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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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WE live in a world where the color of our skin determines our chances and successes. In many parts of the world, even here in the United States, even life itself sometimes hangs in the balance between hues and shades. In the past, people of color are considered sub-human.
It is unacceptable how some of us treat people of color differently than whites as if we are not colored ourselves. Even after Barack Obama’s victory, some of us still have the nerve to discount the victory. Perhaps, some people are just morons.
No matter how many centuries white colonists ruled our nation we will remain people of color. Being naturalized American citizens will not even make us white. In fact, even if we are born here, we will still be brown. Barack Obama is actually more white than us– he is 50% white and most of these people who deride him for being black is not even close to being 50% white.
When Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States, he broke the barrier of race. Now, it all seems like everyone is equal no matter what shade your skin is. Now, it seems like people of color like us are not sub-human after all. Now, it is fine to be a person of color because of him.
If a black man can be President of the United States, then we can all be anything we want to be. There will be no more racial walls to climb– we will all be free. His victory is our victory.
This victory of course, would not be possible without the new breed of young Americans that elected him to the White House. These new Americans are free of bigotry. They are modern people who believe in the merits of character and look past the color of the skin.
Why then can’t some of us take the cue from these modern Americans and be like them?
Perhaps it is time for these racist Filipinos to take to heart Barack’s philosophy of change.
It is time for them to free themselves from a shackling view of humanity.
It is time for them to look at their own skins and view humanity as one.
We live in a different world now. A world where the leader of the free world is a person of color– a black man.
Wake up.
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CERTAIN ALIENS ALLOWED TO FILE FOR AMNESTY UNDER OLD LAW
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Certain aliens who were unable to apply for legalization under the 1986 amnesty law will now be allowed to file their applications from February 1, 2009 through January 31, 2010.
This announcement issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on November 3, 2008 was pursuant to an order of a federal district court in Seattle which had earlier approved a settlement agreement between the USCIS and the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project.
The settlement agreement is the culmination of a national class action lawsuit filed more than twenty years ago. The lawsuit challenged the policy of the then Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) of denying legalization applications for failure to meet the “known to the government” requirement.
Under the amnesty law, known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, applicants were required to prove that they were in unlawful status prior to January 1, 1982 and that such unlawful status was “known to the government”.
Many aliens were not able to apply because of the strict standard imposed by the USCIS in determining whether the unlawful status was “known to the government”. Many of those who filed were also denied.
The settlement agreement will make it easier for applicants to meet the specified legal standard. Applicants will have to file a class membership application and an application for legalization on Form I-687.
Those who had previously filed but whose applications were denied must also file a class membership worksheet and a motion to reopen their applications on Forms I-290B.
Individuals whose applications have not been adjudicated do not have to file another legalization application although they have the option to file for class membership in order to alert the USCIS of their pending cases.
Members of the class include those who entered the U.S. as a nonimmigrant prior to January 1, 1982 and who violated their status in a manner known to the government.
Their violation of status will be considered as known to the government if documentation, such as quarterly or annual address reports, (or lack of it) existed in any government records or if INS records such as school and employer reports of status violations are missing in their A files.
A violation will also be deemed known to the government if the individual whose facially valid “lawful status” was obtained by fraud or mistake, whether such “lawful status” was the result of a reinstatement or change of nonimmigrant status or adjustment of status.
In order to qualify, the above class members should have between May 5, 1987 and May 4, 1988 attempted to file a complete legalization application, but such application was rejected or they were advised of their ineligibility or were refused application forms and thus, failed to file.
If they were able to file under the original filing period, such application should not have been fully adjudicated or it was denied or terminated due to their inability to meet the “known to the government requirement”.
(Editor’s Note: REUBEN S. SEGURITAN has been practicing law for over 30 years and is included in the Marquis Who’s Who in American Law. A former law editor and professor, he is also the author of a book on immigrant experiences. He has spoken in international and national conventions and has been interviewed on radio and television, including the ABC Nightly News. He has participated in meetings with White House staff and the Immigration Commissioner to discuss immigration reforms. For his community service and advocacy, he has received numerous awards in the U.S. and abroad. For more information, you may log on to his website at www.seguritan.com or call (212) 696-5281.)
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OBAMA'S ARMY OF FOOT SOLDIERS
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CHICAGO, Illinois (JGLi) – If you build it, they will come. This appears to be basic formula of the Barack Obama success story. After his electrifying speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, then, Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama was bandied about that he could go places in the field of politics.
