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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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WHY do most Filipino associations tear each other apart? What is the satisfaction in bashing one another and prevent the advancement of their fellow Filipinos? Are we Filipinos doomed to this horrific fate?
The cold war between two rival groups that are presenting events this spring is too ugly to be left unnoticed. Here are two groups of Filipinos putting up two similar events on the same weekend, thereby splitting the community and giving birth to hatred and animosity that reverberates all over.
We do not know yet which between the two groups has the pure intention– that is, to really serve the community and display the beauty of Filipino culture. It is certain that one of the two groups only has the intention to divide the populace and perhaps wreck havoc to the other’s plans. It is such an evil thing to do really.
Every week, the war rages between these two groups. Both are trying to outdo the other with more gimmicks and add star power of their guest performers. They might even resort to throwing in Obama and Hill to bolster their statuses– or Pacman and Marquez for that matter.
Where will most Filipinos go? Does it mean that when we go to only one event we are sighting the organizers of the other? It is indeed very hard to be put in such predicament. Why can’t we just get along?
We suppose that we will never get along. This kind of mentality has been a subject of many of Rizal’s poems and prose. To think that this problem already existed in the 1800s is a serious matter. It must be encoding in the Filipino DNA. We are not known to have ‘Crab Mentality’ for nothing. It wouldn’t hurt for any of these groups to give way and promote harmony rather than bulldoze one another and project bitterness and disunity.
There is still time. One should have to realize the ugliness of what is going on. If this goes on until their respective show dates, they would have both lost. Because greedy and envious people never win.
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Temporary Visas for Domestics
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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
U.S. citizens and certain non-immigrant employers temporarily in the U.S. may, under certain conditions, be able to bring their personal and domestic employees to work for them on a B-1 visa.
A B-1 visa is a visitor’s visa available to aliens who are visiting the U.S. temporarily for business and have a residence in a foreign country that they have no intention of abandoning. These domestic employees include nannies, child monitors, au pairs, cooks, general houseworkers, drivers, gardeners, caregivers and butlers.
For U.S. citizens to qualify to bring their domestic employees to work temporarily for them in the U.S., they must show that they maintain a permanent residence abroad and are only temporarily assigned in the U.S. This could be shown by frequent international transfers lasting two or more years as a condition of the job and must be returning to the U.S. for a stay of no more than four years. This is usually the case for U.S. expatriates or diplomats.
Non-immigrants in valid B, E, F. H-1, J, L, M, O, P, Q,R or TN statuses may also be eligible to petition for an accompanying or “following to join” personal or domestic employee under a B-1 visa. It is vital to document a temporary employment relationship between the petitioning employer and the prospective B-1 domestic employee.
The employer must establish either a pre-existing employment relationship between him/her and the prospective B-1 domestic employee for at least six months prior to the employer’s admission into the U.S. or that he/she she regularly employed a domestic or personal employee in the same capacity as that intended for the applicant.
There must be an employment contract between the U.S. employer and the B-1 employee clearly stating the terms and conditions of the employment, signed and dated by both parties. For this contract to be a valid basis of granting the B-1, the contract must provide certain guarantees and provisions.
First, the employee must be provided with free room and board while in the U.S. and a round trip airfare. Second, the employee will be paid the minimum wage or the prevailing wage, whichever is higher, for an eight hour work-day. Third, other employee benefits normally provided to U.S. personal or domestic workers must be given. Lastly, if their services will be terminated, the employer must give at least two weeks notice of his or her intent to terminate the employment.
On the part of the B-1 applicant, he or she must also establish strong “ties” to his/ her home country and has a permanent residence abroad which he/she does not intend to abandon in order to overcome the presumption that he/she will remain in the U.S. permanently.
The B-1 personal or domestic employee is not allowed to seek employment elsewhere. To ensure this, the employment contract must also stipulate that the employee will neither be working for other employers nor accept any other employment while working for the employer in the U.S. for the duration of his/her B-1 status. Even incidental work such as accepting baby-sitting jobs for other employers will be a violation of the contract.
