A Cup Half Full: The incredible optimism of a poor Filipino boy

Jan 2, 2011:  PUERTO GALERA, Philippines - Although the Philippines remained relatively stable during the recent global recession, poverty has increased over the past two decades with over 32 percent of the population currently living below the poverty line.

“It’s good to start life being poor,” said young Gary Clemenso to one of his friends. “Imagine being born rich and then becoming poor. … Wouldn’t that be worse?” he asks.

Gary’s simple logic is quite puzzling for me, and I was surprised me to hear such a statement coming from a 16-year-old whose family numbers among the Philippine’s poor.

Read the full story here.

Filipino teachers in China cited as outstanding foreign experts

Three Filipino English teachers were recognized as outstanding foreign experts by China's Jilin Province for contributing to the province's economic and social development.

Citing a report from the Philippine Embassy in Beijing, the Department of Foreign Affairs identified the three as Ma. Socorro Rodriguez, Arnel Genzola and Lileth Mesias Reyes.

"We are very proud for our Filipino awardees for their achievement. It was recognition of their talent and dedication while practicing their craft in China. More importantly, they continue to serve as ambassadors of goodwill as we continue to strengthen our people-to-people links with the Chinese people," the Philippine Embassy said in a statement posted on the DFA website.

An article on the DFA website said the three were among 59 foreign experts who received citations on September 28 in ceremonies at Jilin's capital town Changchun.

The awarding rites were part of the province's celebration of the 61st founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China, the DFA added.

The DFA said the three were bestowed "The Outstanding Foreign Experts Award," which the Jilin provincial government confers annually to foreign experts.

The award is meant to thank and commend these foreign experts for their outstanding achievements and dedication to China's development in various fields such as the economy, technology, education, and culture.

Rodriguez is an English teacher for college and post-graduate students at the Changchun University of Technology, where she has been teaching for the last seven years.

Reyes currently works as a Deputy President/EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher for Eastern Star Foreign Language School in Jilin Province.

Genzola also teaches English at Jilin University's Lambton College, where he has been a faculty member since August 2007.

Jilin Vice-Governor Jin Zhenji, who attended the awarding ceremonies, expressed her gratitude to the awardees for contributing to the economic and social development of Jilin for years.

He also emphasized that more foreign experts are welcome to work in Jilin Province. –VVP, GMANews.TV,  October 21, 2010

Filipina for Filipinas in Taiwan

CAVITEÑOS are known for their valor. In Taiwan, a Caviteña has done the province proud by standing up for the rights of Filipinas married to citizens of that island nation.

What’s more, Eleanor “Nene” B. Ho has made it her life’s work to help her compatriots through an organization she founded some 10 years ago, the Filipinos Married to Taiwanese Association (FMTA). She is also the publisher of The Migrants, a monthly newspaper for Filipinos in Taiwan. Among others, these have earned her recognition last year as one of the Philippines’ Banaag awardees for significant contributions to overseas Filipino communities.

While she has been an activist for the rights of overseas Filipino workers and Filipina spouses of Taiwanese, Nene has maintained a harmonious relationship with the Taiwanese in general, and most especially with her loving Taiwanese husband with whom she has a daughter.

She is a mainstay in Filipino affairs in Taiwan and is one of the most active partners of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office in taking care of expat Filipinos.

All about respect

“It is all about respect,” says this former English teacher born in Cavite City in 1944. “Filipinos have to respect themselves and show that they are worthy of respect, no matter where they are.”

Nene knows this firsthand because she herself was among the first Filipinos to work in Taiwan, host to almost 90,000 Filipinos working as factory workers, domestics, construction workers and fishermen, and professionals. Many Taiwanese men have also chosen Filipinas as brides through arranged marriages. An estimated 7,000 Filipinas now live there with their Taiwanese husbands.

Nene’s own marriage to a Taiwanese 20 years her senior developed along similar lines. A Business Administration degree holder from the Philippine Women’s University, she decided to try her luck in Taiwan after working in Manila companies. Arriving on a tourist visa, Nene wangled a job at the front desk of Taipei’s then-leading hotel, the Lai Lai Sheraton.

But though she did well enough for the hotel to request her extended stay, the Sheraton already had five other foreign workers so Nene transferred to a travel agency where she wrote promotional material.

Loving a Taiwanese

“My boss found me very useful for his business, so he really tried all means to get me to stay in Taiwan. The only means he found was for me to get married to a Taiwanese, so he introduced me to his friend and we got married for that purpose— to get a better visa for me to stay in Taiwan,” she says.

