200805

YEAR 11, No. 11 MAY 2008 Home Paper of the 1999 Canadian Ethnic Journalists’ and Writers’ Club Winner for Best Editorial Toronto, Ontario

San Lorenzo Ruiz has gone beyond the parameters of just being a revered Roman Catholic icon whose memory is ironically brought to life only during his feast days.

In San Lorenzo Ruiz’s name, a newly-opened Canadian grade school in Markham has forever etched the first Filipino saint’s life and works into its mission-vision.

On a wider perspective, the personifica-tion of San Lorenzo Ruiz in an academic institution has become a source of pride among members of the Filipino community

(To page 4)

Markham School Board Trustee Marlene Mogado cited

Getting immigrants, workers faster into CanadaGetting immigrants, workers faster into Canada(See page 5)

Name instills prideName instills pride San Lorenzo Ruiz Catholic School opens

MOGADO

Dancing To Be A Star - 33

INSIDEOoops & Bloops

Danny’sDanny’sthe manthe man

- 6- 6

CBT’s PeopleCBT’s PeoplePower - Power - 1212

This summer, LET’S GO TO THE EX - 15

RP, Canada airtalks on - 32

in Ontario, one that would last in the annals of Canadian history.

Behind the school’s namingOntario’s education and Catholic school of-

ficials have cited York Catholic School Board trustee Marlene Mogado (Markham, Milliken and Unionville) for her efforts to name the community school in the heart of Markham’s Wismer Commons after San Lorenzo Ruiz.

Teresa Lombardo, San Lorenzo Ruiz Cath-olic School (SLRCS) principal, paid tribute to Mogado’s initiative in the San Lorenzo Ruiz newsletter’s May issue, featuring the blessing and formal opening of the school on April 28.

Mogado’s efforts started soon after she was elected to the school board.

The construction of the school was then on its way, and Mogado lobbied with officials to

MANILA - The Canadian government has lauded the Philip-pine Supreme Court’s (SC) efforts to curb human rights violations and extrajudicial killings in the country.

Speaking before the Canadian House of Commons, Parliamen-tary Secretary to the Minister of

Foreign Affairs Deepak Obhrai said “Canada commends the laud-able role of the Supreme Court (of the Philippines) in the preserva-tion of human rights and in the pursuit of justice.”

Obhrai said “Canada is encour-aged that the Philippines have ex-pressed their commitment to end

extrajudicial killings through un-dertaking initiatives such as Task Force USIG, the Melo Commis-sion, and the visit of the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur Philip Alston.”

ConcernsThe Canadian government ear-

lier raised concerns over “serious

Canada lauds RP Supreme Court on steps vs human rights abuses

The San Lorenzo Ruiz Catholic School (SLRCS) in Markham’s Wismer Commons was solemnly blessed and officially opened on April 28. The liturgy, concelebrated by Fr. Michael Machacek and Fr. Brian Shea, included a procession of religious icons by students, with a child from each class bringing a classroom crucifix to be blessed. PHOTO: MOGI MOGADO

human rights challenges, notably the ongoing extrajudicial killings and apparent culture of impunity” brought before the UN Human Rights Council.

“Canada also encourages the Philippines to ensure that its se-curity forces are aware of human

(To page 4)

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(To page 17)

Manila Media Monitor MAY 20084 NEWSNEWS

rights and of their responsi-bility to protect human rights defenders,” Obhrai said.

“We encourage the Phil-ippines to work at imple-menting the recommenda-tions before them and to make progress on convic-tions,” he added.

Judicial collaborationCanadian Ambassador

to the Philippines Robert Dejardin provided a copy of Obhrai’s statement to Chief Justice Reynato Puno.

Dejardin said he wanted to bring to the head magis-trate’s attention “the value that the Government of Can-ada attaches to your efforts in this regards as well as our continued collaboration in the Justice Reform Initia-tives Support Project.”

WritsConcerns on human

rights violations has prompt-ed the SC to convene a Na-tional Consultative Summit on Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappear-

ances in July. The summit saw the

promulgation of the Rules on the Writ of Amparo and Writ of Habeas Data, which were put in force on Oct. 24, 2007 and Feb. 2. 2008, re-spectively.

Amparo means protec-tion, while habeas data is access to information.

The writ of amparo would bar military officers in judicial proceedings to issue denial answers regard-ing petitions on disappear-ances or extrajudicial ex-ecutions, which were legally permitted in habeas corpus proceedings.

By invoking truth, the writ of habeas data would compel military and govern-ment agents to release infor-mation about the desapare-cidos and require access to military and police files.

Both were conceived to solve alleged extra-judicial killings and forced disap-pearances since 1999.

have the school named after San Lorenzo Ruiz.

Blooming ideaFilipinos in Wismer

Commons and in Markham supported Mogado’s idea, which also attracted the sup-port of the Catholic commu-nity in Markham.

The school board agreed, acknowledging the growing influence of Filipino Catho-lics in York region.

During the school’s blessing, St. Patrick’s Par-ish assistant pastor Fr. Brian Shea said it was proper to name the school after San Lorenzo Ruiz because “he symbolized unwavering Catholic faith in the face of adversity.”

“His example was worth emulating for all of us,” Fr. Shea said.

Dream fulfilledYork school board chair

Elizabeth Crowe noted that “for a rookie trustee, Mar-lene Mogado is doing a great job at the school board.”

“It was through her ef-forts that this school was named in honor of San Lorenzo Ruiz,” Crowe said, as she congratulated Mogado and everyone “for a dream fulfilled.”

She also lauded the Catholic community “for your full support to our new school.”

Education director Sue LaRosa, who officiated the formal opening of SLRCS, said it was wonderful to have had Mogado behind the project, particularly hap-py to see the new school and community come together under Mogado’s leadership.

“If only we had more Marlenes in this board,” she

quipped.Historic occasion

For Filipino families who have settled in the area, the SLRCS opening was a historic occasion to share in the special moment that be-stowed honor to thier saint, said another official.

Among those also pres-ent during the blessing and opening of SLRCS were Fr. Michael Machacek, St. Pat-rick’s Parish pastor; Carol Cotton, York school board vice chair; Ann Stong, Trust-ee Area 4; Patricia Preston, education assistant director for leading learning;

Andy DiSebastiano, edu-cation superintendent; Debra Cormier, education superin-tendent of curriculum and student sssessment; Jennie Dixon, former principal of St. Edward Catholic School and current principal of St. Monica Catholic School;

Rick Tuzi, SLRCS coun-cil chair; Connie Leclair, All Saints Catholic School council chair; Noel LaPlan-te, OECTA York unit presi-dent; Liz Stuart, OECTA York unit vice president;

Andy Orfanakos, CUPE 1571 president; Maureen Atcheson, York Occa-sional Teachers president; Ed Joaquin, for MP Lui Temelkovski; Jack Heath, Markham deputy mayor; Carolina Moretti,

Ward 4 councillor; and Mary Ellen Smith, of the Ministry of Education.; Navy Commander Paul Del-haise; Eric Anderson, Suresh Patel and Jacek Przygodzki, all of Young and Wright Ar-chitects; and Pino Antilope, project manager of Bond-field Construction.

TOP LEFT PHOTO: St. Monica Catholic School principal Jennie Dixon (left) presents the statue of Fili-pino saint Lorenzo Ruiz for the San Lorenzo Ruiz Catholic School (SLRCS) that opened in Markham on April 28. BOTTOM LEFT PHOTO: Connie Leclair (left), chair of the All Saints Catholic School Coun-

To date, the Supreme Court has issued 23 writs of amparo and three writs of habeas data.

OPCAT ratificationMeanwhile, UN special

rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary and arbitary kill-ings Philip Alston has cited President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for ratifying on April 22 the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Tor-ture (OPCAT), an interna-tional human rights treaty.

In an email, Alston said: “It’s very impressive that the President has moved to ratify the OPCAT and I very much hope that the Senate will go along with it.”

The government invited Alston to visit the Philip-pines last February when he expressed interest in looking into the activist and media killings in the country.

Alston recommended a series of action the govern-ment should take to resolve extrajudicial deaths.

Markham’s San Lorenzo Ruiz Catholic School naming, opening instills community pride(From page 1)

cil, presents the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary to SLRCS council chair Rick Tuzi. TOP TO BOTTOM RIGHT PHO-TOS: In a short school opening program, the SLRCS Primary Choir under the direction of Ms. Ripandelli, Mr. Poon and Ms. Chung-Silcott, performs the Magnifi-cat and Awesome God, while children and teen-ers showcase their dancing skills. Photos: MOGI MOGADO

“What very good news,” wrote Yvonne Terlingen, Amnesty International’s representative to the UN.

The President ratified OPCAT ten days after the Philippines underwent the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN.

At the UPR session, offi-cials from the United King-dom, Japan, Norway and Australia cited the Philip-pines for inviting and coop-erating with Alston.

The United States and France also welcomed gov-ernment steps to address ac-tivist and media killings.

The ratification was sent to the Philippine Senate for its concurrence.

The OPCAT would strengthen the implemen-tation of the Convention against Torture, including preventive mechanisms.

The Philippine has been a state party to the UN Con-vention since 1986. PNA, SC, OPS, PR

SLRCS opening: A time for praise, joy

Canada lauds RP Supreme Court on steps vs human rights abuses(From page 1)

Philippine Ambassador to Canada Jose Brillan-tes was elected vice president of the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CPRMW) in Geneva on April 14, said the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Brillantes, in recent media fora, said he has been an active member of the CPRMW, being among those who drafted the UN convention to the same effect.

However, the ambassador and other Philippine of-ficials asked by the Manila Media Monitor in separate occasions refused to discuss and either downplayed or swerved away from any inquiry on Philippine initia-tives, diplomatic or otherwise, to make Canada sign the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

Advocacy groups have seen Canada’s refusal to sign the convention as a major reason why so many Filipino workers and caregivers have been shabbily treated and abused by unscrupulous Canadian employers.

CPRMW was set up in 2004 and is due to consider country reports on the implementation of the conven-tion, with Syria making the first report.

Other state parties to the convention are Azerbaijan, Belize, Bolivia, Boznia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salva-dor, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Togo, Uganda and Uruguay.

Brillantes namedUN CPRMW veep

5NEWSNEWSMAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor

Citizenship and Immi-gration Canada (CIC) has proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) that would reduce wait times so that families are reunited faster and skilled workers arrived sooner.

Changes to the IRPA would give CIC “greater flexibility in processing new applications, especial-ly from skilled workers” as these would also establish a “more responsive immigra-tion system,” CIC said.

The changes meant that those who applied before Feb. 27, 2008, would con-tinue to be processed under the current system.

Anyone would still be able to apply, but CIC would no longer be required to process all new skilled worker applications.

Minister’s authorityUnder the proposed

changes, the CIC Minister is authorized to issue in-structions to immigration officers on the processing

of applications, including those related to job vacan-cies in Canada.

The current system mandated that decisions on individual applications are made by CIC immigration officers and the Minister could not reverse these de-cisions.

Reducing the backlogThe proposals were

likewise seen to reduce the growing backlog (graphics on the right of page) on im-migration applications.

The long and growing wait times for newcomers and their families would not do good for prospective immigrants and for Canada, because people might be encouraged to go to more competitive countries where the wait times are shorter, CIC said.

To complicate matters further, all skilled worker applications are being pro-cessed in the order they are received, regardless of the applicant’s skills or profes-sion and whether they meet

the country’s needs.As all applications

should, by law, be pro-cessed, the backlog has continued to build.

TransparencyCIC said it would make

public the Minister’s in-structions, which would re-flect commitments to prov-inces and territories.

The instructions would also be published in the Canada Gazette, reported in the Department’s annual

report to Parliament and posted on CIC’s website.

Foreign credentialsMeanwhile, CIC Min-

ister Diane Finley said the continuing success of the Foreign Credentials Refer-ral Office (FCRO) has been “helping newcomers to Canada use their talents in the fields for which they’ve been trained.”

“By helping immigrants find out how to get their credentials assessed and

recognized more quickly, especially before they enter Canada, their chances for success will improve,” Fin-ley said.

Since its launch less than a year ago, the FCRO has put up ways to help newcomers and prospective immigrants find informa-tion they need to put their skills to work in Canada.

Information toolFinley said the 320 Ser-

vice Canada centers offering

in-person foreign creden-tial referral services have helped over 9,000 people, and the FCRO website has had over 250,000 visits, most of these from outside Canada.

The Working in Canada Tool has been a key feature of the website, helping in-ternationally trained people know about the Canadian labor market related to their occupation.

APPLICATION BACKLOG Proposed IRPA changes toreunite families, bring inskilled workers faster

The range for permanent resident admissions will remain at 2008 levels (240,000 to 265,000), the Provincial Nominee Program and Canadian Experience Class admissions will increase, and the temporary migration flows will remain at 2007 levels. Backlogs will remain constant in all immigration categories (based on current admission levels, application intake and approval rates) except for the Federal Skilled Worker category. (Citi-zenship and Immigration Canada)

(To page 14)

Danny’s the manAce Alvarez

(To page 7)

VIEWSVIEWS Manila Media Monitor MAY 20086

Conversation between myself and my wife, Gie, one evening:

Gie: The concert of the Soci-ety of Seven with Lani Misalucha is a great act.

Ace: Oh yes, all their perfor-mances at Bally’s and the Flamin-go in Las Vegas have always been sold out.

Gie: Well, who knows, one of these days, they might be engaged by Fallsview Casino’s Avalon Theatre, or at Casino Rama.

Ace: Well, only Danny Sam-son - the guy in photo 1 on this page can do that.

He’s one of the producers of DEE Entertainment - the concert production company to bring the Society of Seven at the Sony Cen-tre in downtown Toronto.

I heard that tickets to the show are selling briskly.

Did you know that the Society of Seven have behind them some 30 or 40 years of performances in Hawaii and Las Vegas?

Ace (interrupts the conversa-tion to call his son): Christian, do you want to watch the concert of the Society of Seven with Lani Misalucha, Saturday, May 24, at

the Sony Centre?Christian: “Society

of Seven”? Who, those guys (in photo 2 on this page)?

***Having sent a press release

on behalf of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce-To-ronto (PCCT) to Joey Baking, publisher of Manila Confiden-tial, the latter responded: “OK la’ng. But it will be better kung may ad na kasama ito. Heh...heh...heh...! But of course ilala-bas pa rin ito.”

I wrote back: “As a pub-lisher, too, I can emphatize with you.

”But don’t worry, should the group come out with a print ad, you’ll be on the list - you being one among the favorite print partners of PCCT. The other favorites, I think, are the four-teen other Filipino publications in T.O.”

Joey returned with an an-swer, saying, “… another ‘fif-teen’ na, Ace.”

He said that his printer told him that another publication is

coming out in Toronto. The Manila Confidential

publisher added na baka naman iyong bagong publisher pa ang makatanggap ng advertising.

***Sending out the invitation to

members of the Canadian Ethnic Media Association (CEMA) re-cently for the reception hosted by the GTA Liberal Party and Sena-tors Caucus at the Montecassino Hotel in North York, Arnim Joop, publisher of The Albertaner in Edmonton, Alberta, replied, “Un-fortunately, I will not be able to at-tend the anniversary celebration, but I would like to congratulate you and all members of CEMA on reaching this milestone and wish you a successful celebration.”

“Maybe, the federal govern-ment can fly me to Toronto on one of their nice Challenger jets, which they use to ship Canadians, who are convicted in other coun-

tries, back to Canada.”Arnim - of German ancestry

and married to a Filipino, was referring to Brenda Martin, a Ca-nadian flown by the government back to Canada after spending two years at a Mexican prison.

I thought, why would the gov-ernment use its Challenger jet to fly to T.O. the publisher of The Al-bertaner when the editor of Ma-nila Media Monitor Butch Galicia, had to contend with a buddy pass flying “Air Canada” (reference: front page story, Manila Media Monitor, February 2008 issue)?

***On May 2, the Canada News

Wire carried this story: “Out-standing educators honoured”.

After seeing the headline, I said to myself, “Hhhhmmmm … let me read this story. Prob-ably, my good friend Leonie Manzanares is one of the award

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PHOTO 2

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recipients, being an edu-cator and president of the Philippine Teachers Asso-ciation.

It’s not true that the news story carried a refer-ence for my good friend, Leonie Manzanares as chairperson of the Danc-ing To Be A Star event of the PIDC.

***My three-year old

grandaughter, Abigail (pho-to 3 on this page, tinkering a Ninetendo DS), is becom-ing a techie.

Visiting her recently, I asked for her complete name. She replied, Abigail Alvarez-Mahoney.com.

***Coordinating the

voiceover talents for the Tagalog version of the Ministry of Health’s 30-second colon cancer check TV commercial - which required one male and one female voiceovers, I wrote an addendum to editor Butch Galicia, saying, “I forgot to tell you that your voiceover would be that of the husband.”

He replied, “Ah, mabuti na ang maliwa-nag. I thought I would be the wife.”

Of course, my clarifi-cation was brought about

PHOTO 3that he might mistake his voiceover for that of the male announcer.

***A headline in Market-

ing Magazine states, “Can-ada Post goes directly to green”.

I hope that this did not explain why some of my correspondences got lost in the mail.

***On May 16, the Manila

Times carried this story: “Fierce Fighting Resumes in South Between Gov’t, Moro Islamic Liberation Front”.

For those who have an understanding of journal-ism, indeed, this is what we call a running story! But in this case, very lit-eral. They were fighting

before, and continues to fight; and, fiercely for this matter.

***In his column Omerta

on page 10, this issue, edi-tor Butch wrote, “… of the some 80 ethnic news publi-cations circulating in Toron-to and its environs, about 20 percent or 16 are serving the Filipino community?”

He wrote further, “… and that they are into seri-ous internet downloading journalism.”

Oh wait a minute, let me re-read the item. I’m sorry, he didn’t say this one!

***In the same column,

editor Butch wrote, “Errrr. Regarding my barbs on the month of May, I just re-membered my wife, Evelyn,

marks her birth anniversary in May.

“Please pray for me.”After reading the item,

I thought, “And the way this guy talks when his wife is not present, his listener would have a definitive im-pression that he is the boss in the household.”

Sabi nila, saan nga ba nahuhuli ang isda?