Indeed, with his talent, the right packaging, right timing, some luck and with less baggage, Mr. Obama would be able to live his promise in four years. I got my first clue about Mr. Obama’s success in 2004 when I ran into a young Filipino American law student, volunteering in the office of Mr. Obama. I was surprised that Miss Jordannah Bangi, who is from Hawaii, would relocate to Chicago, Illinois to volunteer her time and talent to an unknown Illinois state senator.
SOME NUTS
I met Ms. Bangi in the run-up of the 6th National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) national empowerment convention in 2004 in Chicago later that year.
I thought Miss Bangi must be some nuts for volunteering in the office of Mr. Obama as a community organizer when she could find a part-time job that will pay her bills.
So, when NaFFAA asked her to invite Mr. Obama as Illinois state senator to deliver remarks to support the Filipino World War II veterans at the NaFFAA convention, Mr. Obama was a no-show. It would be Miss Bangi who would deliver Mr. Obama's speech on his behalf.
It would also be the last time that would hear and would see her. But the other night, I was re-connected to Ms. Bangi by her superior, Ms. Charmaine Manansala, National Asian American Pacific Islanders Vote Director for Obama for President campaign.
Ms. Bangi, it turned out, has become Obama’s campaign National Lead AAPI Vote Coordinator, and she was spearheading the AAPI’s efforts in Ohio, one of the battleground states that put Mr. Obama over the top.
HUNDREDS OF VOLUNTEERS
And Ms. Bangi is only one of the hundreds, if not, thousands of student volunteers, who placed their trust in the next president of the United States. And these volunteers, I remember the words of former Filipino American State Rep. Jeff Coleman of Pennsylvania, were usually drawn by politicians, who espouse issues that matter to them.
Mr. Coleman, of course, was speaking for himself.
He said before he was elected Pennsylvania representative, Mr. Coleman first volunteered his services to a politician, who was espousing issues he was supporting.
When he learned the “secret of the trade," he also employed it when it was his turn to run for a public office. Mr. Coleman ran and was re-elected as member of the Pennsylvania State Legislature before dropping out of his bid for a third term to pursue other interests.
This appears to be the same formula that attracted Miss Bangi and Ms. Charmaine Manansala, who accepted the offer of Mr. Obama to be AAPI Team Vote Director.
“CLINTONISTAS”
A former supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton as she worked in the Clinton Administration for the first White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Ms. Manansala accepted the offer of Mr. Obama after Senator Clinton publicly appealed to the “Clintonistas” to “do everything to elect Barack Obama as the next President of the United States.”
Because Mr. Obama wanted to respond to the challenges of the economic crisis, the endless war, the neglect of the veterans, the broken health care system and energy independence among others, Ms. Manansala was honored to accept the offer.
Besides she said, since Mr. Obama shared the experience of Filipino Americans in Hawaii that is personal to him and he is committed to keeping the door of opportunity open to all Filipino Americans and expanding opportunities to all Americans, it was easy for her to support the Obama campaign.
Ms. Manansala said that under the Obama administration, the “AAPI families, which have the longest immigration backlogs” could have a shorter waiting time for their green cards under a comprehensive immigration bill that will emphasize family reunification. This is part of the "Blueprint for the Change We Need for Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders."
The Manila-born political strategist would like to see the strengthening of ties between the Philippines and the United States.
PORTABLE HEALTH INSURANCE
I’m sure along these lines, Ms. Manansala can also include in the "Blueprint" for an amendment of a law that allows Guamenians to be treated by selected Philippine hospitals and covered by Medicare to be expanded to Filipino Americans to be treated also by Philippine hospitals and covered also by Medicare.
Of course, Ms. Manansala can also push for the passage of the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill that stalled in the Senate and in the House last month.
Most of all, Ms. Manansala said, “Next year, children all over America will sit in classrooms looking up at the portraits of the American presidents on the wall. After scanning past the first 43, I hope they will take a good look at number 44 because that one will look different.
“And suddenly, our kids will start to think, ‘Maybe I can be Mayor. Maybe I can run for Congress. Maybe I could be President.’ In that moment, possibility is born.
“I want a generation of Filipino boys and girls to see Barack Obama and know that in America, anything is possible – with faith, hard work, and determination, they can achieve anything in this land of opportunity. That, after all, is the American dream of our lolos and lolas.
