When Philippine President Gloria Arroyo visited the US State Department in 2003, then US Secretary of State Colin Powell complimented her for reaching out to the “2 million Filipinos and Filipino Americans in this country who are the living bond between our two great peoples”. Two million? A San Francisco Chronicle news article on December 8, 2007 reported that there are “2.3 million Filipinos who live in the United States, according to the census bureau (356,378 in the Bay Area)”.
In a news conference in Manila last month, US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney estimated that there are 3 million Filipinos in the US according to the US Embassy’s review of the number of US immigrant and non-immigrant visas issued to Filipinos. Three million? The most recent online Wikipedia encyclopedia entry on “Filipino Americans” reported that “in 2007, the Filipino American population numbered approximately 4 million, or 1.5% of the United States population.”
Just exactly how many are we?
The 2000 census that the San Francisco Chronicle relied on was defective and grossly undercounted the number of Filipinos in the US. Over the last 7 years, I have spoken with hundreds, if not thousands, of Filipino “overstaying tourists” (a more apt and polite description than “undocumented aliens” or “illegal immigrants” or “TNTs”) and not one of them who was present in 2000 ever contacted the US Census Bureau to fill out the form that would document his or her presence in the US. If there were 500,000 of them in 2000, the 2000 census should have been 3 million. This half a million estimate has likely doubled by 2008.
Also, in the last 7 years, there have been at least 80,000 Filipinos each year who have legally immigrated to the US including thousands who married US citizens and adjusted their status in the US. Adding all the totals would bring the actual number of Filipinos in the US today to be closer to the 4-million Wikipedia estimate.
Historians and demographers generally agree that there were three “significant immigration waves” of Filipinos who have settled in the United States.
The “first wave” were the agricultural workers or "Sacadas", approximately 125,000 of them, who were brought to work in Hawaii and the West Coast from 1906 to 1935. After the Filipino Exclusion Act (otherwise known as the Tydings-McDuffie Philippine Independence Act) was passed in 1935, legal Filipino immigration to the US was reduced to 50 a year, a quota which lasted until 1965.
The “second wave” refers to the Filipinos, mostly in the US military, who came after 1946, including about 7,000 agricultural workers who were brought to Hawaii and referred to as the “1946 boys”, another 5,000 Filipinas who came after passage of the 1946 War Brides Act and 20,000 Filipino navy recruits who were brought into the US Navy to serve as stewards as part of the 1947 US-RP Military Bases Agreement.
The “third wave” of immigration started in 1965 after passage of the Immigration Act of 1965 which increased legal immigration from the Philippines from 50 to 20,000 a year, including about 4,000 a year for Filipino professionals.
The Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) believes there should be a separate category for pre-1906 Filipinos. Their numbers may not justify referring to them as "waves" but more as “ripples”.
The “first ripple” may refer to the Filipino mariners or sailors who worked on commercial ships that docked in US ports. Dozens of them jumped ship in New Orleans in or around 1825 and settled in St. Malo in Barataria Bay in Louisiana as documented in Lafcadio Hearn’s 1875 article which appeared in Harper’s Weekly (“The Mahogany-colored Manilamen of Louisiana”). An 1892 editorial in Graciano Lopez-Jaena’s La Solidaridad referenced the existence of Filipino mariner colonies in Philadelphia, New York and New Orleans. (A Filipino mariner from Manila named Francisco Escalante arrived in San Francisco in 1830 and officially became a citizen of San Francisco in 1849).
An “urban legend” has also appeared in several books reporting that Filipinos from Vera-Cruz, Mexico traveled across the Gulf of Mexico to Barataria Bay, Louisiana in 1763 and many opf them later joined Jean Lafitte’s buccaneers in the 1812 Battle of New Orleans.
A “second ripple” may refer to the Filipino Ilustrados who went to the US, instead of Spain, to further their education. In 1903, a group of 100 students (“fountain pen boys”) left for the United States to study in US colleges and universities. By 1910, all had returned back to play major roles in education, business and government.
A tiny ripple may have caused a major wave. According to Wikipedia, “a chance encounter in 1901 between a trustee of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association (HSPA) and a band of Filipino musicians en route to the United States led the planter to speculate about Filipinos as potential plantation workers, for he felt that these musicians had a "healthy physique and robust appearance." This led that trustee to recommend Filipinos as replacements for the Chinese, Japanese and Korean workers who were banned from immigrating to the US in 1906.
Aside from the 125,000 Filipino workers who comprised the “first wave”, there was a also a “third ripple” of Filipinos, numbering about 14,000, who came to the US to study and who returned back to the Philippines after completing their studies.
According to the 1960 US census, there were about 69,070 Filipinos in Hawaii and another 65,459 in California, the two states accounting for about 76% of all Filipinos in the US. The West Coast numbered about 146,340 Filipinos accounting for about 83% of the total while the East Coast and the South held slightly more than 10,000 each and the Mid-West numbered about 8,600.
By 1980, the official number reached 781,894, with 92% living in urban areas. By 1990, the numbers reached 1,450,512 with the West Coast accounting for 991,572, or 68.4%. California in 1990 contained almost 50 percent of the total with Hawaii falling to second place. The 1990 US Census showed that Filipinos lived in all 50 states with Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Washington each being home to more than 30,000 Filipinos.
Because numbers empower, let’s get our numbers right.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
How many Filipinos are really in the US?
Global Networking : How many Filipinos are really in the US?
By Rodel Rodis
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: January 16, 2008
When Philippine President Gloria Arroyo visited the US State Department in 2003, then US Secretary of State Colin Powell complimented her for reaching out to the “2 million Filipinos and Filipino Americans in this country who are the living bond between our two great peoples”. Two million? A San Francisco Chronicle news article on December 8, 2007 reported that there are “2.3 million Filipinos who live in the United States, according to the census bureau (356,378 in the Bay Area)”.
In a news conference in Manila last month, US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney estimated that there are 3 million Filipinos in the US according to the US Embassy’s review of the number of US immigrant and non-immigrant visas issued to Filipinos. Three million? The most recent online Wikipedia encyclopedia entry on “Filipino Americans” reported that “in 2007, the Filipino American population numbered approximately 4 million, or 1.5% of the United States population.”
Just exactly how many are we?
The 2000 census that the San Francisco Chronicle relied on was defective and grossly undercounted the number of Filipinos in the US. Over the last 7 years, I have spoken with hundreds, if not thousands, of Filipino “overstaying tourists” (a more apt and polite description than “undocumented aliens” or “illegal immigrants” or “TNTs”) and not one of them who was present in 2000 ever contacted the US Census Bureau to fill out the form that would document his or her presence in the US. If there were 500,000 of them in 2000, the 2000 census should have been 3 million. This half a million estimate has likely doubled by 2008.
