Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080514-136457/Public-Education-Endangered-in-California
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Public Education Endangered in California
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: May 14, 2008
There are close to 4,000 Filipino students enrolled at the City College of San Francisco, by far the largest Filipino student body outside the Philippines. Their large presence accounts for why four of the last eight student body presidents at the main Ocean campus have been Filipinos. They are beneficiaries of California's landmark 1960 Master Plan for Education which transformed educational opportunity in California for several generations and became the national model for public higher education.
The Plan defined specific roles for the University of California (UC), the California State University (CSU), and the California Community Colleges system (CCC). Its underlying principle was that some form of higher education should be available to everyone, based not on their economic means but on their academic persistence and proficiency.
But now that principle is in jeopardy, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that the projected budget deficit for this year is close to $20 billion dollars, which will mean deep cuts in education. Although the state has weathered budget crises in the past, this time may turn out to be the worst for California public education and particularly for its community colleges.
Because property tax revenues are coming in far lower than predicted when the budget was signed last summer, the Governor’s budget proposes to cut community colleges by nearly half a billion dollars to cover the shortfall, including about $92 million that will immediately be trimmed from their budgets by July 1, 2008.
For City College of San Francisco, this shortfall translates to nearly a $3 million loss, enough to defund about 460 course sections. Although operating costs continue to increase by nearly 5 percent, with health care costs increasing into the double digits, the state is not providing any money to cover the inflationary costs, creating an $8 million hole in the projected $195-M annual budget of City College.
How will City College deal with this budget crisis so that it can continue to educate its 110,000 students in 10 campuses throughout San Francisco?
Eighty-five percent of the students who attend City College work, so they need to get through college as fast as possible. Others need to make up or fill-in so that they can complete their studies or transfer to a 4-year college or university. Many want to accelerate their course work in order to enter the job market as soon as possible. For them, summer school classes are not a luxury, they are a necessity.
To deal with the crisis, City College will not replace administrative, faculty, or staff retirements. If the Governor’s proposed budget becomes a reality, City College will have no choice but to eliminate 500 classes, 50 of which are English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. This will result in larger class sizes, longer lines, fewer offerings, and less student services, all of which translate to a longer time before the students achieve their educational goals.
City College will also have to dip into its reserves to help balance its budget for this fiscal year. But, unfortunately, this is not a one-year budget problem. Next year, 2008-2009, is expected to be devastating.
To deal with the problem, the state’s Legislative Analyst is proposing a hike in student fees from $20 to $26 per unit, a 30% increase in one year. The last time tuition fees were increased, 300,000 students statewide dropped out, many postponing their college education for at least a year.
The impact of the proposed tuition fee increase will not be shared equally as it will fall hardest on the most vulnerable students, students who have just lost their jobs and cannot afford to pay the increased fees. Students who have budgeted $6 per day for food would have to go two weeks with no food to pay for the fee increases.
Furthermore, since the proposed tuition fee increases will be for all of public higher education in California, fewer students will be able to afford a CSU or UC education, and more of them will have to rely on the California community colleges for their education. Their entry will edge out the traditional community college student, with the least educated and those with the lowest income pushed out and denied their opportunity to achieve the American Dream.
The present fiscal crisis can be traced back to the November 17, 2003 Executive Order of Gov. Schwarzenegger eliminating the $200 Vehicle License Fee (VLF), an election vow he fulfilled but which has meant an aggregate loss of $9-B in general revenues, much of which would have gone to education.
To avert the crisis, new revenue enhancements need to be part of the budget solution, not just cuts. There should be no fee increases for the students as the budget should not be balanced on their backs.
Now, more than ever, the Filipino community should demand that public higher education must be enhanced, not reduced.
Rodel Rodis is a Trustee of the San Francisco Community College Board; he has served three terms as Board President and chair of the Finance Committee.
Comments can be sent to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Save our pastor
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080506-134927/Save-our-pastor
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Save our pastor
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: May 06, 2008
When Pope Benedict XVI delivered a homily at the Nationals Stadium in Washington DC on April 17, 2008, he asked the congregation to “love your priests and to affirm them in the excellent work that they do.”
A few hundred miles north of that stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey, the faithful parishioners of the St. Frances Cabrini Parish led by Joseph Cicerella, are doing just that. They fervently love their parish priest, Fr. Edgardo Abano, and they’re waging a holy war against the local Bishop to get him back.
Last year Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen, N.J. informed Fr. Abano that the diocese will be closing down St. Frances Cabrini Catholic School because enrollment was down, the school was underused and St. Frances Cabrini Church was subsidizing the school.
Despite the subsidy, Fr. Abano’s church was still able to pay the yearly assessments to the Diocese but not enough to pay the Diocesan debts. For some unknown reason, in 2000, the Metuchen Diocese “forgave” debts owed by many parishes in honor of Jubilee Year, with the exception of St. Frances Cabrini Parish. Bishop Bootkoski believed that if the Cabrini school closed down, the parish would be able to pay off its diocesan debts. But Fr. Abano disagreed and led his parishioners in protesting the planned closure of the parish school.
In the middle of this dispute in September last year, the diocese contacted the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey to report that Glenn Obrero, a Filipino diocesan employee and a seminarian at the Immaculate Conception Seminary, had filed a complaint of sexual misconduct against Fr. Abano in 2005. Obrero, who had been petitioned by the diocese for a work visa in 2005, complained that Fr. Abano had inappropriately touched him in the chest and buttocks when he first started working for the diocese.
Bishop Bootkoski did nothing about Obrero’s complaint until September of 2007 when he was locked in a dispute with Fr. Abano over the fate of the Cabrini school.
On October 19, 2007, Glenn Obrero was at a police station when he made a tapped phone call to Fr. Abano to wish him a happy birthday. As planned with the police investigators, Obrero steered the Tagalog conversation to the “touching” incident which occurred in 2005. After the phone call, a court interpreter, Bong Nepomuceno, translated the transcripts into English which were then reviewed by the police.
On October 23, 2007, after reviewing the transcripts, the police arrested Fr. Abano at the Cabrini parish rectory charging him with sexual misconduct. The police denied Fr. Abano’s request to be allowed to put on his clothes and was brought to the police station for booking in his undershirt, shorts and slippers. On the same night, he was released on $1,500 bail.
The following day, Bishop Bootkoski asked Fr. Abano to resign as Pastor of St. Frances Cabrini Parish (since 1992); as Director of the Office of Multicultural Ministries of the Metuchen Diocese that oversees nine ethnic ministries; as Chairman of the Commission for the Filipino Apostolate of the Diocese of Metuchen; and as Head Shepherd of the Association of Filipino Catholic Charismatic Prayer Communities of the U.S.A. and Canada, an association with around 40,000 members. Fr. Abano dutifully complied.
Fr. Abano was ordained as a priest in the United States on May 18, 1985 and had served many parishes in New Jersey prior to St. Frances Cabrini Parish including; Our Lady of Lourdes in Whitehouse Station; Immaculate Concepcion Church in Somerville, Saints Philip and James Church in Phillipsburg; and Our Lady of Fatima in Piscataway.
His arrest on October 23, 2007 was carried by local and international news and media services including The Filipino Channel, ABS-CBN, which reported the incident to its international audience.
Supporters of Fr. Abano set up a legal defense fund and hired Joseph Benedict, a highly-regarded criminal defense lawyer to represent Fr. Abano. They created a website, http:www.SaveOurPastor.org, to express show their full support for Fr. Abano.
Atty. Benedict hired another Tagalog interpreter to listen to the tape and translate it. The new translation showed that Fr. Abano denied ever touching Obrero while the first translation showed no such denial, which the police had misconstrued as affirming the misconduct.
“The denials were there (in the new transcript),” Benedict said, “I’m not sure that Fr. Abano would have been charged in the first place if they had an accurate transcript.” He then filed for trial by grand jury based on the new translation which contradicted the key piece of evidence the prosecutor’s office had on the alleged crime.
On February 22, 2008, Fr. Abano and Obrero both testified separately before a grand jury in New Brunswick, N.J. After only 45 minutes of grand jury deliberation, Middlesex Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua announced that the jury issued a “no bill” finding which meant that the prosecution had no case. All charges against Fr. Abano were dropped.
After the findings were announced, Bishop Bootkoski released a statement saying that he would review the grand jury’s findings and meet with Fr. Abano before making a decision about the priest’s future.
According to Fr. Abano’s sister, his primary focus right now is to “clear his good name” and that of his family. He wants “to get back his faculties to practice his priestly ministry.” This test of faith has “only strengthened his resolve and conviction that he will continue his vocation as a priest to serve God and His people.”
More than 70 days have passed and Bishop Bootkoski still has not made a decision about Fr. Abano’s fate. Please contact Bishop Bootkoski (bishop@diometuchen.org) and urge him to reinstate Fr. Abano to his parish and to the national posts that he was compelled to resign from. Tell him to heed the Pope's words.
My thanks to Merci Javier from Pinoywired.com for bringing this case to my attention. Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080506-134927/Save-our-pastor
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Save our pastor
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: May 06, 2008
When Pope Benedict XVI delivered a homily at the Nationals Stadium in Washington DC on April 17, 2008, he asked the congregation to “love your priests and to affirm them in the excellent work that they do.”
A few hundred miles north of that stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey, the faithful parishioners of the St. Frances Cabrini Parish led by Joseph Cicerella, are doing just that. They fervently love their parish priest, Fr. Edgardo Abano, and they’re waging a holy war against the local Bishop to get him back.
Last year Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen, N.J. informed Fr. Abano that the diocese will be closing down St. Frances Cabrini Catholic School because enrollment was down, the school was underused and St. Frances Cabrini Church was subsidizing the school.
Despite the subsidy, Fr. Abano’s church was still able to pay the yearly assessments to the Diocese but not enough to pay the Diocesan debts. For some unknown reason, in 2000, the Metuchen Diocese “forgave” debts owed by many parishes in honor of Jubilee Year, with the exception of St. Frances Cabrini Parish. Bishop Bootkoski believed that if the Cabrini school closed down, the parish would be able to pay off its diocesan debts. But Fr. Abano disagreed and led his parishioners in protesting the planned closure of the parish school.
In the middle of this dispute in September last year, the diocese contacted the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey to report that Glenn Obrero, a Filipino diocesan employee and a seminarian at the Immaculate Conception Seminary, had filed a complaint of sexual misconduct against Fr. Abano in 2005. Obrero, who had been petitioned by the diocese for a work visa in 2005, complained that Fr. Abano had inappropriately touched him in the chest and buttocks when he first started working for the diocese.
Bishop Bootkoski did nothing about Obrero’s complaint until September of 2007 when he was locked in a dispute with Fr. Abano over the fate of the Cabrini school.
On October 19, 2007, Glenn Obrero was at a police station when he made a tapped phone call to Fr. Abano to wish him a happy birthday. As planned with the police investigators, Obrero steered the Tagalog conversation to the “touching” incident which occurred in 2005. After the phone call, a court interpreter, Bong Nepomuceno, translated the transcripts into English which were then reviewed by the police.
On October 23, 2007, after reviewing the transcripts, the police arrested Fr. Abano at the Cabrini parish rectory charging him with sexual misconduct. The police denied Fr. Abano’s request to be allowed to put on his clothes and was brought to the police station for booking in his undershirt, shorts and slippers. On the same night, he was released on $1,500 bail.
The following day, Bishop Bootkoski asked Fr. Abano to resign as Pastor of St. Frances Cabrini Parish (since 1992); as Director of the Office of Multicultural Ministries of the Metuchen Diocese that oversees nine ethnic ministries; as Chairman of the Commission for the Filipino Apostolate of the Diocese of Metuchen; and as Head Shepherd of the Association of Filipino Catholic Charismatic Prayer Communities of the U.S.A. and Canada, an association with around 40,000 members. Fr. Abano dutifully complied.
Fr. Abano was ordained as a priest in the United States on May 18, 1985 and had served many parishes in New Jersey prior to St. Frances Cabrini Parish including; Our Lady of Lourdes in Whitehouse Station; Immaculate Concepcion Church in Somerville, Saints Philip and James Church in Phillipsburg; and Our Lady of Fatima in Piscataway.
His arrest on October 23, 2007 was carried by local and international news and media services including The Filipino Channel, ABS-CBN, which reported the incident to its international audience.
Supporters of Fr. Abano set up a legal defense fund and hired Joseph Benedict, a highly-regarded criminal defense lawyer to represent Fr. Abano. They created a website, http:www.SaveOurPastor.org, to express show their full support for Fr. Abano.
Atty. Benedict hired another Tagalog interpreter to listen to the tape and translate it. The new translation showed that Fr. Abano denied ever touching Obrero while the first translation showed no such denial, which the police had misconstrued as affirming the misconduct.
“The denials were there (in the new transcript),” Benedict said, “I’m not sure that Fr. Abano would have been charged in the first place if they had an accurate transcript.” He then filed for trial by grand jury based on the new translation which contradicted the key piece of evidence the prosecutor’s office had on the alleged crime.
On February 22, 2008, Fr. Abano and Obrero both testified separately before a grand jury in New Brunswick, N.J. After only 45 minutes of grand jury deliberation, Middlesex Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua announced that the jury issued a “no bill” finding which meant that the prosecution had no case. All charges against Fr. Abano were dropped.
After the findings were announced, Bishop Bootkoski released a statement saying that he would review the grand jury’s findings and meet with Fr. Abano before making a decision about the priest’s future.
According to Fr. Abano’s sister, his primary focus right now is to “clear his good name” and that of his family. He wants “to get back his faculties to practice his priestly ministry.” This test of faith has “only strengthened his resolve and conviction that he will continue his vocation as a priest to serve God and His people.”
More than 70 days have passed and Bishop Bootkoski still has not made a decision about Fr. Abano’s fate. Please contact Bishop Bootkoski (bishop@diometuchen.org) and urge him to reinstate Fr. Abano to his parish and to the national posts that he was compelled to resign from. Tell him to heed the Pope's words.
My thanks to Merci Javier from Pinoywired.com for bringing this case to my attention. Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
The first Filipino
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080429-133372/The-first-Filipino
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : The first Filipino
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 29, 2008
This is a speech I delivered after receiving the Dr. Jose Rizal Achievement Award at the induction of officers of the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California (FBANC) held on April 25, 2008 in San Francisco.
This award holds special significance to me as my mother was born and raised in Calamba, Laguna, just a short block from the home where Dr. Jose Rizal was born on June 19, 1861. As a child, I spent many summers with my grandfather where I would often stroll over to Rizal’s childhood home, which had become a museum. I remember devouring all the books about Rizal that I could find there.
As it turned out, I went to elementary school at the Letran College in Intramuros in the walled city of Manila just a few blocks from Fort Santiago, where Rizal was incarcerated and executed on December 30, 1896. In between his birth in Calamba and his death near Fort Santiago, Rizal informed and defined the Filipino national identity.
Before Dr. Rizal, the people who lived in Las Islas Filipinas were generally called indios by their colonial masters. In the logs of Spanish galleon ships plying the Manila-Acapulco trade, the native mariners were referred to as “Luzon indios” or “Visayan indios” but always “indios” regardless of whether they were Ilocanos, Tagalogs, Cebuanos, Ilonggos or any number of disunited, disparate tribes.
The word “Filipino,” after King Felipe II of Spain, was a pejorative insult employed by Spanish citizens born in Spain of pure Spanish blood to put down and denigrate Spanish citizens born in the Philippine Islands whose parents were not pure Spaniards. Through his writings, Dr. Rizal elevated Filipino and infused it with a distinct racial, ethnic, cultural and political identity. We became one people in one nation because of Dr. Jose Rizal and we all would not now be members of the "Filipino" Bar Association of Northern California if it were not for him.
I am aware that there are still many Filipinos who reject their own national identity. When I attended a conference in Atlanta many years ago, I sought out Filipinos from the thousands of delegates there. When I spotted someone who might be Pinoy, I went up to him and asked him if he was Filipino and he replied "I was."
What he does not understand is that while he may no longer consider himself a Filipino, others will. He may find himself as I did five years ago in a Walgreens store paying $44.32 worth of goods with an old but genuine $100 bill only to have the white manager call the police based on his suspicion that the bill may be counterfeit simply because the bearer is a Filipino. The white police officers may believe the bill is counterfeit simply because the suspect they arrested, as they wrote down in the police report, was wearing "khaki shirt, khaki pants" with perhaps a khaki skin.
Racial profiling does not distinguish between those who consider themselves Filipino and those who believe they are “former Filipinos.” What my Walgreens experience taught me is that even in this day and age, no matter what individual honors you achieve, you will not be judged by your character but by the mere color of your skin.
We are fortunate to belong to a legal profession that can do something about racial profiling. I sued Walgreens and that billion dollar company settled with me for an undisclosed sum. I sued the San Francisco Police Department and the police officers who arrested me. The police department issued an apology and issued a new policy directing officers not to arrest anyone suspected of using a counterfeit bill without some evidence that the suspect knew the bill was counterfeit.
But the two white San Francisco police officers that arrested me, admittedly without probable cause, brought my state civil case against them to the federal court where they filed a motion to dismiss my suit on the basis of qualified immunity. When the judge denied their motion, the officers appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit which issued a published opinion on August 28, 2007 upholding the federal court decision.
Unfortunately, the police officers have chosen to appeal the case all the way to the US Supreme Court. If that Court grants certiorari to hear their appeal, then I invite all the members of the Filipino Bar to join me in Washington DC to hear oral arguments on this significant civil rights issue. Chief Justice Charles Hughes once said “If you think the Constitution provides you security, remember that they are just words. If you think the laws provide you protection, remember that they are just statutes. The real power of the people lies in those who interpret the Constitution to benefit the people. “
That, my fellow Filipino attorneys, is our challenge - to use the law to help and benefit our community, in the proud spirit of Dr. Jose Rizal.
Please send comments to _Rodel50@aol.com_ (mailto:Rodel50@aol.com) or log on to rodel50.