The initial admission of the B-1 visitor is limited to a maximum of one year but it can be extended in increments of six months per extension. Before the B-1 employee will be allowed to work for the employer in the U.S., he/she is required to apply for employment authorization document (EAD) upon arrival in the U.S. He or she cannot begin to work until the EAD is granted by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). To ensure continuity of services and validity of the B-1 status, the employer must anticipate to request its extension before it expires. It is important to do so since the processing for the EAD takes about 90 to 120 days.
For domestic employees of certain non-immigrants (non-U.S. citizens), the requirements for sponsoring a B-1 domestic are quite similar. However, the validity of the B-1 visa issued to the domestic employee may not exceed the validity of the visa issued to the non-immigrant employer.
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Untangling Marcos’ Millions
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WHEN the United States Supreme Court hands down its ruling on the petition of the Republic of the Philippines v. Jerry S. Pimentel, et. al this coming summer, it will not be breaking any new ground. This was gleaned from the 68-page transcript of the oral argument of the case last March 17 obtained by this columnist. In all likelihood, it will uphold Republic Act 1379, The Forfeiture Act of 1955, which forfeits in favor of the Philippine government property found to have been unlawfully acquired by any public officer or employee. It is the counterpart of U.S. Congress Statute 2476.
Although, I have a feeling that the Philippine government will prevail in its petition against the President Marcos’ human rights victims, who kept a modest winning streak in the U.S. District Court of Hawaii and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California, it will only be a temporary setback for the 9,539 Filipinos whose human rights were violated by the discredited regime.
If the stand taken by Attorney Edwin S. Kneedler, Deputy Solicitor General of the U.S. Department of Justice, the amicus curiae, supporting the cause of the Philippines during the oral argument, will hold, the human rights victims, who won a huge $2-Billion judgment in 1995 against the Estate of Marcos before Judge Manuel Real of the U.S. District Court of Hawaii, had been compared to “criminal defendants” in forfeiture proceedings in U.S. Courts, who are “unsecured creditors” that “have no standing to intervene.” Real’s decision was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
$35-MILLION ASSETS
Judge Real ruled that part of the amount to satisfy the judgment was to be taken out from the $2-M deposit by a Marcos dummy corporation (Arelma) in 1972 at Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. in New York, which now ballooned to $35-M. Kneedler told the Supreme Court Justices that the human rights claimants would, in effect, “not have a claim superior to that of the US because it would not be a bonafide purchaser of the assets and it would not be without knowledge of illegal conduct.”
Robert A. Swift, the lawyer for the human rights victims, for his part, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to make a determination that the $35-M be considered a Marcos property because “those certificates were never the property of the Philippine government, never.”
But Justice Ruth Ginsburg observed that the two lower courts never made a “definitive ruling that the assets belonged to the Marcos estate and not the Philippine government,” which would have made them “preclusive.”
The Philippine government argues that because the $2-M was stolen by Marcos while he was in power, these monies belong to the Philippine government.
Swift told the justices that because the “assets have been” in the United States for 35 years, it can enforce a lien or claim upon the assets based on the U.S. law (28 U.S.C 1655).
But Justice John Paul Stevens cautioned Swift from doing so without “any court ever decid(ing) the merits of the question whether the Marcos estate or the Philippine Government owns these assets.”
“PURPOSEFUL DELAY”
Swift believes that any setback of their claim before the U.S. Supreme Court would likely put their claim in the Philippines in a “purposeful delay.”
He said “there have been many forfeiture proceedings in the Philippines as to the Marcos assets… (T)hey have already recovered over a billion dollars of assets. There is still hundreds of millions, if not a billion, in the Philippines.
“(F)rom the record, we’re not able to transfer our American judgment to the Philippines. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has even found a violation of international law by the Republic (of the Philippines) in preventing us from doing that. We’ve had to go to that body. Do we think that we are going to get justice in a Philippine court that’s never adjudicated human rights violations; much less our right to the assets? Think how easy it would be for the Marcoses and the Philippine government to simply make a deal as to these assets.”