“I’m here to tell you: kaya natin, yes we can!” (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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Tuesday’s U.S. elections, we’re told, fractured almost every other record on the books: from voter turnout, youth and ethnic mix of electors to cost.
“Internet and cellphones were leveraged in ways never imagined before,” Washington Post observed. But a blue card, flashed at Barrack Obama rallies, probably summed up the core issue : “Change.”
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading”, the Chinese sage Lao Tze wrote 2,600 years back. Midway in the campaign, John McCain heeded Lao Tze: He, too, stood for “change.”
Exclude hermetically-sealed North Korea. And scrub paranoid Burma. The rest of the world got, from this poll, a cyberspace tutorial on ballot power.. "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible,” theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once said. But “man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Media showed us, in real time, people queuing up for hours to dust off unused tools for keel-hauling government. Americans were appalled by greed of their super rich. Chief executive officers bailed out with “golden parachutes” after bankrupting their companies. .They erupted when avarice chewed into their home mortgages, retirement egg nests, jobs and health care.
Americans “accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly to force upon us a choice between the comforts of inertia or the irksomeness of change,” Justice Learned Hand once said.
“Tama na,” Filipinos say. “Sobra na, Palitan na. Sometimes, we call that “people power”..And when we switch off US elections coverage, our problems – which demand radical recasting.—crouch there. .
Take hunger. It spins off into premature graves for infants, school drop outs, TB and health problems -- even insurgency. “There are sharp elbows attached to hungry stomachs”
Some 3.3 million Filipino families went hungry, at least once. in the last three months, Social Weather Stations ( and Inquirer columnist ) Mahar Mangahas reports. Some families eat only rice with salt. Hunger bit most sharply in Metro Manila. There, at least 500,000 families lacked food,.estimates World Food Day survey by Gallup International-Voice of the People 2008..
“When hunger strikes, the poor pull in their belts by another notch,” the late National Scientist Dioscoro Umali once observed. “The rich re-arrange their menus.”
The President ordered release of emergency doles. That’s fine as it goes. Hunger, however, does not just stem from lack of food. But the poor lack either resources to produce it or money to buy it.
Handouts are a placebo. They duck the basic issue: the stranglehold on resources, by top officials and “an anarchy of families,” as author Alfred McCoy put it. Their capture of bureaucracy stymies structural reforms.
This administration is corrupt. But so is the opposition. Arroyo is no better or worse than Estrada. Both clone Ferdinand Marcos before them. And what differentiates Imelda Marcos from Mike Arroyo?. No one is keen on change, only in clinging to pelf and power.
The names of their exiles may differ. El mismo per con different colar. ( Same mongrel, different collar ) When People Power erupted, Fabian Ver and Eduardo Cojuangco squeezed into Marcos escape helicopters. Soldiers stopped Estelito Mendoza at the airprort.
Jaime Dichavez, Dante Tan, Lucio Co and Yolanda Ricaforte scrammed when People Power II chased Erap out. They left no forwarding address Panfilo Lacson’s trusted cops -- Michael Ray Aquino and Cesar Mancao – skipped town to duck questioning on publicist Bubby Dacer’s murder..
“Joc-Joc”Bolante is a prototype for future exiles of the Arroyo regime. He clung to his US jail, until deported. Today, Bolante uses peptic ulcers to dodge Senate grilling on the fertilizer scam. Nobody is fooled.
Joseph of Scriptures showed there’s no alternative to a country raising it’s own food. Using food imports as a crutch, over prolonged periods, isn’t a viable policy option. “Dependence on others brings a perpetual fast,” Asian farmers say.
“The unfulfilled promise of food still lies in the tropics,” the Food and Agriculture Organization’s director general said at the UP College of Agriculture in Los Banos. “These areas could be the food granaries of the future…But hunger exacts it’s highest tool in this very zone…Human life here is often ‘nasty., brutal and short.”
Ignored promises, however, are often withdrawn. BBC reports that the new “Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity” study forecasts : “Current rates of natural decline might reduce global GDP by about 7% by 2050…Damage to forests, rivers, marine life and other aspects of nature could halve living standards for the world's poor”.
Natural systems that produce food are being savaged. Half the wetlands have disappeared over the past century. A third of coral reefs is in ruins.There’s been a sharp decline in ocean fish stocks “Species loss is estimated between 100 and 1,000 times the rate that would occur without 6.5 billion humans on the planet.” --
Isn’t that a mirror image of crumbling Philippine ecosystems? Only 18 percent of the country has forests left. Soil in about 70 percent of a province, like Cebu, is eroded. Vital mangroves have been recklessly cut, .coral reefs decimated.
