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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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WHILE the United States’ economy stands on a quicksand, the rest of the world, as expected, are joining in the dip.
World markets tumble Monday when the House of Representatives junked the proposed bailout plan by president Bush and party leaders in Congress, which resulted in the biggest collapse in Wall Street since 9/11. It is a usual tale. When the United States melt, the world melts with it.
Not so fast. It looks like the Philippines, according to president Macapagal-Arroyo is not joining the U.S. and the rest of the world in the dive to bankruptcy. Apparently, the country is secure and standing on a rock solid economy.
Is Arroyo out of her wits?
The Philippines recently borrowed P10.2 billion from Japan and another P250 million from the Asian Development Bank. Where is rock solid there?
The country is living on foreign loans; it cannot even pay off the interest. It is the status quo of the Philippines since the late 60’s. Foreign debt gives us the illusion of a stable economy while in fact, it chains us for the rest of our lives.
True, there may not be a dramatic downfall in stocks at the Makati Stock Exchange, like the one in New York. Who cares about Philippine stocks, anyway? More so, who plays with them? Definitely not the majority of the Filipinos, but only the few whose family names can be found on malls, buildings and the walls of politics. The stock market page sin Manila papers is the most unread page in any newspaper in the Philippines, unless there’s a female stockbroker in a bikini.
We don’t care about the stock market in the Philippines. It is none of our business. What we care about is employment, basic needs and services, and education, which we do not have due to our staggering amount of foreign debts and unstoppable corruption.
When Malacañang said that the Philippines is not affected by the Wall Street crash and that we are standing not on quicksand but solid foundation, they must have meant that the country is in rock bottom. Rock bottom. Rock solid. Bad analogy. But bad ideas are nothing new in this current regime.
True, the Philippines is not going down with the U.S. because the country is already there waiting for more company.
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PERSONAL LIABILITY OF NOT
FOR PROFIT DIRECTORS
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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
Board membership in a not-for-profit organization is a great opportunity to contribute to the community, but it is also a huge responsibility. It is advisable for a would-be director to look before s/he leaps when considering taking the position.
Although decisions involving the organizations are made by the directors acting as one Board, each director is legally bound to observe three important duties to the organization, namely the duties of care, loyalty and obedience. These duties are legally enforceable, and an erring director may be sued personally if s/he violates them. Legal action may be brought by the State Attorney General, by another director or by members representing at least five percent (5%) of the membership.
Although lawsuits against board member are uncommon, there have been instances when they were personally sued such as when a trade association applicant sued an organization for rejecting its membership bid and when the parents of disabled children sued an organization for breach of fiduciary duty and won a judgment of over $3 million.
Checking Organization Before Joining Board
Aside from looking into the ongoing programs of the organization and checking its reputation in the community, there are a number of things s/he can do before a decision to join the board is made.
Firstly, a would-be director should look at the organization’s basic documents, particularly: (a) the certificate of incorporation; (b) application for federal income tax exemption; (c) by-laws; and (d) board and committee minutes for at least the past year. This would give the would-be director a good idea about the general objectives and concerns of the organization.
Secondly, one must obtain a current list of board and committee members as well as the officers of key staff members of the organization. It would help if the would-be director could talk to current and former board members to learn about the operations of the organization, whether the meetings are well-attended, and find out the reasons why former board members or offices left their posts.
Thirdly, the would-be director must look into the organization’s financials. Many controversies predictably abound where money is concerned. A review of the organization’s IRS Form 990 or 990 PF and audited financial statements during the last two years as well as the latest financial reports will provide a reliable picture of the financial situation of the organization and how it uses its resources.
Duty of Care
The duty of care entails good faith and exercising that degree of diligence, care and skills which ordinarily prudent people would exercise under the same circumstances. In concrete terms, the duty of care means the director should attend all board and committee meetings and participate in deliberations. S/he must read minutes of meetings and all reports, including financial statements. S/he must be familiar with and adhere to the approval process for the organization’s major transactions, such as procurements and compensation packages. Duties must also be delegated to qualified professionals only.
Even if the director observes the degree of care in discharging his/her duties, it will still be prudent to check whether the organization indemnifies directors and officers, and whether it has obtained liability insurance for them.
Duty of Loyalty
The duty of loyalty means the director must pursue the objectives and interests of the organization with undivided allegiance. This duty basically calls for independent judgment, unfettered by any desire for or appearance of personal gain. It comes into play in situations where the directors have fixed the compensation of staff and even the directors themselves; or in “interested party transactions” or other instances of “self-dealing”.
A director should avoid a conflict of interest. A common example is when a director uses the organization’s membership list to promote his/her business.