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080429-133372/The-first-Filipino
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : The first Filipino
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 29, 2008
This is a speech I delivered after receiving the Dr. Jose Rizal Achievement Award at the induction of officers of the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California (FBANC) held on April 25, 2008 in San Francisco.
This award holds special significance to me as my mother was born and raised in Calamba, Laguna, just a short block from the home where Dr. Jose Rizal was born on June 19, 1861. As a child, I spent many summers with my grandfather where I would often stroll over to Rizal’s childhood home, which had become a museum. I remember devouring all the books about Rizal that I could find there.
As it turned out, I went to elementary school at the Letran College in Intramuros in the walled city of Manila just a few blocks from Fort Santiago, where Rizal was incarcerated and executed on December 30, 1896. In between his birth in Calamba and his death near Fort Santiago, Rizal informed and defined the Filipino national identity.
Before Dr. Rizal, the people who lived in Las Islas Filipinas were generally called indios by their colonial masters. In the logs of Spanish galleon ships plying the Manila-Acapulco trade, the native mariners were referred to as “Luzon indios” or “Visayan indios” but always “indios” regardless of whether they were Ilocanos, Tagalogs, Cebuanos, Ilonggos or any number of disunited, disparate tribes.
The word “Filipino,” after King Felipe II of Spain, was a pejorative insult employed by Spanish citizens born in Spain of pure Spanish blood to put down and denigrate Spanish citizens born in the Philippine Islands whose parents were not pure Spaniards. Through his writings, Dr. Rizal elevated Filipino and infused it with a distinct racial, ethnic, cultural and political identity. We became one people in one nation because of Dr. Jose Rizal and we all would not now be members of the "Filipino" Bar Association of Northern California if it were not for him.
I am aware that there are still many Filipinos who reject their own national identity. When I attended a conference in Atlanta many years ago, I sought out Filipinos from the thousands of delegates there. When I spotted someone who might be Pinoy, I went up to him and asked him if he was Filipino and he replied "I was."
What he does not understand is that while he may no longer consider himself a Filipino, others will. He may find himself as I did five years ago in a Walgreens store paying $44.32 worth of goods with an old but genuine $100 bill only to have the white manager call the police based on his suspicion that the bill may be counterfeit simply because the bearer is a Filipino. The white police officers may believe the bill is counterfeit simply because the suspect they arrested, as they wrote down in the police report, was wearing "khaki shirt, khaki pants" with perhaps a khaki skin.
Racial profiling does not distinguish between those who consider themselves Filipino and those who believe they are “former Filipinos.” What my Walgreens experience taught me is that even in this day and age, no matter what individual honors you achieve, you will not be judged by your character but by the mere color of your skin.
We are fortunate to belong to a legal profession that can do something about racial profiling. I sued Walgreens and that billion dollar company settled with me for an undisclosed sum. I sued the San Francisco Police Department and the police officers who arrested me. The police department issued an apology and issued a new policy directing officers not to arrest anyone suspected of using a counterfeit bill without some evidence that the suspect knew the bill was counterfeit.
But the two white San Francisco police officers that arrested me, admittedly without probable cause, brought my state civil case against them to the federal court where they filed a motion to dismiss my suit on the basis of qualified immunity. When the judge denied their motion, the officers appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit which issued a published opinion on August 28, 2007 upholding the federal court decision.
Unfortunately, the police officers have chosen to appeal the case all the way to the US Supreme Court. If that Court grants certiorari to hear their appeal, then I invite all the members of the Filipino Bar to join me in Washington DC to hear oral arguments on this significant civil rights issue. Chief Justice Charles Hughes once said “If you think the Constitution provides you security, remember that they are just words. If you think the laws provide you protection, remember that they are just statutes. The real power of the people lies in those who interpret the Constitution to benefit the people. “
That, my fellow Filipino attorneys, is our challenge - to use the law to help and benefit our community, in the proud spirit of Dr. Jose Rizal.
Please send comments to _Rodel50@aol.com_ (mailto:Rodel50@aol.com) or log on to rodel50.
Tina’s children
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080423-132159/Tinas-children
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Tina’s children
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 23, 2008
The severe rice shortage that may yet result in food riots in the Philippines has forced the staunchly “Pro-Life” government of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to belatedly concede the need to raise public awareness of population control.
After years of rejecting United Nations and USAID funding for family planning programs, the government has finally realized that maintaining current levels of rice production is not nearly enough when the Philippine population is growing by at least 2 million a year. In 1945, there were 20-M Filipinos. By 2000, the population had risen to 76.5-M. Less than 8 years later, it is now 88.57-M and is expected to break the 100-M mark in just 5 years.
According to former Health Secretary Alberto Romualdez, “the worst part of it all is that the people who are growing at a faster rate are Filipinos who could not afford it. And the rich who have the money, are actually not growing at all, with a growth rate of zero percent,” he said.
With less arable land available for rice production and higher costs for fuel, seeds and fertilizers, the government is straining to retain previous levels of productivity that, even if successful, will still yield little or no rice for 2-M people.
According to a study just released by the European Union (2008 Philippine Development Forum), "Continued rapid population growth in the Philippines is draining health and economic resources and slowing down economic growth. It also threatens the sustainability of rural livelihoods and is inexorably destroying the remaining natural forest and marine habitats. The poor are paying the highest price, both individually and collectively. The European Union therefore calls for the effective implementation of a comprehensive national family planning policy, promoting access to family planning methods."
But raising public awareness of population control is not enough if the only kind of birth control endorsed by the government is the “natural family planning method” where couples are encouraged to have sex only during certain “safe” periods in a woman’s menstrual cycle, a method otherwise known as “the Vatican roulette”.
Alas, even this wholly unreliable method cannot be effectively promoted because, according to Malacañang Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, the national government is “no longer involved in implementing the birth control program since this has been devolved to local government units (LGUs)” where the local chief executives are in charge of implementing birth control policies in their jurisdictions.
What compounds the problem is that even discussing the need for population control has drawn opposition from the Catholic Church and pro-lifers in the Arroyo Administration led by former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, currently Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources. Atienza believes that the solution to the present food crisis is a strong agricultural production program and not birth control.
When Atienza was mayor of Manila from 2000 to 2006, he issued Executive Order 003 (EO 003) banning the use of artificial contraceptives in all of Manila ’s public health facilities. Although not officially, this order was even extended to private pharmacies and drug stores in Manila which were prohibited from selling any artificial method of birth control, even condoms.
Although Atienza is no longer mayor, his ban still remains in effect. So in January of this year, 20 directly affected women filed suit to invalidate EO 003. One of the female plaintiffs, Tina, age 36, wanted to have only two children, according to her affidavit. Before Atienza was elected mayor, Manila had a health policy which allowed her to obtain contraceptive supplies from the Manila health system. After Atienza abolished this program, Tina gave birth to two more children. After 4 children, she asked to have her tubes tied (tubal ligation) so that she could no longer have babies, but this was not allowed because of EO 003. Tina now has eight children.
In her affidavit, Tina stated:
"Our daily income is 150 pesos from scavenging. My family’s breakfast includes three sachets of coffee and a few pieces of pandesal [bread rolls]. One kilo of rice is insufficient for lunch and dinner. We make do with soy sauce or salt if we can’t afford to buy ten pesos’ worth of cooked vegetable for lunch or dried fish for dinner. If our daily earnings only amount to below 70 pesos, we only have bread for dinner.
"My children are malnourished. Oftentimes, they miss a meal. My sixth child, who was underweight at birth, hasn’t recovered yet. I give each of my children five pesos for school allowance. I feel sorry for them because I can’t buy them school shoes. They miss lunch if they have to pay something in school. One of my children had to stop going to school.
"My eldest son died of rheumatic heart disease. Most of our earnings went to his medication. My husband lost his job as security guard, after he was unable to pay more than 3,000 pesos needed to renew his license.”
What kind of lives have Tina and her children been condemned to live? Is being pro-life being pro-miserable life?
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080423-132159/Tinas-children
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Tina’s children
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 23, 2008
The severe rice shortage that may yet result in food riots in the Philippines has forced the staunchly “Pro-Life” government of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to belatedly concede the need to raise public awareness of population control.
After years of rejecting United Nations and USAID funding for family planning programs, the government has finally realized that maintaining current levels of rice production is not nearly enough when the Philippine population is growing by at least 2 million a year. In 1945, there were 20-M Filipinos. By 2000, the population had risen to 76.5-M. Less than 8 years later, it is now 88.57-M and is expected to break the 100-M mark in just 5 years.
According to former Health Secretary Alberto Romualdez, “the worst part of it all is that the people who are growing at a faster rate are Filipinos who could not afford it. And the rich who have the money, are actually not growing at all, with a growth rate of zero percent,” he said.
With less arable land available for rice production and higher costs for fuel, seeds and fertilizers, the government is straining to retain previous levels of productivity that, even if successful, will still yield little or no rice for 2-M people.
According to a study just released by the European Union (2008 Philippine Development Forum), "Continued rapid population growth in the Philippines is draining health and economic resources and slowing down economic growth. It also threatens the sustainability of rural livelihoods and is inexorably destroying the remaining natural forest and marine habitats. The poor are paying the highest price, both individually and collectively. The European Union therefore calls for the effective implementation of a comprehensive national family planning policy, promoting access to family planning methods."
But raising public awareness of population control is not enough if the only kind of birth control endorsed by the government is the “natural family planning method” where couples are encouraged to have sex only during certain “safe” periods in a woman’s menstrual cycle, a method otherwise known as “the Vatican roulette”.
Alas, even this wholly unreliable method cannot be effectively promoted because, according to Malacañang Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, the national government is “no longer involved in implementing the birth control program since this has been devolved to local government units (LGUs)” where the local chief executives are in charge of implementing birth control policies in their jurisdictions.
What compounds the problem is that even discussing the need for population control has drawn opposition from the Catholic Church and pro-lifers in the Arroyo Administration led by former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, currently Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources. Atienza believes that the solution to the present food crisis is a strong agricultural production program and not birth control.
When Atienza was mayor of Manila from 2000 to 2006, he issued Executive Order 003 (EO 003) banning the use of artificial contraceptives in all of Manila ’s public health facilities. Although not officially, this order was even extended to private pharmacies and drug stores in Manila which were prohibited from selling any artificial method of birth control, even condoms.
Although Atienza is no longer mayor, his ban still remains in effect. So in January of this year, 20 directly affected women filed suit to invalidate EO 003. One of the female plaintiffs, Tina, age 36, wanted to have only two children, according to her affidavit. Before Atienza was elected mayor, Manila had a health policy which allowed her to obtain contraceptive supplies from the Manila health system. After Atienza abolished this program, Tina gave birth to two more children. After 4 children, she asked to have her tubes tied (tubal ligation) so that she could no longer have babies, but this was not allowed because of EO 003. Tina now has eight children.
In her affidavit, Tina stated:
"Our daily income is 150 pesos from scavenging. My family’s breakfast includes three sachets of coffee and a few pieces of pandesal [bread rolls]. One kilo of rice is insufficient for lunch and dinner. We make do with soy sauce or salt if we can’t afford to buy ten pesos’ worth of cooked vegetable for lunch or dried fish for dinner. If our daily earnings only amount to below 70 pesos, we only have bread for dinner.
"My children are malnourished. Oftentimes, they miss a meal. My sixth child, who was underweight at birth, hasn’t recovered yet. I give each of my children five pesos for school allowance. I feel sorry for them because I can’t buy them school shoes. They miss lunch if they have to pay something in school. One of my children had to stop going to school.
"My eldest son died of rheumatic heart disease. Most of our earnings went to his medication. My husband lost his job as security guard, after he was unable to pay more than 3,000 pesos needed to renew his license.”
What kind of lives have Tina and her children been condemned to live? Is being pro-life being pro-miserable life?
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Friday, April 18, 2008
English, Tagalog or both?
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : English, Tagalog or both?
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 16, 2008
Russ Sandlin, an American businessman in the Philippines, recently closed his call center in Manila because he said he could not find enough English proficient workers. “Not even 3 percent of the students who graduate college here are employable in call centers,” he complained.
Sandlin cited a Philippine Department of Education report disclosing that 80 percent of secondary school teachers in the Philippines failed an English proficiency test last year. “English is the only thing that can save the country,” he wrote, “and no one here cares or even understands that the Filipinos have a crisis.”
Sandlin’s discouraging comments came in the form of an e-mail blasting the Philippine Daily Inquirer for publishing the op-ed article of Ateneo English Prof. Isabel Pefianco Martin, president of the Linguistic Society of the Philippines, who criticized the “persistent efforts of lawmakers to institutionalize English as the sole language of learning in basic education.”
“Good luck to the Inquirer. It needs to reevaluate its writers,” Sandlin wrote, “unless it supports such a misguided set of ideas. God save the Philippines. I hate to see the country falling ever deeper into an English-deprived abyss.”
Prof. Martin’s op-ed piece, which was published on April 8, 2008 (“Myths about languages in the Philippines”), criticized the narrow thinking behind a bill in the Philippine Congress (House Bill 305) mandating the use of English as the medium of instruction in all academic subjects from Grade 3 onwards and encouraging the use of English as the medium of interaction outside the classrooms. It also proposes English as the language of assessment in all government examinations and entrance tests in all public schools and state universities and colleges.
The bill which was sponsored by Cebu Rep. Eduardo R. Gullas and co-sponsored by 207 other legislators (more than 2/3rds of the House membership) was approved on its third and final reading in the Lower House late last year. The Senate is slated to take up the bill in June.
If enacted into law, the bill will repeal a 33-year old policy of bilingual teaching in Philippine schools which encouraged the use of English and Filipino (Tagalog) as mediums of instruction.
“Targeting the learning of two languages is too much for the Filipino learners, especially in the lower grades. And if the child happens to be a non-Tagalog speaker, this task actually means learning two foreign languages at the same time, an almost impossible task,” Gullas said.
Prof. Martin’s op-ed piece criticized the bill for its underlying premise that “if you don’t know English, you simply don’t know.” She explained that the link between intelligence and English language proficiency is very flimsy. “In this world, you will find intelligent people who cannot speak a word of English, as well as not-so-smart ones who are native speakers of the language,” she asserted.
Prof. Martin criticized the narrow goal of the bill which is “to produce English-proficient graduates for contact centers, hospitals and medical transcription offices, never mind if these graduates are unthinking products of the schools.”
“The ability to speak like an American will certainly not ensure excellent performance in the contact center jobs,” she wrote, if the students lack “the ability to manage culture-diverse environments,” she wrote.
Even if there were universal agreement that Filipinos should aspire to English proficiency, there is still the question of how best to reach that goal. According to Prof. Martin, “research studies prove that learning a language becomes more effective when emotional barriers are eliminated.” She cited Linguist Stephen Krashen who taught that the formula for success in learning a language is painfully simple: the lower the feelings of fear (low affective filter), the higher the chances of learning
California adopted a policy of bilingual education in public elementary schools to help non-English speaking students transition to regular classes that were taught in English. The Filipino Education Center (FEC) on Harrison Street in San Francisco, for example, was set up by the San Francisco Unified School District in 1976 to offer bi-lingual classes to newly-arrived Filipino immigrant students in a program where Tagalog-speaking teachers would teach the traditional elementary courses in both Tagalog and English so that the students would not fear English and not be traumatized by native American students ridiculing their accents.
My friend Marivic Bamba immigrated to the US with her family when she was 5 and couldn’t speak English. Her parents enrolled her in the FEC and she then transitioned into the regular school curriculum after three years of bilingual education. Marivic went on to graduate from college and obtain a master’s degree and be appointed by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to be a department head (Director of the SF Human Rights Commission).
Studies showed that immigrant students (Latinos, Chinese, etc.) who went through bi-lingual education learned English more effectively than students who were enrolled directly into regular American English-speaking classes without the benefit of a bi-lingual transition program.
Prof. Martin points out that most Filipinos speak at least three different languages and English might not even be one of them. “So when English is first introduced to them, it should be introduced slowly and gently, with much respect for their first languages,” she urged.
“Teaching and learning English in the Philippines may be a difficult task, but it need not be a frightening experience,” Prof. Martin wrote. “So much has already been spent on testing the proficiency of teachers and then training these teachers to become more proficient in the language. But simply focusing on testing and training, without recognizing the multilingual context of teaching and learning English in the Philippines, only reinforces fear of the language.”
English proficiency should not be viewed as the measure of a nation’s success. How can we explain the economic ascendancies of Japan, China, and Korea where English is hardly spoken? Those countries educated their populations in their native languages using their languages as tools of communication. English should be similarly seen as a tool of communication, not as the goal of education.
Contrary to Sandlin's impression, Prof. Martin was not opposed to the use of English as a medium of instruction in Philippine schools (she's an English professor at the Ateneo) but the reservations she expressed concerned the lack of thought given to how to best teach English to the population. The goal is the same – an educated English-speaking population. It is the path – bilingual or monolingual – to the goal that is in dispute.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Global Networking : English, Tagalog or both?
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 16, 2008
Russ Sandlin, an American businessman in the Philippines, recently closed his call center in Manila because he said he could not find enough English proficient workers. “Not even 3 percent of the students who graduate college here are employable in call centers,” he complained.
Sandlin cited a Philippine Department of Education report disclosing that 80 percent of secondary school teachers in the Philippines failed an English proficiency test last year. “English is the only thing that can save the country,” he wrote, “and no one here cares or even understands that the Filipinos have a crisis.”
Sandlin’s discouraging comments came in the form of an e-mail blasting the Philippine Daily Inquirer for publishing the op-ed article of Ateneo English Prof. Isabel Pefianco Martin, president of the Linguistic Society of the Philippines, who criticized the “persistent efforts of lawmakers to institutionalize English as the sole language of learning in basic education.”
“Good luck to the Inquirer. It needs to reevaluate its writers,” Sandlin wrote, “unless it supports such a misguided set of ideas. God save the Philippines. I hate to see the country falling ever deeper into an English-deprived abyss.”