But Nene’s story does not end there.

“After marriage, we dated, we became close to each other and since I found him to be a very gentle, thoughtful, loving and considerate man, I agreed to live with him. That was how he became my husband. Now we have one daughter who is studying at the university,” she says.

After marriage, Nene set about with industry, determined to make her marriage work by balancing career and family obligations.

“Though I was working then in a travel agency at daytime and teaching English at night, I managed to take care of the house, our clothing, food everyday and of course the family. I was very busy but that was all right with me. I only had to learn how to arrange and budget my time so as I could fulfill all my responsibilities to my family. After all I realize that the husband’s treatment of the wife depends on how the wife is doing,” she says.

Collective voice

Armed with her own positive experience, Nene decided to set up the FMTA to give Filipinas a collective voice and for the spouses to interact with and support each other in their new lives in a foreign land.

“I was one of the founders and became president for over five years,” she says. “The FMTA is also well recognized by the Taiwan Government and has always been invited whenever they have some activities that are meant for foreign workers, foreign spouses and their children. We have had some forums on foreign spouses and invited resource speakers to give us insights on different problems we all face. We have suggested different approaches the Taiwan government could take for our sector. We have conducted English classes for the children of our members, and have motivated our members and their children into joining regular activities like in the church.”

Hotline for abused spouses

Because many Taiwanese men have had to look to foreign brides for their spouses, the Taiwanese government has put up measures to prevent abusive marriages.

Nene knows these by heart.

“The government provides a hotline (113) that is open 24 hours (in 5 languages—English, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Cambodian, Thai) to answer calls for help.

They also have a toll-free line (0800-088-885) for Foreign Spouses Protection Counseling, also for 24 hours. They are always ready to help the callers and to collect evidence to help them with their cases. They also have counseling hotlines in five languages.

Lawyers in every district around the country are available to help victims of domestic violence, to pay the medical check-up and help provide temporary shelter. If the victim is to live alone, she will be educated on how to live a new life and to find a new job for herself.”

English barrier

“The foreign wives who became victims of maltreatment are authorized to apply with the court for a restraining order. This will restrain the actions of the violent husbands and guarantee the safety of the victims. They can also apply for the custody of the children and require the husbands to return their personal documents. If there is any court case, the victims are allowed to extend their stay until the case is finished.”

The government has also published some books, magazines, and pamphlets for the foreign wives so that they would know what to do in case any sort of problem occurs. “In fact, the ministry had contacted us to publish some rules on sexual abuse and domestic violence in our newspaper. They are all in Chinese and we had to translate everything in Tagalog and English,” she says.

Services for OFWs

The language barrier is one of the most difficult hurdles for Filipinas to overcome, according to Nene, as is the need for them to be gainfully employed if their families cannot live on just one income. But by and large, she says, the FMTA members have had successful marriages because Filipinas are traditionally very caring and family-oriented, traits that Taiwanese men appreciate.

To date, with Nene as mother-hen, welfare cases involving Filipinas married to Taiwanese are at a zero-level rate, based on the assistance-to-nationals report of the Commission on Overseas Filipinos.

But marriage to foreign nationals and living abroad is not a bed of roses, Nene is quick to assert.

“That is why the FMTA is there as a support group for all of us who have made a new life in Taiwan,” she says.

Nene is also quite active in ensuring the welfare of OFWs in Taiwan to the extent that sometimes her own home is used as a half-way shelter for distressed Filipinos. She is also quite used to calls during ungodly hours from her compatriots who seek her advice and help in dealing with employers and personal problems, or to give job referrals.

She publishes and edits her monthly newspaper distributed free to Filipinos, financed by advertisements from Philippine and Taiwan firms that service the OFWs’ needs.

The Migrant provides OFWS with news from the Philippines and information on new developments and government policies that affect them. It also features advice columns and self-help articles, and snippets and photos of the goings-on in the Filipino community in Taiwan, aside from the ubiquitous Filipino showbiz chismis.

Relevant publication

“This venture is now my full-time career, and it is really no joke to have a monthly publication that is relevant and meaningful to your readers. Aside from contributions, we also do our own staff research on the Internet to get articles that would be of interest to readers. So far, circulation is growing and so is the number of our advertisers that help defray the cost of publication and printing,” she says.