Also, in the last 7 years, there have been at least 80,000 Filipinos each year who have legally immigrated to the US including thousands who married US citizens and adjusted their status in the US. Adding all the totals would bring the actual number of Filipinos in the US today to be closer to the 4-million Wikipedia estimate.
Historians and demographers generally agree that there were three “significant immigration waves” of Filipinos who have settled in the United States.
The “first wave” was the agricultural workers or "sacadas", approximately 125,000 of them, who were brought to work in Hawaii and the West Coast from 1906 to 1935. After the Filipino Exclusion Act (otherwise known as the Tydings-McDuffie Philippine Independence Act) was passed in 1935, legal Filipino immigration to the US was reduced to 50 a year, a quota which lasted until 1965.
The “second wave” refers to the Filipinos, mostly in the US military, who came after 1946, including about 7,000 agricultural workers who were brought to Hawaii and referred to as the “1946 boys”, another 5,000 Filipinas who came after passage of the 1946 War Brides Act and 20,000 Filipino navy recruits who were brought into the US Navy to serve as stewards as part of the 1947 US-RP Military Bases Agreement.
The “third wave” of immigration started in 1965 after passage of the Immigration Act of 1965 which increased legal immigration from the Philippines from 50 to 20,000 a year, including about 4,000 a year for Filipino professionals.
The Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) believes there should be a separate category for pre-1906 Filipinos. Their numbers may not justify referring to them as "waves" but more as “ripples”.
The “first ripple” may refer to the Filipino mariners or sailors who worked on commercial ships that docked in US ports. Dozens of them jumped ship in New Orleans in or around 1825 and settled in St. Malo in Barataria Bay in Louisiana as documented in Lafcadio Hearn’s 1875 article which appeared in Harper’s Weekly (“The Mahogany-colored Manilamen of Louisiana”). An 1892 editorial in Graciano Lopez-Jaena’s La Solidaridad referenced the existence of Filipino mariner colonies in Philadelphia, New York and New Orleans. (Francisco Escalante, a Filipino mariner from Manila, arrived in San Francisco in 1830 and became a citizen of San Francisco officially in 1849).
An “urban legend” has also appeared in several books reporting that Filipinos from Vera-Cruz, Mexico traveled across the Gulf of Mexico to Barataria Bay, Louisiana in 1763 and many opf them later joined Jean Lafitte’s buccaneers in the 1812 Battle of New Orleans.
A “second ripple” may refer to the Filipino ilustrados who went to the US, instead of Spain, to further their education. In 1903, a group of 100 students (“fountain pen boys”) left for the United States to study in US colleges and universities. By 1910, all had returned back to play major roles in education, business and government.
A tiny ripple may have caused a major wave. According to Wikipedia, “a chance encounter in 1901 between a trustee of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association (HSPA) and a band of Filipino musicians en route to the United States led the planter to speculate about Filipinos as potential plantation workers, for he felt that these musicians had a "healthy physique and robust appearance." This led that trustee to recommend Filipinos as replacements for the Chinese, Japanese and Korean workers who were banned from immigrating to the US in 1906.
Aside from the 125,000 Filipino workers who comprised the “first wave”, there was a also a “third ripple” of Filipinos, numbering about 14,000, who came to the US to study and who returned back to the Philippines after completing their studies.
According to the 1960 US census, there were about 69,070 Filipinos in Hawaii and another 65,459 in California, the two states accounting for about 76% of all Filipinos in the US. The West Coast numbered about 146,340 Filipinos accounting for about 83% of the total while the East Coast and the South held slightly more than 10,000 each and the Mid-West numbered about 8,600.
By 1980, the official number reached 781,894, with 92% living in urban areas. By 1990, the numbers reached 1,450,512 with the West Coast accounting for 991,572, or 68.4%. California in 1990 contained almost 50 percent of the total with Hawaii falling to second place. The 1990 US Census showed that Filipinos lived in all 50 states with Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Washington each being home to more than 30,000 Filipinos.
Because numbers empower, let’s get our numbers right.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com/) or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800
By Rodel Rodis
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: January 16, 2008
When Philippine President Gloria Arroyo visited the US State Department in 2003, then US Secretary of State Colin Powell complimented her for reaching out to the “2 million Filipinos and Filipino Americans in this country who are the living bond between our two great peoples”. Two million? A San Francisco Chronicle news article on December 8, 2007 reported that there are “2.3 million Filipinos who live in the United States, according to the census bureau (356,378 in the Bay Area)”.
In a news conference in Manila last month, US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney estimated that there are 3 million Filipinos in the US according to the US Embassy’s review of the number of US immigrant and non-immigrant visas issued to Filipinos. Three million? The most recent online Wikipedia encyclopedia entry on “Filipino Americans” reported that “in 2007, the Filipino American population numbered approximately 4 million, or 1.5% of the United States population.”
Just exactly how many are we?
The 2000 census that the San Francisco Chronicle relied on was defective and grossly undercounted the number of Filipinos in the US. Over the last 7 years, I have spoken with hundreds, if not thousands, of Filipino “overstaying tourists” (a more apt and polite description than “undocumented aliens” or “illegal immigrants” or “TNTs”) and not one of them who was present in 2000 ever contacted the US Census Bureau to fill out the form that would document his or her presence in the US. If there were 500,000 of them in 2000, the 2000 census should have been 3 million. This half a million estimate has likely doubled by 2008.
Also, in the last 7 years, there have been at least 80,000 Filipinos each year who have legally immigrated to the US including thousands who married US citizens and adjusted their status in the US. Adding all the totals would bring the actual number of Filipinos in the US today to be closer to the 4-million Wikipedia estimate.
Historians and demographers generally agree that there were three “significant immigration waves” of Filipinos who have settled in the United States.
The “first wave” was the agricultural workers or "sacadas", approximately 125,000 of them, who were brought to work in Hawaii and the West Coast from 1906 to 1935. After the Filipino Exclusion Act (otherwise known as the Tydings-McDuffie Philippine Independence Act) was passed in 1935, legal Filipino immigration to the US was reduced to 50 a year, a quota which lasted until 1965.
The “second wave” refers to the Filipinos, mostly in the US military, who came after 1946, including about 7,000 agricultural workers who were brought to Hawaii and referred to as the “1946 boys”, another 5,000 Filipinas who came after passage of the 1946 War Brides Act and 20,000 Filipino navy recruits who were brought into the US Navy to serve as stewards as part of the 1947 US-RP Military Bases Agreement.
The “third wave” of immigration started in 1965 after passage of the Immigration Act of 1965 which increased legal immigration from the Philippines from 50 to 20,000 a year, including about 4,000 a year for Filipino professionals.
The Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) believes there should be a separate category for pre-1906 Filipinos. Their numbers may not justify referring to them as "waves" but more as “ripples”.