In this case though, edi-tor Butch himself wrote in the same column this issue: “Having been in the jour-nalism profession for over 30 years now, I subscribe to Pilate’s explanation and have learned to stand up to whatever I write.”

Butch was referring to Pilate’s pronouncement, “What I have written, I have written?”

Now that I’m question-ing who the boss between editor Butch and his wife is, may I ask Butch if he still stands up to whatever he writes versus what he ver-bally used to saying in the absence of his wife?

Unto Butch, I say, if ever he has one to emulate on the matter, it should be me as I have total control of my wife Gie.

In the meantime, let me wrap this up, kasi kanina pa ako inuutusan ni Gie na ita-pon na ang basura; at medyo galit na, kaya, … readers, please pray for me, too.

Miss Philippines Hamilton 2008 Pavielyne Caran-dang (center), 19, with her court Tiffany Alejandro (left), 19, first runner-up; and Vanessa Tillner, 17, second runner-up. Carandang also won as Miss Photogenic and Miss Philantrophy; Alejandro as Miss Congeniality. Other contestants were Ayesa Cobarde, Sandy Aquino, June Lascano, and Nicol-lete Tai. JOJO TADURAN

Carandang wearsMiss Hamilton crown(From page 6)

Ooops & ...

Way of life: Poverty, dust, brownouts

Manila Media Monitor MAY 20088 VIEWS

(To page 16)

Managing EditorACE ALVAREZ

EditorBUTCH GALICIA

Associate EditorGIE ALVAREZ

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Ben ViccariMag Cruz Hatol

Pete LacabaMel Tobias

Editorial AssistantsLennart Leigh Alvarez-Mahoney

Dods Andrada

ContributorsEdwin AcunaBien Garcia

Jeannie PilapilEva Agpaoa

Mario DimainNoel PeradaLarry Torres

Chito Sarabia

Account ExecutiveMYRNA SORIANO

GraphicsIDTech Solutions

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974 Metrica Street1008 Manila, PhilippinesTel/Fax: (632) 742-1484

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(To page 17)

A recent feature on televi-sion brought home poignant news about our Aeta brothers in Zam-bales and Aklan.

They are quietly being eased out of their ancestral domains by the very parties tasked to protect them and their heritage.

Even the most basic services they deserve as citizens of the land are being denied them.

Essentials like food and po-table water constantly remain in their wish lists. So does education for their children.

For decades, we have been content with NGOs and foreign missionaries looking after the needs of indigenous people as though their needs could not be met by government.

Discussion of the present plight of indigenous people in the country is not complete mi-nus mention of some kind-hearted association that has adopted the

native group and brought it some form of human dignity.

A recent trip to Occidental Mindoro shook up this writer be-cause of the stark realities attend-ing our Mangyan brothers and the entire province itself.

Not only is the island prov-ince a showcase of poverty, it also seemed like a remnant of the for-ties when development was slug-gish after a destructive war.

The roads leading out of the capital look as though the national government has forsaken the is-land.

Stirred up dust envelopes peo-ple and houses each time a vehicle passes.

It is not surprising that the in-cidence of respiratory diseases is high in these areas.

At nightfall, it is practically pitch-dark. Agreeable to watch the stars in full sparkle but not if it means stumbling on carabao or

dog droppings that litter the land-scape.

Also not palatable is the reality of commonplace power outages.

Appliances have short lives; so do nerves especially when stag-ing a social event or undergoing a medical procedure.

In fact, dust and brownouts have become a way of life in the province.

If this description encapsu-lizes life for the average Mindoro resident, the Mangyan in the up-lands is even lightyears farther in discomfiture and disenfranchise-ment.

A typical Mangyan communi-ty is tucked away in some remote nook of the province, we found out.

The adult men still sport the drab loincloth or G-string, feet unshod and are generally naked on top.

Their skin is a testament to the

harsh sun and the burdens they must carry coming up or down their settlements.

Why their ancestral domains are largely kept far from the com-forts of modern life is beyond comprehension.

As original settlers who toiled for centuries, it is a wonder that they have been relegated to the backyard, as it were, left alone to fend for themselves.

It is sheer irony to peer down from their settlements to see the vast expanse of land they once owned, now expropriated by vir-tue of a few pieces of paper, the text of which they cannot under-stand.

It is those sheets of paper that the lowlander brandishes that has prodded many a Mangyan family to push for their children’s educa-tion, fearful that the longer they are illiterate, the more parcels of ancestral land will be snatched away from them.

They do not care about the dust. Their villages are swathed in green.

They are not affected by gas shortages and brownouts.

Their torches and kinkis, little kerosene lamps, provide all the light they need at night.

Radio is a luxury; television, rare.

As my classmate was pass-ing by our home, I asked, “Eppie, where’s mama?” Truth was, Ep-pie wasn’t my sister and had her pass as my sister in the ears of my classmate, Carmelita. Eppie is my niece by my brother, Randolph. The more appropriate question then was, “Eppie, where’s your mama?”

I phrased the question in-tentionally as I uttered to let my classmate know that like her, I had a mother, too, for at that time, I had none, as my mother passed away when I was four years old.

Today, May 11, I recalled this story as we celebrated Mother’s Day.

I really did envy people whose mothers celebrated with them the best times in their lives, and con-soled them in times of sadness.

As a child, I never had these experiences, but lucky enough to have had the utmost love of my father and my younger siblings among a brood of seven who I grew up with - Nelson, Tony, Jr., and Bert, who saw me through to be the person I am today.

Having hardly known my mother, there were only a few things I knew of her, mostly from the anecdotes as told by my nanny - who until I was 17 or 18 contin-ued to visit with us occasionally, until she, too, passed away.

So, let me share with you a

couple.My mother, the former Pilar

Andrada Soriano, was from a fam-ily of vast agricultural landown-ers, and - as you read the middle and last names, was an epitome of Castilian beauty and … character, the latter as we had known them in the Philippines.

One story from my nanny went that one day, my sister - who lived with her husband nearby - sent a maid to take a serving of tinolang manok to my father and mother.

As the maid put down the fine china on the dining table, my mother asked the maid, “Did they eat lunch yet?”

Replying in the affirmative, my mother asked the maid to take back the tinolang manok and tell my sister that the correct way of sending these things was before the latter and my brother-in-law would have eaten their lunch, oth-erwise, it would be construed as leftovers.

Of course, my sister cried and came to my mother, explain-ing that the padala was in fact re-served even before they had lunch, but opted to send it until after they had eaten.

Another story went that ev-erytime my mother would buy a box of matches, she would count all the sticks in the box and divide them by three: each stick to be used for cooking breakfast, lunch

and dinner, so much so that when the matches were gone before the day they were supposed to be con-sumed, the househelp assigned to cooking would be in trouble. Well, my nanny never mentioned what kind of trouble. Neither was I able to ask because of amusement over the story.

My nanny would repeatedly stress, “Don’t get the wrong im-pression though, but your mom was loved by all helpers in the household, friends and relatives.”

To you, readers, whatever, impression you might have on my mother from these anecdotes, lesson to keep is, treasure your mother always.

This was one thing I did not have one privilege of, for which my wife, Gie, noticed, as the ex-planation why I’m always extra sweet with seniors.

***Bill C-50 - the proposed

amendments to the Immigra-tion and Refugee Protection Act has passed second reading at the House of Commons and present-ly being studied by the standing committees on finance, on the one hand, and citizenship and immi-gration, on the other.

Under the proposed amend-ments, the bill removes the minis-ter’s obligation to process all visa applications and gives the minister the power to pick certain applica-

tions and disregard others without any accountability.

Such an extraordinary power for one person to have, huh? Is Canada under an authoritarian government now?

The bill also removes the right of an applicant overseas to be con-sidered for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassion-ate grounds, hence, could serve as a hindrance to the reunification in Canada of many families.

If immigration is a very signif-icant issue for Canada, Filipinos should be dealing on this, too.

How come we don’t read con-cerns on these in Filipino publica-tions?

Tsk … tsk … tsk …. Anoth-er problem with the “copy and paste” journalism-type found in vast majority of Filipino publica-tions around us.

***I’ve watched concerts of old

entertainers who made a name for themselves when I myself was very young, and through the years, their big hits continue to excite their various audiences whenever they perform live before them.

I think this is one thing that Filipino artists must do. They must engage the services of the bands we have to help them give fresh treatment on their repertoire; musical re-arrangement, if you please.

This way, whenever they have performances at events, they have their own minus one CDs and not those commercial ones that we usually use at karaoke bars and restaurants and private parties.

I have seen several artists dur-ing the last decade and the rep-ertoire is the same, hence, most people in the audience make their washroom breaks at events when the singer/performer is about to be

Always treasure yourMOTHER

GRAPHICSTRIMEDIANETWORKS

416 602 [email protected]

OPINION

Media help US presidents hoodwink us

Take action vs abuse

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 9VIEWSVIEWS

Mamamayan bilang kinatawan

(To page 22)

Ngayong pinangunahan na ni Sen. (Aquilino) Pimentel ang mul-ing pagbubukas ng usapin sa charter change, mahalagang mabalik tanawan ang ginawang pagkapon sa demokrasyang ipinanalo ng ta-umbayan nuong EDSA (People Power Revolution).

Sa mga panahon ngayon, lubhang nakonsolida lamang ng ilang interest groups ang sistema ng ating lipunan sa pamamagitan ng Pag-aalsang EDSA upang higit na bigyan ng puwang ang patuloy na pag-iral ng isang sistemang kultural, ekonomiko, pulitikal at so-syal na tumutugon lamang sa interes ng iilang pamilya, dayuhan at kanilang galamay.

Walang makabuluhang pagbabago sa ating kalagayan dahil ang masang Pilipino ay hindi pa rin nabigyan ng puwang sa tipo ng de-mokrasyang ipinangangalandakan ng mga sakim sa yaman at ka-pangyarihan.

Nakakalungkot isipin na ang mga honorable na nakaupo sa Mal-akanyang, Kongreso at Senado ay nililingon lang ang masa tuwing panahon ng eleksyon. Kung mag-ingay man, ang ginagawa ay puro papogi lang o kaya ay nagpapataas ng presyo.

May tunay nga ba tayong oposisyon sa Pilipinas o ito ay isa la-mang kompetisyon sa pagitan ng mga buwitre at garapatang nag-uunahang sumipsip sa dugo ni Juan de la Cruz?

Nakakalungkot. Ang mga progresibong kilusan ng mamamayan na dapat sana ay nasa unahan sa aban para sa batayang karapatan, kabuhayan at interes ay mistulang nagagamit na lang ding pambala sa kanyon sa mga kompetisyong ito na kung saan ay ang pinag-aaga-wang karangalan ay kung sino ang mas makakapagnakaw sa bayan.

Sino ang may balak magmalinis? Ni isa sa mga partylist repre-sentative ng progresibong kilusan na nakuhang manalo at dapat sana ay siyang boses ng mamamayan sa lehislatura ay hindi man lamang binigyan ng importansya ang pag-isponsor sa panukalang batas na magpapatupad ng pagkakaroon ng kinatawan ng sektor ng mama-mayan sa mga lokal na pamahalaan.

Ni isa ay walang nagsikap na seryosohin ang Barangayan bilang venue ng pampulitikang pamumuno para kamtin ang kumpyansa ng masa sa sama-samang pagdadamayan at pagkakaisa upang mabago ang kasalukuyang kultura ng korupsyon at kawalang pagsasa alang-alang sa kapakanan ng kapwa.

Kung mayroon mang dapat pag-debatihan sa panahon ng pag- aamyenda sa Saligang Batas, ito ay ang isyu sa pagpapalawig sa partisipasyon ng taumbayan sa political governance at pagsasakatu-paran ng pagkilala sa karapatan ng mamamayan at bawat sektor ng lipunan na katawanin ang kanilang interes sa pag-alam ng problema, paghanap ng solusyon at pagkakaroon ng pampulitikang kapangyar-ihan upang makapagbuo at makapagpatupad ng mga tamang batas na tunay na pumapabor sa nakararami.

Ito ang tunay na demokrasya; ito ang tangi ngunit masalimuot na daan na dapat tahakin upang maging isang lahi at bansa.

Ang landas ng tunay na pagmumulat, pag-oorganisa at pagpa-pakilos sa ating mamayan para kamtin ang people empowerment ay dapat magmula sa transpormasyon ng indibidwal, pamilya, komuni-dad, barangay, munisipyo, lungsod, rehiyon at bansa.

Ito ang sitwasyon na kung saan ang mamamayan ay hindi na lamang simpleng bumoboto tuwing eleksyon at naghihintay ng mga dapat sundin na batas at programa;.kundi ang mamamayan ay akti-bong kumikilos at kinikilalang pinakamahalagang bahagi sa riyal-isasyon ng minimithing pagbabago at pangarap ng bansa. MARK-PB, Partidong Pangdaigdigang Pilipino website

Last month I wrote about the conditions in the Philippines and the effect they are having on a generation of young people.

I wrote about it because I am really concerned and want my country to be the best it can be.

I want us to be proud of who we are as a people (I know I am) and to earn the respect of the rest of the world.

We can achieve this but it will take time and commitment from each of us.

This month I want to share with you a story about Carlita.

It’s not a happy story but it is an important story.

It’s about standing up for yourself and having the courage to question your situation if it feels wrong.

Carlita came to Canada about five months ago to work as a nanny. She was brought in by an agency here in Canada.

She was placed in a family who pays her $1,000 a month with work lasting close to 15 hours a day, six days a week.

This is illegal.But Carlita didn’t know that. When she complained, the

family and the agency threatened her. They told her they would re-port her to immigration services and have her deported.

So she kept her mouth shut and they kept her a slave.

This is wrong.I met Carlita and helped her

understand her rights and found a new family for her that would treat her with respect.

The point of this story is not that she has escaped her situation (though I’m glad that she did).

It is that too many Filipino workers come here and don’t un-derstand their rights and allow their employers, and in some cas-es the agency which brought them here, to abuse them.

In some ways, this is a product of the situation in our country.

People there are so downtrod-den and so used to being abused that when they arrive here and receive the same treatment, it’s not something they feel they can fight.

But Carlita’s story is more than just a commentary on the situation back home.

It’s also about the systematic abuse of Filipino workers by their employers, especially on nannies and caregivers.

Because of the conditions un-der which their work visas are is-sued, many Filipino workers have become virtual slaves.

Their employers threaten them with deportation if the worker

complains.What they are not told is that

in Canada, they have rights that they did not have back home or in Hong Kong or Saudi or wherever they worked before.

This type of abuse has to stop. We need to speak out and help

each other because no one else will do it for us. We have to de-mand our rights.

Those of us in positions of influence must act to protect the Filipino worker in Canada.

It’s never a pretty sight to watch someone get abused either physically, emotionally or other-wise.

What is worse is to watch it and do nothing about it.

I believe it is our individual responsibility to look out for one another, not turn the other way and never to encourage or become part of the abuse.

I, for one, am ready to take ac-tion. Personal action.

If you are reading this and feel you are in an abusive work envi-ronment, talk to me.

Even if you have been threat-ened with deportation, talk to me.

I will do what I can to help. Remember, you have rights in

this country.I am ready to take action. Are

you?

Hi Ace: Thank you so much for (reminding me about the May 11 Front Page Philippines broadcast on Gawad Kalinga that was circu-lated especially in the Handmaid of the Lord). Thanks also for the write up in Manila Media Monitor which I read just recently about the Hopeful and Hopeless. You are an instrument in bringing glad tidings to the poor and more power to your work. Irma Cuenca

Hi Ace: I read the latest issue of your newspaper. They are great! Thanks for the headline story. God Bless! Ricky Cuenca

LETTERSGood tidings

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Manila Media Monitor

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Last year, activist-actor Sean Penn and syndicated columnist and author Norman Solomon completed War Made Easy, a fea-ture-length documentary which became an official entry in the In-ternational Documentary Festival, the Montreal Film Festival and the Vancouver Film Festival.

Subtitled How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning us to Death, the film is based on Solo-mon’s book of the same name.

Solomon frequently appears on screen and Penn narrates this riveting examination of the way in which successive American presi-dents have brought their country into armed conflict over the past 50 years.

The brilliant editing of state-ments by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton and Dubya shows how each has used the same argument and the same words to justify wars and inva-sions.

Underlying is the traditional American paranoia identifying

every opinion left of center with “communism.”

In the hands of a Michael Moore, this treatment might have been turned to ridicule, but in War Made Easy, shots of young chil-dren dead and maimed by U.S. bombs strike a tragic chord.

And equally tragic, all this spin has been lapped up by a ma-jority of media.

Bush Sr.’s Desert Storm saw the technique of embedding jour-nalists adopted and in 2003 carried to alarming proportions in Iraq.

Voices like those of Norman Solomon, Phil Donahue and Mor-ley Safer have been rare, but we can be thankful that the tide is be-ginning to turn.

While the film makes no ex-cursions into the role of the arms industries in feeding these wars, it is evident from the plenitude of shots of weaponry from an in-fantryman’s rifle to a heavy duty bomber that fat profits are being made even as I write, by those all too ready to echo the sanctimo-nious utterings of American presi-

dents in the name of freedom. Also, the shameful perversion

of accurate reporting by the ma-jority of media should fill us with continued unease.

You are likely to find a rental copy of War Made Easy in some of the “indie” DVD rental estab-lishments like my own favourite, Queen Video.

***If ever there were an ill-timed

flurry of publicity around a disas-ter scenario, it is now, with self-styled pundits citing evidence from an ancient Mayan calendar, that the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012 with the media reporting these beliefs ex-tensively.

Let’s take a look at a worst case scenario this new prediction could exacerbate.

Fundamentalists could say “what the hell, we saw it com-ing”; anti-environmentalists could say what’s the use of thinking and acting green?; and fatalists and ni-hilists could be prodded into total

Manila Media Monitor MAY 200810 VIEWSVIEWS

Juan’s media,Juan’s community

It is National Press Freedom Week in the Phil-ippines first week of May. World Press Freedom Day is May 3.

*****There was a time when

press rooms were caves meant only for men, in all their cranky, grumpy and maniacal splendor.

A long, long time ago, habitues at the Philippine National Press Club joked on how they wanted to see the door of the washroom for newsmen marked “FOR MEN ONLY” and the door of the washroom for newsh-ens, “FOR MEN ALSO.”

*****Cavemen are passe.I, for one, admit that the

freedoms of speech and of expression are best prac-ticed and enjoyed by those who mark Mother’s Day on May 11.

