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Th e F i l i p i n o–Am e r i cA n co m m u n i T y ne ws pA p e r

L o s A n g e L e s

Volume 26 - No. 6 • 3 Sections - 20 Pages

January 20-22, 2016

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DATELINEUSAfrom the AJPress NEWS TEAM AcroSS AMEricA

FIGHTING TOGETHER Senator Grace Poe chats with her mother, Susan Roces, before the start of the oral arguments on the disqualification cases filed against her. Also with poe is her running mate, Senator Francis Escudero. ManilaTimes.net photo by Dj Diosina

seNAtor Grace Poe personally witnessed oral ar-guments on her disqualification case at the supreme Court (sC) on tuesday, Jan. 19.

she was accompanied by her mother, actress susan roces.

only 13 justices were on hand because Justice Ar-turo Brion is on leave and Justice martin Villarama Jr. retired last friday, Jan. 15.

the senator, however, slipped out in the middle of the oral arguments.

Before the en banc session started, Poe expressed confidence that the law will side with her and all aban-doned filipino children who could be stripped of their right to a nationality.

“matibay ang pananalig natin na kakatigan tayo ng batas sa ipinaglalaban nating karapatan ng mga inabandonang bata. hindi ko kasi matanggap ang si-nasabi ng ilan na ang isang foundling ay ituturing na stateless o walang nasyonalidad pagkapanganak. re-sponsibilidad ng batas na proteksyunan ang karapatan

Grace Poe, Susan Roces attend Supreme Court arguments

oVerseAs filipinos may soon be send-ing home more “balikbayan” boxes after the senate passed a measure raising tax limits on the goodies they send to their families here.

the senate on monday, Jan. 18 passed on third and final reading the proposed Customs modernization and tariff Act (CmtA) which, among other things, seeks to simplify, modernize and make trans-parent customs procedures and increase the tax-exempt value of ofW packages to P150,000 from P10,000.

the provision “is one that is most await-ed by ofWs,” said senate President Pro

tempore ralph recto.Under section 800 of the CmtA, Philip-

pine residents, ofWs and other filipinos residing abroad or returning to the coun-try would be allowed to bring in or ship to their families balikbayan boxes exempt from duties and taxes as long as the total dutiable value of a box shall not exceed P150,000. they may enjoy the privilege up to three times a year.

“this means an ofW may send two boxes at the same time provided their total worth is not more than P150,000. that will be counted as one shipment,” recto said in a statement.

But the boxes should contain personal and household effects only, they must not be in commercial quantities, and must not be intended for barter, sale or hire. n

Hike in ‘balikbayan’ tax-free cap eyed

eVIDeNCe to be presented by senate minority Leader Juan Ponce enrile when the senate reopens its investigation of the mamasapano massacre may ruin the legacy of President Be-nigno Aquino III, sen. sergio “serge” osmeña 3rd said on tuesday, Jan. 19.

enrile had said he has evi-dence to prove that Aquino al-

lowed 44 police commandos to die almost a year ago.

“I think that if manong [Big Brother] Johnny [enrile’s nick-name] can prove that, it will definitely hurt the President,” osmeña said.

“manong Johnny was ominous when he made that statement that he has new evidence. It will

‘JPE Can Ruin aquino’

Osmeña: New Mamasapano probe may hurt President

hILLArY Clinton, Bernie sanders, and martin o’malley met for their fourth debate, which aired live on sunday, Jan. 17 on NBC. It was the Democratic contenders’ final face-off before the crucial Iowa caucuses and New hampshire primary.

In a strong performance, maryland Gov. martin o’malley came across as experienced and empathetic, but did not get the chance to talk as much, while former secretary of state and frontrunner hillary Clinton argued she was pragmatic, skilled and a “battle-tested politician” who can work effectively on both foreign policy and domestic fronts, reported CBs News. 74-year-old Vermont senator Bernie sanders, meanwhile, drove home the

Democratic candidates face off on health care, Wall Street and guns

CALIforNIA schools will once again be able to offer mental health programs for stu-dents in kindergarten and grades one to three who are struggling with anxiety and other trauma or stress related symptoms, if a bill introduced in the legislature earlier this week passes.

AB 1644 was introduced by Assemblymem-ber rob Bonta (D-oakland) and is co-spon-sored by Children Now, a statewide youth advocacy organization headquartered in oak-land, and by state Attorney General Kamala harris.

“the evidence is clear that when we don’t intervene, many children are more likely to be either victims or perpetrators of crimes,” har-

California bill would fund trauma and mental health services for students

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by Jomar CanlasManilaTimes.net

by Jerry e. esplanadaand leila B. salaverria

Inquirer.net

the supreme Court announced on tuesday, Jan. 19, that it will decide whether President Barack obama has the executive authority to declare that millions of undocumented immigrants can be allowed to live and work in the United states for a period of time, with-

out fear of deportation.obama’s actions, unveiled just over

a year ago, are aimed at allowing at least 4 million immigrants to apply for expanded programs that could make them eligible for work authorization and other associated benefits, reported CNN.

the high court’s decision provides the last chance that the White house would

have to implement the program before obama leaves office next January.

one of the programs proposed by obama was the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Per-manent residents (DAPA), which would allow undocumented immigrants in those categories to remain in the coun-try and apply for work permits if they have been here for at least five years,

and have not committed felonies or re-peated misdemeanors.

the president’s executive actions would also expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program implemented in 2012, which applies to younger people who were born outside of the Us, but raised within its borders.

the administration says the program is a way for a government with limited

resources to prioritize which immi-grants it will move first to deport, said the Washington Post.

however, obama’s sweeping plan, taken after Congress failed to enact comprehensive immigration reform, was swiftly blocked by lower courts when texas, led by Us District Judge Andrew s. hanen, and 25 other repub-

Supreme Court to review Obama’s immigration programby allyson esCoBar

AJPress

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by Jefferson antiporda and Joel n. sy egCoManilaTimes.net

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by agnes ConstanteAJPress

As world boxing champion manny Pacquiao prepares for what he has said will the final bout of his boxing career, he looks ahead to a political career where he can serve his countrymen.

on April 9, the filipino boxer will face WBo/WBC Jr. Wel-terweight champion timothy Bradley, Jr. in the ring for a third time.

“I’m so happy hanging my gloves after this fight because of what I have done. I’m sure I will feel sad after that but, you know, that’s life,” Pacquiao said during a press conference for the fight tuesday, Jan. 19, at the Beverly hills hotel in Beverly hills, California.

the formal announcement of his decision comes just a few months before the Philippine general election in may. Pac-quiao is currently the lone congressman of sarangani prov-ince but is now seeking a seat in the senate.

“I remember when I started boxing, I started because I wanted to help my family, my mother. And now, I end my boxing career because I want to help my countrymen, the Pilipino people,” he said.

Pacquiao, who holds a record of 57-6-2, 38 Kos, was

Pacquiao formally announces end of career: I want to help my countrymen, the Pilipino people

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FINAL FIGHT. The People’s Champ Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley hold a press conference Tuesday, Jan. 19, at the Beverly Hills Hotel for their upcoming April 9 fight in Las Vegas. Pacquiao announced that this bout -- his third against Bradley -- will be his last before he retires to focus on his career as a politician in the Philippines. AJPress photo by Ding Carreon

JANUARY 20-22, 2016 • LA MIDWEEK ASIAN JOURNAL http://www.asianjournal.com • (818) 502-0651 • (213) 250-9797A�

From the Front Page

lican-led states sued the adminis-tration in United States v. Texas.

The 26 states said that the program “would be one of the largest changes in immigration policy in our nation’s history” and that it raises major issues in-volving the separation of powers and federalism.

Since the executive order’s blocking, millions of immigrants, including the aging parents of US citizens and lawful perma-nent residents who would have been eligible, are left waiting for reform.

In a 15-page ruling, Judge Hanen said he “remains con-vinced” that his original findings in February 2015--halting pro-grams meant to ease deportation threats to millions of eligible un-documented immigrants--were correct. “The Obama Administra-tion’s blatant misrepresentations to the court about its implemen-tation of expanded work permits for illegal immigrants under the President’s lawless amnesty plan reflects a pattern of disrespect for the rule of law in America.”

“DAPA is a crucial change in the nation’s immigration law and policy—and that is precisely why it could be created only by Con-gress, rather than unilaterally imposed by the Executive,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Pax-ton (R) in a court filing.

On Tuesday, Paxton welcomed the Supreme Court’s review, say-ing in a statement: “In deciding to hear this case, the Supreme Court recognizes the importance of the separation of powers. As federal courts have already ruled three times, there are limits to the President’s authority, and those limits enacted by Congress were exceeded when the Presi-dent unilaterally sought to grant ‘lawful presence’ to more than 4 million unauthorized aliens who are in this country unlawfully.”

He added that the Obama ad-ministration has violated the Administrative Procedures Act, which sets forth how federal agen-cies can establish regulations.

The programs represent one of the “largest changes in immigra-tion policy in our nation’s histo-ry,” Paxton said, arguing that the state of Texas has the standing to bring the case, partly because it would also bear the burden and

cost of issuing additional driver’s licenses.

White House officials also wel-comed the announcement, say-ing they were confident their side would prevail. White House assistant press secretary Brandi Hoffine said that US v. Texas af-fects “immigrants who want to be held accountable, to work on the books, to pay taxes, and to contribute to our society openly and honestly.”

“The policies will make our communities safer. They will make our economy stronger. And they are consistent with the actions taken by presidents of both parties, the laws passed by Congress, and the decisions of the Supreme Court. We are confident that the policies will be upheld as lawful,” she said.

“Millions of families have waited nearly a year for these programs to take effect,” said the National Immigration Law Cen-ter’s Karen Tumlin. “They will now get a full day in court as the nation’s highest court hears this case of tremendous moral and legal importance.”

Comprehensive immigration reform has confounded a politi-cally deadlocked Congress, and has become one of the main dis-agreements between Democrat and Republican presidential can-didates.

The issue of undocumented im-migration has taken center stage in the Republican primary battle, said Fox News, with frontrunner candidate Donald Trump calling for a wall to be built along the US and Mexico border, and other candidates calling for tough pro-posals.

Though the White House has appealed, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the lower courts in November of last year, keeping the programs from being implemented.

The administration contends that the states have “no legal standing to sue,” because it is up to the federal government to set immigration policy. They also defend that the Department of Homeland Security did not vio-late federal statutes in devising the executive programs.

“Setting priorities about whom to deport is a practical response to the fact that Congress has given the administration only

enough money to deport no more than about 400,000 of the nation’s estimated 11 million [undocumented] immigrants,” the government said, according to the Washington Post.

In their petition to the court, US Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. said that the lower courts had blocked “a federal immigration enforcement policy of great national importance…in violation of established limits on the judicial power. If left un-disturbed, that ruling will allow states to frustrate the federal government’s enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.”

Verrilli also added that lower-court rulings “will force millions of people —who are not removal priorities under criteria the court conceded are valid, and who are parents of US citizens and per-manent residents—to continue to work off the books, without the option of lawful employment to provide for their families.”

In challenging the immigration plan, the Supreme Court justices also added a question about the constitutionality of Obama’s ac-tions. Texas argued that the Court precedent requires that “presidential action that lacks congressional support must be scrutinized with caution.”

Supporters of the immigra-tion order welcomed the justices’ decision to take up the case, say-ing it is the only way to resolve the status of millions of undocu-mented immigrants stuck in liti-gation limbo.

“The president’s program has been delayed for far too long by this political lawsuit and the clearly erroneous decisions of the lower courts,” said Elizabeth Wydra, chief counsel of the Con-gressional Accountability Center. “The lives of millions of children and families in America have been disrupted and held in lim-bo…and they deserve the Court’s careful and prompt attention.”

“We are thrilled that the Court decided to hear Texas v. US, as it preserves the very real possibility that expanded DACA and DAPA will become available to qualified applicants later this year,” said Sally Kinoshita, deputy director of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, which leads the Ready California campaign--a coali-

Supreme Court to review Obama’s…PAGE A1 t

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President Barack Obama talks with Ingrid Nilsen during YouTube post-State of the Union interviews live from the East Room of the White House on Friday, Jan. 15. The Supreme Court on Tuesday, Jan. 19 agreed to decide on the legality of Obama’s unilateral action to shield more than 4 million illegal immigrants from deportation. White House photo by Pete Souza

the first boxer in history to win 10 world titles in eight different weight divisions. In 2000, the Boxing Writers Association of America named him “Fighter of the Decade.”

People’s Champ seeking “clear victory” against Bradley

For his last showdown in the ring, Pacquiao said he consid-ered opponents including WBA super lightweight champion Adrien Broner, British boxer and two-time former world champion Amir Khan, Mexican multiple-time world champion Juan Mar-quez, and even a rematch against Floyd Mayweather, Jr., to who he lost in the most lucrative match in boxing history.

Although he has already fought Bradley twice, the Filipino boxer said that this time around he is seeking a clear victory. In his sec-ond match against the American fighter, Bradley won in a contro-versial split decision.

“I’m not saying I’m going to knock him out, but I will do my best to prove that Manny Pac-quiao is still in the prime, he’s still in the top before I hang up my gloves,” he said.

Different Bradley expected

Pacquiao formally announces end of…PAGE A1 t on April 9

A different Bradley is expected to enter the ring on April 9 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Last year after a victory against Amer-ican boxer Jessie Vargas, he fired long-time trainer Joel Diaz and hired trainer and ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas.

TopRank promoter Bob Arum has previously said the Ameri-can boxer is “a new Bradley” citing his November 2015 fight against former WBA lightweight world champion Brandon Rios, at which time he was training under Atlas.

Bradley, who currently holds a record of 33-1-1, 13 KOs, agreed that his third match against The People’s Champ would stand apart from their first two.

“I think this fight will definitely be different than the first two al-tercations that we had. And that’s all I can tell you. I think it’s going to be a great fight … it’s Manny Pacquiao’s farewell fight. I know he wants to win the fight really badly and so do I...”

During Tuesday’s press con-ference, Atlas spoke about the upcoming fight using the Super Bowl as an analogy, saying the boxers were Peyton Manning

and Tom Brady.“They’ve been to a lot of super

bowls and this is what they’re in the business for: getting to the top to show that they are the best. We have an opportunity to fight ... Manny Pacquiao, who has been one of the best most dynamic fight-ers of the last decade. And to me … has been one of the best fighters of the last decade,” Atlas said.

“Donald Trump undercard”Arum also said the undercard

of Pacquiao vs. Bradley will be called “the Donald Trump un-dercard,” featuring all Hispanic fighters as a response to the Re-publican presidential contender who has been vocal about deport-ing undocumented immigrants.

“I want them to know there are a lot of people that have their back and are not going to allow them to be deported,” he said, dedicating the undercard to the approximately 12 million un-documented immigrants in the United States.

Pacquiao is not planning to run for president, message to Filipino fans

After the fight in April, Pacquiao will have one month to campaign before the election on May 9. If

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(818) 502-0651 • (213) 250-9797 • http://www.asianjournal.com LA MIDWEEK ASIAN JOURNAL • JANUARY 20-22, 2016 A�From the Front Page

CHAIRS FROM RECYCLABLE WASTES. Students try the ‘durable and sturdy’ plastic chairs from recyclable wastes, which were made from plastic. Senator Cynthia Villar and Josephine Cabral, principal of Sto. Nino School in Baliuag, Bulacan, posed with the students. Sto. Nino School was the latest beneficiary of chairs being donated by Villar to several public schools in the country to help address the lack of school chairs. The making of plastic chairs is one of the livelihood projects of Villar. Senate photo

hurt PNoy [Aquino],” he added.The senator said Enrile’s evi-

dence may even lead to the filing of charges against Aquino when he steps down from office in June this year.

“Johnny cares to hurt PNoy. Maybe to put PNoy in the stock-ade,” Osmeña added.

Enrile, during the Monday ses-sion, confirmed that he has evi-dence to prove that Aquino did nothing to save the lives of the Special Action Force members who were killed by members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Bangsamoro Is-lamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and other private armed groups while carrying out an operation in Mamasapano, Maguindano.

The minority leader took the floor on Monday and said Aqui-no actively involved himself in planning and preparation for Oplan Exodus, a police operation launched to capture suspected terrorist Zulkifli Bin Hir alias Marwan.

Enrile said there are wit-nesses who want to participate in the hearing but he advised them not to.

But Osmena noted that the President need not attend the Senate investigation that will start on January 27 although there is no stopping Aquino from participating in the hear-ing through a video conference to answer questions that will be asked during the proceedings.

“I think because of the dignity of his [Aquino] office, we don’t want him to be subjected to

Osmeña: New Mamasapano probe may…that,” the senator said.

Enrile refused to disclose the evidence that he is holding, say-ing the people should wait for the investigation.

The senator was jailed for more than a year for plunder.

He was accused of getting mil-lions of pesos in kickbacks from the alleged misuse of his Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel.

Enrile regained his temporary liberty after the Supreme Court allowed him to post bail for hu-manitarian reasons.

In the darkThe police general who headed

the Philippine National Police-Board of Inquiry (PNP-BOI) that also investigated the Mamasapa-no massacre is also clueless on the new evidence being claimed by Enrile.

Director Benjamin Magalong, who was director of the Crimi-nal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) when the board was set up, told The Manila Times that he himself is eager to know the nature of Enrile’s rev-elations.

“I really have no idea on the new evidence,” said the police official, who had since been transferred to another post after submitting his report on the car-nage that happened on January 25, 2015 in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao province.

Magalong added that if he is invited again to appear before the Senate on January 27, he would have nothing new to say.

“I have nothing new to reveal. I stand by our report,” he said.

The Special Action Force (SAF) police commandos were de-ployed to get terrorists Marwan and Basit Usman.

Marwan died during the dawn raid while Usman was killed in May.

The Board of Inquiry report in-dicated that Aquino bypassed the chain of command of the Philip-pine National Police when he allowed his friend, former PNP chief Alan Purisima, to imple-ment Oplan Exodus.

Purisima was under preventive suspension when the mission was carried out.

The board was activated on February 2, 2015, days after the January 25 carnage.

The report contained more than 300 signed affidavits of SAF members, military officials, wit-nesses and other civilians who provided information on the fire-fight.

