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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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JUST as President Arroyo began preaching the good health of the Philippine economy, another dagger in the heart came in the form of yet another mutiny– again headed by her latest arch-enemy: Senator Antonio Trillanes.
In a time when the Philippine peso seems to gain enough ground to de-power the mighty US dollar, Trillanes orchestrated another uprising inside the Manila Peninsula Hotel that, unfortunately for Arroyo foes, lasted only for seven hours, but nevertheless packed enough punch to scare away foreign investors and bring the peso into a spiral.
It is such a hectic reign for the Little Lady in Malacañang: A popular revolt that gave her power, impeachment cases left and right, two mutinies, loads of corruption scandals, Erap, and the never-ending rants of rival politicians are enough to send her to the intensive care unit. However, the Little Lady in Malacañang has proven to be as strong as oak –it is the state of the nation that is in shambles.
The country is restless. There has never been so much anger in the streets since the martial law years, and if this turmoil will not break the Little Lady, it will break the country for sure.
There is a conundrum in all these, though. Even if the Little Lady quits her post, it will not be a guarantee that the chaos will end. In fact, it is almost certain that the unrest will go on for as long as there is politics in the Philippines. It is in our very nature to be such.
Perhaps, Manuel Quezon’s famous declaration that “He would rather see a Philippines run like hell by Filipinos, than run like heaven by Americans”, had become a curse. It will be hell for all Filipinos in the Philippines forever. Perhaps, millions of Filipinos abroad have realized this long ago and decided to live their lives far from the homeland, to at least taste a bit of the heaven provided by developed nations. For them, heaven is better than home.
Trillanes is a symbol of Quezon’s curse. We have had many of them: Macario Sakay, Luis Taruc, Ninoy Aquino, Lean Alejandro, and Gringo Honasan, to name a few. These Filipinos see the rot inside the system, the burning flesh in this hell, and the hopelessness of the status quo. Then they highlight it for all to see.
Many foreign observers may be baffled by the successive disorder in our country, however, given a full understanding of our nature, they will soon discover that it is just another day in the life of Filipinos in the homeland.
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Remedy for misrepresenting marital status
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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)
THE case of the prominent Filipino couple in Central Pennsylvania who are under deportation proceedings because of alleged visa fraud illustrates a common immigration problem among Filipino immigrant visa applicants.
As reported by the Associated Press and several Filipino newspapers, both Dr. Pedro Servano and his wife, Salvacion, were separately petitioned by their mothers in 1978 when they were still single. They got married in 1980 while waiting for their visa numbers. Salvacion obtained her immigrant visa two years later while Dr. Servano got his in 1984. They did not disclose the change in their marital status at the consular interview.
Undetected for Years
For years, the misrepresentation went undetected. It was only in 1990, when they were interviewed for their naturalization applications, that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) noticed the alleged fraud. They were soon placed in deportation proceedings.
Long Wait
When an immigrant parent petitions his/her single son or daughter, the case falls under the family-based second preference category. Said category has several years of waiting time for a visa number.
In the case of Filipinos, the current waiting time is about five years if the beneficiary is under 21 years old or eleven years if he/she is 21 years old or over.
For the visa petition to be valid, the son or daughter must remain single. But many Filipino applicants cannot wait that long. They get married and have children while waiting for the visa number. Marriage, of course, automatically invalidates the visa petition.
Waiver Remedy
Is there a remedy available for those placed under deportation proceedings?
With the help of an experienced immigration lawyer, there is a relief known as a waiver of deportability under Section 237 (a)(1)(H) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
To qualify for the waiver, the person must be the spouse, parent, son or daughter of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident and have been in possession of an immigrant visa and otherwise admissible at the time of admission to the U.S.
Factors to be Considered In adjudicating waiver cases, the Immigration Court will weigh the positive as well as the negative factors pertaining to the waiver applicant.
Positive factors include family ties in the U.S., lengthy period of residence in this country, hardship to himself./ herself or his/her family, stable employment history, property or business ownership, service to the community and any other evidence of his/her good character or behavior.
The adverse factors that will be considered include the nature of the fraud or misrepresentation committed, criminal record, or any other evidence of bad character or behavior.
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ON the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, surviving able-bodied Filipino men and women in the Philippines will remember when President Roosevelt asked them to join America in its war against Japan.
Because these Filipinos on Dec. 7th, 1941 still considered themselves American nationals since the Philippines was at that time a Commonwealth of America as Puerto Rico is today, these Filipinos complied with the order without questions asked.
Under that order of Roosevelt, however, Filipinos were forced -- not asked to volunteer -- to fight Japan. Unfortunately, the Roosevelt’s order – the carrot – - had a stick: anybody defying it is liable for violation of Articles of War #58 (now #85), which imposes death penalty on deserters.
