THE first-ever two-day summit with President Barack Obama and 10 Southeast Asian leaders kicked off on Monday, Feb. 15 at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California. The standalone meeting between the White House and leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is meant to be a crucial step in the…
EXEMPTION Credits: a. $109 – Single, Married filing separately, Head of Household. b. $218 – Married filing jointly. c. $337 – Dependent. d. $109 – Age 65 or older. e. $109 – Blind. Exemption credits are phased out by $6 or $12 for each $1,250 or $2,500 that Federal AGI exceeds certain amounts over $178,706….
Seniors seek chapter 7 relief for $48k credit card debt Business owner with $1.0M labor lawsuits CLIENT is 65. He operates a service-oriented business with 3 outlets in strip malls. He has been in business for 8 years. Of the 3 outlets, two are losing money, while the third has some profit that subsidizes the…
MICHAEL Landri worked as a bartender for the Marriott Del Mar Hotel in San Diego. In December 2009, the hotel held its annual holiday party for its employees. Marriott managers provided each party attendee with two alcoholic drink tickets. Landri did not work but he attended the party later that night. Before coming to the…
I HAVE had many clients who come into my offices and ask questions about what to do with their child or children that are born out-of-wedlock, meaning the biological parents are not married to each other. Many concerns have to do with child support/financial help or biological fathers wanting to see their child or…
OF course not. Why should I pay taxes based on the highest tax rates? The lowest rates belong to joint filers and widows, followed by heads of household and single taxpayers. Certainly, it does not make sense to file married filing separate and pay those sky-high rates. Or does it? Let’s discuss the advantages and…
DO you have sleepless nights worrying about your credit card debts? Are you feeling hopelessly trapped with no way out? If you are up to your eyeballs in credit card debt and have no way of paying back what you had borrowed, a lot of things may be going through your mind at the moment. …
THIS is perhaps the reason why Filipinos are happy and resilient people despite all the challenges that they face: they continue to believe in love and happily ever after, in “forever,” as the Pinoy teleseryes call it. The question of whether there is “forever” has in fact been debated on in different teleserye and movie…
Love’s vistas are inexhaustible. But for all the ardency of love’s idealism and romance, it can only be taken as an act of faith. To be ruled under the spell of love is to be ruled by the possibilities of the unknown. Each encounter provides us with the opportunity to remake the past, and it…
RA Paulette has spent his life for the past twenty-five years pursuing his passion, which is transforming caves into breathtaking, poetic and massive pieces of art out of sandstones. Every day, alone with his dog, Ra Paulette would scrape and sculpture sandstones of Northern New Mexico’s caves. Some of his friends think that he is…
PRESIDENT Barack Obama on Friday, Feb. 12, designated three new national monuments over a land area of 1.8 million acres that will protect Southern California deserts. The move will create three national monuments — Castle Mountains, Mojave Trails and Sand to Snow — and will connect Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks and the…
THE sixth Democratic debate aired Thursday, Feb. 11 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, hosted by PBS NewsHour. It was the second debate between only former First Lady and US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and Vermont Governor Bernie Sanders, and the final round before the Nevada caucuses. After a sweeping loss in the New Hampshire…
It’s always fascinating to listen to or watch a foreigner faultlessly singing Tagalog songs. Aside from the uplifting feeling of unexplainable pride inevitably induced by the situation, it indubitably gives the alien tongue the opportunity to communicate efficiently through music which the world relentlessly considers the universal language. Take the case of the pretty Russian…
CAN a region long overcast with unfavorable razzmatazz unveil its true wonder? Behind the prejudice and infamy, Mary May Portez follows the road less traveled to discover Northern Mindanao’s underrated beauty. From Camiguin’s rustic je ne sais quoi to Misamis Oriental’s burgeoning craft industry, traveling has never been this inspiring. Capping it off with an…
LET’S put the gossip aside about John Lloyd Cruz’s confirmed breakup with girlfriend, actress Angelica Panganiban—for now. There’s a new project coming up for the actor, and although it is a romantic movie, it does not involved rumored reel—and now real love team, Bea Alonzo. The exciting news is that John Lloyd will be officially…