Prof. Martin’s op-ed piece, which was published on April 8, 2008 (“Myths about languages in the Philippines”), criticized the narrow thinking behind a bill in the Philippine Congress (House Bill 305) mandating the use of English as the medium of instruction in all academic subjects from Grade 3 onwards and encouraging the use of English as the medium of interaction outside the classrooms. It also proposes English as the language of assessment in all government examinations and entrance tests in all public schools and state universities and colleges.
The bill which was sponsored by Cebu Rep. Eduardo R. Gullas and co-sponsored by 207 other legislators (more than 2/3rds of the House membership) was approved on its third and final reading in the Lower House late last year. The Senate is slated to take up the bill in June.
If enacted into law, the bill will repeal a 33-year old policy of bilingual teaching in Philippine schools which encouraged the use of English and Filipino (Tagalog) as mediums of instruction.
“Targeting the learning of two languages is too much for the Filipino learners, especially in the lower grades. And if the child happens to be a non-Tagalog speaker, this task actually means learning two foreign languages at the same time, an almost impossible task,” Gullas said.
Prof. Martin’s op-ed piece criticized the bill for its underlying premise that “if you don’t know English, you simply don’t know.” She explained that the link between intelligence and English language proficiency is very flimsy. “In this world, you will find intelligent people who cannot speak a word of English, as well as not-so-smart ones who are native speakers of the language,” she asserted.
Prof. Martin criticized the narrow goal of the bill which is “to produce English-proficient graduates for contact centers, hospitals and medical transcription offices, never mind if these graduates are unthinking products of the schools.”
“The ability to speak like an American will certainly not ensure excellent performance in the contact center jobs,” she wrote, if the students lack “the ability to manage culture-diverse environments,” she wrote.
Even if there were universal agreement that Filipinos should aspire to English proficiency, there is still the question of how best to reach that goal. According to Prof. Martin, “research studies prove that learning a language becomes more effective when emotional barriers are eliminated.” She cited Linguist Stephen Krashen who taught that the formula for success in learning a language is painfully simple: the lower the feelings of fear (low affective filter), the higher the chances of learning
California adopted a policy of bilingual education in public elementary schools to help non-English speaking students transition to regular classes that were taught in English. The Filipino Education Center (FEC) on Harrison Street in San Francisco, for example, was set up by the San Francisco Unified School District in 1976 to offer bi-lingual classes to newly-arrived Filipino immigrant students in a program where Tagalog-speaking teachers would teach the traditional elementary courses in both Tagalog and English so that the students would not fear English and not be traumatized by native American students ridiculing their accents.
My friend Marivic Bamba immigrated to the US with her family when she was 5 and couldn’t speak English. Her parents enrolled her in the FEC and she then transitioned into the regular school curriculum after three years of bilingual education. Marivic went on to graduate from college and obtain a master’s degree and be appointed by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to be a department head (Director of the SF Human Rights Commission).
Studies showed that immigrant students (Latinos, Chinese, etc.) who went through bi-lingual education learned English more effectively than students who were enrolled directly into regular American English-speaking classes without the benefit of a bi-lingual transition program.
Prof. Martin points out that most Filipinos speak at least three different languages and English might not even be one of them. “So when English is first introduced to them, it should be introduced slowly and gently, with much respect for their first languages,” she urged.
“Teaching and learning English in the Philippines may be a difficult task, but it need not be a frightening experience,” Prof. Martin wrote. “So much has already been spent on testing the proficiency of teachers and then training these teachers to become more proficient in the language. But simply focusing on testing and training, without recognizing the multilingual context of teaching and learning English in the Philippines, only reinforces fear of the language.”
English proficiency should not be viewed as the measure of a nation’s success. How can we explain the economic ascendancies of Japan, China, and Korea where English is hardly spoken? Those countries educated their populations in their native languages using their languages as tools of communication. English should be similarly seen as a tool of communication, not as the goal of education.
Contrary to Sandlin's impression, Prof. Martin was not opposed to the use of English as a medium of instruction in Philippine schools (she's an English professor at the Ateneo) but the reservations she expressed concerned the lack of thought given to how to best teach English to the population. The goal is the same – an educated English-speaking population. It is the path – bilingual or monolingual – to the goal that is in dispute.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
English, Tagalog or both?
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : English, Tagalog or both?
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 16, 2008
Russ Sandlin, an American businessman in the Philippines, recently closed his call center in Manila because he said he could not find enough English proficient workers. “Not even 3 percent of the students who graduate college here are employable in call centers,” he complained.
Sandlin cited a Philippine Department of Education report disclosing that 80 percent of secondary school teachers in the Philippines failed an English proficiency test last year. “English is the only thing that can save the country,” he wrote, “and no one here cares or even understands that the Filipinos have a crisis.”
Sandlin’s discouraging comments came in the form of an e-mail blasting the Philippine Daily Inquirer for publishing the op-ed article of Ateneo English Prof. Isabel Pefianco Martin, president of the Linguistic Society of the Philippines, who criticized the “persistent efforts of lawmakers to institutionalize English as the sole language of learning in basic education.”
“Good luck to the Inquirer. It needs to reevaluate its writers,” Sandlin wrote, “unless it supports such a misguided set of ideas. God save the Philippines. I hate to see the country falling ever deeper into an English-deprived abyss.”
Prof. Martin’s op-ed piece, which was published on April 8, 2008 (“Myths about languages in the Philippines”), criticized the narrow thinking behind a bill in the Philippine Congress (House Bill 305) mandating the use of English as the medium of instruction in all academic subjects from Grade 3 onwards and encouraging the use of English as the medium of interaction outside the classrooms. It also proposes English as the language of assessment in all government examinations and entrance tests in all public schools and state universities and colleges.
The bill which was sponsored by Cebu Rep. Eduardo R. Gullas and co-sponsored by 207 other legislators (more than 2/3rds of the House membership) was approved on its third and final reading in the Lower House late last year. The Senate is slated to take up the bill in June.
If enacted into law, the bill will repeal a 33-year old policy of bilingual teaching in Philippine schools which encouraged the use of English and Filipino (Tagalog) as mediums of instruction.
“Targeting the learning of two languages is too much for the Filipino learners, especially in the lower grades. And if the child happens to be a non-Tagalog speaker, this task actually means learning two foreign languages at the same time, an almost impossible task,” Gullas said.
Prof. Martin’s op-ed piece criticized the bill for its underlying premise that “if you don’t know English, you simply don’t know.” She explained that the link between intelligence and English language proficiency is very flimsy. “In this world, you will find intelligent people who cannot speak a word of English, as well as not-so-smart ones who are native speakers of the language,” she asserted.
Prof. Martin criticized the narrow goal of the bill which is “to produce English-proficient graduates for contact centers, hospitals and medical transcription offices, never mind if these graduates are unthinking products of the schools.”
“The ability to speak like an American will certainly not ensure excellent performance in the contact center jobs,” she wrote, if the students lack “the ability to manage culture-diverse environments,” she wrote.
Even if there were universal agreement that Filipinos should aspire to English proficiency, there is still the question of how best to reach that goal. According to Prof. Martin, “research studies prove that learning a language becomes more effective when emotional barriers are eliminated.” She cited Linguist Stephen Krashen who taught that the formula for success in learning a language is painfully simple: the lower the feelings of fear (low affective filter), the higher the chances of learning
California adopted a policy of bilingual education in public elementary schools to help non-English speaking students transition to regular classes that were taught in English. The Filipino Education Center (FEC) on Harrison Street in San Francisco, for example, was set up by the San Francisco Unified School District in 1976 to offer bi-lingual classes to newly-arrived Filipino immigrant students in a program where Tagalog-speaking teachers would teach the traditional elementary courses in both Tagalog and English so that the students would not fear English and not be traumatized by native American students ridiculing their accents.
My friend Marivic Bamba immigrated to the US with her family when she was 5 and couldn’t speak English. Her parents enrolled her in the FEC and she then transitioned into the regular school curriculum after three years of bilingual education. Marivic went on to graduate from college and obtain a master’s degree and be appointed by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to be a department head (Director of the SF Human Rights Commission).
Studies showed that immigrant students (Latinos, Chinese, etc.) who went through bi-lingual education learned English more effectively than students who were enrolled directly into regular American English-speaking classes without the benefit of a bi-lingual transition program.
Prof. Martin points out that most Filipinos speak at least three different languages and English might not even be one of them. “So when English is first introduced to them, it should be introduced slowly and gently, with much respect for their first languages,” she urged.
“Teaching and learning English in the Philippines may be a difficult task, but it need not be a frightening experience,” Prof. Martin wrote. “So much has already been spent on testing the proficiency of teachers and then training these teachers to become more proficient in the language. But simply focusing on testing and training, without recognizing the multilingual context of teaching and learning English in the Philippines, only reinforces fear of the language.”
English proficiency should not be viewed as the measure of a nation’s success. How can we explain the economic ascendancies of Japan, China, and Korea where English is hardly spoken? Those countries educated their populations in their native languages using their languages as tools of communication. English should be similarly seen as a tool of communication, not as the goal of education.
Contrary to Sandlin's impression, Prof. Martin was not opposed to the use of English as a medium of instruction in Philippine schools (she's an English professor at the Ateneo) but the reservations she expressed concerned the lack of thought given to how to best teach English to the population. The goal is the same – an educated English-speaking population. It is the path – bilingual or monolingual – to the goal that is in dispute.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Global Networking : English, Tagalog or both?
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 16, 2008
Russ Sandlin, an American businessman in the Philippines, recently closed his call center in Manila because he said he could not find enough English proficient workers. “Not even 3 percent of the students who graduate college here are employable in call centers,” he complained.
Sandlin cited a Philippine Department of Education report disclosing that 80 percent of secondary school teachers in the Philippines failed an English proficiency test last year. “English is the only thing that can save the country,” he wrote, “and no one here cares or even understands that the Filipinos have a crisis.”
Sandlin’s discouraging comments came in the form of an e-mail blasting the Philippine Daily Inquirer for publishing the op-ed article of Ateneo English Prof. Isabel Pefianco Martin, president of the Linguistic Society of the Philippines, who criticized the “persistent efforts of lawmakers to institutionalize English as the sole language of learning in basic education.”
“Good luck to the Inquirer. It needs to reevaluate its writers,” Sandlin wrote, “unless it supports such a misguided set of ideas. God save the Philippines. I hate to see the country falling ever deeper into an English-deprived abyss.”
Prof. Martin’s op-ed piece, which was published on April 8, 2008 (“Myths about languages in the Philippines”), criticized the narrow thinking behind a bill in the Philippine Congress (House Bill 305) mandating the use of English as the medium of instruction in all academic subjects from Grade 3 onwards and encouraging the use of English as the medium of interaction outside the classrooms. It also proposes English as the language of assessment in all government examinations and entrance tests in all public schools and state universities and colleges.
The bill which was sponsored by Cebu Rep. Eduardo R. Gullas and co-sponsored by 207 other legislators (more than 2/3rds of the House membership) was approved on its third and final reading in the Lower House late last year. The Senate is slated to take up the bill in June.
If enacted into law, the bill will repeal a 33-year old policy of bilingual teaching in Philippine schools which encouraged the use of English and Filipino (Tagalog) as mediums of instruction.
“Targeting the learning of two languages is too much for the Filipino learners, especially in the lower grades. And if the child happens to be a non-Tagalog speaker, this task actually means learning two foreign languages at the same time, an almost impossible task,” Gullas said.
Prof. Martin’s op-ed piece criticized the bill for its underlying premise that “if you don’t know English, you simply don’t know.” She explained that the link between intelligence and English language proficiency is very flimsy. “In this world, you will find intelligent people who cannot speak a word of English, as well as not-so-smart ones who are native speakers of the language,” she asserted.
Prof. Martin criticized the narrow goal of the bill which is “to produce English-proficient graduates for contact centers, hospitals and medical transcription offices, never mind if these graduates are unthinking products of the schools.”
“The ability to speak like an American will certainly not ensure excellent performance in the contact center jobs,” she wrote, if the students lack “the ability to manage culture-diverse environments,” she wrote.
Even if there were universal agreement that Filipinos should aspire to English proficiency, there is still the question of how best to reach that goal. According to Prof. Martin, “research studies prove that learning a language becomes more effective when emotional barriers are eliminated.” She cited Linguist Stephen Krashen who taught that the formula for success in learning a language is painfully simple: the lower the feelings of fear (low affective filter), the higher the chances of learning
California adopted a policy of bilingual education in public elementary schools to help non-English speaking students transition to regular classes that were taught in English. The Filipino Education Center (FEC) on Harrison Street in San Francisco, for example, was set up by the San Francisco Unified School District in 1976 to offer bi-lingual classes to newly-arrived Filipino immigrant students in a program where Tagalog-speaking teachers would teach the traditional elementary courses in both Tagalog and English so that the students would not fear English and not be traumatized by native American students ridiculing their accents.
My friend Marivic Bamba immigrated to the US with her family when she was 5 and couldn’t speak English. Her parents enrolled her in the FEC and she then transitioned into the regular school curriculum after three years of bilingual education. Marivic went on to graduate from college and obtain a master’s degree and be appointed by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to be a department head (Director of the SF Human Rights Commission).
Studies showed that immigrant students (Latinos, Chinese, etc.) who went through bi-lingual education learned English more effectively than students who were enrolled directly into regular American English-speaking classes without the benefit of a bi-lingual transition program.
Prof. Martin points out that most Filipinos speak at least three different languages and English might not even be one of them. “So when English is first introduced to them, it should be introduced slowly and gently, with much respect for their first languages,” she urged.
“Teaching and learning English in the Philippines may be a difficult task, but it need not be a frightening experience,” Prof. Martin wrote. “So much has already been spent on testing the proficiency of teachers and then training these teachers to become more proficient in the language. But simply focusing on testing and training, without recognizing the multilingual context of teaching and learning English in the Philippines, only reinforces fear of the language.”
English proficiency should not be viewed as the measure of a nation’s success. How can we explain the economic ascendancies of Japan, China, and Korea where English is hardly spoken? Those countries educated their populations in their native languages using their languages as tools of communication. English should be similarly seen as a tool of communication, not as the goal of education.
Contrary to Sandlin's impression, Prof. Martin was not opposed to the use of English as a medium of instruction in Philippine schools (she's an English professor at the Ateneo) but the reservations she expressed concerned the lack of thought given to how to best teach English to the population. The goal is the same – an educated English-speaking population. It is the path – bilingual or monolingual – to the goal that is in dispute.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Imaginary Rice
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080409-129257/Imaginary-Rice
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Imaginary Rice
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 09, 2008
I asked a friend in Manila what he was doing nowadays and he replied that he wasn’t doing much, just waiting for GMA (Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) to fall. I asked him if he was at all concerned about the rice crisis we have been hearing so much about. He said that he thought it was just a ploy used by GMA to divert attention from the many scandals facing her government.
The irony is that GMA just announced that there is no rice shortage in the country and that talk about such a shortage is “imaginary”.
The reality is that talk about the crisis has pushed the Philippine Senate hearings on government corruption out of the front pages of Manila’s dailies which are now filled with stories about the “imaginary” crisis.
The other reality is that there is a real rice crisis that has been brought about by external and internal factors within and without the control of the government. In the Philippines, the world-wide skyrocketing of food and fuel costs has been exacerbated by the government’s actions and inactions.
In 2003, the world price of rice was $200 per metric ton. Four years later, in 2007, it jumped to $300. In less than a year since then, the price has doubled to $600 per metric ton, and it is expected to rise to as much as $1,000 per metric ton within a year.
The Philippines consumes approximately 18-M metric tons of rice a year to feed its growing 90-M population. But the country only produces about 90% of the rice it needs requiring it to import about 1.8-M metric tons, making it the world’s largest importer of rice.
Less than a month ago, the Philippines signed an agreement with Vietnam to purchase 1.5-M metric tons of rice for the year. But the agreement has an escape clause that would allow Vietnam to back off from the deal in “circumstances of natural disaster and harvest loss.” One major storm in Vietnam could easily precipitate a major rice crisis in the Philippines.
According to Sen. Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, the Philippines is facing a metaphorical “perfect storm" with the steep rise in the price of rice being compounded by skyrocketing fuel costs (oil at $110 a barrel) and a recession in the US economy. The latter is certain to dramatically reduce the remittances of overseas Filipinos which the country has relied on to stabilize the economy.
To avert the impending rice shortage, the Philippine government has asked fast food chains like Jollibee and MacDonald’s to lessen the rice served with their meals in order to conserve.
One serious solution is to improve the country’s post-harvest facilities. According to Rep. Abraham Mitra, “post-harvest losses in rice hovers around 14 to 25 percent.” If the country invested in more modern post-harvest facilities, there would be no need to import rice. At a cost of $600 per metric ton of rice for a total of 1.8 million metric tons, which the Philippines will be purchasing in the open market, the government will spend about $1 billion (P40 billion pesos), more than 100 times the Philippines annual post-harvest budget.
An official of the Philippine Department of Agriculture told the Manila Times that the country spends only 1,000 pesos per farmer, which is low compared to the equivalent of 3,000 to 4,000 pesos per farmer spent by countries like Thailand, Japan and other developed countries.
Former President Fidel Ramos blamed part of the problem on the conversion of farmlands into subdivisions and industrial zones. He said the government should change its land-use policy and prohibit the conversion of arable lands to commercial and industrial use.
But even where the land remains agricultural, much of the rice land has been converted into banana plantations, notably in Mindanao, because the price for banana exports is higher than the price of rice on the domestic market.
The Comprehensive Agricultural Reform Program (CARP) has also caused problems as millions of hectares of land have been divided up into small parcels of land where farmers can’t afford to buy and use tractors and machineries to improve production because of the economies of scale so they use carabaos instead, producing the average current yield of 2.5 tons of rice per hectare, the lowest in Asia.
