I HAD the privilege of meeting Gina Lopez for the first time in the early 90s when her family welcomed her back after being away for a long long time. She was among the heirs of the late Eugenio (Geny) Lopez Jr. and Chita Lopez – owners of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation. You probably knew about…
“Now that I’m growing older, My pilot light is out; What used to be my sex appealIs now my water spout…” I WAS in my mid-20s, at the peak of my virility, when I came upon this verse. I found it extremely funny. I also thought it referred to people who had reached 40, which,…
Voting can be as quick as a pen stroke or as easy as a tap of a computer screen, yet the simple act is often taken for granted in America. It became a right I lost when I was convicted on felony charges and found myself in state prison several years ago. After serving a…
THE United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has defined “public charge” as an individual who is likely to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence, as demonstrated by either the receipt of public cash assistance for income maintenance or institutionalization for long-term care at government expense. This has been a policy of the…
KABABAYAN, this information has nothing to do with President Donald Trump’s intensified crackdown against illegal immigration. This piece is about his administration’s most aggressive effort yet to restrict LEGAL IMMIGRATION in the United States. Depending on your specific circumstances, your chances of getting your green card or temporary visa — whether you are waiting for…
NO matter where you came from and the color of your skin, all parents want what is best for their children. Except those, it seems, in the Trump administration. Because they have once again told immigrant families: we don’t want you, don’t try and live the American dream. They have released a new, inhumane rule…
LISTEN, MR. PRESIDENT. The people of the grieving communities of El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio are speaking up. For the first time just listen to their pleas instead of being obsessed with crowd sizes, ratings, getting more publicity mileage than your political foes, and cheap photo-ops like when you used a baby who just…
PRESIDENT Donald J. Trump insisted on visiting El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio in the wake of the two mass shootings that happened last weekend. These two latest mass shootings, which were less than 24 hours apart, claimed the lives at least 31 people and injured 53. The two incidents marked 251 mass shootings in…
PUT YOURSELF in the shoes of the men and women who have just lost their son, daughter, mother, father, spouse, or best friend to the bullets coming from these senseless mass shooting in America. As of August 5, which is just the 217th day of 2019, there have been 255 mass shootings in the United…
TWELVE YEARS ago, my family had just settled in California, coming from Minnesota where we lived for four years as my husband completed his training in surgery. I thought my career in broadcasting was over after I said goodbye to my very fulfilling career in radio and television at ABS-CBN headquarters in Manila to immigrate…
THIS just in — after 12 years of delivering the daily news from the studios of The Filipino Channel (TFC) in California, “Balitang America” will be taping its daily newscast from the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation headquarters in Manila, Philippines, joining other news bureaus like “Balitang Middle East” and “Balitang Europe.” While the daily news stories…
KABABAYANS, I hear you. Some of you say President Donald Trump’s tirades against the four women representatives in Congress were not racist. You contend that this is just part of his fight against illegal immigration, and you elected and support him for that. I get it. I understand how strongly you feel about this issue….
MGA KABABAYAN, many of you are Republicans, holding onto conservative principles, especially those anchored on our Christian faith which is very important to us. This is one of the reasons why many Filipinos support the Republican Party and Republican President Donald J. Trump. But where and when do we draw the line between our support…
By Jason Tengco In 2016, only 50 percent of eligible Filipino American voters participated in the presidential election. Let me repeat: only half of us voted in 2016. As a community, we can — and must — do better this time around. From the economy to health care, climate change to the Supreme Court, there’s…
Donald Trump’s election in 2016 was a turning point for our country. He has lowered our standing around the world, sought to divide us, and inflicted pain on too many Americans— particularly immigrants and children of immigrants. We cannot afford four more years of him in the White House. We need to elect Kamala Harris…
MY very first newspaper column came out in Business World, the leading business daily in the Philippines, on September 21, 1988, almost 31 years ago. Headlined, “Ah, those good old tabloid days,” it must have scandalized the usually straight-laced, prim and proper readership of the paper. It was about my experience as a 16-year-old cub…
We’ve probably all heard the tale of the fox who raided the chicken coop and had to be hunted down by the farmer. But have you heard about the farmer agreeing to let the fox investigate the incident in order to determine whose fault it was that the chicken coop was raided and why neither…
In an exclusive OP-ED for the Asian Journal, Sen. Elizabeth Warren bares a plan for investing in AAPI and minority-owned small businesses. By Elizabeth Warren America is built on two ideas: that we are a nation of immigrants, and that if you work hard and have a good idea, you should be able to pursue…
THERE are two most difficult, complex, but not impossible opportunities for peace-making in the Korean Peninsula and in the Iran-Saudi Arabia conflict on both sides of the Persian Gulf — or Arab Gulf to the Arabs — in the Middle East. In the case of the inter-Korean and US-North Korean conflicts, the South Koreans led…
THE initial reactions of Foreign Secretary Teddyboy Locsin and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana were correct. The facts were not all in yet, but both Cabinet members were ready to give our fishermen the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol and Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi joined the fray and started casting doubts on…
The sinking of a Filipino fishing boat in the West Philippine Sea by a Chinese vessel has created a sticky public relations situation for the government of President Rodrigo Duterte. The usual extremists have added fuel to an already incendiary situation. Duterte critics, who believe that he has become too subservient to the Chinese, have…
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP surprised even his own officials when he announced via Twitter on June 17 that his administration will deport “millions of illegal aliens” in the next weeks, less than 24 hours before his rally in Florida to “kickoff his 2020 re-election campaign.” Of course, we all know Trump has already started campaigning and…
We journeyed to Phnom Penh last week, June 4-8, where we conferred with Prime Minister Hun Sen on a major conference in the Cambodian capital scheduled for November and where we noted significant economic gains for the country. We were accompanied in our visit by senior officers of the Seoul- and New York-based Universal Peace…
AN EPIPHANY is that moment in the story where a character achieves realization, awareness, or a feeling of knowledge, after which events are seen through the prism of this new light in the story. Are we there yet, Filipinos in America? Or are we still blinded by the glaring prism of fanaticism? I would like…
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP had again sank to a new low when he shocked America with an explosive statement in an interview with ABC News on Thursday, brazenly saying that if another country offered him dirt on his opponents in 2020, he thinks he would take it, and wouldn’t necessarily report it to to the Federal…
IMPEACHMENT, according to President Donald Trump, is a dirty word and it does not have anything to do with him. This, despite the growing clamor among Americans to remove Trump from office using this process stipulated in the U.S. Constitution as a way to make government officials who hold positions of public trust accountable to…
Remember the old saying? “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” They watch out for pickpockets. I momentarily forgot this valuable piece of advice and, as a result, lost my wallet to a beggar in the center of the Catholic faith. Fortunately, my credit cards and driver’s license were in another pocket. But the…
ROBERT Mueller finally broke his silence on Wednesday, May 29 to announce that he was ending his tenure as special counsel and that he was resigning from the Department of Justice. He clarified the truth behind the investigation that probed any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign….
Now that the Philippine midterm elections are over and new senators and local government officials are going to assume office, can we, the citizenry, expect the “promising” men and women who courted us for our votes and promised a Utopian government to please make good on some of those promises? No, we don’t expect you…
THE Filipino Channel (TFC)’s mother company ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation was founded on October 23, 1953, and is now celebrating 65 years “in the service of the Filipino.” I first set foot in ABS-CBN headquarters in Quezon City in the early 70s, when I was just in grade school, tagging along with neighbors who wanted to…
