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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 Emperor Has No Clothes
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ELIOT Spitzer's fall from grace is complete. He used to be the crusader, the bastion of ethics in public service, the conscience of the concrete hearts of New Yorkers, and the man whose convictions were as solid as steel. Now, he melted. After all, diamonds are harder than steel, and for that matter, a three diamond hooker turned the man of steel into stretchable rubber.
What a disappointment.
What was he thinking? His flamboyant-aggressive style earned him admirers as well as enemies, but nevertheless, his political future was full of promises until the Emperor's Club scandal. "He could have been a contender, but now he's a bum."
His pro-immigrant stand early in his tenure as governor was applauded by the multitude of downtrodden illegals whose dreams hung in the driver's licenses that he planned to issue them. Of course, Eliot was overruled by the legislature, but everyone knew where he stood and the thought comforted millions.
He is human. He is flawed like all of us.
But what a big mistake on his part to satisfy his personal needs with public means?
Why couldn't he wait? Why couldn't he be smooth?
Smooth is not his style, for one. He is known to be the abrasive type - the risk taker. And it did him in the end.
While many wrestle with the fact that his sin was not a matter of public trust but more of a private fetish, it is still difficult to separate the man from his office. He is the governor of the Empire State - and at the same time a client of the Emperor's Club. It doesn't make sense. He must have believed deep in his heart that he was a true blue emperor like Caesar or Caligula.
We could all judge him in that context– as a public servant who used his position to sleep with world class prostitutes on demand. However, as a human being, we cannot. For all we know, if we do, we are all being hypocrites like him.
The Emperor has no clothes, yet we still 'see' his splendid robe.
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Clamor for more H-1B visas
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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
APRIL 1, the first day the United States Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) will start accepting H-1B petitions for fiscal year 2009 is fast approaching. As in last year, it is expected that the H-1B cap of 65,000 will be reached on the very first day.
If the cap is reached, the USCIS will conduct a random selection process. Last year, about 133,000 petitions were received on the first two days.
There are calls to push for more H-1B visas because the current cap is adversely affecting U.S. companies’ effective operations, efficiency, productivity and overall competitiveness. Several employer groups and coalitions such as the Compete America, which includes big IT companies such as Oracle, Microsoft, Hewlett- Packard Corp., Sun, Google as well as Boeing, Coca Cola, and other interest groups such as the Association of International Educators (AIE) and American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) have lobbied for allocation of more H-1B visas and comprehensive immigration reforms.
Clearly, the clamor for H-1B visas shows that highly skilled professionals are badly needed in the U.S. Employers are willing to go through the intricate requirements of H-1B applications and processing to meet their employment needs.
The H-1B program allows U.S. employers to employ foreign professionals and skilled workers on a temporary basis. In order to do so, the employer must show that the position is a specialty occupation and that the foreign employee meets the qualifications for the job, particularly a U.S. equivalent of a bachelor’s degree or higher. Typical H-1B occupations include scientists, architects, engineers, computer programmers, teachers, accountants, analysts and doctors. When the U.S. employer decides to petition a foreign worker for H-1B, the employer must meet certain U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and USCIS requirements.
Before submitting the H-1B petition, a labor condition application must be filed with the DOL to certify that the employer will pay equal to or higher than what similar workers in the area are paid; that the working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers will not be adversely affected; and that there is no strike or lockout at the worksite or the occupation for which the foreign worker is sought to be hired. There are posting, documentation and attestation requirements that the employer must comply with subject to certain sanctions if violated.
Once certified by the DOL, the H-1B petition for temporary non-immigrant worker is filed with the USCIS. If granted, the H-1B can be valid for three (3) years, extendible for another three (3) years.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 set a cap for H-1B professionals at 65,000 per year. Due to the increased numbers of H-1B petitions filed by U.S. employers, the cap was increased to 115,000 in FY 1999 and FY 2000, and 107,500 in FY 2001.
In October 2001, the American Competitiveness in the Twenty First Century Act increased the yearly cap to 195,000 for the next three years. However, after that, the H-1B quota reverted to 65,000 per year.
With the challenges of global competition, job outsourcing, the aging of the U.S. population and the dearth of qualified U.S. workers, employers and lobby groups contend that the H-1B program is a vital tool for the U.S.A. to remain competitive in this world market economy. Instead of taking jobs from U.S workers, it actually keeps jobs in America and meets the needs of the industries by keeping them viable and competitive.
