|
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.
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
JERSEY CITY - The Filipino Express' very own reporter and photographer, Butch Gata will soon be on air. Gata was recently tapped by ABS-CBN's award winning broadcaster Angelo Palmones to co-host the public service radio show, 'Usapang De Campanilla, ' a show that offers free legal advice to listeners.
The show's hosts, Palomones and Atty. Danny Concepcion, asked Gata to handle the New York segment of the show, which will feature people from the area asking legal advice and questions about Philippine laws.
The segment can be seen and heard by the worldwide subscribers of The Filipino Channel (TFC) on cable, Direct TV on satellite and at TFC Now on the internet every Tuesday between 7:30–9:00 am eastern time.
Gata is a well-known media practitioner and photo/ video artist in the New York area since the early 90’s. He has worked for various community newspapers, including the Express, and is also the producer of Pinoy TV, the longest running Filipino cable TV show in the US which can be seen 8:30 – 9:00pm on Channel 51 Comcast cable in Jersey City, New Jersey.
DZMM has been the consistent leader in the radio industry and its public service is second to none. A well rounded AM radio station, DZMM has a topnotch lineup of programs about entertainment, counseling, information, news and commentary hosted by talented and dynamic broadcasters that continue to reap much coveted awards for their unwavering determination and professionalism. And now with a huge global audience to serve, DZMM rises up to the challenge and creates programs that will bring closer interaction with the Filipinos around the world.
Those who have inquiries and questions of legal matters can email it at lgata1718@yahoo.com or call 201-736-1330 and Atty. Concepcion will be more than willing to answer them during the program.
The segment, which started last Jan.8th, has already generated numerous responses from Fil-Ams who were elated to know that they can now get some answers to questions regarding their problems of legal matters back home.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHICAGO, Illinois (JGLi) -- Judge Richard W. Roberts of the United States District Court of the District of Columbia issued Tuesday, Jan. 29, an order, fixing the sentencing of Filipino national Edward Chua on April 11, 2008 at 3:30 p.m., court records obtained by this reporter show.
Last Jan. 23rd, Judge Roberts also set the sentencing of another Filipino national, Daniel Curran, on April 3, 2008 at 3:30 p.m.
Chua and Curran are two of the ten Filipinos who were accused of defrauding the US-Export Import Bank of millions of dollars which involves a scheme where they made it appear that they had exported goods from the United States to the Philippines using bogus documents. The US Ex-Im Bank is the Washington, D.C.- based “official export credit agency of the United States.”
Earlier, Robert Delgado, owner and only employee of Global Resources Group (GRG) located at Fremont, California, was sentenced to two years in jail last Oct. 5, 2007 after pleading guilty to a “two count Information charging him with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and one count of mail fraud.”
Judge Roberts denied Delgado’s motion last Dec. 13, 2007 to self-surrender on April 1, 2008.
Jaime Galvez, owner and president of J.G. International Freight Corporation, was sentenced last Dec. 20, 2007 to “12 months and one day on two counts to run concurrently” and had requested that he be jailed at a “minimum security facility close to his home in California.” He chose “FCP Taft,” in Taft City, which is about 118 miles north of Los Angeles.
David Villongco, co-owner and General Manager of PBJ Venture International Corporations (PBJ Ventures), an exporting company located at San Mateo, California that buys goods in the U.S. and ships them to the Philippines, is scheduled for sentencing on Feb. 29, 2008 at 12 noon after pleading “guilty to a two-count Information charging him with one count of conspiracy to defraud the government with respect to claims and one count of mail fraud.”
Christina “Christy” Song, owner and employee of V&C Trading/Song Company (V&C Trading), an exporting company buying goods in the U.S. and shipping them to the Philippines, is awaiting the date of her sentencing after pleading guilty last Oct. 4, 2007 to “two-count Information charging him with one count of conspiracy to defraud the government with respect to claims and one count of mail fraud.”