Nene is preparing for the possibility of her eventual retirement with her husband to a home in Cavite. - Reuben Lim, Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 24, 2009

Filipina Women’s Network in US marks glass-ceiling breakthroughs

SAN FRANCISCO, California, United States—Organization-image specialist Marily Mondejar was doing a pretty good job consulting for a mayoral candidate here several years ago.

Her team had been tasked to dig up dirt on the incumbent administration. One of the sitting mayor’s appointees had allegedly signed a construction contract for a crony. The media had a feeding frenzy that threatened to topple the Hizzoner.

“The name of the official sounded foreign,” she says, recalling the episode. “After further research, I found out she was a Filipina and I began to wonder why she was being hung out to dry.”

The mayor would be re-elected, but at the cost of the job of this Filipina official. Mondejar was appalled, not because her candidate lost, but because she felt the official had been thrown under the bus to redeem the re-electionist’s image. She named the official but requested anonymity for her.

“Very few came to her defense,” Mondejar says.

A support group

Thus, it became the mission of the Filipina Women’s Network (FWN), a volunteer, non-profit organization to “level the professional and business playing field for Filipinas across America.”

FWN was conceived in 2001 over lunch organized by Cora Tellez, then chief executive officer of one of America’s biggest health-care providers, Healthnet. Many in her circle of friends were in management positions themselves—Mondejar, who had taken on image consultancy work for a giant Mexican cement maker, and Virna Tintiangco, then a college student.

Tintiangco was FWN’s first president but when she moved to Oregon in 2003, Mondejar took over.

“We want to open doors,” says Mondejar, 59. “We want to let America know that Filipinas have the skills to compete at all levels in all areas.” She enlisted Filipinas who had proven their mettle in the upper reaches of the different branches of government as well as the private sector.

Successful women

Today FWN has some 800 active members. Its success can also be gleaned in the names of more than 400 people who have signified their intention to attend the 7th Filipina Leadership Summit in Las Vegas in October. Among them: former White House physician, retired Rear Admiral Connie Mariano; California Appeals Court Judge Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye, who has been nominated by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be chief justice of the state Supreme Court; California Lieutenant Governor Mona Pasquil; Nevada Judge Cheryl Moss; Davis, California Mayor Dr. Ruth Asmundson; and information technology tycoon Zeny Cunanan.

Over the years, FWN has been associated with such social issues as domestic violence.

Mondejar said major impediments for women seeking to move their careers forward are issues at home, particularly violence inflicted by spouses or partners.

It is an issue close to Mondejar’s heart, having herself been a victim of domestic violence. In fact, the reason she came to America in 1981 was to seek a divorce from her abusive husband. Her tale of woe is typical. When she told her friends about what her husband was doing to her, she would be told: “It is your fate,” and “Try not to make him angry.”

Marily’s own struggle

She initially brought her two sons to the US, but since she could not afford to support them yet, she brought them back home to live with her mother for a few years or until she became financially stable. She recalls the pain the divorce inflicted on her children, one of whom blamed her for not sticking it out. She says it took some doing to make them understand. Now she says she has “a great relationship” with them.

In California, Mondejar found her feet. She got bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Humanities, and is finishing her thesis for a doctorate in Organizational Psychology. After 13 years as an image builder for the cement company, she eventually resigned to run FWN as a full-time career.

It is important for women, Mondejar says, to understand the cycle of domestic violence. “It took me years to understand that,” she adds. “I kept getting into abusive situations and did not know how to break the cycle and seek help.”

FWN has also become known for its women’s rights activities as part of its business networking agenda. Its most popular program is its adoption of “The Vagina Monologues,” the off-Broadway stage phenomenon going into its 15th year, whose theme—the vagina as a tool for female empowerment—has become a rallying point of women the world over. It has been translated into 45 languages and when its Tagalog version, “Usapang Puki,” was staged in Manila in 2002, church groups raised a howl, which helped ensure its success, she said.

FWN will present it again during its Vegas summit in October, which is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

FWN itself does not provide logistical support for abuse victims. What it offers is education and moral support.

For instance, FWN members were at the murder trial of William Corpuz, who was convicted by a jury of murder for slitting his wife’s throat.

Mondejar says she is also mobilizing her members to support the confirmation of Cantil Sakauye, who would, if elected in November, be the first Asian-American Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. Sakauye is an FWN member.

Not mail-order brides

Despite the number of high-caliber women in FWN’s roster, Mondejar acknowledges that Filipinas have a long way to go in breaking the glass ceiling.

Google “Filipina” and most of the 3.77 million results are links to matchmaking, dating, and adult-entertainment sites.