H-1B visas allow for a more vibrant economy by allowing highly educated foreign professionals to contribute to the U.S. economy in terms of productivity, innovation, research, creation of new products, expansion, generation of new jobs and overall global competitiveness.
While other countries are trying to attract more professional workers to immigrate, it is high time that Congress be more responsive and to introduce immigration reforms to expand the H-1B program in order to meet the nation’s demands.
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“Learning And Speaking Filipino” As Survival Tool
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IN a monolithic society, a bilingual speaker is usually the envy of the majority. The bilingual speaker is somewhat speaking in coded messages that give him the edge as a strategy promoted by Sun Tzu’s the “Art of War.” But actually, for bilingual speakers it is just a survival tool in moving about a strange place just to keep one’s head above the waters. At least, nobody can sell you short if you understand the seller’s language.
When I was a kid in the Philippines whenever I would buy something from a Chinese store, I noticed that as I tried to haggle for a cheaper price of an item, the vendor would speak Chinese to the store owner first before fielding my request. I really didn’t want them talking in front of me in a language I didn’t understand. I felt helpless because I have no idea if they were giving me a fair deal or not.
HELPLESSNESS
You can set this helplessness aside if you to learn your vendor’s language or know some other languages. In the case of overseas Filipinos, who have raised their families in a foreign land, some Filipino parents have a big decision to make whether to teach their children with their mother tongue of Filipino or Tagalog or Visayan, etc. or to teach their children with the spoken language of their adopted place, like English, if you are in England, in the U.S., or Australia.
Although, it’s a no-brainer that Filipino parents should first teach their mother tongue before teaching them a second language of their adopted land, some Filipino parents would do it the other way around. Unfortunately, by the time they teach their children their ancestral mother tongue, it is a little too late.
TEACH KIDS NEW TRICKS? NO PROBLEM
It is a common knowledge that kids can pick up as many languages as possible at the same time that they were being thrown to them. And they get to learn them all at the same time.
But when these kids are grown up, it’s very hard to teach them a second language, validating the saying that you cannot teach old dogs new tricks.
The reality is even if you don’t teach your children the foreign language in the foreign land, your children will always be able to learn to speak that adopted language from outside the home.
I remember talking to a Filipino, who lived in Germany for many years. He told me that he could hardly speak and understand German. But his little child spoke and understood German, like the way he was speaking Filipino or Tagalog. His kid learned German from his playmates and from grammar school. He said he had to consult an English-German dictionary first before he came to know the meaning of the German word.
In other words, children can easily learn an adopted language by talking to their fellow children, who are speaking the foreign tongues. Or they can learn them from schools, radios, televisions, movies, karaoke, Internet and other mass media.
Sometimes, even if you encourage your grown-up children to learn your own mother tongue by letting them attend a credit or a non-credit course in “foreign language studies,” the grown-up children might still struggle to learn or understand the mother tongue in school.
And so, the Filipino parents would be encouraged to let their children join the so called “language immersion” summer trips to the Philippines, which are usually costly. But sometimes, this kind of trip might not be enough to let them learn Filipino language at all.
TRY THIS
For those Filipino parents overseas, who missed the opportunity to teach their children to learn Filipino language, they may try to buy the book, “Learning and Speaking Filipino” (The Manila Prints, Sydney/Manila, 2008) written by Mr. Renato Perdon, a friend of mine back in the Philippines during the Martial Law period. He is now an immigrant in Australia.
I came to know Mr. Perdon as an employee of the National Historical Institute of the Philippines, where he worked for more than 20 years. He holds a BA in Political Science and a BS in Foreign Service in the Philippines and later completed his MA in Asian Studies and obtained a Graduate Diploma in Archives Administration at the University of New South Wales.
He has numerous books to his credit. Among them a co-translation of a book, Kalendaryong Pangkasaysayan (Historical Calendar), in Filipino of Philippine historical events; Laws on Historic Preservation in the Philippines (1988); Sydney Aldermen: A Biographical Register of Sydney Aldermen, 1843-1992 (1995); Brown Americans of
Asia (1998, reprinted 2007); Pocket Filipino dictionary (2002).
