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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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LAST Friday's interfaith rally may have been a strong show of force against the Arroyo government; however, without the guns of the AFP, there will be no overthrow. Gloria has no reason to panic.
A complete overthrow like EDSA 1 and 2 needs certain components: Cross, money and guns. We have seen futile attempts to topple this administration.
The Trillanes and Querubin coups had the guns, but didn't get the Church nor the dough. The Church have always succeeded to influence people and politicians against the regime, however, for some reason, they could not get the guns to back them up.
We could only imagine what would happen if Querubin, Honasan and Trillanes are out large and able to sway a number of uniformed men to join their cause at this high point in the resistance.
Arroyo's strategy echoes the regime of the late strongman, Ferdinand Marcos, who knew that keeping the military happy would be the key to his plans, and It did - It gave him 20 years of unchallenged rule. Perhaps Arroyo wants that too.
The military repeatedly pledged their allegiance to Arroyo, however, this is not what they should do. The military is not the servant of the president. Like the office of the president itself, the military is bound to serve the citizens of the country.
If a majority of the citizens want Arroyo out, the military should listen to that. Arroyo is just an employee. The citizens of this republic call the shots; therefore, the military should serve them and not a disgraced servant. It is borderline stubbornness on the part of Arroyo and the military to stick to each other despite the demand for a new government.
The opposition is obviously doing all it can to get that military support. They could be calling some influential retired generals for help. Retired generals may be out of commission, but they still hold influence among the young soldiers. Hence they should never be taken for granted.
Esperon may look tough and invincible, however;’ he could not be sure about what is taking place behind the barrack’s walls. Recruitment may be on the way and it may not be long before the people get what the want.
If Arroyo is planning anything at this point, she should start considering planning her exit. If she intends to slug it out until 2010, she should guard the guns. For no guns, no Gloria.
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Less Filipino Applicants For Labor Certifications
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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 latest data released by the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) on permanent labor certifications (PERM) showed that the Philippines dropped out of the list of the top five countries with the most number of certified foreign worker-beneficiaries for the fiscal year (FY) 2007.
In fiscal year (FY) 2006, the Philippines ranked number four among the top countries with certified workers. It is now replaced by South Korea while Canada moved to the fifth. India and China remain the top two recipients of PERM certifications. Mexico, which used to be fifth, climbed to the third rank.
Top industries that sponsored PERM applications are in the computer services, colleges and universities, ful lservice restaurants, engineering services, elementary and secondary schools, electronics manufacturing, R & D in physical, engineering and life sciences and investment banking and securities dealing.
Top occupations in demand remain in the IT field such as computer software engineers, system software engineers, analysts, IS managers and computer programmers. Restaurant cooks managed to place fourth in the top occupations.
Out of the 98,753 PERM applications processed, 14% was rejected. 29.8% of the occupations required a Bachelor’s degree while 47.7% required a Master’s degree or higher. PERM (Program Electronic Review Management) was first implemented in March 2005 to revamp and streamline the labor certification process, which is the first step in the employment-based application for U.S. permanent residence (greencards). It automated the process through online/ electronic submissions meant to reduce paperwork and to expedite the review process.
The labor certification process seeks to test the U.S. labor market before certifying the position to show that two conditions are met: that there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available at the time of an alien’s admission to the U.S. and at the place where the alien is to perform the work; and that the employment of the alien will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
To test the U.S. labor market, the employer is required to conduct recruitment through job advertisement and other prescribed recruitment efforts, more than 30 days and less than 180 days prior to filing the PERM. The employer must prove that he will pay the prevailing wage for the position in the place of employment and must show that the requirements or job qualifications are normal to the position.
The implementation of the PERM process has led to an increased number of audits for labor certification submissions. Additional hurdles under the PERM include: the zero tolerance for typographical errors in the online submission; strict adherence to the Specific Vocational Preparation (SVP) guidelines for the positions; the restrictions on equivalency to meet education and experience requirements; and exacting recruitment and documentation guidelines.
Although the Philippines fell behind in the list of top PERM recipients, it is expected that the Philippines will remain a top source of skilled professionals and workers, especially in the field of allied health industries.
Most of these Filipino applicants fall under Schedule A occupations, for which PERM certification is not necessary. Schedule A occupations are those that the USDOL pre-determined that there are not sufficient qualified U.S. workers to meet the demand. Professional nurses and physical therapists are occupations that fall under this category.