“Initially, American men thought we were some kind of mail-order-bride organization and we would get requests to meet Filipina women,” Mondejar says. In fact, she adds, “many mail-order-bride and matchmaking groups still link to our website and we would have to back-trace them and remove their links.”

This was why FWN launched its “Shaping the Filipina image” campaign, which, she says, is just another step to create a positive image and open up leadership opportunities for Filipinas in the US.

100 Most Influential Pinays

During the Vegas gathering, Mondejar says she will push FWN’s “womentoring” and leadership program, and the selection of the “100 Most Influential Filipinas in the US.”

She hopes each of the 200 “most influential” Filipino women selected in 2007 and 2009 would take at least one Filipina under her wing and teach her what it takes to make it in the American workplace.

“Can you imagine?” she says rhetorically. “By 2012 (in time for a planned Pinay Power reunion) we’d have 600 more successful Filipinas after the final FWN 100 are selected next year.”

To be sure, FWN faces many challenges. For one, “funding and keeping the FWN mission alive,” she says.

But she draws her energy from FWN’s members and what they have so far achieved. She still remembers the first summit in 2001 when she was selling the idea to a group of women in San Francisco. After her spiel, one of them stood up, saying: “I’m in. I want to be part of this group. I have never been in the same room with so many accomplished women. Here’s my check!”

Then just about everybody else took out their check books and signed up.

By Lito Gutierrez
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: August 23, 2010

Handicapped Filipina pilot inspires Obama

PRESIDENT Barrack Obama unveiled a package of measures to help Americans with disabilities to mark the passage of the landmark American with Disabilities Act 20 years ago.

One in six, about 54 million Americans suffer from some kind of disability. Despite the high numbers, the law still faced stiff opposition in Congress 20 years ago.

“It grew when you realized you were not alone, it became a massive wave of bottom-up change that swept across the country as you refused to accept the world as it was and when you were told don’t try, you can’t, you responded with that age-old American creed,’ Yes we can!‘” Obama said.

A large crowd gathered at the White House south lawn that included movie star Marlee Matlin and diva Patty Labelle.

Filipino-American Jessica Cox was with a smaller group who got a private audience with Obama earlier in the day.

“He said thank you for being an inspiration and I said thank you, it’s an honor to meet you,” Cox said.

Cox was born without arms. It didn’t prove to be an obstacle to earning her pilot’s wings.

“In reality, for me to be able to drive, to fly a plane when I really wanted to, just hop into an airplane with my sports pilot certificate and to be able to have that, I realized the ADA has an effect,” Cox added.

Cox also works as a motivational speaker. She was off to catch a big air show in Wisconsin after meeting with President Obama.

“I’ll be there giving presentations and meeting celebrities like Harrison Ford and (Captain Chesley) “Sully” Sullenberger and John Travolta whose first airplane he ever owned was an Air Coupe, which is the airplane I fly, so I’m looking forward to meeting him,” said Cox.

Cox and people with disabilities continue to fight for their rights. Her story shows that not having arms did not deter her from fighting on with courage and determination. (Story courtesy of Balitang America) - GoodNews Pilipinas/Inquirer.Net, Posted date: August 14, 2010


For more, visit GoodNews Pilipinas

Filipina heads UN human rights advisory body

MANILA, Philippines—A Filipino authority on human rights has been unanimously elected chairperson of the Advisory Committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council this week in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said that Dr. Purificacion Valera Quisumbing will preside over the Advisory Committee, which is composed of 18 independent experts from different regions of the world, and functions as the think tank of the UN Human Rights Council.

"It is a great honor to serve as chair of the Advisory Committee. I am humbled by the confidence my highly esteemed colleagues have placed in me," Quisumbing said in a statement released by the DFA.

In her opening statement, Quisumbing recalled her stint as chair of the former UN Commission on Human Rights (the predecessor of the Human Rights Council) in 1990, while she was assistant secretary for human rights under the administration of the late Corazon C. Aquino.

The Philippines’ permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Evan P. Garcia, immediately congratulated Quisumbing on her election.

During its fifth session, the Advisory Committee will be working on topics of importance to the Philippines, such as the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy; missing persons; the right to food; the right of people to peace; enhancement of international cooperation on human rights; and human rights education and training.