Meanwhile, in Malacañang, Communications Secretary Her-minio Coloma Jr. belied Enrile’s accusation that the President “did nothing to save the lives of the then-embattled police-men.”

Coloma said in a news brief-ing that the President said he did what he had to do as Command-er-in-Chief.

Enrile maintained that he has evidence to prove that Aquino was “actively and directly” in-volved in the botched operation under Purisima’s brainchild, Oplan Exodus.

Coloma said government offi-cials will respond to all of Enrile’s queries during the hearing. n

PAGE A1 t

ng mga mahina at walang laban [I have faith that the law will uphold our fight for abandoned children. I cannot accept what others are saying that foundlings are stateless. It is the law’s re-sponsibility to protect the rights of the weak],” the senator said.

She insisted that foundlings like her should be considered natural-born Filipinos.

“Ang isang bagong panganak na sanggol na inabandona at na-tagpuan sa Pilipinas ay isang nat-ural na Pilipino. Kung may maka-kapagpatunay na ang batang ito ay may dugong banyaga, nasa kabilang kampo na po ang re-sponsibilidad na patunayan ang bagay na ito.

Wala po sa ampon ang ‘burden of proof’ o magbigay pruweba na ang kaniyang mga magulang ay hindi Pilipino [An abandoned newborn found in the Philip-pines is a Filipino. If someone can prove that this child has foreign blood, then the respon-sibility to prove this lies with the other camp. The burden of proof does not belong to foundlings],” she pointed out.

Late in December, Poe was disqualified from the presidential race by the Commission on Elec-tions (Comelec) on grounds that she is not a natural-born Filipino and she failed to meet the resi-dency requirement.

The High Court, however,

stopped the poll body from drop-ping the senator from the list of presidential candidates.

Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo asked Poe’s counsel Alex Poblador if Poe used her US passport in 2011.

Poblador told the court that Poe’s dual citizenship allows her to continue using her American passport.

Poe’s camp had admitted that the last time the senator used her US passport was on March 9, 2010.

Del Castillo also asked Pobla-dor about the error Poe made in her certificate of candidacy wherein she stated that she re-sided in the Philippines for 6 years and 6 months.

Poblador said it was an honest mistake and there was no intent to deceive the public.

Poe went out of the session hall before Associate Justice Antonio Carpio started grilling Poblador.

Carpio took Poblador to task for citing the proceedings of the 1934 Constitution.

The magistrate said Poe’s camp failed to quote completely delib-erations between Constitutional Convention delegates Nicolas Rafols, Ruperto Montinola and Manuel Roxas pertaining to in-clusion of foundlings as a class of persons considered as Philippine citizens.

“You were saying that Mr. Ra-fols proposed that children of

unknown parents should be con-sidered natural-born Filipinos?” Carpio asked Poblador who an-swered yes.

The magistrate noted that Poe’s camp did not include the entire deliberations.

Rafols wanted foundlings to be considered natural-born Fili-pinos.

“You missed out the most important part … the next page… here… the president [of the Constitutional Conven-tion] says, ‘Does the gentleman from Cebu insist on his amend-ment?’ and the president said, ‘Let’s submit it to a vote… the amendment is rejected,’” Car-pio pointed out.

“The records of the Constitu-tional Convention of 1934 clearly state that Mr. Rafols’ proposal was clearly rejected by the ma-jority,” he added.

Top choiceDespite lingering question on

Poe’s citizenship, the National-ist People’s Coalition, the second largest political party in the coun-try, said the senator remains its top presidential bet.

NPC spokesman Mark Enverga also on Tuesday said Poe is the choice of the majority of the NPC members.

The party also met with Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

“The disqualification cases [against Poe] is not an issue for

Grace Poe, Susan Roces attend Supreme…PAGE A1 t

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he wins, he said he would like to focus on fighting corruption, providing free education from el-ementary to college, and provid-ing incentives and subsidies for farmers and fishermen.

While there have been talks of Pacquiao aiming to run for presi-dent at some point, he said that goal is not in his current plans.

“I don’t have that in my mind right now but if that’s my destiny then no one will refuse that,” he told reporters.

Arum, who has served as Pac-quiao’s promoter for years, said Tuesday he couldn’t believe it would be the boxer’s last time in the ring.

“It could be, it may very well be, but when I stand up here to

introduce him in this ballroom at The Beverly Hills Hotel where I’ve done it so many times, and so many memories, I can’t come to grips with the fact that it would be the last time. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, that’s up to Man-ny,” Arum said.

For Filipino fans, Pacquiao had the following message:

“Maraming salamat sa ating mga kababayan sa support and prayers sa aking career, and sana hindi sila mg sawa na mg suporta sa akin, especially this coming last fight ... and also my other career ... to help the people (Many thanks to my kababayans for the support and prayers for my career, and I hope they don’t tire of supporting me, especially this coming last fight … and also

my other career … to help the people),” he said.

Press tour continues in New York, tickets on sale Friday

Pacquiao will return to the Philippines as soon as he returns from the press tour, said Mike Koncz, his adviser, and plans on completing the first half of his training in General Santos City, according to Manila Bulletin.

Team Pacquiao and Team Bradley are set to fly to New York City on Wednesday, Jan. 20, for a second press conference on Thursday, Jan. 21, at Madison Square Garden.

Tickets for Pacquiao vs. Brad-ley go on sale Friday, Jan. 22, at 1 pm ET/10am PT, and will range from $154 to $1,204, excluding service fees. n

Pacquiao formally announces end of…PAGE A2 t

JANUARY 20-22, 2016 • LA MIDWEEK ASIAN JOURNAL http://www.asianjournal.com • (818) 502-0651 • (213) 250-9797A� Dateline USa

message about the influence of funding in politics.

The candidates talked about a variety of issues, from health care to foreign policy, to the criminal justice system, to Presi-dent Barack Obama.

When asked what their top three priorities as president would be, Sanders cited univer-sal health care, minimum wage increases (to $15 an hour), and rebuilding infrastructure. Clinton said she would focus on equal pay for women, building on Pres. Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and working diligently to bring the nation together, reported USA Today. O’Malley spoke about wage increases, empower-ing labor unions, and reforming the immigration system.

“I understand that this is the hardest job in the world,” Clinton said in her opening remarks, but assuring that she was capable of doing “all aspects of the job.” She also clung tightly to her loy-alty with President Obama, argu-ing she would build on his legacy and promising continuity, ac-cording to CNN.

Clinton and Sanders took most of the time on the debate stage, coming face to face over issues with health care, gun control, and financial politics.

Clinton called Sanders out on his support of the National Rifle Association (NRA), for voting “with the gun lobby, numerous times,” and also named several occasions when she said the Ver-mont senator sided with guns rights supporters to gain votes in Congress. She said she was glad that Sanders had “reversed his position on immunity” after his recent support of a bill to amend gun manufacturers immunity from prosecution, but also ac-cused him of flip-flopping and getting “cozy” with the NRA.

However, Sanders retorted that he had a D-minus voting rating from the NRA, and rejected her

list of charges. “I think that Sec-retary Clinton knows that what she says is very disingenuous,” he said.

“Let me talk about polling…In terms of polling, guess what, we are running ahead of Secretary Clinton in terms of taking on my good friend Donald Trump,” he added. “We have the momentum. We’re on a path to a victory.”

The biggest argument of the night was on health care. Just two hours before the debate, Sanders rolled out a tax plan that would fund his Medicare-for-all proposal to scrap private health insurance entirely, replacing with a federally-run health program.

“Right now what we have to deal with is the fact that 29 mil-lion people still have no health insurance. Tell me why we are spending almost three times more than the British, who guar-antee health care for all of their people,” he said.

“What a Medicare-for-all pro-gram does is finally provide in this country health care for ev-ery man, woman and child as a right,” he added, saying his plan would lead to tax increases for the middle class, and would take aim at insurance companies. “The truth is that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman…be-lieved that health care should be available to all of our people. It is time for our country to join every other major industrialized nation on earth and guarantee health

care to all citizens as a right, not a privilege.”

Although Clinton leads Sand-ers 59 percent to 34 percent, ac-cording to an NBC/Wall Street Journal national poll, many viewers of the debate believe Sanders, who is very popular with young people, emerged the true winner. Sanders’ poll stats numbers have been rising over the last month.

“I certainly respect Sen. Sand-ers’ intentions,” Clinton replied, but stayed defending the Afford-able Care Act. “When you’re talk-ing about health care, the details really matter. We finally have a path to universal health care, we have accomplished so much already. I do not want to see the Republicans repeal it, and I do not want us to start all over again with a contentious debate.”

“No one is tearing this up--I helped write [the Affordable Care Act]. We are going to go for-ward,” Sanders retorted angrily, saying he wanted to focus on the issues, not on her husband.

Accomplishing goals (such as an inclusive health care system, free public colleges, and a higher mini-mum wage) is dependent on the influence of big corporations and their funding. “Nothing real will get done unless we have a political revolution where millions of peo-ple finally stand up,” he stressed, citing problems on Wall Street.

Clinton rebutted that there’s

Democratic candidates face off on health…PAGE A1 t

ris said in a statement.“We view early childhood trau-

ma as a public health crisis,” not-ed Ben Rubin, senior associate of neurodevelopment and health with Children Now. He said ad-verse childhood experiences (ACE) lead to long-term mental and medical health effects.

Bonta’s bill would restore fund-ing for mental health services that were once offered on 464 school sites around California under the state’s Early Mental Health Intervention (EMHI) program launched in 1992. The state gave matching funds to schools that provided intervention programs. AB 1644 is estimated to cost the state about $1 million a year.

In 2012, the state defunded the program, citing budget-ary reasons. Research showed that 79 percent of the children who received those services im-proved their behavioral and so-cial skills.

According to a Kidsdata.org study, more than half of all Cali-fornia elementary school staff reported that mental health is a problem at their school. And just over 70 percent of the state’s elementary school teachers say that their school “emphasizes helping students with emotional

or behavioral problems.”Early childhood mental health

advocates say the teacher train-ing and funding isn’t adequate to support young students who are experiencing symptoms result-ing from stress and trauma. In its 2016 California Children’s Re-port Card, Children Now gave the state a D minus when it comes to spending on assessing and treat-ing children who have mental health challenges.

The Children Now report warns that if kids struggling with men-tal health disorders don’t get the treatment they need, they are more likely to be hospitalized, drop out of school and become “involved with the justice sys-tem.” The report also says that only 40 percent of children under the age of six with mental health issues get the support they need.

California has the highest stu-dent-to-counselor ratio in the nation, with an average of 1,016 K-12 students per counselor, according to EdSource. The American School Counselor As-sociation recommends a ratio of 250 to one.

The question of a school’s re-sponsibility to provide services to students suffering ACE related trauma is at the core of a lawsuit filed against the Compton Unified

School District in Los Angeles. Five students and three teachers there have sued the district for allegedly failing to provide ade-quate training and resources for coping with trauma. The CUSD, the plaintiffs say in the federal lawsuit filed last year, is setting them up for academic failure.

Robert Hull, a school psychol-ogist in Prince George’s County in Maryland, who has exten-sively researched the impact of complex trauma on child-hood development, observed: “There’s a huge number of chil-dren walking into kindergarten with trauma. They’re just sitting in the classroom trying to make it through the day, not profiting from the instruction, however good it may be.”

By providing them early inter-vention, he said, “you are moving them from a survival mode into a learning mode.”

Bonta’s bill would establish a four-year pilot program in schools that are serving stu-dents who have experienced high levels of childhood trauma and adversity, expand the EMHI program to include younger children, and provide regional trainings and support to schools on mental health and trauma. (New America Media)

California bill would fund trauma and mental…PAGE A1 t

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us. A lot of our members would want to support Senator Grace. She remains the top choice of the party,” Enverga told reporters.

“We are of the belief that she is qualified to run, and the Tempo-rary Restraining Order that was issued by the Supreme Court validates that there was a grave abuse of authority on the part of the Comelec,” Enverga said.

He added that the NPC will support one presidential candi-date this year.

“This will be different from the previous one. We are bent on choosing one presidential candi-date,” the NPC spokesman said.

Aside from Duterte, the NPC also met with Poe, Vice Presi-dent Jejomar Binay and adminis-tration candidate Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd. n

Grace Poe, Susan Roces…PAGE A3 t

ANGEL Ramos — small, artic-ulate and incredibly animated at 87 — wears a thin disc of ham-mered metal on a string around his neck. It says “Kahuku,” and has the number 809 engraved on it.

“This is my bango — that’s Japanese for ‘number.’ For all plantation workers, pineapple or sugar, this was our employment number for all time,” says this sakada (migrant Filipino worker) hired in Hawaii in 1946.

He chuckles, giving a glimpse of the naughty kid he must have been once. “Hey, you know, you didn’t need Mastercard, you could use this to charge,” he adds.

But suddenly, Ramos turns serious, almost on the verge of tears. “Why do I still wear it? It’s like going to church, where I wear my cross … I’ve been look-ing and looking for my wife’s wedding ring — she died in Au-gust 2014 — and my kids say we will buy a new one, but it’s dif-ferent, you know. That ring cost $21.50. A $3,000 ring? That’s BS. This — this is my identity.”

It is an identity finally given due honor at the very first celebration of Sakada Day in Hawaii on Dec. 20, 2015, at the Hawaii State Cap-itol Auditorium in Honolulu. The celebration was made official via House Bill No. 604, approved on April 9, 2015, by Hawaii’s House of Representatives, through the efforts of Philippine Consul Gen-eral to Hawaii Gina Jamoralin and the vice speaker of Hawaii’s House of Representatives, John Mizuno.

To commemorate the occasion, Rep. Eric Singson of the second district of Ilocos Sur province, birthplace of most of the first sakada, had commissioned a painting by National Artist for Visual Arts Benedicto “BenCab” Cabrera, who instead donated the work to the Philippine gov-ernment during the event.

Life of solitudeThe original sakada, migrant

Filipino workers recruited as mass labor by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association in the 1920s to work on expanding sugar and pineapple plantations, didn’t have it easy.

“Life for them would be much more than solitude,” wrote Dr. Belinda Aquino, of the Center for Philippine Studies at Univer-sity of Hawaii in Manoa, in “The Filipino Century in Hawaii: Out of

No regrets for 1946 ‘sakada’ in Hawaii

the Crucible,” a paper published in the souvenir program for the sakada’s centennial celebration in 2006.

“Ten- to 12-hour days of back-breaking work in the cane fields under a searing sun, a miser-able dollar-a-day wage, home-lessness, rootlessness, isolation, loneliness, vulnerability to the luna’s (supervisor) wrath, suffer-ing and other human hardships would be the essence of their ex-istence.”

Ramos confirms the memory. “The old-timers told us, ‘You guys are lucky. If you had come in the 1920s, it was dirt in your face, lunas (supervisors) kicking your ass.’”

Indeed, by the time the 6,000 sakada recruited in 1946, had ar-rived, Hawaii — and the world — was a different place.

“The ’46 sakada arrived in the midst of new economic realities in postwar Hawaii,” wrote scholar Steffi San Buenaventura in the paper “Hawaii’s 1946 sakada” in “Social Process in Hawaii,” 1996.

Instead of employers having “total and unchallenged control” over the workers, there was now “a new order — organized labor, which carried their collective in-terest and the authority to nego-tiate their wages and conditions of work.”

College educationEmployers of the 1920s who

had once insisted on illiterate la-borers now had to contend with “members of this group [who] had more years of schooling (in-cluding a college education) … [M]any who worked the fields moved up to skilled and cleri-cal positions,” wrote San Bue-naventura.

“When we came to Hawaii, the labor climate was just grand,” says Ramos. “Our relationship with the Japanese was beauti-

ful, we never heard anybody say they thought we would retaliate for what happened during the war. The big union guys said, do it this way, do it together, never mind the ethnic groups.”

After his wife Rose died last year, Angel Ramos now lives alone with his cat in an airy wooden house in Kahuku, about an hour and a half from Hono-lulu, on the island of Oahu.

The couple has 13 children, “all healthy, all good,” Ramos says. “We call them plantation babies because they were all born on the plantation.”

He’s proud of the eight boys and five girls he raised on a Spar-tan lifestyle, who all worked their way through college. “I never gave them five cents for college. They never got presents from me. I’m a guy who doesn’t know how to plan. But they all turned out OK. People ask, did you teach them by example? No—we just did our thing.”

Today, Ramos’ children live all over Hawaii and the US mainland, and at least one of them visits ev-ery day. They’ve recently bought him a wheelchair and ordered him to stop driving. “I can’t fight them,” he says with resignation. “They have leverage.”

But back when he was much younger, Ramos had treated life as an adventure of sorts, includ-ing the job in Hawaii. Not that it was uncharted territory: his fa-ther had gone there, worked, and returned home, while an uncle had settled there.

He was then 17, and a high school sophomore who did well in school. His father built machines in Vintar, Ilocos Norte province, but he had never worked in his life, Ramos confesses.

Fake papersOne day, some boys who had

by AlyA B. HonAsAnInquirer.net

uPAGE A5

tion of organizations working together to educate and provide outreach on DACA and DAPA.

“These programs would im-prove the lives of over five million people nationwide–1.5 million in California alone–by allowing them to continue building their lives and contributing to their communities without living in fear and uncertainty. Today’s decision brings us one step closer to providing protections that keep families together and strengthen our communities, and that is truly good news.”

According to data from the Mi-gration Policy Institute, many im-migrant Filipinos in the US would qualify for both the original and expanded DACA and DAPA pro-grams. Out of around 197,000 undocumented Filipinos cur-rently in the US, approximately 45,000 are estimated to be eligi-ble for both DACA and DAPA. In California’s Los Angeles County,

around 7,000 are estimated to be eligible for the expanded DAPA program, and 4,000 for the origi-nal DACA. In San Francisco, those eligible for both DACA and DAPA are estimated to be less than 1,000; while in New York’s Queens County, around 2,000 undocumented Filipinos would be qualified.

In Los Angeles County, Filipi-nos make up about 2 percent of undocumented immigrants cur-rently under the original DACA program, according to the MPI. 3 percent of those would be im-mediately eligible.