“It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change,” the evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin once said. If the hat fits us, we wear it.
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By Nestor Palugod Enriquez
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Halloween celebration in the Philippines is observed in different ways. The genesis of Filipino American History is found in New Orleans' legendary cemeteries. It can be said that the native New Orleans shared the Filipino way of eating rice, honouring the dead by the living and cockfights. Bringing the favorite food or drink of the dead soul in the “ camposanto” during the “ todos los santos” is almost universal treat but here is my favorite Halloween story. I see the seaport divided by reinforced full levee and pulled by legends. The stone markers for the departed maybe the final snapshot of a generation and documentation.
Tour of New Orleans will not be complete without visiting the “cities of the dead” and haunted houses. These are the top tour packages in the United States of its kind. The underworld city is famous for wearing masks of the living and the dead. They are unique as you will find large mausoleums high above the ground because the entire city is a foot below the sea level, fair-weather or not. It must have been why the city folks greet you, “Where y' at?” instead of “how are you” ( kamusta ka) at nose level. Up the river you will hear unknown Samuel Clemens shouts “mark d' twains.”
New Orleans has always respected the dead, but this isn't the reason the tombs of the departed loved ones are interred aboveground. Early settlers struggled with different methods to bury the dead. Burial plots are shallow in New Orleans because the water table is high. Dig a few feet down, and the grave becomes soggy, filling with water. The casket will literally float. You just can't keep a good person down! The early settlers tried by placing stones in and on top of coffins to weigh them down and keep them underground. Unfortunately, after a rainstorm or worst a hurricane, the rising water table would literally pop the airtight coffins out of the ground. They tried poking holes on the air tight coffin with little success. Eventually, New Orleans' graves were kept aboveground following the Spanish custom of using vaults. The walls of these cemeteries are made up of economical vaults that are stacked on top of one another. The rich and wealthier families could afford the larger ornate tombs with crypts. Many family tombs look like miniature houses complete with iron fences. It reminds me of the majestic cathedral like cemetery of Chinese cemetery in Manila and also the way the Filipinos live, the houses on stilt the ( Badjao) style that they brought in the bayous from the southern Philippines.
The most popular is a visit to the Saint Louis Cemetery. However, one of the oldest and could reveal our early existence in Louisiana is the St Vincent de Paul of the Orleans Parish. The Sociedad de Beneficencia de los Hispano Filipinas founded after the US Civil War, purchased a plot with sixteen vaults dedicated for the their families. Most of the direct descendants of Felipe Madriaga and his Irish wife, Bridget Nugent are interred. The tablets of names and dates are the time passenger manifest for their next travel to their new world. It also serves as historical documents of the early Filipino AmericanDead men don't lie. I know that there are still some skeptics who don't believe the 8th generation of Pinoy in the city full of voodoo witch craft, mystics and magic. This southern seaport is rich in history masked behind folklores. Unfortunately, the shrines are now in need of major repair and restoration after the Katrina tragedy. It is estimated that the restoration for all the cemeteries would cost over million dollars.
You will not find Felipe's name engraved on these vaults or anywhere near as my good friend, a 6th generation of the Madriaga, Rhonda Burtanog Richoux would relate to me according to what has been passed to her generation. Felipe and Bridget produced only three daughters, Mary, Elizabeth, and Helen that ended the continuation of the family name in New Orleans. The 3 crypts can be found at St Vincent de Paul #2. Felipe was not the first Pinoy to land in New Orleans but for sure he would be known as the first one to raise a long family line of Filipino American family. How much more Halloween it could it be that couple of the daughters married sailor from Capiz (the ancient UFO capital of the Philippines that will be my next year Halloween story ;-)) and two grandchildren became Queens of the colourful Mardi Grass masquerade over the years. Felipe however was buried in the nearby fishing parish. The exact dates are not known as some remembered a big storm flooded the area and washed the coffin to the “ Esperitu Santo” (Spanish explorers' name for the mighty river of Mississippi circa 1519 age of discovery) and to sea.
Felipe the sailor man escaped to the ocean the same way he made landfall. Spilling the Filipino American ashes of the seafaring underworld, he might have sailed back slowly to the land of his ancestors. The haunting tale of an ongoing romantic hunt for little history in the true world of Halloween.
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