Mr. Perdon is now a retired archivist from the Sydney City Archives but he still accepts work as a translator. He is the editor of the Filipino section of the Philippine Bayanihan News, a fortnightly edited by his brother, Doming Perdon. The Bayanihan News also carries my syndicated column.
Renato Perdon’s latest book, “Learning and Speaking Filipino,” should be handy for second generation overseas Filipinos anywhere if they are struggling to speak and understand the Filipino language.
LINGUA FRANCA
Even if Mr. Perdon has been away from the Philippines for more than two decades, the choice of Filipino words he used in his book is still an up to- date lingua franca among Filipinos in the Philippines.
I also find his book instructive, if not advocating for some changes in the Filipino social and cultural fabric. For instance, it points out that the dominant Catholic Church should be slow in opposing birth control, which is contributing significantly in the explosion of the population in the Philippines.
Another notable conversational Filipino-English translation piece mentioned in the book bordered on sex education among teens, who are asked to use condoms, during sex to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. This topic may be taboo in many Catholic-run elementary or secondary schools in the Philippines but Perdon’s use of these controversial topics make it an attractive read as it delivers some redeeming message.
To get the 162-page handbook at $22.00, you may email Mr. Perdon at renperdoni@hotmail.com or write him in his address at The Manila Prints, P.O. Box 1267, Darlinghurst NSW 2010, Australia or call him at +612-9313 8179 or at The Manila Prints, 42 Hernandez Street, Chrysanthemum Village, San Pedro, Laguna, Philippines, Tel. +632-868-2212. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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(Three suspected Al- Qaeda agents, plotting to bomb embassies, were nabbed here this week, police say. But India proves daily that the Muslim, terrorist, is a stereotype. Below is an abridged news clip from New Delhi, e-mailed by a friend. The author requested his name be deleted.)
After Indonesia, the second largest country in the world is not Saudi Arabia. . It is India, with some 150 million Muslims.
But there are no Indian Muslims in al-Qaeda. None fight alongside Iraqi jihadists. They’re a minority in a Hindu dominated land. Why don’t they (try) to fly airplanes into Taj Mahal?
They have grievances. Interreligious violence, in India, had disastrous results. Some American Muslims found their way to al-Qaeda. It can happen with Indian Muslims. But this is not the norm. Why?
The answer is context. India’s secular, free-market, democratic context is influenced by a tradition of nonviolence and Hindu tolerance.
M. J. Akbar is a Muslim. He edits “Asian Age”, a national Indian English-language daily. “Age” readers are mostly non- Muslims “Which is the only large Muslim community to enjoy sustained democracy for the last 50 years?”, he asks. Answer: India’s Muslims.
There are tensions, like the 1992 destruction of Ayodhya mosque, by Hindu na tionalists. But India’s Constitution is secular. It provides opportunity for economic advance to any community that offers talent. A Muslim middle class is growing. It doesn't manifest the deep anger of many non-democratic Muslim states.
Where Islam is embedded in authoritarian societies, it tends to become a vehicle of angry protest, as in Egypt or Syria. But where Islam is (rooted) in a pluralistic democratic society, (like) Turkey or India, progressives get a hearing in a democratic forum. They fight for ideas on more equal footing.
In November 2003, Istanbul’s two main synagogues were hit by suicide bombers. When reopened, the chief rabbi appeared with the top Muslim cleric while crowds showered red carnations on both. The prime minister, who comes from an Islamic party, visited the chief rabbi for the first time ever.
"We cannot understand why this child did the thing he had done,” the suicide bomber’s father told the Turkish newspaper Zaman, “Let me meet with the chief rabbi of our Jewish brothers and apologize in the name of my son and offer my condolences… “
Different context, different narrative, different imagination. Despite imperfections, including the oppressive caste system, India sustains a functioning democracy for over one billion people, who speak different tongues. That’s a great source of stability
A Muslim woman sits on India's Supreme Court. But Muslim woman may drive a car in Saudi Arabia. Indian Muslims, including women, have been state governors. High on the Forbes list of global billionaires is an Indian Muslim: Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, one of the country’s major technology firms. .
Shortly after the 2001 US (strike) in Afghanistan, Indian TV aired a debate between the imam of New Delhi's biggest mosque and parliamentarian Shabana Azmi, a Muslim woman. Join the jihad, the imam urged. Join the Taliban yourself, but leave us Muslims alone, Azmi riposted. She lived in a context that empowered her to speak her mind even to a leading cleric.