He said after 11 years, “(w)e are just in the pleading stage.” Swift added that when he first filed the enforcement of judgment, “they (the Philippines) asked for a filing fee of $8.4-M. We appealed that, after eight years and some months. They finally said, yes, the filing fee is $10.”
This caused Justice Samuel A. Alito to snap: “So they just – they in fact are obstructing the process.”
Charles A. Rothfeld, lawyer for the Philippines government, suggested that because the Philippines has a “substantial interest in the assets at stake here,” it can easily invoke sovereign immunity to dismiss the case based on “Rule 19.”
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Rothfeld said that contrary to the ruling of the Court of Appeals that if the Philippines will stake a claim at the assets at the office Merrill Lynch in New York, it will lose “under the statute of limitation ground,” the case is a dispute between the Marcos Estate and the Philippine government.
The claims of the human rights victims “are entirely derivative of the Marcos Estate; and therefore, that is something that has to be decided first: Whether this belongs to the Estate, the Respondents, or the Philippines, that determination should be made first in the courts (Sandiganbayan) in the Philippines.”
“It is not a question of surrendering the jurisdiction of the U.S. Courts. There is a general consensus that stolen assets, assets stolen by corrupt leaders, should be returned to the nation of origin; and determination as to ownership should be made by the courts of that nation. That’s stated on the U.N. Convention on Corruption to which the U.S. and the Philippines are a party.”
“If it is ruled for the Estate, the Respondent can attempt to collect as a judgment creditor. If it goes to the Republic, the Republic can assert its interest directly with Merrill Lynch as the owner of Arelma.
“If Merrill Lynch declines to pay, the Republic can seek the assistance of the United States according to U.S. statutes, in which case the Sandiganbayan’s factual determination would be dispositive or it can bring action under New York law.
“If the Sandiganbayan rules, the Republic comes here and initiates an action, everybody who has a claim can be brought into action. As Justice Ginsburg noted, there is no possibility that Merrill Lynch could be subjected to duplicative liability because this Court’s judgment would determine that the Republic is an indispensable party.”(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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A BOMB, in 2002, ripped much of the face, plus nose, of the 99-foot bust of Ferdinand Marcos, carved into a La Union hillside. Few wept. In Moscow, meanwhile, “the last public statue of Josef Stalin stands forlornly in a postmodern graveyard of Communistera monuments, missing part of his nose,” reports the Los Angeles Times..
The similarity does not end there. In both countries, efforts persist to shove the two dictators back into pedestals from where they were toppled years earlier.
Nostalgia for Stalin, "is simply madness", Russian Orthodox priest Vladimir Ambartsumov told the LA Times’ David Holley.. Ambartsumov’s grandfather was among millions killed in purges and labor camps by Stalin’s policies.
“Stalin's return to the pedestal… would signify political rehabilitation of one of the bloodiest dictators in modern history," added Memorial, a Russian human rights group.
Did nostalgia for despots prompt University of the Philippines’ Vanguards to hoist Marcos into their “Hall of Fame” pedestal? No, protest these former Reserve Officers Training Course members. They anchored their fraternity award to “leadership emulated by [succeeding] Filipino leaders."
“Emulated” by who? And “what leadership is the fraternity talking about?,” asked the Inquirer editorial: “Marcos Credulity” .
This dictator torched almost everything he laid his hands on: the military, government -- even academe. “Salvage” and “desaparecido” entered our vocabulary thanks to his guns-goons-and-gold regime. Spillover from his plunder continues today. Ferdinand Junior and sister Imee ferret his ill-gotten wealth, stashed with former cronies, who insist : this is now their ill-gotten wealth. Indeed, “the evil that men do lives after them.”
Given ROTC backgrounds, Vanguards clamp, rightly, a premium on military leadership. Didn't their man, after all, whip up the “Maharlikas”: a band of 8,200 guerrillas who pummeled the Japanese? That's what those glitzy “New Society” coffeetable books and propaganda blurbs claim.
