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BOSTON – Titled "A voice for Filipino-Americans," the Boston Globe recently featured Gretheline Ramos Bolandrina who it says “keeps her Filipino roots strong by writing for a number of ethnic media outlets."

The article, written by Susan Chaityn Lebovits, said Gretheline came to the US 18 years ago and has since become a voice for the immigrant community, “disseminating Filipino pop culture and news in the suburbs west of Boston and online worldwide.

WASHINGTON D.C. - The National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), the voice of 3 million Filipino Americans in the United States, has joined the chorus of protest against the district attorney of Camden County, Georgia for holding an accused doctor in detention for almost a year without recourse to bail. In a recent letter to District Attorney Stephen Kelley of Camden county, Georgia, NaFFAA chair Alma Quintans Kern took up the cudgels for Dr. Romeo Natividad Chua, a Far Eastern University graduate, who has been implicated in the death of an American patient and has been in jail since September last year.

The 3rd Filipino Basketball Association of North America Basketball Tournament will blast off on September 1 and 2, 2007, in Chantilly, Virginia with more than a thousand players and 4,500 to 6000 guests expected to descend in the area to witness the 2 day extravaganza which is reputed to be the largest gathering of Filipino American and Filipino Canadian athletes in the area in recent memory.

The participating cities are Mississauga, Montreal, Windsor, Winnipeg, Toronto and Vaughn from Canada and Washington DC, Houston, Gaithersburg, Chicago and Glendale Heights from the United States.

WASHINGTON - A former US Marine in Oregon and an ex-FBI special agent traveled halfway across the world to Malaysia last October to rescue a young Cebuana, one of a group of 16 Filipino victims preyed on by human traffickers, Dateline NBC reported Aug. 8.

The other 15, the majority of them women, were freed after three months in captivity by Filipino officials in a dramatic late-night operation in Malaysia early this year, said NBC in an hour-long report aired on Wednesday entitled “Dateline to the rescue.”

49 US solons tell GMA in letter

WASHINGTON D.C. – Filipino groups in the US have hailed the letter signed by a bipartisan group of 49 congressmen asking President Gloria Arroyo to stop the extra-judicial killings in the Philippines saying it was an "unprecedented act."

Katarungan’s committee for peace, justice and human rights in the Philippines in the tri-date area said that “not even during dark days of the Marcos dictatorship did US members of Congress deliver a letter of concern to the President protesting human rights abuses." The recent Methodist conference in Virginia Beach issued a resolution hailing the bipartisian group of representatives. (See story inside.)

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - The National Association of Filipino-American United Methodists has approved a resolution urging the U.S. government to condition continued foreign aid to the Philippines based on that country’s compliance in addressing growing concerns about human rights abuses.

A human rights monitoring agency in the Philippines has documented 869 deaths and 180 enforced disappearances, mostly of social activists, including many religious leaders critical of government policies. A major complaint has been the refusal of the government to investigate the alleged extrajudicial killings and disappearances.

Members heard reports and resolutions on the human rights abuses from U.S. church leaders and guests from the Philippines during the association’s 11th biennial convocation, July 15-19.

WASHINGTON - The United States has proposed holding disaster relief exercises with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a group to help victims of natural disasters in the region.

Christopher R. Hill Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs made the proposal at the ASEAN Regional Forum conference in Manila to enhance ASEAN-US cooperation on the ground.

The proposal calls for the first ever exercise to be held within 18 months between US forces and ARF forces somewhere in the Philippines in a scenario in which amphibious and helicopter rescue teams have to be mobilized to assist a village hit by a tsunami.
“Given the number of natural disasters in the region whether caused by global warming or just plain bad luck we thought it time to see if our forces can work together, can be interoperable in dealing with disaster relief," he said.

MANILA – The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has called on the US and other countries for a “phased and calibrated” withdrawal of their troops from Iraq to bring back normalcy to the war-torn country.

ASEAN Foreign Ministers issued the call for withdrawal of foreign troops in Iraq in a joint communiqu_ issued at the end of their two-day 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting.
The ministers expressed deep concern over the continued instability in Iraq and reaffirmed their support for the Iraqi government and its efforts to ensure unity, security, stability, and prosperity in the country.

MANILA – US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told ABS-CBN in an exclusive interview July 31 he believes that the Philippines could halt the spate of extrajudicial killings in the country if the authorities would focus on the cases of politically related murders.

“We of course know about these reports although the facts are not entirely clear as to the extent to which these killings might be occurring. What we want to do is encourage the authorities, the appropriate authorities, to look into these matters and give them the attention that they deserve," Negroponte told Maria Ressa, ABS-CBN news and current affairs chief.

WASHINGTON D.C. - Members of the Philippine-US Friendship Caucus have expressed their collective commitment to work hard for the eventual passage of the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill.

They made this commitment during a reception co-sponsored by the Philippine Embassy and the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) on July 26 at the Rayburn House Office Building of Capitol Hill in honor of the members of the Philippine Friendship Caucus (PFC) in the House of Representatives.

MANILA - Veteran broadcaster Pete Roa, husband of Boots Anson Roa and former resident of Virginia for many years, died at the Capitol Medical Center in Quezon City Aug. 9 of pneumonia and cardiac arrest. He was 67.

Boots told the media Pete was suffering from a lingering affliction with cancer of the stomach which had metastasized to his brain and lungs.

WASHINGTON D.C. – The National Alliance for Filipino Veterans Equity (NAFVE) and the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) have urged the House and Senate to pass the bill that would provide the few surviving Filipino veterans of World War II the recognition and benefits that were promised them by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when they fought under the American flag in the Philippines in 1941.

The Filam Heritage Dance Ensemble, the Ultimate Eskrima Int’l and volunteers of the Migrant Heritage Commission (MHC) , Inc. demonstrated and taught the Philippine national dance "Tinikling" the audience at last month's 4th Annual Asian Festival in Reston, Virginia. MHC’s Philippine Interactive Cultural tent was provided by the Thai Tennis Organization of America/USTA. Many in the audience tried their skill in hopping and skipping gracefully in between the fast clicking two long bamboo poles.

WASHINGTON- At the special ceremony at the Department of Veterans Affairs late last month, two outstanding “Americans by Choice” were honored by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Emilio Gonzalez during the naturalization ceremony for 25 new citizens last month.

CHICAGO, Illinois - A Filipino priest accused of stealing more than $600,000 in donations to two churches to support his double life as a family man in a neighboring county in Virginia wants his case dismissed by the County Circuit Court in Louisa, Virginia for lack of jurisdiction.