Unlike Vietnam War, the men and women who joined that war were volunteers, who have options to back out if they can offer credible excuses.
Fr. Prisco Entines, a son of a Filipino World War II veteran who died near the end of World War II, believes that the conscription order was a Damocles’ sword that left veterans no way out.
SLAVERY
Father Entines, who took a leave from his priestly ministry to seek justice, honor and dignity for the Filipino World War II veterans to conduct an extensive legal research on the matter, said Roosevelt’s conscription order was a modern form of “slavery.”
“You have no option but to follow orders,” Entines said. “If that was a voluntary call up, it would have been a different story.”
A plaintiff in two court cases pending in Washington, D.C., Father Entines said aside from being forced to join the war, the Filipinos were shortchanged when they got one-half instead of full salary received by their American counterparts following the enactment of the Rescission Act of 1946.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that the soldiers of the Allied Forces from 66 countries during that war were granted full benefits received by American soldiers but not the Filipinos. This demolished the argument put forward by VA Deputy Under Secretary for Benefits Ronald R. Aument, who told the Senate committee hearing on the Filipino Equity Bill early this year that the grant of full salary to Filipinos will “disproportionately favor Filipino veterans over U.S. Veterans,” referring to the “difference in the cost of living in the United States and the Philippines.” Did the U.S. Congress also consider the costs of living of the 66 other countries before granting full benefits to Allied soldiers of those countries? Beats me.
WASHROOM SENATOR
One of the arch critics of the Filipino Equity Bill in the Senate now called S. 1315 known as Veterans’ Benefit Enhancement Act of 2007 being pushed by Hawaii Sen. Daniel Akaka (Dem.), Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, the Republican senator who was accused of lewd conduct inside Minneapolis Airport washroom, is objecting to the bill as “controversial enough.“ The objection was not specified.
But the most common objection is the view that when Filipino soldiers took up arms against Japan during World War II, the Filipino soldiers were defending their Philippine homeland, not America. This is, of course, ridiculous because at that time, the Philippines had no power to defy America. The Philippines was like a slave, who could not run away from his Master. The Philippines was a Commonwealth or territory of America. There was no independent Philippines to speak of.
Entines said that if he fails to get justice for the Filipino veterans before the U.S. Courts, he is prepared to take his case before the International Court of Justice “because the crime of slavery does not violate any statute of limitation being a crime against humanity like genocide.”
In reinforcing the grant of full rate for Filipino veterans, Sen. Inouye told the committee hearing last April 11, “an injury is just as painful in the Philippines as in the United States.”
KAPEHAN SA FISHPOND
On Saturday, Dec. 8, the NPC-Phil. U.S.A. headed by Yoly Tubalinal will co-host a “Kapehan sa Fishpond” (Coffee Talk at Fishpond) along 4416 North Clark St. in Chicago, with the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) in Illinois headed by Dr. Evelyn A. Natividad.
They will invite Chicago area congressmen, senators and veterans to discuss the S. 1315, which is up for floor debate in December in the Senate.
Jesse Broder Van Dyke, spokesman of Sen. Akaka, said Senator Akaka had this to say on S. 1315: “These brave veterans, who fought under U.S. command in WWII, have for decades been wrongly denied the recognition and compensation they earned with their service. They have lived with this insult for most of their adult lives. I am pushing for an up-or-down vote on this bill so the remaining Filipino veterans can live to see the day when they get the recognition they were stripped of more than 50 years ago. I will continue to reach out to the opposition and hear their concerns, and I look forward to a lively floor debate, but I firmly believe that granting these brave veterans who fought under U.S. command the benefits they so richly deserve is our duty.”
(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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“Stitching sheets of loose sand”
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ENVIRONMENT and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza spiked an order that stretched, for six years, a permit that allowed Basey Wood Industries to log, yet again, in a 57,525 hectare concession on ecologically brittle Samar.
The country’s last old growth forests cluster in Samar.. They’re crammed with diverse wildlife and plants. It’s “one of the top 200 endangered spaces on the [ planet ], World Wildlife Fund (WWF) states.
UN Development Program, Global Environment Facility and government launched the Samar Island Natural Park. to protect this resource. But then-DENR Secretary Angelo Reyes unleashed Baswood loggers anyway.
“I can’t find any logic why we should allow cutting of trees on such a massive scale”, his successor told the Inquirer. “We’re concerned about climate change,” Atienza said.
The secretary was referring to the Nobel awardee Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.. “Abrupt and irreversible climate changes” would occur if business-as-usual practices are not decisively curbed, it states.
The IPCC scientific analysis leaves “little wiggle room for politicians”. Yet, San Jose Timber Corporation drove an opening wedge into Samar’s 18-year old logging ban.
A politicking DENR secretary Mike Defensor authorized Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s firm, to chain-saw, in a 95,770 hectare concession that straddles protected zones.-- for 16 years and five months as “restitution”.Got that?
