PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

About 59 percent of Filipino-Americans polled by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) voted for Democratic candidate Barack Obama during the November 2008 presidential elections, while 39 percent went for Republican John McCain.

Meanwhile, Asian-American voters were engaged in the political process like never before during the last presidential elections and voted for Mr. Obama by a 3 to 1 margin, with a majority registered as Democrats.

These and more are the significant findings of AALDEF as it released detailed results of its nonpartisan multilingual exit poll of 16,665 Asian-American voters in the November 2008 elections, the largest survey of its kind in the nation.

Five percent of those polled - or 833 voters - were Filipino-Americans.

AALDEF, a 35-year-old New York-based national organization, polled the Asian-American voters in 11 states on election day: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Michigan, Illinois, Louisiana, Texas, Nevada and Washington, D.C.

AALDEF executive director Margaret Fung said the AALDEF exit poll offers unique insights into the Asian-American electorate, which will continue to have growing influence on our nation's political landscape."

Glenn Magpantay, AALDEF staff attorney and who is Filipino-American, presented the results of the 2008 multilingual exit poll on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Key findings from AALDEF's report, "The Asian American Vote in the 2008 Presidential Election," include the following:

* Asian-Americans are a growing segment of the electorate, with a large proportion of first-time voters and foreign-born naturalized U.S. citizens.
Nearly four out of five (79 percent) of Asian-Americans polled were foreign-born naturalized U.S. citizens. Almost one-third (31 percent) of those polled said that they voted for the first time.

* Asian-Americans shared common political interests, even across ethnic lines. Asian-Americans voted as a bloc for the same candidates and identified common reasons for their votes - economy/jobs. The 10 largest Asian ethnic groups in the exit poll were Chinese (32 percent), Asian Indian (15 percent), Korean (14 percent), Bangladeshi (8 percent), Vietnamese (6 percent), Filipino (5 percent), Pakistani (4 percent), Indo-Caribbean (4 percent), Arab (3 percent) and Cambodian (2 percent).

* Asian-Americans voted for Barack Obama by a 3 to 1 margin, with a majority registered as Democrats. Over three-quarters (76 percent) of Asian-Americans polled voted for Barack Obama, with 23 percent supporting John McCain. In 30 of the 45 congressional districts where the exit poll was conducted, a majority of Asian-Americans supported Democratic candidates. Among Asian-Americans polled, more than half (58 percent) were registered Democrats, 13 percent were registered Republicans, and 26 percent were not enrolled in any political party.

* Economy/jobs was the most important factor influencing the Asian-American vote for President. Economy/jobs (66 percent), health care (40 percent) and foreign policy/war in Iraq (31 percent). Other top issues for Asian-American voters included education (27 percent), civil rights/immigrant rights (23 percent), terrorism/security (14 percent) and crime in neighborhoods (6 percent).

* Most Asian-Americans favored health insurance and medical coverage for all persons, regardless of immigration status. Nearly four out of five (79 percent) respondents supported the provision of health insurance and medical coverage to all persons irrespective of their immigration status.

* Language assistance and bilingual ballots are needed to preserve access to the vote. More than one-third (35 percent) polled were limited English proficient (LEP), defined as speaking English "less than very well." One out of five (20 percent) identified English as native language. Korean-Americans had the highest concentration of LEP voters, with more than half (54 percent) identifying themselves as LEP, followed by Vietnamese-Americans (53 percent) and Chinese-Americans (45 percent).

According to Census data released in April 2009, Asian-American voter registration and turnout have increased in every election, with 4.2 million registered voters and a 3 percent increase in voter turnout in the 2008 elections.

AALDEF's multilingual exit polls reveal vital information about Asian-American voting patterns that is often overlooked in mainstream voter surveys.

AALDEF has conducted exit polls of Asian-American voters in every major election since 1988.

In the 2004 presidential election, AALDEF surveyed 10,789 Asian-American voters in eight states.

More than 100 community groups and organizations joined AALDEF to mobilize over 1,500 attorneys, law students and volunteers to conduct the exit poll and to safeguard the voting rights of Asian-Americans.

The entire report can be downloaded by logging on to www.aaldef.org

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Senator, a Fil-Am, quits GOP panel over affair with staffer

SEN. JOHN ENSIGN

U.S. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, one of three congressional leaders who claimed to have Filipino roots and mentioned as a potential presidential candidate in 2012, has stepped down as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee on Wednesday a day after admitting to an extramarital affair.

