Pinoy workers ‘fearful’ of a Trump win invest in jewelry

“Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry.”

—John Lennon

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

FEARING their being “TNTs” (Tago Ng Tago) will again be reopened in heated anti-illegal immigration crackdowns once President Donald Trump will be reelected in the November 3 U.S. Presidential Election, some Filipino workers have started placing “hard-earned” money into a “safe investment”: gold jewelry.

“It’s fine if (Democratic Party candidate Joseph) Biden will win. We know he won’t run after the undocumented aliens. But if President Trump will be reelected, the ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) will once again chase us like rats,” feared Richie, 44, a dishwasher in an Asian restaurant in Queens, New York City.

ICE has mission to protect America from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety.

Richie, a former bible scholar in Lumban, Laguna, converted some of the cash he earned since working “under-the-table” in 2016 into a box of gold jewelry.

“If I will be deported (if President Trump would be reelected), at least all my hard-earned money are secured in my body,” Riche said in jest.

He went on a shopping spree and chalked up a total of $18,000 (P880,000) worth of gold necklaces, bracelets, and rings in August and September in at least three modest borough pawnshops.

 

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Richie emptied his savings and sent the cash to his family in the Philippines a month before Mr. Trump, 74, will attempt to win a pandemic-laced reelection bid against a 77-year-old challenger penciled to lead the Democratic Party juggernaut and change the political atmosphere in America based on the recent polls.

“I always think two steps ahead,” gushed Richie, a psychology graduate before becoming a part-time pastor in Laguna. “President Trump will be more motivated and emboldened to hunt down the illegal immigrants once he will be reelected like what he did during his win in 2016. It’s a promise he made to his base during the campaign.”

Armando, 51, of Murcia City, Negros Occidental, cajoled Richie to “secure your money” by investing in jewelry since Richie couldn’t open a bank account.   

Armando left the Philippines nine years ago and is now a TNT like Richie.

He wears an 18-k gold necklace worth $6,000 (P294,000) and owns three other 22-k gold necklaces he kept in his apartment. 

Armando purchased the jewelry from his earnings while working as a “bodega” chief in a private warehouse in Flushing. 

“If I will be deported, at least I have money to start a small business (in the Philippines),” said Armando, who grew up outside the neighborhood of Murcia public market.

 

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Armando and Richie were able to convince another friend, a 46-year-old former public school teacher in Digos in Mindanao, who now works as a caregiver, to also dabble in jewelry investment.

The former school teacher targeted a white gold necklace worth $2,400 (P118,000) for his “first investment.”

“This is a good start,” he hissed.

Armando, Richie, and the former school teacher, were among the overstaying aliens who had been “alerted” in February 2017, or three months after Mr. Trump’s conquest of Hillary Clinton, where the newly elected Republican president had made a pre-election promise to deport illegal immigrants if he won the race to the White House.

Only those with criminal records, however, were nabbed during a series of ICE raids conducted mostly in Jackson Heights and Roosevelt Avenue where Richie and hundreds of TNTs were staying and working.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)

 

 

 

‘Ayusin mo ang pananalita mo’

“Political debate is of no interest to me. What I want are practical solutions.”

—Carole Bouquet

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WITH more than a week to go before the U.S. Presidential Election on November 3, I missed the regular “fireworks” in my Elmhurst neighborhood for five straight days over the week; but when I came back on Saturday night (October 17), I got lucky to have a ringside eye-witness account of the ongoing heated verbiage among passionate senior members of the Pinoy community in this diverse section of the borough of Queens with a population of two million and three hundred inhabitants in New York City.

The area where the pro-Donald Trump and pro-Joseph Biden joust among the politically inclined Filipinos has been taking place for five weeks now, is in the intersection of the Elmhurst and Broadway Avenues, a 10-minute walk from where I live. 

I’ve been a regular “attendee” and “eye witness” at the same time.