Of the 8.5 million hectares of arable land in the Philippines, about 6.5 million hectares have been distributed under CARP to 4 million farmer-beneficiaries, about half of the area devoted to rice and corn. More than 3 million of the farmer beneficiaries have not received the support services and access to the credit they were promised and which they need to maximize the production of their land. The government spent 157 billion pesos to purchase the lands but has precious little to help the farmers once they own the land.
Former Pres. Ramos pointed out another problem exacerbating the rice crisis - too many mouths to feed. “The population issues, of course,” he said, “must also be revisited because the government has prohibited artificial family planning methods to be supported by the budget and therefore this is a very big withdrawal of support to the poorest families especially those in the countryside.”
As a concession to the powerful Catholic Church, the Arroyo government has refused to accept millions of dollars in aid from the United Nations and the USAID in support for population and family planning programs. Ramos denounced the rejection of UN family planning assistance “because we are going contrary to what is being practiced in the most Catholic countries in the world, like Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, Ireland, which are enjoying a population growth rate of less than one percent,” he said.
Ramos said the country’s birthrate is three times that of the countries mentioned, “so that this infringes on all of these new problems that we are now encountering including rice, and potable water.”
A growing Filipino population cannot be fed with imaginary rice.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080409-129257/Imaginary-Rice
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Imaginary Rice
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 09, 2008
I asked a friend in Manila what he was doing nowadays and he replied that he wasn’t doing much, just waiting for GMA (Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) to fall. I asked him if he was at all concerned about the rice crisis we have been hearing so much about. He said that he thought it was just a ploy used by GMA to divert attention from the many scandals facing her government.
The irony is that GMA just announced that there is no rice shortage in the country and that talk about such a shortage is “imaginary”.
The reality is that talk about the crisis has pushed the Philippine Senate hearings on government corruption out of the front pages of Manila’s dailies which are now filled with stories about the “imaginary” crisis.
The other reality is that there is a real rice crisis that has been brought about by external and internal factors within and without the control of the government. In the Philippines, the world-wide skyrocketing of food and fuel costs has been exacerbated by the government’s actions and inactions.
In 2003, the world price of rice was $200 per metric ton. Four years later, in 2007, it jumped to $300. In less than a year since then, the price has doubled to $600 per metric ton, and it is expected to rise to as much as $1,000 per metric ton within a year.
The Philippines consumes approximately 18-M metric tons of rice a year to feed its growing 90-M population. But the country only produces about 90% of the rice it needs requiring it to import about 1.8-M metric tons, making it the world’s largest importer of rice.
Less than a month ago, the Philippines signed an agreement with Vietnam to purchase 1.5-M metric tons of rice for the year. But the agreement has an escape clause that would allow Vietnam to back off from the deal in “circumstances of natural disaster and harvest loss.” One major storm in Vietnam could easily precipitate a major rice crisis in the Philippines.
According to Sen. Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, the Philippines is facing a metaphorical “perfect storm" with the steep rise in the price of rice being compounded by skyrocketing fuel costs (oil at $110 a barrel) and a recession in the US economy. The latter is certain to dramatically reduce the remittances of overseas Filipinos which the country has relied on to stabilize the economy.
To avert the impending rice shortage, the Philippine government has asked fast food chains like Jollibee and MacDonald’s to lessen the rice served with their meals in order to conserve.
One serious solution is to improve the country’s post-harvest facilities. According to Rep. Abraham Mitra, “post-harvest losses in rice hovers around 14 to 25 percent.” If the country invested in more modern post-harvest facilities, there would be no need to import rice. At a cost of $600 per metric ton of rice for a total of 1.8 million metric tons, which the Philippines will be purchasing in the open market, the government will spend about $1 billion (P40 billion pesos), more than 100 times the Philippines annual post-harvest budget.
An official of the Philippine Department of Agriculture told the Manila Times that the country spends only 1,000 pesos per farmer, which is low compared to the equivalent of 3,000 to 4,000 pesos per farmer spent by countries like Thailand, Japan and other developed countries.
Former President Fidel Ramos blamed part of the problem on the conversion of farmlands into subdivisions and industrial zones. He said the government should change its land-use policy and prohibit the conversion of arable lands to commercial and industrial use.
But even where the land remains agricultural, much of the rice land has been converted into banana plantations, notably in Mindanao, because the price for banana exports is higher than the price of rice on the domestic market.
The Comprehensive Agricultural Reform Program (CARP) has also caused problems as millions of hectares of land have been divided up into small parcels of land where farmers can’t afford to buy and use tractors and machineries to improve production because of the economies of scale so they use carabaos instead, producing the average current yield of 2.5 tons of rice per hectare, the lowest in Asia.
Of the 8.5 million hectares of arable land in the Philippines, about 6.5 million hectares have been distributed under CARP to 4 million farmer-beneficiaries, about half of the area devoted to rice and corn. More than 3 million of the farmer beneficiaries have not received the support services and access to the credit they were promised and which they need to maximize the production of their land. The government spent 157 billion pesos to purchase the lands but has precious little to help the farmers once they own the land.
Former Pres. Ramos pointed out another problem exacerbating the rice crisis - too many mouths to feed. “The population issues, of course,” he said, “must also be revisited because the government has prohibited artificial family planning methods to be supported by the budget and therefore this is a very big withdrawal of support to the poorest families especially those in the countryside.”
As a concession to the powerful Catholic Church, the Arroyo government has refused to accept millions of dollars in aid from the United Nations and the USAID in support for population and family planning programs. Ramos denounced the rejection of UN family planning assistance “because we are going contrary to what is being practiced in the most Catholic countries in the world, like Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, Ireland, which are enjoying a population growth rate of less than one percent,” he said.
Ramos said the country’s birthrate is three times that of the countries mentioned, “so that this infringes on all of these new problems that we are now encountering including rice, and potable water.”
A growing Filipino population cannot be fed with imaginary rice.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue , San Francisco , CA 94127 , or call (415) 334-7800.
Murder at Home
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080401-127637/Murder-at-Home
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Murder at Home
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 01, 2008
It was never a factual issue that William Corpuz murdered his wife Marissa in their San Francisco home in September of 2004. Corpuz turned himself in to the police and confessed that he had slashed his wife’s throat with his fishing knife. The legal question was whether he was guilty of murder in the first degree (with a mandatory sentence of 26 years to life) or the second degree (16 years to life).
After a four-week trial in May 2007, a San Francisco jury deliberated for 1 ½ days and unanimously agreed that Corpuz was guilty of murder 1. But on March 14, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Jerome Benson overruled the jury and reduced the charge to murder 2. Because he confessed to the crime, the facts were never in dispute. Corpuz, a caregiver in a home for the elderly, had been previously arrested in September of 2003 for domestic violence (DV) – having choked his wife then slammed her head face-first into the headboard of their bed.
Despite a long history as a victim of her husband’s violence, Marissa stood by her man and minimized her injury to get the District Attorney to reduce the DV felony charge to a misdemeanor. He was released on probation on condition that he attended a 52-week domestic abuse program. Corpuz enrolled in a year of weekly two-hour sessions at AVACA, the Abuse, Violence and Anger Cessation Alliance, a program stressing “a new technique that focuses on abusers' thought patterns and cultural conditioning, in hopes of changing the way they deal with stress.”
Among the 150 people who have gone through this program, Corpuz was considered a model student – always on time for his sessions, he paid his fees, actively engaged in class discussions, bought and read books on domestic violence. He attended 39 weekly sessions, the last one just four days before he killed his wife.
In his police confession, Corpuz admitted that he had originally intended to shoot his wife that morning and prepared a gun with a single bullet two hours before the murder, but decided instead to get two knives from the kitchen. After two hours watching TV together in their bedroom, Corpuz said Marissa’s laughs and insults caused him to “explode” and slash his wife's throat. "I don't know. It just happened," he told police.
Corpuz’s attorney, Randall Martin, said his client was "extremely remorseful" and that he had suffered long-standing emotional abuse during the marriage. "He was emasculated, depressed, ashamed and suicidal," Martin said in asking the judge to reduce the charge to murder 2.
In announcing his decision, Judge Benson said that while the killing was an "outrageous and savage domestic violence murder... (he) found that under state law, deliberation had been absent from Corpuz's acts." According to California Penal Code § 189, however, murder in the first degree includes “lying in wait” or “any other kind of willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing.” Judge Benson did not believe Corpuz had deliberated enough for a murder 1 conviction and instead blamed state law for not including domestic violence as a “special circumstance” that would mandate a murder 1 conviction.
"Now why should a person who beats and kills his wife or girlfriend be treated differently from a stranger who kills someone during a robbery?" asked Marily Mondejar, President of the Filipina Women's Network (FWN). Mondejar’s group had attended the trial and the March 14 sentencing hearing of Corpuz and was outraged at the sentence reduction. At a press conference on March 26, FWN members denounced the Benson decision and called for legislation that would include domestic violence as a “special circumstance” that would mandate a murder 1 conviction like a murder committed during a robbery attempt.
But this would be a double-edged sword. Wives who kill their abusive husbands, though in self-defense, may be charged with this special circumstance allegation as well. The solution, according to Beverly Upton for the Domestic Violence Consortium, may be found in “encouraging judges to look at how they can interpret the law to do more justice for women and communities in domestic violence and sexual assault."
At the FWN press conference, Upton disclosed that in the year she first assumed her post in San Francisco in 1998, there were 10 women who were murdered in the city as a result of domestic violence and four of the victims were Filipino women. On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the US every day.
In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. According to the Domestic Violence Prevention Fund (endabuse.org), as many as three million women in America are physically abused by their husbands or boyfriends per year. Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. According to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey, nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report physical or sexual abuse by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.
What accounts for this violence against women? A clue may be found in a new 2004 Spanish law which redefined domestic violence as "violence originating from the position of power of men over women.” The rationale for the law is that as long as men grow up in a culture which emphasizes male superiority over women and views women as the property of men, there will be male violence against women.
"Marisa Corpuz is at peace now, but this murder really heightened awareness of domestic violence in the Filipino community," Mondejar noted.
Heighten your awareness of domestic violence by watching the premier performance of “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer” at the Herbst Theatre at 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. This production of the Filipina Women’s Network includes men for the first time (I’m in it and so is Filipinas magazine publisher Greg Macabenta). Please call (415) 278-9410 or log on to www.ffwn.org for more information.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com. You can also log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis: 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco.
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080401-127637/Murder-at-Home
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Murder at Home
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 01, 2008
It was never a factual issue that William Corpuz murdered his wife Marissa in their San Francisco home in September of 2004. Corpuz turned himself in to the police and confessed that he had slashed his wife’s throat with his fishing knife. The legal question was whether he was guilty of murder in the first degree (with a mandatory sentence of 26 years to life) or the second degree (16 years to life).
After a four-week trial in May 2007, a San Francisco jury deliberated for 1 ½ days and unanimously agreed that Corpuz was guilty of murder 1. But on March 14, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Jerome Benson overruled the jury and reduced the charge to murder 2. Because he confessed to the crime, the facts were never in dispute. Corpuz, a caregiver in a home for the elderly, had been previously arrested in September of 2003 for domestic violence (DV) – having choked his wife then slammed her head face-first into the headboard of their bed.
Despite a long history as a victim of her husband’s violence, Marissa stood by her man and minimized her injury to get the District Attorney to reduce the DV felony charge to a misdemeanor. He was released on probation on condition that he attended a 52-week domestic abuse program. Corpuz enrolled in a year of weekly two-hour sessions at AVACA, the Abuse, Violence and Anger Cessation Alliance, a program stressing “a new technique that focuses on abusers' thought patterns and cultural conditioning, in hopes of changing the way they deal with stress.”
Among the 150 people who have gone through this program, Corpuz was considered a model student – always on time for his sessions, he paid his fees, actively engaged in class discussions, bought and read books on domestic violence. He attended 39 weekly sessions, the last one just four days before he killed his wife.
In his police confession, Corpuz admitted that he had originally intended to shoot his wife that morning and prepared a gun with a single bullet two hours before the murder, but decided instead to get two knives from the kitchen. After two hours watching TV together in their bedroom, Corpuz said Marissa’s laughs and insults caused him to “explode” and slash his wife's throat. "I don't know. It just happened," he told police.
Corpuz’s attorney, Randall Martin, said his client was "extremely remorseful" and that he had suffered long-standing emotional abuse during the marriage. "He was emasculated, depressed, ashamed and suicidal," Martin said in asking the judge to reduce the charge to murder 2.
In announcing his decision, Judge Benson said that while the killing was an "outrageous and savage domestic violence murder... (he) found that under state law, deliberation had been absent from Corpuz's acts." According to California Penal Code § 189, however, murder in the first degree includes “lying in wait” or “any other kind of willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing.” Judge Benson did not believe Corpuz had deliberated enough for a murder 1 conviction and instead blamed state law for not including domestic violence as a “special circumstance” that would mandate a murder 1 conviction.
"Now why should a person who beats and kills his wife or girlfriend be treated differently from a stranger who kills someone during a robbery?" asked Marily Mondejar, President of the Filipina Women's Network (FWN). Mondejar’s group had attended the trial and the March 14 sentencing hearing of Corpuz and was outraged at the sentence reduction. At a press conference on March 26, FWN members denounced the Benson decision and called for legislation that would include domestic violence as a “special circumstance” that would mandate a murder 1 conviction like a murder committed during a robbery attempt.
But this would be a double-edged sword. Wives who kill their abusive husbands, though in self-defense, may be charged with this special circumstance allegation as well. The solution, according to Beverly Upton for the Domestic Violence Consortium, may be found in “encouraging judges to look at how they can interpret the law to do more justice for women and communities in domestic violence and sexual assault."
At the FWN press conference, Upton disclosed that in the year she first assumed her post in San Francisco in 1998, there were 10 women who were murdered in the city as a result of domestic violence and four of the victims were Filipino women. On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the US every day.
In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. According to the Domestic Violence Prevention Fund (endabuse.org), as many as three million women in America are physically abused by their husbands or boyfriends per year. Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. According to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey, nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report physical or sexual abuse by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.
What accounts for this violence against women? A clue may be found in a new 2004 Spanish law which redefined domestic violence as "violence originating from the position of power of men over women.” The rationale for the law is that as long as men grow up in a culture which emphasizes male superiority over women and views women as the property of men, there will be male violence against women.
"Marisa Corpuz is at peace now, but this murder really heightened awareness of domestic violence in the Filipino community," Mondejar noted.
Heighten your awareness of domestic violence by watching the premier performance of “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer” at the Herbst Theatre at 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. This production of the Filipina Women’s Network includes men for the first time (I’m in it and so is Filipinas magazine publisher Greg Macabenta). Please call (415) 278-9410 or log on to www.ffwn.org for more information.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com. You can also log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis: 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco.
English Psychosis
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080325-126283/English-Psychosis
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : English Psychosis
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 25, 2008
Though I had never been to a boxing fight before, curiosity drove me to Las Vegas to watch the hyped-up rematch of Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao and Juan Manuel “Dinamita” Marquez for the Super Featherweight Championship of the World last March 15.
As it turned out, “Super” in the billing was no hype; it was the real deal as the two evenly-matched gladiators fought toe-to-toe for 12 rounds, fighting with all the power and heart they could muster. In the end, the Pacman won in a controversial split-decision but by barely one razor-thin point.
In the post-fight press conference, Pacquiao commented on the fight in English, without using an interpreter: “The first knockdown, I was very happy," he said. "I think I controlled the fight already. In the next rounds, I had a bad cut on my eye and I didn’t see his punches. It was hard to punch back to him.”
With a Spanish interpreter, Marquez said: “Yes, I thought I won this fight and I still think I won this fight. Maybe the judges were thinking I was the challenger, but I connected with the most powerful punches and the most accurate punches.”
In previous press interviews where the Pacman spoke, always without an interpreter, he would often find himself grammatically challenged (though he is getting better) and his fight assessments always appeared simple-minded as though the English words that would articulate his actual insights were beyond his reach. In contrast, whenever the Mexican fighters spoke, with interpreters, they seemed to express more depth in their analysis.
I always wondered why the Pacman didn’t just speak in Tagalog and have an interpreter translate his words so that he could also appear to be articulate and intelligent. Is it pride?
That same question popped up at the 2008 Bb. Pilipinas beauty pageant at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City on March 9. Janina San Miguel, a 17 year old freshman student at the University of the East, made it to the finals after winning awards for Best in Swimsuit and Best in Long Gown. And then came the interview:
One of the judges, Vivian Tan, asked her “what role did your family play to you as candidate to Binibining Pilipinas?” Janina’s answer on www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKwmseoKFCo has already drawn more than two million hits (combining all versions). Here it is:
Janina: “Well, my family’s role for me is so important b’coz there was the wa- they’re, they was the one who’s… very… hahahaha… Oh I’m so sorry, ahhmm… My pamily… My family… Oh my god… I’m… Ok, I’m so sorry… I… I told you that I’m so confident… Eto, ahhmm, Wait… hahahaha, ahmmm. Sorry, guys because this was really my first pageant ever b’coz I’m only 17 years old and hahaha I, I did not expect that I came from, I came from one of the tuff ten. Hmmm, so… but I said that my family is the most important persons in my life. Thank you.”
In the YouTube video, the sounds of audience guffaws were as audible as the looks of consternation and bemusement by the judges. Despite this gaffe, however, Janina won the contest and will represent the Philippines in the Miss World competition to be held in the Ukraine.
But overnight, dozens, if not hundreds, of Filipino blogs, commented on Janina’s selection with most making fun of her accent and poor grammar. Many questioned how she could possibly hope to win the world title when she can’t speak English properly.
But if anyone of these blog commentators ever watched any of those international beauty pageants, they would note that the questions were always posed to the Spanish-speaking contestants in English, translated by interpreters into Spanish, and the Spanish answers then translated into English. The translated answers showed the candidates' poise and articulation which accounts for why so many South American beauty queens have won these contests.
Why couldn’t the question to Janina have been posed to her in Tagalog and her answer delivered in Tagalog and then translated into English for US Ambassador Kristie Kenney who was a judge? The contest that used to be “Miss Philippines” is now called “Binibing Pilipinas” to emphasize its nationalist character. Hello?