*****The men who coined the

word mayhem and invented the distress call mayday must be repenting.

This must also be why holidaymongers gave fa-thers a month to assess the situation before celebrating Father’s Day.

*****Asked why he insisted

on nailing a sign that said “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” on Christ’s cross, Pilate simply said: “What I have written, I have writ-ten.”

Having been in the jour-nalism profession for over 30 years now, I subscribe to Pilate’s explanation and have learned to stand up to whatever I write.

Errrr. Regarding my barbs on the month of May, I just remembered my wife Evelyn marks her birth an-niversary in May.

Please pray for me. *****

Hey, guys! May 2 is World Asthma Day, not asthma wife day.

*****Who said that Mother’s

Day comes nine months af-ter Father’s Day?

If so, why is Labor Day celebrated in the Philippines and elsewhere on May 1?

*****Whatever, here’s to a

wonderful celebration of Asian Heritage Month this May and an enjoyable long weekend on Victoria Day, May 19. (See page 30)

*****Back to media, the so-

called fourth estate (only in

the Philippines?) ....My funny bones went

wild when I got wind of a tall tale that threats of cases against media peers in the Philippines - except those who have been silenced with a bullet or two - are hitting the chart boards.

Goodie, goodie! Just in case the case is a case of beer, I’ll drink to that!

Try a suit? Not bad. It can replace a hand-me-down tux or exact more elegant services than what comes with the cheapest room at the inn.

Go to court? Sure. Just say when those Victoria Court discount cards are ready. Just be wary of the so-called ‘free trials’.

*****Tickle, tickle, tickle!

Nobody, not even Satan, can further defame or defile names or reputations that despicable idiots - many of them in public offices and in tolerated immoral private dealings - have so shame-lessly defamed, defiled and sodomized by their own detestable breach of good manners and right conduct.

That will be double jeopardy, as in so so naka-kasira ng bad image.

*****Still on media ....Do you know that of

the some 80 ethnic news publications circulating in Toronto and its environs, about 20 percent or 16 are serving the Filipino com-munity?

Among these are Ace Al-varez’s Manila Media Mon-itor, Mon Datol’s Philippine Courier, Eddie Lee’s Atin Ito, Bin Kon Loo’s Filipini-ana, Ruben Cusipag’s Bal-ita, Rolly Cabrera’s Taliba, Hermie Garcia’s Philippine Reporter, Turing Muere’s Likha, Joe Baking’s Manila Confidential, Carlos Unas’s Filipino Bulletin, and Nars-

From the beginning of time, God knew that He needed help to bring babies to this world.

So He created mothers.He blessed them with

special qualities that made them distinctively different from men.

The warmth of a moth-er’s hand can energize a dis-couraged child.

Her tender reassuring voice can magically ease any pain.

She appears soft but stands like a rock in protect-ing her children.

At a wedding in Cana, Jesus was persuaded by His mother to perform His first miracle ahead of time.

He turned the water into wine. It was the miracle that was not supposed to happen until the time was right.

But God made that day the perfect time to make a heavenly declaration.

It was not about the wa-ter turning into wine.

Mystical power ofmothers

It was about the mysti-cal power of mothers.

Truly, there is something mystical about mothers.

Many men and women who have attained great-ness still find themselves in a predicament wherein a motherly advice is impera-tive.

Even kings and queens, no matter how powerful they are, their glory can not escape the fact that they all came from a woman who carried them from concep-

tion to birth. A painful task that no man is capable of. It is indisputable.

They will always be sons and daughters who humble themselves to bow to their mothers

It is amazing that moth-erhood also extend to God’s lower creations.

In the late spring of 2006, I observed and photo-graphed the human-like be-havior of a mother goose.

All through out the hatching period, rain or

shine, she was on her nest fulfilling her motherly ob-ligation.

She stood her ground, and maintained her guard in protecting the eggs.

She also displayed her parenting skill.

She taught her goslings how to survive and pre-pared them to their eventual long distance flight.

To everyone out there who still have mothers, when was the last time you sincerely expressed your gratitude she highly de-serve?

Don’t wait too long. Do it while you can,

when you can.But most of all do it

while she is still strong enough to raise her arms in giving you her affectionate motherly hug as she whis-pers to your ears: “I love you, child.” [email protected]; www.artisticam-photogra-phy.com

ing Mangahas’s Philippine Times.

Most are in English and off the presses either every two weeks or monthly.

The presence of these publications in the commu-nity surely etches the gener-al impression that Filipinos are a reading people.

*****This high level of Fili-

pino literacy and communi-cative comprehension is no-table, even in text message exchanges when letters and

numbers are jumbled to form words, when grammar and syntax are ignored and when a seeming cacophonic mix of Tagalog, English, Spanish, Chinese, a local dialect, moon talk, etc. is used.

As long as text messag-ing is not done behind the wheel, let this digital short-hand go on.

*****Who can likewise ig-

nore the multitude of Filipi-nos listening to community

radio programs in Toronto?Through the years,

Filipinos have enjoyed the news, candid commentar-ies, original Filipino music and a varied broadcast menu offered by Agatha Luna and Joel Recla’s Perlas ng Si-langan over 1540AM and 100.7FM, 6:30 to 7 p.m., Saturdays; Kuya Roman Caretas’s Tinig, Himig

Pinoy over 530AM, 10 to 11 p.m. M o n d a y s ; Deo Moreno’s M a b u h a y Radio over 1610AM, 10 p.m. Mon-days to Fri-days; and Jess Cabrias’s Ang Ta l a k a y a n over 1430AM, 10 to 11 a.m. Saturdays.

*****Of course

(respectfully MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY MEDIA IN A PRESS CONFERENCE

borrowed from Manila Media Monitor’s Toronto westend circulation guy Joe Damasco’s top-of-the-list fave expression), Filipi-nos do love to watch com-munity-oriented television shows too.

There is the long-run-ning Front Page Philip-pines, with Gie Alvarez as host and Ace Alvarez, pro-ducer. Front Page Philip-pines is aired over Rogers OMNI 2 Television’s Chan-nel 69 and Cable 14, 11 a.m.

on Sundays and 12 noon on Thursdays.

Then there is producer Virgil Ignacio’s Filipino Eh!, with Mary Grace San-tos, Anthony Lusaya and Jess Carlos hosting over A Channel Cable 20, 8 to 9 a.m. on Saturdays.

*****Then there is the month-

ly digital magazine GTA This Month edited by Criss Papa-Nañola with exciting images taken by photojour-nalist Romy Nañola.

Still on cybersites, Ug-nayan.ca dishes out a daily menu of news and informa-tion for Filipinos in Canada. The site is handled and ed-ited by veteran newsman Jojo Taduran.

*****Juan’s community me-

dia - be it print, radio or television or in any other traditional or tech-savvy form - are very vibrant and highly visible in Toronto.

Vibrancy and visibil-ity are there because of the support of the community.

Media should owe its existence to its thousands of avid readers, listeners, viewers and sidewalk ob-servers.

Many community media entities have started but has since become defunct, but whatever impact these may have made for the commu-nity will be remembered.

*****Local media may learn

(To page 22)

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 11FEATUREFEATURE

MANILA - Dirty money passing through or flowing into the country as monitored by the Philippine anti-money laundering unit has not involved overseas Filipino workers, yet.

Of the 18,269 suspi-cious transactions the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) flagged for the past six years ending 2007, none were linked to formal and informal flows of earn-ings by OFWs, AMLC data revealed.

“So far, Filipino remit-ters have been compliant” to money laundering rules, AMLC executive director Vicente Aquino said.

Aquino spoke to the OFW Journalism Consor-tium before a US court sen-tenced a man who admitted transferring some US$15 million to bank accounts owned or controlled by co-conspirators in the Philip-pines.

The money was part of a $20-million scheme to defraud the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

The statement dated

March 1 issued by Assis-tant Attorney General Alice Fisher of the Criminal Divi-sion and US Attorney Jef-frey Taylor of the District of Columbia did not expound on how that much amount of money was transferred to Philippine bank accounts.

With remittances pump-ing Philippine consumption, monitoring its flow has be-come highly important as a credible economic instru-ment.

Remittance flows to the Philippines is the world’s third largest, according to recent World Bank ranking.

If the AMLC finds something irregular, it flags a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR).

However, none of the STRs covering overseas Filipinos’ remittances have been flagged, Aquino add-ed. “They have no deroga-tory record.”

STRs in banks and non-bank financial institutions numbered 15,469, AMLC data showed.

Government-sourced STRs numbered 2,679;

insurance STRs, 91; and STRs in securities, 30.

All STRs covered a total of nearly 104 million trans-actions, data showed.

Aquino said the AMLC had frozen nearly P406 mil-lion in funds from banks and insurance proceeds.

Some P272 million of the total is in Philippine peso.

Meanwhile, the peso equivalents of those for oth-

er currencies are P125.48 million for US dollar trans-actions, P1.6 million for Japanese yen transactions, P7.8 million for Hong Kong dollar transactions, and P60,596 for Euro transac-tions.

VigilanceAquino said despite the

spotless record of OFWs in these transactions, the AMLC continued monitor-ing remittances.

Such was not an easy task since banks no longer held the monopoly of plat-form for money transfer.

The information and communication technol-ogy boom has spawned fast cash flow via, for example,

mobile phones and the In-ternet.

The World Bank’s In-formation for Development (infoDev) program, none-theless, believed such tech-nology could combat dirty money.

InfoDev said in a paper that the Philippines’ mo-bile phone remittance tech-nologies “even help reduce fraud, money laundering and criminal acts … be-cause the cash assets are no longer being carried around in person.”

Aquino said the spot-less money laundering re-cord of overseas Filipinos was because of a threshold whenever a migrant remit-

ted money through formal and informal or non-bank-ing channels.

That threshold was for a one-time remittance ac-tivity, as Aquino observed that migrant remitters sent amounts way below the US$10,000 threshold.

The know-your-cus-tomer (KYC) requirement was also strictly followed in remittance centers and banks overseas and in the Philippines.

Money senders were re-quired to verify their iden-tity as well as the identity of the recipients.

Meanwhile, the Interpol (the world’s largest interna-tional police organization), in a study of “ethnic bank-ing systems” of 31 coun-tries in Asia, cited it found neither direct nor indirect links between overseas workers’ remittances and money laundering.

This was despite the study having discovered direct links between these banking systems and money flows from unlawful activi-ties.

In the East Asian region, there were “unregulated re-mittance centers” in Hong Kong-China, Japan, and Korea that served nationals such as Filipinos, the Inter-pol study said.

No dirty money from OFWs, yetGov’t watchdog says:

by JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANOwww.ofwjournalism.net

(To page 32)

Manila Media Monitor MAY 2008 12

GENERAL DENTISTRYDr. Gilbert ChanDr. Daphne ChienDr. Janet HoDr. Janet WongDr. Michael Chin

FEATUREFEATURE

(To page 13)

I remember the sound of the helicopters. We were young then. We didn’t know what was hap-pening, but knew something im-portant must be taking place.

There were celebrations and yellow confetti on the streets. People were wearing yellow t-shirts with Ninoy’s face embed-ded on it and yellow ribbons were tied around their heads.

Radio Veritas and Channel 4 were serving the people once more.

Military tanks were blockaded by thousands of civilians singing Bayan Ko (My Homeland), and flashing the Laban! (fight!) sign, an “L” formed with the thumb and index finger.

Most of us share vivid memo-ries and stories of People Power, a non-violent revolution Filipinos engaged in to regain democracy and overthrow the dictatorship of the Marcos regime.

People Power, the playThe scenes from my young

life and other vignettes of the lives of Filipinos whose voices stirred a peaceful revolt were the subjects of People Power: Revolution in Play Poetry, Music and Move-ment, a play written, acted in and produced by young Filipino-Ca-nadians and shown at the Carlos Bulosan Theatre (CBT), April 16 to May 11.

The collaborative two-year CBT production captured the es-

sence of the lives of many individ-uals and families who strove for survival, democracy and freedom in the Philippines.

The play featured actors Na-dine Villasin, Nicco Lorenzo Gar-cia, Rose Cortez, Leon Aureus and Christine Mangosing; with producer Michelle Uy and direc-tor Nina Lee Aquino.

The play’s simplicity remained engaging and inspirational. There were no elaborate costumes or props.

Drama and power were spo-ken with the compelling poetry of

Len Cervantes; and the music and percussions of Romeo Candido evoked patriotism.

Blown-up black and white images of actual events during those trying times were hung on a clothesline wire and provided an effective artful yet storytelling backdrop.

The plot thickensAccording to actors Villasin

and Garcia, People Power was “a composite of true stories of people we know who experienced it and the people that made it happen,” and not so much focused on po-

By ANAGAILE SORIANO

litical powers that led the move-ment.

Villasin (Miss Oriented, Ang Pamana: the Inheritance) is the CBT’s artistic director of the Car-los Bulosan Theatre, daughter of a journalist-father and an activist-mother.

Villasin has helped the CBT grow from a community-oriented theater to a professional theater company in the last ten years.

Villasin’s mom, the late Fely Villasin, was with the Coalition Against Marcos Dictatorship (CAMD) and was a domestic

rights advocate in Canada and the U.S.

She recalled that it was in a reunion of anti-Marcos activists in Seattle, U.S. - when the partici-pants were candidly sharing expe-riences - that the idea of produc-ing a play honoring anti-Marcos activists stirred her.

Growing up with their likes, Villasin realized the threats and dangers these people had gone through, helping her prepare for her role as a determined revolu-tionary living in the US.

CBT’s People Power: Socio-political awareness

CBT actors bring to aesthetic reality the scenes marking People Power Revolution in the Philippines from Feb. 22 to 25, 1986, a peaceful revolution that ousted a dictatorship. After the play, (from left) Nadine Villasin, Alex Felipe, Martha Ocampo and Ricky Esguerra lead a panel discussion on the stage presentation. Photos: CBT

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 13

FinancialProblemwith credit cards & bank loans ? ?

IF

- All your income is going to pay bills.

- Everyday there is fight & argument at home.

- You can not pick your own phone out of fear.

- Creditors and collection agencies are calling you and they are threatening to take legal action.

- Your salary is being garnished.

ONE SMALL MONTHLY PAYMENT FOR ALL YOUR DEBTS

THEN, WE CAN

- reduce your debts to less than half,

- stop the interest right away,

- save you from threatening phone calls,

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FEATURESFEATURES

poverty, Filipinos have dis-played their courage and hu-mility to gain freedom and we should be proud of it,” he said.

Garcia added that Filipinos have set the stage for people from other countries protest-ing against social and political repression.

He added that many Fili-pinos left the Philippines and migrated to Canada to leave behind an unstable political system.

Call for supportGarcia said he understood

the constant struggle of second generation Filipino-Canadi-ans in their search for identity while trying to assimilate and

belong.“But how is that possible

without going back to your roots and knowing where you came from?”

He urged the community to support art and theatre to raise cultural awareness and educate younger generations.

Cortez, on the other hand, reiterated that when she mi-grated to Canada, she felt no connection between Filipino immigrants and Canadian-born Filipinos in Toronto.

But she reached out to the community by expressing her-self through art and theatre, and hoped to someday pursue drama therapy.

(From page 12)CBT’s People Power ...

Marcos cum taxi driverNicco Garcia (The Romance of Magno Ru-

bio, Ang Pamana: The Inheritance), played Manny, a taxi driver.

Garcia also switched comedic and emotion-al roles as a marine officer, a father with conser-vative political views, and the ousted President Marcos.

He gave justice to his role as Marcos by learning a lot about the strongman, courtesy of his father whose roots are from Ilocos, also known as Marcos country.

Rose Cortez (Love’s Labour Lost, Tales from the Flipside) played demanding but expressive roles as a maid, sister of a rebel soldier, seduc-tive prostitute, and street beggar.

A budding artist, Cortez is fluent in Taga-log and English, who featured once in a Villasin show.

Unsung heroesThe actors, director Aquino and the CBT

shifted their focus from the Marcos regime and politics to insightful stories of individuals, families, and social groups who experienced but remained the “unsung heroes” of the People Power Revolution.

Little change“Was People Power a success or a failure?”

This was one of the many questions raised dur-ing a post-play panel discussion.

Ricky Esguerra, an activist and political prisoner during the Marcos era, said the Philip-pine situation has not really changed that much after the Feb. 22 to 25, 1986 People Power.

Esguerra said the small amount of success to regain democracy during those fateful days in 1986 was brought to little use with the con-tinued existence of the higher social-political elite groups who controlled power.

He said poverty and corruption have not been eradicated and problems, like shortages in rice and food, have even cropped up.

Several coups and attempts to overthrow re-cent Philippine leaders have been failures.

No solid planPolitical activist Martha Ocampo said those

who planned to get scandal-battered President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo out of Malacañang had no solid plan for the country’s future.

Further, she lamented the absence of a com-mon ground or purpose among many Philippine political groups.

Meanwhile, Garcia read through articles of the 20th anniversary of People Power in Manila and noted observations that political, military, media, church and other groups seeking for re-forms argued endlessly about who should get the credit for the success of People Power.

He asked: “If it had not been successful, will they still take credit for it?”

“It is really the voice of the Filipino people that enabled the revolution to happen,” he said.

Community issuesKnowing about one’s history and culture

and being proud of the triumph of the human spirit were some of the messages that Villasin, Garcia, and Cortez wanted to get across through art and theatre.

Villasin said young Filipino-Canadians seemed to have been alienated from their cul-ture and were unlikely to get involved in poli-tics because they had no connection to the po-litical realm.

The play helped the audiences better under-stand their history as Filipinos, the nature of democracy, and realize what their parents went through, and why they are here today, she said.

But more than just understanding the Filipi-nos’ battles to be free, the play spread awareness about colonization, racism, freedom and other global issues other people from many countries experience.

Garcia said: “We should be proud of the People Power Revolution because this is what placed the Philippines into the world map, a constant reminder of fighting for democracy in a non-violent and unified way.”

“Amid the hardships, powerlessness, and

She planned to do outreach community projects, especially in high schools and universities to build a stronger united com-munity. AS


Orientation sessionsFinley also noted the

successful expansion of overseas orientation ses-sions she announced in In-dia.

