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For the past 17 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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Washington, D.C. --- With about 28,000 Filipino immigrants in the three states devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto G. Romulo instructed the Philippine Embassy and Consulates General in the United States to monitor the status of Filipinos in these states.
Romulo issued the directive even as he assured that the “government is ready to extend all possible assistance to our nationals who may be affected by this natural catastrophe.”
“The Embassy and Consulates are ready to assist our nationals in the hurricane-affected areas,” Romulo said.
There are 17,055 permanent Filipino immigrants in Florida, 6,801 in Louisiana and 3,845 in Mississippi, according to the updated US Census as of December 2004.
The Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the Consulate General in Chicago have yet to receive a report of any Filipino casualty as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
Following the instructions of the DFA chief, the Philippine Consulate General in Chicago reported that it is maintaining constant telephone contact with Honorary Consul General Cielo Martinez in New Orleans and with some members of the Filipino community in Mississippi to assess the latest situation in their respective areas.
“So far the Consulate has not received any reports of Filipino casualties in the catastrophic hurricane, Katrina,” Consul General Blesilda Cabrera informed Romulo.
Earlier, Martinez informed the Consulate General that “many Filipinos in New Orleans area heeded the call to evacuate the city ahead of the coming storm and some have temporarily moved to other states like Florida and Texas, while others travelled to other parts of Louisiana away from the storm’s path.”
In the light of the devastation brought by the hurricane, Consul General Cabrera assured the Department that the Consulate will “continue to monitor the latest developments in the areas even if communication facilities have been deeply affected by the hurricane making it very difficult to call people in the area.”
She further assured that “the Consulate General is ready to extend assistance in case there have been Filipinos affected by the hurricane.”
US state officials fear that more than a thousand could be dead as a result of the hurricane. They also said that residents of the US Gulf Coast face the storm’s devastating impact: loss of electricity and phone services for millions, widespread flooding, massive destruction to property, limited shelter and rising casualty toll across at least three states.
Thousands of people have remained in evacuation centers as officials warned them that it is still dangerous to return home.
All airports in New Orleans area as well as the Gulfport-Biloxi Airport in Mississippi were closed to commercial service.
Secretary Romulo also conveyed “the condolences and sympathy of the Philippine government and people to the people and governments of the US states hit by the hurricane especially the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with our hopes and prayers for their quick recovery.”
There are over 2 million Filipinos in the United States, comprising the third largest migrant group after the Mexicans and Chinese.
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MANILA --- The House justice committee has dismissed all three impeachment complaints filed against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The committee ruled on August 31 that the remaining complaint against Arroyo, alleging she betrayed public trust by rigging the May 2004 vote, was sufficient in form but lacking in “substance.”
A complaint must be found sufficient in both form and substance for it to prosper.
“The three complaints have in effect been dismissed,” House of Representatives Speaker and Arroyo ally Jose de Venecia said on television.
“I hope and pray that we can now begin the process of reconciliation in the House and in our country,” he said.
The committee earlier threw out the two other complaints, including one backed by the opposition that also accused the president of corruption and human rights violations.
“At the committee level, yes,” Eastern Samar Representative Marcelino Libanan, the committee’s vice chairman, told reporters when asked if the three complaints had been killed.
“Effectively, yes,” House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles said when asked the same question.
The justice committee voted on the sufficiency in form 46-O, with Makati Representative Agapito “Butz” Aquino abstaining.
But voting 49-1 with two abstentions, the committee ruled that the complaint was “insufficient in substance.”
Ilocos Sur Representative Salacnib Baterina, vice chairman of the committee, earlier said the “sufficient in substance” deliberations looked into whether the charges in the complaint had probable cause.
In determining the substance of the charges against the President, Baterina said the committee would only examine the veracity of the offenses based on the charge sheet and whether the respondent, in this case Arroyo, committed the crimes.
The key votes were made minus the opposition, which had walked out of the proceedings a day earlier (August 30), accusing the Arroyo administration of railroading the congressional hearings.
But De Venecia rejected the allegation.
“Everything we do here is under full transparency,” he said.
De Venecia also chided the minority for walking out on August 30’s proceedings in protest of the alleged railroading. “We must have good manners and mutual respect.”
The earlier two complaints were rejected because the Constitution sets a limit of one impeachment complaint against an official within a year.
Arroyo’s opponents have one last slim chance of impeaching her if they can win enough support in the full House by Monday, September 5, but admit they are not confident of doing so.
House opposition leader Francis Escudero said they would now concentrate on trying to win the support of at least 79 -- one third -- of the 236 members of the House of Representatives.
This is the minimum number required to overturn the justice committee rulings and compel the House to ask the Senate to put Arroyo on trial.