The online web portal, philnews.com, observed that “the use of English is not an issue for some contestants who can speak it fluently. There are a few young girls however, who did not have the luxury of attending an expensive private school where English is taught, or who do not belong to that social strata of Philippine society where proficiency in English is the norm.”
Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Ramon Tulfo asked his readers to “Give the young girl a break! If she speaks ungrammatical English, blame it on the country’s educational system…You expect Janina to speak fluent English when our former president, Joseph “Erap” Estrada, speaks carabao English? C’mon, guys, you expect too much from a 17-year-old girl!”
The best insight about this “national psychosis with regards to the English language” came from the Philnews.com editorial which provided this observation “Tune in to most radio stations in Metro Manila and you'll hear Filipino DJ's straining to sound like Americans; sit-in on corporate meetings in boardrooms along Ayala Avenue and you will notice that greater deference is given to those who can say what they have to say in English. Say the same thing in Tagalog and it somehow carries a lot less weight or importance.
“While proficiency in a foreign language is commendable, especially in this era of globalization," Philnews.com noted further, "the value of a foreign language should not be gained by denigrating our national language. Tagalog or Pilipino should be given the respect it deserves and be allowed to co-exist alongside all other languages...only then will we begin to appreciate and respect who we really are as a people.”
Psychosis is a psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality." People suffering from it are said to have delusional beliefs. What is our delusional belief about ourselves and our ability to speak English?
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080325-126283/English-Psychosis
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : English Psychosis
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 25, 2008
Though I had never been to a boxing fight before, curiosity drove me to Las Vegas to watch the hyped-up rematch of Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao and Juan Manuel “Dinamita” Marquez for the Super Featherweight Championship of the World last March 15.
As it turned out, “Super” in the billing was no hype; it was the real deal as the two evenly-matched gladiators fought toe-to-toe for 12 rounds, fighting with all the power and heart they could muster. In the end, the Pacman won in a controversial split-decision but by barely one razor-thin point.
In the post-fight press conference, Pacquiao commented on the fight in English, without using an interpreter: “The first knockdown, I was very happy," he said. "I think I controlled the fight already. In the next rounds, I had a bad cut on my eye and I didn’t see his punches. It was hard to punch back to him.”
With a Spanish interpreter, Marquez said: “Yes, I thought I won this fight and I still think I won this fight. Maybe the judges were thinking I was the challenger, but I connected with the most powerful punches and the most accurate punches.”
In previous press interviews where the Pacman spoke, always without an interpreter, he would often find himself grammatically challenged (though he is getting better) and his fight assessments always appeared simple-minded as though the English words that would articulate his actual insights were beyond his reach. In contrast, whenever the Mexican fighters spoke, with interpreters, they seemed to express more depth in their analysis.
I always wondered why the Pacman didn’t just speak in Tagalog and have an interpreter translate his words so that he could also appear to be articulate and intelligent. Is it pride?
That same question popped up at the 2008 Bb. Pilipinas beauty pageant at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City on March 9. Janina San Miguel, a 17 year old freshman student at the University of the East, made it to the finals after winning awards for Best in Swimsuit and Best in Long Gown. And then came the interview:
One of the judges, Vivian Tan, asked her “what role did your family play to you as candidate to Binibining Pilipinas?” Janina’s answer on www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKwmseoKFCo has already drawn more than two million hits (combining all versions). Here it is:
Janina: “Well, my family’s role for me is so important b’coz there was the wa- they’re, they was the one who’s… very… hahahaha… Oh I’m so sorry, ahhmm… My pamily… My family… Oh my god… I’m… Ok, I’m so sorry… I… I told you that I’m so confident… Eto, ahhmm, Wait… hahahaha, ahmmm. Sorry, guys because this was really my first pageant ever b’coz I’m only 17 years old and hahaha I, I did not expect that I came from, I came from one of the tuff ten. Hmmm, so… but I said that my family is the most important persons in my life. Thank you.”
In the YouTube video, the sounds of audience guffaws were as audible as the looks of consternation and bemusement by the judges. Despite this gaffe, however, Janina won the contest and will represent the Philippines in the Miss World competition to be held in the Ukraine.
But overnight, dozens, if not hundreds, of Filipino blogs, commented on Janina’s selection with most making fun of her accent and poor grammar. Many questioned how she could possibly hope to win the world title when she can’t speak English properly.
But if anyone of these blog commentators ever watched any of those international beauty pageants, they would note that the questions were always posed to the Spanish-speaking contestants in English, translated by interpreters into Spanish, and the Spanish answers then translated into English. The translated answers showed the candidates' poise and articulation which accounts for why so many South American beauty queens have won these contests.
Why couldn’t the question to Janina have been posed to her in Tagalog and her answer delivered in Tagalog and then translated into English for US Ambassador Kristie Kenney who was a judge? The contest that used to be “Miss Philippines” is now called “Binibing Pilipinas” to emphasize its nationalist character. Hello?
The online web portal, philnews.com, observed that “the use of English is not an issue for some contestants who can speak it fluently. There are a few young girls however, who did not have the luxury of attending an expensive private school where English is taught, or who do not belong to that social strata of Philippine society where proficiency in English is the norm.”
Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Ramon Tulfo asked his readers to “Give the young girl a break! If she speaks ungrammatical English, blame it on the country’s educational system…You expect Janina to speak fluent English when our former president, Joseph “Erap” Estrada, speaks carabao English? C’mon, guys, you expect too much from a 17-year-old girl!”
The best insight about this “national psychosis with regards to the English language” came from the Philnews.com editorial which provided this observation “Tune in to most radio stations in Metro Manila and you'll hear Filipino DJ's straining to sound like Americans; sit-in on corporate meetings in boardrooms along Ayala Avenue and you will notice that greater deference is given to those who can say what they have to say in English. Say the same thing in Tagalog and it somehow carries a lot less weight or importance.
“While proficiency in a foreign language is commendable, especially in this era of globalization," Philnews.com noted further, "the value of a foreign language should not be gained by denigrating our national language. Tagalog or Pilipino should be given the respect it deserves and be allowed to co-exist alongside all other languages...only then will we begin to appreciate and respect who we really are as a people.”
Psychosis is a psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality." People suffering from it are said to have delusional beliefs. What is our delusional belief about ourselves and our ability to speak English?
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Global Networking :
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080318-125411/The-Saga-of-Flor-and-Jennifer
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : The Saga of Flor and Jennifer
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 18, 2008
March 17, 1995 will be mournfully remembered as the day Singapore executed Filipino domestic worker Flor Contemplacion for allegedly murdering Filipina domestic worker Delia Maga. Filipinos recall that just before the date of her execution, two witnesses came forward with evidence that Contemplacion was innocent and that it was Maga’s employer who strangled her in a fit of rage after finding his 4-year old epileptic son accidentally drowned in the bath tub because Maga had left him alone, unaware of his condition.
Although Contemplacion, a 42-year old mother of four, had neither the motive, means nor opportunity to kill Maga, Singapore police nonetheless made her the sole murder suspect and convicted her, based on her torture-induced confession. The authorities refused to consider any new evidence that might contradict their convenient wrap-up of the case.
When Contemplacion’s coffin arrived in Manila, thousands of Filipinos waited at the airport to honor her as a symbol of injustice and of the hardships and sacrifices of overseas Filipino workers.
At the time of Contemplacion’s execution, Jennifer Drake Larsen, a granddaughter of an American serviceman, was living in Cavite province with her American husband James Larsen and their 3-year old son James Jr. She could not have imagined how Contemplacion’s death would affect her.
Jennifer Larsen had been a victim of domestic violence in the US when she decided to leave her businessman husband and their home in Walnut Creek, California to return to the Philippines with their son. After arriving in Manila, however, she called her husband. “You can join us here if you want because I know you can’t hurt me here.” She gave him the phone number where he could reach her if he accepted the invitation.
After Jennifer and her son had been living in Cavite for a few months, her husband accepted her invitation, flew to Manila and joined them. What Jennifer did not know was that James Larsen had filed a criminal complaint of child abduction against her in Walnut Creek and that a warrant of arrest had been issued for her.
Larsen lived with Jennifer and their son in Cavite for several months until he succeeded in convincing her to return to their Walnut Creek home, promising that he would never hit her again. Jennifer made plans to return to California with her son but, at the last minute, decided to leave her son in Cavite with relatives, just in case. Larsen brought Jennifer to the airport and assured her he would join her in California in a few days. After Jennifer’s plane took off, however, Larsen went straight to the US Embassy to inform the FBI that a wanted fugitive would be stopping over in Honolulu on a PAL flight bound for San Francisco.
When Jennifer landed in Honolulu, two FBI agents were waiting to arrest her for felony child abduction. She was handcuffed and brought to the Honolulu city jail to await extradition to California.
In the aftermath of Flor Contemplacion’s execution, there was widespread condemnation of the Philippine government’s failure to do more to help Contemplacion and overseas Filipinos. Responding to the popular outrage, President Ramos directed Philippine consuls all over the world to check the jails of their jurisdictions to find Philippine citizens in need of government assistance.
Following the directive, the Philippine Consul General in Hawaii visited the Honolulu prison and personally learned of Jennifer's plight. She had been in jail a few weeks by then, awaiting extradition to California, with bail set at $500,000. Jennifer recounted to the Consul how she had been brought before a magistrate in prison garb, with chains on both her ankles and wrists.
The Hawaii Consul contacted her counterpart in San Francisco, who then asked me to represent Jennifer pro bono after she had been extradited to Walnut Creek. In an April 24, 1995 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported on the case, Jennifer defiantly declared: “They could tell me that I could spend the rest of my life in jail, but I don't care, I am not going to let him have custody of my child.”
In May of 1995 Jennifer had been confined for nearly two months in jail when I worked out a deal with the court for Jennifer to be released on her own recognizance if her son was returned back to his father in Walnut Creek within seven days. Jennifer reluctantly agreed to the deal and asked her sister to fly to Manila to pick up her son and turn him over to his father, which she did on the 7th day, just a few hours before the deal would have expired. As agreed, Jennifer was released from custody without bail. But the District Attorney refused to dismiss the charge or to even offer a plea bargain to reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor with no jail time. The D.A. wanted Jennifer to go to state prison.
In the course of the 10-day jury trial in September of 1995, Jennifer recounted how she had been brought to live with her then 34-year old husband when she was 17 and how he had began beating her after they were married and she had given birth to James Jr. Her husband stoutly denied her accusations of domestic violence.
An element of the crime of child abduction (California Penal Code Sec. 278), I reminded the jury in closing argument, is the intent to “detain or conceal the child from a lawful custodian.” Jennifer contacted James Larsen as soon as she landed in Manila and invited him to join them and he, in fact, joined them. The jury deliberated for a few hours and returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty.
Jennifer regained custody of her son after the trial.
Please send comments to _Rodel50@aol.com_ (mailto:Rodel50@aol.com) or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080318-125411/The-Saga-of-Flor-and-Jennifer
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : The Saga of Flor and Jennifer
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 18, 2008
March 17, 1995 will be mournfully remembered as the day Singapore executed Filipino domestic worker Flor Contemplacion for allegedly murdering Filipina domestic worker Delia Maga. Filipinos recall that just before the date of her execution, two witnesses came forward with evidence that Contemplacion was innocent and that it was Maga’s employer who strangled her in a fit of rage after finding his 4-year old epileptic son accidentally drowned in the bath tub because Maga had left him alone, unaware of his condition.
Although Contemplacion, a 42-year old mother of four, had neither the motive, means nor opportunity to kill Maga, Singapore police nonetheless made her the sole murder suspect and convicted her, based on her torture-induced confession. The authorities refused to consider any new evidence that might contradict their convenient wrap-up of the case.
When Contemplacion’s coffin arrived in Manila, thousands of Filipinos waited at the airport to honor her as a symbol of injustice and of the hardships and sacrifices of overseas Filipino workers.
At the time of Contemplacion’s execution, Jennifer Drake Larsen, a granddaughter of an American serviceman, was living in Cavite province with her American husband James Larsen and their 3-year old son James Jr. She could not have imagined how Contemplacion’s death would affect her.
Jennifer Larsen had been a victim of domestic violence in the US when she decided to leave her businessman husband and their home in Walnut Creek, California to return to the Philippines with their son. After arriving in Manila, however, she called her husband. “You can join us here if you want because I know you can’t hurt me here.” She gave him the phone number where he could reach her if he accepted the invitation.
After Jennifer and her son had been living in Cavite for a few months, her husband accepted her invitation, flew to Manila and joined them. What Jennifer did not know was that James Larsen had filed a criminal complaint of child abduction against her in Walnut Creek and that a warrant of arrest had been issued for her.
Larsen lived with Jennifer and their son in Cavite for several months until he succeeded in convincing her to return to their Walnut Creek home, promising that he would never hit her again. Jennifer made plans to return to California with her son but, at the last minute, decided to leave her son in Cavite with relatives, just in case. Larsen brought Jennifer to the airport and assured her he would join her in California in a few days. After Jennifer’s plane took off, however, Larsen went straight to the US Embassy to inform the FBI that a wanted fugitive would be stopping over in Honolulu on a PAL flight bound for San Francisco.
When Jennifer landed in Honolulu, two FBI agents were waiting to arrest her for felony child abduction. She was handcuffed and brought to the Honolulu city jail to await extradition to California.
In the aftermath of Flor Contemplacion’s execution, there was widespread condemnation of the Philippine government’s failure to do more to help Contemplacion and overseas Filipinos. Responding to the popular outrage, President Ramos directed Philippine consuls all over the world to check the jails of their jurisdictions to find Philippine citizens in need of government assistance.
Following the directive, the Philippine Consul General in Hawaii visited the Honolulu prison and personally learned of Jennifer's plight. She had been in jail a few weeks by then, awaiting extradition to California, with bail set at $500,000. Jennifer recounted to the Consul how she had been brought before a magistrate in prison garb, with chains on both her ankles and wrists.
The Hawaii Consul contacted her counterpart in San Francisco, who then asked me to represent Jennifer pro bono after she had been extradited to Walnut Creek. In an April 24, 1995 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported on the case, Jennifer defiantly declared: “They could tell me that I could spend the rest of my life in jail, but I don't care, I am not going to let him have custody of my child.”
In May of 1995 Jennifer had been confined for nearly two months in jail when I worked out a deal with the court for Jennifer to be released on her own recognizance if her son was returned back to his father in Walnut Creek within seven days. Jennifer reluctantly agreed to the deal and asked her sister to fly to Manila to pick up her son and turn him over to his father, which she did on the 7th day, just a few hours before the deal would have expired. As agreed, Jennifer was released from custody without bail. But the District Attorney refused to dismiss the charge or to even offer a plea bargain to reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor with no jail time. The D.A. wanted Jennifer to go to state prison.
In the course of the 10-day jury trial in September of 1995, Jennifer recounted how she had been brought to live with her then 34-year old husband when she was 17 and how he had began beating her after they were married and she had given birth to James Jr. Her husband stoutly denied her accusations of domestic violence.
An element of the crime of child abduction (California Penal Code Sec. 278), I reminded the jury in closing argument, is the intent to “detain or conceal the child from a lawful custodian.” Jennifer contacted James Larsen as soon as she landed in Manila and invited him to join them and he, in fact, joined them. The jury deliberated for a few hours and returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty.
Jennifer regained custody of her son after the trial.
Please send comments to _Rodel50@aol.com_ (mailto:Rodel50@aol.com) or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Global Networking :
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080318-125411/The-Saga-of-Flor-and-Jennifer
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : The Saga of Flor and Jennifer
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 18, 2008
March 17, 1995 will be mournfully remembered as the day Singapore executed Filipino domestic worker Flor Contemplacion for allegedly murdering Filipina domestic worker Delia Maga. Filipinos recall that just before the date of her execution, two witnesses came forward with evidence that Contemplacion was innocent and that it was Maga’s employer who strangled her in a fit of rage after finding his 4-year old epileptic son accidentally drowned in the bath tub because Maga had left him alone, unaware of his condition.
Although Contemplacion, a 42-year old mother of four, had neither the motive, means nor opportunity to kill Maga, Singapore police nonetheless made her the sole murder suspect and convicted her, based on her torture-induced confession. The authorities refused to consider any new evidence that might contradict their convenient wrap-up of the case.
When Contemplacion’s coffin arrived in Manila, thousands of Filipinos waited at the airport to honor her as a symbol of injustice and of the hardships and sacrifices of overseas Filipino workers.
At the time of Contemplacion’s execution, Jennifer Drake Larsen, a granddaughter of an American serviceman, was living in Cavite province with her American husband James Larsen and their 3-year old son James Jr. She could not have imagined how Contemplacion’s death would affect her.
Jennifer Larsen had been a victim of domestic violence in the US when she decided to leave her businessman husband and their home in Walnut Creek, California to return to the Philippines with their son. After arriving in Manila, however, she called her husband. “You can join us here if you want because I know you can’t hurt me here.” She gave him the phone number where he could reach her if he accepted the invitation.
After Jennifer and her son had been living in Cavite for a few months, her husband accepted her invitation, flew to Manila and joined them. What Jennifer did not know was that James Larsen had filed a criminal complaint of child abduction against her in Walnut Creek and that a warrant of arrest had been issued for her.
Larsen lived with Jennifer and their son in Cavite for several months until he succeeded in convincing her to return to their Walnut Creek home, promising that he would never hit her again. Jennifer made plans to return to California with her son but, at the last minute, decided to leave her son in Cavite with relatives, just in case. Larsen brought Jennifer to the airport and assured her he would join her in California in a few days. After Jennifer’s plane took off, however, Larsen went straight to the US Embassy to inform the FBI that a wanted fugitive would be stopping over in Honolulu on a PAL flight bound for San Francisco.
