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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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San Diego, CALIFORNIA --- The University of the Philippines System, three years away from celebrating its centennial in 2008, marked a milestone with the election of its first woman president in November 2004.
Dr. Emerlinda Ramos Roman, chosen the 19th president of the country’s premier state university will be the guest of honor and keynote speaker at the 2005 general assembly and convention of the UP Alumni Association in America (UPAAA).
The convention will be held on October 7-9 at the Town and Country Resort and Convention Center in Mission Valley, San Diego.
Hosted by the UP Alumni Association of San Diego County, the biennial event will feature a distinguished panel of speakers who exemplify the theme for 2005: Upholding the UP Spirit.
Addressing “Scholarship” will be Erlinda Rojas Santos, Ph.D., of Colorado; Belinda Aquino, Ph.D., of Hawaii; and Ed Quisumbing, Ph.D., of Virginia.
Representing “Community Service” will be Mayor Frank Batara of Hercules, CA; Prosy Abarquez Dela Cruz, J.D., of Los Angeles; and Lualhati Villabroza Ferro, LL.B., of Florida.
Children of alumni will be featured for the first time, including Melissa Garcia, Hannah Nacu, and Mia Fulgado who will be featured for the focus on “Leadership.”
The panelists will talk about their career choices and recount individual journeys toward their goals.
UPAA President, Jaime De Los Santos will also address the attendees.
Jubilarians will be honored at the convention, including Gold (Graduating classes of 1955, 1956), Sapphire (1960, 1961), Ruby (1965, 1966), Coral (1970, 1971), Pearl (1975, 1976), and Silver (1980, 1981).
The association will also present awards for Most Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna, Lifetime Distinguished Achievement, Outstanding Professional, Meritorious Community Service, and Special Recognition.
More information and registration forms can be downloaded from the convention website: www.convention2005.info.
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Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA --- The University of California Los Angeles campus will be the gathering site of some 500 women of Philippine ancestry and their allies beginning November 4 to 6, 2005.
The sponsors--GABRIELA Network, a Philippine-USwomen’s solidarity mass organization, and Samahang Pilipino, an on-campusstudent group--have centered the all-women conference around the theme:“Defining Ourselves, Shaping Our Reality: The Isms Through Women’s Eyes.”
It is open to women, especially Filipinas, and the registration fees are low. On-line registration and more information are available at www.gabnet.org.
The Conference, the first of its range and dimension, is both timely and urgent, considering the turmoil that the US Filipino community has had tocontend with: the controversy around the transgressions of theMacapagal-Arroyo administration in the Philippines and the continuing racial and sexist disrespect toward the Filipino in the US.
Conference organizers have summed up the discussion points for this three-day gathering as asking “where do Filipinas fit, how do they see themselves; how do they navigate along with their allies the specificities of American life?”
According to the GABNet Chairperson, Prof. Annalisa Enrile, “we live in two storm-centers, as it were. On the one hand, we experience continuing discrimination in the US and on the other hand, we see the Philippines exporting 650,000 women in one year alone. There is a dialectical relationship between, for example, the consistently low prison terms given white men who kill their Filipina mail order wives here and the nonchalance by which our ancestral country practically throws Filipinas into the labor and sex markets.”
She said the conference goal is to reach the correct strategy thatwill enable us to deal with this complex relationship.
“It is by way of making the hyphen in Filipina-American a significant symbol, ” Enrile said.
The Conference will have workshops encompassing a range of “isms” from Feminism to Imperialism, from Sexism to Spiritualism. It will also have workshops on the problem of developing the Fil-Am women’s culture, from writing to digital arts. The last cluster of workshops will deal with activism, from youth to media.
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NEW YORK --- The Philippine Consulate General in New York hosted a business forum sponsored by John Clements in the evening of September 6, 2005 at the Philippine Center.
The forum was the first of its kind and meant to show Filipinos and Filipino-Americans abroad the many professional prospects now available back home.
Over 40 professionals and executives representing different sectors and industries, like firms such as Citibank, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, UNDP, Price Waterhouse, and Deutsche Bank attended the successful event.
Carol Dominguez, president and CEO of John Clements Consultants, Inc. , opened the event by talking about the phenomenal growth of the business process outsourcing and call center industries in the Philippines.
Dominguez said these two industries have created more available jobs than any other sector in the last five years. They have also become the Philippines’ top value proposition towards capturing a bigger share of the billion-dollar offshore outsourcing business.
The guest speakers were Tully Moss, President of the Magellan Alliance, and Arlene Tolentino, an AVP of HSBC HDPP.
Moss mentioned that the Philippines is a world leader in offshore outsourcing because “it has the second highest market share after India, the Filipino has the personality for customer care work, the Philippines has a very good telecommunications infrastructure, the Philippines has low cost labor, and Filipinos have a reputation for having a good work ethic.”
He added that “because of these advantages, the Philippines is attracting global Fortune 50 companies such as Citibank, AIG, Dell, JP Morgan Chase and Shell resulting in many employment opportunities for people with strong managerial and leadership skills.”
Tolentino mentioned the dozens of management positions available at HSBC HDPP in the Philippines. She spent two years as an expatriate in London with another firm, but returned to the Philippines and joined HSBC to help manage the 1,400 employees of its captive BPO and call center in Alabang.
The number of employees alone and the fact that the Alabang facility is one of HSBC’s global service centers worldwide is a testament to the rapid growth and viability of offshore outsourced business in the Philippines.
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NEW YORK --- Beginning October 22nd, Little Barangay will offer its Fall Session of classes on Filipino language and culture for school-age children at Manhattan’s PS 2.
Little Barangay’s class curriculum is developed with an accredited curriculum planner from the University of Pennsylvania and will focus on the traditions and costumes of the various regions of the Philippines as well as Filipino holiday traditions.
The tuition cost is $80 for the entire course and will simply cover administrative expenses. Sibling discounts of $10 are applicable.
In the past six months, Little Barangay has received coverage and accolades from established media entities like ABS-CBN’s Balitang Amerika and New York Times-owned Boston Globe.
Despite the large number of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans living in the greater New York metropolitan area, there are currently no long-term classes available for school-age children that educates them about the distinct Filipino cultures, languages, and history in a formal institutionalized fashion.
Little Barangay is a volunteer organization in the New York metropolitan area that seeks to promote knowledge and awareness of the different Filipino and Filipino-American cultures among school- age children, of all backgrounds.
For more information on Little Barangay, visit www.littlebarangay.com or call 917-453-3039/917-721-4951.
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