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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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AFTER the Ces Drilon kidnap drama, there is little left to cover in Sulu. What else is worth covering there? There’s nothing new and exciting there anymore, plus it is too risky for journalists and well-to-do families.
We should abandon Sulu
The government should encourage non-militant residents of Sulu to leave the forsaken place and establish new lives in other regions. Yes, Congress should enact a law giving Sulu its independence and cut the rebels off forever. The government could even fortify nearby Isabela and Zamboanga to make sure no rebels from Sulu could even step on Philippine soil. Give the rebels what they wish for.
They want secession? Give them exactly that. Let them worry about invaders from Sabbah, China and other Asian countries nearby Let these terrorists worry about their food, economy and social welfare. Cut them off completely and never look back. It is not a loss. Sulu is not Davao. It is a tiny island that is so detached from the Mindanao anyway. Let it be battered by natural calamities and never give them any aid.
True, they may have millions of pesos or dollars from ransoms and aid from worldwide terrorist networks. But at least in cutting Sulu off, these terrorists would lose a big chunk of their income –ransom.
Malacañang should consider this course of action, though how silly it appears, because, really, this is their only hope. We will never see a peaceful Sulu. Not in our lifetimes. The place will continue to be the habitat of terrorists who prey on innocent people to get money. The government will continue to lose soldiers and civilians there if they still cling to that war they are waging. It is a never-ending war. There has been war there ever since Lapu-Lapu drew his Kriss. What makes Arroyo think she can stop the war there and win?
The Philippine military can kill all these Abu leaders and soldiers, but it will never end there. New leaders will emerge, and more soldiers will sprout.
Abandon Sulu. What interest do we all have there left if civilians are out of that island? These rebels are not Filipinos anyway? They ceased to be the moment the inflicted harm on their countrymen. They deserve to starve, rot and die.
Abandon Sulu. We have nothing to lose. It’s a wasted land.
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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 United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has started mailing rejection notices to the applicants who were not selected in the H-1B lottery. It completed mailing all receipts for selected cases on May 24, 2008.
H-1B is a nonimmigrant visa category for persons in specialty occupations, which require at least a Bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. Such specialty occupations include, among others: computer professionals, teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, physical therapists and accountants.
Once again this year, U.S. companies faced the problem of not having enough H-1B visas for their highly skilled workers. This is particularly true of big U.S. tech companies such as Google which reportedly failed to get H-1B visas for 90 of its 300 H-1B applicants. That is roughly 1/3 of its total H-1B applications. Our office was more fortunate in getting about two-thirds of our H-1B applications selected in the random selection process.
Aside from not being chosen, some applications have been denied outright due to technical deficiencies in submission as well as duplicate filings which are prohibited.
Some “duplicate” filings are being reviewed on a case-by case basis to determine whether they were merely re-submitted due to courier delivery confirmation problems or mailed to incorrect service centers.
The shortage of H-1B visas has recurred for the last five years when the annual cap for H-1B visas was exhausted even before the start of the fiscal year. The demand for H-1B visas has worsened over the years ever since the Congress reverted the H-1B numerical limits to 65,000 per year. Of these, 6,800 visas are set aside for Chileans and Singaporeans under Free Trade Agreements entered into between those countries and the U.S.
20,000 visas are allocated to advanced degree holders or those with Master’s or higher degree from U.S. academic institutions. USCIS conducted the selection process for “advanced degree” exemption petitions first and those not selected were included in the random selection process with the other H-1B applications subject to the 65,000 limit.
This further reduced the number of H-1B visas to just about 58,200 visas to be drawn by random selection among the approximately 163,000 applications filed before the deadline of April 7, 2008.
Because of this unrealistic scenario, there is a renewed clamor for more H-1B visas to meet the severe shortage of skilled professionals. Technology companies have publicly complained of the need for more H-1B visas for them to be able to fill the labor gaps that are not being filled in the U.S. labor market so that they can hire more highly skilled workers to remain competitive and to prevent them from offshoring vital services.
Several proposals were made in Congress including the one by Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. Their proposal seeks to allow foreigners who graduate in U.S. educational institutions to get their green cards provided they have a job offer. This was a companion bill to the one introduced earlier by Representative Zoe Lufgren that seeks to exempt STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) advanced degree graduates from the yearly limit of 140,000 for employment-based immigrant visa.
There was also a proposal by Congressman Anthony Wiener of New York not to lump international fashion models together with other specialty occupations to vie for the H-1B visas but to give them their own visa category since while they are considered skilled professionals, they do not require a Bachelor’s degree in their profession.
