Making Aliyah

(Speech delivered at the opening session of the 3rd Global Filipino Networking Convention held on January 21, 2005 at the Waterfront Hotel, Cebu City).

WHEN I visited Israel twelve years ago, I met Jews who had come from all over the United States who had either immigrated to Israel or who were spending their money and resources to help Israel. They call this concept of overseas Jews helping their homeland -- "making Aliyah" -- which is Hebrew for the pulpit in the front of the altar. Instead of words delivered from the pulpit, it is their deeds that make the statement.

The diaspora that has dispersed Jews to all parts of the world is similar to the diaspora that has driven Filipinos to the same four corners of the earth. And just as many Jews have seen it to be their responsibility to return back, or to some way give back, to their homeland by "making Aliyah," so too are we at this 3rd Global Filipino Networking Convention "making Aliyah" by coming back to the Philippines to seek effective ways and means to help our motherland.

When we convened the First Global Filipino Networking Convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in August of 2002, many of us wondered if our "First" would join the hundreds of other international Filipino expat conferences that began with high hopes and great fanfare only to fall by the ningas cogon wayside and to never be heard from again.

Well, my friends, we've beaten the odds as there are more than 1,000 of us registered delegates from 12 countries at this 3rd Global Convention and preparations are already in earnest for our 4th Global Convention to be held in Honolulu, Hawaii in September of 2006.

What accounts for our staying power? Why has our Global Convention moved forward where others have failed?

The 1st Global Filipino Networking Convention began with two working concepts. The first is that those of us who have immigrated to foreign lands are not "former Filipinos" as opposed to those who have stayed who are "Filipino Filipinos". No, whether we are Filipinos from Mandaue, Cebu or from Winnipeg, Canada, we are all "Global Filipinos".

The second is that the most effective way to bring us all together is through networking with each other, sharing our individual and collective experiences. This exchange of information about each other will help us learn what common issues or concerns we have and the common grounds where we can work together for a common purpose.

The 1st global convention 2002 was a "networking" event which drew 4000 delegates and participants from throughout the US who came to network with each other in 20 separate conferences from Filipino Health and Filipino Business to the Filipino WWII veterans issues. But, unfortunately, although it was billed as a "global" convention, there were few delegates from countries outside the US. We learned that while many "global Filipinos" wanted to attend the convention, they could not secure visas from the US Embassy which, after 9/11, became more restrictive.

We then resolved to hold the next convention in the Philippines, the one country where global Filipinos do not need visas to enter. The 2nd Global convention was thus held in Manila in December of 2003. Although we had far fewer delegates than in San Francisco, it was, however, a truly "Global Filipino" convention because the numbers of non-US Filipino delegates substantially increased.

And now we are here in Cebu, more than a year later, with significantly more Global Filipino delegates, uniting under the theme of "Pinoy Power Worldwide." How do we connect the themes of "Networking," "Global Filipinos" and "Pinoy Power Worldwide" together?

Let me share with you my personal experience. Two years ago, less than two months after returning from the 2nd Global, I went to my local pharmacy store, Walgreens, to purchase some medicine. At the counter, I pulled out a one hundred dollar bill from my wallet to pay the cashier. Even though the bill passed the counterfeit detector pen test conducted by the cashier, she still had suspicions because it didn't have a watermark at the back. She called the manager who applied the same pen test which showed again that it was real. But because it didn't have a watermark at the back, the manager called the police. In a few minutes, four police officers showed up.

Although I identified myself as an attorney for 23 years and as an elected city official since 1991 and that I lived just 2 blocks away, with my law office just a block away, the officers didn't care and told me "Put your hands behind your back". In handcuffs, I was then led away in shame in front of customers who knew me. The police officers didn't even bother to check if I had other currency that might also be suspect.

I was brought to a San Francisco police precinct in handcuffs and then handcuffed to a rail. More than an hour later, the officers came back and told me that the U.S. Secret Service had verified that my bill was genuine, that the watermark and magnetic strip features were only introduced in 1990 so that my 1986 bill was still good. The officers released me from my handcuffs and returned me back to the store, with no apologies.

I was convinced that if I had been a white elected city official, the white manager would never have called the police and the white police officers would never have arrested me.

I was seething with rage and so traumatized by the humiliation of the incident that when I got home, I called up our city mayor at his home. Mayor Willie Brown was aghast and could not believe this could happen to me, an elected official in San Francisco.

I filed a claim against the city and sued Walgreens. The incident received wide coverage in the major San Francisco newspapers and in the local TV media.

The Filipino community called a general meeting to discuss the Walgreens incident, a meeting that was covered by the top columnist of the SF Chronicle, Rob Morse. His account appeared the following day:

"Wednesday night, the City College classroom was filled with Filipino Americans who were angry and hurt -- but were organizing. 'We're 67,000 in San Francisco and we don't have a voice,' said real estate woman Myrna Lim. The people in that classroom put on a clinic of a meeting. The insult to Rodis was deeply felt but emotion was always directed by pragmatism. Some wanted to overcome the stereotype of Filipinos as passive by marching on to City Hall. Others didn't want cops fired but suggested that they be taught something about the community. One man said they could play good cop/bad cop with the cops. Whatever happens, they'll be filing a formal complaint with the Police Commission. After Rodis filed a civil rights claim against the city because of his arrest, emails of support poured in. Statements of support even came in from Filipino workers in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. They're in the Middle East and they're fighting injustice in San Francisco. The shame."

The president of the Filipino Medical Society in Houston, Texas sent an email to Filipinos throughout the US calling for a national boycott of Walgreens pharmacies, especially by Filipino doctors. That will surely put a hurt on their profits, he wrote.

NaFFAA national chair Loida Nicolas-Lewis wrote the CEO of Walgreens to protest what happened to me. Walgreens then sent me the biggest bouquet of flowers I had ever seen with a note expressing the deepest apologies of Walgreens.

Walgreens then fired the white manager who called the police and replaced him with a Filipino, the first Filipino Walgreens manager in the SF Bay Area. The wife of the manager even came to my office to personally thank me on behalf of her husband.

San Francisco's Police Chief Earl Sanders, an African American, personally called me to express his apologies on behalf of the city, privately agreeing with me that if I had been a white elected official, that I would never have been arrested. He shared with me his own frustration that when he wears a uniform, he gets respect. But when he's in civilian clothes, he's treated as just another colored man. He said "You know some of us landed on Plymouth Rock but others had Plymouth Rock land on us."

After members of the Filipino community met with the city's police commission, the San Francisco Police Department issued new rules to ensure that no one would be arrested unless the police had probable cause to suspect that the individual was aware that the bill he was using was indeed counterfeit.

So you see, through Global Filipino Networking, we brought our network of local Filipino groups together, supported by Filipinos from all over the world including Filipinos from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and through Pinoy Power, we brought much needed changes in Walgreens and in the city. Our community received the respect it deserves. We had established a template, for moving with one voice.

When the US Senate was poised to pass a bill that would remove tariffs on tuna from Argentina and Chile, we lobbied against it because it would have destroyed the Philippine canned tuna industry. More than 500,000 jobs in Mindanao would have been lost. We lobbied our local representatives and US Congress to kill the bill and we succeeded.

When California Personnel Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) was poised to withdraw all of its investments in the Philippines in March 2004, the Filipino community stacked the CalPERS Board meeting in Sacramento, California to express our objections. Through our lobbying efforts, we turned an 8-4 vote for withdrawal into a 12-0 vote to retain the investments in the Philippines.

My friends and kababayans, I believe that through "networking", we, the "global Filipinos," can achieve "Pinoy Power Worldwide."

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!

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