Once the PERM application is certified, the I-140 immigrant petition can be filed by the employer on behalf of the alien-beneficiary. The filing and approval of the I-140 immigrant petition will give the beneficiaries their respective priority dates for permanent resident (greencard) processing.
Members of the professions holding advanced degrees (such as Ph.D.s) or persons of exceptional ability qualify for employment-based second preference (EB-2) as basis for their greencard. Skilled workers, professionals and other workers qualify for the employment based third preference (EB-3) category.
The good news is that the March 2008 Visa Bulletin issued by the State Department shows that the priority date for the Philippine EB-2 category is current while the priority date for EB-3 advanced to January 1, 2005.
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Changing The Rules Of The Game
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IN agreeing with the passage of the Rescission Act of 1946, Sen. Larry E. Craig (Rep.- Idaho) has invoked the same argument raised by Arizona Democratic Senator Carl “Silent” T. Hayden that “there is no suggestion that Congress had in mind covering under G.I. bill of rights …the large number of Filipinos to whom it has been suggested that the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (better known as the G.I. Bill) applies, at a cost running into billions of dollars…”
I don’t know what legal principle Senator Hayden used to support his argument in excluding the Filipino World War II veterans from enjoying the educational, housing and other benefits made available by the law to thousands of American veterans who returned from the ravages of World War II. But when the U.S. G.I. Bill was passed, it was in 1944, which should cover the war services of the Filipino veterans.
Why? Because the Filipino veterans, who were conscripted or forced to go into war by President Roosevelt in U.S.’s war with Japan, were considered “U.S. nationals” under the “jus soli” principle when they were born in the Philippines, while still a territory of the United States like the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
MIND-BLOWING
But the cost of covering the benefits of nearly half-million able-bodied Filipinos, who helped America topple Japan, must have blown the minds of the U.S. Congress that it later passed the Rescission Act of 1946 never mind if it violated the “ex-post facto” principle, which prohibits a law from taking effect retroactively.
What the 79th U.S Congress shamelessly accomplished in passing the Rescission Act of 1946 was to change the rules of the game while it was being played. When the U.S. Congress realized that the U.S. government is going to lose the “game” – as in losing $3.2 Billion – the U.S. Congress passed the Rescission Act of 1946. What a convenience!
Has the U.S. Congress forgotten the legal principle “dura lex sed lex” ("[the] law [is] harsh, but [it is] the law)"? If the U.S. government could not afford to pay the benefits of the Filipinos for their war services -- both the injured and uninjured – as laid down by the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the U.S. government can always enter into a Treaty with the Philippine government, stipulating that the U.S. government owes the Filipino soldiers in xxx amounts in billions of dollars and the U.S. government will pay the Filipino soldiers in stocks, bonds, or charge it to payoff Philippine outstanding debt or reduction of Philippine foreign aid, or pay in installment!
I.O.U Treaty
The “I.O.U Treaty” should be accompanied by a letter of apology to each Filipino soldier owed by the U.S. government just like the letter of apology signed by the first President Bush sent to each Japanese American mistakenly interned during World War II in various facilities across the United States.
Even if the Filipino soldiers are not covered by the G.I. Bill, another law that would have granted benefits to these Philippine soldiers was the Selective Service and Training Act passed by U.S. Congress on Sept. 16, 1940, which prohibited discrimination in extending benefits to soldiers serving in the U.S. Armed Forces on account of race or nationality.
Even another law, the Soldiers and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act passed by U.S. Congress on Oct. 17, 1940 should have also covered the benefits of the Filipino soldiers. It defined as “active service” or “active duty” the World War II services of the Filipino soldiers.
What makes the Rescission Act of 1946 insulting was the fact that while the U.S. government paid the members of the 66 other nationalities that made up the coalition of the U.S. Allied Forces during the war the same benefits paid to American soldiers, the Filipino soldiers were paid in pesos (equivalent to 50 cents or less), not in U.S. dollars.
PESO NOT AS FAR AS DOLLAR
In stripping the Filipino soldiers of full benefits, Senator Hayden told the Committee on Appropriations of the U.S. Senate on H.R. 4407, in the 79th Congress:
“It would appear from a study of the legislative history surrounding the enactment of the recession acts that the pertinent restrictive language contained therein was based on known and obvious differences in the economy and standards of living in the United States and the Philippines xxx a peso in the Philippines will go as far as a dollar in the United States.”