EACH month, the Visa Office of the State Department publishes, in the Visa Bulletin, the priority dates for that particular month, for the various family and employment based categories. A priority date is a person’s “place in line” for a visa, meaning immigrant visas (or green cards) would be available for persons whose priority date…
IT’S Valentine’s Day and Malena woke up to a bouquet of bright red roses and a box of chocolates by her bedside. There was a handwritten note from her husband , George, that said “I love you.” This made Malena smile. It’s times like these that she forgets her husband’s temper when he’s tired from…
Why do we age? Just like machines and engines, our bodies age because of the cumulative damages to our cells, tissues and organs (resulting from daily “wear and tear” and the self-abuse humans are well known for) that exceed our bodies’ ability to repair them. These damages lead to obvious signs of aging: sagging, bulges,…
Many attempts have been made to profile the Asian Entrepreneur. But I found an easier way to spot them—just check their family name. The fact is enterprises and entrepreneurship in the Asian context is usually tied up with kin or family. In the Philippines, the term “Asian entrepreneur” has not been around for long but…
Over half a million voters cast ballots on Tuesday, Feb. 9 in the New Hampshire primary, a large turnout across the small Northeastern state. Businessman Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders had decisive victories for the nation’s first primary, paving the way to success for the two outsider party candidates in the election. Trump…
Thanks to social media, not only are fans able to live vicariously through celebrities’ lives, they also get to witness their idols as they document their sweet moments. Check out our favorite celebrity couples as they give us glimpses into their relationships. (AJPress) Vanessa Hudgens & Austin Butler “Wow. Vanessa singing ‘Worst Things’ had me in tears….
Mark & PJ Met through: Tinder in 2014 Love is when the person is your other half, no matter the distance Mark Bautista, 24, and his girlfriend of over a year, Precious Joy aka. “PJ,” 22, met on the social dating app Tinder in 2014. The location-based application, which connects to Facebook, matched Mark and PJ…
In time for Valentine’s Day, the Asian Journal asked a few couples how they found their significant others online & how they’ve made the relationships last. First impressions aren’t always important Pat Bolognese and Arleah Baingan-Bolognese Met through: Filipinofinder.com in 2005 Courtship: Chatted on and off for a year, then regularly for another year. Dated for seven years before getting…
ATTORNEY Ray Bulaon, known as “the Filipino Community’s Debt Relief Expert”, has opened a fourth office location in Los Angeles in order to be more accessible to all clients in the area including the Historic Filipinotown. Attorney Bulaon helps clients take control over their overwhelming debt problems so that they can recover quickly and rebuild…
MANY people try to file and open their own divorce case without an attorney in an effort to save on legal fees. Often, the self-represented divorce litigant would seek the assistance of the court facilitator’s office in preparing the papers to open their own divorce case. However once the divorce case is opened, many self-represented…
ACCORDING to the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) the incidence of poverty in the Philippines in 2014 was 25.8 percent. This includes individuals earning less than P1,755 a month or a family of five earning less than P8,778 a month. This begs the question: If only one-fourth of our population lives in poverty, does that mean…
AFTER the Iowa Caucuses and before the New Hampshire primary, a new national poll reveals the sentiment of the American people on where they want this nation to be stirred moving forward through the presidential elections. On the Democratic front, Frontrunner Hillary Clinton has reportedly planned on shaking her campaign to stop the momentum that…
AND so it begins. Filipinos are in the throes of election fever as the campaign period for the upcoming May national elections officially began on Tuesday, Feb. 9. With 18,053 elective positions at stake, qualified voters in the Philippines and abroad have in their hands, the power and responsibility of ensuring candidates for public office…
Work is a mysterious thing. Many of us claim to dislike it at times, but it takes a grip on us that it captures our emotions and loyalties we never knew existed in us. It was a retirement party for a man who had spent forty years with the same company and his colleagues from…
INDIVIDUALS who suffer concussions are at an increased risk of up to four times for suicide even years after their injury, a new study from Canada suggests. Researchers examined the medical records of 235,110 patients with concussions that weren’t serious enough to require hospitalization throughout a 20-year period in Ontario. Throughout an average follow-up period…