When Jennifer landed in Honolulu, two FBI agents were waiting to arrest her for felony child abduction. She was handcuffed and brought to the Honolulu city jail to await extradition to California.
In the aftermath of Flor Contemplacion’s execution, there was widespread condemnation of the Philippine government’s failure to do more to help Contemplacion and overseas Filipinos. Responding to the popular outrage, President Ramos directed Philippine consuls all over the world to check the jails of their jurisdictions to find Philippine citizens in need of government assistance.
Following the directive, the Philippine Consul General in Hawaii visited the Honolulu prison and personally learned of Jennifer's plight. She had been in jail a few weeks by then, awaiting extradition to California, with bail set at $500,000. Jennifer recounted to the Consul how she had been brought before a magistrate in prison garb, with chains on both her ankles and wrists.
The Hawaii Consul contacted her counterpart in San Francisco, who then asked me to represent Jennifer pro bono after she had been extradited to Walnut Creek. In an April 24, 1995 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported on the case, Jennifer defiantly declared: “They could tell me that I could spend the rest of my life in jail, but I don't care, I am not going to let him have custody of my child.”
In May of 1995 Jennifer had been confined for nearly two months in jail when I worked out a deal with the court for Jennifer to be released on her own recognizance if her son was returned back to his father in Walnut Creek within seven days. Jennifer reluctantly agreed to the deal and asked her sister to fly to Manila to pick up her son and turn him over to his father, which she did on the 7th day, just a few hours before the deal would have expired. As agreed, Jennifer was released from custody without bail. But the District Attorney refused to dismiss the charge or to even offer a plea bargain to reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor with no jail time. The D.A. wanted Jennifer to go to state prison.
In the course of the 10-day jury trial in September of 1995, Jennifer recounted how she had been brought to live with her then 34-year old husband when she was 17 and how he had began beating her after they were married and she had given birth to James Jr. Her husband stoutly denied her accusations of domestic violence.
An element of the crime of child abduction (California Penal Code Sec. 278), I reminded the jury in closing argument, is the intent to “detain or conceal the child from a lawful custodian.” Jennifer contacted James Larsen as soon as she landed in Manila and invited him to join them and he, in fact, joined them. The jury deliberated for a few hours and returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty.
Jennifer regained custody of her son after the trial.
Please send comments to _Rodel50@aol.com_ (mailto:Rodel50@aol.com) or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080318-125411/The-Saga-of-Flor-and-Jennifer
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : The Saga of Flor and Jennifer
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 18, 2008
March 17, 1995 will be mournfully remembered as the day Singapore executed Filipino domestic worker Flor Contemplacion for allegedly murdering Filipina domestic worker Delia Maga. Filipinos recall that just before the date of her execution, two witnesses came forward with evidence that Contemplacion was innocent and that it was Maga’s employer who strangled her in a fit of rage after finding his 4-year old epileptic son accidentally drowned in the bath tub because Maga had left him alone, unaware of his condition.
Although Contemplacion, a 42-year old mother of four, had neither the motive, means nor opportunity to kill Maga, Singapore police nonetheless made her the sole murder suspect and convicted her, based on her torture-induced confession. The authorities refused to consider any new evidence that might contradict their convenient wrap-up of the case.
When Contemplacion’s coffin arrived in Manila, thousands of Filipinos waited at the airport to honor her as a symbol of injustice and of the hardships and sacrifices of overseas Filipino workers.
At the time of Contemplacion’s execution, Jennifer Drake Larsen, a granddaughter of an American serviceman, was living in Cavite province with her American husband James Larsen and their 3-year old son James Jr. She could not have imagined how Contemplacion’s death would affect her.
Jennifer Larsen had been a victim of domestic violence in the US when she decided to leave her businessman husband and their home in Walnut Creek, California to return to the Philippines with their son. After arriving in Manila, however, she called her husband. “You can join us here if you want because I know you can’t hurt me here.” She gave him the phone number where he could reach her if he accepted the invitation.
After Jennifer and her son had been living in Cavite for a few months, her husband accepted her invitation, flew to Manila and joined them. What Jennifer did not know was that James Larsen had filed a criminal complaint of child abduction against her in Walnut Creek and that a warrant of arrest had been issued for her.
Larsen lived with Jennifer and their son in Cavite for several months until he succeeded in convincing her to return to their Walnut Creek home, promising that he would never hit her again. Jennifer made plans to return to California with her son but, at the last minute, decided to leave her son in Cavite with relatives, just in case. Larsen brought Jennifer to the airport and assured her he would join her in California in a few days. After Jennifer’s plane took off, however, Larsen went straight to the US Embassy to inform the FBI that a wanted fugitive would be stopping over in Honolulu on a PAL flight bound for San Francisco.
When Jennifer landed in Honolulu, two FBI agents were waiting to arrest her for felony child abduction. She was handcuffed and brought to the Honolulu city jail to await extradition to California.
In the aftermath of Flor Contemplacion’s execution, there was widespread condemnation of the Philippine government’s failure to do more to help Contemplacion and overseas Filipinos. Responding to the popular outrage, President Ramos directed Philippine consuls all over the world to check the jails of their jurisdictions to find Philippine citizens in need of government assistance.
Following the directive, the Philippine Consul General in Hawaii visited the Honolulu prison and personally learned of Jennifer's plight. She had been in jail a few weeks by then, awaiting extradition to California, with bail set at $500,000. Jennifer recounted to the Consul how she had been brought before a magistrate in prison garb, with chains on both her ankles and wrists.
The Hawaii Consul contacted her counterpart in San Francisco, who then asked me to represent Jennifer pro bono after she had been extradited to Walnut Creek. In an April 24, 1995 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported on the case, Jennifer defiantly declared: “They could tell me that I could spend the rest of my life in jail, but I don't care, I am not going to let him have custody of my child.”
In May of 1995 Jennifer had been confined for nearly two months in jail when I worked out a deal with the court for Jennifer to be released on her own recognizance if her son was returned back to his father in Walnut Creek within seven days. Jennifer reluctantly agreed to the deal and asked her sister to fly to Manila to pick up her son and turn him over to his father, which she did on the 7th day, just a few hours before the deal would have expired. As agreed, Jennifer was released from custody without bail. But the District Attorney refused to dismiss the charge or to even offer a plea bargain to reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor with no jail time. The D.A. wanted Jennifer to go to state prison.
In the course of the 10-day jury trial in September of 1995, Jennifer recounted how she had been brought to live with her then 34-year old husband when she was 17 and how he had began beating her after they were married and she had given birth to James Jr. Her husband stoutly denied her accusations of domestic violence.
An element of the crime of child abduction (California Penal Code Sec. 278), I reminded the jury in closing argument, is the intent to “detain or conceal the child from a lawful custodian.” Jennifer contacted James Larsen as soon as she landed in Manila and invited him to join them and he, in fact, joined them. The jury deliberated for a few hours and returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty.
Jennifer regained custody of her son after the trial.
Please send comments to _Rodel50@aol.com_ (mailto:Rodel50@aol.com) or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Arab view of Pinoy People Power
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080312-124223/Arab-view-of-Pinoy-People-Power
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Arab view of Pinoy People Power
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 12, 2008
The 22nd anniversary of People Power came and went on February 25 without commemoration by a single US newspaper editorial. I googled the Internet and found none. But while googling, I stumbled on a March 9, 2008 editorial in the Arab News, the “Middle East's Leading English Language Daily,” commenting on People Power in an editorial entitled “What’s Best for the Philippines.”
The 30-year old publication based in Saudi Arabia commented that “the million-strong people power demonstrations that drove Philippine’s dictator Ferdinand Marcos from office and into exile in 1986 was another epic demonstration of what a public fed up with a corrupt and inept regime can achieve. Indeed, what the Filipinos achieved may well have inspired the mass demonstrations in East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and finally Romania that brought about the collapse of state communism.”
I was completely surprised by this observation coming from a country that is an absolute monarchy, with a Sharia religious court system administered by Muslim clerics and faithfully based on the Koran. In its website, however, Arab News presented itself as a much more democratic institution priding itself as “the most frequently read and quoted source of information about Saudi Arabia, while in the Kingdom, Arab News has become a forum for ideas — a place for voices to be heard and controversies debated, a place for the common man to consider uncommon ideas and gain understanding about a variety of issues in an increasingly interconnected world.”
In that editorial on the Philippines, it observed a “big difference” between People Power experiences in Eastern Europe and the Philippines. “While the countries of the former Soviet bloc have settled down to democracy,” the paper remarked, “the mass protest has become dangerously embedded in Philippine politics. It was used a second time in 2001 to bring half a million people onto the streets demanding the ouster of the blatantly corrupt and woefully disappointing President Joseph Estrada.”
“Now public protest is being used a third time against his then deputy and successor President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who in the last seven years has survived four attempted coups and three motions to impeach her,” the Arab News noted.
President Arroyo, the paper reported, is accused “of covering up a payola scandal involving her husband and senior aides and at worst of being involved herself. She has used her executive powers to try and stop officials from giving evidence to a commission of enquiry. Some who have challenged her have been subjected to harassment, for instance by the tax authorities. The aide who blew the whistle faces prosecution for violating state confidentiality rules. All in all, it is not an edifying spectacle nor unfortunately is it out of the ordinary for Philippine politics, so deeply stained with a tradition of graft, made worse by a consistent failure to drive through social and welfare reforms.”
There are close to four million Filipinos in the US and yet not one US publication has made a similar observation or has even commented on the current crisis in the Philippines. There are only about a million Filipinos living and working in Saudi Arabia, but they constitute a larger percentage of the Saudi population than we do in the US. That may explain the Arab News interest in the Philippines.
It appears well-informed about the Philippines, especially when it observes that “Arroyo seems determined to face down the popular protest and complete her term. She doubtless takes comfort from the smaller numbers of people who have been bothered to take to the streets yet again to protest. Her attitude is, however, as wrong as is the idea that unpopular governments should be driven from power by mass demonstrations.”
So "what's best for the Philippines" according to Arab News?
It doesn't endorse another People Power - “The problem with crowds that topple governments is they leave a leadership vacuum that can be filled by rogues. If Filipinos value democracy, they must use the ballot box, not the streets to register their opinions,” the paper concluded.
In a throwback to the Marcos era, its suggestion is for President Arroyo to call for a “snap election” to “give Filipinos a chance to consider who should best be leading them.”
Arab News may not understand that there is no constitutional basis for President Arroyo to hold “snap elections” even if she agreed to do so. Marcos was able to do it because, as a dictator, he was the Constitution.
But even if it were constitutionally viable, it would be highly impractical. To set up the machinery for snap elections would take at least six months and cost several billion pesos. And then what? Will the winner serve only until May of 2010 when the Constitution calls for the next presidential elections?
May 2010 is just around the corner. Already the list of presidential wannabes is growing longer with the following mentioned as possible candidates: Vice President Noli De Castro, Senate President Manny Villar, Sen. Mar Roxas, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Sen. Richard Gordon, Sen. Loren Legarda, Sen. Antonio V. Trillanes IV, former Pres. Joseph Estrada, Metro Manila Gov. Bayani Fernando, Makati Mayor Jojo Binay, Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte, Manila Mayor Fred Lim, billionaire industrialist Jaime Zobel, Jesus is Lord chief Brother Eddie Villanueva, and El Shaddai leader Mike Velarde. Who else, Jun Lozada?
Thanks for the suggestion, Arab News, but snap elections ain't it. Been there, done that.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080312-124223/Arab-view-of-Pinoy-People-Power
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Arab view of Pinoy People Power
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 12, 2008
The 22nd anniversary of People Power came and went on February 25 without commemoration by a single US newspaper editorial. I googled the Internet and found none. But while googling, I stumbled on a March 9, 2008 editorial in the Arab News, the “Middle East's Leading English Language Daily,” commenting on People Power in an editorial entitled “What’s Best for the Philippines.”
The 30-year old publication based in Saudi Arabia commented that “the million-strong people power demonstrations that drove Philippine’s dictator Ferdinand Marcos from office and into exile in 1986 was another epic demonstration of what a public fed up with a corrupt and inept regime can achieve. Indeed, what the Filipinos achieved may well have inspired the mass demonstrations in East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and finally Romania that brought about the collapse of state communism.”
I was completely surprised by this observation coming from a country that is an absolute monarchy, with a Sharia religious court system administered by Muslim clerics and faithfully based on the Koran. In its website, however, Arab News presented itself as a much more democratic institution priding itself as “the most frequently read and quoted source of information about Saudi Arabia, while in the Kingdom, Arab News has become a forum for ideas — a place for voices to be heard and controversies debated, a place for the common man to consider uncommon ideas and gain understanding about a variety of issues in an increasingly interconnected world.”
In that editorial on the Philippines, it observed a “big difference” between People Power experiences in Eastern Europe and the Philippines. “While the countries of the former Soviet bloc have settled down to democracy,” the paper remarked, “the mass protest has become dangerously embedded in Philippine politics. It was used a second time in 2001 to bring half a million people onto the streets demanding the ouster of the blatantly corrupt and woefully disappointing President Joseph Estrada.”
“Now public protest is being used a third time against his then deputy and successor President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who in the last seven years has survived four attempted coups and three motions to impeach her,” the Arab News noted.
President Arroyo, the paper reported, is accused “of covering up a payola scandal involving her husband and senior aides and at worst of being involved herself. She has used her executive powers to try and stop officials from giving evidence to a commission of enquiry. Some who have challenged her have been subjected to harassment, for instance by the tax authorities. The aide who blew the whistle faces prosecution for violating state confidentiality rules. All in all, it is not an edifying spectacle nor unfortunately is it out of the ordinary for Philippine politics, so deeply stained with a tradition of graft, made worse by a consistent failure to drive through social and welfare reforms.”
There are close to four million Filipinos in the US and yet not one US publication has made a similar observation or has even commented on the current crisis in the Philippines. There are only about a million Filipinos living and working in Saudi Arabia, but they constitute a larger percentage of the Saudi population than we do in the US. That may explain the Arab News interest in the Philippines.
It appears well-informed about the Philippines, especially when it observes that “Arroyo seems determined to face down the popular protest and complete her term. She doubtless takes comfort from the smaller numbers of people who have been bothered to take to the streets yet again to protest. Her attitude is, however, as wrong as is the idea that unpopular governments should be driven from power by mass demonstrations.”
So "what's best for the Philippines" according to Arab News?
It doesn't endorse another People Power - “The problem with crowds that topple governments is they leave a leadership vacuum that can be filled by rogues. If Filipinos value democracy, they must use the ballot box, not the streets to register their opinions,” the paper concluded.
In a throwback to the Marcos era, its suggestion is for President Arroyo to call for a “snap election” to “give Filipinos a chance to consider who should best be leading them.”
Arab News may not understand that there is no constitutional basis for President Arroyo to hold “snap elections” even if she agreed to do so. Marcos was able to do it because, as a dictator, he was the Constitution.
But even if it were constitutionally viable, it would be highly impractical. To set up the machinery for snap elections would take at least six months and cost several billion pesos. And then what? Will the winner serve only until May of 2010 when the Constitution calls for the next presidential elections?
May 2010 is just around the corner. Already the list of presidential wannabes is growing longer with the following mentioned as possible candidates: Vice President Noli De Castro, Senate President Manny Villar, Sen. Mar Roxas, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Sen. Richard Gordon, Sen. Loren Legarda, Sen. Antonio V. Trillanes IV, former Pres. Joseph Estrada, Metro Manila Gov. Bayani Fernando, Makati Mayor Jojo Binay, Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte, Manila Mayor Fred Lim, billionaire industrialist Jaime Zobel, Jesus is Lord chief Brother Eddie Villanueva, and El Shaddai leader Mike Velarde. Who else, Jun Lozada?
Thanks for the suggestion, Arab News, but snap elections ain't it. Been there, done that.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Monday, March 10, 2008
In Crisis, a Primer from A to ZTE
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080305-122920/In-Crisis-a-Primer-from-A-to-ZTE
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : In Crisis, a Primer from A to ZTE
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 05, 2008
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) was considered a loyal ally of the United States until July of 2004 when she “caved in” to Iraqi hostage takers’ demands to withdraw the Philippine government’s 51 soldiers and police officers from Iraq a month early, in exchange for the release of the Filipino hostage Angelo De La Cruz.
In directing the Philippines to be the 5th country (after Spain, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras) to withdraw from the US-led “Coalition of the Willing” in 2004, GMA incurred the wrath of the US government. It retaliated by reducing US military and economic aid and limiting loan assistance from US financial institutions.
Prior to that date, the Philippines had shown its loyalty to the US by rallying the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to deal as one bloc to push China out of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, where four ASEAN allies and China hold competing claims. The Philippines was hailed by the US for standing up to China when it successfully prodded ASEAN and China to sign a “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea,” to stop China’s growing military presence in the area.
After the US punished the Philippines by imposing de facto sanctions on and refusing any face-to-face meetings of GMA with President George Bush, the Philippines changed course.
As Barry Wain wrote recently in the Far Eastern Economic Review, “President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s hurried trip to China in late 2004 produced a major surprise. Among the raft of agreements ceremoniously signed by the two countries was one providing for their national oil companies to conduct a joint seismic study in the contentious South China Sea, a prospect that caused consternation in parts of Southeast Asia…The Philippines also made breathtaking concessions in agreeing to the area for study, including parts of its own continental shelf not even claimed by China.”
According to Philippine Star columnist Jarius Bondoc, “There might be a hint of the real reason there. For, soon after RP capitulated, China offered to lend $2 billion a year till 2010 for government projects. China wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of its heart, though. It was bursting at the seams with $2 trillion in reserves, and was to collect 4-percent interest, hardly concessional in a period of much lower rates. China was only too willing to look like it was accommodating a new ally.”
These generous Chinese loans may have helped the Philippines reach an unprecedented 7.3% growth in 2007, the highest in 30 years. But they laid the ground for the present crisis which may yet topple the Arroyo government.