The “first ripple” may refer to the Filipino mariners or sailors who worked on commercial ships that docked in US ports. Dozens of them jumped ship in New Orleans in or around 1825 and settled in St. Malo in Barataria Bay in Louisiana as documented in Lafcadio Hearn’s 1875 article which appeared in Harper’s Weekly (“The Mahogany-colored Manilamen of Louisiana”). An 1892 editorial in Graciano Lopez-Jaena’s La Solidaridad referenced the existence of Filipino mariner colonies in Philadelphia, New York and New Orleans. (Francisco Escalante, a Filipino mariner from Manila, arrived in San Francisco in 1830 and became a citizen of San Francisco officially in 1849).
An “urban legend” has also appeared in several books reporting that Filipinos from Vera-Cruz, Mexico traveled across the Gulf of Mexico to Barataria Bay, Louisiana in 1763 and many opf them later joined Jean Lafitte’s buccaneers in the 1812 Battle of New Orleans.
A “second ripple” may refer to the Filipino ilustrados who went to the US, instead of Spain, to further their education. In 1903, a group of 100 students (“fountain pen boys”) left for the United States to study in US colleges and universities. By 1910, all had returned back to play major roles in education, business and government.
A tiny ripple may have caused a major wave. According to Wikipedia, “a chance encounter in 1901 between a trustee of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association (HSPA) and a band of Filipino musicians en route to the United States led the planter to speculate about Filipinos as potential plantation workers, for he felt that these musicians had a "healthy physique and robust appearance." This led that trustee to recommend Filipinos as replacements for the Chinese, Japanese and Korean workers who were banned from immigrating to the US in 1906.
Aside from the 125,000 Filipino workers who comprised the “first wave”, there was a also a “third ripple” of Filipinos, numbering about 14,000, who came to the US to study and who returned back to the Philippines after completing their studies.
According to the 1960 US census, there were about 69,070 Filipinos in Hawaii and another 65,459 in California, the two states accounting for about 76% of all Filipinos in the US. The West Coast numbered about 146,340 Filipinos accounting for about 83% of the total while the East Coast and the South held slightly more than 10,000 each and the Mid-West numbered about 8,600.
By 1980, the official number reached 781,894, with 92% living in urban areas. By 1990, the numbers reached 1,450,512 with the West Coast accounting for 991,572, or 68.4%. California in 1990 contained almost 50 percent of the total with Hawaii falling to second place. The 1990 US Census showed that Filipinos lived in all 50 states with Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Washington each being home to more than 30,000 Filipinos.
Because numbers empower, let’s get our numbers right.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com/) or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800
Profiles Encourage
Global Networking : Profiles Encourage
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: January 08, 2008
THE NEW Year began with the depressing news that deposed President Joseph Estrada was mulling a run for the presidency in 2010 if, he said, "the opposition fails to come to an agreement on a common candidate." To ensure the opposition’s victory in 2010, he said he would willingly agree to be the unity candidate. How magnanimous.
This news story drove me nuts. Is the Philippine political system so bankrupt and lacking in leaders with moral scruples that a convicted plunderer like Estrada could actually be elected again?
My faith in the Filipino people was redeemed on January 5 when I attended a forum at the San Francisco Public Library and heard Quentin Pastrana, a recent MBA graduate from Georgetown University, speak about his new book, "Profiles Encourage: Ordinary Filipinos Making an Extraordinary Difference" (anvilpublishing.com).
Profiles is about ordinary Filipinos who can and should be candidates for the presidency of the Philippines, not the current crap of "presidentiables", because they are people who are, as Pastrana writes, "living lives of concrete action, meaningful results, and enduring integrity... defining democracy and citizenship through their own lives, their own reach toward others."
The book features inspiring profiles on: Jaime Aristotle Alip, Al Asuncion, Josette Biyo, John Burtkenley Ong, India and Javier Legaspi, Jika David, CP David, Nereus Acosta, Onofre Pagsanghan, and Milwida "Nene" Guevarra.
Below is a brief profile on these outstanding Filipinos:
Dr. Jaime Aristotle Alip started a microfinance project in Laguna in 1986 called CARD (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development) to provide uncollateralized loans of up to 2,000 pesos ($45) "to help the poor help themselves". Today the CARD group of companies has 160,000 clients (mostly women) all over the Philippines with a total outstanding loan portfolio of more than $20 million and with assets estimated at $35 million. Through Dr. Alip’s leadership, CARD has set a goal of reaching one million poor households by 2009 to provide them with low interest loans, and guidance and training in marketing, management, product development and input supply.
Al Asuncion was the Philippine Bantamweight Champion in the 1950s and was once the number 4 contender in the World Boxing Association (WBA) rankings. A friend and protégée of world heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano, Al fought in boxing matches all over the US and Europe and dutifully sent his earnings home to his family. After he retired from boxing, he spent the remainder of life teaching young kids (including three of the authors of the Profiles book) boxing skills and life lessons.
Josette Biyo, an unassuming science teacher from the Philippine Science High School in Iloilo City, was the first Asian Grand Winner of the prestigious Intel Excellence in Teaching Award which she received on May 17, 2002 in Louisville, Kentucky. She also holds the distinction of being the only Filipino to have a minor planet named after her, the Planet Biyo which rotates between Mars and Jupiter. While a science teacher in Iloilo, she regularly brought her students to the barangay to teach the barrio folks how to make cough syrup from plant extracts and soap from coconut oil.
John Burtkenley Ong was working as a researcher at the Manila Observatory of Ateneo when he was asked to document the ancestral domain claims of the Mangyan minorities in Mindoro. In order to file the Mangyan tribe’s claim to its ancestral lands, the tribe needed to identify the boundaries of their lands, which could only be determined with maps. But he could not teach the Mangyans his knowledge of map-making because the Mangyans lacked basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills. So John learned the Mangyan language so he could teach them basic skills to help them preserve their cultural heritage and their lands.
India and Javier Legaspi, wife and husband, can be credited with reviving and reinvigorating the pina weaving tradition and industry in the Philippines from the moribund state it was in when they set up their Heritage Arts and Crafts in Kalibo, Aklan in 1988. India, the artist, "paints and weaves the designs that breathe new life into centuries-old craft" while Javier, the mechanical engineer, "adds strength and form by reinventing the looms." Heritage’s production capacities, Pastrana writes, are already booked for 2007 and 2008 filling export orders from American and European firms. Heritage is developing new products and expanding into new markets to increase the income and livelihood of the 20,000 women and men engaged in the whole range of the hand-woven fiber industry.
Jika David, the daughter of Prof. Randy David and Karina Constantino-David, was set to climb the corporate ladder of Unilever Philippines when, after 4 years on the job, she applied for a sabbatical in 2004 to work with the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines Foundation in Barrio Macarascas in Palawan. After teaching mathematics to rural kids whose poverty deprived them of the means to realize their dreams, Jika founded DORM (Deepening Our Rural Minds) and raised the funds to keep the school going for another year and send four of its graduates to Manila to further their education.