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CHICAGO, Illinois (JGLi) – The lawyer for the human rights victims of Ferdinand Marcos was upset when I made a fearless forecast in my previous column that his clients will be disappointed when the United States Supreme Court would hand down an adverse ruling against them.
Perhaps, Atty. Robert A. Swift might have thought that he found the magic formula for winning the case. I don’t blame him.
But as the US Supreme Court Thursday (June 12th) reversed the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, it declared the Marcos victims, who have “waited for years now to be compensated for grievous wrongs, with no immediate way to recover on its judgment against Marcos” would have to wait longer.
The ruling concerns the interpleader filed by Merrill Lynch before the U.S. District of Hawaii, which was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California.
INTERPLEADER
An interpleader is an equitable proceeding brought by a third person to have a court determine the ownership rights of rival claimants to the same money or property that is held by that third person.
The property in question is called the stake, and the third party who has custody of it is called the stakeholder. The stakeholder is faced with a legal dilemma: giving the property to either one of the parties will likely lead to a lawsuit by the other party against the stakeholder and the new property owner.
The stake in this case is the $2-M Marcos stole from the Philippine government when he was in power in 1972. He stashed the money in a phony Arelma account and funneled it to a brokerage account of Merrill Lynch in New York. In 2000, the stake has grown to become $35-M.
When Marcos was ousted in 1986, the 9,539 human rights victims filed a claim against Marcos at the U.S. District Court of Hawaii, which awarded them $2-Billion.
Almost at the same time, the Philippine government thru the Philippine Commission of Good Government (PCGG) started the process of recovering moneys and property Marcos concealed abroad by virtue of the 1955 Philippine law (Republic Act 1379 or Forfeiture Law), providing that property derived from the misuse of public office is forfeited to the Philippine government from the moment of misappropriation.
As the human rights victims moved to attach the Arelma assets, the Philippine government and the PCGG was also claiming the assets invoking its sovereign immunity.
SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY
A sovereign immunity is a doctrine that a government, in this case, the Philippine government, or a governmental agency, like the PCGG, cannot be sued without its consent.
In his dissenting opinion, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens said when the District Judge summoned the Merrill Lynch lawyer to an in-chamber meeting in 2000 in Los Angeles, California after learning that the Philippine government and the PCGG are seeking the Arelma accounts from Merrill Lynch and directed Merrill Lynch to file an interpleader before him in the District of Hawaii and to deposit the Arelma funds with the court, despite the attorney’s argument that New York would likely be the more appropriate forum, “these actions bespeak a level of personal involvement and desire to control the Marcos proceedings that create a colorable basis for the Republic (of the Philippines) and the Commission (PCCG)’s concern about the District Judge’s impartiality.”
INDEPENDENT JUDGE
When reached to comment about Justice Steven’s opinion, Mr. Swift said, ‘As regards Justice Stevens comments re Judge Real, he cites only to partisan allegations made by the Republic back in 2000, including claims that he directed Merrill Lynch to file an interpleader in Hawaii in a closed door hearing. He neglects to mention that the Republic's March 2000 Motion to Recuse Judge Real was decided by an independent federal judge who issued an opinion stating: ‘the court did not direct, order, or require Merrill Lynch to file the instant action.’ (I guess when you are a Supreme Court Justice you can disregard a final opinion of a lower court.)
“I had already sued Merrill in Hawaii on behalf of the Class (human rights victims) and, before any hearing was ever held before Judge Real, had agreed with Merrill to dismiss my case after Merrill filed an interpleader. Several days later in a chambers conference before Judge Real -- with counsel Birch Bayh representing the Republic -- the Judge commented that he thought it appropriate for Merrill to file an interpleader.”
SETTING ASIDE FORFEITURE LAW
I really believe the reason the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals, ruling against the human rights victims, is due to the dismissal of the Philippine government and the PCGG as parties by the District Court to the interpleader, which in effect set aside the Philippine Forfeiture Law.
Now it’s in the hands of the Sandiganbayan to rule on the application of the Forfeiture Law on the cases on Marcos ill-gotten wealth if they should revert to the Philippine General Fund before the Philippine Congress will make a determination on how much money to give the human rights victims as either indemnification or restitution.
I hope the Sandiganbayan makes a prompt ruling on the case while the Marcos victims are still alive to enjoy the restitutions.