The rule is that the director must put the interest of the organization first, before his/her own. Directors must avoid entering into transactions with the organization, but if this is unavoidable, the director must make full and complete disclosure of the conflict to the board.
The best situation for all concerned – the directors, officers, employees or staff and the organization itself—is to have a conflict of interest policy in place. This will be the guidepost for any conduct arising from internal dealings with the organization.
Duty of Obedience
The duty of obedience means the director must be faithful to the mission and objectives of the organization. To properly abide by this duty, one must be thoroughly familiar with the organizational structure and accountability system. Delegation of duties, if needed, must be made only to qualified professionals and conversely, conduct must be guided by the mission, objectives and policies as embodied in the organization’s incorporation papers and duly approved Board resolutions.
Directors must insure that the organization complies with all applicable laws and regulations including registration and reporting laws and tax laws. Directors may be personally liable for failing to pay the wages, benefits and withholding taxes on employees’ wages.
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OPTIONS FOR FILIPINO VETERANS
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CHICAGO, Illinois (JGLi) – Nobody knows what will be will be with the Senate Bill 1315, the Veterans’ Benefits Enhancement Act of 2007, if it will be taken up for a vote now that the U.S. Congress is working overtime this week to consider the $700-B rescue package for the current financial crisis.
This Senate bill 1315 was approved by the U.S. Senate by a lopsided vote of 96-1 last April when it contained provisions granting benefits for Filipino World War II veterans.
But when this same bill sailed thru the House with a veto-proof majority of 392-23 last Sept. 23rd, it carved out the Filipino veterans benefits from the bill and moved these benefits into a stand-alone H.R. 6897, the Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2008, at a reduced lump sum rate patterned after the $20,000 given to each Japanese American internee in the U.S. during WW II, enclosing a presidential letter of apology.
This odd turn of events had the aging and dying veterans on edge gasping for breath.
CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
They are hoping against hope that Congress will still be able to assemble a conference committee before it adjourns for the year and restore the original annual pension provisions back to the original bill when it was approved by the Senate last April.
These benefits include a flat rate of $3,600 annual non-service disability pension for each of the surviving 18,000 single Filipino veterans; $4,500 annually for married veterans; and $2,400 annually for surviving spouses, who all are living in the Philippines.
Under the H.R. 6897, these benefits became a token lump sum pay of $9,000 for each of Filipino veteran who is not a U.S. Citizen and $15,000 for a Filipino veteran, who is a U.S. Citizen, minus a letter of apology from the President. I have a feeling that some of the vocal Republican members of the Veterans Affairs Committee from both chambers, namely, Senators Richard Burr (NC) and Larry Craig (Idaho), and Rep. Stephen Buyer (Indiana), will again be rearing their ugly heads and will make sure that the restoration of the pension provisions will never happen just in case a conference committee is formed for this bill.
NO TO PENSION
Rep. Buyer told House Veterans Affairs Committee chair, Rep. Bob Filner (D-San Diego) that there is no way the annual pension should be given to Filipinos because Filipinos are not U.S. Citizens, forgetting the fact that when President Roosevelt conscripted (forced) the Filipinos to serve under the American Command to resist the Japanese in the Pacific Theater, these Filipinos may not be U.S. Citizens but President Truman considered Filipinos as U.S. nationals because they were citizens of a U.S. Commonwealth like Puerto Rico at that time.
I don’t know about Messrs. Burr, Craig and Buyer and others opposing S. 1315 if they understand it. The moneys, the Filipino veterans are claiming, are salaries for their war services. These are not CHARITY DOLEOUTS! Hence, this case should be handled by the U.S. Department of Labor, not the U.S. Veterans Affairs!
NO FREE WILL
When these veterans were conscripted (not asked to volunteer) to take up arms against the Japanese, they were doing America a favor, not the Philippines, because the Philippines at that time was still a U.S. Commonwealth, which had no free will.
There was no way for the Filipinos to defy the conscription order issued by President Roosevelt because they could face Articles of War court martial trial and they could be held liable for desertion, which is punishable by death.
These benefits due these veterans should have been settled a long time ago. But because it would cost a couple of billion of dollars during that time to compensate the war services of some 250,000 Filipino veterans, instead of negotiating with the Filipino veterans for their service pay, the U.S. Congress arbitrarily reduced the appropriation to a token $200-Million by passing the 1946 Recession Acts. To add insult to injury, Congress diverted the moneys from the Filipino veterans to the Philippine government and used the moneys instead to pay off the reconstruction of Philippine infrastructures, like roads, bridges and public buildings, destroyed during World War II that turned Manila into the most devastated city in the world second only to Warsaw, Poland.
MORAL OBLIGATION
In signing the Rescission Acts, President Truman noted that the passage and approval of these legislations “do not release the United States from its moral obligation to provide for the heroic Philippine veterans who sacrificed so much for the common cause during the war.”
