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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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THE CASE OF THE FORBIDDEN CONDOM
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PRESIDENT ARROYO aligned herself with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church in the issue of birth control, which is to endorse only natural means of contraception.
It would seem insensitive for the president to preach the Churches teaching on a matter that has a direct effect on her governance.
The Filipino people are starving– she should know that.
There is not enough rice for everyone. Not enough jobs to keep the people employed. There are not enough classrooms to house the ever-multiplying number of children in the streets.
The country has dwindling resources, while the population grows like a rat colony. Something has to be done.
To understand where the Church is coming from, we must take in to account that the church’s doctrines are part of the whole theology.
They are like steps in a ladder towards salvation– you break one, your journey ends, unless you repent and do the whole course again.
The Church’s doctrine on birth control is rooted in the sanctity of human life not on the quality of human life. For the church, human life is holy regardless of economic stature.
So to prevent the birth of a human being for economic reasons does not cut it. Human life is paramount. Poverty does not tarnish the sanctity of man. In fact, suffering validates it.
In the same vein, the Church’s stand on birth control is also rooted in the purpose of sexual intercourse. The Church teaches sexual union serves only one purpose: Pro-creation. Never to pass time, nor to relieve one’s urges, therefore, valid only in the context of marriage, whose sole purpose is to share in God’s act of creation.
It is all connected, like a strand of DNA: Marriage, sexual union, and sanctity of human life.
What about disease? Aids? STD?
In the perfect world that the Roman Church believes that we should all be living in, there is no room for disease. If we follow a blessed marital life, sans extra- marital affairs and casual sex that steers away from the original purpose of the act, there will be no disease. Promiscuity causes disease.
But what if married couples want to space their children? Should they use a condom or any other artificial means of birth control?
The Church teaches that married couples could space their children through natural forms of birth control: The Calendar method and abstinence.
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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
A common question asked of us by new permanent residents or green card holders is whether they can travel abroad and for how long they can stay abroad.
Lawful permanent residents or green card holders may travel in and out of the U.S. generally without restrictions if the trip will be for not more than one year. One only needs to present his/her passport and the green card to re-enter the U.S.
However if the stay outside the U.S. will exceed one (1) year, then the green card holder needs to get a re-entry permit from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
To apply for a re-entry permit, a Form I-131 Application for Travel Document must be filed along with a copy of the front and back of the green card and a filing fee of $305.00 and $80.00 biometrics fee. The application is filed with the Nebraska Service Center.
The applicant must apply for the re-entry permit while he/she is still physically present in the U.S. and before traveling abroad. The person need not wait however for the decision on the application before traveling and can request its delivery to an overseas office of the U.S. Embassy or Consulate of his/her country of destination.
Under a recent decision by the Administrative Appeals Office, the application for re-entry permit was denied by the USCIS Nebraska Service Center after it was determined that the applicant filed the application after having already left the U.S.
In his appeal, the applicant admitted that he filed the application while he was abroad but he contended that he had an initial travel document that was valid at the time that he left the U.S. The document expired while he was abroad and he filed the I-131 in an attempt to extend the expired travel document.
The AAO denied the appeal stating that the regulations did not provide for extending an expired travel document and that “there is no exception for the physical presence requirement at the time of filing a Form 1-131.”
This month, the USCIS also issued its newly revised I-131 instructions on the biometrics (e.g. fingerprints and photographs) that need to be taken by applicants for re-entry permits and refugee travel documents. The instructions state that while departure from the U.S. before a decision is made on the re-entry permit application usually does not affect the application, there is a risk of denial if the applicant leaves before his/her biometrics are collected.
A re-entry permit is valid for two years from the date of issuance. If the green card holder has been out of the U.S. for more than four years of the last five years or since becoming a permanent resident, the permit’s validity will be restricted to only one year, except if the green card holder is traveling under U.S. government directive, or is employed by a public international organization, or is a professional athlete who regularly competes.
A re-entry permit is not a guaranty of admission to the U.S. It is just a proof that the permanent resident has not abandoned his/her status during the prolonged absence. He/She is still subject to the immigration rules on admissibility.
Also, it does not negate the rule that absence from the U.S. for one year or more will generally break the continuous residence requirement for naturalization.