Directing Attorney Joyce Noche from the Immigration Unit at the Public Law Center in Orange County said, “Filipinos are one of the largest groups in California that could potentially benefit from these programs, and we encourage families to go ahead and prepare, now that the Supreme Court has granted re-view. We tell immigrants to start

gathering documentation, save money for the application fee, and contact other family mem-bers who could potentially ben-efit from the programs.”

“We also want to encourage folks to keep informed about the legalization process, and to be wary of false immigration servic-es. Know the resources available, including the media and legal service organizations,” she add-ed. “I think there’s a lot of fear in our community, and people who are generally reluctant to come forward.”

The Public Law Center helps low-income individuals and fami-lies in Orange County, provides as-sistance under the existing DACA program, and helps immigrants with legal services and litigation.

The Supreme Court will likely hear the case in April, with a rul-ing before it adjourns in June. If it approves the programs, they will go into effect before Obama leaves office. n

Supreme Court to review Obama’s…PAGE A2 t

UN GLOBAL CHAMPION FOR RESILIENCE. Senator Loren Legarda formally accepts from Ms. Margareta Wahlstrom (5th from left), outgoing chief of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), her appointment as UNISDR Global Champion for Resilience on 19 January 2016 at the Senate of the Philippines. Witnessing the event are (from left): Former Climate Change Commissioner Heherson Alvarez, Secretary Emmanuel de Guzman, Vice Chairperson of the Climate Change Commission, Senate President Franklin Drilon, Mr. Mark Bidder of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and Atty. Tess de Vega, Chief Coordinator of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). Senate photo

ANGEL Ramos (right) and National Artist for Visual Arts BenCab Photo by Alya B. Honasan

(818) 502-0651 • (213) 250-9797 • http://www.asianjournal.com LA MIDWEEK ASIAN JOURNAL • JANUARY 20-22, 2016 A�Dateline USa

Dateline PhiliPPinesbeen recruited for the trip came to their house, and Ramos found himself faking his own papers on a manual typewriter, as he was underage. “I said, ‘Mom, I’m going to Hawaii.’ [My parents] never said a word; they were confident I’d be fine. I just went with the tide.”

(It would be 24 years before Ramos would come home to visit, in 1970, and by then, sadly, his father was senile and didn’t recognize him. “Lakay, do you know this guy? It’s your son, An-gel,” people kidded the old man, Ramos recounts. His father’s re-sponse: “If you say so.”)

The boys took off from Port Salomangue in Ilocos Sur for Hawaii aboard the ship Mau-nawili; Ramos remembers his sturdy rattan suitcase, more durable than the wrapped blan-kets, cartons and woven bags his companions carried.

He was in the third batch of 1946 sakada, he recalls, which was supposed to have left on April 1, but was delayed by news of a tsunami that hit Hawaii. “We didn’t even know what a tsunami was,” he recalls. San Buenaven-tura records the third batch’s de-parture as April 11.

It was an uneventful trip, al-though he remembers reliev-ing himself in a shallow canal that drained off the boat, while his companions had to content themselves with bathing in salt-water.

When they got to Hawaii after 17 days, they were instructed to look for their names on lists post-ed on the sides of military trucks parked near the port. “They told us to make sure we got on the right trucks, but I was too busy looking for wahine (girls),” Ra-mos says with a laugh. In fact, one companion was so deter-mined to ogle the women, he actually cut a window in the

packed truck’s canvas walls with a pocket knife.

Ramos was assigned to the Lib-by, McNeill and Libby pineapple plantation in Maui, but the men were first brought to a restaurant and fed fried egg and rice; some of them threw up from seasick-ness at the smell of the food. Then they were brought to the barracks, wooden huts set up in fields, and were told to be ready in the morning, when the truck would pick them up again.

Camp bossRamos’ first job was cutting

grass, then picking pineapples. “They gave us bags, and we had to fill them up and put them by the roadside … I didn’t even know how much I was making.” He estimates it was about 52 cents an hour, a little better than in the sugar plantations.

Eventually, Ramos recalls, the luna made him camp boss—a job that consisted mainly of report-ing any problems to manage-ment, and turning the new diesel burner for hot water on and off every day. “I got lucky, because I was the smallest. But I knew how to push a pencil, I was schooled, so they knew that.”

After nine months in Maui, however, Ramos and a colleague ran away and made it to Oahu, where he worked at various jobs in Honolulu. He also met Mar-celina, aka Rose, and got her pregnant.

“Hala, buntis! At that time, there was no such thing as co-habitation, and you could end up in the calaboose. But everyone respected my uncle, so nothing happened. She went to stay with my uncle like my own family, al-though I probably didn’t even get to talk to her until we were mar-ried. My first child was born out of wedlock on Oct. 16, 1948.”

By the following year, Ramos was working as a laboratory analyst in a sugar plantation in

Kahuku. He had also become an active member of the powerful International Longshoremen and Warehousemen Union (Ilwu). “Each plantation had a unit, and I was an officer of our unit until the end. We worked [among] the grassroots.”

At peaceEventually Ramos made it to the

coveted position of journeyman, the top job at the plantation hier-archy. “It’s like being a licensed doctor; you can’t go any higher.”

Nowadays, Ramos’ main thing is his plants; the front yard of the 26-year-old Kahuku house is positively overrun with beautiful greens, including exotic palms, a large African malunggay tree, a species of sugarcane, and his prized succulents.

“It’s only now that I am up on my feet again after 12 days; my foot was swollen. I had to retrieve my wife’s walker which I almost threw away two weeks ago.”

Ramos was however well enough to pose with BenCab, who had managed to sketch the old man despite his frenzied gesticulations and changing ex-pressions.

Asked how he has stayed so healthy, he says: “I just do my thing. I don’t worry about noth-ing. I’m at peace.” He points up-ward again. “You want me now? It’s OK with me.”

It has been a life without re-grets, Ramos concludes. “We were reminiscing the other day, and I said, there’s nobody like my wife Rose, nobody has DNA like her. Life here in Hawaii has been beauuuutiful—my kids are so beauuuutiful.”

Is he more American or Fili-pino? Ramos looks genuinely puzzled. “What is American, what is Filipino? I was born Filipino, I have allegiance to America, I am Hawaiian. That’s it. The most Fili-pino part of me? I eat the same vegetables—I love malunggay.” n

“no bank too big to fail, no indi-vidual too powerful to jail.”

When asked about how she wins the votes of younger gen-erations, Clinton cited her goal of debt-free tuition, and is con-cerned about the “Republican assault” on voting, and on wom-en’s, LGBT, and workers’ rights. “This is an election where we have to pull young people and older people together. Turning over our White House would be

bad for everybody, including our young people.”

O’Malley managed to squeeze in a word regarding guns and criminal justice reform, personal-izing the issue with a story about meeting a three-year-old shoot-ing victim in the hospital.

He also showed an endearing side when talking about putting ground troops in the Middle East to fight the terror group ISIS, tell-ing a more personal appeal on the matter. All of the candidates

agreed there should be no US troops on the ground to fight the war on terror.

The debate viewed by over 12.5 million viewers, including 10.2 million who watched it live, reported The Associated Press.

The debate was also the third-most watched Democratic debate in history, according to NBC, drawing in more young viewers than the two previous broad-casted debates. (Allyson Escobar / AJPress)

Democratic candidates face off on health…PAGE A4 t

No regrets for 1946 ‘sakada’ in…PAGE A4 t

UN GLOBAL CHAMPION FOR RESILIENCE. Senator Loren Legarda formally accepts from Ms. Margareta Wahlstrom (5th from left), outgoing chief of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), her appointment as UNISDR Global Champion for Resilience on 19 January 2016 at the Senate of the Philippines. Witnessing the event are (from left): Former Climate Change Commissioner Heherson Alvarez, Secretary Emmanuel de Guzman, Vice Chairperson of the Climate Change Commission, Senate President Franklin Drilon, Mr. Mark Bidder of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and Atty. Tess de Vega, Chief Coordinator of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). Senate photo

THE Philippines and the United Kingdom are looking to sign a re-vised defense agreement before the end of the year, British Am-bassador to the Philippines Asif Ahmad said Monday, Jan. 18.

The new agreement would ex-pand both countries’ cooperation on military, security and disaster response, GMA News reported.

Ahmad did not provide spe-cific details on the new pact, but did say it will “not be as com-plicated” as the agreement be-tween the Philippines and the United States. He added that he wouldn’t describe the agreement as British troops coming to the Philippines, saying it sounds “a bit emotive.”

“I would say British expertise coming here. Two hundred fifty-one years ago, when we sent British troops here, they liked it so much, they stayed,” he said, according to Rappler.

At the moment, the two coun-tries are exchanging drafts, he said.

The ambassador added it is not the Visiting Forces Agreement

PH, UK to revise & sign defense agreement before end of 2016

by Agnes ConstAnteAJPress

between the Philippines and the US, which allows American troops to enter the Philippines for joint military training with their Filipino counterparts.

“I think, basically, it codifies what we’re already doing and some of the ambitions that we have. I don’t think it translates into something more than that.

“What happened is, the old one was so lacking in ambition that it really allowed us very little scope to do anything,” he said.

In particular, Ahmad said the two countries would like to incor-porate lessons they learned dur-ing Super Typhoon Yolanda, also known as Haiyan, which struck the Philippines in November 2013 and killed more than 6,300 people.

After Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, the UK was one of the countries that helped out the most. Ahmad noted, however, that most of the cooperation between the two na-tions was completed “very infor-mally.”

“We don’t have too many writ-ten protocols as to how this is done. And we want to regularize that,” Ahmad said, according to

Rappler.The ambassador was asked if

the UK and Philippines decided to revise their defense agree-ment due to the territorial quar-rels between Manila and Beijing in the South China Sea, as well as the threat of terrorism, among other issues. He said that, in re-gard to the dispute, diplomacy is needed.

“I always say that if you’re starting to talk in terms of mili-tary intervention, then diplomacy has failed. It’s the tool of last re-sort,” he said, according to Rap-pler.

Ahmad added that Britain is keen on aiding the Philippines, which has one of the weakest militaries in Asia, enhance its de-fense capability.

“What we do … is we set up a whole range of options and ca-pabilities that we actually have and it is then up to the Philippine government to decide,” he said.

He also said he isn’t ruling out the possibility of evolving the partnership between the two countries to a more strategic one that could involve joint train-ing between Filipino and British troops. n

JANUARY 20-22, 2016 • LA MIDWEEK ASIAN JOURNAL http://www.asianjournal.com • (818) 502-0651 • (213) 250-9797A�

IF only SSS management had some moral authority, it should be easy to understand why P-Noy had to veto that proposal to in-crease SSS pensions. The math is pretty straightforward. But there are valid issues about SSS man-agement, the record earnings of the trust fund notwithstanding.

Not too long ago, the Commis-sion on Audit ordered SSS officials to return to the government over P71.612 million in unauthorized bonuses. An ap-peal was made and was rejected as the order was deemed final. But have SSS officials returned the illegal bonuses or even made an attempt to comply?

Then there is the issue of compensa-tion packages that are much too gener-ous. Worse, there is a platoon of high SSS officials 2 EVPs, 7 SVPs, 16 VPs and who knows how many senior man-agers. Based on published figures that probably exclude perks, SSS officials are getting compensation that’s more than competitive with the private sector.

Some questions come to mind. Does SSS need all those EVPs, SVP’s and VPs? When I was working for PNOC/Pe-tron, we had less than ten such officials and our operations were so diverse (oil upstream/downstream, coal mining and trading, drilling, geothermal, shipping, shipbuilding, etc), that would justify having more senior officials. What do all those senior officials of SSS do to justify their compensation?

Then, there are the directors who get extremely generous compensation too for attending board meetings… as much as P40,000 a meeting. The figure ex-ceeds what other more profitable com-panies in the private sector give their directors.

Maybe they are trying to compete with counterparts in GSIS. I understand GSIS directors get as much as P8 million a year plus car and driver, etc. That too, seems anomalous.

Looking at the list of directors in both

systems, I notice a lot of names who really do not need to be com-p e n s a t e d that much. Many are retired and

having made their money already, should be there solely for public service.

Published compensation figures also do not include what they earn in actual money terms and perks from private cor-porations where the two systems have board seats. This is why these director-ships are much sought after by friends of whoever is in power in Malacañang.

Highly paid as they are, the SSS board members failed to deliver value for mon-ey in terms of wise counsel, innovative ideas. Makes one wonder what they talk about in board meetings.

Indeed, I blame the SSS board for fail-ing to anticipate the problem. They knew about the proposal, they knew it will pass Congress, they should have worked out an alternative proposal.

It seems the board members are too rich and out of touch with the needs of their members. They failed to see that the pension SSS gives is very inadequate. Or maybe they just didn’t care.

Protecting the viability of the fund is fine but the current system is obviously inadequate. They failed their members, they failed P-Noy, their benefactor who appointed them.

Ironically, SSS officials and staff are members of GSIS and get far more ben-efits than what SSS members get. That should have been their starting point. Why is it like that? How can they fix the disparity?

Maybe we should just have one social security system to cover government and private sector workers. There should be no distinction as is the case in many other countries.

Maybe we should privatize social se-curity. Rogelio Paglomutan, a business professor who once worked in Chile, pointed out to me how the South Ameri-can country successfully privatized so-cial security. He posted an article on the Chilean system on my Facebook page that explained it.

“Chile’s 30-year experiment is suc-ceeding beyond expectations. Instead of running huge deficits to fund the old ‘PayGo’ system, private savings now ex-ceed 50 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

“Prior to May 1, 1981, the Chilean sys-tem required contributions from work-ers and was clearly in grave financial trouble. Instead of nibbling around the edges to shore up the program for an-other few years, José Piñera, Secretary of Labor and Pensions under Augusto Pinochet, decided to do a major over-haul of the system.

“We knew that cosmetic changes — increasing the retirement age, increas-ing taxes — would not be enough. We understood that the pay-as-you-go sys-tem had a fundamental flaw, one rooted in a false conception of how human be-ings behave. That flaw was lack of a link between what people put into their pen-sion program and what they take out….

“So we decided to go in the other direction, to link benefits to contribu-tions. The money that a worker pays into the system goes into an account that is owned by the worker.

“The system still required contribu-tions of 10 percent of salary, but the money was deposited in any one of an array of private investment companies. Upon retirement, the worker had a num-ber of options, including purchasing an annuity for life. Along the way he could track the performance of his account, and increase his contribution (up to 20 percent) if he wanted to retire earlier, or increase his payout at retirement.”

How did the privatized system work out?

“According to Investor’s Business Dai-ly, the average annual rate of return for Chilean workers over the last 30 years has exceeded nine percent annually, af-ter inflation, whereas US Social Security pays a one percent to two percent (theo-retical) rate of return, and even less for new workers.

“As expected, the capital accumulated in these privatized accounts has gener-ated substantial growth in Chile’s econ-omy… Chile is one of South America’s most stable and prosperous nations, leading Latin American nations in hu-man development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, eco-nomic freedom, and low perception of corruption.

“High domestic savings and invest-ment rates helped propel Chile’s econ-omy to average growth rates of eight percent during the 1990s. The privatized national pension plan has encouraged domestic investment and contributed to an estimated total domestic savings rate of approximately 21 percent of GDP.

“This was anticipated by Piñera when the plan was originally designed and im-plemented in 1981. In reviewing the suc-cess of the plan after just 15 years, Piñera said, ‘The Chilean worker is an owner, a capitalist. There is no more powerful way to stabilize a free-market economy and to get the support of the workers than to link them directly to the benefits of the market system. When Chile grows at seven percent or when the stock mar-ket doubles … Chilean workers benefit directly, not only through high wages, not only through more employment, but through additional capital in their indi-vidual pension accounts.’”

Maybe privatizing our social security funds is too drastic for some people. There must be other things that could be done to tweak our current system. One thing is sure… something has to be done to make the benefits more meaningful. At current levels, very little help is given to those who need such help the most.

Maybe there is a need for government to infuse some money into SSS to cover increased pensions because contribu-tions alone cannot afford it. This seems to be what some critics are saying when they invoke social justice. They see no difference between government and SSS funds and therefore cannot see why we should be concerned about the longevity of the fund.

Indeed, the World Bank made a rec-ommendation way back in 2006 to ad-dress needs of poor retirees. “The Gov-ernment should consider the merits of a universal or needs-based pension, paid from general state revenues, to comple-ment existing pension programs, in order to expand coverage and reduce elderly poverty. An eligibility age of 70 or even higher should be considered. Poverty data needs to be improved to facilitate analysis of this issue.”

SSS was one of the government agen-cies I covered when I was a young re-porter. It was headed by Gilberto Te-odoro, the father of Gibo. He had a reputation as a tough administrator, which incidentally was his unglamorous title, not President or EVP or SVP. But that’s what the head of SSS should be: an administrator.

Mr. Teodoro protected the integrity of SSS funds like a hawk. I heard a story that he often threw out requests for funds even from Imelda Marcos. Best of all, he was not flashy. If it was Mr Te-odoro who was at the helm of SSS today, we will not see this crisis in confidence. That’s because he held the moral high ground.

I don’t know if they can still clean up SSS operations in P-Noy’s remaining months. But they better start doing some-thing to win back public support. They need to win back moral authority or have the decency to quit their jobs to let a new crew do what they failed to do.

* * *Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.

No moral authority

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Gel SantoS-ReloS

The Fil-Am Perspective

Boo ChanCo

Demandand Supply

TO this day, terrorism poses a serious threat anywhere in the world. Clashes among cultures continue to have a damaging impact on world peace and security. Grim news of insurgency and terror attacks are thrust onto international headlines every day. Because of cross-cultural ignorance, the essence of civilization is compromised.

Philstar.com photo

Alerted

Even with an intensive and mul-tilateral approach by international governments to combat terrorism, the world remains on its toes. The international community has val-iantly dealt with these threats through various military campaigns. But even with successes in containing one group, another one still manages to pop up.

During a gathering in an undisclosed area in Central Mindanao on Tuesday, Jan. 19, over 300 armed Christian civilians gathered to stand up against attacks by a radical Moro group. The group called themselves “Red God’s soldiers,” as they burned a replica of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) flag and vowed to defend their lands and families.

