MY San Francisco Bay Area colleague and dear friend, Rodel Rodis, has just written an opinion piece in the Philippine Daily Inquirer entitled, “A sometimes clueless president.” It bewails what, in effect, was the cold shoulder that Noynoy Aquino gave to Filipino-Americans on his recent trip to the US.
The piece was the last thing one could have expected from Rodis who is the president of US Pinoys for Good Governance (USPGG). The group is dedicated to supporting the administration of Aquino. It was originally founded during the 2010 presidential campaign as US Pinoys for Noynoy-Mar and it campaigned actively and contributed financially to the cause of Aquino and Roxas.
When Aquino won, the group metamorphosed into USPGG, with the objective of promoting Aquino’s promise of honest, competent and progressive governance. Some 200 FilAms (my wife and I included) flew to Manila to attend the Aquino inauguration and to stage what the convenors called the First Worldwide Conference of Overseas Filipinos for Good Governance.
There were high hopes among the members of USPGG that the Aquino government – and Aquino himself – would give due importance to them. After all, aside from their commitment of support for his administration, a large percentage of the billions in dollar remittances that prop up the Philippine economy comes from Filipinos in America.
The enactment of the dual citizenship law and the overseas absentee voting law, during the incumbency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, also held out the promise of a potent voting bloc that could tilt the political balance in favor of candidates supported by overseas Pinoys. Leaders of USPGG, who are also the pillars of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) were among the most active lobbyists for the passage of both laws and, therefore, took it upon themselves to encourage fellow overseas Filipinos to register and vote in the forthcoming Philippine elections.
But high expectations can result in deep disappointment. The first indication that Aquino would not be as “warm” with the FilAm community as USPGG had hoped was at the brief meeting in San Francisco that the group managed to arrange with him on his first official visit to the US as president.
USPGG leaders had prepared presentations on various aspects of governance and the Philippine economy and how overseas Filipinos could help. Flanked by members of his cabinet, Aquino sat through it all without revealing any kind of enthusiasm or great interest. While the presentations consisted mostly of motherhood ideas and statements, they represented the sincere desire of the USPGG members to help their homeland.
Perhaps they had expected too much from Aquino, having had audiences in the past with Presidents Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo and having experienced the satisfaction of virtual pats on the back, aside from sharing jokes and intimate chit-chats with the highest leaders of the land.
The second instance where USPGG members were disappointed was at the First Global Summit of Filipinos in the Diaspora, organized by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas and held in September 2011 at the PICC.
Delegates came from the US, Europe, the Middle East, several Asian countries and even from South America. They felt that the conference was important enough for them to spend hard-earned dollars for air fare, hotel and other travel expenses. They thus, rightly, expected it to be important enough for the president of the Philippines to make a personal appearance and speak to them.
No such luck. Aquino dispatched a video message. He was too busy for them. I wrote a biting commentary on the snub and suggested that overseas Pinoys should stop expecting any special attention from Aquino but to just go ahead and help the Philippines and the Filipino people anyway, whether or not they were appreciated for it.
That should have been a lesson learned by the leaders of USPGG. But this is a group full of genuine enthusiasm and love for the Motherland and imbued with so much loyalty to Aquino that, in spite of the activist role suggested by the name of the organization (i.e, the pursuit of good governance), its leaders studiously avoided commenting on the series of scams and scandals plaguing the Aquino administration, not to mention instances of gross incompetence and criminal negligence of cabinet members and those in the legislature.
Instead, USPGG focused its attention on the conflict with China over the West Philippine Sea. Responding to the disaster wrought by typhoon Yolanda, the US Pinoys also raised thousands of dollars and relief goods for the victims. At least, the members could tell themselves that they were doing something for the country of their birth.
Another chance to do something relevant to Philippine interests came in the wake of Yolanda. The idea of asking the US government for Temporary Protected Status for Filipinos in the US with uncertain immigration status was broached, embraced and aggressively promoted with American officialdom.
The visit of Aquino to the US presented an opportunity to give the TPS campaign a boost. If Aquino could personally request President Obama to endorse it, perhaps it had a good chance of being implemented.
It was thus that the leaders of USPGG were anxious to gain some face time with Aquino in New York or in San Francisco, where he was scheduled to make a stopover.
But they were informed by the Philippine embassy in Washington DC and, subsequently, by the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco that Aquino had no time to meet with the FilAm community.
To quote Rodis, “It would just be a brief stopover on his way back to Manila, we were told, so there would be no opportunity for Pres. Aquino to meet with the San Francisco Fil-Am community. But we were misinformed. Upon his arrival at the San Francisco International Airport, Pres. Aquino was escorted by a large convoy of San Francisco police cars and motorcycles to the San Francisco offices of Wells Fargo Bank Chairman John Stumpf and other bank officials. He later also met with Gary Loveman, CEO of Caesar’s Entertainment Corporation; and Steven Tight, president of International Development…
”Pres. Aquino did not return back to the airport to return to Manila after his meeting with the business leaders. Instead, he directed his police escorts to take him to San Francisco’s fabled Haight-Ashbury district, not to tour the birthplace of the 1960’s Hippie Revolution but to eat burgers at MacDonald’s and to do some shopping for jazz CDs at Amoeba Music across the street. The Haight visit snarled traffic and caused residents to post Instagram photos on Twitter showing the rows of SFPD motorcycles and cars parked along Haight mocking Aquino’s message of climate change.
“Why couldn’t Pres. Aquino have stopped to eat at a Filipino restaurant to show support for local Fil-Am owned businesses? How can he ask Fil-Ams to support the Philippines when he can’t even patronize Fil-Am businesses in the US?
“From the Haight, Pres. Aquino then proceeded to the Peninsula Gun Store in San Bruno where he even had a photo taken with Jeff Downs, a gun store employee who posted a photo of Aquino and him on his Facebook page with the caption: “The president of the Philippines decided to stop by and buy some stuff. Really nice man!”
An interesting post-script to this is the rumor currently circulating that FilAm leaders have been asked by Malacañang political strategists (not necessarily with Aquino’s blessings) to mount a campaign code-named, ABB, which stands for Anybody But Binay.
That says something about the way US Filipinos and overseas Filipinos in general are regarded: Good for enough for their dollars and for demolition jobs, but not good enough for an audience with the president of the country of their birth.
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