Otherwise, the accusation of Atty. Swift may check out that the Philippine court system grinds so slowly that it took 11 years just to get into the “pleading stage” alone and had sought “$8.4-M” instead of “$10” filing fee in this forfeiture case.
(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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BANGKOK -- “What’s a typhoon?,” asked my then five-year old daughter. No typhoons lashed this country, she overheard friends say in our Bangkok flat.. Thus, Thai rice farmers hit the weather jackpot. In contrast, Filipinos are whacked by 20, sometimes more, typhoons a year.
The kid belonged to families of journalists scattered by the Marcos’ dictatorship. Among others, Manila Times’ Alfredo Roces and Daily Mirror’s Amando Doronila, headed for Australia. National Press Club president Eddie Monteclaro joined Chicago Daily News. ( NPC wasn’t today’s den of hao shiaos. or pseudo-journalists.) . From Tokyo, Depthnews correspondent Eddie Lachia went on to the Wall Street Journal.
We opted for a United Nations post in Thailand: 513,115 square kilometers of rich rice fields, shrinking forests, corrupt generals, warm talented people plus increasingly sophisticated leaders. “This assignment is for three months,” Ms. Corazon Uy told me at the Food and Agriculture Organization’s regional office, around the corner from the Grand Palace. So, I stayed 19 years.
International flights now land at the new Suvarnabhumi International Airport. That can lock a revisiting former resident into considering just sheer physical changes. The place sprawls over 563,000 square meters. It has 120 parking bays, five of which can handle Airbus 380. In 1975, Dong Muaeng Airport resembled the dump that is Manila Domestic today. A two lane road ill-lit connected it the city.
As with Ninoy Aquino International airport, graft taints Suvarnabhumi . Still, a modern rail-cum-expressway links it to Bangkok where the 80-plus floors Bayoike Tower dominates the skyline. The 22-story Chokchai building was Bangkok’s tallest building when we first came.
Asian Development Bank’s study of Asean development gridlocks notes that Thailand’s road networks have outstripped the Philippines. One is struck how the once-ubiquitous two-stroke tricycle ( tuk-tuk ) has thinned out. In it’s place are Skytrains
Inquirer’s resident economist Cielito Habito noted that the Philippines today, with over 89 million people, towers over Thailand’s 64 million. Support for family planning saw Thailand start, in the mid- 70s, it’s “demographic transition”: a shift to low birth rates coupled with low birth rates. Not one of the Philippines 80 provinces has started this shift in earnest, UP’s Dennis Mapa points out..
This gave Thailand “development elbow room”. UN Human Development Report indicators – from per capita income ( US$2,750), infant mortality to schools, health, even cellphones -- document widening disparities between these “Asean twins”.
Like Catholic Philippines, Buddhist Thailand has a minority Muslim population. They also cluster in southern provinces. Some engage in a festering separatist struggle. The violence targets Buddhist Thais. More than 1,500 have died since the violence erupted again in 2004.
For all its economic advances, “the gap between rich and poor has widened” in Thailand, BBC reports. “Conspicuous consumption and conspicuous corruption are accepted as part of everyday life”. Urban growth has sliced into the farming sector.
Since Bhumibol Adulyadej of the Chakri dynasty, ascended to the throne in 1946, Thailand has worked it’s way through 17 military coups and 26 prime ministers.
King Bhumibol “wasn’t a salted memory of the past, like Japan’s emperor or extravagant playboys like Muslim monarchs of Malaysia and the Middle East,” writes Paul Handley in “The King Never Smiles. ( Yale University Press ) Despite his “controversial and not uniformly popular family”, the king remains revered – and a rare stabilizing force.
Today’s prime minister is Samak Sundaravej. He recently called on President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as dictated by Asean protocol. He also declined Ms Arroyo’s request for long term contracts for Thai rice, given his volatile exporters constituency.
Samak is picking up after tanks rolled into Bangok again in September 2006’s bloodless coup The military junta, late last year, drafted yet another new constitution and held, yet again, elections to oscillate back to civilian rule.
Thais fret over surges in oil prices which hit $140 a barrel this week. Official inflation for April was pegged at 6.2%, a two year high. But the Bureau of Commerce stresses that low prices, under martial law, came from controls that bayonets enforced. Ignoring actual production costs couldn’t be sustained.
Thailand is a food-surplus country. Food stalls dot cities from Chiang Mai to Phuket. The supplies tamp down the food price crunch that hit Indonesia, Philippines and elsewhere.