“I’m so pissed off with my friends in Astoria. Akalain mo may isa doon nilapitan ako may importante daw siyang sasabihin. Yun pala e coconvince lang ako na ‘mag democratic tayo ha.’ Sabi ko ano akala mo sa akin batang mosmos na puede’ng ma uto? Bakit wala ba kong sariling pag iisip?” boom Marcelino, 66, a confessed fanatic of President Trump, who “jumped ship” as a seaman in 1998.

 

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“May katwiran naman ang kaibigan mo. Based sa trend ngayon matatalo na talaga si Trump. Halos lahat ng mga swing states bumaligtad na for Biden,” gushed Josito, 68, who became a U.S. citizen during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. “As of this morning naka 15 points na ang lamang ni Biden. Mahirap na ma reverse yan.”

“Yun ang paniniwala nila,” Marcelino snapped back. “Ang mga media lang ang nagsasabi niyan. Mga liberal-controlled and corrupt media. Lalo na ang NBC, MSNBC at CNN mga fake news.”

Marcelino said he believed the Republican votes will “overwhelm” the polling centers during election day on November 3. 

“History will repeat itself. What happened in 2016 (when Mr. Trump defeated Mrs. Hillary Clinton) will happen again this year,” Marcelino predicted. “Napaka tanga mo naman kung boboto ka pa kay Biden. Hindi ka na naawa sa Amerika. Parang wala ka nang utang na loob sa Amerika,” barked Marcelino, while looking at Augusto, 72, a retired clerk at Middlesex county’s Camden city in New Jersey.

Visibly irked, Augusto, holding a cane, ribbed Marcelino in a hoarse voice: “Hindi na maganda ang panlalait mo ha. Ilang bisis na yan. Ayusin mo ang pananalita mo.”

 

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Augusto had voted in the past for Democratic presidential candidates Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Mrs. Clinton.

He considers Michael Dukakis, a 1988 Democratic presidential candidate who lost to Republican’s George H.W. Bush, to be “one of the most brilliant presidents the United States never had.”

At this juncture, the more calm and moderate Alberto, 63, intervened. “Let’s respect na lang the political choices of one another.”

Alberto, married to his second wife Lolit from Bayawan City, Negros Oriental in the Philippines, said he, too, had an “intense” disagreement with his first wife, a nurse who abandoned him, about politics but he never took it personally.

“Kung papatulan ko ang Marcelino na ‘yan baka mag away pa kami. Dada siya ng dada puro pabor kay Trump eh hindi ba niya naisip na halos lahat ng mga tao sa paligid nia puro Democrats?” Alberto intoned.

Chito, 46, a hospital worker from Leyte and one of the four Republican sympathizers in the crowd, sustained Marcelino: “Kung ako ang tatanungin, si Trump talaga ang dapat manalo. Okay sabi nila racist si Trump. Doon na tayo, but ang titingnan natin dito ay kung sino ang may mas magaling na plata porma; sino ang may mas mahusay na programs. Kung kay Biden tayo babagsak ang economiya ng Amerika. China will laugh at us. As an economist, Trump is good for Amerika.”

 

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“Tama si Chito,” quipped Mang Pepeng, 82, a former gunrunner from Nueva Ecija in the 70s. “Ang sa akin lang tumaas ang Dow Jones ng umupo si Trump. We need Trump to rescue our economy. Eh p_tang ina’ng mga Democrats na ‘yan pati ang BLM (Black Lives Matter) ginawa pa nilang mga heroes.”

Rainer, 70, a diabetic patient who moves around in a walker, enthused: “The issue is not only about racism and who has the better economic programs for America. We must also look at the issue on health care. Tingnan ninyo ang proposal ni Biden to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Biden wants to increase marketplace subsidies, adopt auto-enrollment, and offer a new public option available to those in the individual market or with employer coverage.”

Rainer, who also once tangled with Marcelino when he refused to junk Mr. Biden for Mr. Trump, explained that Biden’s plan “would also reduce the Medicare age from 65 to 60, establish a new long-term care tax credit, and increase funding for rural health and mental health services.”