The sessions - delivered in China, India and the Phil-ippines by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges’ Canadian Immi-gration Integration Project - helped raise awareness about the credential recog-

(From page 5)Proposed IRPA changes to reunite families, bring in skilled workers faster

nition process in Canada.Restoring citizenshipIn a related develop-

ment, Minister Finley has welcomed the formal pas-sage of Bill C-37, taking “lost Canadians” one giant step closer to enjoying Ca-nadian citizenship.

Finley said the passage of Bill C-37 amended the Citizenship Act to give Ca-nadian citizenship to those who lost or never had it, due

to outdated provisions in existing and former laws.

Bill C-37 would come into effect no later than a year after being given Roy-al Assent on April 17.

The law would give citi-zenship to:

► People who became citizens when the first citi-zenship act took effect on Jan. 1, 1947 (including people born in Canada prior to 1947 and war brides) and

who then lost their citizen-ship;

► Anyone who was born in Canada or became a Canadian on or after Jan. 1, 1947, and who then lost citizenship; and

► Anyone born abroad to a Canadian on or after Jan. 1, 1947, if not already a citizen, but only if they are the first generation born abroad.

The exceptions are those

born in Canada to a foreign diplomat, those who re-nounced their citizenship with Canadian authorities, and those whose citizen-ship was revoked by the government because it was obtained by fraud.

“This is wonderful news for war brides and their children who will become citizens,” said Melynda Jar-ratt. historian for Canadian War Brides.

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Three young people celebrated their birthdays recently. (From left) Patricia Gabrielle Angeles, daughter of Angelo and Maricar Hazel Angeles, celebrated her first with a party tendered by her Lola, Elsa Angeles, at their home in Ajax; Esther Mae Sicat celebrated her fifth with classmates and friends at a party given by her parents, An-gelo and Maribel Sicat; and Jonas Andaya, son of Noel and Jocylin Andaya, also celebrated his fith at a gathering given by her lola, Perla Andaya, at Chuck E Cheese’s in Scarborough. TONY SICAT

Taurus totsPEOPLE & EVENTSPEOPLE & EVENTS

Filipino Centre Toronto (FCT) Board Chair Dr. Vic-toria Santiago and President Rosalinda Javier have cited the Canadian government and the Filipino community and its leaders for the con-tinuous support the latter have been giving FCT.

In a letter dated May 11, Santiago and Javier said:

“The Filipino commu-nity’s ideals and virtues are the driving forces behind the FCT’s existence. These include extending a ‘baya-nihan’ hand to those who are in need, while partici-pating with vigor and pride on the multi-ethnic stage made possible by the gov-ernment of Canada.”

The FCT officials - on behalf of the FCT Board of Directors - also expressed gratitude and appreciation for the community’s par-ticipation in the “sold-out and smashingly successful” Presidents’ Gala at the Fair-mont Royal York Hotel on April 5.

“This ... event that hon-ored local Filipino groups, organizations and busi-nesses, represented by their president or proprietor, was indeed a fitting tribute and a simple token of apprecia-tion and recognition of their continued support of the FCT,” Santiago and Javier jointly said.

“The money raised (net

proceeds of S22,037.27 as shown in a financial state-ment furnished the Manila Media Monitor) partially defrayed the cost of the re-cently replaced entire roof of the (FCT building). This replacement cost a total amount of $107,000,” they said.

Both also announced the conduct of the next Presi-dents’ Gala in the first half of 2010, with Maria Clara as its theme.

Medical fairMeanwhile, FCT will

jointly sponsor with the Filipino Canadian Medical Association (FCMA) a one-day Medical Fair at the cen-ter’s premises on June 8.

Organizers expect many members of the community to attend the fair, hoping to get answers to medical problems.

On hand are medical specialists to speak on rel-evant topics. (See page 18 for topic schedules)

FCMA president Dr. Maselle Virey hopes to raise awareness and further understanding of health is-sues, leading to the preven-tion of illnesses.

FCT director Dr. Mario Andres has been conduct-ing monthly health semi-nars under his FCT Health and Wellness Program.

The Medical Fair, An-dres says, will replace the seminars for May and June.

Pistahan free bikesIn another development,

FCT’s June 14 to 15 Pistah-an (see ad on page 18) gets a boost from the Toronto Police Service, which will conduct a Bike Rodeo for children aged seven to 15 at 10 a.m. in both event days.

The 50 approved to join the rodeo will be given the bikes they ride, with a hel-met and water container.

Rodeo application forms may be downloaded from

FCT Gala rakes in $22,037.27 to partly defray cost of FCT building’s new roof

Santiago, Javier cite Canadian, community help

(To page 17)

15MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor PEOPLE & EVENTSPEOPLE & EVENTS





416-780-1020

Warmer days are here and it’s time again for On-tario’s summertime tradi-tion, the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE).

This year, the CNE cel-ebrates its 130th anniver-sary with new and exciting attractions complementing old-time favorites.

The CNE runs from Aug. 15 to Labor Day on Sept. 1.

Advance tickets are sold through CNE’s exclusive retail partner Shopper’s Drug Mart and also avail-able online at theex.com.

All events are free with admission to the CNE.

The Ex is one of North America’s largest annual fairs, attracting more than a million people over 18 days each summer.

Softly opening the Ex on July 22 are the Horse Show and Casino, both to contin-ue throughout the fair.

What’s new?Here are some of the

new attractions at the Ex:► Circus Orange in

Jump Jet (nightly): This is a 20-minute pyrotechnic, acrobatic and circus the-ater performance unfolding in three acts set to origi-

nal music. The program is sponsored by the Govern-ment of Ontario.

► Aerialist and Eques-trian Show (Aug. 15 to 28, Ricoh Coliseum): From the producers of the popular Aerial Acrobatic and Ice Skating shows of the past three years comes a sensa-tional new equestrian spec-tacular. Set to music com-plete with a vocalist, this entertaining extravaganza features daredevil aerial-ists and magnificent horses showcased in a wide range of equestrian arts.

► Ridgeway and John-son: Illusionist and Escape Artist Show (two shows daily; three on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and Labor Day): Husband and wife team illusionist

Kevin Ridgeway and es-cape artist Kristen Johnson make their Ontario CNE debut. The duo had been featured on The Discovery and Travel Channels, CBS, NBC and FOX, and have toured extensively in the US and Australia. Kristen is an award winning escape artist recognized as one of the best in the world, while Kevin is a born entertainer whose unique blend of wit, charisma and magic has won the hearts of audiences on two continents.

► A Celebration of Sport - West Side of Food Building (daily): Sports will be celebrated through a se-ries of outdoor demonstra-tions, interactives, shows and athlete appearances, every day of the CNE. PR

Let’s go to the Ex!THIS SUMMER

Entertainers and per-formers from the Philip-pines, Japan, Korea and Vietnam are set to provide enjoyment in a program put up by the Toronto Police Services (TPS) and the To-ronto Police Services Board (TPSB) in celebration of Asian Heritage Month at the Toronto Police headquarters on May 21, starting 6 p.m.

TPS community mobi-lization unit officer Philip Mendoza said police chief William Blair, TPSB head Alok Mukherjee, country dignitaries and local of-ficials will attend and par-ticipate in the celebration, dubbed “Working Together in Partnership.”

Canada enrichedOn the occasion of

Asian Heritage Month, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley lauded Canadians of Asian origin for playing “an inte-gral role” in strengthening and enriching local commu-nities with their diverse cul-tural practices and beliefs.

“I take pride in the fact that newcomers from Asia continue to choose our na-tion as their destination of choice - and that the vibran-cy of Asian cultures reso-nates fiom city to city across Canada,” Finley said.

Events lined up dureing the celebration, she said, “provide occasions for all Canadians to gather in the festivity of cultures.”

Better understanding In Ottawa, Secretary

of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity) Ja-son Kenney stressed that Canada “was built by repre-sentatives of many cultural communities, and Asian Heritage Month is an oppor-tunity to better understand Canada’s rich diversity by learning more about the achievements of the Asian-Canadian community.”

Kenney invited all citi-zens across the country “to celebrate the contribution of Canadians of Asian origin to building our country.”

HistorySince its conception

in Toronto in 1993, cities across Canada - including Montreal, Ottawa, Van-couver, Halifax, Winnipeg, Calgary - have been hav-ing annual festivities dur-ing May to recognize Asian Heritage Month.

A motion to designate May as Asian Heritage Month was introduced in

TPS set for Asian Heritage Month program

Culture Philippines of Ontario (CPO) will once again participate and provide entertainment during the annual Carassauga Festival in Mississauga’s Hershey Centre from May 23 to 25.

A CPO bulletin said the group would showcase Philippine culture through folksongs and dances from the various regions of the country, with special focus on Pasko sa Pilipinas (Christmas in the Philippines).

The CPO shows at the Philippine Pavilion would be on May 23 at 7:30 p.m., 9:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.; on May 24 at 4 p.m., 6 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.; and on May 25 at 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

The CPO added that visitors would also be treated to tasty Filipino dishes and delicacies served at the Her-shey Centre. PR

CPO shows lined up inCarassauga Festival

(To page 17)

Manila Media Monitor MAY 200816 PEOPLE & EVENTSPEOPLE & EVENTS

The route up to their abodes is best described as very similar to their centu-ries’ old quest for justice and equality: filled with menacing boulders, un-friendly shards of rock and scalding gravel.

The pathways are parched and hot in summer; treacherous and slippery in the monsoon. Imagine lug-ging sacks of bananas or rice on one’s back, negoti-ating the kilometric zigzags of the mountain.

We were greeted by de-lightful news. Three Mang-yans have carved a niche for themselves and their community, standing out as paragons for the children.

The three were schooled in the lowlands but have resisted the clarion call of the cities, refusing to seek employment that offered higher wages and better liv-ing conditions.

Instead, they have marched back to the village of their childhood, clutch-

ing their college diplomas and are giving back to their kith and kin their loyalty and faith by teaching farm-ers and women a variety of trades.

They are now beginning to exploit their weaving, ba-nana production and honey gathering skills to full eco-nomic advantage.

Thanks to local inter-vention, it is not anymore likely that lowlanders will offer a pittance in exchange of their sweet bananas and rootcrops, exquisite weaves and unadulterated honey.

Slowly, the Mangyans are learning basic arithme-tic and finding out the true measure of their labor and produce.

One of the three, an education graduate, is the first Mangyan teacher of the area. She has bravely re-turned to teach the children in the uplands.

She recalls that as a child, many Mangyan chil-dren like her remained

home, preferring the rela-tive safety of the village rather than venturing for kilometers to the nearest school.

The weather and the rug-ged terrain have taken their toll on her skin and legs but she managed through advanced education, with a little help from NGOs.

She is now a beacon for the Mangyan children who are taught in Filipino, sim-ple English and their native alphabet and syllabary.

The three educated Mangyans bring hope.

A multiplier effect is anticipated so that they can inspire another nine.

In the next generation, it is hoped that incomprehen-sible documents that signify the transfer of land to some sinister lowlander will be a thing of the past.

Despite the constant threat of incursions into their territory, the Mang-yans remain a proud and resilient race.

In their quiet, ramshack-le village in the verdant hills of Occidental Mind-oro, the Mangyans today still live with grace, closer to the heavens, away from the dust and power outages of the lowlands.

They are fortunate that it is not their way of life.

Way of life: Poverty, dust, brownouts(From page 8)

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MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 17PEOPLE & EVENTSPEOPLE & EVENTS

Medical Fair, FCT Build-ing, 9 a.m.► JUNE 8: De La Salle Alumni Association and Fiesta Filipina Dance Troupe Golf Tournament, Pickering Cherry Downs Golf Club.► JUNE 13: Kalayaan Cultural Foundation Say-awan at Tugtrugan Para sa Taong Bayan, Missis-sauga.► JUNE 13: Kababai-hang Rizalista Miss Ma-ria Clara 2008, Ella’s Banquet Hall.

► JUNE 14: Kalayaan Cultural Foundation Phil-ippine Cultural Festival, Square One Mall, Missis-sauga.► JUNE 14: Philip-pine Independence Day Council Salo-Salo, Earl Bales Park.► JUNE 14: Marikina Association of Ontario Summer Potluck Picnic, Neilson Park.► JUNE 14: Marc Ball-esteros Concert for A Cause, Jarvis Collegiate Institute.► JUNE 14 and 15: Filipino Centre Toronto Pistahan celebrates the 110th Declaration of Phil-ippine Independence, Nathan Phillips Square.► JUNE 15: Kalayaan Cultural Foundation Salo-salo sa Mississauga Val-

ley Park.► JUNE 15: Filipino Centre Toronto Battle of Champions, FCT Bldg.► JUNE 21: Malolos Group of Ontario 2nd An-nual Golf Tournament, Deer Creek Golf and Banquet Facility.► JUNE 28: United Fili-pino Canadian Organiza-tion Summer Dance, Ca-nadian Martyrs Church.► JUNE 29: Batangas Provincial Association of Canada 3rd Annual Golf Tournament, Glen Eagle Golf Course, Caledon.► JULY 4: Kalayaan Fili-pino Cultural Organiza-tion Silver Jubilee Gala Night and Coronation, Capitol Center, Missis-sauga. ► JULY 5: Santaginians Association of Ontario Gala Night, Toronto Holi-day Inn.

► JULY 12: Philippine In-dependence Day Council Mabuhay Cup Basketball Tournament, Hoopdome.► JULY 13: Filipino Cen-tre Toronto Annual Dr. Guillermo de Villa Memo-rial Cup Golf Tournament, Granite Ridge Golf Club.► JULY 11 to 13: Fiesta Filipina Dance Troupe Kasalan at Carabram, Greenbriar Recreation Centre, Brampton. ► JULY 19: Philippine In-dependence Day Council Mabuhay Festival, with Dancing To Be A Star Fi-nals, Metro Toronto Con-vention Centre.► AUG. 9: Jenifer For-ever Concert 2, Mead-owvale Theatre, Missis-sauga.► AUG. 29 to SEPT. 1: Knights of Rizal Canada Region Assembly in To-ronto.

CALENDAR (From page 3)the Senate by Senator Vivienne Poy on May 29, 2001, and seconded by Senator Pat Carney.

Senators Sheila Finestone, Noel Kinsella, Nicholas Taylor and Laurier LaPierre spoke in favor of it.

In December, 2001, the Senate officially designated May as Asian Heritage Month.

AsiansThe definition of Asian may be inclusive and broad,

and applies to people who come from or whose ancestors come from: East Asia: China, Hong Kong S.A.R., Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan; South Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka;

Central Asia: Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; Southeast Asia: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. PR

(From page 15)

the FCT’s website, www.filipinocentreto-ronto.com. Deadline for submission is on May 30.

Pistahan chair Wendy Arena says the two-day celebration of the 110th anniver-sary of Philippine Independence will kick off with a parade of Philippine associations and business groups that will end at the Na-than Philips Square.

Local beauty queens, a marching band and dignitaries will march in the parade, Arena adds.

On stage are entertainers. Food booths offering free lechon and an array of palat-able Filipino dishes are available. Commer-cial stalls will surround the festivity site.

Arena says the finals of FCT’s Filipino Singing Idol (FSI) - featuring the 18 who survived the three initial rounds - will close the June 14 list of events.

A Sunday Mass will open the fiesta at 1 p.m. on June 15. More onstage entertain-ment and food celebrations are expected.

Capping the day is FCT’s Battle of the Champions involving all past FSI winners.

The public may join line-dancing and ballroom dancing in the open square until 10 p.m., the end of Pistahan, Arena says.

Santiago, Javier ...(From page 14)

called for his, or her, rendition.If the suggestion here is to be done, this

would require funds though for recording and everything.

So, community organizations, please help our entertainers. Let us offer them their fees.

After all, they spend for their attire, gas, parking in some instances - and everything paid with GST, not to mention their time.

(From page 8)Always treasure ...

TPS set for ...

Happy longweekend on

Victoria Day

From the:

WHAT’S YOUR EVENT?The Manila Media Monitor calendar is a public service board for every reader to keep and refer to. Want to get your event into the Calendar? Send the event details (name of group or person, event title, place of event, date and time of event) to [email protected] or [email protected] on or before the 8th of each month. All submissions are subject to strict editorial appreciation.

Manila Media Monitor MAY 200818 PEOPLE & EVENTSPEOPLE & EVENTS

FCMA and FCT MEDICAL FAIR597 Parliament Street, Toronto, ON

Sunday, June 8, 2008, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

SPEAKERS AND TOPICS

Morning Sessions: Chair: Dr. Nenette de Villa 10-12 noon: 10:00 - Dr. Gemma Pastolero: “What’s behind the screen?” 10:15 - Dr. Francis Rementilla: “Finally, an anti-aging solution”10:30 - Dr. Peter Sy: “Snoring may be more than what it seems”10:45 - Dr. Dulce Bismonte: “Adjustments as new Immigrants”11:00 - Dr. Eileen de Villa-Choi: “TB Revisited”11:15 - Dr. Ben Pangilinan: “Wheezes and Whistles”11:30 - Dr. David Lim & Haysook Choi: “The Silent Killer, an Epidemic”11:45 - Mr. James Hernane: “Know your Pharmacist”12:00 - Questions and Answers

Lunch Break

Afternoon Sessions: Chair: Dr. Maselle Virey 1-3:30 p.m.