These decisions reignite the old festering debate: Can forests be managed, so loggers, who’ve always corralled benefits with their political clout, finally share with impoverished forest dwellers? And can this be done while conserving the environment so it will meet today’s needs, without hocking future generations’ rights?
Yes, replied 155 foresters from 33 countries who met in Vietnam for the International Conference on Managing Forests for Poverty Reduction. But it’ll take an overhaul of mindsets and policies, reports, says “A Cut For the Poor”, the 247-page report on the Ho Chi Minh meeting .
All too often, “forests have been off-limits to all but the privileged and powerful… with their chainsaw gangs, skidders and testosterone charged bulldozers,” Food and Agriculture Organization’s Patrick Durst said.
Logs are big bucks, inviting illegal, shadowy activities. “When lucrative timber is at stake, local people are invariably shut out. If involved, they are usually wage laborers, who help harvest timber wealth, hauled or floated to cities — never to be seen again”
Does that describe today’s forest plunder in Surigao del Sur? There, Picop razes remaining timber stands like there was no tomorrow. No.
Durst was speaking of the last 150 years experience in Asia – and how intractable poverty spurs the search today for ways of using forests other than bankrolling second mansions for loggers..
Forest dwellers huddle among Asia’s poorest. There are about 60 million highly forest-dependent people in Southeast Asia, Latin America and West Africa. About 11 million Filipinos scrounge on less than a dollar ( P43 at current exchange rates ) a day. Rural folk often turn to forest products as a “livelihood strategy of last resort”.
Policy makers, however, claim allowing the poor to use forests results in degradation. Thus, “forest-dependent poor are first in the line of fire for restrictive and punitive measures”. University of the Philippines Juan Pulhin and Patrick Dugan, for example, document how Filipino rural families must draft complex forest management plans to harvest miniscule portions of timber.
Obsolete mindsets buttress this unjust status quo. Some foresters think forestry is about trees,” FAO’s Jack Westoby wrote in 1967. “This is wrong. Forestry is about people. And it is about trees only insofar as they serve needs of people”
A people-centered approach is today’s quiet revolution in forestry philosophy, Durst said. The conventional wisdom that “bigger is always better” in forestry is crumbling, albeit slowly. Will private companies and governments allow local people to extract and process timber that’s uneconomical to remove from the forest?.
“Big trees have the potential to be a significant pathway out of poverty for many of the little people”. The task ahead is to “capture opportunities in forest harvest and wood processing to benefit the marginalized”. New and re-discovered old technologies, plus marketing and institutional development, open windows of opportunity…”
“A Cut For The Poor “ spotlights need for action in: ( a ) Policies -- Rules for smallscale operators must be simplified so the rural poor can participate. Simplification also curbs graft; ( b ) Economic Issues – Measures must shift the poor from merely providing labor. ( c) Benefits -- Community- based forest enterprises need clearer sharing arrangements. ( d ) Information – Data on new and rediscovered technology and markets must become available.
Poverty reduction is not a by-product, “A Cut For the Poor” stresses. It should be an explicit priority of forest management that engages the private sector. “Clear property rights, stable policies and strong local institutions are essential”
Reaching the rural poor is like “stitching sheets of loose sand,” the Chinese statesman Sun Yat Sen once said. But the alternative is continued exploitation of people, by misuse of a resource, they have a right to.
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THE announcement of the revitalization of the old Liberal Party is like letting in a whiff of fresh air into a room that is filled with suffocating stale air, even if at this point we are not certain that the party will usher in good traditional politics.
The election of Senator Mar Roxas as party president and the auspicious attendance of former Senator Jovito Salonga instills in us the hope that the LP will revive its old traditions of values, ideas, competence and vision.
A trace of stale air apparently remains as a splinter group led by tradpol Gloria loyalist Lito Atienza is trying hard to insinuate himself into the picture. It is a dying attempt of the administration to ride on what GMA perceives as a remnant of good politics. But people are well aware that what GMA represents is a rotten apple that, if allowed to get into a basket of good ones, will surely spoil the rest of the fruits.
But we know the nature of Atienza and his masters. His assigned objective is to try to see how he and his cohorts can make use of the good image of the LP to window dress the administration party.
On July 8, 2005, the LP had demanded the resignation of GMA as president to end her reign of corruption and greed. LP stalwart Senator Frank Drilon spearheaded the Resign Gloria movement. He said the LP is demanding GMA's resignation no matter what.
The qualifying phrase "no matter what" is significant. It implies the party expects Gloria to issue lies and more lies to counter the clamor for her resignation. "No matter what" bolsters the demand by clarifying that no counter claims can ever justify backing down from the LP's position.
