Triple whammy

THERE used to be a time not too long ago when Filipinos did not rate any mention in the mainstream media. What do you suppose Filipinos, numbering 1.2 million in California and over 350,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area, were doing during those times of zero coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle? Back then, you'd have to read the Filipino community media to find out.

If you wished there was more mention about Filipinos in the mainstream media, you should remember the old adage about being careful what you wish for. Unfortunately, you got your wish on Sunday, April 17, 2005. In spades.
The Sunday Chronicle's main story, occupying a full half of the front page and two full inside pages (complete with Ric Rocamora photos), was a special investigative report on a Medicare scam involving elderly Filipinos ("Elderly Immigrants Used in Medicare Scam").

The investigation featured individual accounts such as those of Apolonio Ladia, 81, whom recruiters paid to go to three Bay Area clinics to undergo 46 medical and laboratory tests, for which clinic operators billed Medicare more than $8,500, even though he was physically fit.

There was also the account of Brigido and Quintina Pullan, both 81, who received a pair of power wheelchairs and the two semi-electric hospital beds sitting in unopened boxes at their tiny South of Market rental unit for which Medicare was billed more than $15,000 for them.

Bartolome and Estelita Gorero, both 80, each received a $100 bill for participating in a "sleep study" at a clinic in San Jose, where they were asked to lie on beds for hours with wires attached to their bodies (but unattached to anything else) while watching movies. They were lured by news that had spread among Filipino seniors ("You sleepy-sleep, you get $100"). The clinic operators then billed Medicare $7,950 for sleep studies on the two, even though they reported no sleep problems.

These Filipinos were among more than two dozen seniors who were interviewed by the Chronicle who reported that their Medicare accounts were "purloined by medical con artists, who induced them -- and perhaps hundreds of others -- to give their Medicare numbers for health services and equipment they didn't need."

The Medicare fraud schemes, according to the Chronicle, have cost the government millions of dollars in the Bay Area. They resulted in FBI raids that shut down two Bay Area clinics which preyed on Filipino seniors, most of whom were WW II veterans.

The Chronicle reported that $1 out of every $10 spent by the $300-billion Medicare system goes to "erroneous, abusive or fraudulent payments." A December Medicare report estimates that $553 million in improper payments were made last year.

The two Bay Area clinics that paid Filipino seniors $100 apiece were set up by a Los Angeles physician named Dr. Morley Engelson, who was stabbed to death in a random murder in June last year. The authorities speculate that organized crime groups, including the Russian Mafia and Southeast Asian gangs, are behind the Medicare scams.

One of the drive-by victims of the Medicare scam is the 30-year old non-profit organization, the West Bay Pilipino Multi-Service Center, which had rented space to the clinic last year which, the Chronicle reported, "appeared to be a hub for both the sleep center and wheelchair scams." Center Director Ed Jocson told the Chronicle that his non-profit "merely rented to the clinic and was an unwitting victim of clinic operators now under investigation."

West Bay receives more than $300,000 a year in grants from San Francisco. Two days after the front page story appeared in the Chronicle, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to put a hold on $95,000 in federal block grants that were budgeted for West Bay "pending an investigation of the organization's spending of city money."

That was story # 1. The other story about Filipinos ("Family in Shock"), also a front page item, involved the stabbing death of two-year-old Francesca Paguio, who had just immigrated to the US with her parents and siblings on March 10 after waiting 15 years for her grandfather's petition for her father to come through.
While living with her family at her grandfather's San Jose condo along with her uncle, Emil Paguio, Francesca found herself in the kitchen last Saturday alone with her Uncle Emil. Her father, Enrico, was preoccupied with his computer in the next room when he heard Francesca screaming. He rushed to the kitchen to find his brother, Emil, stabbing his daughter with a kitchen knife. While attempting to stop him, Enrico was also stabbed.

Enrico survived his stab wounds but little Francesca did not. The Chronicle reported that Emil had "a history of paranoia and suspect he may have spiraled into a rage fueled by drugs when he allegedly stabbed his niece with a kitchen knife." He was booked for murder and attempted murder.

Enrico and the surviving members of his family plan to return to the Philippines.

The third Sunday Chronicle story about Filipinos involved employees of Aeroground, a company that handles air cargo at North American airports including the San Francisco International Airport. ("Owners of items stolen at SFO sought, Property recovered; 13 handlers arrested")

The story reported that 13 cargo handlers at SFO were charged in federal court in San Francisco "with stealing everything from laptop computers to paintball guns to Victoria's Secret merchandise from packages about to be shipped to U.S. military personnel in Okinawa."

While the Chronicle account mercifully did not disclose the ethnic identities of the defendants, it is known that the majority of the arrested cargo handlers are Filipinos. On the day they were arrested, their homes were raided by federal authorities who confiscated what they believed to be purloined merchandise.

With all this negative coverage of Filipinos in the mainstream media, perhaps we should go back to the good old days when we were an invisible community.

Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com.