In its country report on terrorism, the United States government claim that terrorist groups, including the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), Jemaah Islamiya (JI), and the Communist People’s Party/New People’s Army (CPP/NPA), were unable to conduct major attacks compared to previous years due to continuous pressure from Philippine coun-terterrorism and law enforcement efforts.

“Terrorist groups’ acts included criminal activi-ties designed to generate revenue for self-sustain-ment, such as kidnapping for ransom, extortion, and bombings for hire,” the report said.

Counterterrorism cooperation be-tween the Philippines and the United States has continued to improve.

“The Government of the Philip-pines made progress in implement-

ing its 2011–2016 Internal Peace and Security Plan that calls for the transition of internal secu-rity functions from the Armed Forces of the Phil-ippines (AFP) to the Philippine National Police (PNP). The increasing role and capability of the police in maintaining internal security in conflict-affected areas will permit the AFP to shift its focus to enhance the country’s maritime security and territorial defense capabilities. To date, however, this transition continued to be slow and ineffec-tive. Continued violent extremist activity, as well as counterterrorism capability gaps between the AFP and PNP, slowed this transition and forced the AFP to continue playing the lead counterter-rorism role in the Philippines,” the report added.

Furthermore, the AFP downplayed alleged re-ports that several terrorist groups in the country are establishing a local base for ISIS.

Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Hernando Iriberri said that military operations are underway to neutralize terror leaders and members who are responsible for the insurgence. “Our armed forces are trying their best. Every time we have the in-formation, we validate it and we take action just

Editorial

to make sure we will prevent whatever terror acts they are planning to do,” Iriberri said.

Pres. Benigno Aquino III also belittles the same reports and suspects that those in the country who claim allegiance to ISIS are not in direct contact with the terror group and are just riding on the prominence of its threat.

“The same groups that were claiming linkage to Al-Qaeda according to our intelligence reports are the same people who are claiming that they have pledged allegiance to the caliph of the ISIS. And we presumed not to belittle them but if there is a new group that is ascendant, they will be prob-

ably the next franchisee in our country,” Aquino assured. He added that the problem of extremism in Mindanao was not triggered by ideologies or conflicts religious beliefs, but more by the lack of economic opportunities in Mindanao.

As an offshoot to the latest news of terror-related violence, people are alerted to promote individual responsibility and are encouraged to commit to ef-fective long-term solutions. Confronting this chal-lenge is beyond the power of governments alone. Today’s terrorism will only be defeated with the engagement of the public and on the basis of com-mon values. (AJPress)

FEBRUARY 1 is a big day in US politics as it marks the beginning of the primary elections in the United States. This is when both the Demo-cratic and Republican parties choose their nomi-nees for president in all the 50 states of America, the victors of which will be in the race for the Gen-eral Elections in November.

Only one nominee for each major party will run against each other, although other parties may field their candidates against the major league. Or, somebody from either the Democrats or the Republicans may run as an Independent if he or she fails to win the party’s nomination.

In the next months, perhaps all the way until the end of summer, the candidates for president will continue their campaigns as primary elections and caucuses move from one state to another, start-ing off in Iowa, to be followed by New Hampshire. Sometimes, the winner emerges early in the game

and the contenders for each party concede. Other times, the nomi-nee is known not until the conven-tion of both parties.

Ahead of the Iowa caucuses which will be in a little over one week, who is leading? What do the latest polls say for each party?

Monmouth Poll Results After Democratic Debate (January 18):

Hillary Clinton’s lead over Bernie Sanders in the latest national Monmouth University Poll has nar-rowed in the past month. However, Clinton retains a massive advantage among black and Latino vot-ers – groups that will play a prominent role in the primaries immediately following Iowa and New Hampshire. She is also seen as the stronger nomi-nee when pitted against the Republican field.

Clinton currently has the support of 52% of

Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters nationwide, which is down from 59% in De-cember. Sanders gets 37% sup-port, which is up substantially from his 26% support level last month. Martin O’Malley has 2% support. This marks the first time Clinton’s lead has dropped below 20 points in a national

Monmouth poll.NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll Ahead of the Re-

publican Debate (January 13) :Donald Trump has opened a double-digit lead

over his next-closest Republican rival, less than three weeks before the first votes of the 2016 presidential race are cast.

Trump is the first choice of 33 percent of na-tional Republican primary voters - his highest per-

centage in the poll. He’s followed by Ted Cruz at 20 percent, Marco Rubio at 13 percent and Ben Carson at 12 percent. Chris Christie and Jeb Bush are tied at five percent. No other Republican presi-dential candidate gets more than 3 percent.

Trump’s 13-point lead over Cruz is an increase from last month, when he held a five-point advantage over the Texas senator, 27 percent to 22 percent.

WHO DO YOU THINK WILL WIN in Iowa in both the Democrats and Republican caucuses? Who will win in New Hampshire? Will these contests affect the next states’ primary elections?

Abangan!* * *

Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos

Who is leading before the February 1 primary election season begins?

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AFTER missing out on its bid to host the 2019 Fiba World Cup, the Philippines got a consolation as it was chosen to stage one of three Olympic qualifiers slated on July 5 to 11.

Hosting the qualifiers will give Gilas Pilipinas a boost in its campaign to crash the 2016 Rio Olympics after failing to nail an automatic berth when it lost to China in the 2015 Fiba Asia Championship last October.

China also outbid the Philip-pines for the World Cup last Au-gust.

Serbia and Italy were the two other countries that will host the qualifiers, as announced by the official Fiba Twitter account Tuesday night.

The groupings of the coun-tries will be determined on Jan-uary 26 after a draw conducted by Fiba.

PH to host Olympic basketball qualifiers

THE celebration of the Gilas Pilipinas ‘s victoAry over Korea ,at the MOA Arena . Inquirer file photo/August Dela Cruz.

by Mark GionGcoInquirer.net

MANILA – Congress should review its proposal to raise the retirement pension for Social Security System (SSS) members by P2,000, Labor Secretary Ro-salinda Baldoz said on Monday, Jan. 18.

In its review, Baldoz said Con-gress should take into account the results of an actuarial study prepared by the SSS.

She stressed the need for a more enlightened, objective and sober assessment of the issue to ensure the interest of the greater number of SSS members is up-held and protected.

“While the objective of enhanc-ing pension is ideal, the SSS is also duty-bound to safeguard its financial viability and its future li-abilities,” Baldoz explained.

Based on SSS actuarial stud-ies, if a P2,000 across-the-board increase in retirement pension is implemented, the pension fund would be forced to draw and use its Investment Reserve Fund, which could diminish over the years and eventually dry up by 2029.

Baldoz also gave assurances that DOLE was exerting all efforts to ensure that employers would judiciously remit their premium

Congress urged to review SSS pension hike billby Mayen JayMalin

Philstar.com

share to SSS.“We are cooperating with the

SSS by sharing our respective databases, under a Memoran-dum of Agreement which I have signed before the end of last year,” she noted.

She said the MOA seeks to improve employers’ compliance with a requirement that they en-roll their workers for coverage and for employers to remit their contributions.

“We are also furnishing the SSS findings of our Labor Law Compliance Officers relative to non-compliant establishments,” she said.

Through its Labor Laws Com-pliance System (LLCS), DOLE strictly monitors business estab-lishments’ compliance with labor laws governing the grant of so-cial benefits.

Also yesterday, the Trade Union Congress of the Philip-pines (TUCP) urged both Houses of Congress to probe and open the books of SSS.

“By opening the books, mem-bers can really see for them-selves if SSS money is enough or not to fund the 2,000 pension hike,” TUCP noted.

TUCP said SSS members can also check the operating costs and expenses of SSS executives.

In Zamboanga City, SSS vice president for Western Mindan-ao Rodrigo Filoteo said Presi-dent Aquino’s rejection of the P2,000 pension hike was com-mendable as it would prevent the pension fund from getting bankrupt.

“As far as the SSS is concerned, we are just trying to clarify the is-sues – whatever impact this will have on the members and tell the true picture of what will hap-pen to the SSS if the increase is granted,” Filoteo said.

“We have no problem with that but are you willing to lose your benefits when the time comes?” he added.

“If the increase will be given we will have a shortfall of about P36 billion because we have to dig from our reserve fund and the moment we touch our reserve fund just to pay the pension, the reserve fund will be drained and nothing can be taken out,” he added.

The official said politics may be behind Rep. Neri Colmena-res’ insistence that a P2,000 hike is attainable. He said the Bayan Muna party-list congressman should have made the proposal when the election season was still years away. (With a report from Roel Pareño)

Three years ago, the Philip-pines successfully hosted the 2013 Fiba Asia where it won the

silver medal and secured a trip to the World Cup the following year. n

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COMMUNITY J o u r n a lBusiness News

MANILA — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has low-ered economic growth projec-tions for the Philippines but still expects the country to be one of the fastest growing economies in the region despite the slowdown in China and the normalization of interest rates in the US.

IMF resident representative Shanaka Jayanath Peiris said the multilateral lender lowered the country’s growth forecast to 5.7 percent instead of six percent for 2015 and to 6.2 percent instead of 6.3 percent for 2016 based on its January 2016 World Econom-ic Outlook (WEO).

“The growth estimate for 2015 was revised down to 5.7 per-cent from six percent, reflecting growth outturns to the third quar-ter and weaker global growth performance,” Peiris said.

The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth acceler-

IMF resident representative Shanaka Jayanath Peiris said the multilateral lender lowered the country’s growth forecast to 5.7 percent instead of six percent for 2015 and to 6.2 percent instead of 6.3 percent for 2016 based on its January 2016 World Economic Outlook (WEO). Philstar.com file photo

IMF lowers Philippine growth forecast to 5.7% this year

ated to six percent in the third quarter from the revised 5.8 percent in the second quarter of last year due to robust domestic demand and improving govern-ment spending.

However, the GDP expansion reached 5.6 percent in the first

nine months of last year, way below the seven to eight percent penned by economic managers.

Peiris said GDP growth projec-tion for 2017 was retained at 6.5 percent.

“Despite the weaker global economic outlook, Philippine growth forecast for 2016 was only marginally lowered from 6.3 to 6.2 percent to reflect the more challenging external environ-ment. The growth projection for 2017 remains unchanged from the October WEO at 6.5 percent,” he said.

Peiris said this year’s growth would be fuelled by strong do-mestic demand, recovering ex-ports, and improving govern-ment spending with the launch of more public private partnership (PPP) projects.

“We expect the Philippine economy to continue growing strongly, supported by a robust private domestic demand and some recovery in export growth

MANILA — Financial markets in major Asian economies are closely tied and move in tandem with those in China, explain-ing the latest bout of volatility sweeping the region, the chief economist of the Department of Finance said.

“The close linkages between Asian countries is evident in the high correlation between their financial market indices,” Finance Undersecretary Gil Bel-tran said in an economic bulletin on Monday, Jan 18.

According to Beltran’s re-search, stock markets in nine Asian economies showed a 0.91 correlation to the Shanghai Composite Index.

A positive correlation sug-gests that bourses move in tan-dem such as when one rises, the rest also rise, and vice-versa. A correlation of one is considered strong, while zero means no re-lationship.

The nine countries included in the study were Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore, Thai-

Philippine stocks among worst affected by China plunge

“Volatility in China’s stock and currency markets shook the financial markets of its Asian neighbors,” Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said. Philstar.com file photo

land, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The relationship between China and the Asian markets tend to get weaker in the for-eign exchange segment. Beltran calculated a correlation of 0.46 among the currencies in the re-gion.

Still, “currency rates are also

highly correlated,” the official said.

Global financial markets suf-fered huge selloffs going into the third week of the year over renewed concerns China, the world’s second largest econo-my, is slowing.

A report Tuesday, Jan. 19

MANILA — Philippine Airlines (PAL) likely reached its passen-ger target of 12 million last year, PAL president and chief operat-ing officer Jaime Bautista told reporters.

He also said the company is seen to have remained profitable in the fourth quarter and for full-year 2015.

As of end-September, PAL’s net earnings amounted to P6.1 billion, way above the P238.1 million in the same period in 2014.

The airline’s parent firm PAL

PAL likely carried 12 M passengers in 2015Holdings Inc. saw a net income of P129.74 million in 2014, a turnaround from losses incurred over the past years.

PAL expects to have contin-ued to book earnings last year even as Bautista noted the flight MANILA — International tour-

ism has sustained its above-average growth, reaching almost 1.2 billion arrivals for 2015, according to the latest World Tourism Barometer.

International tourist arrivals grew 4.4 percent to 1.184 billion and marked the sixth consecutive year of above-average growth, with arrivals increasing an aver-age four percent yearly since the post-crisis in 2010.

“Tourism reached new heights in 2015 with results influenced by exchange rates, oil prices and natural and man-made crises in

Tourists line up at the immigration counters at the NAIA.

International tourism grows above 4% for 6th year

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by Louise Maureen siMeonPhilstar.com by LoueLLa D. DesiDerio

Philstar.com

by Lawrence agcaoiLiPhilstar.com

by Prinz P. MagtuLisPhilstar.com

uPAGE B3

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JANUARY 20-22, 2016 • LA MIDWEEK ASIAN JOURNAL http://www.asianjournal.com • (818) 502-0651 • (213) 250-9797B� Business news

MANILA — The Philippines is urged to follow the track of China and California for the de-velopment of the country’s elec-tric vehicle industry, with similar policies and incentives seen es-sential for its progress, the Elec-tric Vehicle Association of the Philippines (EVAP) said.

EVAP president Rommel Juan said there is a lot to be learned from these countries for a start-up electric vehicle industry like the Philippines.

“China has transformed itself into a global juggernaut in the electric vehicle industry, sur-passing the USA as the world’s largest manufacturer and market for electric vehicles,” Juan said.

China last year sold 180,000 electric cars, more than half of the total vehicles sold in the Phil-ippines in the same year.

“How did China do it? They merely copied California and

Philippine e-vehicle industry should follow US, China

in some instances, even added some extras,” he said.

The China Automotive Tech-nology Research Center in 2014 invited California auto regulators to share their success secrets and later on dispatched experts to California to observe and learn more, Juan said.

Chinese experts learned that electric vehicle automakers in California are required to pro-duce more environment-friendly vehicles year after year, he said.

“Simultaneously, the state built a synthetic market that al-lowed electric vehicle makers to buy and sell electric vehicle cred-its. They also invested in public charging stations and gave fi-nancial incentives not only to the manufacturers but to consumers as well. Today, California ac-counts for about half of the elec-tric vehicle sales in the USA,” he said.

The EVAP president said the Chinese were quick to implement what they learned in California.

“Policy makers adopted a California-style electric vehicle mandate and jumpstarted the demand through purchases of government vehicle fleets. Buyers were given as much as $14,000 subsidy per electric ve-hicle purchased and many cities offered reduced parking fees and granted access to bus and high occupancy vehicle lanes. In Bei-jing, they even decreed that 30 percent of municipal vehicles be electric vehicles,” Juan said.

Juan said China may have even gone further than Califor-nia in some instances when it comes to support for electric vehicles.

“They even gave reduced li-cense plate rates. In Shanghai, it costs more than $18,000 to get a license plate. In Beijing, it is very difficult to get one and only one out of 200 applicants gets a license plate. This time, however, Beijing allotted 30,000 free li-cense plates for electric vehicles in 2015,” he said. n

after the dismal global trade per-formance in 2015. Public sector expenditure is also expected to contribute strongly to growth as budget execution continues to improve and the construction phase of a number of PPPs kick in,” Peiris said.

Peiris said the medium term economic outlook for the Philip-pines was based on an assump-tion of continued prudent mac-roeconomic policies and greater investments in infrastructure and human capital.

Peiris said the risks to the global outlook remain tilted to the downside and relate to on-

going adjustments in the global economy including a generalized slowdown in emerging market economies, China’s rebalancing, lower commodity prices, and the gradual exit from extraordinarily accommodative monetary condi-tions in the US.

“The Philippines is relatively less exposed to China given the low trade and financial linkages and stands to benefit from the low-er commodity prices,” he added.

Downside, risks, he said, in-cluded a generalized slowdown in growth in the region, tighter external financial conditions due to monetary policy normalization in the US, and sudden spikes in

global risk aversion are down-side risks.

“The Philippines is well po-sitioned to deal with external shocks because of its strong fundamentals and ample policy space,” Peiris said.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipi-nas (BSP) has kept interest rates unchanged since October 2014 due to the sustained economic growth and the benign inflation environment.

Inflation eased to 1.4 percent last year from 4.1 percent in 2014 due to stable food prices and cheaper utility rates brought about by the continued decline in oil prices. n

IMF lowers Philippine growth…PAGE B1 t

amplified this when China an-nounced its economy grew 6.9 percent last year.

“Volatility in China’s stock and currency markets shook the financial markets of its Asian neighbors,” Beltran said.

Sought for comment, Jose Ramon Albert, senior re-searcher at the Philippine In-stitute for Development Stud-ies, said figures showed Asian countries should be watchful of China.

“Clearly, we need to watch out

for China. It can make or break our economies,” Albert said in an e-mail.

Based on Beltran’s figures, the Philippine Stock Exchange Composite Index already lost 7.23 percent this year as against Shanghai Composite Index’s 18.03 percent.

Other markets in the region also posted year-to-date losses in tandem with China: Japan (-9.91 percent), India (-6.70 per-cent), Singapore (-8.74 percent), South Korea (-4.2 percent), Thailand (-3.27 percent), Viet-

nam (-5.72 percent), Malaysia (-3.78 percent) and Indonesia (-1.5 percent).

For currencies, most have posted gains so far led by South Korean won (3.24 percent), Indi-an rupee (2.19 percent), Malay-sian ringgit (2.38 percent) and the peso (1.87 percent).

They were followed by the Singaporean dollar (1.49 per-cent), Thai baht (0.9 percent), Indonesian rupiah (0.88 per-cent), Vietnamese dong (-0.3 percent) and the Japanese yen (-2.7 percent). n

Philippine stocks among worst…many parts of the world. The ro-bust performance of the sector is contributing to economic growth and job creation in many parts of the world,” UNWTO secretary-general Taleb Rifai said.

Europe led the growth with five percent reaching 609 million arrivals supported by a weaker euro vis-à-vis the US dollar and other main currencies.

The Asia-Pacific and the Amer-ican region also posted five per-cent growth recording 277 mil-

lion and 191 million total arrivals, respectively.