If this is so, why did the U.S. Congress allow the full payment of other 66 nationals in full U.S. dollar, like ordinary American soldiers, for their war services?
Why didn’t the U.S. pay the Italian soldiers in liras or the Australian soldiers in Australian dollars?
Did the U.S. also conduct inflationary surveys that showed that the Italian lira or an Australian dollar will go as far as a dollar in the United States, too?
ONLY FOR THE INJURED
The new Senate bill, S. 2640, introduced by Sen. Richard Burr (Rep.-North Carolina), and co-sponsored by Sen. Craig, as an alternative to S. 1315 that will repeal the Rescission Act of 1946, is just adding insult to injury because it only grants benefits for service-connected disability. In other words, if a soldier is not injured or maimed during a war, he does not get paid.
WHERE IS THE $200- MILLION?
May I ask Senator Craig if he can conduct an investigation into the $200-Million that supplanted the $3.2-Billion benefits if these monies were really turned over to the Philippine government?
In his letter to Senator Craig, General Lorenzana said, “Our research yields no record of the (miserly) amount going into the Philippine Army budget in the years 1946-48.”
$1.1-B WAR COST A DAY!
It is interesting to note that the Joint Economic Committee chaired by Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY-Dem.) was told last Feb. 28 that the “overall costs of the (Iraq) war will reach $3-Trillion.” This means that the cost of the Iraq War runs up $1.1-B a day.
And if the U.S. government is really serious in settling the long-sought benefit by the Filipino soldiers, it can do so by getting the money from the savings when it cuts short the Iraq War by a few days!
(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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AN ancient myth claims that Ifugaos built those towering mountain terraces in thanksgiving to heaven for the gift of rice. But soon this gift on our dinner tables may dwindle..
“We’re still using our earlier cheap imports,” Albay Governor (and economist) Joey Salceda told Inquirer But “once we run out of stock,” the reality of skyrocketing food prices will bite. Worldwide, rice prices surged 36 percent over the last three years, International Rice Research Institute notes..
A Visayan and Northern Mindanao staple, corn prices today are 88 percent higher. Pan de sal comes from wheat which costs 200 percent more. Prices for milk, meat and fish more than doubled.
Food crises already afflict 36 countries, the Food and Agriculture Organization notes. “Price volatility” spilled over into 2008. This dunned UN’s World Food Programme an extra $505 million it did not have The United States’ AID is clipping food shipments for poorest countries. So, is Catholic Relief Services.
“This could be the breakdown of the ‘Goldilocks’ era” when food prices kept an even keel for three decades, notes BBC science correspondent Tom Feilden This stability is ending “And we are on the cusp of a new era of volatility and rising prices.”
In Asia, governments can crumble when rice runs short. Tham bat bon mam, says a Vietnamese proverb. “Forget the food but seize the rice”. Poor families spend more than half their skimpy incomes for food. “These are people with the broken ploughs who bear the face of hunger: men, women and children for who it is almost too late…” The impact of high cereal prices can be devastating on them. Doubled cost of tortillas erupted in Mexico City protests.
A January Social Weather Station report found 2.9 million Filipino families, experiencing “involuntary hunger”. That’s lower than the nine year high of September but well over the average, in SWS quarterly surveys, since mid-1998. “Overall hunger declined in the balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, but increased in Metro Manila.”
“Increased food prices and their threat – not only to people but also to political stability – have made it a matter of urgency to draw the attention it needs,” World Bank president Robert Zoellick told the Davos economic forum January.
“Hunger and malnutrition are (now) the forgotten Millennium Development Goal.” In a crunch, the affluent re-arrange their menus. But the poor must pull in their belts by yet another notch. Yet, this storm didn’t blow up over night. The “broader upswing” in food prices started, almost unnoticed, in 2001.
There’s little mystery where those price spikes stem from. Today, there are more mouths around the cooking pot. Final results of the delayed Philippine census haven’t been released. But scientists already use 89 million for today’s headcount. – a far cry from 19 million in 1940. Global population could crest at nine billion by 2050.
Changing diets of richer people, in countries like China and India, are generating a whole new tier of middle-class consumers. Their increased demand pushes against stressed fishing grounds and eroded land, even as migration paves over farms. “Asphalt is the last crop.” Granaries haven’t been restocked. Changing rainfall patterns, due to climate change, are altering harvests, Asian Development Bank notes.
