CHICAGO (jGLi) – In 2007, Cindy Rubio was well aware of Carmelita Pasamba’s dire financial predicament and her inability to pay her bills. Pasamba told Ms. Rubio, her skilled nurse supervisor at St. Joseph Hospital, that her husband, Edgardo Pasamba, an unemployed and on a disability for a job-related incident, had filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, in or around that time, Pasamba “cried because she did not have enough money to pay for her car insurance.Out of pity, Ms. Rubio gave Pasamba “$250 so she could pay for her car insurance.”

ROCKFORD, Illinois (jGLi) – Reyle Cardino positively identified Wednesday (May 2) Ommarian T. Jones in court here as he met Jones for the first time since they fought each other nearly three years ago when Reyle surprised Jones killing his parents at his parents’ home at Pleasant View in this suburban city.

“That guy, the defendant over there,” is Jones, Cardino, 54, said when asked by Winnebago State prosecutors led by Joe Bruscato if the man he had struggled with was in the court room.

Reyle had earlier picked out Jones in photo lineup.

WASHINGTON, DC -- As the human rights record of the government of President Aquino improves, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert F. del Rosario is urging the United States government to release its Foreign Military Financing (FMF) allocation for the Philippines.

Mr. Del Rosario lamented that because the U.S. has tied the FMF to human rights record, it merely released $3-Million out of the total of $30-Million FMF allocations for the Philippines since 2008.

CANADA -- Filipinos in Canada will join tens of thousands of their counterparts all over the world to stage demonstrations in front of Chinese embassies and consulates on May 11 to protest Beijing’s allegedly aggressive actions to take over a group of disputed islands in the South China Sea.

The rallies are being called a global patriotic reaction to China’s recent aggressive encroachment on the Philippines’s Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.

WASHINGTON, DC -- United States State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton announced Monday (April 30) that the U.S. does “not take sides on the competing sovereignty claims to land features in the South China Sea” but adds that “as a Pacific power we have a national interest in freedom of navigation, the maintenance of peace and stability, respect for international law, and the unimpeded, lawful commerce across our sea lanes.”

NEW YORK -- The Dinagyang Festival, the star attraction in last year’s Philippine Independence Day commemoration in New York, danced away with the Grand Slam prize in the 10th annual Aliwan Fiesta in Manila, Philippines April 14 for the third year in a row and took home one million Philippine Pesos.

The Tribu Pan-Ay dancers, representing Iloilo City’s Dinagyang Festival, and anchored by students of Fort San Pedro National High School, beat 20 other street dance contingents fielded by festivals from all over the Philippines.

CHICAGO (jGLi) --  Nearly two years ago, 70-year-old Filipino American Loreto M. Gaspar sat at a table beside a nine-year-old schoolgirl in his workplace at Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Gaspar told the girl he liked to touch little girls as he rubbed her thigh and touched her arm.

Gaspar later asked for her phone number and the girl gave him a made-up phone number. When Gaspar gave her money, the girl started to cry, telling her mother, Gaspar’s co-worker, what Gaspar told her.

Three days later on June 16, 2010, Gaspar was arrested for aggravated criminal sexual abuse and battery charges. Two months later on Aug. 12, 2010, following a bench trial, Gaspar was found not guilty by Judge Marvin Luckman of the Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago.

JERSEY CITY, NJ -- At its reorganization meeting on Wednesday, April 25, Sue Mack, who lost a council seat to Fil Am Rolando Lavarro, Jr. in a hotly contested special election last November, was elected president of the Jersey City school board together with Marvin Adames, a municipal prosecutor in Newark, as vice president.  She replaces outgoing president Sterling Waterman.

CHICAGO (jGLi) – After exactly ten months to the day, the Filipino Americans will hold  simultaneous rallies again on May 11 before the Chinese Consulate and Chinese Embassy across the United States led by the same group, the U.S. Pinoys For Good Government (USP4GG), to protest China’s recent aggressive encroachments on the Philippines’s Scarborough Shoal.

CHICAGO (jGLi) – President Barack Obama sent Wednesday (April 25) the nomination of Filipino American Lorna G. Schofield of New York to the United States Senate for confirmation as a federal judge in the Southern District of Court of New York in place of retiring Judge Shira A. Sheindlin.

Attorney Schofield, if confirmed, will become the first American of Filipino descent ever to serve on the federal bench.

CHICAGO (JGLi)  A spokesman of the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. urged Monday for “continued diplomatic efforts to resolve the current situation near Scarborough Shoal (Panatag Shoal)” standoff between the Philippines and China in the Philippine Western Sea (South China Sea).

In a statement emailed to this reporter, a U.S. State Department staff, who refused to be quoted by name, said, “We urge continued diplomatic efforts to resolve the current situation near Scarborough Shoal.  All parties should continue to exercise restraint and avoid escalatory actions.  As a strategic ally, the United States honors our Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines.  We will not engage in discussion of hypothetical scenarios.”