Not so, say U.S National Archives documents. Using archive records of World War II military operations in the Philippines, New York Times reported : “At no time did the Army recognize that any unit, designating itself as ‘Maharlika’, ever existed as a guerrilla force in the years of the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945.”
“Maharlika had not actually been in the field fighting the Japanese. It had no records and was not adequately controlled due to desertions… It had not contributed materially to the eventual defeat of the enemy," the report adds..
After World War II, the US recognized claims of 111 men for service in the Luzon invasion,” says New Yorlk Times reporters Jeff Gerth and Joel Brinkley. ”Six officers and 18 of those recognized helped “guard the regimental supply dump and performed warehousing details… Services given by “Marcos and 23 others” to the First Cavalry Division, in the spring of 1945, were of “limited military value”.
The archives further reveal that the US Army reviewed it’s 1948 decision that junked ‘Maharlika’s’ bid for recognition. “The immensity of Mr Marcos’ claim that ‘Maharlika’ served the entire (island) of Luzon was absurd,” wrote reviewing officer, Capt. Elbert Curtis.
In the first days of December 1944, Marcos contended he'd been in a northern province on an intelligence mission; that the US invasion cut him off from ‘Maharlika headquarters. The review, however, pointed out that the US invasion did not begin until a month later. “It could not have influenced abandoning his outfit.” Thus, “the last entry in the Maharlika file is affirmation of the rejection,” the New York Times found.
So, why did Vanguard clamber out on a limb --- only to crash? A “culture of forgetfulness and impunity is making it possible to rehabilitate the image of the late dictator”, Inquirer's editorial noted. “The social cost of forgetting”, historian Edilberto de Jesus warns, spirals into “the Filipino's increasing inability to determinewhat is right and what is wrong“.
The Vanguard caper is the latest in the long calibrated campaign to refurbish the dictator’s tattered image. These efforts range from Imelda Marcos’ denials (Tayo ang nagliligtas ng demokrasya) to propaganda, even skewed legislation.
Rep. Roquito Ablan’s House Bill 5147, filed in the previous Congress, would declare September 11 as Ferdinand Marcos Day. This proposed and non-working holiday for Ilocos Norte didn’t fly. Objectors fumed it smacked of Marcos’ decree that martial law’s anniversary be marked as “Thanksgiving Day”.
A University of Asia and the Pacific study, by Joel Sarmenta and Melvin Yabut, found that public school text books denigrated dissent against martial rule and prettified the dictatorship. “Martial law textbooks continue to miseducate,” Historian Ambeth Ocampo noted. “The Five Percent Revolution” sneers at the 1986 People Power revolt . “This is Ninoy” regurgitates smears against the late Senator Benigo Aquino as a crypto communist.
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Amidst the various national issues being cited as confronting the Philippines, none is more critical than the food issue. Specifically, the issue of rice.
It is important to note that the rice issue in the Philippines coincides with the rice issue as a world problem. At the same time that the Philippines is facing a possible shortage of the staple, rice-eating nations are recognizing that the shortage is more widespread as part of a worldwide food shortage.
How lucky can Gloria Macapagal Arroyo get. But wait. Can GMA really escape blame?
As the staple shortage crisis developed, the Philippines under GMA has failed miserably to undertake measures to alleviate the problem. She was too busy politicking.
For years, the popular notion has been that while the University of the Philippines in Los Banos, Laguna has developed scientific techniques in raising rice, it had not commensurately achieved production to cover up volume deficiencies. The shortage was measured in comparison with productions in neighboring Asian countries.
On examination, it was found that the defect was not due to a shortage of scientific know how. The problem was lack of irrigation. Compared with the other countries, the Philippine shortage was glaring. Irrigation infrastructures are expensive to put up. It was clear that there was a problem of resource allocation. With irrigation lacking, it was impossible to raise the volume of rice production so the national demand would be satisfied.