International tourist arrivals in the Middle East grew an estimat-ed three percent to a total of 54 million while preliminary data for Africa points to a three percent decline to 53 million for 2015.

Meanwhile, the UNWTO proj-ects international arrivals to grow at a slightly lower four percent worldwide for 2016 but overall prospects remain positive and will continue to record above-av-erage growth.

By region, growth is expected to be stronger in Asia-Pacific and the Americas with a maximum of five percent rise, followed by Eu-rope at 4.5 percent increase.

Tourism accounted 10 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and contributed approximately $1.5 trillion in ex-ports for 2015.

The UNWTO Tourism Towards 2030 forecast tourist arrivals to con-tinue growing at a sustained pace of an average 3.3 percent annually, reaching 1.8 billion by 2030. n

International tourism grows above…PAGE B1 t

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THE Asian American Business Roundtable (AABR), an entity of the Asian American Busi-ness Development Center (AABDC), announced that executives from Microsoft, PepsiCo, Master-Card, Xerox and Cisco will headline its program of 40+ speakers who will gather to help advance the prominence of Asian Americans in U.S. busi-ness at the first ever AABR Summit. The Summit, being held January 29-30 at the Venetian Las Vegas, will address issues of corporate diversity, entrepreneurship and the growing emergence of Asia as an engine for global economic growth. As part of the announcement, AABR has also made available a limited number of tickets that may be purchased at a 25 percent discount, by visiting http://aabr2015.eventbrite.com and using Code PR255.

“As U.S. corporations continue to seek new and expanded growth opportunities in Asia, they will increasingly rely on executives with knowl-edge of both Eastern and Western cultures and business practices – something that is unique to Asian Americans,” said John Wang, president of the Asian American Business Development Cen-ter. “We are very pleased to make this important event accessible to the entire business communi-ty, as we work to enhance overall corporate strat-egy and global relations through the advance-ment of Asian Americans in business.”

The AABR Summit is intended to increase the visibility and presence of Asian Americans in U.S. business, address national and global business challenges of the 21st century, and develop a mentorship program to groom future generations of Asian American business leaders. Additionally, it aims to assist global corporations seeking to expand in Asia, as well as Asia-based companies seeking U.S. partnerships. The Summit will bring together the most accomplished, forward-think-ing Asian American innovators and entrepreneurs and will feature a prominent group of speakers, including:

• PepsiCo Vice Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer, Mehmood Khan, M.D.

• Microsoft Research Corporate Vice President,

Peter Lee• MasterCard SVP & Global Community Rela-

tions Group Head, Ravi Aurora• Elizabeth Arden Brand President, Jue Wong• JP Morgan Chase Chairman Pacific North

West, Phyllis Campbell• Zappos Chief of Staff to Tony Hsieh, Maggie

Hsu• Xerox EVP Business Transformation and Hu-

man Resources, Bala V. Sathyanarayanan• Cisco SVP Value Chain IT, KC Wu • The Conference Board President and CEO,

John Spector Key panel topics of the Summit will include:• Creating a Culture to Foster Rapid Innovation

and Risk Taking• Increasing Equitable Representation of Minor-

ities in the C-Suite and on Corporate Boards• Lessons on Successful Career Paths: Alliances,

Values, and Work/Life Balance• Innovation and Risks: Turning a Novel Idea

into a Successful Growth Initiative• Grooming Tomorrow’s Leaders: New Qualities

to Succeed in a Rapidly Changing Market• Collaboration is Key: Building Successful In-

ternational Business Alliances for Growth Tickets and RegistrationSpecially discounted tickets are available by

visiting http://aabr2015.eventbrite.com and using Code PR255. For more information on the Summit program and speakers, please visit http://aabusi-nessroundtable.org or contact Xiaotang Huang, at (212) 966-0100 or xiaotang@aabdc.com.

About Asian American Business RoundtableAsian American Business Roundtable (AABR)

was created as a think-tank entity of the Asian American Business Development Center (AABDC). It is intended to leverage the collective knowledge, experience and networks of recognized industry leaders - many identified over the past 14 years as “Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business” honorees - to provide a unique and unprecedent-ed source of corporate business intelligence. For more information, visit www.aabusinessround-table.org. n

Global business leaders gather to help corporate diversity at Asian American Business Roundtable Summit

Microsoft, PepsiCo, MasterCard, Xerox and Cisco among key speakers

by Richmond S. meRcuRioPhilstar.com

(818) 502-0651 • (213) 250-9797 • http://www.asianjournal.com LA MIDWEEK ASIAN JOURNAL • JANUARY 20-22, 2016 B�Community Journal

MonetteAdevA MAglAyA

ImmigrantLiving: 101 and Beyond

IF figures are to be believed, 93 million Americans are not working. Every economic and political pundit is harping on the need to create jobs that will bring the country back on track. American economy has been on life-support with the debt clock running in the trillions at hyper speed with Congress who holds the purse strings spending and funding tax dollars on frivolities much like a drunken sailor.

Frankly, I think it will take a sea change of heart and spirit not only in the leadership, from top to bottom, but more importantly, among the majority of ordinary Americans to revive this country back to the glory days.

Perhaps, it’s time to bring moxie back.

It is time to think NATIONAL instead of GLOBAL. Charity be-gins at home, not elsewhere.

What can you say of a country that has outsourced so much of the production of practically all its needs to China, India and all other countries all in the name of improving profits? What can you say of a country that has for-gotten that work itself and the creation of quality products that satisfy the creative impulse of hu-man beings are, by themselves, a blessing to the people who cre-ate them? To create something from concept to actualization is ennobling. To be rewarded for creating something that people find useful and that lasts, has been the secret of what was once a strong US economy.

We have taken advantage of the low wages and traded on the appalling work conditions of oth-er countries and the lower costs of overseas production but in the process, created a serious imbal-ance and a lingering malaise in the psyche of the American work force. Uncontrolled outsourcing has taken away tens of thousands of jobs, which in turn, decimated what was once a strong Ameri-can middle class.

Perhaps a group of economists and business people with dark agenda and financial and politi-cal clout, goofed big time from the early 1990’s. You want to fin-ger point and put the blame on the myopic architects of this eco-nomic disaster. More than likely, they could be regarded as a band

Bringing moxie back“A brave person is someone who takes positiveaction after he has said his prayers.” — Unknown

of conspirators, so-called eco-nomic experts, who sold out the well-being of the country with their economic policies which resulted in the conditions that we are seeing and suffering from these days.

If these were Medieval Times, and you would think it is with the beheadings of Christians by the terror group ISIS, they would be hanging from their toes or boiled in oil in the public square for treason and economic sabo-tage of the highest order.

But for the unemployed who has lost his home and has trouble putting food on his table, none of the finger pointing and the bril-liant but empty rhetoric matters at all. In a situation such as what we have where a significant per-centage of the working class is without a source of income, the times call for a crash course on survival where each man must learn to fend for himself.

We now live in a cynical age when no one, it seems, can be trusted. Even those institutions we used to hold sacred and sac-rosanct are suspect. We assume everyone is a con artist until proven otherwise. We have now learned to steer clear of strang-ers, screen our calls, trash sus-picious emails asking us about account information or be wary of just about anything new. We even refuse to answer the door. In the media and online, we have seen a parade of scandals: from political scumbags, depraved men of the cloth, big-time con artists to scandal-plagued celeb-rities. We seem to be breathing their toxic fumes when they self-destruct into flames. Honor, de-cency, civility and respect are in short supply these days. And we heave a heavy sigh and shake our heads in disbelief.

Our zeitgeist is characterized by distrust and cynicism. It’s been building up for a long time. Zeitgeist is that fancy, $20 Ger-manic word sociologists use to refer to the spirit of the age. There seems to be a collective negative energy that hovers about and af-fects the thoughts and feelings of many who are affected by these seemingly dark times. Perhaps, this is somewhat similar to the dark mood and feelings of help-

lessness that afflicted many who slogged through the long years of the Great Depression.

But we need to shake it off. For us to get back on track, we have to refuse to live in fear and zap out of this paranoia and malaise that can paralyze us into immo-bility. We need to take courage.

Someone once said, “A brave person is someone who takes positive action after he has said his prayers.” Time and again, it’s been found that tough survivors believe in a God who cares, be-lieve in themselves, believe in the correlation between luck and hard work, believe in the great-ness of their country and has de-cided to muster enough moxie to engage the enemy within.

In some ways, we can influ-ence good fortune with the atti-tude, motivation and oftentimes, with sheer moxie, with which we face our individual daily lives. If you expect bad things to happen to you or if you yourself confirm that you are unlucky, more than likely, it will become a self-ful-filling prophecy. You might as well admit it. You’re a sad sack Eeyore with a permanent, black rain cloud hanging over your head. The negative energy you emit repels people who would otherwise be of help to you. You just might be the person who can brighten up a room simply by leaving it.

Perhaps, it’s your personality and there’s nothing you can do about it, not even if you soaked up the brightness of the sun. You were wired to be negative and pessimistic and no motivational speaker can undo you. You’re one tough customer for the Holy Spirit to work wonders with. Fine. But for as long as you think that you have nothing to do with the ill fortune that seems to bedevil your life, you can just live with the dire consequences of fear, anxiety and unhappiness which result from being toxic and always believing the worst of everything.

Particularly during these un-certain times, no one can afford the luxury of a negative thought. But much more so for vulnerable immigrants who are on survival mode, an optimistic can-do atti-tude is a MUST. With this current

If you have an upcoming event and would like us to post it, please email us the details at info@asianjournalinc.com or calendar@asianjournalinc.com

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29th Anniversary Feast of Santo NiñoSanto Niño Cruzada USA, with the participation of the Cathedral Knights of Columbus

and a Sinulog group, is inviting everyone for a holy mass to celebrate the 29th anniversary of the Feast of Santo Niño, the Divine Infant Jesus, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles (555 W Temple St, Los Angeles, CA 90012) on Sunday, January 17, at 3:30pm. The main celebrant is Monsignor Kevin Kostelnik, with Father David Gallardo as concelebrant. For more information, please contact any of the following officers: Romy & Tess Esturas (213-387-9682), Rey & Tess Edpao (818-469-7292), Lilia Figuracion (626-394-2661, Car-men Estrada (213-413-2881), Fe Montana (323-218-1587), Ester Paredes (213-864-1149), Fe Reyes (213-413-5286), Laurie Dolorfino (213-407-0097), and Cherry Guerrero (213-632-2096).

JANUARY 17

Miss Magsingal Organization of America Coronation & Dinner-DanceThe Officers and Members of Miss Magsingal Organization of America (MOA) cordially in-

vites townmates and friends to attend our Miss MOA 2016-17 Coronation and Dinner/Dance on Feb. 6, from 5:00pm -12 midnight at the Hilton of Stockton (2323 Grand Canal Blvd, Stockton, CA). Our Royal Court to be honored and crowned are: Her Majesty Queen, Jillian Foronda; 1st Princess, Jemina Atanaya; and 2nd Princess, Jeramae Luczon. Attire is formal, dinner is $50/person, with live band entertainment. Limited seats are available on a first come first serve basis. For more details, please call Tereso U (209) 603-8440, Lanie (209) 814-8004, and Grace (209) 817-5674. Thank you.

FEBRUARY 6

St. Finbar Catholic Church events- Saturday, January 16 – Feast of Sto. Niño celebration. Sinulog starts at 11:30am. - Saturday, January 23 – Thanksgiving Mass, in honor of San Ildefonso, patron saint of San

Ildefonso, Bulacan, at 5:00pm. Followed by lunch celebration from 12:30 - 3:30pm at New Town Buffet.

- Saturday, February 6 – Valentine Dinner dance from 7:00 - 11:00pm. Cost of ticket is $30. For more information on all events, please contact Marian Nobleza at 818-219-6463.

JANUARY 16 - FEBRUARY 6

Infant Jesus of Prague 9 hour Novena and MassThe Infant Jesus of Prague Apostolic Group is celebrating 32 years of service and prayer,

and will hold its 32nd annual 9-hour Novena and Mass in honor of the Divine Child Jesus on Saturday, January 30, at Saint Joseph the Worker Church (19855 Sherman Way, Winnetka, California). The Novena starts at 7:00am with Mass following at 3:20 pm. Based in San Fern-ando Valley, the Apostolic Group aims to promote the Gospel message of Jesus and spread devotions to the Infant Jesus. For more information, please contact Leo Nevada at (818) 633 3926 or visit www.IJPAG.com.

JANUARY 30

An Intimate Night with Miguel VeraBeat the Valentine’s Day rush and get your tickets to “An Intimate Night with Miguel

Vera,” a special Valentine Show featuring Miguel Vera, performing the greatest OPM hits and romantic Filipino classics by Cayabyab, Canseco, and Cruz. The one-night-only concert will take place at the Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel (7675 Crescent Ave, Buena Park, CA 90620) on February 12 at 8:00pm. Special guests include Annie Nepomuceno and Kit Navarro. Please call (714) 814-0412 or (818) 913-329 for tickets and information. Tickets are $40 each.

FEBRUARY 12

Pilgrimages to Eastern Europe, Mexico and India Amazing Pilgrimages for the Jubilee Year of Mercy! All are welcome to join Fr. Joe

Joseph of Holy Trinity Church for the spiritual and fun-filled experiences of EASTERN EU-ROPE (April 17- 30): Poland, Czech., Austria, Hungary, Medjugorje; COLONIAL MEXICO/OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE (June 20 - 27): Mexico City, Theotihuacan, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Ocotlan, Xochimilco, Guanajuato, San Miguel De Allende, Guadalajara, San Juan De Los Lagos, Cristo Rey, Zapopan, Tonala; and INDIA (September 15 - 29): Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Kolkata, Kerala. For more pilgrimage information and detailed flyers, please contact Berna-dette at bcorp1114@hotmail.com OR call 323-344-1548 & 323-547-6618.

APRIL 17-30

University of the East Tau Alpha Sigma (TAS) fraternity golden anniversaryPlease join us in congratulating TAS for their Golden (50th) Anniversary to be held at

Tower Club, Philamlife Building in Makati, Philippines on February 5, 2016. All brothers from all over the world are encouraged to attend. There will be fun–filled activities includ-ing dancing, singing, reminiscing college days, golf, trips to Bicol, Batangas, and Tagaytay and reconnecting with both old and new TAS brothers and their spouses. Those who have not yet confirmed their attendance, please contact: (USA) Bernie Lim (bernielim@sbcglobal.net) & Rene Marcos (rmarcos_cpa@verizon.net); (PHILIPPINES) Rodrigo Mangay-ayam (rod-man0983@yahoo.com.ph) & Manny Bautista (Manuel.D.Bautista@ph.ey.com).

FEBRUARY 5-15

cancellations during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting in Ma-nila in November may have af-fected the company’s financial performance.

The company said earlier it expects to lose an estimated $18.7 million (about P883 mil-lion) from cancelled flights re-lated to the APEC.

PAL cancelled close to 700 flights which represent 2.5 days of operation during the APEC Leaders’ Meeting to give way to high-level officials attending the event.

During the arrival and depar-ture of heads of states attending the meeting, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport had tempo-rary runway closures.

“October (and) November

were really lean months,” Bau-tista said.

The company also expects to have benefitted from the low prices of oil last year.

PAL recently expanded its operations with the opening of flight services to Kuwait yester-day (Jan. 17).

The carrier is also set to launch flights to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia tomorrow. n

PAL likely carried 12 M passengers in…PAGE B1 t

Atty. LAwrence yAng

Debt Relief

OH, the woes of owning and running a business come in all shapes and sizes! Even when a business is profitable, some-thing can go wrong that wipes it out. This is particularly true with small businesses when an unex-pected lawsuit literally kills the business. Client has operated a successful small business for 5 years. He turns a profit of $50K a year, just enough to pay for his home mortgage all household ex-penses for his young and grow-ing family. About five years ago, client hires an employee to help him run the business for a salary of $1,500 a month. That’s all the small-scale business can afford to pay the employee who was enthusiastic to accept the job. Employee had been out of work for three years and drastically needed income. Client informed employee that $1,500 was the most he could afford to pay him, and that because this was a small business, the two of them would have to do everything to make sure everything was running smoothly. In other words, this was not a regular nine to five job. Deliveries would be made after five, and if there were a lot of orders, he would have to come in earlier and leave later to ship out the orders in time. Employee said that there was no problem, that he was willing to work hard, and would consider the salary heaven sent.

After working for three years at $1,500 a month, he starts to complain to client that he’s not getting paid enough because of all the overtime work that he has put in. Client reminds him that he already informed him at the very beginning that the business could not afford to pay more than $1,500

Business owner seeks chapter 7 relief from employee lawsuit for backpay of $100K

Secured creditor client seeks relief from buyer who filed for Chapter 11

a month, and that employee will-ingly accepted the terms of the offer of employment that it would have a lot of overtime work that would not be paid, and that he accepted those terms. Neverthe-less, employee filed a complaint with the labor department asking for back pay for unpaid overtime for 3 years. The labor department computed that unpaid overtime work to be $2,500 monthly for 3 years. With interest and penalties, the labor department award came out to be $100K for 3 years of back pay! What a turn of events. Cli-ent helps this man by giving him employment, and then he comes around and sues him for $100K. Employers beware. You may be hiring a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In any event, client does not have $100K. Client decides to have a fresh start in life with a Chapter 7 bankruptcy to wipe out the labor department award of $100K for back pay.

In another case, client sold a parcel of land to a developer couple of years ago for $2.0M in installment payments. Developer ran into some problems with city zoning. Developer’s intent was to develop the land into commer-cial property, a strip mall. Un-fortunately, the property was re-zoned into a residence putting a monkey wrench into developer’s business plan. Client decides to foreclose on the property. On the eve of the foreclosure sale date, developer files for Chapter 11 reorganization. Under Chapter 11, debtor can stop payments to client for 3 months, but must start paying client interest or monthly mortgage payments

after 90 days. Otherwise, client can ask the court for relief from the bankruptcy stay and proceed with foreclosure. Client entered into an adequate protection agreement to restart monthly payments at $10K monthly im-mediately. Further the court found that the value of the prop-erty had been reduced to $1.1M because of the rezoning. Howev-er, developer has not been able to present a viable chapter 11 plan to the court for 2 years. Why not? The reason nothing really is going on. Developer is basically stuck, dead in the water, except for new money being infused by new investors, if any, it’s future looks really bleak.