1:00 - Dr. Solon Guzman: “Why see the dentist, I don’t have a toothache”1:15 - Dr. Lily Cha: “Post-Menopausal Concerns”1:30 - Dr. Cesar Garcia: “I don’t remember, Alzheimer?”1:45 - Ms. Connie Magallanes: “You are what you eat”2:00 - Dr. FilomenaBautista: “Immunization: Do we need it?”2:15 - Dr. Regina Agbayani: “No, not SARS!”2:30 - Mr. Rob Fuerte: “Available Community Resources”2:45 - Dr. Rey Robes: “How to keep your heart working longer”3:00 – Questions and Answers

Come and JoinThe Filipino Centre Toronto

PNB Remit (2) Dr. Evangeline M. Bernabe & Associates (3)Goldentuller & Associates (3)Rolly’s Garage (3) Dr. Arla Rondilla Dentistry Professional Corp. (5)Dr. Albine A. Miciano Cosmetic & General Dentistry (6)Action Honda (7)Kaakbay Financial Services (11)Ellesmere-Kennedy Dental Centre (12)Amit Bhatia Credit Management Services (13) Conrad Fajardo - Remax(14) Aqua Crystal Clear (15)Dr. Miriam Bernacer (16)New Conservatory of Music (16)Philuscan (16)Timeless Images (16)Forex (17)FCT Pistahan (18)FCMA/FCT Medical Fair (18) Hogan Chevy.com (19)Osilla Institute (19)Western Union (20) Russell International (20)Dr. Roslyn Sim-Sabilano Dentistry Prof’l Corp. (21) PIDC Mabuhay Festival (21)

ADVERTISERS’ INDEXThe Tropical Deli (22) Classifi ed Ads (22)Gonzales Dentistry Professional Corp. (23)the edge group (24)the-3rd-eye.com (25) UMAC Toronto (25)Lovely Travel & Tours Int’l (26)Dr. Bernarda Rosales Verzonilla Family & Cosmetic Dentistry (27)Casa Manila (28)Mary’s Esthetics (28)Innovation (28)Clem Cabillan (28)Liland Insurance Inc. (29)LDV Computers (30)OCDC Parcel Services (31)T.H.D. Consultants (32)musicpad.com (32)Front Page Philippines (33)BJ Kitchen Cabinets, Inc. (34) Juan Tomas Band (34)Saratoga Money Remittance (35)Lydia Madrano-Yanto (36)Newbridge Mortgage (36)Roadsport Honda 36)Superb Travel (38)CHIN Radio (38)Seoul Driving School (38)Ma. Louisa Diaz (39)Dr. Santiago & Associates (40)Fairview Dental Centre (40)

The Toronto Catho-lic District School Board (TCDSB) will host the 3rd Annual Filipino Interna-tional Language Assembly and Information and Net-working Day for Parents at the St. Maria Goretti Catho-lic School on May 31 from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.

This year’s assembly will feature the Filipino In-ternational Language Spell-ing and Quiz Bee contests.

The competitions pro-vides Filipinos between the ages of six and 13 the op-

portunity to participate in a positive, non-competitive spelling/quiz bee exchange to improve their Filipino language vocabulary, spell-ing capabilities, compre-hension, public speaking, communication skills, self-esteem and self-confidence.

The competitions will likewise be highlighted by a program wherein partici-pants also show off their dancing and singing skills.

Last year’s Makabayan singing competition gath-ered close to 400 Filipino

parents and students.The TCDSB offers Fili-

pino International Language classes cost-free every Saturday in seven elemen-tary schools: St. Barnabas, St. Brendan, St. Barbara, Blessed John XXIII, St. Maria Goretti, Canadian Martyrs and Holy Family.

The classes are also conducted at the Pope John Paul II secondary school.

Extended-day class in Filipino is also offered at St. Ignatius of Loyola, from Monday to Friday. PR

TCDSB to host Filipino Language Assembly

Canada KOR prepares for 3rd reg’l gab

The Canada Region Knights of Rizal (KOR) Executive Council prepares for its 3rd Assembly in Metro Toronto from Aug. 29 to Sept. 1. With over 150 out-of-town delegates expected, arrangements are being finalized with Hilton Double-Tree Hotel. Commander Emiliano Silverio has named Chito Collan-tes assembly chair; George Poblete, vice chair for administration; Tom Vi-rey, vice chair for supervision; Oakville commander Mike Murphy, operation host; Toronto commander Doug Ord, Commander’s Ball host; Kababaihang Rizalista president Rose Cruz, fundraising. JOE DAMASCO

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 19

20 Manila Media Monitor MAY 2008Manila Media Monitor MAY 2008

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21MAY 2008 Manila Media MonitorMAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor


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anarchy, if they fail to see how so many predictions of this kind have been made through the centuries, a ma-jor one of which was that death and destruction would rain down on us in the year 2000. Remember Y2K?

The 2012 prediction is the stuff of supermarket tabloids. This time, let’s try to confine it to them.

***There’s still nothing like

a good book. Each time I open a new

volume I get the same sort of thrill I did when, at six years, I was able to make my own first purchase.

Sixpence in pocket mon-ey was burning a hole in my pocket and I yearned for something a little broader in scope than the kid’s books I’d been given as presents.

Due to the diligence of parents and grandparents I had learned to read two years earlier.

I took myself down to a large bookstore near our home in Balham.

The new hard cover Readers Library series was being displayed at sixpence a volume.

This eclectic enterprise which flourished for several years until the advent of Penguin paperbacks carried mostly reprints of books au-thored by writers as widely different as Victor Hugo and Edgar Wallace.

I had just seen Doug-las Fairbanks in the Thief of Baghdad and after leaf-ing through a number of Readers Library volumes, I turned back to a noveliza-tion of the film by Achmed Abdullah (actually the Rus-sian-born Alexander Nico-layevitch Romanoff). Al-though he did not write the

screenplay for the film, it is said he gave the producers the original story line.

There was Duggie on the dust cover, complete with bandana and roguish grin. I could not wait until I got home, but found that Achmed/Alexander’s prose was a little too dense for me. I cannot remember now whether I ever returned to the Thief of Baghdad, but I’ll always have the memo-ry of that first purchase (of many thousands).

***The Oxford University

Press has launched its Cana-dian Newcomer Series, the first of which is reviewed in this issue.

While specifically ad-dressing the informational needs of new arrivals in Canada, this is as much a book for established Cana-dians as new immigrants.

The reason for this is that, if we are to acknowl-edge our responsibilities as citizens of a country that needs and welcomes im-migrants we need to know how this country works and here it is in the first of a se-ries of Oxford University Press books.

Arrival Survival Cana-da can be of real assistance in helping answer new im-migrants’ questions.

Arrival Survival Cana-da outlines in clear English how to cope with situations from finding shelter to mak-ing temporary arrangements for health coverage until ac-ceptance in Canada’s free health care system.

Canadian laws and in-stitutions such as levels of government and the courts are also explained clearly and succinctly.

Fittingly, the authors of

this helpful vade mecum are themselves immigrants and seasoned journalists, name-ly, Naeem “Nick” Noorani and his wife, Sabrina, who are publishers and editors of The Canadian Immigrant, a monthly newspaper pub-lished in Vancouver and To-ronto. They arrived here 10 years ago from Mumbai via a stay in Dubai and began their newspaper four years ago.

The book is effective not only because of its con-tent but due to its design which offers brief illus-trated sidebars with immi-grants’ success stories and also glossaries appended to some section explaining us-age of such word and terms as civil law and common law in the legal section and term deposit and traveller’s cheques in the banking sec-tion.

Many of us who have lived in Canada all our lives, or for a very long time, could benefit from reading this as a refresher course in what Canada offers.

It is available in book-stores now at $29.95 and this spring Oxford Univer-sity Press will introduce a new volume, How to Find a Job in Canada.

(Used with permis-sion. Ben Viccari is the President of the Canadian Ethnic Media Associa-tion [CEMA] and makes frequent appearances on OMNI TV Commentary. Some of his commentar-ies are republished in this publication and slightly ex-panded in some cases from their 70-second broadcast originals. For more of his work, please visit Ben’s website at: http://canscene.ripple.ca)

(From page 9)Media help US presidents hoodwink us

a lesson or two from Phil-ippine prelates, who echoed Pope Benedict XVI’s mes-sage for the 42nd World Communications Day on May 3.

In Manila, Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) media director Msgr. Pedro Quito-rio said “the real power of media does not lie on the in-struments but on the truth-fulness and credibility of the person who uses them.”

“The meteoric evolution of technology will bring media to unimaginable po-tential. But at the end of the day, it’s the truth, life and credibility of the commu-nicator that bring about real power,” Quitorio said.

Still in Manila, CBCP President Archbishop An-gel Lagdameo considered the Pope’s call for “info-ethics.” Lagdameo said that while media did much good,

(From page 10)Juan’s media, Juan’s community

it was also often used to pro-mote the selfish interests of powerful people who could destroy its real purpose for the common good.”

In Davao City, Fr. Rus-sell Bantiles, editor-in-chief of the Davao Catholic Her-ald, said the Pope’s message raised two points about me-dia’s power: first, the media possess the power and the force of suggestion, what-ever this might mean; and second, the media are used not to disseminate informa-tion but to create events.

“The media is at the crossroads between self-promotion and service,” said Bantiles, who urged media to use all means of social communication in the service of the truth about God, man, and the world.

***On another note, during

the just-concluded Global Filipino Network workshop

on overseas media conduct-ed in Manila, forum official Greg Macabenta notes:

“Indeed, the importance of media as a pillar of the Filipino global community and as the vital link among diverse communities and the Philippine homeland has been overlooked or, at least, under-appreciated, even by Filipino communi-ties themselves.”

“This is not surprising. The content of Filipino newspapers and broadcast media are so Philippine-centric that there is little in them that would be of interest to mainstream poli-ticians, businessmen, and civic leaders. Not even to second-generation hyphen-ated Filipinos whose famil-iarity with the land of their parents’ birth is anecdotal, at best, and negative, at worst,” Macabenta said. [email protected]

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 23The PHILIPPINESThe PHILIPPINES

MANILA - World Box-ing Council (WBC) super featherweight champion Manny Pacquiao is looking forward to a strict training regimen in preparation for his upcoming fight against WBC lightweight titlist Da-vid Diaz at the Mandalay Bay Resort Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 28.

“A lot of people are say-ing it would be hard for me to win against a bigger and heavier opponent, but with the help of God and giving my 100 percent in training, we can win this fight,” Pac-quiao said in his column at philboxing.com.

”Now, I am pushing myself to another level because I want to achieve greater heights,” the world-renowned ring champ said.

Pacquiao (46-3-2, 35 KO’s) has left for Los An-geles to start his formal training under American mentor Freddie Roach at the Wildcard gym.

Against Diaz (34-1-1,

17 KO’s), Pacquiao would try to be the first Filipino to win the world lightweight title.

Pacquiao’s super feath-erweight diadem is not at stake in the fight. He cap-tured the title after beat-ing Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez in a split 12-round decision.

Pacquiao was the former WBC flyweight and IBF/WBO super bantamweight champion before going to the featherweight division to beat former world cham-pions Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera, both of Mexico. PNA

MANILA - Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano on May 12 assumed as 38th Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Yano, former Army chief, succeeded Gen. Her-mogenes Esperon Jr. who retired.

In his acceptance speech, Yano pledged loyalty to President Gloria Macapa-gal-Arroyo and the chain of command while promis-ing to make the military the “servant of the people.”

He vowed to continue Esperon’s fight against the communists, saying “Gen-eral Esperon, sir, your labor shall not be in vain. The en-emies of democracy shall be decimated as scheduled.”

President Arroyo has directed the military and the police to crush the com-munist insurgency in 2010. PNA

Yano assumes post as AFP chief

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (center) wit-nesses the exchange of handshakes between outgoing Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. (left) and incoming AFP Chief Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano during the change of command on May 12. Photo: Marcelino Pascua/OPS-NIB

MANILA - The House of Representatives on May 12 approved on third and final reading a consolidated measure that would raise tax exemptions for a family of six with total income of P200,000 and below.

Before the passage of the measure, the tax exemp-tion ceiling was P96,000.

Voting 192 to 3 with no abstentions, the lawmakers cited the need to provide low income workers eco-nomic relief through higher tax exemptions in the light of the escalating prices of food and other basic com-modities. PNA

House raisestax exempt

ceiling

MANILA - Most poor families from the provinces flocking to Metro manila in search of a better life end up homeless and in worse con-ditions.

This should be prevent-ed if not stopped, as it has aggravated the poverty inci-dence in the National Capi-tal Region (NCR) including Metro Manila, Marikina City Rep. Del de Guzman told media forum Kapihan.

”There are families here that go to the dumps practi-cally to look for food,” said de Guzman, House commit-tee on social services chair.

In the same forum, so-cial welfare Undersecre-tary Celia Yangco said data showed more poor families lived in Mindanao, particu-larly in the Autonomous Re-gion for Muslim Mindanao, but indigents in the NCR have been going through the worst kind of poverty.

Yangco defined the

poorest of the poor as fami-lies with a per capita in-come of P1,000 or less, and many of them are in Metro Manila.

She cited cases where migrant families ended up living under bridges and waterways.

Some have even fallen prey to syndicates that rent children, most of them out of school, to beg on the streets of the metropolis.

“We have identified some of the members of these organized crime groups. We are set to file criminal charges against them,” she said.

Abject poverty haunts Metro ManilaNational housing com-

munity relations officer Ivy Marquez admitted be-fore Kapihan attendees that poor families awarded low cost government hous-ing were going back to the slums along the Philippine National Railways train tracks in Manila, due to the absence of livelihood in re-location sites.

“We are doing our best to find a resettlement site close to their former homes. Meanwhile, we are appeal-ing to local government units to help these families relocated in their jurisdic-tion,” she said. PNA

Pacquiao trains forfight vs David Diaz

PACQUIAO

MANILA - Korean firm Hanjin Heavy Industries, Inc. (HHII) would continue investing in the Philippines, despite being dragged into a bribery controversy by offi-cials in two towns of Misa-mis Oriental.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Hanjin officials had told Trade Secretary Peter Favila they would stay, invest and complete projects in the country.

Hanjin earlier alleged that the mayors of Tagoloan and Villanueva in Misamis Oriental had tried to extort

MANILA - Meralco’s admission that it had been passing on to consumers some P.5 million in power bills and systems losses has spurred Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol to hint the filing of a class suit against the giant Lopez-controlled power firm.

Apostol told Malaca-ñang media: “Somebody will have to file the case (a class suit against Meralco). Meralco has lost in two cases before the Supreme Court.”

But besides this, Apos-tol said “we would have to wait for Congressional ac-tion on amending the Elec-tric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA).”

He added that the gov-ernment was not interested in buying out or taking over Meralco, as it “is a corpo-rate matter, and Malacañang will not intervene.”

Meralco officials earlier offered to sell the power company to the government and other big-ticket local or foreign investors.

Deputy spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo said Meral-co “may have to seriously consider their position” on passing on to consumers their costs. OPS

Hanjin may stay in RPdespite bribe fracas

money from them in ex-change for the immediate approval of the environ-mental and business permits for the $2-billion shipyard it would build in Mindanao.

But one of the mayors claimed it was Hanjin that offered him a P400-million bribe to pave the way for the project. Hanjin denied the allegation.

Peeved by the news, President Gloria Macapa-gal-Arroyo directed the Department of Interior and Local Government to inves-tigate the allegations. OPS

Palace hintsclass suit

vs Meralco

MANILA - Seventy-four lawmakers on May 13 signed a resolution asking Malaysia to continue bro-kering peace talks between the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Anak Mindanao Rep. Mujiv Hataman filed House Resolution 578, after Ma-laysia pulled out from the International Monitoring Team tasked to oversee a ceasefire pact between the military and MILF.

Malaysia asked to go onbrokering peace talks

The government and the MILF are deadlocked over the thorny issue of ancestral domain.

The MILF has claimed the government is delaying the talks and threatened to resume war.

“We recognize the gains of the IMT led by Malaysia, especially in monitoring ad-herence to agreements [on] the ground, thereby provid-ing a conducive atmosphere for negotiations,” Hataman said. PNA

24 Manila Media Monitor MAY 2008

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 25The PHILIPPINESThe PHILIPPINES

ILOILO CITY - Lisa Castor’s fair complexion never fails to draw a second look from men. And Castor is 104 years old.

How she happens to look younger than her age and how she got a longer lifespan in remote Tapaz village in Capiz Castor at-tributes to a regular diet of grilled termite eggs.

One of four known members of the indigenous Pan-ayanons who is past the century mark, Castor tells the Philippines News Agen-cy that she and her group look for and destroy termite mounds to catch the buk-an (queen termite).

They skew several buk-an in a stick and place this on top of the flame. After the outer shell of the buk-an burns and peels, Castor and the others feast on the cooked inner buk-an parts that hold the tiny thousands of termite eggs.

She says “buk-an is wa-tery” and has tartness when eaten.

But Castor admits that on top of her termite egg diet, she eats lots of vegeta-tive food, complemented by bits of meat, fish, freshwa-ter shells and shrimps taken from the river.

The village’s drinking

water comes from a stream near her ancestral home.

Professor Randy Ma-drid, of the University of the Philippines in the Vi-sayas Center for West Vi-sayan Study, says some studies show that ants are rich in Vitamin E and sali-cylic acid.

However, Madrid says the idea of eating termite’s egg extending a person’s life may be a myth, adding that there is no scientific ex-planation to that effect.

Madrid says “it is the first time that I have heard of such testimony from among the members of the Pan-ay Bukidnon.”

”The kind of food Lisa is eating probably helped add years to her life.”

Madrid is among those spearheading programs to preserve the Pan-ay Bukid-nons’ culture and traditions.

As to her fairness, Cas-tor says she is one of the re-maining Pan-ay binukot, a privilege given to the fairest member of the tribe.

A binukot lives like a princess, does not toil dur-ing the day, and goes out of their room only when it is time to eat and take a bath.

Before the sun rises and when the sun sets, a binu-kot is allowed just to breath

fresh air within home lots. Closely protected from

the sun’s rays to maintain their flawless skin, Castor says she wears the tradition-al supa, an embroidered top matched with the patady-ong skirt that spans down to the heels.

As a binukot, she is for-bidden to show any part of her body before marriage.

Her man had to give her parents dowry that ranged from money to farm ani-mals, among others.

On the other hand, Ma-drid says Castor’s claim to be a centenarian may be true, or she may be just an ordinary angoran, an old woman in their community.

There may be older per-sons than Castor in their vil-lage, Madrid adds.

Tapaz town is hardly reached by land transport means, and checking on her claims may take a long and arduous process, he says.

Castor’s story reached the media when she and cousin Mansueto Carle, Jr., together with fellow tribespeople, trooped to the town proper of Calinog for the Panubok 2, a Binanog Dance and Costume em-broidery exhibit, workshop and competition. MMCA-LUBIRAN

Uh, oh! Grilled termite eggs to prolong life?

“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.”

MATTHEW 6:16

PHOTOGRAPHERS FOR CHRISTPick up your camera and follow us.

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To all gifted photographers out there who have the third eyein capturing photos that reflect a Christian message, there is a Christian Fellowship of talented photographers that awaits you.They are Photographers For Christ who use the art of photographyin spreading the word of God.

Listen to your hearts, the Holy Spirit is calling you.