The oil problem is related to rice production. A big part of the fertilizer requirement cannot be filled up because of the lack of oil-based fertilizer component. With the developing crisis of oil fuel, now the country is faced with a two-headed dragon. The oil-fertilizer-rice production equation has been recognized for the past 20 or 30 years ago. So it appears it was pure negligence that it had not received proper attention during all this time. On top of it all, the oil fuel problem has grown more complex. It has developed many more aspects that complicates the challenges as a multi-faceted economic problem.
On the frontline of the fight against corruption meanwhile, we detect signs that the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will intensify its abuses. Earlier, we called attention that GMA's efforts to win over its opponents from other sectors may be starting to pay off. This will be a sad day for the people, because the sector we are talking of is a sector that historically has been effective in helping to curb corruption. It's the Catholic Church.
We hope we are mistaken. The crusading witness in the Senate investigation of the national broadband deal, Noel Lozada, remains a source of credible testimony against Nery et al. He is being supported by a big majority of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. That is why we are saddened when Bishop Leonardo Legaspi of Nueva Caceres in Bicol, who appears to be in the minority, forbade the priests under him to celebrate masses for the cause of Lozada.
Fortunately, he seemed to be alone in this position.
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Semana Santa is All about Christ
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I WAS unable to spend Holy Week in Seville, as intended, nevertheless, let me give readers an idea on how it is marked by the people who were responsible for bringing Christianity to Philippine shores over four centuries ago.
Semana Santa happens annually in Christendem and it is usually in the month of April. However, it is happening much earlier this year. At the center of last week's religious rituals was Jesus Christ, who according to the Bible, is both human and divine as he is the incarnation of God in human form. Christians relive the passion and death of Jesus who atoned for our sins and His resurrection on Easter Sunday.
In Seville, a visitor will get a glimpse of the soul of Spain ... as thousands -- young and old, men and women, religious and secular come out into the streets of the ancient city and remember the Passion of Cristo, el Rey. The pageant of the Passion of Christ in Seville is renowned the world over. Both religious and laymen Sevillanos spend weeks in preparing for these celebrations that is the highlight of the Christian calendar. The commemoration there goes back as far as the 16th century, when the Catholic Church started the pageant to enlighten its flock over the events that lead to Christ's death. To this day, the celebrations remain popular.
There are the spectacular processions with drums beating and flamenco songs to remind the faithful of the Virgin's sorrow and Christ's suffering. Processions leave the Seville Cathedral at noon daily and on the eve of Good Friday, a midnight cavalcade of images of Christ and the Virgin Mary are paraded through the streets of the city. These images are adorned in the finest robes and semi-precious stones and bearing them are over 100 floats/caros in the 8-hourlong procession.
Men in hoods, cloaks and sandals bear the burden of carrying the larger floats which can weigh several tons. The procession halts from time to time to re-enact the stations of the cross. Espana's Semana Santa is an extraordinary event -- combining clouds of incense, the flamenco tunes along with the costumed costaleros, life-size images of la Virgen and el Cristo, the effect is overwhelming on visitors regardless of their creed, experience the pain, sorrow and excitement of these powerful celebrations.
Not to be outdone by the former masters, Filipinos do have their own pageantry in the Homeland, where some go to the extreme particularly in the provinces - with its bleeding flagellants who physically copy the sufferings of Jesus, wearing crowns of thorns and having themselves literally crucified. Though none have died.
Even as Pinoys have since been Americanized, the influence of the Castillians remain no matter where and its not just us but the Latinos as well. Understandably so -- as we do share a common colonial history.
But ironically, Christ who was born a Jew, has not been acknowledged by his people as the Messiah who would lead them to salvation. To Muslims, Jesus was a prophet. But most 84 million Pinoys, Americans, Europeans, and other Asians who number 2 billion all over the world, believe that Christ was/is the son of God who came down to heal, perform miracles and ended his life on earth by suffering and dying on the cross to save the human race.
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