Maniolas

Milpitas Mayor Joe Esteves (in barong Tagalog) hands Vice President Leni Robredo a letter of congratulations and gratitude for being a “great model” for citizens in the Philippines while ConsulGeneral Henry Bensurto Jr. (extreme left) and Milpitas City Council Member Gary Barbadillo (extreme right) look on. JUN NUCUM SAN FRANCISCO – Filipinos here gave a rousing welcome to Vice President Leni Robredo who stopped by this famous City by the Bay August 7 after a speaking engagement at a Filipino American empowerment conference in Pennsylvania. Robredo had visited the Filipino community here 19 months ago, when she was still the representative of the 3rd district of Camarines Sur in Congress. Her position may have changed, but the Robredo plain-folks trademark was still evident when she again greeted Bay Area kababayan at the packed Kalayaan Hall of the Philippine Consulate during a forum jointly sponsored by the University of the Philippines Alumni Association of San Francisco (UPAAA-SF) and the consulate. Atenean Group of San Francisco Bay Area members led by Leiza Danan-Leon (fourth from left) flocked to the Philippine Consulate to see and hear Vice President Leni Robredo. JUN NUCUM Robredo veered from a prepared speech and reprised at length her recollections as a simple mother of three who was bent on remaining on the sidelines, but who finally cast her lot in politics due to public clamor following her husband’s death. Running for and winning the second highest position of the land had never dawned on her before the opportunity Read More …

Christy Lynn Jaski of Wilmington, North Carolina confessed to molesting a 14-year-old Filipino boy she was in the process of adopting. FACEBOOK WILMINGTON, North Carolina — A North Carolina woman has pleaded guilty to sex charges involving a 14-year-old boy who her family was in the process of adopting from the Philippines. The StarNews of Wilmington reports 43-year-old Christy Lynn Jaski pleaded guilty Tuesday, August 9, to three counts of misdemeanor sexual battery. Jaski was sentenced to three years of probation and must register as a sex offender for 30 years. [In 2004, Jaski launched a ministry dedicated to helping families raise money for adoptions. Through her efforts, more than 20 children have been placed with families in several states, according to a report in UK’s Daily Mail.] Prosecutor Lance Oehrlein says Jaski kissed and groped the boy sometime between December 2014 and January 2015. Oehrlein says Jaski also sent messages to a friend in the Philippines admitting she had kissed the child. She was arrested in February 2015. Jaski’s attorneys say Jaski hasn’t had any contact with the boy since he was removed from the Jaski family’s home and placed in another state. Latest Athletics standouts’ turn to shoot for medal in Rio This is happiest PH team, says ‘lucky charm’ Star ‘always outhustled’ says Barroca 15 Manila-bound flights diverted due to bad weather Recommended Disclaimer: Comments do not represent the views of INQUIRER.net. We reserve the right to exclude comments which are inconsistent with our editorial standards. FULL DISCLAIMER View Read More …

SAN FRANCISCO — If all politics are local, then candidate Hillary Clinton may very well need to speak a little Korean and Tagalog in order to win the 2016 presidential election. Why? In 2014 Slate.com published a fascinating article with this headline, “Tagalog in California, Cherokee in Arkansas.” It is a survey of the languages spoken in each state. Of great political interest is the most common language spoken other than English or Spanish. In Alaska it is Yupik, In Nevada it is Tagalog (spoken by Filipinos), while Vietnamese is the third most popular language in Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas. Korean fills that slot in Virginia and Georgia. Makes sense Spanish, of course, is the second most common language spoken other than English in most states. It makes sense then that Clinton’s VP pick, Tim Kaine, made his acceptance speech for the Democratic Party’s nomination partly in Spanish. His language skill will surely come in very handy when he goes stomping in battleground states like Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. After all, getting Latinos (along with African Americans) to come out and vote is an urgent and an absolute necessary affair.  “The growth among non-Hispanic white eligible voters has been slower than among racial or ethnic minorities in large part because they are overrepresented in deaths due to an aging population,” according to Pew Research Center. “By comparison, racial/ethnic minorities – who make up 31 percent of the electorate – accounted for 43 percent of new eligible voters born in the U.S. who Read More …

Juliana Gonzalez, left, and Ally Pendon, right, tap the sticks as Becca Pendon, second from left, and Lexi Gowan demonstrate Tinikling, the national dance of the Philippines at Heritage Park in Chattanooga, Tenn. The first wave of Chattanooga’s Filipino immigrants were nursing students who came here back in the 1970s to attend school and fill America’s urgent need for nurses at the time. Filipino nurses still come here to study but so do Filipino engineers, teachers and other professionals. (Angela Lewis Foster/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP) CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee — The first wave of Chattanooga’s Filipino immigrants were nursing students who came here back in the 1970s to attend school and fill America’s urgent need for nurses at the time. Filipino nurses still come here to study but so do Filipino engineers, teachers and other professionals. These days, there is a big enough Filipino community in town to host a festival or a pig roast and also to form the 300-member Filipino-American Association of Greater Chattanooga, a number that doesn’t include spouses, children and friends who want to attend the colorful and tasty events hosted by the association. And now local Filipino Americans want to share their vibrant culture through three passions Southerners and Filipinos share — music, dancing and pork. Yes, pork. Lechon party The most glorious Filipino pork dish is the “lechon de leche” — a pig stuffed full of lemongrass and whole onions then roasted on a spit over coals for about four hours. The pig is Read More …

Representing 3 Wishes Arts Consulting are Filipino comic book artists (left to right) Jay Anacleto, Philip Tan, Steven Segovia and Carlo Pagulayan. FLORANTE IBANEZ SAN DIEGO, California — Filipino and Filipino American artists, comic book creators, animators and authors showcased their abilities to the record 135,000 attendees of the annual San Diego Comic Con, July 21-24 at the San Diego Convention Center. There was Art Directors Guild’s Ed Natividad (Justice League, Suicide Squad), who started out passionately aiming to design cars in Detroit but fell into industrial design. General Motors gave him an internship to its advance concept studio in California. This enabled him to get into ILM (Industrial Light and Magic). “It was actually easier for me to get into ILM than to get into the union during that time,” he recalled. Now he is a sought after concept artist who was part of the team that designed the functional Batmobile seen in “Batman vs. Superman.” Filipinas can be comic book creators too like Jinky Coronado, who incorporates Philippine folk legends. FLORANTE IBANEZ From the Philippines, staffing the 3-Wishes booth, were comic book artists Philip Tan (SPAWN, DC, Marvel) who now sees many opportunities to show one’s work because of the internet, Jay Anacleto who got started with a referral by Whilce Portacio to draw for ARIA from Avalon Studios in 1999, Steven Segovia (currently drawing Dark Wolverine for Marvel and Reign in Hell for DC Comics) and Carlo Pagulayan who got this break with his contribution to the Read More …