However, recently, developer has asked the court to find that the current value of the property is now $400K, and proposed a plan that crams down the secured portion to $400K, and the $1.6M unpaid balance as unsecured. In other words, developer wants client’s property for free! Client now needs to get his property out of developer’s bankruptcy and proceed with foreclosure.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” — John 3:16

* * *Lawrence Bautista Yang specializes in bankruptcy, business, real estate and civil litigation and has successfully represented more than five thousand clients in California. Please call Angie, Barbara or Jess at (626) 284-1142 for an appointment at 1000 S. Fremont Ave, Mailstop 58, Building A-1 Suite 1125, Alhambra, CA 91803. (Advertising Supplement)

uPAGE B4

Atty. Kenneth UrsUA reyes

Barrister’s Corner

THERE seems to be a miscon-ception in the general public that you can only obtain a divorce in California if your spouse will sign the divorce papers. I get this question a lot from our family law clients. The fact is that California is a no fault state and you do not need your spouse’s signature in order to get a divorce. What is more important is being able to properly serve your spouse with the divorce petition and satisfy the jurisdictional requirement of the Court by showing that either you or your spouse resided in the State for at least 6 months prior to filing the petition and in the County for 3 months prior to fil-ing the petition.

When you file a divorce pe-tition, you have to serve your spouse with the summons and petition. Your spouse then has 30 days to file a response after being served with a divorce petition. If your spouse fails to file and serve you with a response, you can file a request for default against your spouse after 30 days. You can also file a proposed judgment for the court to approve. The default procedure can be done even if there are issues of prop-erty division, custody, visitation, and support. However, the Court will still review your proposed judgment and property division

Can I obtain a divorce if my spouse refuses to sign?to make sure it conforms to the policy towards equal division of community property. Meaning, you have to propose a division of community property that is pretty much equal between the spouses. If your proposed prop-erty division is one sided such as distributing all community prop-erty to you and giving all the com-munity debts to your spouse, the Court would probably not grant your judgment. The Court would probably set a hearing for you to explain why this is an equal divi-sion of community property.

The only time you may need your spouse’s signature is if your spouse files a response to your divorce petition. This is called “contesting” the divorce. If your divorce is contested by your spouse, you can resolve the case either by “settlement” or by “trial.” However, you do not have to settle all the issues in the case at once. Under the concept of divisible divorce, you can set-tle some of the issues and set the other issues which you and your spouse cannot agree on for trial. Our office try to resolve cases through settlement because it is more cost effective and the par-ties are usually happier with the outcome. In that situation, the parties may avoid the cost and uncertainty of going to trial by executing what is called a stipu-lated judgment which is in es-sence an agreement as to all the

issues in the divorce case. For issues which you and your

spouse cannot agree on, you will have to go through the litigation process which involves obtaining discovery, exchanging declara-tions of disclosures, and prepar-ing the case for trial. Ultimately, you will obtain your divorce at trial in addition to adjudication of the distribution of community assets and debts amongst other issues. It is in the best interest of the party to retain the represen-tation of competent counsel who will assert his or her rights under the family code.

* * *Attorney Kenneth Ursua Reyes is a Certified Family Law Specialist. He was President of the Philippine American Bar Association. He is a member of both the Family law section and Immigration law section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He has extensive CPA experience prior to law practice. LAW OFFICES OF KENNETH REYES, P.C. is located at 3699 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 747, Los Angeles, CA, 90010. Tel. (213) 388-1611 or e-mail kureyeslaw@gmail.com or visit our website at Kenreyeslaw.com.

* * *Please note that this article is not legal advice and is

not intended as legal advice. The article is intended

to provide only general, non-specific legal information.

This article is not intended to cover all the issues

related to the topic discussed. The specific facts that

apply to your matter may make the outcome different

than would be anticipated by you. This article does

create any attorney client relationship between you

and the Law Offices of Kenneth U. Reyes, P.C. This article

is not a solicitation. (Advertising Supplement)

JANUARY 20-22, 2016 • LA MIDWEEK ASIAN JOURNAL http://www.asianjournal.com • (818) 502-0651 • (213) 250-9797B� Community Journal

People and Events

Prof. EnriquE M. Soriano

The KiteRunner

Ensuring the family business legacy: My second book

style of management. This book fits as a quick but comprehen-sivereference for understanding what it takes to continue a family business across generations.

Moreover, one of my basic aims as an author is to provide a book that every reader would be able to take something from, whether he or she is a business founder or successor.

Of course, the main benefit for the reader is the variety of Asian family business stories and com-plexities shared here. Most of the stories contain timeless busi-ness insights, inspiration and ad-vice for both the patriarch/busi-ness founder and the younger successor.

These business tips and in-sights are products of my years of consultancy work and experi-ence with various companies, to wit:

a. As Chair of the Marketing Cluster and Family Business Pro-fessor at the ATENEO Graduate School of Business

b. My experience as part of the Executive Committee of theUnilab Group’s property arm, Greenfield Development Corporation;

c. Working and report-ing directly to Andrew Tan as President and Chair of sev-eral companies under his group. Noteworthy was my be-ing handpicked to mentor his el-

H-1B petitions cannot be accepted by cap-subject H-1B employers until April 1, 2016, so what’s the rush?

Typically, there are many steps that an em-ployer needs to take before an H-1B petition can be submitted to the USCIS.

First, it must be determined whether the job and the employee qualify for H-1B status. The job must require that the employee have a mini-mum of a four-year university degree in order to qualify. And the employee must have a degree in the relevant subject. If the employee got his de-gree abroad, a credentials evaluation is required to show that the foreign degree is equivalent to a degree from a university in the US. Also, the sal-ary offered must be the higher of the prevailing wage or the actual wage (if the employer pays his workers more than the prevailing wage).

Second, there is a posting requirement. Un-less the employer is unionized, a notice of the job opening must be posted at the work site for 10 business days.

Third, a Labor Condition Application (LCA) must be filed and approved by the US Depart-ment of Labor. The employer must submit form ETA-9035 online using the iCert system. The LCA must certify the wage requirements have been met, that US workers will not be adversely affected, that there has been no recent strike or lockout and that the posting requirements have been complied with. Bear in mind that it may take a few weeks for the LCA to be approved by the DOL.

Fourth, the H-1B petition must be carefully prepared in order to demonstrate that the job is indeed professional, (.e. it is a common practice to hire some one with a bachelor’s degree for that particular job) and that the job is relevant to that company’s business operations and that the employee is qualified for the position.

Law firms which specialize in employment-based immigration typically have several hun-dred H-1B petition to prepare and submit to the USCIS by the end of March, so make sure to give your attorneys enough time to guide you through the H-1B process.

Employers and employees need to get started on the H-1B process. This is the time to prepare job descriptions, obtain Prevailing Wage Deter-minations (PWDs), post notices and submit La-bor Condition Applications (LCAs) to the Depart-ment of Labor.

During the first week of April 2015, the USCIS received over 233,000 H-1B petitions from cap-subject H-1B employers.

By April 1, 2016, the USCIS will begin accept-ing H-1B petitions. Since there is an annual nu-merical cap of only 85,000 H-1B visas (65,000 for the general cap, and 20,000 for those with advanced degrees in the US), it is very important that a properly completed H-1B petition be sub-mitted to the USCIS on a timely basis. A properly completed H-1B petition will include the follow-ing documents:

• A certified LCA showing that the employer agrees to meet or exceed the prevailing wage for the position;

• Evidence that the occupation requires a min-

imum of a bachelor’s degree in the field of specialty; and

• Evidence that the H-1B profes-sional’s educational credentials and/or experience are suf-ficient to meet the requirements of the position.

Upon approval of the H-1B petition, the professional will be able to commence his or her employ-ment on October 1, 2016. The initial period of employment in H-1B status is granted for up to 3 years and may be extended for an additional 3 years. H-1B profes-sionals whose employers have taken timely steps to apply for permanent residence on their behalf may receive post-6th year extensions. Once an H-1B professional has been counted towards the H-1B cap, he or she can obtain H-1B exten-sions and change employers without regard to the cap.

While most H-1B professionals are educated abroad, a huge number are educated in the US. Generally, these persons have obtained their un-dergraduate or graduate degrees in the US while in F-1 status. F-1 students can obtain Optional Practical Training (OPT) upon graduation and are able to work for their employers prior to ob-taining approval of an H-1B petition. They may also be able to extend their OPT between April 1st and October 1st using the USCIS’ “cap-gap” rule.

For persons with degrees in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics) field, if their employers participate in E-Verify, they can extend their OPT for an additional 17 months. Regulations will soon be published which may extend this period to 24 months.

In the event that the numbers run out by the time that you are able to find an employment opportunity, do not despair! Certain jobs are exempt from the H-1B numerical caps. These include employment “at” universities, at “affili-ated” or “related” organizations or at non-profit or government research institutions.

* * *Attorney Carl Shusterman has over 40 years of experience as an immigration lawyer. He served as an attorney for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) until 1982, when he entered the private practice of law. For more than 10 years, he has been voted as one of the Best Lawyers in America and as a Super Lawyer by his colleagues in the bar. Carl has been named as one of the top 15 corporate immigration attorneys in the U.S. by Human Resource Executive magazine. His hard work and dedication to immigration law have earned him the highest rating (“AV”) in legal ability and ethics from the prestigious Martindale-Hubbell Legal Directory. He has also served as a member of the Immigration and Nationality Law Advisory Commission for the State Bar. Carl is also listed in The International Who’s Who of Corporate Immigration Lawyers and the Chamber’s USA Guide for Leading Business Lawyers.Additionally, he has testified as an expert witness before the Senate Immigration Subcommittee in Washington, D.C.� (Advertising�Supplement)

Why you need to start the H-1B process now

THE Jr. NBA /Jr. WNBA Phil-ippines 2016 presented by Alaska will return to the Philippines for the ninth consecutive year from Jan. 23-April 24. The Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA program is free and open to boys and girls between the ages of 10-14.

Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA, the league’s global youth basketball participation program for boys and girls, teaches the fundamen-tal skills as well as the core val-ues of the game at the grassroots level in an effort to help grow and improve the youth basketball experience for players, coaches and parents. During the 2015-16 season, the Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA program will reach more than 6.5 million youth in 32 countries.

The Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA Philip-pines 2016 presented by Alaska is comprised of four stages: skills clinics in schools and communi-ties, Regional Selection Camps, a National Training Camp and an NBA experience trip. The skills clinics will be held nationwide from January through April with stops in Bukidnon, Butuan, Ca-gayan de Oro, Dagupan, Davao, Iloilo, Metro Manila and Puerto Princesa, and first-time locations in Batangas, Catanduanes and Cavite. Select players from these clinics will have the opportunity to showcase their skills in try-outs during the Regional Selec-tion Camps, which will be held in Baguio (Feb. 20-21), Davao (Feb. 27-28), Cebu (March 5-6) and Metro Manila (April 9-10). The top 50 boys and 24 girls from the Regional Selection Camps will advance to the National Training Camp in Manila April 22-24.

An NBA and WNBA player or legend will be in attendance at the National Training Camp

Jr. NBA & Jr. WNBA Philippines encourage youth basketball participation

to help train and inspire the finalists. The program will cul-minate with the selection of 10 Jr. NBA and five Jr. WNBA All-Stars who will travel on an overseas NBA experience trip together with fellow Jr. NBA All-Stars from Southeast Asia. The 2015 Jr. NBA All-Stars traveled to China to watch the NBA Global Games in Shenzhen featuring the Charlotte Hornets and the L.A. Clippers.

“The Jr. NBA Philippines is the league’s longest-running youth basketball program outside the United States,” said NBA Philip-pines Managing Director Carlo Singson. “The program contin-ues to positively impact the lives of children, parents, and coach-es, and reinforces the positive values that go beyond the four corners of the court. Together with Alaska, we are committed to providing world-class basketball instruction to more communities to further our mission of encour-aging an active lifestyle among Filipino youth.”

“These holistic programs train children to be confident, disciplined and hardworking because Alaska Milk Corpora-tion aims to prepare them to be winners in life in the future,” said Alaska Marketing Director Blen Fernando. “Moreover, this year’s program includes new lo-cations such as Batangas, Catan-duanes and Cavite to reach more children and coaches and dis-cover unique talents across the country.”

In addition to the player camps and clinics, the search for the 2016 Jr. NBA Coach of the Year will begin on Jan. 22 in Ma-nila, which will be led by Jr. NBA Head Coaches Craig Brown and

Chris Sumner along with Alaska Power Camp Coach Jeff Cariaso. Ten Jr. NBA and four Jr. WNBA coaches will be selected as final-ists and trained at the National Training Camp.

Through the promotion of proper nutrition and an active lifestyle, Jr. NBA /Jr. WNBA presented by Alaska continues to be an effective platform in implementing Alaska Milk’s NU-TRITION.ACTION.CHAMPION. program that helps address the issue of overweight and under-nourished children in the Philip-pines.

CloudFone, Gatorade, and Globe Telecom serve as Official Partners of the Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA in the Philippines, while Spalding is a Supporting Partner. ABS-CBN Sports + Action, Basketball TV and NBA Premium TV are the Official NBA Broadcasters of the Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA in the Philip-pines.

The Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA pro-gram is free and open to boys and girls ages 10-14. Coaches and participants can now register online at www.jrnba.asia/philip-pines, where the program terms and conditions can be found.

Fans can also follow Jr. NBA on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jrnbaphilippines. For all things NBA, visit www.nba.com and follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/philsnba) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/nba_philippines).

The NBA is a global sports and media business built around three professional sports leagues: the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, and the NBA De-velopment League. The league

economic morass, a big chunk of the immigrant population along with many more in the middle class, will regress back to surviv-al mode, quite by default. Many who have moved to more com-fortable levels but were caught by the real estate slump and lost their homes, may find themselves sliding back to square one and engaging in the daunting pros-pect of finding a job.

Do take heart. Most immigrants who come from poverty-stricken nations have what it takes to sur-vive times such as these. They have had plenty of practice.

Jobs to your liking and at the

compensation you were accus-tomed to in the past, may be harder to find these days. You may have to just take what is available and expedient, just for the time being. Though media is touting an economic recovery, the job numbers are misleading be-cause these are mostly part time MacJobs which offer no benefits. The slump is longer and deeper, than anyone can imagine. But as in everything else under the sun, THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

* * *Nota Bene: Monette Adeva Maglaya is SVP of Asian Journal Publications, Inc. To send comments, e-mail monette.maglaya@asianjournalinc.com

Bringing moxie…PAGE B3 t

THAT’S the title of my second book! After three years and three copy editors, my book is now available!

To give you an idea on how this book was conceptualized, let me share with you two distinct reasons. First, the family busi-ness in Asia has grown consider-ably in the past decades. It has made an impact in China, India, the Philippines, Singapore, Ma-laysia, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

In the Philippines, there are quite a number of family busi-nesses that are at least 100 years old such as the Ayala-Zobel and Aboitiz clans. I can mention a friend and former neighbor, Dr. Vivian Sarabia, whose family business, Sarabia Optical, is way past its centennial mark. (The family has been making the eye-glasses of all Philippine presi-dents since the time of Com-monwealth President Manuel L. Quezon. Dr. Sarabia herself made a new pair for President Aquino to wear during his oath-taking ceremony last June 30, 2010.) Those that have reached the third generation are gener-ally more structured as their or-ganizations naturally evolved.

The second reason has some-thing to do with my experi-ence as mentor and business consultant. I was deluged with cases and stories from clients and students about their family business, and most importantly about the issues and problems

related to business succession. Majority of these businesses are still in their first or second genera-tion and managed by founder-owners or sib-ling-partners. In these firms, one witnesses the struggle between maintaining family har-mony and gaining re-spectable profits. The family business own-ership group is the real engine for long-term success and yet we invest so little time in keeping it healthy. Somehow, we assume it will naturally stay strong with a unified vision for the future.

The need for a book on Asian Family Business really struck home. Almost every member of a family business is interested in continu-ing the life of his or her business as an innovative and successful endeavor until the third genera-tion and beyond. It was then that I realized the imperative of writ-ing a book about the Asian fam-ily businesses.

The stories of successful Asian business tycoons and their suc-cession problems can encapsu-late everything a client or student engaged in a family business needs to know.

Today, business successors are more inclined to shift from the founder’s patriarchal per-spectives to a more corporate

uPAGE B5

uPAGE B5

by Attorney CArl ShuStermAn

SCA Alumni Association International, Inc. is Homeward Bound in February of 2016.

The St. Catherine’s Academy Alumni Associa-tion International, Inc. is sending its Health Fair Team of Doctors, Surgeons and Nurses to conduct its first Medical, Surgical and Dental Health Fair in its hometown of Gattaran, Cagayan, Philippines.

They will be joined by local SCA alumni based in Gattaran who have already laid the ground work for this medical project.

The health fair will be conducted at two separate locations and dates. One at St. Catherine’s Acad-emy gymnasium on February 12, 2016 and the

other is at Nagbaccayan Gymnasium on February 12, 2016.

This special medical mission is the fruit of a combined efforts of SCA Alumni Association Inter-national, Inc. and the local SCA Alumni Association based in Gattaran. This is also planned through the cooperation of the townspeople leaders who lined up their reciepients who needed special medical, surgical and dental treatments and live below pov-erty level.

Medical equipments, related medicines and drugs come from donations from solicitations and fund raising events by SCAAAI, Inc. n

Atty. Carl Shusterman

SCAAAI, Inc. Newsletter

(818) 502-0651 • (213) 250-9797 • http://www.asianjournal.com LA MIDWEEK ASIAN JOURNAL • JANUARY 20-22, 2016 B�PeoPle & events

dest son Kevin from day one until he became vice president;

d. Working as Group Chief Ex-ecutive Officer (CEO) of Belo Medical and mentoring Dr. Vicki Belo’s daughter, Cristalle Henares;

e. Family Business Mentor-ing is a core service of Wong and Bernstein Business Advisory Group where I mentored andstill mentoring several family owned businesses —initiating a shift from family owned and man-aged to family inspired;

f. Doing advocacy and turn-around strategies for Small a n d M e d i u m E n t e r p r i s e s (SMEs) and family business-es andmentoring young entre-preneurs and students at the ATENEO Graduate School of Business.;

g. Doing Receivership of and ini-tiating rehabilitation of distressed family owned companies; and

h. Being a Strategic Advisor to the JG Summit Group and its affiliates

To further compliment the chapters of the book, I in-cluded apowerful bonus fea-ture about the phenomenal rise of Andrew Tan, the challenges

and adversities he faced and his climb to being the country’s third wealthiest Filipino.

