Top 10 stories for Filipino Americans in 2007



NEW JERSEY — Filipino Americans can look back on 2007 with both elation and embarrassment.FilAms figured prominently in mainstream media news, headlining topics such as the 9/11 health crisis, boxing, TV entertainment as well as espionage in high places.

While headline-grabbing news were quick to cool down and drop out of the front pages, one issue that played on and on and struck at the gut of what it is to be American was immigration. No other hot-button topic elicited as much passion and divisiveness.

In June, President Bush’s attempt to reform immigration died at the hands of his own party. It is for this reason that the

(1) death of the immigration bill in the U.S. Senate is the Philippine News choice for the top story of 2007.

The collapse of the bill seeking to provide a pathway to legalizing more than 12 million undocumented immigrants dashed the hopes of more than a million undocumented Filipinos, those among us who are off the grid, grinding away at a better life and hoping deportation would never happen to them or their children.

With the bill buried deeper than Jimmy Hoffa, it’s back to a life of run-and-hide for many FilAms and other undocumented immigrants.

The immigration story was dramatized by

(2) the Servano couple of Pennsylvania who were a step away from being deported back to the Philippines. They were not the stereotypical illegal immigrants blamed by politicians for everything from rising crime to falling standards in public schools.

The husband is the only physician in the underserved community of Sunbury, the wife operating an Asian food store. When their story hit the news in November, nearly everyone in the community came out in support of the beloved couple as if shielding them from probable deportation. The couple remains in the country while the case is under review.

Watching television will never be the same again for the FilAm community after

(3) “Desperate Housewives” – desperate for a laugh – made a mockery of Philippine medical schools.

The community was livid, an online petition demanding an apology from ABC network – and parent company Disney – collecting more than 150,000 signatures.

ABC did apologize, but not in the sincere way the community had hoped they would. Last we heard, ABC had offered to increase hiring of FilAm talent at the network.

In February, political news from the Homeland caught the ire of the United Nations and the U.S. Congress. Phillip Alston, special rapporteur of the U.N. Human Rights Council, traveled to the Philippines to investigate the abduction or killing of more than 800 mostly leftist activists who opposed the Arroyo Government.

His conclusion? Military units and private armies of politicians were the perpetrators of what is ironically called ‘salvagings,’ very common during the Marcos years.

(4) Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who opened committee hearings on the extrajudicial killings, dangled military aid to Manila and suggested cutting it unless the Arroyo Government brings rogue soldiers to justice. A committee was formed and about a dozen soldiers were prosecuted.

Who would have thought the Philippine peso would ever make the news?

(5) The peso has been soaring to almost 40 pesos against the U.S. dollar, putting a severe strain on Filipinos sending money home to their families.

Just before President Joseph Estrada was removed from office, the rate was P56 to $1. Analysts say adept economic management by the Philippine government and record inflows of remittances will likely keep the peso as Asia’s best performing currency into 2008.

“Desperate Housewives” specifically said ‘med school,’ but why were Philippine nursing schools also on trial? Because in 2006, a nursing board scandal threatened the future of 42,000 Filipino graduates, many of them hoping to find jobs in the U.S. That story rolled into 2007 because

(6) no American hospital wanted to hire grads from batch 2006. All’s well that ends well for this piece of bizarre news. Many of the nurses agreed to a retake, Manila became a testing destination for Nclex; and charges were filed against owners of the Gapuz review school, where the tainted test papers allegedly originated.

An NYPD veteran became Exhibit A for the government’s inept response to the health care crisis that afflicted many emergency responders who worked at Ground Zero.

(7) FilAm Cesar Borja died January from lung disease believed to have come from months of inhaling toxic dust and fumes. His family brought his case to the media, catching the eye of Senator Hillary Clinton at first, and President Bush next. Borja’s son Caesar was attending Bush’s State of the Union address, while his father lay dying in a New York hospital. The President would later sit down with the Borja family to offer not only the government’s sympathies but also an emergency health care budget for other first responders like Cesar. The New York Times disputed every morsel of the Borja family’s story, including the hours Cesar had spent at Ground Zero and the fact that he worked traffic duty for many years. The story fizzled promptly, with politicians and the Borja family maintaining the cop’s efforts at Ground Zero were still considered laudable.

The sleuthing was uncovered in 2005, but the spies who delivered top-secret dossiers for Arroyo’s opponents Joseph Estrada and Panfilo Lacson were

(8) convicted in March 2007. White House security specialist Leandro Aragoncillo and Michael Ray Aquino, a former Philippine police official, were later sentenced in July for up to 10 years in prison. Aragoncillo, a FilAm who provided security to Vice Presidents Gore and Cheney and had a promising career at the FBI, said he “never meant to cause harm” to the U.S. Aquino, a fugitive in Manila who fled to the U.S., was studying to be a nurse when arrested.

It has been quite an odyssey for Filipino veterans of World War II when the

(9) equity pension bill made it out of the House veterans affairs committee in July. It’s been in limbo since. The bill seeks to provide about $900 a month for Filipino veterans in the U.S. and the Philippines, but some legislators do not look very kindly on giving the same amount to veterans who are not living in the U.S. Indefatigable sponsors of the bill say there’s a chance the bill might be debated and decided on in 2008, but with presidential elections looming, that seems a forlorn hope.

Ma-nny, Ma-nny, Ma-nny. It was the name heard around the world, or at least in places where there are Filipinos.

(10) Manny Pacquiao’s victory against Marco Antonio Barrera was hailed widely and became a unifying moment among Filipinos. Like Americans on football weekends, FilAms held boxing parties in their homes and chipped in to be able to watch the game on Pay-Per-View. Pacquiao, a crowd favorite even among Barrera’s Mexican compatriots, just punched his way to a unanimous decision. The community was delirious. It was an exhilarating moment FilAms would never forget.

There were other mentionables that made the news, sadly among them were FilAm soldiers who lost their lives in a deeply unpopular war waged by a President who seems to have no clue how it is to be won. To some notorious FilAms, Page One was a logical destination: Physicians Jefferson and Elnora Calimlim of Wisconsin are currently serving time for harboring an undocumented alien – a housemaid – and treating her like a slave. Another doctor, Noel Chua of Georgia, was sentenced to life for prescribing deadly doses of painkillers to a patient, who turns out to be his lover.

A Virginia priest, Fr. Rodney Rodis, also found himself doing time for embezzling at least $1 million from two parishes where he served. And yet as 2007 drew to a close, news broke out about a woman who won retribution against seven mostly Filipino Catholic priests from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles County who sexually abused her. The court has ordered the diocese to pay the woman $500,000 for what the priests had done.

From randy priests to scamming spies, a hero boxer and heroic troops – 2007 was a witches’ brew of stories that made the community strut with pride and cringe in shame. Wonder what 2008 would be like.

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