In 2007 alone, the Philippines signed 33 new projects for financing by the China Export-Import Bank. One of the projects was the NBN-ZTE deal which the Philippine government signed in April of 2007, where Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment (ZTE), the Chinese telecommunications giant, was awarded a contract worth US$ 329.5 million to set up the National Broadband Network (NBN) to improve government communications capabilities nationwide.
On August 29, 2007, Rep. Carlos Padilla in a privileged speech in the Philippine House charged that Philippine COMELEC Chair Benjamin Abalos brokered for the ZTE deal. A week later, the Philippine Senate called for hearings on the ZTE-NBN deal.
On September 10, 2007, Joey De Venecia, son of Joe De Venecia, then Philippine Speaker of the House, testified before the Senate and claimed that he was with Abalos in China when he heard Abalos “demand money” from ZTE officials.
Although Joey De Venecia was barred by Philippine law as the son of a high official from participating in and obtaining Philippine government contracts, he nevertheless submitted a losing bid for the NBN project as president of Amsterdam Holdings. He told the Senate that the president’s husband, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, had counseled him to back off” from pursuing the project and offered to compensate him.
On September 22, 2007, GMA announced that she was suspending the ZTE-NBN contract. On September 26, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Chair Romulo Neri and COMELEC Chair Abalos appeared at a Senate hearing. There Neri claimed that in a golf game earlier in the year, Abalos offered him $4-M (P200-M) for signing off on the ZTE deal. Abalos denied the charge.
On October 1, 2007, Abalos resigned his post as COMELEC chair. On October 2, GMA traveled to China to tell Chinese President Hu Jintao of her “difficult decision” to cancel the ZTE contract for the NBN project.
On January 30, 2008, the Philippine Senate issued warrants of arrest for Neri and NEDA consultant Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada, Jr. Neri went into hiding to avoid being served the warrant and Lozada flew to Hongkong. When he returned from Hong Kong On February 5, 2008, a Senate team was waiting to arrest him to take him to the Senate to testify on the ZTE-NBN deal. Before he could be served the warrant, however, he was whisked away by unidentified military personnel, only to be later dropped off under media pressure to join his family at La Salle Greenhills.
The day after his return, Lozada testified that Abalos and Mike Arroyo were behind the “kickbacks” in the deal, charging that they stood to make about $200-M from the $329.5-M contract. He said he warned them that the overcharge was too high and wouldn’t fly, but they ignored his warnings.
For allowing his son to testify against the GMA and the FG (First Gentleman), Speaker De Venecia would be voted out as Speaker of the House. On Friday, February 29, approximately 50,000 people gathered at the Ninoy Aquino monument in Makati in an Inter-Faith Rally that called for the resignation of GMA. The next day, Jose Maria Sison, leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), called for 100,000 Filipinos to gather in a street protest in Manila to unseat President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This should be enough, he said, “to ignite the withdrawal of support from the regime by the bureaucracy and the military."
That’s the A to Z of this saga, from Angelo De La Cruz to the ZTE telecom giant, all in less than four years.
Please send comments to _Rodel50@aol.com_ (mailto:Rodel50@aol.com) or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080305-122920/In-Crisis-a-Primer-from-A-to-ZTE
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : In Crisis, a Primer from A to ZTE
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 05, 2008
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) was considered a loyal ally of the United States until July of 2004 when she “caved in” to Iraqi hostage takers’ demands to withdraw the Philippine government’s 51 soldiers and police officers from Iraq a month early, in exchange for the release of the Filipino hostage Angelo De La Cruz.
In directing the Philippines to be the 5th country (after Spain, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras) to withdraw from the US-led “Coalition of the Willing” in 2004, GMA incurred the wrath of the US government. It retaliated by reducing US military and economic aid and limiting loan assistance from US financial institutions.
Prior to that date, the Philippines had shown its loyalty to the US by rallying the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to deal as one bloc to push China out of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, where four ASEAN allies and China hold competing claims. The Philippines was hailed by the US for standing up to China when it successfully prodded ASEAN and China to sign a “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea,” to stop China’s growing military presence in the area.
After the US punished the Philippines by imposing de facto sanctions on and refusing any face-to-face meetings of GMA with President George Bush, the Philippines changed course.
As Barry Wain wrote recently in the Far Eastern Economic Review, “President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s hurried trip to China in late 2004 produced a major surprise. Among the raft of agreements ceremoniously signed by the two countries was one providing for their national oil companies to conduct a joint seismic study in the contentious South China Sea, a prospect that caused consternation in parts of Southeast Asia…The Philippines also made breathtaking concessions in agreeing to the area for study, including parts of its own continental shelf not even claimed by China.”
According to Philippine Star columnist Jarius Bondoc, “There might be a hint of the real reason there. For, soon after RP capitulated, China offered to lend $2 billion a year till 2010 for government projects. China wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of its heart, though. It was bursting at the seams with $2 trillion in reserves, and was to collect 4-percent interest, hardly concessional in a period of much lower rates. China was only too willing to look like it was accommodating a new ally.”
These generous Chinese loans may have helped the Philippines reach an unprecedented 7.3% growth in 2007, the highest in 30 years. But they laid the ground for the present crisis which may yet topple the Arroyo government.
In 2007 alone, the Philippines signed 33 new projects for financing by the China Export-Import Bank. One of the projects was the NBN-ZTE deal which the Philippine government signed in April of 2007, where Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment (ZTE), the Chinese telecommunications giant, was awarded a contract worth US$ 329.5 million to set up the National Broadband Network (NBN) to improve government communications capabilities nationwide.
On August 29, 2007, Rep. Carlos Padilla in a privileged speech in the Philippine House charged that Philippine COMELEC Chair Benjamin Abalos brokered for the ZTE deal. A week later, the Philippine Senate called for hearings on the ZTE-NBN deal.
On September 10, 2007, Joey De Venecia, son of Joe De Venecia, then Philippine Speaker of the House, testified before the Senate and claimed that he was with Abalos in China when he heard Abalos “demand money” from ZTE officials.
Although Joey De Venecia was barred by Philippine law as the son of a high official from participating in and obtaining Philippine government contracts, he nevertheless submitted a losing bid for the NBN project as president of Amsterdam Holdings. He told the Senate that the president’s husband, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, had counseled him to back off” from pursuing the project and offered to compensate him.
On September 22, 2007, GMA announced that she was suspending the ZTE-NBN contract. On September 26, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Chair Romulo Neri and COMELEC Chair Abalos appeared at a Senate hearing. There Neri claimed that in a golf game earlier in the year, Abalos offered him $4-M (P200-M) for signing off on the ZTE deal. Abalos denied the charge.
On October 1, 2007, Abalos resigned his post as COMELEC chair. On October 2, GMA traveled to China to tell Chinese President Hu Jintao of her “difficult decision” to cancel the ZTE contract for the NBN project.
On January 30, 2008, the Philippine Senate issued warrants of arrest for Neri and NEDA consultant Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada, Jr. Neri went into hiding to avoid being served the warrant and Lozada flew to Hongkong. When he returned from Hong Kong On February 5, 2008, a Senate team was waiting to arrest him to take him to the Senate to testify on the ZTE-NBN deal. Before he could be served the warrant, however, he was whisked away by unidentified military personnel, only to be later dropped off under media pressure to join his family at La Salle Greenhills.
The day after his return, Lozada testified that Abalos and Mike Arroyo were behind the “kickbacks” in the deal, charging that they stood to make about $200-M from the $329.5-M contract. He said he warned them that the overcharge was too high and wouldn’t fly, but they ignored his warnings.
For allowing his son to testify against the GMA and the FG (First Gentleman), Speaker De Venecia would be voted out as Speaker of the House. On Friday, February 29, approximately 50,000 people gathered at the Ninoy Aquino monument in Makati in an Inter-Faith Rally that called for the resignation of GMA. The next day, Jose Maria Sison, leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), called for 100,000 Filipinos to gather in a street protest in Manila to unseat President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This should be enough, he said, “to ignite the withdrawal of support from the regime by the bureaucracy and the military."
That’s the A to Z of this saga, from Angelo De La Cruz to the ZTE telecom giant, all in less than four years.
Please send comments to _Rodel50@aol.com_ (mailto:Rodel50@aol.com) or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Fatigue or indifference?
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080226-121292/Fatigue-or-indifference
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Fatigue or indifference?
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: February 26, 2008
Two months ago, I proposed to the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), which advocates for the Filipino WW II veterans, to direct each of its 12 regional chapters to sponsor local activities to mark the 62nd anniversary of the infamous Rescission Act of February 19, 1946.
The purpose: to highlight the law that stripped Filipino veterans of the USAFFE of their US military benefits and mobilize support for the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill pending in the US Congress. I also suggested that we distribute 500,000 armbands inscribed with “2/18/46 – Rescission Act” to supporters all over the US.
My proposal was tabled for future discussion. February 18, 2007 came and went with only a march-forum in Los Angeles and a wreath-laying ceremony in Washington DC to commemorate it. When I went to Washington DC two weeks ago to lobby the US Congress to support the bill, I wrote about my concern that the Filipino veterans were getting caught in the crosshairs of the anti-foreigner anti-immigrant sentiment of Republican lawmakers. Unlike columns on other subjects, I received no feedback from readers about this issue.
Was this an indication that the Filipino community has lost interest in the fight of our Filipino WW II veterans to regain the benefits denied them 62 years ago?
Was the level of interest in the community always a mile wide but only an inch deep? In other words, was the Filipino community leadership’s professed interest in the issue not actually shared by the Filipino community at large?
Is there a Filipino veterans "compassion fatigue" with the community somehow developing numbness to due to constant media stories on the plight of suffering Filipino WW II veterans?
These are questions our community should raise and grapple with. Honest answers to them should guide us in our campaign for the veterans.
It may be an indication not just of community-wide indifference to the veterans issue but simply of an indifference to all issues. For instance, this week marks the 22nd anniversary of People Power, perhaps the most shining moment in Philippine history, the spark that ignited similar People Power uprisings in South Korea, Taiwan and all of Eastern Europe. But there are no celebrations of this glorious moment anywhere in the Filipino community this week. Why?
Five months ago, the Filipino community expressed outrage at the veiled attack on Philippine-educated physicians in the premiere episode of “Desperate Housewives” on September 30, 2007. There were demonstrations, on-line petitions (signed by 150,000 people), a barrage of protest letters and e-mails to ABC and a national conference in Las Vegas in November to mobilize the community to demand a meaningful on-air apology from ABC.
But three months after the November conference, the issue has been forgotten. ABC dangled the carrot of a collaborative partnership with NaFFAA to accept Filipino interns into ABC, a carrot apparently sufficient to prompt NaFFAA to discourage any lawsuits or protest actions against the network.
With all the Democrat-Republican, liberal-conservative, pro-GMA/anti-GMA divides in the Filipino community, it was believed that support for the Filipino WW II veterans was the one issue that all sides could agree on and rally behind.
But there are divisions even on this issue. There are supporters of the veterans who believe that the community should not compromise on full equity, that Filipino veterans in the Philippines should receive the same benefits as those in the US.
But even that formerly inflexible position has given way to support for the proposal of Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), chair of the House Veterans Committee, whose bill would provide $900 a month to the 6,000 US-based veterans, and $500 a month to Philippine-based veterans. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), this would amount to $1-B over 10 years or about $100-M a year.
There are those who believe that the veterans should get whatever they can get. As the ranks of the surviving veterans dwindle at an exponential rate, what good would it do them if the US Congress passes a bill giving all the veterans full equity several years from now and no one is left alive to receive it?
A group of aging veterans supports the Senate bill of Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, which would also provide $900 a month for US-based veterans and $375 a month for Philippine-based veterans with dependents, $300 for single veterans, and $200 for widows of veterans. The CBO believes this bill would amount to $365-M over 10 years.
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) proposed a more modest bill that would also grant $900 a month to US-based veterans but only $100 a month to Philippine-based veterans. He withdrew this proposal on December 13, 2007 and currently backs the bill of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) to totally eliminate benefits to Philippine-based veterans.
Divisions on this issue within the Filipino community discourage many of our supporters in the US Congress and provide a convenient cover to those unwilling to back the bill. (“If you guys can’t agree on what bill to support, why should we?”)
I strongly suggest that the Filipino community rally behind a veterans’ bill that can pass the US Congress. If even US Pres. George W. Bush has to regularly compromise with the US Congress now, why shouldn’t we?
The final paragraph of the 4-page letter to Sen. Craig written by the veterans advocate Gen. Delfin Lorenzana reads: “As we commemorate the Anniversary of the Rescission Act of 1946 on February 18, we pray that this 62-year old claim for recognition and benefits of these remaining gallant men and women who served America with utmost loyalty and devotion during WWII be finally granted.”
Prayers have been known to work wonders.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com, log in to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080226-121292/Fatigue-or-indifference
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Fatigue or indifference?
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: February 26, 2008
Two months ago, I proposed to the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), which advocates for the Filipino WW II veterans, to direct each of its 12 regional chapters to sponsor local activities to mark the 62nd anniversary of the infamous Rescission Act of February 19, 1946.
The purpose: to highlight the law that stripped Filipino veterans of the USAFFE of their US military benefits and mobilize support for the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill pending in the US Congress. I also suggested that we distribute 500,000 armbands inscribed with “2/18/46 – Rescission Act” to supporters all over the US.
My proposal was tabled for future discussion. February 18, 2007 came and went with only a march-forum in Los Angeles and a wreath-laying ceremony in Washington DC to commemorate it. When I went to Washington DC two weeks ago to lobby the US Congress to support the bill, I wrote about my concern that the Filipino veterans were getting caught in the crosshairs of the anti-foreigner anti-immigrant sentiment of Republican lawmakers. Unlike columns on other subjects, I received no feedback from readers about this issue.
Was this an indication that the Filipino community has lost interest in the fight of our Filipino WW II veterans to regain the benefits denied them 62 years ago?
Was the level of interest in the community always a mile wide but only an inch deep? In other words, was the Filipino community leadership’s professed interest in the issue not actually shared by the Filipino community at large?
Is there a Filipino veterans "compassion fatigue" with the community somehow developing numbness to due to constant media stories on the plight of suffering Filipino WW II veterans?
These are questions our community should raise and grapple with. Honest answers to them should guide us in our campaign for the veterans.
It may be an indication not just of community-wide indifference to the veterans issue but simply of an indifference to all issues. For instance, this week marks the 22nd anniversary of People Power, perhaps the most shining moment in Philippine history, the spark that ignited similar People Power uprisings in South Korea, Taiwan and all of Eastern Europe. But there are no celebrations of this glorious moment anywhere in the Filipino community this week. Why?
Five months ago, the Filipino community expressed outrage at the veiled attack on Philippine-educated physicians in the premiere episode of “Desperate Housewives” on September 30, 2007. There were demonstrations, on-line petitions (signed by 150,000 people), a barrage of protest letters and e-mails to ABC and a national conference in Las Vegas in November to mobilize the community to demand a meaningful on-air apology from ABC.
But three months after the November conference, the issue has been forgotten. ABC dangled the carrot of a collaborative partnership with NaFFAA to accept Filipino interns into ABC, a carrot apparently sufficient to prompt NaFFAA to discourage any lawsuits or protest actions against the network.
With all the Democrat-Republican, liberal-conservative, pro-GMA/anti-GMA divides in the Filipino community, it was believed that support for the Filipino WW II veterans was the one issue that all sides could agree on and rally behind.
But there are divisions even on this issue. There are supporters of the veterans who believe that the community should not compromise on full equity, that Filipino veterans in the Philippines should receive the same benefits as those in the US.
But even that formerly inflexible position has given way to support for the proposal of Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), chair of the House Veterans Committee, whose bill would provide $900 a month to the 6,000 US-based veterans, and $500 a month to Philippine-based veterans. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), this would amount to $1-B over 10 years or about $100-M a year.
There are those who believe that the veterans should get whatever they can get. As the ranks of the surviving veterans dwindle at an exponential rate, what good would it do them if the US Congress passes a bill giving all the veterans full equity several years from now and no one is left alive to receive it?
A group of aging veterans supports the Senate bill of Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, which would also provide $900 a month for US-based veterans and $375 a month for Philippine-based veterans with dependents, $300 for single veterans, and $200 for widows of veterans. The CBO believes this bill would amount to $365-M over 10 years.
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) proposed a more modest bill that would also grant $900 a month to US-based veterans but only $100 a month to Philippine-based veterans. He withdrew this proposal on December 13, 2007 and currently backs the bill of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) to totally eliminate benefits to Philippine-based veterans.
Divisions on this issue within the Filipino community discourage many of our supporters in the US Congress and provide a convenient cover to those unwilling to back the bill. (“If you guys can’t agree on what bill to support, why should we?”)
I strongly suggest that the Filipino community rally behind a veterans’ bill that can pass the US Congress. If even US Pres. George W. Bush has to regularly compromise with the US Congress now, why shouldn’t we?
The final paragraph of the 4-page letter to Sen. Craig written by the veterans advocate Gen. Delfin Lorenzana reads: “As we commemorate the Anniversary of the Rescission Act of 1946 on February 18, we pray that this 62-year old claim for recognition and benefits of these remaining gallant men and women who served America with utmost loyalty and devotion during WWII be finally granted.”
Prayers have been known to work wonders.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com, log in to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
The Filipino American Catholic Vote
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080213-118569/The-Filipino-American-Catholic-Vote
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : The Filipino American Catholic Vote
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: February 13, 2008
Filipino Americans are part of the broader Asian American group that constitutes 6% of the US population. Filipino American Catholics (85% of Filipinos are Catholics), however, are part of the larger US Catholic community that constitutes more than 25% of the registered voters in the country.
That it is also the largest group of swing voters in the US is especially significant because Catholics have backed the winner of the “national popular vote” in every US presidential election since 1972.
As Jim Dwyer noted in his New York Times column, since 1972, Catholics voted for five Republican and three Democratic presidents and one “popular-vote-winning but presidency-losing” Democrat, Al Gore. “No other large group has switched sides so often or been so consistently aligned with the winners,” Dwyer wrote. “Over that same period, a majority of white Protestants typically voted Republican, while blacks of all faiths and Jews strongly backed Democrats.”