CP David, the brother of Jika and also a grandson of nationalist historians Renato and Leticia Constantino, received tempting offers from US firms after obtaining his PhD in Geology and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University in 2003. Instead, he returned back to the Philippines and established the UP Environmental Monitoring Laboratory to compile data for weather monitoring and mine pollution monitoring. He invented the Automated Monitoring System (AMS) to compile and transmit weather data via text messaging. His dream is to clean up the Pasig River.
Nereus Acosta set up BINHI (Bukidnon Integrated Network of Home Industries, Inc.), a Grameen-modeled microfinance and cooperative movement, which he founded in 1991 and which, Pastrana writes, has "transformed not only the beneficiaries’ lives but even the province’s culture from dependency, to action self-reliance, and hope."
Onofre Pagsanghan founded the Dulaang Sibol more than 50 years ago at the Ateneo High School where he has been teaching up to the present. Imagine Mr. Keating, portrayed by Robin Williams, in "Dead Poets Society" and you can visualize the impact that "Mr. Pagsi" has had on his students.
Milwida "Nene" Guevarra, a former Finance Undersecretary, founded the Synergeia Foundation which seeks to deliver quality education through "collaborative responsibility" by transforming local school boards into vehicles for meaningful community participation. In the 250 municipalities where Synergeia has established roots (from the 17 it began with in 2003), the results can be seen in the rise of the test scores of those students from an average of 49% to 75% in reading proficiency and mathematics.
Profiles Encourage is dedicated to the memory of the late Sen. Raul Roco who was probably the best president the Philippines never had. In the book’s Epilogue is a speech Roco delivered in 2003 where he extolled the people to "learn to live by what we say."
Roco: "We must walk our talk. Competence, Character, Courage and Commitment, then we can have sustainable human growth, sustainable development among ourselves… It is good to have money. But the more important thing is strong human values and strong human efforts to excel. That must come from within…It must come from the Filipino."
Faith restored.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com/) or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800.
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: January 08, 2008
THE NEW Year began with the depressing news that deposed President Joseph Estrada was mulling a run for the presidency in 2010 if, he said, "the opposition fails to come to an agreement on a common candidate." To ensure the opposition’s victory in 2010, he said he would willingly agree to be the unity candidate. How magnanimous.
This news story drove me nuts. Is the Philippine political system so bankrupt and lacking in leaders with moral scruples that a convicted plunderer like Estrada could actually be elected again?
My faith in the Filipino people was redeemed on January 5 when I attended a forum at the San Francisco Public Library and heard Quentin Pastrana, a recent MBA graduate from Georgetown University, speak about his new book, "Profiles Encourage: Ordinary Filipinos Making an Extraordinary Difference" (anvilpublishing.com).
Profiles is about ordinary Filipinos who can and should be candidates for the presidency of the Philippines, not the current crap of "presidentiables", because they are people who are, as Pastrana writes, "living lives of concrete action, meaningful results, and enduring integrity... defining democracy and citizenship through their own lives, their own reach toward others."
The book features inspiring profiles on: Jaime Aristotle Alip, Al Asuncion, Josette Biyo, John Burtkenley Ong, India and Javier Legaspi, Jika David, CP David, Nereus Acosta, Onofre Pagsanghan, and Milwida "Nene" Guevarra.
Below is a brief profile on these outstanding Filipinos:
Dr. Jaime Aristotle Alip started a microfinance project in Laguna in 1986 called CARD (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development) to provide uncollateralized loans of up to 2,000 pesos ($45) "to help the poor help themselves". Today the CARD group of companies has 160,000 clients (mostly women) all over the Philippines with a total outstanding loan portfolio of more than $20 million and with assets estimated at $35 million. Through Dr. Alip’s leadership, CARD has set a goal of reaching one million poor households by 2009 to provide them with low interest loans, and guidance and training in marketing, management, product development and input supply.
Al Asuncion was the Philippine Bantamweight Champion in the 1950s and was once the number 4 contender in the World Boxing Association (WBA) rankings. A friend and protégée of world heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano, Al fought in boxing matches all over the US and Europe and dutifully sent his earnings home to his family. After he retired from boxing, he spent the remainder of life teaching young kids (including three of the authors of the Profiles book) boxing skills and life lessons.
Josette Biyo, an unassuming science teacher from the Philippine Science High School in Iloilo City, was the first Asian Grand Winner of the prestigious Intel Excellence in Teaching Award which she received on May 17, 2002 in Louisville, Kentucky. She also holds the distinction of being the only Filipino to have a minor planet named after her, the Planet Biyo which rotates between Mars and Jupiter. While a science teacher in Iloilo, she regularly brought her students to the barangay to teach the barrio folks how to make cough syrup from plant extracts and soap from coconut oil.
John Burtkenley Ong was working as a researcher at the Manila Observatory of Ateneo when he was asked to document the ancestral domain claims of the Mangyan minorities in Mindoro. In order to file the Mangyan tribe’s claim to its ancestral lands, the tribe needed to identify the boundaries of their lands, which could only be determined with maps. But he could not teach the Mangyans his knowledge of map-making because the Mangyans lacked basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills. So John learned the Mangyan language so he could teach them basic skills to help them preserve their cultural heritage and their lands.
India and Javier Legaspi, wife and husband, can be credited with reviving and reinvigorating the pina weaving tradition and industry in the Philippines from the moribund state it was in when they set up their Heritage Arts and Crafts in Kalibo, Aklan in 1988. India, the artist, "paints and weaves the designs that breathe new life into centuries-old craft" while Javier, the mechanical engineer, "adds strength and form by reinventing the looms." Heritage’s production capacities, Pastrana writes, are already booked for 2007 and 2008 filling export orders from American and European firms. Heritage is developing new products and expanding into new markets to increase the income and livelihood of the 20,000 women and men engaged in the whole range of the hand-woven fiber industry.
Jika David, the daughter of Prof. Randy David and Karina Constantino-David, was set to climb the corporate ladder of Unilever Philippines when, after 4 years on the job, she applied for a sabbatical in 2004 to work with the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines Foundation in Barrio Macarascas in Palawan. After teaching mathematics to rural kids whose poverty deprived them of the means to realize their dreams, Jika founded DORM (Deepening Our Rural Minds) and raised the funds to keep the school going for another year and send four of its graduates to Manila to further their education.
CP David, the brother of Jika and also a grandson of nationalist historians Renato and Leticia Constantino, received tempting offers from US firms after obtaining his PhD in Geology and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University in 2003. Instead, he returned back to the Philippines and established the UP Environmental Monitoring Laboratory to compile data for weather monitoring and mine pollution monitoring. He invented the Automated Monitoring System (AMS) to compile and transmit weather data via text messaging. His dream is to clean up the Pasig River.
Nereus Acosta set up BINHI (Bukidnon Integrated Network of Home Industries, Inc.), a Grameen-modeled microfinance and cooperative movement, which he founded in 1991 and which, Pastrana writes, has "transformed not only the beneficiaries’ lives but even the province’s culture from dependency, to action self-reliance, and hope."