Ensign, 51, was the fourth-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate before he admitted having a "consensual affair" with a former campaign staffer who is married to one of the lawmaker's former legislative aides.

FOX News sources say Ensign's admission was prompted by a blackmail threat and extortion.

"Last year I had an affair. I violated the vows of my marriage," Ensign said on Tuesday, reading from a prepared statement and leaving without taking questions. "It is the worst thing I have ever done in my life. If there was ever anything in my life that I could take back, this would be it."

"I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions," he said.

Ensign's wife Darlene was not at her husband's side during the short briefing, but issued a statement saying the couple's marriage has become "stronger" after the affair.

"Since we found out last year we have worked through the situation and we have come to a reconciliation. This has been difficult on both families. With the help of our family and close friends our marriage has become stronger," Mrs. Ensign said.

The Ensigns have three children.

Dad is half-Pinoy
Ensign's paternal grandfather, whom he said he has never met but believes is still alive, was born in the Philippines and is half-Filipino and half-German.

He said he did not know he was part Filipino until his paternal grandmother told him shortly before she died.

"I think I might have already been in Congress when I learned about it," said Ensign, who was elected to the House in 1994.

He was elected to the Senate after his second try in 2000.
s
Ensign claimed his natural father deserted the family when Ensign was four years old.

Ensign's mother later married casino executive Mike Ensign, whom the senator considers his real father.

Ensign made the disclosure in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal last April after voting against increasing federal benefits for military veterans in the Philippines who fought alongside American soldiers against the Japanese during World War II.

His "nay" vote got him a lot of flak from the Filipino-American community, many of them political supporters, who claimed Ensign voted against his people.

"At election time, he always tells us he is part Filipino," Rozita Lee, vice chairwoman of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), told the Review-Journal. "Many of us feel he should not keep saying that if he cannot support this."

"What he told me was that Filipino men were fighting for the Philippines during World War II, not America," Lee said. "I was incredulous. The bullets did not differentiate between Americans and Filipinos, and President (Franklin) Roosevelt promised Filipino veterans these benefits."

'No' to Filipino vets
Ensign said he voted against a measure to spend millions of dollars on veterans in the Philippines because he thinks the money should be spent on American veterans in the United States.

"I'm American," he said. "I voted for Americans."

Despite opposition from Ensign and many other Republicans, the amendment passed by a vote of 56-41.

Asked by Review-Journal reporter Tony Batt if his Filipino heritage is important to him, Ensign said: "I think everybody's heritage is important to them."

Two of his aides are Filipinos and "it's kind of a neat thing to share," Ensign said.

He added his Filipino aides were not bothered by his vote against increasing federal benefits for veterans living in the Philippines.

In 1998, then Rep. Ensign called on President Bill Clinton to resign after revelations about his affair with a White House intern. "He sent taxpayer-paid staff out to lie for him, and that is a misuse of office," Ensign said, adding that the President had "no credibility left."

In September 2007, Ensign called then-Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) "embarrassing" after Craig was arrested in an airport men's restroom and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in a sex sting.

Ensign played the leading role in an unsuccessful effort to force Craig into resigning from the Senate.

Two other congressional members with Filipino lineage are Rep. Steve Austria (R-Ohio) and Rep. Robert "Bobby" Scott (D-Virginia).

On Nov. 4, 2008, Austria, a member of the Ohio State Senate, became the first Filipino-American to U.S. Congress after he was elected to succeed retiring Rep. Dave Hobson to represent Ohio's 7th Congressional District.

Born in Cincinnati, he is the eldest of nine children of the late Dr. Clement G. Austria from Tiaong, Quezon, who immigrated to Ohio to attend medical school.

Scott is the maternal grandson of Valentin Cortez Hamlin from the Philippines.

A pharmacist who married an African-American, Valentin Cortez escaped poverty in the Philippines by stowing away in a ship bound for the U.S.

The ship's American captain (Hamlin) discovered him and later adopted him.

Currently on his eighth term in office, Scott has the distinction of being the first American with Filipino heritage to serve as a voting member of Congress and Virginia's second African-American elected to U.S. Congress.

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Calimlims resentenced
to 6 years for slavery

DR. JEFFERSON CALIMLIM SR.

MILWAUKEE - A Brookfield, Wisconsin couple who kept a domestic servant in their home under conditions of servitude for nearly two decades was resentenced in federal court on Tuesday to six years in prison.