NEW YORK -- On Monday, April 23, at St. Teresa’s Church in Manhattan, members of diverse faith communities gathered with DREAMers and community leaders to hold an interfaith press conference highlighting the urgency of passing New York State DREAM legislation.

The event was organized by the New York State DREAM Coalition, a diverse partnership of youth, community, labor, and faith organizations that has been advocating for passage of New York State DREAM legislation to allow access to state-funded tuition assistance for all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status.

CHICAGO (jGLi) – A Filipino American owner of a home health care business pleaded guilty Friday (April 20) before United States District Judge Frederick J. Kapala in the outlying suburb of Rockford, Illinois to healthcare fraud and kickback violations, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott A. Verseman.

Merigrace Orillo, 45, of Elmhurst, Illinois and co-owner and operator of Chalice Home Heathcare Services, Inc. with her husband, Virgilio Orillo, admitted that her fraud scheme defrauded the Medicare program of more than $400,000. Chalice has offices in Chicago, Freeport and Morris, Illinois.

Ms. Orillo pleaded guilty to Count One, which charges defendant with health care fraud, and Count Two, which charges defendant with aiding and abetting another in paying kickbacks for patient referrals under a Federal health care program.

CHICAGO (jGLi) – While there was a flurry of news recently, announcing that overseas Filipino worker (OFW) Rodelio “Dondon” Lanuza is being spared from getting beheaded, members of U.S. Pinoys For Good Government (USP4GG) are still on course to raise blood money (diya) that would be given to the surviving family of Lanuza’s victim.

Marlon L. Pecson, a member of USP4GG in Chicago, Illinois, said, “Let’s continue to have faith in God as we here in American and the Global Filipinos are deeply concerned and sympathetic to the horrors and sufferings Lanuza and others languishing in death row are going thru.”

The forgiveness (tanazul) given to Lanuza by the victim’s survivors was expressed in February of last year but in press release dished out by Migrante Middle East last week, it appears the forgiveness was only given last week.

CHICAGO (jGLi) – At the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Fall of Bataan, the dwindling Filipino World War II veterans became even fewer with the death two weeks ago of another veteran, who had been in the forefront in the lobbying effort for the advocacy of veterans benefits in the Capitol Hill.

The life and times of Sgt. Guillermo O. Rumingan, 86, were celebrated during a gathering in the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. at the Bataan Day of Valor commemoration program last April 9 with a tribute delivered by a veteran veteran advocate, Eric Lachica, volunteer executive director of the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans, Inc. that Mr. Rumingan co-founded.

CHICAGO (jGLi) – Silence did not figure as too golden for Filipino American caregiver Carmelita Pasamba when she suddenly found a “new wealth” from her forgetful elderly ward Marshall F. Davies, 93, who could no longer “tell his age or day of the week.”

Instead of keeping everything to herself and becoming a full-time caregiver to Mr. Davies, who needed 24-hour assistance, Pasamba, 61, even returned to work at the St. Joseph’s Hospital as a Certified Nursing Assistant on reduced hours, and bragged to her supervisor, Cindy Rubio, her new money, the purchase of new Mercedes Benz and employment of her husband, Edgardo Pasamba, as the driver of the new Mercedes, the “iPhone,” “iPad,” her expensive trips and  parties.

WASHINGTON— H-1B non-immigrant petitions that are subject to the fiscal year (FY) 2013 cap will continue to be accepted, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said yesterday in a statement.  The agency began accepting these petitions on April 2, 2012.

According to USCIS, it has received approximately 17,400 H-1B petitions counting toward the 65,000 cap, and approximately 8,200 petitions toward the 20,000 cap exemption for individuals with advanced degrees.

CHICAGO (jGLi) – Marissa Tadeo Lapid, the wife of Philippine Senator Lito Lapid, was given another 90 days “to conduct legal research and factual investigation” for her defense of the $50,000 bulk smuggling filed against her by the U.S. government.

Instead of appearing for preliminary hearing on April 9, 2012 in the Courtroom of the U.S. District Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse in Las Vegas, Nevada before Magistrate Judge Peggy A. Leen, Judge Leen granted last March 29 Mrs. Lapid’s second request for extension of her preliminary hearing on July 9, 2012 at 4 p.m.

CHICAGO (jGLi) – The MOP200-Million (Patacas), roughly US$25-Million, that is part of the HK$1-Billion (US$135-Million) donated by Stephen A. Wynn, chair of the Wynn Resorts of Las Vegas, Nevada last year to the University of Macao Development Foundation (UMDF) is out of the hands of the UMDF’s Chancellor Fernando Chui Sai On, the Chief Executive of Macao.

CHICAGO (jGLi) -- The Illinois Supreme Court has formally removed the name of Manny A. Aguja “from the roll of attorneys licensed to practice law in Illinois pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 762(a) …  effective immediately.”

In an order and mandate addressed to Edward M. Genson, Mr. Aguja’s lawyer, dated March 19, 2012 and posted online by the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC), the seven-panel State Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride acted on the motion of Mr. Aguja “to strike his name from the roll of attorneys” in case number, M. R. 25202.