Onofre Pagsanghan founded the Dulaang Sibol more than 50 years ago at the Ateneo High School where he has been teaching up to the present. Imagine Mr. Keating, portrayed by Robin Williams, in "Dead Poets Society" and you can visualize the impact that "Mr. Pagsi" has had on his students.
Milwida "Nene" Guevarra, a former Finance Undersecretary, founded the Synergeia Foundation which seeks to deliver quality education through "collaborative responsibility" by transforming local school boards into vehicles for meaningful community participation. In the 250 municipalities where Synergeia has established roots (from the 17 it began with in 2003), the results can be seen in the rise of the test scores of those students from an average of 49% to 75% in reading proficiency and mathematics.
Profiles Encourage is dedicated to the memory of the late Sen. Raul Roco who was probably the best president the Philippines never had. In the book’s Epilogue is a speech Roco delivered in 2003 where he extolled the people to "learn to live by what we say."
Roco: "We must walk our talk. Competence, Character, Courage and Commitment, then we can have sustainable human growth, sustainable development among ourselves… It is good to have money. But the more important thing is strong human values and strong human efforts to excel. That must come from within…It must come from the Filipino."
Faith restored.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com/) or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Don't stop believing
Global Networking : Don't stop believing
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: January 01, 2008
IF TERRI HATCHER'S character in Desperate Housewives ever slips and breaks her spinal column while strolling on Wisteria Lane, she would be well-advised to seek treatment at the Memorial Hermann Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR) at the University of Texas Hospital in Houston.
If she's really fortunate, she would be treated by Dr. Teodoro Castillo, a spinal cord injury specialist who has a diploma from "some med school in the Philippines."
Last week, on the Sunday morning before Christmas, Dr. Castillo was interviewed on ABC about Buffalo Bills football player Kevin Everett who suffered a life-threatening dislocation and fracture of his cervical spine during a home game with the Denver Broncos on September 27. After surgeons operated and repaired a break between the third and fourth vertebrae of his spinal cord, they announced that chances were slim that Everett would ever walk again.
But to everyone's surprise, on December 23, Everett appeared at the locker room of the Buffalo Bills players to greet them and wish them luck just before they were to play the New York Giants. The players were absolutely stunned that Everett was even able to stand up. That he was walking without any assistance was a miracle, they said.
Everett gave credit to his spinal cord physician at TIRR, Dr. Teodoro Castillo, for his recovery from an injury that would have otherwise rendered him a quadriplegic.
ABC News' TV reporter Dan Harris asked Dr. Castillo whether he thought Everett would ever walk again. Dr Castillo responded: "When I first met him, I knew he had the movement in the legs, and he showed me he had good recovery just from the time he had the surgery to the time he got to our facility, so I knew he was going to walk again. But the type of walking, the quality of walking, that remained to be seen."
When asked about Everett's determination, Dr. Castillo said that Everett's mother told him that "he's always followed a rigorous training schedule and with that attitude, with his determination, family support, which he really has, and the team of clinicians he has to guide him and optimize his recovery, I think he will be successful… The key to Kevin's success is the determination he's had, and the family support and a team of clinicians to guide him through - he has all the necessary ingredients to guide him to a good outcome."
Dr. Castillo received his medical degree from the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center in the Philippines. He completed his transitional year medicine internship at the Seton Hall Program in St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey. He is board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Spinal Cord Injury Medicine. He is concurrently a Clinical Assistant Professor at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Adjunct Assistant Professor of PM&R, Baylor College of Medicine.
Kevin Everett never stopped believing in himself and Dr. Castillo never stopped believing in him.
***
"Don't stop believing", the title of the hit song of 70s era rock band Journey, was played at the last scene of the final episode of the HBO hit, The Sopranos. The airplay revived interest in the band which had been performing without its frontman, Steve Perry, since the mid-90s when he quit. Journey's journey back to the big time would be complete if they could only find a new lead singer.
It was difficult for the band to find a replacement for Steve Perry. "Those anthemic Journey power ballads, sung by Perry in his operatic tenor, have been known to shred vocal chords, and it takes an extraordinary talent to be able to sing them," reported Paul Liberatore from Medianews.
After months of auditioning prospects without any luck, Journey's Neal Schon tried the Internet. "I went on YouTube for a couple of days and just sat on it for hours. I was starting to think I was never going to find anybody." That is until he chanced upon a video of Filipino singer Arnel Pineda singing Journey's hit "Faithfully" with a Filipino cover band called the Zoo.
"After watching the videos over and over again, I had to walk away from the computer and let what I'd heard sink in because it sounded too good to be true," he said. "I thought, 'He can't be that good.'"
Before Pineda knew it, Journey had obtained a work visa for him and had flown him in to San Francisco to audition with the band in Marin. After a few songs, the band members were unanimous that they had found their lead singer at long last. The official announcement was made on December 5 after Pineda returned to record 11 new songs of Journey that will be released in the spring of 2008.
In his blog, Journey record producer Kevin Shirley wrote "Just got back from Vegas last night, after mixing seven new Journey songs. They are outstanding... For the record, I think Arnel is 'the business!'--the guy can really sing! He handles the ballads with SO much heart, and belts the rockers as hard, and melodically, as anyone I have heard. The songs are sensational--wonderfully crafted and deep, and so focused, you may wonder where they all came from."
A news article about Pineda reported that since English is his second language, he was provided with an "accent reduction coach" to work on his phrasing and diction. This was no problem for Arnel but he also had to deal with racism. "When there were rumors about me joining Journey, there was a lot of that," Pineda told Liberatore. "One of the worst things I read on a fan message board said that Journey is an all-American band and it should stay like that. But I don't care. I just say, 'Hey, grow up.'"
"We've become a world band," Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain said in reply. "We're international now. We're not about one color. I kind of like the whole idea of having a singer like him. It's exotic."
Don't stop believing in yourself. Have a happy exotic new year.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com/) or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800.
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: January 01, 2008
IF TERRI HATCHER'S character in Desperate Housewives ever slips and breaks her spinal column while strolling on Wisteria Lane, she would be well-advised to seek treatment at the Memorial Hermann Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR) at the University of Texas Hospital in Houston.
If she's really fortunate, she would be treated by Dr. Teodoro Castillo, a spinal cord injury specialist who has a diploma from "some med school in the Philippines."
Last week, on the Sunday morning before Christmas, Dr. Castillo was interviewed on ABC about Buffalo Bills football player Kevin Everett who suffered a life-threatening dislocation and fracture of his cervical spine during a home game with the Denver Broncos on September 27. After surgeons operated and repaired a break between the third and fourth vertebrae of his spinal cord, they announced that chances were slim that Everett would ever walk again.