The USCIS advises applicants for re-entry permits to anticipate their travel plans and to apply for the travel document or re-entry permit in the U.S. at least 60 days prior to their travel dates in order to have their biometrics collected. If the green card holder leaves the U.S. while the decision on the I-131 is pending but before the biometrics is taken, then it would not necessarily deny the re-entry permit application as long as the applicant returns to the U.S. within that year to attend the biometrics appointment.
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RINGSIDER AT OBAMA, MCCAIN TALKS
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CHICAGO, Illinois (JGLi) – Journal ists of color from across the United States, including this columnist, will be descending in Chicago, Illinois starting this week to asses how far the minority industry has advanced in this once monolithic media industry when the UNITY: Journalists of Color kicks off the four-day July 23-27 Convention at McCormick Place.
Easily the biggest come-on in the four-day convention is the presence of Sen. Barack Obama as well as Sen. John McCain as they address questions from a panel of working journalists representing all the four alliances sponsored by CNN/Time Magazine on Thursday, July 24 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
So me 10,000 journalists from the ranks of the alliances of the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association will once again renew their pledge to advocate fair and accurate news coverage about people of color, and aggressively challenge the industry to staff its organizations at all levels to reflect the nation's diversity during the Unity 08 Convention.
IMROVING CRAFT
For my part, I would be covering and attending events that will help me improve on my craft and my networking skills.
One of those workshops that I plan to attend is “Who Moved My Pen? How Getting Organized Helps You Get the Story.” It’s an hour and a half presentation starting 11 a.m. on Friday, July 25, presented by Ms. Peggy Duncan BBA Market, a personal productivity expert that will tell you to get organized before a coverage; and “Survivors’ Guide to Newsroom Politics,” presented by AAJA, on how to handle “backstabbing co-workers, position yourself for promotions and raises, etc.”
Also interesting is ‘Newsgathering/Storytelling: Writing Fast, Writing Well, Right on time: How to Write for Air on deadline,” presented by NPR; “IMHO: The Wondrous Art of Column20Writing,” and “Digital: A Day in the Life: Adventures in Multimedia Journalism,” sponsored by Time, Inc., also on Friday, July 25, from 1:30 to 3 p.m.; “Alliance Partner: Point of Origin: How to Achieve Three-Dimensional Coverage of Ethnic Communities,” presented by the NAHJ, from 3-4:30 p.m.
INSTANT CIRCULATION
If I get a chance, I will try to interview Dr. Janice Ellis, the publisher of RiseUp Magazine, which has a claimed circulation of 4.3-million, although, the publication was only launched last June 22. I am tempted to do the interview just to find out how Dr. Ellis collected so many subscribers so soon.
I am also interested to find out the results of the survey of 3,400 African Americans aged between 13 and 74 that breaks th e population of 30 million Black Americans into groups such as Connected Black Teens, Digital Networkers and Black Onliners at the younger end to Faith Fulfills, Broadcast Blacks and Boomer Blacks at the other end.
ASIAN FRIENDS
On the lighter side, my Asian American friends Rose Tibayan (a Manila native) and Lily Kim (Korean-American), both former broadcast journalists, and both AAJA members, are hosting a party at Crimson Lounge@Hotel Sax at 333 N. Dearborn Street after the Obama-McCain Joint Presidential Candidates Forum on Thursday night that will last until 2 a.m. Friday. It will be held at the VIP Lounge of Chicago’s newest and hottest club that will be perfect for networking.
Other events that are worth attending are talks on such topics as “Lunch ‘n’ Learn Event – How to Get a Media Grant,” sponsored by the Ford Foundation, Thursday, July 24, from 12 noon to 2 p.m.; and “Media Access: How to Get Your News Into the News,” on Saturday, July 26, 1-3 p.m. at Hyatt Regency Chicago/Tower, Bronze Level at 151 East Wacker Drive. This will be interesting for representatives of small, local non-profit organizations that dot the Filipino American community. This will give them a heads-up in dealing with media an opportunity to work with national and local journalists and media professionals, learning basic skills in getting their stories in the media. And so on.
I just hope I will learn something in this quadrennial event. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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In today’s shrill population debate, has the “youth bulge” vanished like the “eerie missing voice of poor Filipino women”? “Youth bulge" is scientists’ shorthand for large clusters of potential parents: those between 15 to 30 years of age.
`Their hormones will soon be in overdrive. Children from their albeit delayed marriages could form a “boomlet”. But like women driven to abortion by lack of family planning options, these kids in the wings are ‘invisible’ in current exchanges.