[email protected]

26 TRAVEL & TOURISMTRAVEL & TOURISM Manila Media Monitor MAY 2008

CALAYAN, Cagayan - Mouthwatering dishes of tatus (coconut crabs) pre-pared and cooked in varied styles has fast become a hit among early domestic and foreign tourists who visited this island town, lured to the first-ever Tatus Festival of-ficials put up for the whole month of May.

The festival would fo-cus on the endemic crab that teems in Calayan.

Besides the parade of tatus delicacies, a show fea-turing many of the antics the crabs could do would be conducted for visitors.

Mayor Joseph Llopis said the Tatus Festival is expected to raise the town’s image as a tourist spot.

At the same time, it could be a major income-generating event.

Llopis said the festival

DAVAO CITY - The tourism department is introducing wreck-div-ing off Talomo district’s shores in this city, as an-other come-on for local and foreign tourist-deep sea divers.

Tourism regional head Sonia Garcia cited reports that World War II vintage US boats have been found in the deep sea waters off Talomo.

Garcia said that dur-ing the war, the US navy scuttled lame ships in the sea waters off Talomo instead of towing in the wrecks for repair.

“We are inviting tech-nical divers to document what are down under,” she said. “Wreck diving is an attraction which is another come-on for Davao City.”

Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said the city had only four tour diving business operators.

With the position-ing of Davao and the Philippines as a dive destination, the region could possibly attract much-needed investors, Duterte said. PNA

The huge bell in the im-posing belfry of Sta. Moni-ca Church in Pan-ay, Capiz will once more come to the fore as the town’s people take pride in their Roman Catholic history and innate Filipino culture during the Lingga-anay Festival early May.

But besides showcasing the biggest bell in a church belfry in Southeast Asia, the people will play cordial hosts to local and foreign tourists who flock to Pan-ay to see and feel the excite-ment of the town’s blessed natural resources.

Come-onsPan-ay, located eight ki-

lometers from Capiz’ capi-tal Roxas City, is also proud of its natural sights and restplaces such as the wide tracts of mangroves for eco-logical tours, the Pawa-Bun-tod Beach and Napti Island that are ideal for swimming, water sports like snorkeling and diving; and man-made attractions that include Villa Magdalena resort, Bibal in-tegrated and organic farm, Berjamin plant and flower garden, and Weny’s butter-fly and plant garden.

Pan-ay, a fisherman’s haven, is also one of the ma-jor sources of seafoods such as crabs, prawns, oysters, green shells, diwal (Angel Wings), bangus, and others that have made Capiz and Roxas City the Seafoods Capital of the Philippines.

Pan-ay Mayor Dante Bermejo says the four-day Langga-anay Festival fea-tures the town’s history, culture, natural wealth and, most of all, its people known for their hospitality.

Center of Catholicism Pan-ay, one of the old-

est towns in the Philip-pines, traces its Spanish-influenced roots to the days when Spanish colonizers under Don Miguel Lopez de Legaspi landed on banks of Sta. Monica River and set up quarters in Pan-ay in

The Sta. Monica Church in Pan-ay, Capiz (above, left) is an awe-inspiring monument to a past Spanish grandeur in Pan-ay town. The church is about 250 feet long and 80 feet wide. It has nine-foot thick walls and its floor is of colored marble which shines in subdued lights. The central altar is elaborately sculptured retablos of silver and hard-wood in the florid style of baroque art. The church’s five-storey belfry shelters an antique huge bell, surrounded by eight smaller bells. The huge bell (right photos) was cast from 76 sacks of coins said to have been contributed by the town’s people. Its mammoth size holds a record: It is seven feet in diameter and weights 10,400 kilograms, making it the largest bell in Southeast Asia and the second largest in the world. capiz.gov.ph

1569, after escaping from food shortages and Portu-guese attacks in Cebu.

The town, one of 16 mu-nicipalities of Capiz, was once the center of Catholi-cism in the whole island.

It was also the first or-ganized community in the province, being the first capital during the early Spanish regime.

The provincial capital was later moved to Roxas City, known then as the town of Capiz.

Tolls far and wide The Spanish friars then

put up the Sta. Monica Church, but without the belfry.

The gigantic bell was in-stalled only in 1878, crafted from 76 sacks of coins the town’s people gave during church services.

Little did the friars know that after 130 years, the church, its belfry and its huge bell would become a tourist attraction of Pan-ay town (population: 42,000).

Lingga-anay Festival in Pan-ay, Capiz rings a bell

The Sta. Monica Church belfry shelters the gigan-tic bell that weighs 10,400 kilograms and has a seven-foot diameter.

Inscribed on one side of the bell is a statement in Spanish which, in English, means: “I am the voice of God which shall echo and praise from the beginning till the end of this town of Pan-ay, so that the faithful of Jesus Christ may come to the house of God to receive heavenly graces.”

So big is the bell that when it tolls, it is heard far and wide beyond the town proper, calling on people to attend Holy Mass or other church services.

Sta. Monica church has since been declared as a Na-tional Historical Landmark by the National Historical Institute; and Pan-ay as The Heritage Capital of Capiz, Philippines by the Sanggu-niang Panlalawigan. PNA, Wire Reports, and the Capiz Website

would complement the at-traction being made by the Sibang Cove, which won an award last year as an emerging tourist destination given its white sand beach, pristine water suitable for tourism sports such as wind surfing and diving.

Calayan - a two-hour boat ride from Aparri in mainland Cagayan - is like-wise rich in other natural attractions like archeologi-cal sites, endemic flora and fauna, and virgin forests, notwithstanding its hospi-table and gentle people who have a colorful history and rich cultural legacy.

The festivities are held at the Sibang Cove and at the town’s poblacion.

Other festival events included a bikini open, aquathlon of run-walk-swim cum beach volleyball,

trade fair of local products, Calayan Rail (indigenous bird) photo contest, wilds hunting contest, bonfire, boat rowing, game fishing, seminar on the production of package tours, essay writing contest and others.

Llopis said the towns-folk “should benefit most from the tourism activities so that they will be encour-aged to work for the ad-vancement of the industry and promote the same.” PURITA LICAS, PNA

Explore Davao’s deep for WW IIvintage boats

Monthlong coconut crabfete in Calayan, Cagayan

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 27NEWS

ROUNDUP

The PHILIPPINESThe PHILIPPINES

DARAGA, Albay - Daraga’s streetlights will soon glow at night, the energy sourced from five tons of trash and other biodegradable garbage the local government seeks to collect daily. Pursued in cooperation with a group of local engineers, the streetlightling proj-ect will harness bioenergy technology, an initiative the Japan International Cooperation Agency supports. Mayor Cicerio Triunfante says the project applies biomasses for power generation, using two-phase methane fermentation and a Sterling engine for outer combus-tion. This is a Japanese technology. PNA

Trash to energize Daraga streetlights

BACOLOD CITY - The Bacolod City Water District chief Julie Ann Carbon says the ac-tivation of the P44-million water reservoir project in Brgy. Mansilingan here is “a celebra-tion of life because it gives opportunity for residents of Bacolod to have access to potable water.” The new reservoir has a design capacity of 6,500 cubic meters and an actual capac-ity of 7,548 cubic meters, complete with a booster and chlorine stations. PNA

New reservoir rises in Bacolod

CASTILLA, Sorsogon - The Army’s engineering brigade here is rushing the completion of a 3.5-kilometer road that will provide shorter access between the Maharlika Highway and the town seaport here, a potential international marine transport facility. The road, to end in Barangay La Union from the seaport complex, is a diversion from the old four-kilometer route between Barangay Poblacion and the national highway in Barangay San Isidro, 17 kilometers from Sorsogon City and about 49 kilometers from Legazpi City. The seaport opened last year and it has been the main unloading point for large cargo vessels transporting raw materials for cement manufacturing by the Taiwanese-owned Goodfound Cement Corp. in Barangay Palanog, Camalig, Albay. PNA

Army engineers rush Castilla access road

ZAMBOANGA CITY - This city will soon have its own sanitary landfill system to re-place the Lumbangan dumpsite, which adopts the control system. Mayor Celso Lobregat says the new dumpsite may be put up in the Salaan area, which environment officers ear-lier recommended as the most feasible dumpsite area from among Malagutay, Lumayang and Lumbangan. Lobragat says the World Bank provide technical aid in the site evalua-tion. Negotiations are underway to buy the landfill area. PIA

Zambo City sanitary landfill in the works

NASUGBU, Batangas - Environment officials and concerned fishermen here have taken the ini-tiative to help an olive ridley turtle get back to the water off the coast of Nasugbu, Batangas. Towns-folk said the fishermen accidentally caught the turtle. Upon realizing their accidental catch, they then informed the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Photo: ROUELLE UMALI

Batangas folk free olive ridley turtle

LEGAZPI CITY - The Kalipunan ng Liping Pilipina, a women’s group in Bauan town, Batangas, has targetted Legazpi City as a venue for its Lakbay Aral (Travel Studies) from May 19 to 22. Bauan mayor Rhyanh Dolor said the study group would want to study and have first-hand knowledge of how Bicolanos make use of indigenous materials for native products such as bags, slippers, hats, trays and native decors. “We will also try to see if we can adopt these skills in our place as source of livelihood by our members,” Dolor said. The group would also likely visit Mayon Volcano, the Hoyop Hoyopan cave in Camalig and other sceneries in Albay, Bicol. PNA

Lakbay Aral focuses on Bicol products

SORSOGON CITY - The city government will reforest another 30 hectares of mangrove areas in barangays Talisay and Bitano, densely populated villages at the western coast of Sorsogon Bay. City environment officer Ronaldo Gerona said the restoration of a man-grove forest was imperative in the two villages prone to typhoons and flash floods. The mangrove forest would shield shoreline residents from strong winds and big waves during storms. Gerona said the mangrove forest would also offer habitat and breeding ground for various species of marine life teeming in the area, while maintaining the cleanliness of Sorsogon Bay. Earlier, the government planted mangrove seedlings along the coastlines of four villages in Bacon along the Albay Gulf. PNA

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MANILA - A rare rat species last seen over a century ago in the mountainous northern Philippines has been rediscov-ered by a team of American and Filipino biologists, an AFP report said.

Lawrence Heaney, team leader and cu-rator at the Chicago-based Field Museum of Natural History, said the rare dwarf cloud rat was last seen by British scientists some 112 years ago.

Heaney said the rat was dead when the team found it in a canopy of a large tree whose branches were covered by thick moss, orchids and ferns at a national park in Mount Pulag in northern Luzon,

The animal was described as small “with reddish brown fur, a black mask around its large dark eyes, small round ears, a broad and blunt snout and a long tail covered with dark hair,” the report said.

“It is the animal whose existence had baffled biologists for so many years,” He-aney said.

The animal has been preserved and is being prepared for shipment to Chicago for further studies.

The discovery proved a theory that the rare species lived only in high canopies with mature mossy forests in areas with an elevation of between 2,200 to 2,700 meters (7,200-8,850 feet) above sea level.

Mount Pulag is Luzon’s highest peak at 2,922 me-ters above sea level.

“The cloud rats are one of the most spectacular cas-es of adaptive radiation by mammals anywhere in the world,” Heaney said.

A British researcher, John Whitehead, first saw

the rat in 1896 in another mountain region in the north, but little was known about the species.

“Since then, the species became a mys-tery,” Heaney said.

Rare cloud rat rediscovered

Photo: Field Museum of Natural His-tory, Chicago

It is ironic that in modern times, Filipinos do still believe in fortune tellers. Amid social and economic difficulties and the political noise, many are seeking the advice of for-tune tellers - given by way of play-ing cards, tarot cards, crystal balls, palm reading and others - and get a fleeting glimpse of what is in store for them personally, romantically and more than anything else, finan-cially. Photo: PNA/Tres Moises

Way to fortune?


CAMP DARAPANAN - After a protracted 30-year insurgency that has seen up to 150,000 people killed, Muslim rebels are facing an uncertain future as peace finally looks near in the southern Philippines.

With talks due to re-sume between the Philip-pine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), many young Muslims in this sprawling rebel camp in Mindanao are trying to come to terms with the prospect of peace.

Government and MILF negotiators are optimistic the final hurdles to peace can be overcome by grant-ing limited autonomy to the Muslim minority in this predominant Roman Catho-lic Southeast Asian nation.

For many of the 12,000 MILF rebels, especially the young, peace is likely to bring an uncertain future.

MILF chief Murad Ibra-him, in a rare interview with Agence France-Presse, said he was worried for their future, especially for those born into war and the many whose parents and older kin have died as “martyrs.”

At 58, Ibrahim is seen by many as more pragmatic and moderate than his pre-decessor Salamat Hashim, the Egypt-trained MILF founder who espoused con-tinued jihad for a Muslim homeland. Salamat died of a heart attack in 2003.

“We cannot fail in this struggle for peace,” said Murad. “If we fail, we will be in a far worse situation.”

Murad said it was too early to talk about disarming his men as “we still have to reach a political settlement beneficial to everyone.”

With a ceasefire and peace talks entering their fifth year Murad says the longer the talks drag on,

“we run the risk of spoilers entering the picture.”

The spoilers he refers to are the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and Abu Sayyaf -- both of which have links with Al-Qaeda.

Moro fighter Abdullah says he is concerned about the future.

A young man in his early 20s clutching a rusty machine gun, he is a veteran of many jungle battles and is ready, he says, to die for the cause.

“I have not been to a battle since last year,” Abdullah says, perspiration trickling down his brow and onto mismatched fatigues that bears a striking resem-blance to those used by Sri Lakan Tamil insurgents.

“I have had many adven-tures with this gun, I sleep with it and never go any-where without it,” he says. “I cannot part with it.”

Abdullah says he is not prepared to lay down his weapon even if a final peace deal is signed.

“It’s not in my blood to be a farmer,” he said.

Abdullah’s sentiments are shared by many MILF guerrillas, notably the second and third genera-tion fighters whose elders formed the core of the first mujahid who fought in the insurgency in the 1970s.

Security analysts say the biggest problem faced by the government is disarm-ing the rebels, with younger MILF fighters opposed to the peace deal seen as high-ly susceptible to more radi-calization by groups such as the JI and the Abu Sayyaf.

“With the history of the Mindanao conflict, these groups are always there to exploit the situation,” says Julkipli Wadi, an Islamic studies professor at the Uni-versity of the Philippines.

“The JI and the Abu Sayyaf could form strategic alliances with these young fighters who may not want to part with their firearms,” Wadi said.

Yusuph Abisakir, the mild-mannered administra-tor at the sprawling Camp Darapanan that spans sev-eral towns in central Mind-anao, says he hopes that the rigid command structure of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Is-lamic Armed Forces would keep cadres in line once a peace deal is signed.

“I have not seen any open resentment” to the talks, Abisakir said, adding that many of the fighters want to see peace achieved in their lifetimes.

“But of course no one will agree to give up their firearms,” said Abisakir, whose job is to give spiritu-al and military guidance to the more than 1,000 regular MILF fighters in the camp.

Government and the MILF are mulling over the possibility of transforming the rebels into a “territorial force” to guard areas to be covered under a peace deal.

Another idea is for gov-ernment to buy the guns and offer jobs to the rebels.

For MILF field com-mander Toks Guiwan, whose two young sons are are also fighters, such talk of disarmament only upsets his men.

“It’s dangerous talk, my men have known no other job than to fight,” he says.

Nearby, Abdullah pol-ishes his old M-60 and with a smile boasts that he can live without his wife for a long time, but not without his firearm.

“This has saved me many times,” he says. “My wife, she gets mad when I caress my machine gun, but she understands.” AFP

MILF fighters seeuncertain future



CAMP DARAPANAN - After a protracted 30-year insurgency that has seen up to 150,000 people killed, Muslim rebels are facing an uncertain future as peace finally looks near in the southern Philippines.

With talks due to re-sume between the Philip-pine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), many young Muslims in this sprawling rebel camp in Mindanao are trying to come to terms with the prospect of peace.

Government and MILF negotiators are optimistic the final hurdles to peace can be overcome by grant-ing limited autonomy to the Muslim minority in this predominant Roman Catho-lic Southeast Asian nation.

For many of the 12,000 MILF rebels, especially the young, peace is likely to bring an uncertain future.

MILF chief Murad Ibra-him, in a rare interview with Agence France-Presse, said he was worried for their future, especially for those born into war and the many whose parents and older kin have died as “martyrs.”

At 58, Ibrahim is seen by many as more pragmatic and moderate than his pre-decessor Salamat Hashim, the Egypt-trained MILF founder who espoused con-tinued jihad for a Muslim homeland. Salamat died of a heart attack in 2003.

“We cannot fail in this struggle for peace,” said Murad. “If we fail, we will be in a far worse situation.”

Murad said it was too early to talk about disarming his men as “we still have to reach a political settlement beneficial to everyone.”

With a ceasefire and peace talks entering their fifth year Murad says the longer the talks drag on,

“we run the risk of spoilers entering the picture.”

The spoilers he refers to are the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and Abu Sayyaf -- both of which have links with Al-Qaeda.

Moro fighter Abdullah says he is concerned about the future.

A young man in his early 20s clutching a rusty machine gun, he is a veteran of many jungle battles and is ready, he says, to die for the cause.

“I have not been to a battle since last year,” Abdullah says, perspiration trickling down his brow and onto mismatched fatigues that bears a striking resem-blance to those used by Sri Lakan Tamil insurgents.

“I have had many adven-tures with this gun, I sleep with it and never go any-where without it,” he says. “I cannot part with it.”

Abdullah says he is not prepared to lay down his weapon even if a final peace deal is signed.

“It’s not in my blood to be a farmer,” he said.

Abdullah’s sentiments are shared by many MILF guerrillas, notably the second and third genera-tion fighters whose elders formed the core of the first mujahid who fought in the insurgency in the 1970s.

Security analysts say the biggest problem faced by the government is disarm-ing the rebels, with younger MILF fighters opposed to the peace deal seen as high-ly susceptible to more radi-calization by groups such as the JI and the Abu Sayyaf.

“With the history of the Mindanao conflict, these groups are always there to exploit the situation,” says Julkipli Wadi, an Islamic studies professor at the Uni-versity of the Philippines.

“The JI and the Abu Sayyaf could form strategic alliances with these young fighters who may not want to part with their firearms,” Wadi said.

Yusuph Abisakir, the mild-mannered administra-tor at the sprawling Camp Darapanan that spans sev-eral towns in central Mind-anao, says he hopes that the rigid command structure of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Is-lamic Armed Forces would keep cadres in line once a peace deal is signed.