Virgin Airlines ran a glitzy TV spiel on using bio-fuel for its 747 jets. Today about 11 percent of the world’s maize is converted into biofuel. This jacks up food demand more.
“Rarely has the world felt such widespread and commonly shared concern about food price inflation,” Food Outlook notes. Perhaps, that excludes those who jockey for the 2010 elections.
But inattention will not make this crisis go away. “The root causes – high energy and fertilizer prices, demand for food crops in biofuel production and low food stocks – are likely to prevail in the medium term”, World Bank notes.
Some of us may be dead by then. Here, death rates for kids, under five, here is 34 for every 1000 births. Compare that to Malaysia’s 12. National Food Authority is now scampering to buy 1.6 million tons of rice this year – to close the gap. But the bill will be much stiffer And Mr.Salceda, meanwhile, talks of trimming duties on corn, soybeans, wheat subsidies for the poorest, etc. He even has a “Catch 22” proposal: Congress should pass the cheaper medicine bill.
Fine. But that’s ad-hoc reaction for paying too little attention to long-need support for the men and women who raise the food for our dinner tables – in credit, technology, research, extension. “Dependence on others brings a perpetual fast,” an Asian proverb says.
Unnoticed, high food prices could interlock with an explosive but still barely debated issue: the Philippines breaking ranks with Asean countries to allow China “concessions”, including even exploring the Philippines continental shelf in the Spartly Islands. Was this in exchange for series of Chinese loans now marred by kickback controversies?
Was there a provision in the ZTE contract saying: Chinese courts would have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes; that it’s decisions would be unappealable; and could be executed against Philippine properties anywhere?
The ZTE contract disappeared the day after it was signed. “Treason” is the new word that has crept into this issue. Hunger interlocking with treason in a country that still recoils from the Makapilis of World War II guarantees bitter controversy ahead.
“Blast the man who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin” remains good counsel.
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Lozada A Problem For Arroyo
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LOZADA is Rodolfo Noel Lozada, Philippine senate star witness in the ZTE National Broadband anomaly hearing. Lozada is a practical man. His hip style of telling his story, laced with a mixture of naivette and smart-assette, enlightens listeners with peculiar clarity.
Upon arrival from Hongkong, he was immediately alarmed when he was driven around and around by Malacanang boys before being brought to see his family. The fate of Bubby Dacer who figured in a political incident, and was similarly driven around, and wound up as a cadaver in the woods of Cavite, crossed his mind.
Lozada was able to slip a message to his brother. "Locate my telephone by triangulation" (a method of locating a moving target), he was able to communicate to his brother. That probably saved his life. He was able to slip his "captors" and sought refuge with a group of priests and nuns at the Dela Salle School in Mandaluyong.
Lozada refused a request from an alleged emissary from Malacanang, a former mayor of Mandaluyong City, for him to arrange a commission of 130 million US dollars. It was on the $369 million electronic communication deal between the Philippines and China. Lozada was assigned by the government to work on the deal.
Upon being told of the commission, Lozada balked. He told the former town mayor it was too big. "Bubukol po ito. Seguro kalahati pupuede'" (The big amount will be too obvious. Half the amount might be okay), he said. From Lozada's experience, a 20% overprice for such a deal might be acceptable as moderate. He advised the group to temper their greed. The city official angrily telephoned Lozada, swearing at him. Lozada said at one point, the official even threatened to kill him. After this, Lozada decided to disengage from the negotiation.
At the senate hearing, a senator known as an ally of Malacanang, got back at Lozada. The senator apparently had dug up dirt on Lozada's past records as a government official, and began to recount a number of what appear tobe questionable transactions. It appears Lozada may have engaged in transactions that are not lily white but dirty white, what he classified as "practical." Lozada was former president of a government corporation.
According to Lozada the transactions were example of the country's dysfunctional procurement system, meaning there is a systemic dysfunction on how purchases are carried out. During the senate hearing, there was mention of "patriotic money". It was explained "patriotic money" is put up for the whistle blower's assistance, should he be forced to give up his government job once he decided to squeal.
As we write this, the scandal is raging. The investigation is still ongoing. Nobody knows how it will end. But as of now, it is one of the few sizzling fuses that could blow up this administration of GMA.
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