Biden has promised to enact reforms to reduce prescription drug prices, lower other health care costs, and raise taxes on capital gains and ordinary income for high earner and heirs to the to finance the cost of his plan, Rainer explained before he became the first person in the group to leave.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)

 

 

 

We were wrong in 2016

“I've been wrong on everything about Trump; I've been wrong about everything on the Republican side of the ledger. But allow me - with that caveat - to made the prediction that Donald Trump will not be the president of the United States. It just will not happen.”

—Cory Booker

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WE were wrong to predict a Hillary Clinton victory in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.

No one can fault us. 

Inside the media center at the Hyatt New York in midtown Manhattan two days before the election, all the discussions and analysis by top U.S. officials we attended focused on “how” and “why” the wife of former President Bill Clinton would be the next president of the most powerful country in the world.

All the polls showed the former female U.S. state secretary was way ahead and only a few foreign press representatives there entertained the idea Republican Party candidate Donald Trump defeating Mrs. Clinton, a vastly popular and darling of the Democratic Party.

It was the 58th quadrennial American presidential election held on November 8, 2016. 

To the big horror of many American and foreign media representatives, the Republican ticket of businessman Trump and Indiana Governor Mike Pence demolished the Democratic ticket of Mrs. Clinton and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.

 

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Mrs. Clinton received about 2.9 million more votes nationwide, a margin of 2.1 percent of the total cast, while Mr. Trump pocketed a victory in the Electoral College, winning 30 states with 306 pledged electors out of 538, and overturned the perennial swing states of Florida, Iowa and Ohio, as well as the "blue wall" of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which had been Democratic strongholds in presidential elections since the 1990s. 

Leading up to the election, a Trump victory was projected unlikely by most media forecasts for straight one week prior to the election day.

Issues during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election were: Health care costs, economic inequality, terrorism, foreign policy (Russia, Iran, Syria, Brexit), gun control, treatment of minorities, immigration policy, shifting media landscape; one of only five elections (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, 2016) where the popular vote winner was defeated; and

Hillary Clinton first female presidential nominee of a major political party.

 

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Mrs. Clinton won Maine but Mr. Trump earned an electoral vote by winning the popular vote in the 2nd Congressional District. This marked the first time that Maine has split its electoral vote since it moved away from the winner-take-all method in 1972.

Independent Evan McMullin received 21.5 percent of the vote in Utah; best '3rd party' performance in any single state since Ross Perot in 1992

Libertarian Gary Johnson received over 3 percent of the nationwide vote; best 3rd party performance nationwide since Ross Perot in 1996

There were seven faithless presidential electors. Aside from 1872– death of Horace Greeley—it is the greatest number since electors began casting one vote each for president and vice president (12th Amendment, 1804). Three additional faithless votes, one each in Colorado, Maine and Minnesota, were disallowed.

Mrs. Clinton won Washington; however three electors cast votes for Colin Powell, one for Faith Spotted Eagle; Mr. Trump won Texas; however one elector cast a vote for Ron Paul, another for John Kasich

Mr. Clinton won Hawaii; however one elector cast a vote for Senator Bernie Sanders.

There are early signs that a repeat of the 2016 election might happen on November 3, 2020, but former Vice President Joseph Biden’s lead in almost all the major polls conducted weeks before November 3 showed that it will be an uphill climb for reelectionist President Trump—“unless a miracle will happen.”

Mr. Biden is currently leading Donald Trump in the national polls. Currently, the 10-poll average indicates that just over half of Americans intend to back Mr. Biden while Mr. Trump’s support trails this by around five or six points.

We hope we are correct this time.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)

 

Assert your independence

“True independence and freedom can only exist in doing what's right.”

—Brigham Young

 

By Alex P. Vidal 

 

WE exhort the congresswomen and congressmen from Western Visayas to assert their independence from the executive branch now that lines have been drawn in the national legislature.

If their colleagues from other regions can’t, the Ilonggo solons should spearhead the move.   