“I have not seen any open resentment” to the talks, Abisakir said, adding that many of the fighters want to see peace achieved in their lifetimes.

“But of course no one will agree to give up their firearms,” said Abisakir, whose job is to give spiritu-al and military guidance to the more than 1,000 regular MILF fighters in the camp.

Government and the MILF are mulling over the possibility of transforming the rebels into a “territorial force” to guard areas to be covered under a peace deal.

Another idea is for gov-ernment to buy the guns and offer jobs to the rebels.

For MILF field com-mander Toks Guiwan, whose two young sons are are also fighters, such talk of disarmament only upsets his men.

“It’s dangerous talk, my men have known no other job than to fight,” he says.

Nearby, Abdullah pol-ishes his old M-60 and with a smile boasts that he can live without his wife for a long time, but not without his firearm.

“This has saved me many times,” he says. “My wife, she gets mad when I caress my machine gun, but she understands.” AFP

MILF fighters seeuncertain future


29MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor

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Manila Media Monitor MAY 200830 CANADIAN HISTORYCANADIAN HISTORY

Victoria Day, the third Monday in May, marks the unofficial start of summer for many Canadians.

Weekend cottages are opened after a long winter, gardens are planted, and young people camp and at-tend the first music festivals of summer. A fireworks display usually marks sum-mer’s first long weekend.

The holiday, also known as May Long and May Run, is colloquially referred to as May two-four; the 2-4 pointing to the number of cans or bottles in a Cana-dian case of beer.

Monarch’s birthdayThe monarch’s natal day

was a day for celebration in Canada, even long before Confederation.

On May 24, 1854, some 5,000 people of Upper Canada gathered in front of Government House (near King and Simcoe streets in Toronto) to “give cheers to their queen.”

Since 1901, May 24 was known in the British Empire as Empire Day.

An amendment to the Statutes of Canada in 1952 moved the holiday to the Monday before May 25.

But over time, the offi-cial date of the sovereign’s birthday changed through royal proclamations.

For Edward VII, it re-mained on May 24, but was June 3 for George V, June 23 for Edward VIII (their actual birthdays), and days between May 20 and June 14 through George VI’s reign as King of Canada.

From 1953, annual vice regal proclamations made

Empire Day the date of Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday in Canada. It was made permanent in 1957.

In 1958, Empire Day was renamed Common-wealth Day. In 1977, the latter was moved to the sec-ond Monday in March, but Canadians continued to cel-ebrate Victoria Day in May.

Visits of reigning Ca-nadian monarchs for their birth anniversaries were on:

Queen Victoria Day:An important Canadian holiday

The Sovereign’s birthday has been celebrated in Canada since the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901).

May 24, Queen Victoria’s birthday, was declared a holiday by the Legislature of the Province of Canada in 1845.

After Confederation, the Queen’s birthday was cele-brated every year on May 24 unless that date was a Sun-day, in which case a proclamation was issued providing for the celebration on May 25.

An amendment to the Statutes of Canada in 1952 es-tablished the celebration of Victoria Day on the Monday preceding May 25.

From 1953 to 1956, the Queen’s birthday was cel-ebrated in Canada on Victoria Day, by proclamation of the Governor General, with Her Majesty’s approval.

In 1957, Victoria Day was permanently appointed as the Queen’s birthday in Canada. In the United Kingdom, the Queen’s birthday is celebrated in June.

In 2008, Victoria Day will be celebrated on Monday, May 19th. kidsturncentral.com

The Queen’s Birthday

QUEEN VICTORIA in 1897.The Royal Windsor Website

► May 20, 1939 when King George VI went on a Canadian coast-to-coast tour, ending with military honors on Parliament Hill.

► May 17 to 25, 2005 when Queen Elizabeth II was in Canada to mark the centennials of Saskatch-ewan and Alberta’s entry into Confederation.

Queen VictoriaQueen Alexandrina

Victoria was born in Kens-ington Palace in London, England on May 24, 1819; the daughter of Edward, the Duke of Kent and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg.

She ascended to the throne in 1837.

She was the great-great-grandmother of Queen Eliz-abeth II.

Queen Victoria oversaw a period in history when Britain became a great world power, highlighted with artistic endeavors, in-dustrial developments and the creation of the British Empire.

Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, on Feb. 10, 1840.

They had nine children - Victoria, Bertie, Alice,

Alfred, Helena, Louise, Ar-thur, Leopold, and Beatrice, many of who would marry into other European royal families. Queen Victoria and Albert are sometimes called the Grandmother and Grandfather of Europe.

Albert died of typhoid fever on Dec. 14, 1861, at the age of 42.

Victoria remained in self-imposed seclusion for ten years. This genuine but

obsessive mourning kept her occupied for the rest of her life and played an im-portant role in the evolution of what would become the Victorian mentality.

Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901.

Her reign lasted 63 years and seven months, longer than that of any other Brit-ish monarch to date. Her reign is known as the Victo-rian era. Various sites

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 31PHILIPPINE HISTORYPHILIPPINE HISTORY

On exhibit at the Agui-naldo Museum at Happy Glen in Baguio City is an old flag identified by a cap-tion as the “First Philippine National Flag.”

A historical note says: “Sewn in Hongkong by Doña Marcela Marino Agoncillo, this flag was brought to the Philippines by General Emilio Agui-naldo on May 19, 1898. It was first unfurled by Agui-naldo in his headquarters in Cavite (now Cavite City) on May 28 before victorious Filipino revolutionists and more than 270 Spanish sol-diers of the Marine Corps who surrendered to them in the Battle of Alapan, Imus, Cavite. A large group of of-ficers and men of the U.S. Asiatic Squadron under Admiral George Dewey witnessed the unfurling cer-emony. This same flag was officially unfurled for the first time during the Procla-mation of Philippine Inde-pendence at the Aguinaldo Mansion (now Aguinaldo Shrine) in Kawit, Cavite, at 4:20 p.m., June 12, 1898.”

The museum was in-augurated in May 1985, and the flag’s recorded his-tory and identity leave little doubt regarding the claim that it is indeed the original Philippine national flag.

Carted outAguinaldo said it was

captured “somewhere in Luzon” during the Philip-pine-American War.

Unknown to him, how-ever, the flag had been car-ried out of the country.

In answer to my inqui-ry, Lynn Smith Houghton, curator of collections of the Kalamazoo Public Mu-seum in Michigan, wrote on November 26, 1985: “According to our records, the flag was captured from General Aguinaldo’s troops in 1901 by Frank L. Riley of Company F, 160 Indi-ana Infantry. He presented it to the local organization of the Spanish American War Veterans ... the Richard Westnedge Camp #6 United States War Veterans. The flag was given to the Mu-seum in February, 1956 by the last surviving members

of that group. These three men, and our Museum di-rector at that time, Alexis Praus, decided to return the flag to the Philippines. Ac-cording to our records, the flag was red, white, and black.”

Flag returnedThe Detroit Times June

12, 1957 issue, in an item titled “U.S. Returns Flag to Aging Aguinaldo,” says: “Funston and his men took (Aguinaldo) prisoner - and

hauled down his flag. A member of the American party ... confiscated the flag. No one else seemed to want it as an added bur-den on their way down the mountain trail.”

This same flag, by ar-rangement of the U.S. State Department and the Kalam-azoo Public Museum, was returned to General Agui-naldo through Ambassador Charles Bohlen in appropri-ate ceremonies on June 12,

1957, and the flag settled into quiet existence, hang-ing on the wall of the Agui-naldo Shrine in Kawit.

Seven years later, the general lay dying in a hos-pital and wanted to kiss the flag for the last time. It was brought to him.

In the ensuing distrac-tion after his death, how-ever, only Cristina Sun-tay - one of the General’s daughters - knew for certain what happened to the flag,

for it was not returned to the shrine in Kawit.

Virgilio Almario’s Stu-dents’ Philippine Almanac (1991) reports that “its last public display was at the death of Emilio Aguinaldo in 1964,” when in fact it had by then been on public display for six years.

Tricolor shadesA 1985 controversy

concerning the shade of the blue portion of the flag was triggered by Ferdi-nand Marcos’s Executive Order 1010, and interest in the original flag and its whereabouts came alive, with the hope that finding the original would settle the dispute.

Target of the attack was the National Historical In-stitute, which EO 1010 identifed as the source of the information that the blue was “lighter” than the dark blue then in use.

The controversy spewed a great amount of emotional argument and counterargu-ment, which in the end had to be closed by dicta rather

On May 28, National Flag Day

Remember, unfurl, wave the Philippine tricolor(Editor’s Note: Item below is from Florentino H. Hornedo’s Kasaysayan, The Story of

the Filipino People Vol. 10: A Timeline of Philippine History)

Philippine Consul General in Toronto Alejandro Mosquera leads the hoisting of the Philippine tricolors (full view, inset) in ceremonies commemorating Philippine Independence Day on June 12. FILE PHOTO

(To page 34)

Manila Media Monitor MAY 200832 MONEYMONEY

US$ Cdn$May 15 42.78301 42.78904May 14 42.80459 42.71647May 13 42.59375 42.57489May 12 42.63109 42.50104May 9 42.43625 42.18118May 8 42.36045 41.77370May 7 42.35669 42.26582May 6 42.29116 42.16256May 5 42.08201 41.58047May 2 42.29010 41.53956May 1 42.33313 41.58289April 30 42.20506 41.82603April 29 42.10983 41.56660April 28 42.15965 41.49368April 25 41.87280 41.21079April 24 41.85286 41.31363April 23 41.85311 41.06987April 22 41.92854 41.92594April 21 41.92673 41.67414April 18 41.89641 41.56214April 17 42.05187 41.57994April 16 41.89551 41.80926

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MANILA - The Phil-ippine government has prioritized air talks with Canada this May, as the for-mer sought to increase seat entitlements for airline pas-sengers and Filipino work-ers and tourists going (to Canada) and coming (back to the Philippines).

In Vancouver, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Finance and Administra-tion Franklin Ebdalin is renegotiating the air deal agreement with Vancouver authorities.

Ebdalin said the Phil-ippines would like to seek up 14 flights per week to Canada.

He is hopeful an agree-ment will be sealed before he leaves on May 17.

Ner Porciuncula, deputy director of the Civil Aero-nautics Board, said ear-lier negotiations were post-poned, as Canada showed lukewarmness to the idea.

“We really want to have more flights to Canada as there is an increase in the demand for more seats.”

The Philippines and Canada signed an air agree-

ment in January 1997.The increase in pas-

sengers going to Canada prompted national flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) to seek for more flight entitlements.

PAL president Jaime Bautista said “PAL was only granted a temporary permit that allows a flight schedule of five times a week in the months of Oc-tober to March. The permit was renewed, but only until April.”

RP, Canada set to start air talks

Bautista said PAL want-ed to add direct flights to Vancouver and to destina-tions in the United States with a Vancouver stopover.

The expected resump-tion of air talks with Canada has made PAL hopeful, but a snag could derail PAL’s plans for North America.

Complicating matters was the recent downgrad-ing of the Philippines’ air security agency, the Air Transportation Office, by the US Federal Aviation

By LYNDA VALENCIA

Administration (FAA) from Category I to Category 2.

FAA’s Category 2 has prohibited PAL from in-creasing its flights to the US and its territories and from changing the type or in-creasing the number of air-craft used on these routes.

PAL has been flying to Las Vegas via Vancouver.

Before the FAA deci-sion, PAL planned to open flights to San Diego, Chica-go, New York, Seattle and Saipan. PNA

Ethnic banking systems in countries in East Asia “report interconnectedness with the currencies and peoples of the Asian-orien-tal region,” said Interpol.

The study, written by Lisa Carroll and done through a survey of Inter-pol’s per-country counter-parts, also wrote that 13 countries’ alternative remit-tance systems, including the Philippines’, “function as a money laundering tool”.

But items on the Phil-ippines in Interpol’s report showed that the laundered money came from the drug trade, profits from illegal gambling, proceeds from human trafficking, alien smuggling and ransom.

BaseballThe Philippines, which

was once part of a list of non-cooperating countries and territories, has been in an “anti-money laundering regime,” Aquino claimed.

He likened this re-gime to a “baseball field of dreams” where anti-money laundering enforcers and prosecutors were ready to spot laundered money flows and operators.

“We have all the bases covered,” he added.

On the first base are found the AMLC’s special anti-money laundering in-vestigators, while special prosecutors and state prose-cutors from the Department of Justice covered the sec-ond base through prosecut-

(From page 11)No dirty money from OFWs, yet

ing money laundering cases and mutual legal assistance and extradition matters re-lated to money laundering and terrorist financing.

The third base is also covered, Aquino explained, by AML solicitors under the Office of the Solicitor Gen-eral who helped the AMLC in forfeiture and other re-medial proceedings. And the home base is manned by special AML courts. Aqui-no’s office occupied the pitcher’s plate, “manning such (Philippine) money laundering structure”.

Aquino said the Philip-pines was part of a world-wide network of 107 FIUs that had access to each oth-ers’ financial intelligence information.

The AMLC six-year re-port said that while STRs commonly covered cases such as drug trafficking and illegal gambling, none were linked to human traffick-ing or human smuggling.of which Philippine victims involved transient women and children.

Since the Philippines’ inclusion in the FATF list of NCCTs in 2002, interna-tional groups have suspect-ed that remittances from overseas Filipinos were mixed up in the flows of laundered money, and even on terrorist financing.

The STRs the AMLC flagged were linked to vio-lations of the Securities Regulation Code, drug traf-

ficking, swindling/estafa/fraud, kidnap for ransom, robbery, local illegal num-bers games such as jueteng and masiao, and graft and corruption cases.

The Philippines was de-listed from FATF’s NCCT list on February 2005.

But “we will be always on guard,” Aquino said, pointing to a bearskin hat that British Army guards wear.

That hat, he explained, was a gift after helping a British financial intel-ligence team crack a case some years ago.

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 33MONEYMONEY

Around 80 small busi-ness owners will gather anew to complete the busi-ness planning seminar sponsored by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce-To-ronto (PCCT), 6 p.m., Mon-day, May 26, at the Golden Valley’s Banquet Hall, #2 Principal Road in Scarbor-ough.

The seminar will cover the following: market re-search, results of business owner’s research and its validity to one’s business, importance of segmenting one’s primary and second-ary markets, relevant trends and how they may affect one’s business and a com-petitive analyses that differ-entiates one’s products, or services from the other.

This seminar - part I of which was conducted on February 28 this year, is be-ing conducted by the Cen-tennial College Centre for Entrepreneurship.

PCCT president Rafael Nebres said this seminar is part of PCCT’s commitment to provide business-related informational seminars and workshops for its members.

Aside from this, another ongoing seminar-work-shop being delivered by the PCCT is the workplace

Do you want to send money to your loved ones in the fastest, most reliable, most convenient and most secured way backed up by modern technology?

If so, the remittance so-lution is Remit X, a division of the First Global Data Corp. in partnership with Global Xpress, that was launched at the Delta East Hotel on April 26.

Filipino businessmen Virgil Ignacio and Ted Dayno, chief executive of-ficer and chief finance of-ficer respectively of Global Xpress, gave launch attend-ees a bird’s eyeview of Re-mitX global services and operations, particularly fo-cused on clients from Fili-pino communities..

Ignacio is also executive producer of radio-TV pro-grams Filipino Eh! while Dayno heads Forex.

Both explained that Re-mit X and Global Xpress recently got the support of the Catholic Bishops Con-ference of the Philippines, through its National Secre-tariat for Social Action For Justice and Peace.

This has assured the de-livery of remitted money to far-flung villages in the

MEN BEHIND REMITX. (From left) First Global Data’s COO Many Bettencourt, CFO Nayeem Ali and CEO Adre Itwaru; and GlobalXpress’ CEO Virgil Ignacio and CFO Ted Dayno. PR

health and safety seminar, part 2 of which will be de-livered before participants on June 30 this year.

Nebres said the semi-nar-workshop will continue to be highly interactive, uti-lizing the best principles in adult education.

For non-members of the PCCT who may want to participate in this work-shop, inquiries may be ad-dressed to [email protected], or by phone at (416) 850-4966.

The Centennial College Centre for Entrepreneurship is a PCCT partner for mem-bers’ education and training requirements under a Mem-orandum of Agreement be-tween the two parties.

For more information on this and future PCCT events, please visit www.torontopcct.com. PCCT Media Relations

Philippines.They added that the

money remittance services of Remit X and Global Xpress were partnered with the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) and Banco de Oro (BDO), two of the most stable banks in the country.

They added that clients could either get their money

from BPI or BDO branches or the money could be per-sonally delivered to them.

Among those who at-tended the launch were Fa-reed Amin, Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade and Deputy Min-ister of Small Business and Entrepreneurship; Philip-pine Consul General in to-

ronto Alejandro Mosquera; Dr.. Naresh Singh, Senior Advisor with the United Nations Development Pro-gram; Member of Parlia-ment (MP, Scarborough-Ag-incourt) Jim Karygiannis; Derek Lee (MP, Scarbor-ough-Rouge River); and Soo Wong, Ward 20 Public School Trustee. PR

Small traders in PCCTbusiness planning eventRemitX opens global services to RP

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ENTERTAINMENTENTERTAINMENT

Filipino community per-formers Candace Santos, Stephanie Cansino and Vin-cent Villanueva have made it to the finals of the Young Asian Canadian singing competitions at the Chinese Cultural Centre on May 17. And one of them may be this year’s Asian Idol.

In the finals, Santos, 14; Cansino, 20; and Villanueva, 16, will pit talents with Jes-sica Tsuda, representing the Japanese community; Dahl-ia Fernandes and Prithwin Varghese, Indian; Huang Lee, Malaysian; Winona Xu and Chelsea Lau, Chinese.

Jose Saavedra, Jr., who the Canadian Multicultural Council Asians in Ontario (CMCAO) designated to chair the event, said Santos,

Cansino and Villanueva got their ticket to the finals af-ter winning in the pre-finals competition on April 30.

Another Filipino, AJ

Santos, Cansino, Villanueva reachYoung Asian Canadian songfest finals

SANTOS

More competitors are expected in the 2008 Dancing To Be A Star, part of the Philippine In-dependence Day Council’s (PIDC) Mabuhay Festival, at the Metro Toronto Con-vention Centre on July 19.