Archbishop Jesus Dosado casts into “exterior darkness” reproductive health bill backers. They’ll be denied communion in Ozamis. “Who is without sin” be first to deny the Eucharist to others, snapped Columnist Orlando Carvajal.
The bills “don’t legalize abortion”, scoffed Rep. Edcel Lagman. True. But Lagman & Co copied, from foreign laws, abortion-on-demand provisions for their first draft. Alarm bells were clanging when they spiked offending paragraphs..
“A conspiracy of silence” shrouds women who -- denied family planning services -- induce abortion, Ateneo and UP professor Mary Racelis wrote ( Inquirer / July 18).. About 473,400 women had abortions in 2000.
Does that even out at 1,265 aborted kids daily? Hard to tell. Abortionists slink in illegality’s murky world. Reports by 1,658 hospitals, in contrast, provide hard data on abortion’s consequences..
Over 105,000 women were hospitalized due to complications, mainly hemorrhaging and infections, Racelis notes. “And 12 percent, or 12,600, died. How many more never made it to a hospital… or suffer lifelong disabilities, is anyone’s guess.”
Ten mothers die giving birth here, the UN notes. The “preventable major causes”: abortion, hemorrhage and hypertension. At this rate, maternal death rates will dip to 140, for every 100,000 births, come 2015. This sharply cuts the 209 fatalities recorded in the 90s. But we flunk the Millennium Development Goal for trimming deaths to 52.
Abortions, meanwhile, has ratcheted higher, new partial data indicates.. Did they now crest at 1,930 daily? Who knows? Sino ba ang babaye magpapalista na nagpa-aborsyon siya?, Racelis quotes a Catholic Bishops’ National Rural Congress participant. (“What woman, in her right mind, would admit she had an abortion?”) ,
This is glossed-over slaughter of innocents. “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation,” Matthew wrote. “Rachel weeping for her children…because they were no more.”
“The Philippines is in the midst of a ‘youth bulge’, Filipina demographers Coarzon Raymundo from UP and San Carlos University’s Soccoro Gultiano note. Age distribution tables, from 2007’s census, haven’t been released,. But projections based on the previous census, say these youngsters may top 18 million.
“Teen age pregnancies have been rising,” the savvy UP demographer Mercedes Concepcion says.. “If the proportion of those bearing children at ages 15-19 escalate, we may see a minor baby boom -- unless these teen-age mothers resort to abortions. Some of their elders did. No one wants that.”
Even a “boomlet” would further burden 79 provinces that haven’t started, in earnest, it’s “demographic transition” to lower birth rates. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, meanwhile, called for new dialog. “But did this dialog ever leave square one?, Bohol Chronicle asked.
“For more than 30 years now, the ‘population debate’ divided segments of society,” sociologist John Carroll, SJ, writes. It’s been marred “by mutual suspicions, one-sided arguments and caricatures of opposing positions. The outcome has been two groups, each dominated by more ‘hard-line’ spokespersons…
“They talk past each other without taking time to listen. ,” Carroll adds. ( Ex-health secretary Alberto Romualdez, for example, would gag citizens from commenting on population, if they are priests or religious – the constitutional right to free speech be dammed. ) “We must move past the deadlocked debate into an area of respectful discussion…”
How? Use undisputed facts.
There are four of us today where, in 1948, there was one. Daily., about 5,800 kids are born. They’re equal to three barangays. No crystal bowl is needed to tally how much more food, water, shelter, medicine, etc 1098 barangays will need in a year. .
Poor families that haven’t spaced children find it tougher to break out of penury. Two out of every 10 married women want no more children for now, surveys show. Many can not access family planning services.
Keeping in mind the common good, couples determine their family size, says the Vatican II Council document: “The Church in the Modern World” .“Procreation and parenthood do not entail a right to have as many children as one desires,” writes theologian Fr.Aloysius Cartagenas. “The former need not take moral precedence over the later all the time.”
Informed discussion will enable “families to choose their preferred family planning methods, consistent with the Second Vatican Council’s teaching: the final arbiter of one’s decision is informed and responsible conscience”, 17 UP economists said earlier.
The Church supports family planning but bucks contraception. Ipil Prelature and Cagayan de Oro archdiocese implement an “All Natural Family Planning” program. Do other dioceses have comparable programs? Or they stop at “anathemas”?
There’s far more common ground than the “hard-liners” indicate. And consequences of failing to find areas of agreement will be dire.. ####.
(E-mail:juanlmercado@gmail.com)
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