Give young people a context where they can pursue an entrepreneurial idea, become respected and affluent, no matter their backgrounds; have grievances adjudicated in a court of law, publish ideas in a newspaper or run for office. And guess what? People don't want to blow up the world. They want to be part of it.
A South Asian friend recalls his Muslim family split in 1948. Half went to Pakistan and the other half stayed in Mumbai. Years later, he asked his father: “Why did the Indian half of our family do better than the Pakistani half?”
"Son, when a Muslim in India sees a man living in a big mansion high on a hill, he says: ‘One day I will be that man’.” In Pakistan, he’ll say: 'One day I will kill that man.'"
When you have a pathway to be the Man or the Woman, you focus on the path and achieving your dreams. When you have no pathway, you focus on your wrath.
India, 20 years ago, was known as a country of snake charmers, poor people, and Mother Teresa. Today, its image has been recalibrated. Now, it’s seen as a country of brainy people and computer wizards.
Atul Vashistha, CEO of the consulting firm NeoIT, often appears in media to defend outsourcing. When his HP printer went kaput, called tech support. This guy answers and takes all information down. From his voice, it’s clear he is somewhere in India. They chat. Towards the end, the technician said: ''Sir, I was very proud to hear you on (TV )… You did a good job. ....' Atul had discussed backlash against globalization and outsourcing, with a union official, an economist.
“Remember: In the flat world you don't get just your humiliation dished out to you fiber-optically,” Atul recalls. " You also get your pride dished out to you fiber-optically”. A help-line operator knows, in real time, how a compatriot represents his country half a world away. “And it makes him feel better about himself.”
The French and American Revolutions, Indian democracy, and even e-Bay, are all based on social contracts. Their dominant feature is: authority comes from the bottom up. And people can be empowered to improve their lot. Those who live in such contexts focus on what to do next, not on whom to blame next.
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WHAT'S pagpag? In Pilipino it means to shake dust or dirt off a piece of paper or cloth. the Filipino poverty vocabulary, it's the daily lunch bag a worker takes to his work place.
Why is it called pagpag?
Before, the poor man's lunch bag contains rice and perhaps a boiled egg prepared at home. Now many workers buy from a neighborhood food seller a bag containing boiled rice and viand for a few pesos. The viand comes from left- over food the vendor buys from restaurants, which he recooks and repacks to sell. Sometimes it's untouched left -over. Sometimes....More delicious than plain boiled egg.
But cleaner?
It's what the ordinary worker can afford. It's pagpag, because the vendor shakes it off from the old container into the new bag.
A housewife goes to the market. With a pinched budget, she visits the poultry section. But instead of buying, half a kilo of wings and necks, she asks for "skeletons" or buto-buto (bones). Chicken bones make tasty soup. These and similar marketing details make up the daily marketing life of a poor Filipino housewife.
Visiting a friend in a San Andres Bukid neighborhood, we witnessed someone chasing a group of small shirtless boys. The kids were caught trying to saw off a length of wire fence to sell. The owner was chasing them. Now it's wire fence. Next time, it's a toy bike left in a yard.
Some 30 years ago, on my first visit to New York City, in the shadows of the towering skyscrapers I was gawking at, I stopped to buy a soda and wiener from an Asian-looking vendor. While taking a bite off my hot dog, I asked the vendor's nationality. He looked like a Filipino. No, he was not a Filipino. He said he was from Thailand.
Then he immediately added proudly, "No, I won't be selling hot dogs much longer. After three years, I'm going back to my country to a good job with my family." He added his country was now very progressive with plenty of jobs. Thailand is now a developed economy.
Worldwide, food prices have been rising. The economic backlash to the Philippines is worse than usual. The country is expected to import 2 million tons of rice in 2008, Vietnam, the source of this importation, sells rice at $460 a ton, twice the price of just a year ago. The prices of chicken, beef and pork has also been steadily ascending.
Result? In 2006, 700,000 Filipinos joined the ranks of the poor from 2004 to 2006, equivalent to 4.7 million families. Behind these numbers, we quote Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Neal H. Cruz who wrote: "The number of poor people is increasing. There are more children and old people begging in the street, squatter colonies where the poorest of the poor lead wretched lives are expanding. More and more people are looking for jobs and finding too few; recruitment agencies are always awash with people hoping to get jobs abroad."
