In a press conference held after she returned to Manila on December 22, Miss Philippines Janine Tugonon told embittered supporters who believe she was robbed of the Miss Universe crown by a hometown decision to get over it. “Miss USA deserved to win and I’m fortunate to place second among 89 contestants,” she said.
If the Mayan calendar prediction is right and the world ends on December 21, 2012 (5125 in the Mayan calendar), then this will be my farewell article. Of course, if the Mayan Doomsday turns out to be slightly exaggerated, then people will have to pay for their maxed out credit cards after all.
While China’s brazen occupation of the Philippines’ Scarborough Shoal, located just 125 nautical miles from Masinloc, Zambales, has captured all the national and international attention, little has been mentioned about China’s occupation of the Philippine mining industry, an entirely different issue from the Filipino Chinese (“Chinoys”) domination of the Philippine economy.
The dispute in the West Philippine Sea, otherwise known as the South China Sea, is threatening to become “Asia’s Palestine” as it devolves the whole of Southeast Asia into violent conflict among sharply divided nations.
When I wrote last week that “like Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez before him, Alex Esclamado saw America as an unfinished ideal in which everyone must work to make of it an America of social justice and equality”, a reader, Noel, commented that “it’s a bit too much to compare Alex to Martin Luther King and Chavez.”
In his first inaugural address which he delivered on January 20, 2009 in front of a live audience of 1.8 million people and which was watched by 30% of all TV viewers in the US, President Barack Obama said: “our Founding Fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man — a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake.”
SAN FRANCISCO – The last time I saw Alex Esclamado was in August of 2011 just before he left for the Philippines. I had given him a US Pinoys for Good Governance t-shirt (“Our Soil, Our Oil”) which he proudly wore. Just before I snapped his photo, Alex gestured for me to lean forward towards [...]
The most disturbing development in the 2012 US presidential elections is not the National Asian American Survey (NAAS) poll showing that more FilAms are registering as Republicans (27%) than as Democrats (24%) but that a large number of these FilAm Republicans have embraced the extremist views of the far right Tea Party.
Filipino American supporters of President Barack Obama, all dressed in blue, and backers of Gov. Mitt Romney, decked in red, met at the battlefield of the Redwood Shores studios of ABS-CBN on October 18 to participate in the 2012 Balitang America town hall presidential debate. Obama’s Blue Team was led by TLC Beatrice CEO Loida Nicolas-Lewis while Romney’s Red Team was championed by Mission Hope Day Program CEO Nimfa Yamsuan Gamez.
The recently released poll conducted by the National Asian American Survey (Naas) revealed that “among likely voters, 43% of Asian Americans support Barack Obama while 24% support Mitt Romney.” The same poll disclosed that “in a significant shift from prior surveys, Filipinos who identify as Republicans outnumber those who identify as Democrats. Indeed, a larger proportion of Filipinos now identify with the Republican Party than any Asian American group” surpassing Vietnamese Americans who were previously the staunchest Republicans.
The dysfunctionality of the American and Philippine political systems can best be comprehended in their contrasting definitions of political compromise. In one system, it’s a sin; in the other, a virtue.
The notes taken by Philippine Ambassador to China Sonia Brady of her meeting with Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV in Beijing last June included his boast that he was able to “make 40 Chinese ships leave Panatag Shoal.”