It is reassuring to know that the vibrancy of the Asian fam-ily business has been captured in this book. Thus, we can look around and realize that Asia is at par with its western counter-parts in terms of successful man-agement succession planning as far as family businesses are concerned. (sorianoasia@gmail.com)

* * Prof.  Soriano  is  an ASEAN Family Business Advisor,  Book  Author,  Executive  Director of  Asean-based  Consulting  group, Wong  + Bernstein  Advisory  and  Program Director for  Real  Estate  and  the  former  Chair  of the  Marketing  Cluster  of  the  ATENEO Graduate  School  of  Business. He  is  slated to deliver a talk on Philippine Business and Franchising Opportunities. The first talk is in NY on Feb 1 at the Philippine Consulate and Boston on Feb 4 at the Harvard Campus and in LA. The talk is organized by the Philippine Consulate in New York, in coordination with the Bagong  Kulturang  Pinoy  (bkpinc.org), The  Harvard  Philippine  Forum, TFC  with Asian  Journal  as media  partner. For  those interested to attend, pls email nzuelke@gmail.com.  Prof Soriano’s business articles can also be accessed at www.Faminbusiness.com  (Advertising Supplement)

Ensuring the family business…PAGE B4 t

has established a major interna-tional presence with games and programming in 215 countries and territories in 49 languages, and NBA merchandise for sale in more than 125,000 stores in 100 countries on 6 continents. NBA rosters at the start of the 2015-16 season featured 100 interna-tional players from 37 countries and territories. NBA Digital’s assets include NBA.com and the NBA app, which achieved re-cord traffic during the 2014-15 season, as well as NBA TV. The NBA has created one of the larg-est social media communities in the world, with more than 960 million likes and followers glob-ally across all league, team, and player platforms. Through NBA Cares, the league addresses im-portant social issues by working with internationally recognized youth-serving organizations that support education, youth and family development, and health-related causes.

Alaska Milk recognizes the need of Filipino children for proper nutrition. According to the 2011 National Nutrition Survey conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Insti-

Jr. NBA & Jr. WNBA Philippines encourage youth…PAGE B4 t

tute (FNRI), it was revealed that 3 out of 10 children aged 5-10 years were underweight while 8 out of 100 children of the same age were overweight, making malnutrition and obesity two of the most pressing nutritional problems in the Philippines to-day. Alaska Milk is committed to help provide proper nutri-tion through its leading brands, Alaska Powdered Milk Drink and Alaska Chocolate Powdered Milk Drink. It contains 20+ essen-tial nutrients that help children

reach their full growth potential. Aside from proper nutrition, an active lifestyle is needed in order to shape and nurture healthier children. Because of this, Alaska Milk encourages children to “go out and play” through its NU-TRITION. ACTION. CHAMPION. programs: Alaska Basketball and Football Power Camps and Cups, Alaska IronKids Triathlon, Alaska Family Run and Alaska Cycle Philippines. At the same time, Alaska Milk has a professional basketball team, the 14-time PBA

champion, Alaska Aces, which continues to inspire the youth to become future champions who are guided by positive values. Finally, Alaska Milk partners with excellent local and interna-tional organizations who share the same objectives, vision, and values namely the Philippine Basketball Association, National Basketball Association, World Triathlon Corporation, Cycle Asia, Makati and Alabang Foot-ball Schools and Sunrise Events, Incorporated. n

Jr NBA Jr WNBA Philippines 2015 All-Stars with Philadelphia 76er Nerlens Noel and WNBA Legend Ruth Riley

SERVICES

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The Asian Journal

MDWKMAGAZINEWednesday, January 20, 2016

Photo by Ding Carreon

The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - January 20, 2016

2 cover story

by Christina M. Oriel/AJPress

Amid volumes of law books, several pieces of NBA memorabilia — from dolls of various players to a large painting of Michael Jordan — sit on the shelves of Judge Teresa Magno’s office inside the courthouse in Compton, California.

An inside look at the life of LA Superior Court Judge Teresa Magno

Teresa Magno was sworn in as judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court on Jan. 5, 2015. Photo by Charlie Portillo

This contradiction between professional and quirky ap-propriately captures Magno’s essence. And if you happen to land in her courtroom, either as a potential juror or defendant (hopefully, just for a misdemeanor), it might be a surprise that it is not as intimi-dating as courtrooms are often portrayed.

“I’m a wannabe comedi-an,” she joked, breaking away from her seriousness. “I think that somewhat of an informal approach gets [people in court] to talk more.” But at the same time, she maintains that balance with upholding deco-rum so defendants understand the severity of committing a crime.

Magno recently marked her first year as a judge for the Los Angeles Superior Court in Compton, where a few years ago she was a deputy district attorney prosecuting some of the most violent gang-related crimes in LA county.

To date, there are 11 Filipino-American judges in the state of California; nine of them are in LA County, includ-ing Magno who won the seat in 2014. But Magno is the first Filipino-American judge to be elected, as the other judges had been appointed to the bench.

An idealistic view of politics

Growing up in the Phil-ippines in the ‘70s, Magno recalled how her family’s land was taken away by the government under President Ferdinand Marcos and how her father’s colleague was a victim of an extrajudicial killing — two experiences that moti-vated her to one day pursue a career that brought justice for victims.

“At that time, I [had] always been interested in politics. I remember my dream was to be the first female president of the Philippines…until Cory Aquino beat me to it,” she said. “In the Philip-pines, those who wanted to be in politics became a lawyer. So in the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer.”

Magno, along with her mother and three brothers, immigrated to the United States in 1987, where she at-tended the final two years of high school. When it came to her college plans, a meeting with a school counselor struck a cord with her, and continues to do so to this day.

“Before [the counselor] found out anything about me, because what I was expecting from her was to ask about my goals, what I wanted to be, and here’s how you get there. Without asking [any of] those questions, she immediately gave me brochures to Glen-dale Community College that she said had a good nursing program and some other brochures to nursing schools,” she recalled. “I had no idea that mainstream had this idea of Filipinos being in nursing school, so I didn’t connect the

dots until later on after the more years I spent here that it’s a stereotype.”

She revealed her dreams of being a lawyer and attend-ing a big university, to which the counselor advised her to be ‘realistic.’ But, Magno’s mother pushed her to apply anyway. When she was ac-cepted to all the schools she applied to, including UCLA and UC Berkeley, she showed off the acceptance letters to the counselor.

“She was genuinely happy for me, so I’m convinced that when she gave me that unfounded advice about junior college, I don’t think it was malicious or she was trying to put me down,” she said. “I think it was an over-worked, LAUSD employee who relied on the shortcut and stereotypes. But I did get a lot of satisfaction from going in there and showing off my letters of acceptance from the various universities.”

Magno settled for UCLA, where she went in as a po-litical science major, inching along her path to becoming a politician. But interning with then-California State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown put a damper to those ambitions.

“…I got a taste of politics firsthand and I did not like [it]. I had a very idealistic and un-realistic perspective. I thought it was about principles; the politician does the right thing, but it’s not. You get an idea of what you want to do and you see how the voters feel about it. I was too idealistic to survive in politics,” she said, adding that by the time she graduated, she majored in history, with a specialization in Asian American studies.

A public championAfter college, Magno

went straight to UCLA School of Law, where she was the president of her graduating class, co-chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Law Students Association (APILSA), a board member of the National Asian Pacific American Law Student Association (NAPALSA), and student representative to the school’s admissions commit-tee.

During her first year, an attorney from Florida gave a presentation during a criminal law class and showed photos of a murdered child whose body was recovered from a body of water.

“What bugs me to this day is the image of this child who had become bloated and looked like a doll,” she described, “[and] to be told that this child was murdered by his own father… was such an emotional thing. I remem-ber saying I don’t want to do criminal law and felonies because it was too much.”

The harrowing images drove her to declare that she wouldn’t dare become a district attorney.

However, her mentor As-sistant United States Attorney David Sklansky pushed her

toward a career in prosecu-tion, which then led to an internship with the LA City Attorney’s domestic violence unit.

“My mentality is that I want to save people. I want to be a superwoman. Up until that point, I decided that maybe I could be a public defender or civil rights attor-ney because I would be able to save people with my law school education,” she said.

Much to her astonishment, Magno found the experience rewarding.

“What that experience taught me was that for the most part, it’s not the in-nocent being charged. A lot of them actually committed the crime. I realized that if I’m going to be someone’s ‘champion,’ why I don’t be the champion of the victim as opposed to the wrongfully ac-cused because the wrongfully accused is pretty rare? That was the big revelation that summer.”

Despite her initial opposi-tion to murder cases, Magno was hired by the DA’s office as a trial lawyer.

From there, she was as-signed to the Hardcore Gang Unit in Compton, considered one of the most prestigious in the county; after all, the city’s reputation has notoriously been painted as a breeding ground for gangs and drive-by shootings.

“Fast forward, I got into the Hardcore Gang Unit and for seven years, I handled nothing but murder and attempted murder cases. I had to deal with crime scene photos of dead people and it turned out that I was okay with it and had it in me. I was so certain in law school that I just did not have the right mind frame for that,” she said, sharing some stories of the saddest cases “that to this day breaks your heart” in which the victims were not gang members, but just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Throughout her career, Magno has handled 81 felony jury trials, including 41 gang-related murder cases and five attempted murder cases (in-cluding more publicized cases like the killing of a youth minister and a triple murder) in Compton, Inglewood, Tor-rance and Hawthorne. All of the murder cases had a 100 percent conviction rate — a rare feat.

Being in such an environ-ment taught Magno to not be deterred by gang members’ threats and use of intimida-tion. However, it did take a toll on her personally.

“I did my best to not think about the cases but I’m also cognizant of the fact that that period was around the time I was diagnosed with insomnia. Strangely after I was done with that, my insomnia went away so I think I allowed it to affect me personally and health-wise too.”

AJPress photo by Ding Carreon

She added, “it ages you because for one thing, the cases are hard and [there is] heartbreak. You are the liaison to the victim’s family. It’s the most painful thing that any parent or family member can go through. They have to go to court and every time, they have to hear what happened to their loved one.”

Making historyMagno’s record as a prose-

cutor drew praise from judges, who encouraged her to apply to become a judge as well.

“To be frank, I did not ever think I wanted to be a judge because there aren’t many Filipino-American judges you could look up to or are well-known enough…I didn’t know about the other Fil-Am judges and I thought [becom-ing a judge] was a high dream. I’m a first-generation Filipino immigrant. How many first-generation Filipino immigrants become judges?” she said.

After waiting for months on the status of her applica-tion, Judge David Milton, whom she previously worked for, encouraged her to run since he was retiring from his seat in the LA County Superior Court.

Subduing her distaste for politics, Magno ran for the seat anyway — garnering ma-jor endorsements from other judges and labor and law enforcement organizations.

“It wasn’t a pleasant ex-perience running. I think part of it is the Filipino concept of hiya (shame). When you’re running for politics, there’s no room for hiya because you have to promote yourself because you only have a few minutes to convince people to vote for you and that just [counters] my upbringing. And also, the principles I learned: it’s not about the right thing but what people want to hear and get the votes in, I just did not like that whole thing,” she explained. “I knew if I wasn’t successful, I still had my job as a [Grade 4] DA.”

She ran against Songhai Armstead, a prosecutor at the LA City Attorney’s office, and won 247,094 votes (52.35 percent) during the primary election in June 2014. Though she had six months until she would take office the follow-ing January, Magno insisted on continuing her work as DA, as there were three more cases she was determined to bring to trial.

“I’m looking at how I became a judge and it wasn’t about connections at all. I never knew anyone who was connected to the governor [nor] did I know politicians because I stayed away from them. But it was because I did well as a DA when judges took notice and it was really the judges who encouraged me to run. For a Filipino-American immigrant, I won because I had mainstream support,” she said.

The court’s refereeIt has been a year since

Magno took the judge’s bench. Though she’s spent nearly two decades in court-rooms as a lawyer, being a ‘referee’ in the legal system presents a whole new set of lessons and experiences. For one, she has more time on her hands.

“This job is not fun, but rather it’s very rewarding. I love basketball — I’m an NBA fan — so the analogy is this: there are so many superstar players who love basketball and as a trial lawyer, you’re one of those players who gets to play basketball. Now, I’m the referee. I don’t get to dunk the ball or do the fun stuff…It’s not fun, but it’s so essential to ensuring that the game is played right. I may not be having the kind of fun I had as a trial lawyer, but what I get to do now is make sure the process is fair and that’s such an integral part in making sure that the system works for everyone. It’s as demanding and difficult as I had anticipated because every decision you make, and you probably make about 100 a day, directly affects someone’s life…It could be draining,” she shared.

In the past 12 months, what has been a revelation was how ‘satisfying’ presid-ing over misdemeanor cases could be.

“What surprised me was that when I handled misde-meanor cases, I actually find that to be rewarding because, it’s basically people who made foolish mistakes for the most part, like the one who had too many glasses of wine or the one who lost it and slapped his wife. I think the contrast from what I did in the last seven years, where they’re all murders, judges don’t have much say in rehabilitation because sentences are mandatory,” she described. “There isn’t much to do for judges except for being the referee when trials are being held. But for a misdemeanor, a judge has so many options available to rehabilitate someone and I wasn’t expecting that to make me feel great, but it does.”

One of the recent tri-umphs she shared was a gang member who finally apolo-gized after routinely showing up late for court appearances.

“Deep inside, I was so happy that at least in this

one case, he sort of learned his lesson and saw there’s an alternative to this gangster life…Those are rare moments, but every now and then, you get something like that shows you are making a difference and that someone is improv-ing their life because you’re giving them a chance instead of just putting them in jail. Putting someone in jail is easy, but it doesn’t really do much in terms of rehabilita-tion,” she said.

It’s a turning point for Magno as well in realizing that there are other options for defendants besides jail, such as probation, counseling and classes. And her new posi-tion requires her to distrib-ute equal weight to various aspects to ensure the system is fair.

“The balancing is the hard part, that on a daily basis gives me pause. The big dif-ference is that when I was a DA, I had to prosecute the case. But now, it’s balancing the defendant’s rights — I’m not a DA anymore so I have to make sure the defendant’s rights are protected — and the victim’s rights. I have to make sure my staff isn’t overworked or the jail isn’t overcrowded by my flaky de-fendants. That part is harder. Maybe it will get easier, but I was told it wouldn’t,” she said, adding that she has to think how many chances can be afforded to an individual.

“It’s also deciding how many chances do you give someone who’s just a flake. I started off thinking that ev-eryone has two chances, but if I did that, half of [the city] would be in custody.”

Though she says she’s far from her picture of the ‘ideal judge,’ she is looking to continue on this path beyond 2021 when her term ends.

“This is it for me. I want to be a trial judge until I retire. I don’t have any aspirations for any court of appeals because it’s reading transcripts and appealing what someone said in a trial court, so all you deal with are the lawyers. I want to be at this level where on a daily basis you see life — I ex-perience firsthand the drama called life. That’s where I want to be,” she said.

“The reward and satisfac-tion that I feel [are] very much alive in my heart. I love what I do.”

Judge Teresa Magno in her office at the Compton Courthouse (AJPress photo by Ding Carreon)

entertainment 3The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - January 20, 2016

#OscarsSoWhite: Celebrities boycott Academy Awards for lack of Oscar nominee diversity

By Allyson EscobAr AJPress

The announcement for Oscar nominations on Thursday, Jan. 14 drew sharp criticism, when all of the nominees in the major acting categories were exclusively white.

The nominees for the 88th annual Academy Awards, known for its prestigious Oscar awards that give actors leverage for more casting roles and bet-ter pay, were announced from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly hills, California by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, along with direc-tor Guillermo del Toro, Ang Lee, and actor John Krasinski.

“The Revenant,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Spotlight, “Bridge of Spies,” “The Big Short,” “The Martian,” “Brooklyn,” and “Room” were all nominated for Best Picture, hollywood’s top prize. “The Revenant” led all films with 12 nominations.

In the individual catego-ries, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Bryan Cranston, Michael Fassbender and eddie Redmayne were all nominated for Best Actor. Cate Blanchett, Brie Larson, Charlotte Rampling,

Saoirse Ronan, and Jennifer Lawrence were among those nominated in the Best Actress category.

Big-name actors like Will Smith (in “Concussion”), Idris elba (“Beasts of No Nation”), Michael B. Jordan, and “Creed” director Ryan Coogler, were snubbed for nominations. “The Revenant” director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who is hispanic, was nominated as Best Director and is the only person of color on the main list.

“Straight Outta Compton,” the only film made up of a ma-jority black cast, was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but the writers for the film are white. “What happened, Miss Simone?,” the documen-tary about the career of singer, songwriter and pianist Nina Simone, and ethiopian R&B art-ist The Weeknd’s “Fifty Shades of Grey” hit “earned It” were also honored with nominations.

“In the last few years there has been this chatter about the Oscars being less whitewashed because you have had some major and some historical repre-sentations of people of color,” said Stephane Dunn, director of the Cinema Television & emerg-

ing Media Studies program at Morehouse College.

“It was like hollywood, the Academy, didn’t know what to do with so many noteworthy, critically lauded films directed by black directors with such fine award-worthy best actor and supporting actress performanc-es,” she added. “hollywood, the Academy, could not imag-ine these dominating major categories so one film among them was basically chosen to be The One. It was 12 Years a Slave.”

Last year, the Academy also received fierce backlash after Selma director Ava DuVernay and actor David Oyelowo (who played Martin Luther King, Jr.) were both excluded from the nominees’ list.

The viral hashtag #Os-carsSoWhite, created by social media blogger April Reign, drew attention to the blatant ra-cial disparity in Academy Award nominations, reported Forbes.