I tell you this is true. Just the other day, I passed T.M. Kalaw St. on Luneta. Crowds three blocks long and 5 to 6 people thick lined the sidewalks across from the Ermita area. I asked my driver what the crowd was. He said they were job applicants waiting to be called by the many manning agencies holding office in the area.
How I wish I'm walking on West Side Ave. in Jersey City and greeting one of the Filipino sales clerks in one of the stores, he would tell me, "I'm fine, thank you. Next week, I'm saying good bye to this job. Going back to Manila with my family. There are many jobs waiting for us there."
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Asian Pacific American Students Fight For Fair Representation In The CUNY Education System
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By: Jacqueline Ng Fernandez
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AS a former student of the California State University system it never donned on me that the option to major in Asian American Studies was a luxury or an educational privilege. Now as a current student at Hunter College, a City University of New York(CUNY), I realize that I took for granted the institutional support provided by the California State administration as I fight with The Coalition for the Revitalization of Asian American Studies at Hunter (CRAASH) for fair representation in the education system.
CRAASH is a student led coalition that aims to bring attention to the dire state that the Asian American Studies Program (AASP) is currently in. I became a member of CRAASH when I met Olivia Lin, a 20-year-old junior, who founded the coalition when she was told that she could not minor in Asian American Studies.
As a result of her anger, she enlisted the help of Jessica Lee, a 21-year-old junior, Christopher Eng, a 19-year-old sophomore, and Emil Marquita, a 19-year old sophomore to help build the foundation for CRAASH.
With the additions of Stella Ma, a 20-year-old sophomore, Zabrina Collazo, a 19-year-old junior, and Chui-Hung Wong, a 18-year-old freshman, CRAASH has become a strong presence in the fight for a proper AASP at Hunter.
Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islanders constitute 26 percent of the undergraduate student population at Hunter College, making them the largest ethnic group. Yet these students continue to be the most under represented.
While other ethnic studies have flourished and grown into respectable academic entities, the Asian Americans Studies Program continues to remain in the same fledgling state since its creation in 1993.
The AASP at Hunter College does not receive sufficient financial, structural, and institutional support from both Hunter College and the greater CUNY administration. The AASP is granted a $0 budget with $500 allotted for office supplies.
Fifteen years after its establishment, the AASP is still offered only as a minor. The program still lacks full-time or part-time faculty, the position for a department head is still vacant, and there is no permanent office. All of these conditions led to the collapse and temporary freeze of the AASP minor in 2007.
After months of organizing, CRAASH is hosting a conference entitled, “Strengthening Education: Empowering Asian American Studies” on April 16th at Hunter College to address the desperate need for Asian American Studies at Hunter College and in higher education. The conference will feature prominent figures in the Asian American community, panel discussions from community advocates, a performance by acclaimed poet Alvin Lau, and a workshop encouraging activism in the fight for Asian American Studies.
The conference will be open to all students who wish to learn more about this issue that affects both the academic community of Hunter College and New York City. Channel 7 Eyewitness News’ Education Unit, along with several other media outlets, will cover the conference.
All efforts made for advancement in the AASP are due to the perseverance of CRAASH and current AASP acting director, Jennifer Hayashida, and no credit should be attributed to the Hunter administration. CRAASH has reached out to students from all over the nation, hoping to build bridges between the different Asian American communities and unite them through a universal injustice. As a result of the interest from other schools, the core team was asked to facilitate an activism workshop at the 2nd Annual NYC Asian American Student Conference on April 12th hosted by New York University and Columbia University.
CRAASH’s initiatives also include organizing a petition of over 1,000 signatures that support the AASP. They’ve also had feature stories in different media outlets such as the popular AngryAsianMan and Racialicious blog, a full page article in the Hunter Envoy and East Coast Asian American Student Union newsletter, a Facebook group with over 300 friends, and a podcast interview on Fallout Central a popular Asian American activist website. AsianWeek magazine and Pacific Citizen will also feature CRAASH’s efforts.
CRAASH has one goal and that is to ensure increased funding for a greater variety of classes, a stable office, full-time faculty members, a permanent director to lead the program, and space to conduct events that will engage and benefit the Hunter community.
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