Censorship has been lifted. The Bangkok Post, for example, hit government for “throwing money” at every protest.: by fishermen, rice farmers, shrimp producers, garlic growers, and now truck fleet operators. “Feeding opium to the masses” is the opposition description of this policy.
Media, however, tip-toes with self-censorship on the military, judiciary, and specially the monarchy. Thus, the press never asks : Who will succeed the King when, like all of us, “he shuffles off his mortal coil.”
“There is little chance that ( Crown ) Prince Vajiralongkorn can fit his fathers shoes,” says the banned Yale University study. “Most Thais fear his even trying to do so.” This inevitable transition will unleash a different typhoon. It's effects will spill beyond Chirtlada Palace into Asean countries. But that’s for another column.
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AN EVENTFUL MONTH OF JUNE
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June certainly is a significant month historically for Filipinos all over the world, not only for the fact that it was on this month 110 years ago when our people led by General Emilio Aguinaldo declared their independence from over three centuries of Spanish rule, although subsequently the bondage and suffering went on under America for another half a century and then, the invasion of a neighboring country, Japan in 1941 till General Douglas Macarthur fulfilled his promise "I shall return" and did with his Leyte landing, defeated the Japanese and the Philippines finally was granted independence and sovereignity on July 4, 2008 by the United States of America.
So it must be the fun-loving Filipinos wherever they may be must celebrate their fiestas worldwide. And, rightly so. Although one wishes that more substance and depth would be put into the commemorative events that happen year after year.
June 12 this year fell on a Thursday. Late in the morning, I made my way to Downtown L.A., to the Hall of Administration of L.A. County where members of the L.A. County Filipino-American Employees Association (under the leadership of Perfecto M. Tobias), did their annual program outdoors with music, songs and dances. Philippine consular officials led by Consul General Mary Jo Bernardo-Aragon and Consul Daniel Espiritu and Tourism Director Mary Ann Cuevas lent their presence. while L.A. County Board Supervisor Yvonne Burke and City Councilman Bernard Parks read out proclamations recognizing the historical significance of the occasion. Entertainment was highlighted by the performance of 2001 Miss America Angela Perez Baraquio-Grey, the only Filipino-descent or Asian for that matter, who has ever won the title. She, along with her dance group, Isle Entertainment, performed before a sparse audience (understandably so, as it was a working day). Early in the evening, your columnist proceeded to the PhilConGen-hosted reception at the Almanzor Court in Alhambra which was attended by the Consuls General of Indonesia, Japan, Korea, South Africa. Malaysia and Thailand were also represented at the event. As in last year's program, the traditional toast was dispensed with.
The most attended (estimated at over 700) was the grand event which happened last Saturday night at the Burbank Marriott Convention Center. After a chaotic search of assigned tables by guests, the formal affair commenced with the grand entrance of the community's Fil-Am leaders as they were being announced by the master and mistress of ceremonies, Giovanni and Jannelle So. The invocation which is normally done prior to dinner happened after. Bishop Oscar Solis must've felt uneasy. When H.E. was called to the podium postdinner, I had thought to myself that he was going to deliver a message instead. Speeches were made by Kalayaan 2008 Chairman Noel Omega, Grandball Chairwoman Thelma Calabio and incoming Kalayaan '09 Chair Darna Umayam and Consul General Bernardo Aragon. It was rather unfortunate that the attendees were not attentive and were quite busy talking themselves so much so that the gentile ConGen had to interrupt her spiel and request her listeners to "please pay attention". Perhaps, if the Philippine senators and L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa had come, they would've listened as they did when Pangulong GMA's image appeared on the gigantic screens and her message delivered. Entertainment fare of the night was varied and lengthy. Enjoyed the Harana Men's Choir and Andy Tecson's violin serenade but it was the finale number of Raymond Bagatsing and his rendition of Love Without Time and Sana'y Wala Nang Wakas which mesmerized the ladies in the audience.
Next week, on June 23-29, President Gloria will be in Capitol Hill and then New York City to meet with U.S. government officials including members of the U.S. Congress, Fil-Am WW II veterans and Fil-Am leaders, businessmen and other groups. She will be welcomed by ally, U.S. President George W. Bush to Washington, D.C. to discuss bilateral issues: the environment, food security, human rights and global trade. The main objective is the resolution of the Veterans Equity Act which according to sources, may soon be passed by the U.S. Congress and which President Bush had promised GMA that he would sign into law as soon as he gets to the White House. The last time, Bush welcomed Arroyo to the White House was on May 19, 2003. Will write more about this subject after it happens.
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