This sentence resulted from a joint investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Jefferson Calimlim Sr. and his wife Elnora, both medical doctors in Milwaukee, were each sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rudolph T. Randa, Eastern District of Wisconsin, to six years in prison for forcing a woman to work as their domestic servant and illegally harboring her for 19 years in their Brookfield home.

The Calimlims, who were initially sentenced on Nov. 16, 2006, to four years in prison each, were resentenced on June 9 after the Court of Appeals identified legal errors in the initial sentencing and remanded the case to the district court for resentencing.

On May 26, 2006, the Calimlims were convicted by a Milwaukee federal jury for using threats of serious harm and physical restraint against a Filipino woman to obtain her services, in violation of federal law.

According to evidence presented at trial, Jefferson Calimlim Sr. and his wife recruited and brought the victim from the Philippines to the U.S. in 1985 when she was 19 years old.

In September 2004, ICE and FBI agents removed the victim, then age 38, from the Calimlim's Brookfield residence through the execution of a federal search warrant.

The victim testified that for 19 years she was hidden in the Calimlim's home, forbidden from going outside, and told that she would be arrested, imprisoned and deported if she were discovered.

She was not allowed to socialize, communicate freely with the outside world, or leave the house unsupervised, and she was required to hide in her basement bedroom whenever non-family members were present in the house.

"Today's sentence is a testament to our solemn commitment to protect those who cannot protect themselves," said James Gibbons, acting special agent-in-charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Chicago. "Many people are unaware that this form of modern day slavery still occurs in the United States. The victims can be domestic servants, sweat shop employees, sex workers or fruit pickers who are lured here by the promise of prosperity and forced to work as indentured servants. ICE is committed to giving them the help they need to come forward as we work to end human trafficking with vigorous enforcement and tough penalties."

"Our Constitution promises freedom to all," said Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. "The defendants denied the victim the basic right to her freedom. DOJ is committed to prosecuting those who prey on vulnerable members of our society and hold them in modern-day slavery."

The case against the Calimlims was initiated by a call to ICE's national hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE (1-866-347-2423).

ICE law enforcement personnel staff the hotline around-the-clock to take leads from the public about suspicious activity or reports of crimes.

Leads generated from hotline calls have resulted in the arrests of a wide range of criminals, including aggravated felons, smugglers, fugitives, sexual predators and aliens who have re-entered the country after being deported.

This case was successfully prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Johnson, Eastern District of Wisconsin, and Susan French, Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice's Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit.

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Filipino pastor bemoans loss
of Queens church to blaze

Firefighters at the scene of the century-old Queens Methodist church in Maspeth, N.Y.

By EDMUND M. SILVESTRE

MASPETH, N.Y. - A century-old Queens Methodist church headed for 14 years by a Filipino pastor was gutted by raging fire on June 9, devastating its congregants of diverse backgrounds.

The destruction of the 102-year-old white clapboard Maspeth United Methodist Church came as Rev. Avelio de Leon (right) was preparing to retire at the end of June.

His successor, Eumin Kim, a Korean, has earlier been named.

"I'm retiring at the end of the month, so it's a sad ending," said De Leon, who obtained his bachelor of divinity from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.

"Everything was destroyed, including our Bibles and hymn books and tables and chairs," he said. "Even the church records all burned."

The two-alarm blaze ignited at the 58th Avenue church just after 4:30 a.m. The church was situated right in front of the pastor's house.

De Leon said he believed that the clapboard structure may have been ignited by lightning strikes during the furious overnight storm.

"My wife woke me at 2:45 a.m. because she heard three loud thumping sounds and thought maybe somebody was breaking into our car," De Leon reportedly said. "About 45 minutes later I smelled smoke, and noticed that the back corner of the church was on fire. A few minutes later, the first fire truck showed up."

Even neighbors speculated that lightning strikes sparked the inferno, but fire officials said the cause was still under investigation.

Two firefighters suffered minor injuries while battling the blaze, but no civilians were hurt.

The fire, which spewed thick, dark smoke that could be seen for miles, was finally knocked down at 8:10 a.m., fire officials said.

The heavily Catholic neighborhood celebrated the congregation's 150th anniversary in 2004, and the current church was dedicated on Feb. 24, 1907.
"Everyone on the block is involved with the church," said Mike Walter, an accountant. "It has an open-door policy."