Four others, Marilyn Ong and her nephew, Ildefonso Ong, Jr., Nelson Ti and Jose Tirona have been indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and to commit offenses against the U.S., false statement, mail fraud, money laundering, obstruction of proceeding before Department and Agency of the United States, aiding and abetting and causing an act to be done, and forfeiture.
Edward Chua, from Nov. 1999 until Jan. 2005, acted as a “purported ‘exporter’ in approximately $10-M worth of fraudulent loan transactions, falsified documents sent to the US and to the Ex-Im Bank, and misappropriated approximately $10-M in loans proceeds that were guaranteed by the Ex-Im Bank.”
Chua took $300,000 of the loan proceeds and transferred the approximately $9-M to a co-conspirator. David Curran, owner and president of Dankim Trading Company (Dankim Trading), received $24-M in fraudulent loan proceeds and kept $400,000 and transferred the approximately $23-M to his conspirator.
Roberto Delgado obtained $2.5-M in loan proceeds after purchasing goods on behalf of Mindanao Shipbuilding and Akaysa Mindanao. He obtained 3% of the $2.5-M in the mount of $100,000 and transferred the $1.8-M to his conspirator. Galvez was charged with “concealment and destruction of approximately 35 commercial invoices J.G. International received from Dankim Trading, EMMCO, and ECCO that materially and substantially overstated the dollar value of the goods actually shipped by J.G. International for those clients.”
David Villongco “received $16-M proceeds from lending banks,” kept $150,000 for himself and transferred $15.5-M to a conspirator.”
Christina Song transferred $15-M to the conspirator and kept $300,000 to herself out of the loan proceeds.
According to the indictment, Marilyn G. Ong, a loan broker living in Manila, Philippines, from Nov. 1999 to May 2005, “brokered approximately $40-M worth of fraudulent loan transactions between companies located in the Philippines and the United States lending bank, in which the Export- Import Bank of the United States acted as a guarantor or insurer.” Her nephew, Ildefonso Ong, who lives in California, acted as her representative in the U.S. “in hiding the nature of the fraudulent loan transaction by arranging for the shipments to the Philippines of goods that had little or no value."
Court records also show that Nelson L. Ti, a loan broker in Manila, “brokered approximately $16-M worth of fraudulent loan transactions” with the help of Jose “Joey” Tirona, co-owner and president of PBJ Venture and co-conspirator David Villongco. (lariosa_jos@ sbcglobal.net)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LOS ANGELES - A former top Hollywood studio lawyer and his wife have been sentenced by a Los Angeles judge after admitting to mistreating their Filipino maid in a case of "modern-day slavery," a court heard.
US District Judge Dale Fischer ordered James Jackson, 53, a former vice-president of legal affairs at Sony Pictures to perform 200 hours of community service for admitting a charge of alien harboring. Jackson's wife Elizabeth, 54, was given a three-year jail term after pleading guilty to a charge of forced labor.
In passing sentence, Fischer said Elizabeth Jackson had treated the victim, former schoolteacher Nena Ruiz, worse than her dog. Ruiz was forced to eat three-day-old food and to sleep on a dog basket after working 18 hours a day. Over the course of several months' employment between 2001 and 2002 she was paid only 300 dollars.
"These defendants subjected their victim to what amounts to modern-day slavery," said Justice Department prosecutor Wan Kim after the Jacksons pleaded guilty in August last year.
In a related civil lawsuit, Ruiz said Elizabeth Jackson regularly slapped her and pulled her hair. The Jacksons also threatened to turn her over to immigration authorities if she left them, Ruiz said. Ruiz finally fled the Jacksons after she was hit in the mouth with a water bottle in February 2002.
Elizabeth Jackson said in a letter read out in court on Monday that she took full responsibility for her actions.
"In my life I have always tried and strived to do the right thing," she said. "I failed in this case."
Defense lawyers argued against a jail sentence for Jackson, saying the couple had already suffered enough by being forced to declare bankruptcy.
However Fischer denied a request for home confinement, telling the court:
"It seems she treated her dog much better than she treated her victim." Ruiz won 825,000 dollars in damages from her former employers at a 2004 civil trial in Los Angeles. (MNS)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