These words of sympathy of President Truman for the Filipino veterans ring hollow, however, because Mr. Truman could have just vetoed these Acts to send a strong message to the U.S. Congress that it had done an injustice and discriminated against these veterans.
Mr. Truman had vetoed 250 bills during his term of office. Adding the Rescission Acts to list of his vetoed bills would have spared the U.S. government from blame.
Why would Sen. Burr and company hold Senators Daniel Akaka, Daniel Inouye, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Filner and others, who are supporting the grant of annual pension for these Filipino veterans, hostage by opposing the restoration of the original benefits of Filipino veterans under S. 1315?
If the Senate and House will not grant the veterans their salaries, these Filipino veterans should just take it with a grain of salt.
TWO STEPS
After all, they have two options to take:
First, they can take the matter up before the International Court of Justice at The Hague, The Netherlands or any other international body that settles labor disputes and charge the American government and the U.S. Congress with War Crime of Involuntary Servitude and Massive War Fraud for conscripting them during World War II without pay and under pain of death penalty. And second, failing in the first step, they should petition the Philippine government and Philippine Congress to pass an amendment to the Philippine Constitution that because of the humiliating and discriminatory experiences they suffered from the U.S. government and U.S. Congress after their sacrifices and loyalty for complying with the conscription order of President Roosevelt during the war only to be denied the entitlement and recognition they richly deserve, the Philippines should never again agree to send any more troops to any allied country that requests such troops from the Philippines. The Philippines should, henceforth, actively join the international community of Non-Aligned Movement, and become a neutral nation, like Switzerland. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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Headline-hogging- politicians can blot out significant breakthroughs. Like what? Like how the “southern Philippines ( cradled ) a mini-revolution in the way coastal marine resources are now managed across the entire country,” a Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences report points out.
Chile in Latin America, and many Pacific Island nations are, in fact, retooling policies that reflect “early success of small scale no-take marine reserves” here, notes the Academy’s publication: “Ambio”.
Garry Russ of Australia’s James Cook University and Silliman University’s Angel Alcala wrote the study. They track how, over the last 32 years, local fishermen co-managing marine sanctuaries, in two Visayan islets, reversed imminent collapse of fishing grounds.
Productivity is resurging in Apo and Sumilon Island sanctuaries. .“Nine years of no-take protection in Sumilon showed the biomass of fish tripled,” the Swedish report notes.. And 18 years of similar sanctuary in Apo revealed almost a five-fold increase.
Since the 1970s, more than 600 marine protected areas, patterned after Apo and Sumilom models, have been established,” it adds. “The Apo reserve (is) arguably the world’s most successful community-based marine-mangement program,”
But it was not always so.
Once rich fishing grounds must feed a population estimated at 92 million in mid-July. Population densities are heaviest in coastal villages. Majority of residents are poor. And their protein comes from overfished waters. Affluent consumers in Hong Kong, Tokyo or Taipeh seek live reef fish for dinner, The steep decline of global fisheries spurred demand.here. In this unequal competition, the poor lose out..
“Responsibility for marine habitats rested with bureaucracies, “usually centralized in bigger cities, such as Manila and Cebu,” Ambio notes These are institutional hand-me-downs from Spanish and American periods. . “In the 17th century, traditional property rights, over fishery resources, resided in the barangay.”
Gaps stud their management tools. . Diktats of cash-strapped agencies were routinely ignored. . “During the 1960s and 1970s, large commercial fishing companies that used highly destructive… muro-ami drive net fishing expanded operations ( unchecked).” Politicians meddled in this illicit trade.
“Innovation” driven by poverty set a new low. Squirting cyanide into reefs to stun fish originated in the Philippines and Taiwan in the 1960s, the UN Environment Programme notes. Cyanide misuse spread to Asean countries, then leapfrogged to Maldives in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.
“Small is beautiful,” economist Joseph Schumpeter often stressed. That fits the two islets, sandwiched between Negros Oriental and Cebu, where the marine reserve “mini-revolution” started.
Less than a square kilometer in size, Apo Island’s 700 permanent residents agreed to, set up a 22 plus hectare marine sanctuary. Sumilon ( 0.23 square kilometers ) is even smaller No one lives on this coralline islet. Fishers come nearby Cebu.
Dr. Alcala and Silliman scientists got local officials and communities to establish “no-take reserves” starting in 1976. “We’ve estimated total annual fishery yields eight times in the two islands over 28 years former DENR secretary Alcala points out. The long term data for both sanctuaries and adjacent areas is solid.