Like many older congregations, membership dwindled over the years, and reports say that the Sunday attendance averaged about 25 for services.

Nevertheless, the church was a center of community activity according to locals, being a home for 175 girl scouts, yoga classes, a toddler playgroup and an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter that met on Sunday nights.

De Leon says the church was insured. Until a decision is made on whether or not to rebuild, parishioners say they'll attend services at one of two sister churches nearby.

The Department of Buildings determined the church was structurally unsound and issued an emergency declaration to have it demolished.

The Department of Housing and Preservation demolished the historic structure the following day.

Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) had asked that some precious artifacts from the church be recovered before demolition.

Crowley used the incident as an example of why the city shouldn't cut fire companies, which it has proposed doing to balance the budget.

City Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scopetta has yet to announce the 12 units which are facing closure.

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Garcia off the hook anew from perjury charges

ACQUITTED: Ex-AFP Comptroller Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia (l.) at the promulgation of his perjury case.

MANILA - The Sandiganbayan acquitted on Thursday retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia of perjury charges in connection with his declared assets and liabilities.

The anti-graft court cited the failure of the prosecution to prove Garcia, as comptroller of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), deliberately lied in his 1997 Statement of Assets and Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN).
"Accusation is not synonymous with guilt," the anti-graft court said in a 25-page decision penned by Associate Justice Alexander Gesmundo of the First Division of the Sandiganbayan.

It was the last in the four perjury cases filed against him by the Office of the Ombudsman.

Garcia was accused of falsifying his 1997 SALN with his failure to declare three vehicles collectively worth around P1.6 million.

Prosecutors said Garcia deliberately failed to declare his Toyota Previa worth P521,797; a Mitsubishi L-300 van De Luxe worth P424,583; and a Honda Civic worth P546,000.

In his 1997 SALN, Garcia merely placed the amount of P870,000 under the category of "vehicles" without elaborating on the model and number of vehicles.

The Sandiganbayan, however, said the prosecution failed to prove the deliberate intent of Garcia to falsify his SALN.

The anti-graft court said the prosecution failed to overcome the presumption that "an unlawful act was done with an unlawful intent."
"This is a weak argument as the prosecution is putting the cart before the horse," the court said.

Proving that an accused made a false statement merely satisfies one of the two essential elements of perjury that also include proving "that the accused did not believe his statement to be true," the court added.

The decision explained that when Garcia declared P870,000 as the worth of vehicles he owns, his 1997 SALN did not describe any particular vehicle.
This means that "it could be any vehicle" and that "it could be, in fact, a Toyota Previa van," which could well be worth the amount declared based on acquisition cost.

Insofar as the two other vehicles is concerned, the court said the prosecution sought to prove that the Honda Civic and Mitsubishi L-300 van registered under the name of his wife Clarita should have been declared because the items fall under conjugal assets.

The court, however, ruled in favor of the defense's "good faith" argument that Garcia failed to mention them in his 1997 SALN since the form supplied to him by the AFP that he filled up did not require him to include the personal properties of his wife.

The court said the former military comptroller "cannot be held guilty of perjury for asserting a 'false objective fact,' which he believed to be true to the best of his knowledge and information" because "the false assertion must have been done deliberately and willfully."

"If there exists even one iota of doubt, this court is under a longstanding injunction to resolve the doubt in favor of the accused," the ruling stated.

After the acquittal was announced, the retired general left the courtroom and waited outside for a copy of the ruling without giving media interviews.

The Office of the Ombudsman said it would file a motion for reconsideration.

Garcia remains in custody at the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Camp Crame, since he is still facing a plunder case and two forfeiture proceedings on his purportedly ill-gotten wealth amounting to more than P300 million.

His wife and children Ian Carl, Juan Paulo and Timothy Mark were also named in the plunder case.

Garcia was also charged before the military's General Court Martial that subsequently found him guilty in December 2006 of violation of Articles of War No. 96 and 97, respectively, for conduct unbecoming of an officer and gentleman and conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline.

The military court ordered Garcia stripped of his rank, dishonorably discharged from the service and the forfeiture of his benefits.

The military court sentenced Garcia to two years of hard labor in December 2006.

Garcia's trouble started when one of his two sons was arrested by U.S. Customs at the San Francisco airport carrying $100,000 in cash on Dec. 19, 2003.

"I believe this is another example of why we must fight to keep fire companies open," she said.

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