Majority of the LP saw through Atienza and elected Drilon to lead the party. After his defeat, Atienza represented himself as head of the defeated group as an LP faction. He desperately wants the glorious reputation of the LP and LP leaders such as Tanada, Salonga, Daza and Abad to rub off on Atienza's bogus faction, which in turn they would like to use as window dress GMA's administration party. But this would be an exercise in desperation. "Bulok" is "bulok", and no deodorant can hide the stink of the GMA administration.
Are there other alternatives for the replacement of GMA? What about Joseph “Erap” Estrada? Erap apparently can attract crowds of followers. Erap still counts with an organization and resources. But if one talks of virtues, if we let his group go through the sieve of values, ideas, competence and vision, they would no doubt be found wanting. After time has gone by for GMA with no worthwhile group posing as a rival, Erap had emerged as such strictly on the basis of numbers.
On this basis, and on the “lesser of two evils” basis, without any other worthwhile choices, maybe we would vote for Erap. But with the relaunching of the Liberal Party, this would no longer be true.
There are other groups who have made known their intentions to contest the next presidential elections, but they are too radical for our taste. We hope other aggrupations comparable to the LP will surface before 2010.
Without any other worthwhile choice, members of the opposition to GMA, good or bad, has joined the group of Erap. This group by this time is by now already weighted by rejects of GMA.
The country need another opposition group to absorb more idealists. It is known that when idealists search and cannot find a political group to satisfy them, they just opt out completely from serving their country out of frustration.
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Love is lovelier ... for Pinky
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LAST Saturday, I was witness to a lovely wedding -- intimate and meaningful. Actress-singer Pinky de Leon became the bride of Tom Coyle at simple ceremonies at the Brentwood Presbytarian Church in West L.A.
The nervous groom waited for what must've seemed like forever ... until the beaming bride finally appeared with her daughter, Michelle.
Dressed in a strapless white lace gown, with her long curly locks, Pinky held a bouquet of roses that matched her headdress. She smiled the sweetest smile as she glided down the aisle and was given away by her stepfather, Senor Tony Abad to the tall and dashing engineer who awaited her at the foot of the altar. The moving ceremony was quite solemn as the couple held hands and looked into each other's eyes as officiating pastor, Rev. Charles Svendsen united them for the rest of their life.
The couple exchanged vows as Michelle, Pinky’s only daughter sang the lyrics of Ikaw/You . Ikaw ... ang bigay ng maykapal/you are a gift from God Almighty which to my mind articulated the couple’s sentiment for each other.
An intimate gathering of close family members and friends which included myself witnessed the culmination of a love story that started not too long ago.
Brother, Christopher de Leon had expressed his ardent wish to be present but was unable to make it due to his hectic schedule -- the tapings or shoots for his television series with Channel 2, Manila and business commitments (putting up a seaside restaurant in Metro Manila) prevented him from flying over. Although up until the eve of the wedding, there was an anticipation that he may just appear.
The reception immediately followed at Marina del Rey’s Shanghai’s Redby the waterfront. There were only five tables for the exclusive guest list of 50 people. At center wasi the newly-weds families including the bride’s mother, veteran actress Lilia Dizon and husband, Tony Abad, sister Toni (who had flown in from Manila), daughter Michelle Lejano, the Coyles: Tom’s daughter Elizabeth and spouse Mark and brother, Brian. who flew in days before from Manila.
Sis Melissa de Leon called in her best wishes.
An evening highlight was the medley of ‘70s hits dedicated to the delighted honorees. The rest of the night was spent partaking of the delicious buffet as piped-in ballads played in the background.
Mr. Coyle, by the way is a distinguished aerospace engineer at Northrop Grumman. He and Pinky will be leaving in early December to spend the Holidays in the Philippines.
Pinky was born Eleanor Strauss de Leon to award-winning actors Gil de Leon and Lilia Dizon. Like her mother, who was named Best Actress (over 27 other actresses) in the 1953 Cambodia Asia Film- Fest, Pinky is one of our better actresses on the big screen -- with 50 films to her credit, she has won acting awards for Ang Daigdig ay Isang Patak ng Luha (1976), Ugat/The Root ( 974) and Tanikalang Apoy (1973). Other memorable movies worth mentioning are Kabiyak and Alabok sa Ulap where she co-starred with Dindo Fernando and was directed by Danny Zialcita (who regarded Pinky as his favorite actress) and West Wind, an international film release. She was also active in the Captain Barbell comedy tv series (2006) and Forever in My Heart with GMA-7 Pinoy TV. Her sibling, Melissa is also an actress. And of course, the very much acclaimed actor-brother Christopher de Leon.
She has two offsprings (Tony Boy and Michelle) from her first marriage to the late Boy Lejano of Lian, Batangas and a son - Albie, from her merger to Bobby Aguirre who had served as vice-mayor of Paranaque.
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