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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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WOODSIDE– Amidst reports of a snowstorm, strong winds and below freezing temperature, more than 300
Filipino compatriots, Filipino- Americans, and American friends jam-packed the building on 40-21 69th Street in the Roosevelt area, the heart of the Filipino Community in New York City, to open the first Bayanihan Filipino Community Center in the Northeast on Sunday.
“We congratulate and welcome the organizers and all the people behind the Bayanihan Filipino Community Center. It is our wish that you consider us your friend and ally in the community,” said New York City Council Member (Democrat) Eric Gioia who represents the Queens neighborhoods of Woodside, Sunnyside, Maspeth, and Long Island City.
Council Member Gioia is known for his advocacy for the poor and the homeless. He has authored laws to alleviate child hunger and for environmental protection, improved public schools and increased access to affordable and middle class housing in his district, and as head of the Oversight and Investigations Committee, conducted over 50 inquiries that resulted in the passage of laws to protect the people with HIV/AIDS, increased government accountability and transparency, and encourage young people to register and vote.
“This center and these flowers resemble the great labor of love and the beautiful art of collective handiwork,” Mr. Gioia said, especially commenting on the beautiful flower arrangements that the group KABALIKAT – Filipino Domestic Workers Support Network in New York donated and made themselves.
Mr. Gioia is a native of Queens; attended public schools in Queens and his family has run a floral shop in the Roosevelt area in Woodside for more than 100 years.
We are very honored to have New York City Council Members like Eric Gioia, Helen Sears and John Liu who share the same goals, hopes and vision we have join us in this noble effort of building a center for our community. It’s great to know we have these public servants on our side,” said Robert Roy, Executive Director of Philippine Forum.
Tito Luna, Director of Youth Services for the Office of the Queens Borough President Helen Marshall also graced the event. He read a message from Queens Borough President Helen Marshall. In her message, Ms. Marshall said that “The Philippine Forum is an energetic and forward thinking organization in our Borough. Over the course of relatively few years, you have gained a wonderful reputation through your many programs and services for young people, as well as for immigrants, senior citizens and other people in need.”
Dorinda Welle, Program Officer of the Ford Foundation expressed Ford Foundation’s support for the building of the community center and the creation of a space for the youth to talk about their issues and concerns.
“Congratulations and I look forward to seeing everyone at the 1st anniversary of the Center next year, and more power to YEHEY!!” she exclaimed as the crowd chanted “YEHEY!!, YEHEY!!”.
Ford Foundation is a major sponsor of the Philippine Forum’s Project YEHEY (Young Educators for Health and Empowerment of the Youth), a core project of its Youth Empowerment and Development Program.
“We are confident that our presence here at the heart of our community will facilitate the provision of much needed services and contribute in strengthening our unity as a people,” said Dr. Ben Ileto, the Opening’s Hermano Mayor.
Dr. Ileto was part of the first groups of doctors who migrated to New York from the Philippines in the late 60s and 70s. Ms. Cora Mahinay was the Hermana Mayor. Hermano/Hermana mayor means major sponsors.
“It was very cold outside so the first floor and the basement were SRO [standing room only]. But everybody had fun meeting everyone else and excited to have the Center they also helped build,” said Rico Foz, Executive Vice President of the National Alliance of Filipino Concerns (NAFCON).
NAFCON is an alliance of more than 30 organizations in the US, and which Philippine Forum is also one of its founding members.
Father Sancho Garrote, Chaplain of Jacobi Medical Center, officiated the prayer and blessing ceremony. Anne Beryl Corotan aka Taus Puso sang Masdan Mo – an original composition; and Shirley Cuyugan-O’Brien, a member of the Philippine Forum- KABALIKAT Domestic Workers Support Network, gave a poetry reading performance.
“As it’s been said, if you build it, people will come. But people came even before it was built so they can help us build it. We worked through the wee hours of the night and many of our kababayan (compatriot) would knock on our doors until past midnight and asked what they could do to help and if we’re interested in some food or soda,” said Roy.
“It’s this collective bayanihan effort from our members and friends that makes the Philippine Forum’s existence relevant; without their contribution no success is possible,” he added.
Full Circle Roy said that the Bayanihan Filipino Community Center is the Philippine Forum’s new home, eleven years after the Philippine Forum was formed on the day of the commemoration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10,1996.
“We started out in my apartment, a handful of us deciding to meet regularly and discuss what’s happening back home in the Philippines ten years after the fall of the Marcos Dictatorship. We called ourselves then - the Philippine Study Group,” Roy said.
Many Filipinos, particularly the intellectuals/middle class who could afford came to the US to escape the political persecution under the Martial Law Regime of Marcos.
“Then as our membership expanded, our concerns broadened as well. We became a forum of all the issues brought out by members, specific concerns of Filipino migrants like ourselves - such as employment, health care, immigration - and we wanted to address them,” Roy added.
Now, the Philippine Forum is a full-blown Filipino migrants’ advocacy institution. Julia Camagong, Co- Executive Director of the Philippine Forum said that the Bayanihan Filipino Community Center complements other Filipino-American organizations in the region in providing basic services such as computer skills training, language classes, health clinics, food drives, youth study program in the Philippines, and in raising funds and other resources for the specific needs of its members.
However, to realize its vision of “making Filipinos aware of their roots, rights, and responsibilities”, the Philippine Forum deems it important that the promotion of the Filipino cultural roots extends further deep into the understanding of the responsibilities that the rights of being a Filipino citizen, especially in a foreign country, might entail, Camagong added.
“In doing so, it takes a lot of inspiration from the legacy of renowned migrant Filipino worker and writer Carlos Bulosan, that’s why we call our Library, the Carlos Bulosan Heritage Center” added Rusty Fabunan, Youth Empowerment and Development Program Director of Philippine Forum.
Bulosan’s novel “America is in the Heart (1943)” is often compared to John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and Ernest Hemingway’s style. He was the first native Filipino, without higher education, whose writings were published in prestigious publications such as the New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, and Town and Country.
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WITH his boyish good looks and golden voice, Sam Milby is the perfect blend of Filipino American charisma.
This Ohio-born athletic heartthrob found fame in his Asian roots when Filipino audiences welcomed him with open arms from the time he first graced television screens as a housemate in Pinoy Big Brother.
Coming from a Filipino- American background, Sam Milby brings the best of both worlds wherever he performs.
This former competitive ice skater from Ohio shot to fame in the Philippine version of “Big Brother”, where, in a lucky turn of fate (for both Sam and his adoring fans) he was chosen to replace a contestant who had to leave the show for personal reasons.
During his stint as a “housemate”, he won the hearts of many through his Fil-Am charm and his down-to-earth demeanor; what really struck home though, was his rendition of a self-composed song performed in duet with fellow housemate Say Alonzo. This simple acoustic performance in the Big Brother house established Sam as a talented recording artist.
Today, Sam is a celebrated entertainer appearing in several feature films, concerts and, is one of the most sought after product endorsers in the Philippines.
Sam Milby is one of the featured artists to perform at the 2008 Pinoy Musik Festival on May 17-18 at the Meadowlands Expo Center, Secaucus, New Jersey . For more information, please contact 212-682-6610 or email at sepmgzn@aol.com, visit www.pinoymusikfestival.com.
Tickets are $18 & VIP and are available at most Filipino establishments and on-line: shop.specialeditionevents.com.
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