PIDC president Jun En-verga and Dancing ... chair

Leonie Manzanares and co-ordinators Pete Mauricio and Imee Belanger promise this, as they prepare for the three-category (Bronze, Sil-ver and Gold) contest.

Contestants will pit tal-ents in the Latin (rhumba, cha-cha, jive, samba, salsa) and standard (waltz, fox

trot, quick steps, tango) routines.

2007 winning couples Agnes Canlas and George Tungol and Christie Gamo and Robert Henson will be trophy presentors.

Part of the proceeds will go to Gawad Kalinga. PR

Libramonte-Isip, 16, whose baritone voice captivated a lot, barely missed out, Saa-vedra said.

“I thought he was a lit-tle bit nervous but he has a bright future as he started singing formally only last year,” he added.

The pre-finals was a competition of first place winners from 12 Asian com-munities, and the top eight who qualified from the open competition on April 23.

The singing competitions is part of the celebration of Asian Heritage Month in Toronto..

It is organized by the CMCAO with the support of the Heart and Stroke Foun-dation of Ontario, the Toron-to Sun and OMNI TV. PR

PIDC’s Dancing To Be A Star on

than good historiography. Very dark blue

The surviving members of Aguinaldo’s immediate family kept silent, except for the categorical caption on the flag displayed in their Baguio City Museum.

It was Ms. Marcela Ag-oncillo, surviving daughter of Doña Marcela M. Ag-oncillo, who had made the original flag, who spoke for the originality and authen-ticity of the flag returned to Aguinaldo by Bohlen in 1957.

(In making the flag, Doña Marcela was assist-ed by her eldest daughter Lorenza, and Mrs. Delfina Herbosa de Natividad, niece of Philippine national hero Dr. Jose Rizal by his sister Lucia. Incidentally, Doña Marcela died on Ascension Day, May 30, 1946. She was 86.)

Ms. Agoncillo lent me documentary photographs given her by Aguinaldo af-ter the 1957 ceremonies, and showed me a life-size replica of the flag.

Asked why the blue stripe appeared practically black, she said she had in her youth seen in her mother’s trunk scraps of very dark blue cloth which her mother identified as “sacred” to her because they were cut from the original flag made in

Hong Kong. She also arranged with

Mrs. Suntay for me to take a look at the flag displayed in the Baguio museum. The flag lay in a wood-and-glass case along with two others.

It was exactly as Ms. Agoncillo had described it, and as shown in the photo-graphs.

Its seams and edges were stitched, but the sun and stars were painted gold-yellow, with human faces outlined on them, drawn in black just as Aguinaldo had told Director Luis Mon-tilla of the Bureau of Public Libraries in a letter dated January 10,1953, in answer to an inquiry regarding spe-cifics of the flag the general brought from Hong Kong in 1898.

Asked about the painted (rather than embroidered or appliqued) sun and stars, Ms. Agoncillo explained that her mother was a painter, and had painted the sun and stars in the original Hong Kong-made flag.

Since the 1985 contro-versy remained unsettled, with E.O. 1010 specify-ing a lighter blue than that in use in 1985, the Riley flag showing a very dark, practically black stripe, and the eyewitness drawing of Mariano Ponce (sent to Ferdinand Blumentritt) say-

ing it was azul oscuro (dark blue), we turn once again to Aguinaldo who, at one time, had seen it as “black.”

A manuscript in his handwriting says: “Behold and see the flag! The three colors, three stars and sun with its eight rays ... the red stands for the bravery of Filipinos ...; the black manifests ... that Filipinos prefer to die in battle than to allow themselves to be over-powered by whatever nation may desire to acquire and dominate the Philippines; and white stands for the de-sire for peace.”

In the face of this confu-sion, one may ask whether the original was not in fact a very deep blue so dark Agu-inaldo mistook it for black.

Or is black the result of years of exposure and fad-ing, which has all but killed the blue dye, leaving only the black?

Whichever may be the case, it appears that Marcos’s “lighter blue,” and the later “royal blue,” both of which claim historical accuracy - are belied by the extant flag at the Aguinaldo Museum in Baguio, whose history is documented, and confirmed by Aguinaldo himself, who certainly had the right to have the last word regarding the flag he had first unfurled in 1898.

Remember, unfurl, wave the Philippine tricolor(From page 31)

MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 35ENTERTAINMENTENTERTAINMENTLive auditions for a chance to bag a

Philippine television contract await winners of Mentor Productions’ reality contest Do You Think You Can Be A Star?.

Do You Think ... producer Teresa Men-doza-Torralba said homegrown talents would sing, act and dance with Master Showman German “Kuya Germs” Moreno and big names in Philippine TV and cinema in Toronto and Hamilton shows in July.

Torralba said the Toronto show would be at the Carlan Ice Sport, York University Campus on July 5 at 5 p.m., while the Ham-ilton show, at the Hamilton Place on July 6 at 3 p.m.

Filipino artistsKuya Germs, also known as Star Build-

er of That’s Entertainment fame, would be with ‘70’s heartthrob actor-singer Tirso “Pip” Cruz III, Walang Tulugan TV show host John Nite and cast member Jhake Var-gas, and Pinoy Big Brother mainstay Bodie Cruz.

Lending their captivating voices to the entertainment galore are Jae Jan, Pinoy Pop Superstar World Champion; Sheila Fer-rari, USA Pinoy Pop Superstar Champion; Marrion Torres, Pinoy Pop Star Kid World Champion, all contract stars of Philippine television network GMA7.

Jan, Ferrari and Torres won the Pinoy Pop Superstar Contest hosted by Regine Velasquez.

Also on hand are the Receptor band, Canadian Idol finalist Mikey Bustos, and a host of other Filipino-Canadian artists.

Multi-awardee Lito Calzado would di-rect the show.

Do You Think ... finalsMeanwhile, Torralba said the grand fi-

nals of Do You Think ... Toronto series would be at the Sunrise Karaoke Bar & Restaurant on May 24.

The Hamilton grand finals would be at the Hamilton Filipino Community Centre

on May 25.Besides trophies and other prizes, cash

awards for Do You Think... winners are: US$5,000 in the Main Category (15 to 24 years old), US$1,000 in the Pre-Teen Cat-egory (11 to 14 years old), and US$500 in the Kids Category. PR

Do You Think You Can Be A Star? winners in Kuya Germs’ shows

LIBRAMONTE SALAMEA

PANALIGANPEREZ

DIMAPILIS

SOUL

AUDITIONS: Among the first to audition for Do You Think ... are dancers Aron John Libramonte, 16; Jeffrey Salamea, 22; and Stephanie Dimapilis, 15; and singers Tamika Soul, 13; Rachelle Perez, 15; and Maria Theresa Panaligan, 10. Auditions were at Sunrise Resto and Karaoke. PR

MORENO TIRSO CRUZ III

JAE JANBODIE CRUZ

FERRARITORRES


MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor 37A look into Filipino-Canadian folksingers, bands, musicians and other performers in Canada by CHITO SARABIA.The GIG

From the sophisticated Jackie Madrigal in Maging Sino Ka Man, Bea Alonzo is unafraid to be deglamorized for the role of the frumpy Ugly Betty, in ABS-CBN’s biggest and most expensive franchised teleserye Betty La Fea to date.

Although fans love Bea’s tandem with John Lloyd Cruz, Bea will be paired with three other lead-ing men as Betty.

Without Lloyd, Bea says: “Kinakabahan ako.Para akong nawalan ng isang paa. Kasi wala akong ka-partner. For the first time, ako lang mag-isa ang magpro-promote ng show.”

But she pushes such worries aside knowing that

she has a lot of goals in tak-ing on this project.

“Gusto ko lang i-enjoy na ako lang ang nandito. How will I touch lives doing Betty? How will I make the Filipinos proud na meron tayong magandang version

ng Betty La Fea? Dun ako mas excited.”

“Mas masarap yung feeling na pag pumasok ako ng grocery na pagusapan nila na, ‘Uy alam mo ba nangyari kay Betty kagabi?’ Kaysa sabihin nilang, ‘Uy si Bea! Sino ang last boy-friend niya?’ Mas masarap ang feeling na they see me as a character not as Bea, the actress.”

Getting the role is a dream come true for Bea, coming at a time when she’s raring to get back to work.

Network business unit head Deo Endrinal confirms the show will start taping in June, hopeful it will air by the third quarter of the year.” PR

BEA ALONZO

Bea Alonzo is ABS-CBN’s Betty La Fea

With preparations un-derway for her second ABS-CBN fantaserye in July en-titled Dyosa, Anne Curtis is more than ready to play the role she’s always wanted.

“Ever since I was 12, I’ve always wanted to be a mermaid. It’s really some-thing that I’ve always want-ed to do and I’ve finally been given the opportunity. Ka-careerin ko talaga kasi feel na feel ko yung role,” she admits.

In Dyosa, Anne plays a goddess of air, land, and water who keeps the bal-ance between the world of mortals and the world of immortals.

Her powers enable her to transform into a mermaid, a bird, and a centaur.

“It’s my first time to play a role with three dif-ferent characters and capa-bilities. It’s something very different from what you see on TV so it’s something I’m really excited about,” she adds.

Another first for her is that she has three gorgeous

leading men played by Zan-joe Marudo, Luis Manzano, and Sam Milby.

“I’ve worked with each of them separately before. In real life, iba-iba sila ng character, pero lahat sila makulit kaya masaya,” she says.

In the series, her leading men will each play a mortal, an immortal, and a villain.

But the twist is to keep the audience guessing on who plays what.

Anne has seen action in Hiram, Kampanyerang Kuba and most recently, Maging Sino Ka Man. PR

ANNE CURTIS

Anne Curtis plays dream role

AAnnggeell

LLooccssiinn

Summer Girl

Manila Judge Jansen Rodriguez has ordered the Bureau of Immigration to issue a hold departure order against former matinee idol actor Gabby Concepcion.

Rodriguez made the or-der in a pre-trial on bigamy charges against Concep-cion. Another pre-trial was set on June 15.

The judge also granted the motion to raise Concep-cion’s bail from P12,000 to P24,000.

The prosecution said “that on July 23, 1984, Con-cepcion, being then legally married to Jennifer Martin, and without such marriage having been legally dis-solved, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and fe-loniously contracted a sec-ond or subsequent marriage with one Sharon Cuneta.”

Concepcion, who ar-rived on March 30 after spending some 12 years in the United States where he has become a citizen, pled “not guilty.” PNA

Court issues HDO versus Gabby C.

ENTERTAINMENTENTERTAINMENT

Six String Symphony BandA reinvigorated Toronto-based Six String

Symphony Band is hitting it big in the city and the community’s entertainment circuit; regularly performing at Ellen’s and Boracay Rendezvous, among others.

After a yearlong hiatus from a disbanded DIAO Band that had seen gigs since 2000, six-string - as in guitar - pros Ed and Isot and songwriter-drummer Allan mustered their en-ergies and welcomed to the fold vocalist Vien and bassist Rene to put up last summer the re-nowned Six String Symphony Band.

The temporary respite has also given Allan and his mates the time to write original compo-sitions the band hones into perfection everytime they perform live in bar gigs and concerts.

Original band songs include Narito Pa Rin Ako, Kalikasan, I Would If I Could, Destination, Ano, Frozen, You Are Not Alone, I Hate To See You Cry, enough to fill a bankable CD release. From left: ISOT, VIEN, ED, ALLAN and RENE

Manila Media Monitor MAY 20083838R

eg

. #

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919 Ellesmere RoadSuite 107, ScarboroughOntario M1P 2W7

“Super babaand halaga ...Super belowfare talaga.”

“Handang Maglingkod Sa Ating Kababayan”

Tel (416) 751-9588 Fax (416) 751-9133

O R A N Y W H E R E I N T H E W O R L DMANILA - TORONTO - USA - EUROPE

LAUGHS & LEISURELAUGHS & LEISURE

Kuto ng kalbo, homeless

BATID WIKA

PAHALANG 1. Gamit ng aluwage 7. Tawag sa ina 9. Tanong ng lugar10. Simbolo ng Lithium11. Rin12. Halaga, Ingles13. Probinsiya sa Norte14. Putok ng baril15. Umupo sa silya17. Isang kataga19. Una sa oras20. Babaeng banyaga22. Palayaw ng lalake23. Nota ng musika24. Mabahong amoy28. Subok29. __ and off30. Duwelo32. Lapay33. Sigaw sa taguan34. Pagulong35. Kampi36. Hulapi

37. Pananong38. Tawag sa ama39. Ama at ina

PABABA 1. Tauhan sa Bibliya 2. Paniniwala 3. Pampakinis ng tabla 4. Grupo ng mga bansa 5. Pagkamakinang 6. 51 kay Caesar 7. Magmatwid 8. Palaiyak11. Pangalan ng babae

16. Opisyal ni PGMA18. Huni ng daga21. Angat25. Tatay ng tatay26. Negatibong sagot, Ingles27. Hinuha28. Puting pekas31. Termino sa madyong36. Dumi sa bata37. Estado sa Amerika

(Sagot sa ilalim)

NAGBIBIRO LANG PO!

SEOUL DRIVING SCHOOLYELLOWBIRD

4862 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario

SAGOT

sa

BATID

WIKA

Manilenyong nanggaling sa bakasyon sa Cebu: Minsan, sumakay ako sa dyip. Nagtaka ako kung bakit lahat ng pasa-hero ay walang kibo at nakatingin sa akin. Hanggang isa sa kanila ang naglakas-loob na nagsabi: “Bay, kasabot kag FAMILY USE?”

*****Pedro: Pare, balita ko’y dalawang buwan nang nagho-horse riding ang misis mo para magbawas ng timbang. Ano’ng nangyari?Pablo: Nabawasan ng 40 kilos ang kabayo!

*****Lumindol ng malakas, kaya panic time.Juan: Katapusan na! Katapusan na! Andres: Tanga! Akinse pa lang ngayon!

*****Tanong: Bakit ang sign na “NO ID, NO ENTRY” na malimit nakikita sa gate ng mga school ay hindi tina-Tagalog?

*****Tanong: Ano ang tawag sa kuto ng kalbo? Sagot: Eh ‘di, homeless.

*****Matapos kumanta, dumapa sa kama ang isang mental patient.Nars: O, bakit ka bumaliktad? Patient: Adik ka ba? Side B naman!

*****At dahil sa buwan ng Mayo pinagdiriwang ang Kaarawan ng mga Ina, narito ang ilang biro tungkol sa kanila ...

*****

Sunday school teacher: Juan, nagdadasal ka ba bago kumain?Juan: Hindi na po kailangan. Ang nanay ko po ay mahusay magluto.

*****Anak: Inay, magsusundalo po ako.Ina: Ano? Handa ka na bang iligpit ang kama mo tuwing umaga?

*****Coach: Boyet, hindi puwede ang tantrums sa basketball. Kaya bangko ka muna. Pero mamaya, ipaliwanag mo sa nanay mo kung bakit hindi ka na naglaro, ha.

*****And here are some of the things mothers teach their children: ANTICIPATION... “Humanda ka pag dat-ing ng tatay mo.”RECEIVING.... “Salbahe kang bata ka. Heto ang iyo!”MEETING A CHALLENGE... “Sumagot ka kapag kinakausap ka. Ano?! Sasagot ka sa matatanda?LOGIC... “Kapag nahulog ka sa swing at nabali ang leeg mo, hindi ka sasama sa mall.”MEDICAL SCIENCE... “Masamang mat-ulog nang basa ang buhok. Basa din ang unan.”THINKING AHEAD... “Kapag hindi ka nakapasa sa spelling test, hindi ka maka-kakuha ng magandang trabaho.”ESP... “Alam kong nilalamig ka. Mag-sweater ka.”

HUMOR... “Kapag naputol ang paa mo sa lawn mower, huwag kang tatakbo sa akin.”BECOMING AN ADULT... “Kapag hindi ka kumain ng gu-lay, hindi ka tatanda.”SEX.... “Aber, sabihin mo nga kung paano ka napunta dito.”GENETICS... “Mana ka talaga sa tatay mo!”ROOTS... “Palagay mo kaya’y pinanganak ka sa sabsaban?”WISDOM OF AGE... “Tandaan mo. Tatanda ka rin. At duon, magtatanda ka rin.”JUSTICE... “Maging kaparis mo sana ang mga anak mo nang makita mo kung ano na.”

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39MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor

5 Fairview Mall Drive, Suite 390 Willowdale, Ontario M2J 2Z1 Phone: (416) 496-0900 Fax: (416) 496-0928 [email protected]

PICTURE PERFECT SMILESPICTURE PERFECT SMILES

Dr.

Ben

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The team of professionals who make up the Fairview Dental Centreare completely dedicated to the needs of their patients.

Fairview Dental Centre"Patient Care & Treatment Through Teamwork"

TORONTO OFFICERosedale Medical Clinic

600 Sherbourne St., Suite 307Toronto, Ontario M4X 1W4(Across Sherbourne Subway)

[email protected]

416-967-9272

MISSISSAUGA OFFICEMississauga Corporate Centre3660 Hurontario St., 2nd FloorMississauga, Ontario L5B 3C4

(Behind Novotel Hotel)

905-272-3455

MississaugaCorporate CentreBurnhamthorpe Rd E.

Square OneShopping Centre

Hurontario St.

Eglinton Ave. W.

Hwy. 403

N Mt. P

leasantJarvis S

t.

Bloor St. East Bloor Danforth Ave.St. East

DonV

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arkway

Exit

toCas

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Sherbourne S

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Castle FrankTTC Station

N

RosedaleMedicalClinic

COMPLETE DENTAL CAREGENERAL DENTISTRY

Dr. Victoria SantiagoDr. Amy FanDr. Anthony John EngDr. Randolph J. Krumme

Dr. Joy Y. HoDr. Belinda Sunga-CastilloDr. Dat Phung

SPECIALTY DENTISTRYDr. Ali Adibfar & Dr. Robert EngDr. Mark MojganiNickee Dela Cruz & Catherine Ibeas

- Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons- Periodontist- Registered Dental Hygienists

40 MAY 2008 Manila Media Monitor

200805

Documents

granting limited autonomy

san lorenzo ruiz

hermogenes esperon jr

korean cultural centre

fairview dental centre

predecessor salamat hashim

catholic bishops conference

centennial college centre