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Syracuse, NEW YORK --- Jose “Joe” Pagcaliwagan spied on the Japanese in the Philippines for U.S. forces when he was just a teenager.
He used a rural communication system to do it: bean cans connected together with fiber.
His cousin, a chef with the Japanese army, stood on one end and gave Pagcaliwagan, now 77, the location of the Japanese. As the enemy moved from one place to another, Pagcaliwagan told the Americans.
He played an integral role during World War II and is one of 245 local minority veterans to be honored Saturday for their military service.
The Post-Satndard reported that the World War II Wall of Honor was unveiled August 27 at the Convention Center at Oncenter in Syracuse. The names of the veterans are engraved on the granite wall created by Picture This On Granite of Derby Line, Vt.
“It’s a great honor to be given this award for our service in World War II, for the minority people,” Pagcaliwagan, a Filipino-American, said.
Pagcaliwagan was a member of the Filipino guerrilla force. He used his native language to give away Japanese positions. He got caught once and was lucky that a high-ranking Japanese official let him go.
He then met American Black Hawk forces and asked them to take him on a planned invasion of Tokyo.
But shortly after, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war ended and the invasion never occurred.
Pagcaliwagan was told to go home. Home, he said, was with the American forces. He enlisted in the Navy in 1946 and was sent to San Francisco and then to Norfolk, Va.
He was in the Navy for six years and spent three of them on the boxing team.
“They (the boxers) didn’t have to work,” Pagcaliwagan said August 25 from James Square Health & Rehabilitation Center Home in Syracuse, where he resides. “All they had to do was go to the gym.”
In 1952, Pagcaliwagan was discharged and he decided it was time to get an education. He had only an elementary school education, but he had high hopes of becoming an engineer.
He enrolled at the University of Colorado at Boulder. There he entered the engineering program despite low English scores. His math and science were excellent, said his wife, Emma, who lives in the Liverpool area.
Pagcaliwagan graduated with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and eventually went to work for General Electric in Syracuse. He worked for the company for 35 years, creating proposals for anti-ballistic missiles and developing top secret programs for the U.S. government.
“He was always a student, observer, researcher and instructor,” Emma Pagcaliwagan said. “He’s a self-taught man, and he has great wisdom.”
He joins the ranks of the other proud minority veterans who served during World War II and went on to live and work in the local community.
A committee was organized in 2001 to plan and raise funds for the Wall of Honor to pay tribute to them. Onondaga County Legislator Lovie Winslow has led the effort since then, promising that a wall would be built.
“Myself and the rest of the steering committee members and the World War II veterans are just elated, just ecstatic, that it’s finally so close,” Winslow said. “It’s something that three years ago some of them didn’t even think would happen.”
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NEW YORK --- Rats are the scourge of New York City, but they are nothing compared to a bigger and perhaps more vicious breed that will greet and hound President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she arrives here for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly this month.
Anti-Arroyo groups in New York have organized the “Gotta-Go-Glo” hounding tour, which in turn will field Rapid Action Teams or RATS which will hound Arroyo with protest actions wherever she goes.
The “Gotta-Go-Glo” hounding tour is a joint effort led by Bayan USA and the local NYC for Gloria’s Ouster Coalition.
Organizers said the RATS will converge in front of the Philippine Consulate building on 5th Avenue between 45th and 46th Streets at 6:00 p.m. on September 15 and 16.
“It befits Arroyo to have RATS follow her around the city wherever she goes,” claims Berna Ellorin of Bayan USA. “Rats, characteristically, smell and are attracted to what is rotten in our society. Arroyo has proven the rotten and heinous nature of her administration and now must heed the people’s call for her to step down.”
Ellorin also called on Filipinos in the New York-New Jersey area to join the RATS and “help fish out the garbage plaguing the Filipino people.”
She said her group will announce dates for RATS planning meetings in Manhattan and urged the public to attend.
Aside from hounding the President, anti-Arroyo groups have line up other activities to signify their protest. Among these is RAGE 2, or Rock Against Gloria, an all-Filipino rock concert on September 3, at the C-Note on 157 Avenue C and 10th St. 7:00 pm in the East Village.
This will be the second RAGE concert, the first was held in late 2000, and was titled Rock Against Erap.
Other groups in the “Gotta-Go-Glo” tour are Anakbayan NJ/NY chapter, the New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, Philippine Forum-Community Action Committee, the International Action Center, the New York Chapter of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and other solidarity organizations.
Arroyo will be in New York to attend the High Level Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly and to preside the UN Security Council meeting.
The Philippines will assume the presidency of the influential Security Council for the whole month of September.
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