Maniolas

A street memorial in Woodside, Queens, New York for assault victim Roberto Martirez. DNA FILE PHOTO • Still no arrests in the killing of Roberto Martirez in Queens, New York • NYPD rules out hate crime • Some Filipinos skeptical of link to World Cup revelry NEW YORK — More than a week since 56-year-old Roberto Martirez was fatally attacked outside a restaurant in Queens, NY, police appear to have made little progress in the search for the suspect seen in a grainy image captured in surveillance footage. (Previous reports misspelled his surname as “Martines.”) While the investigation is ongoing, no arrests have been made and no one has come forward to give police new leads, prompting New York City Police Department to seek help from the public and collaborate with the Philippine Consulate. Police Officer Sophia Mason, responding to an INQUIRER.net e-mail inquiry on Monday afternoon, said that the “Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in ascertaining the whereabouts of an individual wanted for questioning.” The authorities have returned to the crime scene this week and posted flyers around Woodside, a neighborhood with a significant Filipino immigrant population, offering a $2,000 reward for information that may lead to the arrest of an individual responsible for the assault on Martirez, a chauffeur who lived a few blocks from the restaurant. According to initial police reports, the suspect was described as a “Hispanic male, early to mid-20s, with facial hair,” and was last seen on the security camera wearing Read More …

Associated Press 4:55 pm | Monday, June 30th, 2014 Loading the player… Video from Associated Press SAN ANTONIO, Philippines — More than 100 Filipino and US marines in assault amphibious vehicles conducted a mock assault on imaginary enemies in military drills Monday on a beach in northwestern Philippines facing the South China Sea, where Manila is locked in a territorial dispute with China. The amphibious tanks sailed from a US ship anchored a distance away, then rolled onto the beach of San Antonio, Zambales, northwest of the Philippine capital Manila, disgorging the Filipino and American sailors and marines armed with automatic rifles. The exercise is part of the annual Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training that the US conducts with its allies in Asia, including the Philippines, to address maritime security, strengthen partnerships and enhance interoperability. Officials said the maneuvers were not directed at China, which has been criticized for its increasingly assertive behavior in disputed South China Sea territories. The Philippines, the oldest of Washington’s five defense treaty allies in Asia, has turned to the US to modernize its ill-equipped military amid the increasingly tense territorial rifts with China. “Whenever we do an exercise, we always train to improve our capabilities, it is not meant for whatever threat or situation that are current,” said Philippine Navy Commodore Roland Joseph Mercado. Marine Maj. Damon Torres, commanding officer of the US landing force in the exercise, said the drills were a good opportunity to coordinate and learn about each other’s capabilities. China, Read More …

‘PRECIOUS TO US’ Teacher Miyoko Hirano and 14-year-old students Fuka Sato (center) andYukina Kikuchi of Japan show to visiting Southeast Asian journalists “precious” thank-you letterssent by the Filipino pupils to whom they donated school supplies after Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” DJ YAP KAMAISHI CITY—Fuka Sato was only 11 when she and some 3,000 other schoolchildren escaped the tsunami that engulfed this small industrial town three years ago in what became known throughout Japan as the “Miracle of Kamaishi.” But Sato, now a middle-school student at Kamaishi East Junior High, knows that their dramatic escape from the March 3, 2011, disaster—aided by teachers and years of earthquake drills—was not incredible at all. She believes that the same “miracle” can happen regularly, even in other places. “We need only to share our experience so other children will know what to do,” said 14-year-old Sato. Which was why when Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) brought devastating storm surges into the coasts of central Philippines last November, the schoolchildren of Kamaishi wanted to reach out that instant. “They were watching the news and they were reminded of their own experience. Immediately, they wanted to help,” their teacher, Miyoko Hirano, told visiting Southeast Asian journalists, including the Inquirer. The reporters from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines were on a fellowship organized by the Foreign Press Center Japan, which took them on an 11-day tour around the coast of northeastern Japan and the greater Tokyo area to survey the progress of Japan’s massive rehabilitation effort after the Read More …

FRANCO CONSOLACION SAN FRANCISCO—Franco Consolacion was always a dreamer. He immigrated to the United States with his family after martial law was declared in the Philippines in September 1972. He had been a successful Certified Public Accountant (CPA), a “topnotcher” in the accountancy exams, and was teaching accounting at the University of the East. In his new country, Franco secured a job as a senior accountant of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center and earned enough to buy a home in Pinole, a bedroom community outside the city. But Franco dreamed of being a CPA in California and knew he either had to pass the accountancy exams or obtain a “waiver” from the California Board of Accountancy, which was granted to a qualified applicant that was “a holder of a valid and unrevoked certificate as a Certified Public Accountant issued in a foreign country.” Franco quickly learned that the waiver applications of every Philippine- trained and certified CPA had all been denied. What incensed Franco most was the knowledge that foreign applicants from British Commonwealth countries were regularly granted waivers, and these foreign applicants were invariably white. Franco led a renewed effort to secure waivers for Filipino CPAs by mobilizing the Bay Area Filipino community to rally to their cause as a civil rights issue. He lobbied to get a law passed that would prohibit discrimination by the Board of Accountancy on the basis of national origin. But his 1977 legislative effort failed because of the forceful opposition Read More …

Map showing the disputed areas in the West Philippine Sea (south China Sea), including the Spratlys Islands and Scarborough Shoal. AFP MANILA, Philippines – The West Philippine Sea is China’s “natural shield” in the south, which will not only give it a strong defense against the United States, but will also provide food and energy security given the wealth of natural resources in the Reed Bank, according to a strategic assessment paper from the Development Academy of the Philippines. The importance of the West Philippine Sea to China also explains its assertive claims to territories within the Philippines’ Kalayaan Island Group (KIG). The West Philippine Sea is the name given by Manila to that part of the South China Sea that falls within the country’s exclusive economic zone under the United Nations Convention on the law of the Sea. “The West Philippine Sea (WPS) is important as it is regarded as a natural shield of China’s security in the South. Having a strong foothold on the WPS would give China a strategic area of defense consisting of over 1,000 kilometers, the security implication of which is ‘incalculable’,” said the DAP paper titled, “Maintaining the Balance of Power and Increasing the Sphere of Influence over the West Philippine Sea: The China Track.” The paper also noted that controlling the West Philippine Sea would “ensure the economic and political survival of the Communist Party.” The West Philippine Sea is the part of South China Sea that is within the Philippines’ 320-kilometer exclusive Read More …