Since time immemorial when everything is not right in our national government, it’s always the Ilonggo leaders that are in the frontline to correct the abnormality and inspire others to do what is moral, ethical, and legal. 

The House of Representatives has virtually lost its independence and power with the installation of “ass licker” Lord Allan Jay Velasco as the new speaker.

The entire episode is a mockery of decency and the government system.

Because he owed his speakership to President Rodrigo R. Duterte like the defrocked Alan Peter Cayetano, the Lower House under Velasco would now become a sitting duck under the present administration.

Under Velasco, the House of Representatives would definitely become a stamping pad of the executive branch.

 

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What President Duterte wants from the lawmakers he will get without the need to storm the Bastille. 

In the first place, the act of Messrs. Cayetano and Velasco to seek Mr. Duterte’s blessings for a term-sharing in the leadership of a separate government branch was already a mistake if not a cowardly move to downgrade the Lower House.

It’s a virtual act of sycophancy.

As grown-ups they were supposed to know that the speakership row was an internal affair of the House of Representatives. 

It’s the members who cast the votes to choose their speaker, not the President who is in charge of another independent branch of the government.

 

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By asking President Duterte to decide who should be the speaker of the legislative branch of the Philippines was tantamount to technically rewriting the constitution on their own whimsical manner, and throwing away to the dustbin the principle of co-equal branch in the system of the Philippine government.

If the Supreme Court will also allow the President to dictate who should be the next Chief Justice, it’s better to abolish both the congress and the courts and let Mr. Duterte run the entire system of the government as a despotic ruler under a dictatorial regime if that is what they are trying to convey.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Three ways to vote in New York

 “It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.”

—Eugene V. Debs

 

By Alex P. Vidal 

 

ALTHOUGH we have been informed that the U.S. Presidential Election will be on November 3, there are actually three ways to vote here in New York.

Minnesota, South Dakota, Virginia and Wyoming, meanwhile, were the first four states to begin voting on September 19, where lines of voters were reportedly stretched from polling places especially in Virginia and Minnesota as election workers scrambled to open an additional voting room at the county government centre.

In New York this year, registered voters can vote three ways: By absentee ballot, in-person early voting, or in-person voting on Election Day, November 3, 2020.

All registered voters can request an absentee ballot if they are concerned about COVID-19 for the November 3 election. 

Some New Yorkers will start to vote early on October 24, Saturday, until November 1, Sunday. 

The dates and hours may vary based on where the voters live.

Those who wish to vote by mail will request ballots by October 27, while those who want to vote on election day will go to the polling centers on November 3 starting at six o’clock in the morning until nine o’clock in the evening.

Voters will be given the last day to request an absentee ballot online, via email or fax on October 27.

If voters are sending the application request via regular mail, it must be postmarked no later than October 27. The last day to request an absentee ballot in-person will be on November 2.

 

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had earlier signed three new laws that provide voters with greater flexibility on casting their ballots this November and assurance that they will be counted.

There have been concerns about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on voting, prompting state lawmakers to introduce reforms to make it easier for voters to request absentee ballots and ensure that they are included in the final vote tallies.

On Aug. 20, after passing the State Legislature, Cuomo signed into law the legislative package which relaxes absentee ballot rules so voters may request them due to risk of illness; enables voters to request absentee ballots immediately; and validates all ballots postmarked up to and including Election Day, Nov. 3, for the final vote count.

Part of Cuomo’s motivation for approving the legislation was the crisis at the United States Postal Service, in which mailboxes and sorting machines have been removed earlier. 

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who had ordered the removals, has since said he would forego those measures until after the election.

 

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AMNY has reported that the removals occurred around the same time that President Donald Trump announced said that slowing the USPS’ operations would ensure that mail-in ballots across the country would not be counted in time for the election. 

The president has since attempted to walk those comments back.

Despite his prior remarks about fraud in mailed voting (without providing evidence), Mr. Trump is nonetheless voting by absentee mailed ballot himself, according to AMNY.

