades.
Some security officials have suspected that Akbar knew the leaders of the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim radical group that has its roots on Basilan island. But they said he later had a falling out with Abu Sayyaf commanders and started fighting them.
Akbar also had political opponents, including those that ran against one of his wives who succeeded him as governor of Basilan.
The bomb went off as drivers were picking up lawmakers and their staff and damaged a number of cars outside the south wing entrance to the Batasan Pambansa building.
"I felt the blast although I was on the other side of the building. The ceiling of the canopy near the south wing entrance came down," Rep. Teodoro Casino said.
Rep. Joel Villanueva of the party-list Citizen's Battle Against Corruption said he was at the south wing of the building when he heard a "very loud explosion."
Witnesses said they saw a van and one or two vehicles burning after the explosion. Razon said a destroyed motorcycle was found and experts were conducting chemical swabs on it to find out if it was used to carry the bomb. Police cordoned off the massive House complex in suburban Quezon City shortly after the explosion.
"If this is terrorist action or work of an anarchist I'm sure it was deliberately done to cow us," House Speaker Jose de Venecia told reporters at the site.
Political tensions are high in the country. President Arroyo is facing a third impeachment complaint in as many years.
"We cannot rule out anything until the investigation is completed," De Venecia said. "There are many threats to us personally and officially. We will have to decide whether we have to augment security."
He said he will speak with the President "to inform her tonight that we will not be cowed by terrorists."
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NEW YORK – Governor Eliot Spitzer announced that his plan to grant millions of illegal immigrants driver's licenses will no longer be pursued.
Citing "overwhelming opposition to the plan" as his reason to pull it out, the governor said he had not reached the decision easily.
“You have perhaps seen me struggle with it because I thought we had a principled decision, and it’s not necessarily easy to back away from trying to move a debate forward,” he said.
Spitzer believed that the proposal would be ultimately bolcked, either by legal challenges, a vote by the legislature to deny financing for the DMV, or a refusal by county clerks to implement it.
“I am not willing to fight to the bitter end on something that will not ultimately be implemented,” the governor said, “and we also have an enormous agenda on other issues of great importance to New York State that was being stymied by the constant and almost singular focus on this issue.”
Spitzer’s plan would have created three kinds of licenses: one as secure as a passport for crossing the Canadian border, another that would have met federal standards created to make it more difficult for would-be terrorists to get identification, and a third for purposes of driving, available to illegal immigrants and others.
It was, in a sense, everything to everyone. Security advocates got their fancy new microchip licenses, immigrant advocates got at least some of what they had originally expected. Both sides, however, disagree so vehemently about who should and should not have government identification in the United States, that the deal only further isolated Spitzer, leaving him in a political no man's land.
The pressure increased in recent days with new poll numbers showing 70 percent of New Yorkers opposed the plan, and more and more Democrats publicly broke ranks. With reports from AP
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BALTIMORE – A Filipina teacher, originally from Cebu City, was found dead inside her apartment in Baltimore last November 8, 2007 . According to the police report, the cause of death of the 41-year old Irene Conato Apao was suicide.
The circumstances surrounding the tragic end of Apao is still unclear, however, a source revealed that she was bothered by ‘work problems’ for some time and that she had already tried to kill herself before. The source also disclosed that Apao was missing for some time and was not returning calls by her friends. A concerned friend then contacted Apao’s landlord to check her room. There the landlord discovered the lifeless body of the Cebuana.
Apao came to the United States in August 2006 and taught physics and chemistry for 11th and 12th graders of the Riverbend High School in Spotsylvania, Virginia. She later moved to Baltimore and taught math and physics at the Baltimore City Talented Development School.
She was a talented lady and an active member of the Filipino-American Association of Stafford Virginia and the Mabuhay Inc, She is also an avid volunteer of the Migrant Heritage Commission, that is now conducting an investigation on her untimely demise.
Apao has no immediate family in the US that is why her friends, co-teachers, the Filipino Teachers’ Groups in Spotsylvania (Virginia), in Baltimore (Maryland) and in New Jersey/ New York, Mabuhay Inc., Fil-Am Ass’n of Stafford, Virginia (FAASV) and the Migrant Heritage Commission (MHC) are joining efforts to raise funds for her memorial services and shipment of her remains back home.
Any financial assistance will be greatly appreciated by Irene’s family in the Philippines since she died bereft of funds. All donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Please make checks payable to any of the following non-profit tax exempt entities: 1) Migrant Heritage Commission, Inc. (Memo: Donation to the late Irenea C. Apao) Mosby Tower, 10560 Main St., Suite 519, Fairfax, VA 20910 (FEIN : 56-2618684) 2) Mabuhay, Inc. (Memo: Donation to the late Irenea C. Apao) 7912 Orchard Park Way , Bowie, MD 20715
All donations will be for the funeral expenses of Irene in the U.S. and in the Philippines and for the educational funds for her children
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