The Philippines is particularly active in the Human Rights Council in promoting human rights education and training, where it currently co-chairs negotiations on the draft UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training. - Cynthia Balana, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Posted date: August 07, 2010

Fil-Am named chief justice of California high court

CALIFORNIA, United States—Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday (California time) named a Filipino-American woman, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, as his choice for chief justice of the California Supreme Court.

“Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye has a distinguished history of public service and understands that the role of a justice is not to create law, but to independently and fairly interpret and administer the law,” said Schwarzenegger in a news release.

“She is a living example of the American Dream and when she is confirmed by the voters in November, Judge Cantil-Sakauye will become California’s first Filipina chief justice, adding to our High Court’s already rich diversity,” the Hollywood superstar added.

Since 2005, Cantil-Sakauye, of Sacramento, has served as an associate justice for the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento. Previously, she was a superior court judge for the Sacramento County Superior Court from 1997 to 2004 and a municipal court judge for the Sacramento County Municipal Court from 1990 to 1997.

Cantil-Sakauye, 50, worked for the Office of Governor Deukmejian as a deputy legislative secretary from 1989 to 1990 and as a deputy legal affairs secretary from 1988 to 1989. She was a deputy district attorney for the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office from 1984 to 1988.

Cantil-Sakauye is a member of the California Judicial Council, and is vice chairperson of the Rules and Projects Committee and Judicial Recruitment and Retention Working Group. She is a member of the Commission on Impartial Courts, chairperson of the Judicial Branch Financial Accountability and Efficiency Advisory Committee, and president of the Anthony M. Kennedy Inn of Court.

“It is a privilege and a tremendous honor to have the opportunity to serve as chief justice of the California Supreme Court,” Cantil-Sakauye was quoted as saying in the same release. “Being nominated to serve on the highest court in California is a dream come true.”

“I deeply respect the inspirational and visionary work of Chief Justice Ronald George and hope to build upon it. As a jurist, woman and a Filipina, I am extremely grateful for the trust Governor Schwarzenegger has placed in me. I hope to show young people what they can achieve if they follow their dreams and reach for their full potential,” she added.

Cantil-Sakauye earned a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California, Davis School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Davis. Cantil-Sakauye is a Republican.

The vacancy will be created by the retirement of Chief Justice Ronald M. George on 2 January 2011. The compensation for this position is $238,010.

The governor’s nomination for chief justice must be submitted to the State Bar’s Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation and confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments. Once confirmed by the commission, the nominee will appear on the November 2nd ballot for voter approval. - INQUIRER.net, July 22, 2010

Honest OFW returns misplaced S$16,000 in Singapore

MARITES PEREZ GALAM, 33, head waitress at Imperial Herbal Restaurant in Singapore, found “gold” in a rest room, fought the temptation to keep it, and helped return it to its owner.

The owner, an Indonesian mother who was accompanying her deaf son to Singapore for a surgery, couldn’t thank her enough.

In a long-distance phone interview with INQUIRER.net, Galam said this was how it happened:

At about 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, during her second shift, she stepped out of her work area to go to the common rest room of the VivoCity shopping mall. In the cubicle she used, she saw the raggedy gold wallet on top of the tissue box.

“Pero di mo talaga pag-iinteresan kasi lumang-luma na, naagnas na, at sira na. Flat din sya (You won’t really take any interest in it because it was very old, worn to shreds, and scruffy. It was also flat),” she said.

When she inspected the wallet, it contained S$16,600 (P485,085) wrapped in a white sheet of paper. Even then, she wasn’t blinded by the money.

“Hindi kasi akin (It wasn’t mine),” she told the Chinese Singaporean mall manager to whom she surrendered her find.

An hour and a half later, the owner of the money, accompanied by her son and the mall manager, came to her and hugged her.

While Galam couldn’t completely understand what the Indonesian mother was saying, she could feel the gratitude in her tears and her embrace.

“I think she tried to say thank you and God bless you,” she said in Filipino.

Philippine Ambassador to the city-state Belen Fule-Anota later met with Galam and commended her for the deed.

The envoy said Galam is a model for the thousands of Filipinos who work and live in Singapore: hardworking, self-sacrificing, and honest.

Her story also saw its way to a Chinese magazine in Singapore.

Galam’s husband, who is also in Singapore, is still trying to find work. The Galam couple, originally of Nueva Vizcaya province, left their four children — ages ranging from 4 to 15 years old — October last year to earn more money so that they would lead a decent life.

With her deed, she already showed them how.

(1 Singapore Dollar = 30.31778 Philippine Peso)

Veronica Uy, INQUIRER.net, 09/20/07