But to everyone's surprise, on December 23, Everett appeared at the locker room of the Buffalo Bills players to greet them and wish them luck just before they were to play the New York Giants. The players were absolutely stunned that Everett was even able to stand up. That he was walking without any assistance was a miracle, they said.
Everett gave credit to his spinal cord physician at TIRR, Dr. Teodoro Castillo, for his recovery from an injury that would have otherwise rendered him a quadriplegic.
ABC News' TV reporter Dan Harris asked Dr. Castillo whether he thought Everett would ever walk again. Dr Castillo responded: "When I first met him, I knew he had the movement in the legs, and he showed me he had good recovery just from the time he had the surgery to the time he got to our facility, so I knew he was going to walk again. But the type of walking, the quality of walking, that remained to be seen."
When asked about Everett's determination, Dr. Castillo said that Everett's mother told him that "he's always followed a rigorous training schedule and with that attitude, with his determination, family support, which he really has, and the team of clinicians he has to guide him and optimize his recovery, I think he will be successful… The key to Kevin's success is the determination he's had, and the family support and a team of clinicians to guide him through - he has all the necessary ingredients to guide him to a good outcome."
Dr. Castillo received his medical degree from the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center in the Philippines. He completed his transitional year medicine internship at the Seton Hall Program in St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey. He is board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Spinal Cord Injury Medicine. He is concurrently a Clinical Assistant Professor at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Adjunct Assistant Professor of PM&R, Baylor College of Medicine.
Kevin Everett never stopped believing in himself and Dr. Castillo never stopped believing in him.
***
"Don't stop believing", the title of the hit song of 70s era rock band Journey, was played at the last scene of the final episode of the HBO hit, The Sopranos. The airplay revived interest in the band which had been performing without its frontman, Steve Perry, since the mid-90s when he quit. Journey's journey back to the big time would be complete if they could only find a new lead singer.
It was difficult for the band to find a replacement for Steve Perry. "Those anthemic Journey power ballads, sung by Perry in his operatic tenor, have been known to shred vocal chords, and it takes an extraordinary talent to be able to sing them," reported Paul Liberatore from Medianews.
After months of auditioning prospects without any luck, Journey's Neal Schon tried the Internet. "I went on YouTube for a couple of days and just sat on it for hours. I was starting to think I was never going to find anybody." That is until he chanced upon a video of Filipino singer Arnel Pineda singing Journey's hit "Faithfully" with a Filipino cover band called the Zoo.
"After watching the videos over and over again, I had to walk away from the computer and let what I'd heard sink in because it sounded too good to be true," he said. "I thought, 'He can't be that good.'"
Before Pineda knew it, Journey had obtained a work visa for him and had flown him in to San Francisco to audition with the band in Marin. After a few songs, the band members were unanimous that they had found their lead singer at long last. The official announcement was made on December 5 after Pineda returned to record 11 new songs of Journey that will be released in the spring of 2008.
In his blog, Journey record producer Kevin Shirley wrote "Just got back from Vegas last night, after mixing seven new Journey songs. They are outstanding... For the record, I think Arnel is 'the business!'--the guy can really sing! He handles the ballads with SO much heart, and belts the rockers as hard, and melodically, as anyone I have heard. The songs are sensational--wonderfully crafted and deep, and so focused, you may wonder where they all came from."
A news article about Pineda reported that since English is his second language, he was provided with an "accent reduction coach" to work on his phrasing and diction. This was no problem for Arnel but he also had to deal with racism. "When there were rumors about me joining Journey, there was a lot of that," Pineda told Liberatore. "One of the worst things I read on a fan message board said that Journey is an all-American band and it should stay like that. But I don't care. I just say, 'Hey, grow up.'"
"We've become a world band," Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain said in reply. "We're international now. We're not about one color. I kind of like the whole idea of having a singer like him. It's exotic."
Don't stop believing in yourself. Have a happy exotic new year.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com/) or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800.
Craig the Grinch
Global Networking : Craig the Grinch
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: December 27, 2007
There was so much optimism early this year in February when I joined Gen. Antonio Taguba in walking the halls of the US Congress to lobby House members to support the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill. Without exception, all of us felt in our bones that after 26 years of lobbying, this would be the year that the Rescission Act of 1946 is finally rescinded.
This excitement was fueled by the Democratic sweep in the November 2006 elections which resulted in the appointment of Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and Representative Bob Filner (D-California), the two principal sponsors of the bill in the Senate and in the House, as chairs of the veterans affairs committees of their respective chambers.
By April of 2007, both Senator Akaka and Representative Filner had conducted hearings on their respective equity bills and had garnered their committees’ approval. It had never advanced to this stage before and many believed that it would be just a matter of time before the bills are brought to a floor vote in the Senate and House.
On June 27, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee approved the Veterans Benefits and Emoluments Act (S. 1315) which incorporated the provisions of the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill (S.57). A provision included proposed monthly pensions of $911 for US-based veterans, and $300 for those residing in the Philippines for non-service connected, or non-combat related disability.
“S.1315 would fix a historical wrong,” Akaka said, “Filipino veterans served under the command of the US military during World War II. They were considered by the Veterans' Administration, the predecessor of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, to be veterans of the US military, naval and air service until that status was revoked by the Rescission Acts of 1946.”
The main opposition to the Senate bill came from Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), the former chair of the Senate Veterans Committee, who calculated the price tag of the bill to be almost $1 billion over 10 years which he believes the US government cannot afford when “there are other pressing bills pending before the Committee especially benefits for veterans of the War on Terror.”
The US Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) under Secretary Jim Nicholson added that additional benefit costs including medical and memorial benefits of $510 million in the first year would total more than $4 billion over 10 years.
How could Senator Craig be convinced to drop his strident opposition to the Filvets bill? Would it be too much to hope that he would just resign so the bill could pass? Would the prayers of the Filipino veterans be answered?
On June 11 of this year, Senator Craig went to the men’s room of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and was arrested by an undercover officer for lewd and lascivious conduct. On August 1, Senator Craig pled guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge hoping no one would notice. But when news of the gay solicitation charge broke, which GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell described as “unforgivable”, Senator Craig had no choice but to announce his resignation from the US Senate effective September 30.
Unfortunately, this was too much to ask as Senator Craig reneged on his promise to resign. In a key vote in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, he placed a "hold" on the bill because "a provision was added after it cleared the committee to reopen VA health care to new Priority 8 enrollees." Priority 8 enrollees are veterans with no service-connected disabilities and no adequate income by government standards.
Craig objected because non-US citizens would be treated by VA health care centers in the Philippines. "First of all, they do not live in this country, they are not US citizens. They are taking money away from our veterans. That is the 'Robin Hood in reverse' effect. At least Robin Hood, when he took money, left it in Nottingham. He spread it out amongst his own. Here we are taking money from our own and sending it all the way to the Philippines," Senator Craig the Grinch charged.
When the Japanese soldiers fired their weapons at the allies in the Philippines, did the bullets distinguish between US citizens and Philippine citizens?