Cuomo had said, as reported by AMNY: “The federal administration has ordered an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Postal Service and with COVID-19 threatening our ability to have safe, in-person voting, these measures are critical to ensuring a successful and fair election at one of the most important moments in our nation’s history.”

The governor added: “These actions will further break down barriers to democracy and will make it easier for all New Yorkers to exercise their right to vote this November.”

A post office snafu prevented hundreds of mailed ballots from being postmarked, and the New York City Board of Elections initially refused to count them. 

That led to a court case in which a judge eventually allowed the ballots to be counted.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)

 

 

A prayer spoken daily by millions of people

“What a joy to remember that she is our Mother! Since she loves us and knows our weakness, what have we to fear?”

-- Saint Therese of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

“HAIL Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

These words of the Ave Maria, spoken daily by millions of Roman Catholics, summarize one of the most perplexing elements in the riddle of Roman Catholicism, the cult of prayers and veneration addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The late Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan, who wrote The Riddle of Roman Catholicism on the eve of the Second Vatican Council and in the early phase of the Cold War, explained that “other elements in that riddle may seem strange or even fascinating, but the cult of the Blessed Virgin is downright repugnant to many non-Roman Christians.”

Non-Catholics look upon it as “a species or vestigial remnant of pre-Christian paganism,” Pelikan explained.

He noted that “they smile intolerantly” when they see or hear the invocation of the saints by the Roman Catholics, or read notices in the “Personal” column of a metropolitan newspaper that say: “Thanks to St. Jude and the Blessed Virgin for obtaining an apartment for us.”

Pelikan observed that even those Protestants who look at the mass with respect rather than suspicion are caught short by the veneration of Mary.

 

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“In the eyes of many Protestant lay people this is surely the most obnoxious feature of Roman Catholicism,” Pelikan stressed. “Here, they say, you have to draw the line beyond which Christianity dare not go.”

Protestant theology, too, sees in the cult of Mary, as it has climaxed now in the dogma of the Assumption, one of the chief barriers between Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Pelikan said even sympathetic Protestant theologians felt constrained to warn in 1950: “While today the majority of the churches with tears of penitence confess before God that they share in the guilt of a divided Body of Christ, and in common prayer and serious scholarly effort seek to diminish the area of disagreement and increase the area of agreement…the Roman Church would increase the area of disagreement by a dogma of the Assumption.” 

Creation of a dogma of the Assumption would be interpreted today he pointed pout in the midst of the efforts at closer relationships between the churches as a fundamental veto on the part of the Roman Church.

“Thus there is little sympathy for Roman Catholic Mariology outside the borders of the Roman communion,” stressed Pelikan, who died on May 13, 2006 after a battle with cancer at age 82.

Calling Mary “holy” was originally a way of speaking not about Mary herself at all, but about Jesus Christ, suggested the one-time Lutheran professor of church history at Yale Divinity School.

Almost every reference to her in the earliest Christian literature is, in point, a reference to her son.

 

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When Paul says that Christ was “born of woman,” he is saying nothing about Mary, but is asserting that our Lord was truly human. (See Gal. 4:4.)

Pelikan pointed out that even the narratives of Matthew and Luke, which tell of her conceiving without a man, are aimed at the glorification of Christ, not of Mary.

“Whatever else may be said about the idea of the virgin birth, it is a declaration about Jesus Christ,” wrote Pelikan. “It means that even in the circumstances of his humble birth Jesus manifested God’s power and freedom over the created world and its laws.”

He added: “To that power and freedom it points as a sign. Even without the sign of the virgin birth, the gospels of Mark and John and the epistles of Paul are able to speak of the power and the freedom of God in Christ.”

Pelikan explained that the sign loses its powers as a sign, its “significance,” when it is interpreted as merely an incredible happening or when it is taken as a key to the holiness of Mary.

“Mary and Pontius Pilate are the only two ordinary people mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed,” disclosed Pelikan. “Both are there as signs pointing to Jesus Christ—one to show his lordship even in infancy, the other to show his lordship even in death.”