“By only awarding Oscars to white actors, the Academy Awards are perpetuating wage disparities that are not only prominent in the entertain-ment industry, but also span all

Steve Harvey: Pia Wurtzbach ‘an absolute class act’ALMOST a month after he

fumbled announcing the correct Miss Universe on live TV, host Steve harvey finally got a chance to do a sit-down interview with winner Pia Wurtzbach, and called her an “absolute class act” for accepting his apology.

During the pageant’s corona-tion night last December, harvey mixed up the results of the pag-eant after he initially announced Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez as the winner.

he later apologized and de-clared Wurtzbach as the rightful winner.

During the interview on the “Steve harvey Show,” Wurtz-bach recalled keeping a “safe distance” from Gutierrez because she was concerned with how the latter was feeling.

“I tried to keep a safe dis-tance from her so as not to disre-

spect her. I didn’t want her to feel bad. I was being sensitive to her feelings. So when I was standing there, I was very happy, I was excited. But I was also thinking about her; I could not help but think about how tough this must be for her,” Wurtzbach said.

harvey apologized again, say-

ing he hopes there could be heal-ing for Wurtzbach and Gutierrez, and that he wished they “could have all gotten it right” during the night of the pageant.

The 26-year-old beauty queen from Cagayan de Oro City said that while the controversy

In the promotional clip released by Harvey’s YouTube channel, Wurtzbach is seen giving advice to the 58-year-old host, saying that everyone should move forward already. Screengrab from the Steve Harvey Show

Continued on Page 5

Continued on Page 4

4The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - January 6, 2016

featuresWatermelon’s surprising health benefits

PNBRCI holds drawings for‘Magpadala Magpalipad’ promo

Three lucky individuals from the United States are now going on vacation to the Philip-pines, thanks to PNB remit-tance Centers Inc. (PNBrCI)’s “Magpadala Magpalipad” promotion in cooperation with Philippine Airlines.

Those who remitted money through any US location of PNBrCI from Oct. 15, 2015 to Jan. 14, 2016 received one raffle entry for a chance to win one of three tickets back to the Philippines. The prizes included: 1st prize—a business class roundtrip ticket from Los Angeles to Manila; 2nd prize—an economy class roundtrip ticket from Los Angeles to Manila plus a domestic ticket to any Philippine domestic destination; and 3rd prize — an economy class roundtrip ticket from Los Angeles to Manila.

The drawings were wit-nessed by ricky Villacisneros, president and CeO of PN-BrCI, Joanne rivera, business

development head and general manager of PNB’s LA Branch, and Marie Jemma B. Saranillo, area manager of Philippine Air-lines in LA on Friday, Jan. 15.

randomly selected from over 100,000 valid transac-tions, resty Pagala of Chicago, Illinois won the first prize; the 2nd prize went to eden Donato of San Jose, California; and lastly, Jun Oliveros of National City, California received the 3rd prize.

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The drawings for the “Magpadala Magpalipad” promo were witnessed by Jomito Torres, Philippine Airlines senior account officer for passenger sales, PNBRCI President and CEO Ricky Villacisneros, Marie Jemma B. Saranillo of Philippine Airlines, Joanne Rivera, business development head and general manager of PNB’s LA Branch, and Monette Maglaya, senior vice president of Asian Journal Publications, Inc.

PNBRCI President and CEO Ricky Villacisneros introduces the drawings for the “Magpadala Magpalipad” promo on Friday, Jan. 15.

PNBRCI President and CEO Ricky Villacisneros and Marie Jemma B. Saranillo, area manager of Philippine Airlines in Los Angeles . AJPress photos by Ding Carreon

by Willie T. Ong, MD Philstar.com

DID you know that watermel-ons may help prevent cancer and other diseases? recent studies are just discovering the wonderful benefits of this fruit.

According to Dr. Bhimu Tail, director of Texas A&M’s Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center, “The more we study watermel-ons, the more we realize just how amazing a fruit it is… the list of its very important health benefits grows longer with each study.”

For starters, every two cups of watermelon (280g) contain 80 calories, zero fat, 27g of carbohy-drate, 10mg sodium, 80mcg of vi-tamin A, lots of vitamin Bs, 80mg of vitamin C, 18mg of lycopene, and ample amounts of potassium, iron, and calcium.

• May help prevent cancer and slow down aging. The deep-red watermelon variety contains the pigment lycopene, which helps counter the bad ef-fects of free radicals circulating in the body. Once we reduce these free radicals, we can theoretically slow down aging.

• Good for the eyes. Watermelon’s vitamin A and vitamin C contents are beneficial for our eyes. Yellow watermelon is a good source of lutein, which is important for preventing age-re-lated macular degeneration.

• Good for the heart and blood vessels. US Department of Agriculture researchers report that eating watermelons increases our body’s arginine levels, an important amino acid (Journal of Nutrition, March 2007). Arginine is a component needed to produce nitric oxide, a substance that re-laxes the blood vessels, improves blood flow, and may save us from a heart attack and stroke. In addition, watermelon may help people with high blood pressure because of arginine’s vessel-dilat-

ing effect and its potassium and magnesium contents.

• May be good for sex. Citrulline is the special nutrient in watermelon that gives rise to ar-ginine. One gram of watermelon flesh contains 1.5mg of citrulline. When citrulline is converted to arginine, this can lead to the relaxation of the blood vessels, which is the same basic effect of drugs for erectile dysfunction like Viagra and Andros. Watermelon may not be as potent as these drugs, but it can still help the heart, brain, and male sexual or-gan, too. And watermelon comes without the drug’s side effects.

• Your source of alkaline water. The good news is that watermelon is made of 92 percent pure alkaline water. A lot has been said about the pos-sible benefits of alkaline water. Compared to the acidic juices of orange and pineapple, watermel-on is safe for your stomach.

• Good for the mouth and digestive tract. Watermelon has health benefits for the whole digestive tract, starting from the mouth, to the esophagus, and down to the stomach and intes-tines. Watermelon can relieve the pain of people with singaw or mouth sores. Some experts claim that watermelon can also mini-mize bad breath. And as it goes down to the intestines, it can treat constipation and normalize your bowel movement.

• Good for the kidneys, bladder, and those with gout. Just like coconut water, water-melons are effective for cleansing the kidneys and bladder. If you have urinary tract infection or kidney stones, drinking lots of watermelon juice (and distilled water, too) can help you with your condition. Moreover, water-melon does not contain uric acid, and can help people with gout by reducing the amount of uric acid

in the body.• Your natural energy drink.

Watermelon boasts a rich source of B vitamins, electrolytes, and potassium. The B vitamins are needed for energy production and potassium is essential for heart and muscle contraction.

• Prevents heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Watermelon has long provided a safe source of fluid for many desert regions in the world. Watermelon’s cooling effect comes from its component citrulline, which is converted to arginine in the body. Arginine can help remove ammonia from the body (bad stuff in the urine).

• Treatment for heat rash and burns. Watermelon pulp can be used to treat heat rash and burns. heat rashes are pimple-like eruptions at the back and chest area due to excessive sweating and heat. Try this as a home remedy: Put a watermelon rind in a refrigerator and let it cool. After a few hours, apply the inner part of the rind on the affected areas of the body. The cooling effect of watermelon rind relieves the heat rash.

And lastly, did you know that researchers have discov-ered that watermelon contains more glutathione per bite than 95 other fruits and vegetables? For the ladies, glutathione means skin whitening and anti-oxidants.

Tips for storing watermelon: Watermelon should be left uncut if stored at room temperature. The lycopene levels are still main-tained as long as it is not opened. But once you slice it, you need to refrigerate it. You can also cover the watermelon with plastic to prevent the juice from evaporat-ing.

For today, why not try and enjoy a sweet and juicy slice of watermelon? It’s healthy and refreshing!

Steve Harvey: Pia Wurtzbach...has shadowed her coronation, she hopes that she would still be able to inspire many people.

“I wish I had more time to tell people about my life back in the Philippines. It wasn’t easy,” she said.

“But I think I have the whole year to tell them about my story.

And I do hope that I get to inspire people that people could throw stones at you but, I read this one quote, “a real queen knows how to make an empire with the same stones thrown at her,” so that’s what I want people to learn,” she added.

She then consoled harvey, who admitted earlier in the show

From Page 3

how difficult it was for him and his family to deal with the backlash following the mix-up.

“Don’t beat yourself up anymore. Let’s move forward and let’s be happy,” Wurtzbach told harvey.

The 58-year-old host respond-ed and praised Wurtzbach, saying “Thank you for coming. I thought you were an absolute class act, absolute class act.”

5The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - January 20, 2016

featuresBusy lives, healthy habitsMango Mix

by Martin Jason

L. ita-asMoonlighting

by MyLah de Leon

Oh, if I were a man

A womAn is not spared from humiliation, servitude and abuses. She could get raped in a dark street. She has to make use of a pretty face to be accepted at first glance, and a shapely body to hide her intelligence. She will hear nasty remarks if she sleeps with someone she likes. At least, a woman has no tail in front, so she couldn’t order you to be killed or slaugh-tered in a horrible senseless way.

People forget that the brain has no sex, just like behavior.

oh, but if I were a man. I’ll be a hellion. I’d be a rake.

I cannot imagine a better occupation of spare time than the seduction of a number of different women -- depending on how much vitality you have, and how fond you are of the opposite sex.

Isn’t this theory, that this kind of sport is a sign of imma-turity in men and disturbance in women, rather preposterous?

I’ve met mature, productive and distinguished women. If you’re a woman, it’s seduction by a number of different men that have trod the primrose path. And many wise women have, in their time, tasted the delights of compliance.

How is one to recognize and practice virtue, if one has not experienced its absence? what good is control if one has not endured the consequences of its lack thereof?

The church (a least in my unlamented years with the nuns) has done its best to discredit dilatory passion, which is prob-ably why most men have a limited understanding of women and most women have suffered from this ignorance.

It is common knowledge that the domesticated man may be safe, but he is not exciting at all!

As a man, if I marry, I would prefer a woman who knows almost as much as I do. I hasten to say “almost” because men like to teach and they have the edge of experience.

All great lovers articulate and verbal seduction is the sur-est road to actual seduction.

Any man who knows this can prevail over a handsome, tongue-tied rival.

Young men can afford to be speechless blunderers, but if they want to exert attraction in later years, they better learn how to talk.

Remember John Keats’ “heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter” doesn’t always work.

Yet, I do not mean garrulity. Simply talk directly addressed to the woman, about the women.

Verbal attention is important as sexual attraction. It is the knowledge of what to say and when.

It is also the knowledge of every facet of the woman herself, which must be reflected back to her in words.

For the woman, to love a man must be to love herself

as “he” sees her -- oh, call it mutual narcissism but I think it is stronger in women than in men and more demanding!

while general compliments are pleasant to hear, specifically targeted endearment bears far greater fruit. For a man who re-marks on the line of her chin or the shape of her eyes, a woman will do anything.

Here’s another heresy. If I were a man, having won a woman, I think that I would be tough with her, exacting deference to my masculinity and rebuffing aggressive in roads of all kinds.

I would never tolerate the loud or derisive voice or any efforts, private or public, to diminish my stature as a man. I would exert this dominance because women expect and want it; when they don’t get it, they are left with contempt for the man.

Gentle readers, this article is brought about by the ushering of winter madness—possessing idle minds.

***E-mail Mylah at moonlightingmdl@

aol.com

wITH the dawn of quick processing and Internet technol-ogy, the world is plunged into an era of high-speed work plans and rush jobs. This means people have to work faster and more than ever before to connect with millions of people all over the globe in one moment.

As a result, you’ve probably indulged in a lot of activities and habits that may be a bit un-healthy when practiced continu-ously. But healthy living in this rat race is possible. It may take some time, but it’s up to you to inspire the change in yourself:

Rechargeno matter how healthy you

are, there are limits to how much you can do in a day.we’re only human after all. Even robots and cellphones need to wind down now and then to recharge. much like our automaton counter-parts, we need the downtime to replenish our energy in order to tackle new jobs with a fresh perspective. Sleeping and naps are an essential part of living a healthy life. while it’s necessary to stay up late in order to finish work, the constant repetition of late sleeping might ingrain itself into your internal schedule. This can interfere with your attempt to catch up with lost sleep hours and can affect your performance at work as well. Don’t forget to fit in a few naps when you can.

Quick meal guidesIt can be tempting to buy

quickly prepared fast food fares when you come home way too tired to cook. However, eating out constantly, in the long run, can totally mess up both your health and mood. Instead of buy-ing burgers and fries every night, try putting your money into ingredients for simple and quick meals. Foods you can easily heat up or mix, like fried rice, cas-seroles or pasta are available in varying levels of preparation and ingredient quantity. make a list of the simplest recipes you can find

and practice making them so you can cook a dish even if time isn’t on your side.

Mini exercisesExercise isn’t limited to the

gym or large Zumba classes only. If your work area is nearby, try walking, jogging or cycling to it on some days instead of driving or taking public transportation to it daily. Even the simple and non-strenuous movements of a simple walk work your muscles and can increase your breathing and blood flow slightly. Aside from that, try exercising at least 20 to 30 minutes at home. You can find hundreds of simple workout videos or fun dances on the Internet, to get moving to eliminate unwanted fat and loosen your stiff limbs. You’ll find this especially helpful on days when you usual modes of trans-portation aren’t available.

Beware of your snackswhile eating healthy may

help balance out your body issues, it’s your snacking that you may have to watch out for. Snacks are very accessible, easy to consume in large amounts and are often the main culprits of unhealthy lifestyles. Funnily enough, depraving yourself of snacks actually increases the chances of you caving in and seeking out a sugary treat. To counteract this, you can either limit your dessert intake or opt for sliced fruits to carry with you to work. Carrying your snacks is an inexpensive way to remind you to ward off the convenience store or vending machine munchies which are chock full of unwanted chemicals or ingredi-

ents.Keep track of your progress There isn’t really much

meaning to balancing your busy lifestyle with a healthy one if you aren’t keeping track of it all. Listing down the kinds of food you eat in a week or month plus taking note of all your healthy (and unhealthy) habits is a good way to keep a record of your progress of trying to attain this balance of good and bad in your daily habits. List down things like how many unhealthy snacks you indulge in a week and maybe the duration plus intensity of the exercises you do. This is essential because you may need a reference to gauge whether you’re improving your lifestyle choices or not.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an ordinary office worker or the head of some big company, ex-ercise and keeping healthy isn’t exclusive and can really benefit the quality of your life. So keep track of your lifestyle habits and keep active!

***Mango Tours is a provider of quality, affordable and convenient travel services that include low-priced air-line tickets, customized Philippine and International Tour Packages, Cruises, Land Transfers, Passport and Visa Concerns. It is the #1 producer of reliable travel services particularly when it comes to Philippine travel arrangements to the Filipino-American community in the US Mango Tours is able to provide its customers with a number of travel options at affordable rates because of its consolidator contracts with over 11 airlines. Book your travel bookings with Mango Tours by calling its 24/7 U.S. toll-free number at 1-866-2-MANILA (1-866-2-626452). Visit www.man-gotours.com to know more about its latest promos and travel offers.* *Advertising Supplement

sectors of our economy,” wrote Forbes contributor Seamus Kirst.

“The tagline for the oscars is ‘we all dream in gold,’ though apparently the [Academy] doesn’t dream in color #os-cars2016,” tweeted Colorof-Change.org.

on martin Luther King, Jr. Day, monday, Jan. 18, direc-tor Spike Lee and actress Jada Pinkett Smith announced pub-licly that they would be boycot-ting the awards ceremony over the lack of diversity.

In a video posted to her Facebook page, Pinkett Smith announced that she will not attend the event, nor would she view it from home.

“At the oscars...people of color are always welcomed to give out awards...even entertain, but we are rarely recognized for our artistic accomplishments. Should people of color refrain from participating all together? People can only treat us in the way in which we allow,” Pinkett Smith wrote on her wall.

“maybe it’s time we pull back our resources and we put them back into our communi-ties, and we make programs for ourselves that acknowledge us in ways that we see fit, that are just as good as the so-called mainstream,” she said.

“Chi-Raq” director Spike Lee also shared that he and his wife, Tonya, would not be attending Hollywood’s biggest night, which will be hosted by black comedian Chris Rock on Feb. 28.

“Dr. King said ‘There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it’s right,” the filmmaker, who has been nominated for two oscars, wrote on Instagram. The oscar nominees “will re-main likely white” until minority actors are “in those rooms” with key industry network (white, male) decision-makers who are at the top of the Hollywood studio system.

other actresses including Emily Rossum, Rashida Jones, and martha Plimpton have all voiced their opinions over Twitter, as well as “Compton” producer will Packer, who wrote in outrage on his Facebook: “To my Academy colleagues, wE HAVE To Do BETTER. Period. The reason the rest of the world looks at us like we have no clue is because in 2016 it’s a com-plete embarrassment to say that the heights of cinematic achievement have only been reached by white people. I repeat—it’s embarrassing.”

wrote Kirst, “If the Acad-emy is going to exclude people of color from their lists, then

#OscarsSoWhite: Celebrities boycott Academy...From Page 3 outspoken and socially-minded

celebrities have announced they will boycott the event. In spreading their message that this is no longer going to be tolerated, they are gaining widespread support from their fanbase. Inherently, ratings will suffer when many viewers (my-self included) follow their lead and choose not to watch the televised event.”

on monday, Boone Isaacs released a statement in which she said, “while we celebrate [the nominees’] extraordinary achievements, I am both heart-broken and frustrated about the lack of inclusion. This is a diffi-cult but important conversation, and it’s time for big changes. The Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership. In the coming days and weeks we will conduct

a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond.

“As many of you know, we have implemented changes to diversify our membership in the last four years. But the change is not coming as fast as we would like. we need to do more, and better and more quickly.

“This isn’t unprecedented for the Academy. In the ‘60s and ‘70s it was about recruit-ing younger members to stay vital and relevant. In 2016, the mandate is inclusion in all of its facets: gender, race, ethnic-ity and sexual orientation. we recognize the very real concerns of our community, and I so appreciate all of you who have reached out to me in our effort to move forward together.”

6 The Asian Journal MDWK MAGAZINE - January 20, 2016

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