Perhaps the most eloquent response to Senator Craig was the selfless sacrifice of seven of the grandsons of these “Robin Hoods” who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in the service of the United States just in the last six months: Army Pfc. Victor M. Fontanilla, 23, Stockton, CA (5/17/07), Army Spc. Mark R. C. Caguioa, 21, Stockton, CA ( 5/24/07), Army Sgt. Richard V. Correa, 25, Honolulu, HI (5/29/07), Army Staff Sgt. Greg P. Gagarin, 38, Los Angeles, CA (6/3/07), Marine Sgt. Michael E. Tayaotao, 27,Sunnyvale, CA (8/9/07), Army Pfc. Paulomarko U. Pacificador, 24, Shirley, NY (8/13/07), and Army Specialist Lester Roque, 23, Carson, CA (11/10/07).
While the year ended on a dispiriting note, there was hope that the gains of 2007 will carry over to 2008. Perhaps.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com/)
or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800.
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: December 27, 2007
There was so much optimism early this year in February when I joined Gen. Antonio Taguba in walking the halls of the US Congress to lobby House members to support the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill. Without exception, all of us felt in our bones that after 26 years of lobbying, this would be the year that the Rescission Act of 1946 is finally rescinded.
This excitement was fueled by the Democratic sweep in the November 2006 elections which resulted in the appointment of Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and Representative Bob Filner (D-California), the two principal sponsors of the bill in the Senate and in the House, as chairs of the veterans affairs committees of their respective chambers.
By April of 2007, both Senator Akaka and Representative Filner had conducted hearings on their respective equity bills and had garnered their committees’ approval. It had never advanced to this stage before and many believed that it would be just a matter of time before the bills are brought to a floor vote in the Senate and House.
On June 27, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee approved the Veterans Benefits and Emoluments Act (S. 1315) which incorporated the provisions of the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill (S.57). A provision included proposed monthly pensions of $911 for US-based veterans, and $300 for those residing in the Philippines for non-service connected, or non-combat related disability.
“S.1315 would fix a historical wrong,” Akaka said, “Filipino veterans served under the command of the US military during World War II. They were considered by the Veterans' Administration, the predecessor of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, to be veterans of the US military, naval and air service until that status was revoked by the Rescission Acts of 1946.”
The main opposition to the Senate bill came from Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), the former chair of the Senate Veterans Committee, who calculated the price tag of the bill to be almost $1 billion over 10 years which he believes the US government cannot afford when “there are other pressing bills pending before the Committee especially benefits for veterans of the War on Terror.”
The US Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) under Secretary Jim Nicholson added that additional benefit costs including medical and memorial benefits of $510 million in the first year would total more than $4 billion over 10 years.
How could Senator Craig be convinced to drop his strident opposition to the Filvets bill? Would it be too much to hope that he would just resign so the bill could pass? Would the prayers of the Filipino veterans be answered?
On June 11 of this year, Senator Craig went to the men’s room of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and was arrested by an undercover officer for lewd and lascivious conduct. On August 1, Senator Craig pled guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge hoping no one would notice. But when news of the gay solicitation charge broke, which GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell described as “unforgivable”, Senator Craig had no choice but to announce his resignation from the US Senate effective September 30.
Unfortunately, this was too much to ask as Senator Craig reneged on his promise to resign. In a key vote in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, he placed a "hold" on the bill because "a provision was added after it cleared the committee to reopen VA health care to new Priority 8 enrollees." Priority 8 enrollees are veterans with no service-connected disabilities and no adequate income by government standards.
Craig objected because non-US citizens would be treated by VA health care centers in the Philippines. "First of all, they do not live in this country, they are not US citizens. They are taking money away from our veterans. That is the 'Robin Hood in reverse' effect. At least Robin Hood, when he took money, left it in Nottingham. He spread it out amongst his own. Here we are taking money from our own and sending it all the way to the Philippines," Senator Craig the Grinch charged.
When the Japanese soldiers fired their weapons at the allies in the Philippines, did the bullets distinguish between US citizens and Philippine citizens?
Perhaps the most eloquent response to Senator Craig was the selfless sacrifice of seven of the grandsons of these “Robin Hoods” who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in the service of the United States just in the last six months: Army Pfc. Victor M. Fontanilla, 23, Stockton, CA (5/17/07), Army Spc. Mark R. C. Caguioa, 21, Stockton, CA ( 5/24/07), Army Sgt. Richard V. Correa, 25, Honolulu, HI (5/29/07), Army Staff Sgt. Greg P. Gagarin, 38, Los Angeles, CA (6/3/07), Marine Sgt. Michael E. Tayaotao, 27,Sunnyvale, CA (8/9/07), Army Pfc. Paulomarko U. Pacificador, 24, Shirley, NY (8/13/07), and Army Specialist Lester Roque, 23, Carson, CA (11/10/07).
While the year ended on a dispiriting note, there was hope that the gains of 2007 will carry over to 2008. Perhaps.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com/)
or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800.
Santa's home is melting
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20071224-108577/Santa's_home_is_melting
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Santa's home is melting
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: December 24, 2007
Santa Claus will have more problems delivering gifts to kids all over the world this Christmas because his home in the North Pole is melting away and his worker elves are all virtually homeless. According to a new scientific study, the frozen sea ice within the Arctic Circle could disappear entirely by 2040.
It is getting hotter in the arctic regions and colder in the tropical zones. This is the phenomenon known as climate change.
Despite the Bush administration's repeated insistence that climate change is "unproven conjecture" (the position of the oil industry which produced George W. Bush and Dick Cheney), more than 10,000 delegates from some 190 countries around the world gathered in Bali, Indonesia for two weeks in early December of 2007 to discuss the reality of climate change.
Even before the Bali Conference began, scientists from all over the world, including the US, were already unified in their view that climate change is indeed taking place and that the world needs to act now before its too late and that technologies are available and affordable to tackle the problem.
The conference venue was significant because, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted, "Indonesia is now losing tropical forests the size of Maryland every year, and the carbon released by the cutting and clearing — much of it from illegal logging — has made Indonesia the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, after the United States and China. Deforestation actually accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars and trucks in the world, an issue the Bali conference finally addressed."
Friedman interviewed Barnabas Suebu, the governor of Papua, home to some of Indonesia's richest forests, who explained that his villagers cannot earn anything close to what they get from chopping down a tree and selling it to smugglers, who will ship it to Malaysia or China to be made into furniture for Americans or Europeans.
This is the same problem in the Philippines where virgin forests are being continuously raped by illegal loggers with connections to Philippine military and government officials. In last week's column, I wrote about Ensign Philip Pestano who, according to a 1997 Philippine Senate report, was murdered in 1995 because he objected to his Philippine Navy vessel being used to load illegal timber from Tawi-Tawi and to off-load them in Cavite. That timber probably wound its way to China for products that were then exported to Wal-Mart stores all over the US.