Pelikan believed that “neither Mary nor Pilate is important as a figure in history except for the role each of them played in the career of our Lord.”

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)

 

 

Pinoy political supporters quarrel as Trump stumbles

“It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.”

—Joseph Joubert

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

ANGERED by poll results showing President Donald Trump stumble several weeks before the November 3 U.S. Presidential Election, some of Mr. Trump’s die-hard Filipino supporters in New York City have clashed verbally with some Filipino supporters of former Vice President Joseph Biden.

“Hindi kami naniniwala sa survey. It’s fake news. The trend is now in favor of President Trump nationally,” insisted Norberto Recaforte, 63, holder of official “Trump 2020 gold card” and the most vocal Trump ally in Jackson Heights, Queens together with Elmhurst’s Luis Lomuntad, 65.

Pedrito Nacionales, 78, of Jersey City, New Jersey who visited New York to join his fellow seniors in Jackson Height’s Filipino community in the interaction, sustained Recaforte. 

“In 2016, President Trump was also down by more than 12 percent in the homestretch and even lost to Hillary (Clinton) by more than three million popular votes. In the Electoral College, Trump buried Hillary alive,” explained Nacionales, member of the National Rifles Association of America (NRA), a gun rights advocacy group founded to advance rifle marksmanship.

The modern NRA continues to teach firearm safety and competency.

 

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Recaforte was contradicted by Arthur Bangeles, 67, who showed the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll released on October 11, the latest poll to indicate Mr. Biden's strength. 

“You are going against the facts,” Bangeles remarked. “The facts will tell everything, not emotions.” 

Bangeles said Mr. Biden led Trump by a 55 percent to 43 percent margin among likely voters based on the recent poll, which was the third high quality national poll published this week that had Mr. Biden up by at least 10 points and above 50 percent.

The other two being from CNN/SSRS and Fox News, a “pro-Trump” network.

The average of polls has Mr. Biden at around 52 percent or 53 percent and up by somewhere between 10 and 11 points. 

This is an unprecedented position for a challenger with a mere 23 days to go until Election Day, explained the CNN.

Lomuntad rejected the data and accused CNN as “Clinton News Network.”

“Almost 24/7 wala nang ginawa ang CNN kundi siraan si President Trump. It’s fake news,” he boomed.

 

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CNN’s Harry Enten observed that in the 21 previous presidential elections since 1936, “there have only been five challengers who led at this time. Of those five, only one (Bill Clinton in 1992) was ahead by more than 5 points. None of those five were earning more than 48 percent of the vote in the polls.”

“In other words,” Enten stressed, “Mr. Biden is the first challenger to be above 50 percent at this late juncture in the campaign.”

This also continues to mark a massive difference with the 2016 campaign. 

Enten pointed out that while Hillary Clinton was ahead of Mr. Trump by as high as seven points in October 2016, “she never came anywhere close to approaching 50% of the vote. Trump merely had to win the lionshare of the undecided or third party voters (who would bolt their candidate) to earn a victory in 2016.”

 

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Even if every undecided or current third party voter went to Mr. Trump now, he'd still be down about 5 to 6 points nationally, according to Enten.

“That's never been the case with an incumbent since 1936 at this point,” he said.

Enten explained that “it's the Electoral College that matters. There are very few universes in which Trump could win the Electoral College, if he were to lose nationally by 5 to 6 points.”

New polls out on October 11 from CBS News/YouGov demonstrate that Mr. Biden's above 50 percent in some key battlegrounds. 

He leads 52 percent to 46 percent in Michigan and Nevada. 

In Iowa, a state that Mr. Trump took by nine points in 2016 and is not anywhere close to must win for Mr. Biden, the race is tied at 49 percent.

A look under the hood reveals why Mr. Biden is in such a strong position. 

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, COVID-19 has either been, or been within the margin of error of being the nation's most important problem in Gallup polling, explained Enten.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)