There was a time more than 40 years ago when US Catholics were overwhelmingly Democrats especially because of John F. Kennedy, the first and only Catholic ever to be elected US president. But now Catholics don’t even vote for Catholic Democrats. In 2004, Protestant George W. Bush received 53% of the Catholic vote over Catholic John F. Kerry who received 47%.
Catholics supported Bill Clinton in his two presidential runs and Hillary Clinton in her two senatorial campaigns, including her re-election campaign against a Catholic Republican opponent. In the Super Tuesday New York presidential primary on February 5, 66% of the Catholic voters voted for Hillary compared to 30% for Barack Obama.
Brian O'Dwyer attributed Catholics support for the Clintons to what he said was their attention to the issues ethnic and working-class Catholics cared about, like social security, health care, education and immigration reform.
New York Assemblywoman Catherine T. Nolan believes there’s another reason Catholics, especially older ones, support Hillary. It's because older Catholic voters grew up with women in charge of daily life, she said.
“Maybe we’re a little bit more open to female leadership,” Ms. Nolan told Dwyer. “We had female role models from an early age. When I was growing up, all the Catholic school principals were women, and almost none of the public school principals were. The nuns were the people we saw every day, and they were running the whole show.”
Unlike other Asians, Filipinos are accustomed to seeing women in authority. There have been two female presidents in the Philippines since 1946; there have been none in the US since George Washington became president in 1789.
Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 and re-elected in 1984, on both occasions with the backing of what are still called the "Reagan Democrats." Who will this group of disaffected Democrats support this November?
Raymond Flynn, a former Democratic mayor of Boston who was president of the Washington DC-based Catholic Alliance, endorsed Bush over Gore in the 2000 elections because he felt abandoned by the Democratic Party on issues of trade, health care, and abortion. Flynn, who regularly speaks to Catholic groups all over the US, senses that Catholics are now returning to the fold.
"Right now, the so-called Reagan Democrats, they're going Democrat," Flynn said. "Health care, education, human rights — these issues are so compelling in this election that they're voting Democrat."
A nationwide poll of Catholic voters conducted by the author (William D'Antonio) of "American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church," found 82% of Catholic Democrats and 52% of Catholic Republicans favored "more government funding to provide health care to poor children."
This position was opposed by Pres. Bush who in 2007 vetoed the SCHIP (State Children Health Insurance Program) bill that would have extended health insurance to poor children. In the 2006 congressional elections, Democrats won 55% of the Catholic vote.
Two years earlier, in the 2004 presidential elections, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput openly endorsed Bush over Kerry because of their positions on abortion. But many Catholics agreed with the National Catholic Register newspaper that opposition to the death penalty was also a “right to life” issue because abortion and the death penalty fall under the same Fifth Commandment heading -- “Thou Shall Not Kill.”
Today most Catholics tend to be “Cafeteria Catholics,” picking and choosing which Catholic doctrine to accept or reject. Many liberal Catholics, for example, reject “creationism” and accept evolution, reject “pro-life” and are “pro-choice.” They support the church’s position on helping the poor and supporting a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Many conservative Catholics, on the other hand, oppose abortion and amnesty for illegal immigrants but support the death penalty and tax cuts for the wealthy.
With John McCain as the certain Republican Party presidential candidate, the “right to life” issue will be more complicated. In a 1999 statement to the San Francisco Chronicle, McCain said he did not advocate repealing Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
“I’d love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.”
This position explains why John McCain received strong backing from pro-choice Republicans. In Missouri, those favoring completely legalized abortion voted 48 % for McCain. In California, McCain received 49 % of the vote from those who want abortion to be “mostly legal.”
With the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates holding generally similar views on abortion, Catholics will have to look at the candidates’ positions on war and peace, the death penalty, immigration reform, tax cuts, housing, economic justice, welfare reform, the federal deficit, civil liberties, education and health care.
Filipino American Catholics will also have to look at the candidates' position on the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill which is supported by both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama, and opposed by Sen. McCain.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to 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/20080213-118569/The-Filipino-American-Catholic-Vote
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : The Filipino American Catholic Vote
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: February 13, 2008
Filipino Americans are part of the broader Asian American group that constitutes 6% of the US population. Filipino American Catholics (85% of Filipinos are Catholics), however, are part of the larger US Catholic community that constitutes more than 25% of the registered voters in the country.
That it is also the largest group of swing voters in the US is especially significant because Catholics have backed the winner of the “national popular vote” in every US presidential election since 1972.
As Jim Dwyer noted in his New York Times column, since 1972, Catholics voted for five Republican and three Democratic presidents and one “popular-vote-winning but presidency-losing” Democrat, Al Gore. “No other large group has switched sides so often or been so consistently aligned with the winners,” Dwyer wrote. “Over that same period, a majority of white Protestants typically voted Republican, while blacks of all faiths and Jews strongly backed Democrats.”
There was a time more than 40 years ago when US Catholics were overwhelmingly Democrats especially because of John F. Kennedy, the first and only Catholic ever to be elected US president. But now Catholics don’t even vote for Catholic Democrats. In 2004, Protestant George W. Bush received 53% of the Catholic vote over Catholic John F. Kerry who received 47%.
Catholics supported Bill Clinton in his two presidential runs and Hillary Clinton in her two senatorial campaigns, including her re-election campaign against a Catholic Republican opponent. In the Super Tuesday New York presidential primary on February 5, 66% of the Catholic voters voted for Hillary compared to 30% for Barack Obama.
Brian O'Dwyer attributed Catholics support for the Clintons to what he said was their attention to the issues ethnic and working-class Catholics cared about, like social security, health care, education and immigration reform.
New York Assemblywoman Catherine T. Nolan believes there’s another reason Catholics, especially older ones, support Hillary. It's because older Catholic voters grew up with women in charge of daily life, she said.
“Maybe we’re a little bit more open to female leadership,” Ms. Nolan told Dwyer. “We had female role models from an early age. When I was growing up, all the Catholic school principals were women, and almost none of the public school principals were. The nuns were the people we saw every day, and they were running the whole show.”
Unlike other Asians, Filipinos are accustomed to seeing women in authority. There have been two female presidents in the Philippines since 1946; there have been none in the US since George Washington became president in 1789.
Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 and re-elected in 1984, on both occasions with the backing of what are still called the "Reagan Democrats." Who will this group of disaffected Democrats support this November?
Raymond Flynn, a former Democratic mayor of Boston who was president of the Washington DC-based Catholic Alliance, endorsed Bush over Gore in the 2000 elections because he felt abandoned by the Democratic Party on issues of trade, health care, and abortion. Flynn, who regularly speaks to Catholic groups all over the US, senses that Catholics are now returning to the fold.
"Right now, the so-called Reagan Democrats, they're going Democrat," Flynn said. "Health care, education, human rights — these issues are so compelling in this election that they're voting Democrat."
A nationwide poll of Catholic voters conducted by the author (William D'Antonio) of "American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church," found 82% of Catholic Democrats and 52% of Catholic Republicans favored "more government funding to provide health care to poor children."
This position was opposed by Pres. Bush who in 2007 vetoed the SCHIP (State Children Health Insurance Program) bill that would have extended health insurance to poor children. In the 2006 congressional elections, Democrats won 55% of the Catholic vote.
Two years earlier, in the 2004 presidential elections, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput openly endorsed Bush over Kerry because of their positions on abortion. But many Catholics agreed with the National Catholic Register newspaper that opposition to the death penalty was also a “right to life” issue because abortion and the death penalty fall under the same Fifth Commandment heading -- “Thou Shall Not Kill.”
Today most Catholics tend to be “Cafeteria Catholics,” picking and choosing which Catholic doctrine to accept or reject. Many liberal Catholics, for example, reject “creationism” and accept evolution, reject “pro-life” and are “pro-choice.” They support the church’s position on helping the poor and supporting a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Many conservative Catholics, on the other hand, oppose abortion and amnesty for illegal immigrants but support the death penalty and tax cuts for the wealthy.
With John McCain as the certain Republican Party presidential candidate, the “right to life” issue will be more complicated. In a 1999 statement to the San Francisco Chronicle, McCain said he did not advocate repealing Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
“I’d love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.”
This position explains why John McCain received strong backing from pro-choice Republicans. In Missouri, those favoring completely legalized abortion voted 48 % for McCain. In California, McCain received 49 % of the vote from those who want abortion to be “mostly legal.”
With the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates holding generally similar views on abortion, Catholics will have to look at the candidates’ positions on war and peace, the death penalty, immigration reform, tax cuts, housing, economic justice, welfare reform, the federal deficit, civil liberties, education and health care.
Filipino American Catholics will also have to look at the candidates' position on the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill which is supported by both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama, and opposed by Sen. McCain.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.
Sliming Barack Obama
Mind Feeds / Mind Feeds
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080206-117119/Sliming-Barack-Obama
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Sliming Barack Obama
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: February 06, 2008
If American voters were free to choose between a candidate who supported keeping US troops in Iraq for another 100 years (at a cost of $2 trillion for the last six years and 3,000 US lives), or a candidate who vowed to pull US troops out and use the money saved for the health and education needs of
Americans in the US, there would be no question that Americans would overwhelmingly vote for the latter.
But elections in the US are not decided by the people who vote for the candidate who best reflects their views and interests. They are decided by people adept at manipulating voters into supporting or opposing candidates according to their prejudices and fears.
In January of 2000, Sen. John McCain scored an impressive victory in the New Hampshire primary and was on his way to securing the 2000 Republican presidential nomination when he entered the South Carolina primary as the heavy favorite. But supporters of Texas Gov. George W. Bush found a clever Karl Rovian way to stop McCain. They simply made poll survey phone calls asking South Carolina voters: "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"
In fact, there was no truth to the spurious claim other than the
widely-known fact that McCain and his wife had adopted their daughter Bridget as a baby from Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh. But the “black” propaganda proved brutally effective as McCain lost the 2000 primary in South Carolina and the Republican nomination to George W. Bush.
A similar underhanded smear campaign is currently being waged against Sen. Barack Obama. In the last 2 months, I have already received more than a dozen e-mails from various sources asking the recipient to “forward the e-mail to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading our country?”
Entitled “Who is Barack Obama?” the e-mail claims that Obama is "the son of a Black MUSLIM from Kenya and a white ATHEIST from Kansas" who was educated in a "Wahabi Islamic fundamentalist school in Indonesia". The e-mail also claims that Barack is a Muslim who took his oath of office as a US senator on a Koran, not on a Bible and that he will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor show any reverence for the US flag.
It ends with this ominous warning: “The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!” Another anti-Obama Internet blast which I also received claims that Obama’s church, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, is anti-American, will only accept black parishioners and tilts toward Africa at the expense of the United States. The e-mail claims that Obama is "certainly a racist" and "desires to rule over America while his loyalty is totally vested in a Black Africa."
At a Filipino social gathering I attended over the weekend, I heard a matron asking people "Have you heard?", proceeding to spread the anti-Obama information she had received via e-mail and which she proclaimed to be gospel truth. Even though I support Hillary Clinton, I could not help but ask the lady to please check her facts and not to blindly accept the scurrilous claims of anonymously written e-mails forwarded to her. I suggested that she check out http://www.snopes.com/ referred to in the e-mail as well as http://www.factcheck.org/ to determine the truth of the allegations.
Both online sources, I told her, debunked the anti-Obama e-mail information as false. Barack has never been a Muslim and his mother was not an atheist but one who instilled in him a respect for all religions. As Barack wrote in his book, Audacity of Hope, “In her mind, a working knowledge of the world’s great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education.”
Obama and his wife Michelle are members of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago which counts Oprah Winfrey as a member. The Trinity Church describes itself in its website as "a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian" and which "does not apologize for its African roots." It openly proclaims its commitment to Africa (where Oprah recently opened a school for girls in South Africa) and to the "historical education of African people in diaspora." Although the congregation is overwhelmingly black, it has a few white members and whites are welcomed at the church.
Obama took his oath of office before Vice President Dick Cheney on a Bible and not an a Koran and he regularly recites the pledge of allegiance.
The source of the anti-Obama smear is a January 2007 Insight Magazine article which is a publication owned by the News World Communications of Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon which also owns the very pro-Bush, pro Republican Washington Times.
CNN sent reporter John Vause to Jakarta to check on the Wahabi story and learned that the school Obama attended was not even a Muslim school. Hardi Priyono, the school’s deputy headmaster, told CNN: "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion."
Aside from the fact that I believe she is the most qualified, one of the reasons I support Sen. Hillary Clinton is my fear that the Republicans will have an easier time destroying (“swiftboating”) Barack in the general elections than they would Hillary, who has been hit with everything the GOP could possible throw at her since she became First Lady in 1993.
In the 2004 presidential elections, I received dozens of e-mails directed at Filipino Catholics telling us that Sen. John Kerry, the Catholic Democratic candidate, was pro-abortion and that it would be a mortal sin to vote for him. The e-mail asked the recipient to forward the e-mail to everyone they knew who was a concerned Catholic. This Karl Rovian e-mail campaign proved effective in delivering the Filipino vote to Bush.
We can expect the sliming of Barack Obama to be even more vicious. I just hope the Filipino community will focus on the issues and reject the slime that has already reared its ugly head in this campaign.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com, log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 (tel. 415- 334-7800.)
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080206-117119/Sliming-Barack-Obama
GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : Sliming Barack Obama
By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: February 06, 2008
If American voters were free to choose between a candidate who supported keeping US troops in Iraq for another 100 years (at a cost of $2 trillion for the last six years and 3,000 US lives), or a candidate who vowed to pull US troops out and use the money saved for the health and education needs of
Americans in the US, there would be no question that Americans would overwhelmingly vote for the latter.
But elections in the US are not decided by the people who vote for the candidate who best reflects their views and interests. They are decided by people adept at manipulating voters into supporting or opposing candidates according to their prejudices and fears.
In January of 2000, Sen. John McCain scored an impressive victory in the New Hampshire primary and was on his way to securing the 2000 Republican presidential nomination when he entered the South Carolina primary as the heavy favorite. But supporters of Texas Gov. George W. Bush found a clever Karl Rovian way to stop McCain. They simply made poll survey phone calls asking South Carolina voters: "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"
In fact, there was no truth to the spurious claim other than the
widely-known fact that McCain and his wife had adopted their daughter Bridget as a baby from Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh. But the “black” propaganda proved brutally effective as McCain lost the 2000 primary in South Carolina and the Republican nomination to George W. Bush.
A similar underhanded smear campaign is currently being waged against Sen. Barack Obama. In the last 2 months, I have already received more than a dozen e-mails from various sources asking the recipient to “forward the e-mail to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading our country?”
Entitled “Who is Barack Obama?” the e-mail claims that Obama is "the son of a Black MUSLIM from Kenya and a white ATHEIST from Kansas" who was educated in a "Wahabi Islamic fundamentalist school in Indonesia". The e-mail also claims that Barack is a Muslim who took his oath of office as a US senator on a Koran, not on a Bible and that he will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor show any reverence for the US flag.
It ends with this ominous warning: “The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!” Another anti-Obama Internet blast which I also received claims that Obama’s church, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, is anti-American, will only accept black parishioners and tilts toward Africa at the expense of the United States. The e-mail claims that Obama is "certainly a racist" and "desires to rule over America while his loyalty is totally vested in a Black Africa."
At a Filipino social gathering I attended over the weekend, I heard a matron asking people "Have you heard?", proceeding to spread the anti-Obama information she had received via e-mail and which she proclaimed to be gospel truth. Even though I support Hillary Clinton, I could not help but ask the lady to please check her facts and not to blindly accept the scurrilous claims of anonymously written e-mails forwarded to her. I suggested that she check out http://www.snopes.com/ referred to in the e-mail as well as http://www.factcheck.org/ to determine the truth of the allegations.
Both online sources, I told her, debunked the anti-Obama e-mail information as false. Barack has never been a Muslim and his mother was not an atheist but one who instilled in him a respect for all religions. As Barack wrote in his book, Audacity of Hope, “In her mind, a working knowledge of the world’s great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education.”
Obama and his wife Michelle are members of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago which counts Oprah Winfrey as a member. The Trinity Church describes itself in its website as "a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian" and which "does not apologize for its African roots." It openly proclaims its commitment to Africa (where Oprah recently opened a school for girls in South Africa) and to the "historical education of African people in diaspora." Although the congregation is overwhelmingly black, it has a few white members and whites are welcomed at the church.
Obama took his oath of office before Vice President Dick Cheney on a Bible and not an a Koran and he regularly recites the pledge of allegiance.
The source of the anti-Obama smear is a January 2007 Insight Magazine article which is a publication owned by the News World Communications of Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon which also owns the very pro-Bush, pro Republican Washington Times.
CNN sent reporter John Vause to Jakarta to check on the Wahabi story and learned that the school Obama attended was not even a Muslim school. Hardi Priyono, the school’s deputy headmaster, told CNN: "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion."
Aside from the fact that I believe she is the most qualified, one of the reasons I support Sen. Hillary Clinton is my fear that the Republicans will have an easier time destroying (“swiftboating”) Barack in the general elections than they would Hillary, who has been hit with everything the GOP could possible throw at her since she became First Lady in 1993.
In the 2004 presidential elections, I received dozens of e-mails directed at Filipino Catholics telling us that Sen. John Kerry, the Catholic Democratic candidate, was pro-abortion and that it would be a mortal sin to vote for him. The e-mail asked the recipient to forward the e-mail to everyone they knew who was a concerned Catholic. This Karl Rovian e-mail campaign proved effective in delivering the Filipino vote to Bush.
We can expect the sliming of Barack Obama to be even more vicious. I just hope the Filipino community will focus on the issues and reject the slime that has already reared its ugly head in this campaign.
Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com, log on to rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 (tel. 415- 334-7800.)
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