Biomass of sought-after predatory fish increased almost 12-fold in Sumilon and 17-fold in Apo, Prof. Russ writes. The “spillover” revealed that yields also rose. “The evidence accumulated at Apo, for more than two decades, indicates that (marine) reserves can display spillover.”
Apo and Sumilon remain the best known examples of how local citizens, when given responsibility can manage wisely their marine resources. The two islets shaped, in 1991, the Local Government Code’s provision of 15 kilometer reach for local fisheries. That is reinforced in the Fisheries Code of 1998
But the idea is catching on. Currently, there are 60 similar reserves within the 29,000 square kilometer Bohol Sea area. . An even more extensive network of marine protected areas in 11 provinces. Most of the larger projects now fly the standard of integrated coastal management. But 439 have, as centerpiece for action, the lessons of Apo and Sumilon: T
“A major lesson from 30 years of establishing no-take marine reserves in the Philippines is: one must initially devolve decision-making power down,” Ambio notes. Thereafter, time, effort and money must be poured programs that “integrate up again”.
Can politicians who think in next election cycles acquire the long term vision needed?. There are, after all, 832 coastal towns that could benefit from what Apo and Sumilon taught. And Silliman provided an invaluable model for a university's outreach role.
Sumilon and Apo islands produced examples of what could be achieved by local fishing communities, muses Dr Alcala. The sanctuaries contributed to a ‘‘sea change’’ in policy by curbing on how exploitation of marine resources in the Philippines is managed He won the 1992 Magsaysay Award for Public service precisely because of work that empowered people.
“People Power” often refers to non-violent movements that toppled oppressive dictatorships. Thus, Edsa One span off into Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Uprising” as well as “Lebanon’s “Cedar Revolution, Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” and Georgia’s “Rose Rebellion””
Giving power back to people is what the Guardian calls the “post-modern coup.” And giving back to ordinary fishermen control of their livelihoods is People Power at it’s best, Dr. Alcala thinks A "blue revolution" then ? .###
(E-mail: juanlmercado@gmail.com )
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As we said goodbye to September, so did two people - one I admired and the other, a dear friend. Both succumbed to the Big C.
Paul Newman was an icon in the true sense of the word. Not just because of his enduring stardom in the movie hemisphere but more so because of his great big heart. Let me share something about him and a beauty queen cousin of mine. In the 60s, Paul visited the Philippines. It happened to be Fil-Am Friendship Day (July 4) at the Subic Naval Base. Lovely cousin Veth, first runner-up held the title of Miss Luzon in that year's Bb. Pilipinas pageant and a member of the original Bayanihan International Dance Troupe, was hailed as Miss Fil-Am Day during the celebration with movie queen, Amalia Fuentes in her court of honor. Assigned as their consorts were goodlooking US naval officers. But, not for Veth for prior to the Miss Fil-Am coronation, had been introduced to Mr. Newman. and, surely enough, he made sure that he'd be her official escort that evening and even managed to wear the traditional barong. There was a picture I kept in my album of that memorable event and I wish I had brought it to America with me so the readers could see. But, perhaps when I go back to the homeland, I can get hold of a copy and bring it over. That of course, was many moons ago. Veth became betrothed and lived happily ever after with three beauteous daughters but, I am certain that she remembers with delight (especially now) when she became the focus of Paul Newman's fascination. There have been many accolades thrown his way by his colleagues such as -- God had made the perfect man ... Indeed, in many ways Paul was. He happily, gave away his multi-million dollar earnings (from Newman's Own products) to charity never forgetting the unfortunate children of the world. It follows what contributed to his "perfection" was the perfect partner - Joanne Woodward. Their union lasted for over 50 years until he passed. By no means a feat in Hollywood.
If I may be allowed to write about a kindred spirit, Sr. Don Antonio Abad who has bid his loved ones farewell. Tony was the spouse of veteran actress Lilia Dizon. For over a year, Lilia was his personal caregiver here in the States as he battled a losing war to the Big C. His family celebrated his 80th milestone here on August 6 complete with mariachi at a waterfront restaurant on the Westside. I missed the occasion having gone the Homeland at the time. The last time I saw Tony was on August 31st. I remember giving him a buss on the forehead as I was leaving and his whisper: otra vez ... (one more time) and I so did. I responded with "que se vaya todo bien ...(that all goes well)". I had a feeling then, that that would be the last time I would see him. They took him home and 23 days after he was gone. His remains were cremated on the 23rd of September and interred at the Heritage Memorial Park in Taguig. Tony was a good provider to his family and a true gentleman. Born in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac. Senor Abad was a Spanish national. We shared a mutual love for Spain, the Castilian language and culture. Aside from Lilia, let me convey my deepest sympathy to his children: Eric, Ces, Cori and Antoinette. I share in your grief.
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