International agreements that would seek to limit greenhouse emissions which cause holes in the earth's ozone layer (which create climatic changes) have long been opposed by the Bush administration which believes the limits would hamper American competitiveness with countries like China.
Using China as an excuse is ironic because China's rapid economic development has been largely fueled by American consumers' insatiable demand for its goods. Net exports from China to the US accounted for 23 percent of Chinese greenhouse gas emissions.
The Philipppines was a major source of discussion at the Bali Conference after the environmental group, Germanwatch, released a report citing the Philippines as the world's top climate change victim in 2006 for the strong typhoons which caused the Legazpi Mudslide and the Southern Leyte Landslide. They were the world's 2nd and 3rd deadliest disasters of 2006 claiming the lives of 2,511 people and rendering almost 800,000 families homeless. The natural disasters inflicted on the Philippines were always exacerbated by man-made disasters like the illegal logging which deprive the country of valuable forest trees that could stop the rain waters from flooding the lowland areas.
The Bali Conference delegates called on the Philippines to pass the Renewable Energy Bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Gordon, which has in various forms languished in the Philippine Congress for almost 10 years.
The bill will actively promote the development of renewable energy sources abundant in the country like solar, wind, tidal and geothermal and setting time-bound renewable energy targets. It will ensure that the Philippines will wean itself away from overdependence on power generated through fossil fuels like oil and coal which have been identified as major contributors to climate change.
Passage of the Renewable Energy bill is especially critical because of the rising price of oil which now costs more than a US$100 a barrel. "With the RE Bill," Jasper Inventor of Greenpeace said, "the country will utilize its massive renewable energy potential. The Philippines' wind energy potential alone reaches up to more than 70,000 MW. Solar power is abundant in the country and is capable of producing 1500 hours of power annually at 5 kilowatt hours per square meter per day." There is very little time left. Pass the Renewable Energy Bill now!
On a personal note, I would like to express my condolences to the family of Charles Mosser, a philanthropist and environmentalist who died in the Philippines on October 17, 2007 at the age of 82.
Charles and his wife, Annabelle Indemne Mosser, amassed a fortune in San Francisco real estate, a part of which they used to invest in Annabelle's home province of Negros. They bought or leased more than 20,000 denuded hectares of mountain land and funded the planting there of their goal of 18 million trees of which two million have already been planted.
In 2005, the Philippine Congress granted Charles Mosser the Philippine citizenship he had long sought.
On that note, I wish you all the happiest of holidays.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800.
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20071224-108577/Santa's_home_is_melting
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Santa's home is melting
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: December 24, 2007
Santa Claus will have more problems delivering gifts to kids all over the world this Christmas because his home in the North Pole is melting away and his worker elves are all virtually homeless. According to a new scientific study, the frozen sea ice within the Arctic Circle could disappear entirely by 2040.
It is getting hotter in the arctic regions and colder in the tropical zones. This is the phenomenon known as climate change.
Despite the Bush administration's repeated insistence that climate change is "unproven conjecture" (the position of the oil industry which produced George W. Bush and Dick Cheney), more than 10,000 delegates from some 190 countries around the world gathered in Bali, Indonesia for two weeks in early December of 2007 to discuss the reality of climate change.
Even before the Bali Conference began, scientists from all over the world, including the US, were already unified in their view that climate change is indeed taking place and that the world needs to act now before its too late and that technologies are available and affordable to tackle the problem.
The conference venue was significant because, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted, "Indonesia is now losing tropical forests the size of Maryland every year, and the carbon released by the cutting and clearing — much of it from illegal logging — has made Indonesia the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, after the United States and China. Deforestation actually accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars and trucks in the world, an issue the Bali conference finally addressed."
Friedman interviewed Barnabas Suebu, the governor of Papua, home to some of Indonesia's richest forests, who explained that his villagers cannot earn anything close to what they get from chopping down a tree and selling it to smugglers, who will ship it to Malaysia or China to be made into furniture for Americans or Europeans.
This is the same problem in the Philippines where virgin forests are being continuously raped by illegal loggers with connections to Philippine military and government officials. In last week's column, I wrote about Ensign Philip Pestano who, according to a 1997 Philippine Senate report, was murdered in 1995 because he objected to his Philippine Navy vessel being used to load illegal timber from Tawi-Tawi and to off-load them in Cavite. That timber probably wound its way to China for products that were then exported to Wal-Mart stores all over the US.
International agreements that would seek to limit greenhouse emissions which cause holes in the earth's ozone layer (which create climatic changes) have long been opposed by the Bush administration which believes the limits would hamper American competitiveness with countries like China.
Using China as an excuse is ironic because China's rapid economic development has been largely fueled by American consumers' insatiable demand for its goods. Net exports from China to the US accounted for 23 percent of Chinese greenhouse gas emissions.
The Philipppines was a major source of discussion at the Bali Conference after the environmental group, Germanwatch, released a report citing the Philippines as the world's top climate change victim in 2006 for the strong typhoons which caused the Legazpi Mudslide and the Southern Leyte Landslide. They were the world's 2nd and 3rd deadliest disasters of 2006 claiming the lives of 2,511 people and rendering almost 800,000 families homeless. The natural disasters inflicted on the Philippines were always exacerbated by man-made disasters like the illegal logging which deprive the country of valuable forest trees that could stop the rain waters from flooding the lowland areas.
The Bali Conference delegates called on the Philippines to pass the Renewable Energy Bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Gordon, which has in various forms languished in the Philippine Congress for almost 10 years.
The bill will actively promote the development of renewable energy sources abundant in the country like solar, wind, tidal and geothermal and setting time-bound renewable energy targets. It will ensure that the Philippines will wean itself away from overdependence on power generated through fossil fuels like oil and coal which have been identified as major contributors to climate change.
Passage of the Renewable Energy bill is especially critical because of the rising price of oil which now costs more than a US$100 a barrel. "With the RE Bill," Jasper Inventor of Greenpeace said, "the country will utilize its massive renewable energy potential. The Philippines' wind energy potential alone reaches up to more than 70,000 MW. Solar power is abundant in the country and is capable of producing 1500 hours of power annually at 5 kilowatt hours per square meter per day." There is very little time left. Pass the Renewable Energy Bill now!
On a personal note, I would like to express my condolences to the family of Charles Mosser, a philanthropist and environmentalist who died in the Philippines on October 17, 2007 at the age of 82.
Charles and his wife, Annabelle Indemne Mosser, amassed a fortune in San Francisco real estate, a part of which they used to invest in Annabelle's home province of Negros. They bought or leased more than 20,000 denuded hectares of mountain land and funded the planting there of their goal of 18 million trees of which two million have already been planted.
In 2005, the Philippine Congress granted Charles Mosser the Philippine citizenship he had long sought.
On that note, I wish you all the happiest of holidays.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to www.rodel50.blogspot.com or send your letter to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800.
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