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THE MANILA PAPER

August  8, 1998        Volume 1, No.  1 -  New  York , NY , USA  -  1-  800-  686-  7556

 

Filipinos Seek Amnesty From
 President Clinton Today !

 

NEW YORK , NEW YORK ‑

By Don De Ia Pena :

 

  Thousands of Filipinos - under leadership of the Committee on Filipino Amnesty and Immigration Reforms ( FAIR ) - will hold a PRAYER RALLY at the Washington Monument and, later, at the Elliptical Road facing the White House today.

 

        Rosauro Javier, FAIR National Coordinator, said that he expects a couple of thousand Filipinos to attend the Prayer Rally  but he would not be surprised if 50 thousand will come and respond to this historic call for unity.

 

       The purpose of the Prayer Rally is to demand amnesty for all undocumented Filipinos - a privilege which is granted to the Cubans and the Nicaraguans!

 

       The Filipinos feel that, given their unparalleled allegiance to the United States, they deserve the same benefits from America !

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"MY PLAN WOULD BE TO DISARM THE NATIVES IN THE PHILIPPINES EVEN IF WE HAVE TO KILL HALF OF THEM!"  HE DID!               General Shafter

 

Shown below are American soldiers proudly standing on a huge mountain of skulls and bones of Filipions they exterminated in the Philippines. These Filipinos were described by Senator Elihu Root as cancer to the American society!  Later, the Filipinos, who learned to forgive and embrace the American culture, offered more than a million lives to defend the American interests in a thousand battlefields throughout the world!

 

 

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Circuit Judge Harry Pregerson: Filipinos Born During the Territorial Era (including the Commonwealth Period) Are Citizens of the United States!

 

  In a 2‑1 decision issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals , Cir­cuit Judge Harry Pregerson ruled: "Persons born in the Philippines during the territorial period were born within the dominion of the United States, and therefore were born "in the United States" within the meaning of the Citizenship Clause," of the 14th Amendment.

 

       This ruling was made in the case of Summerfield Vs. INS, which was filed by Attorney Elly Velez Pamatong with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Cir­cuit in behalf of his client.

 

       Currently, Attorney Pamatong has filed a Writ of Certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States of America against the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Cir­cuit. This case also raises the same issue concerning the American citi­zenship of Filipinos born during the territorial period.

 

       Basically, the Supreme Court is being asked to answer only one constitutional question: Whether the Right to Citizenship is a Fundamental Right. If the answer is yes, then all Filipinos born before 1946 ‑ in­cluding their children ‑ are still American citizens by birth and by descent, respectively.

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WHY FILIPINOS ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS

 

          FOUR GROUNDS UPON WHICH WE BASE OUR CLAIM THAT WE ARE STILL AMERICAN CITIZENS AND SHOULD BE GIVEN THE CHOICE TO REMAIN AS SUCH:

 

            1. THE OFFICIAL POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT THAT "ONLY FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS" APPLIED TO UNINCORPORATED TERRITORIES LIKE THE PHILIPPINES.

 

         If that is so, then what could be more fundamental than the Right to Citizenship which, in Trop v. Dulles, has been ruled to be dearer than life?  Since the answer is clearly that the Right to Citizenship is the most fundamental right under the Constitution and, as such, it applied to the Philip­pines, the Filipinos are entitled to a sort of manda­tory judgment to the effect that they are Constitutionally entitled to an option to remain  American citizens ‑ period.

 

              2. THE 14TH AMENDMENT WHICH PROVIDES THAT PERSONS (A) BORN IN THE UNITED STATES AND (B) SUBJECT TO THE JURISDICTION THEREOF ARE CI TIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES.

 

               "Born in the United States" includes those born in "U.S. Territories".   Why?  Because those born in Washington, D.C. ‑ clearly a U.S. Territory and not a State ‑ are citizens of the United States. And even those born of alien parents in Puerto Rico, Guam, Virgin Islands and Northern Marianas ‑ clearly not States but merely territo­ries ‑ are citizens of the United States.

 

            3. THE 13TH AMENDMENT WHICH PROHlBITS THE CREATION OF LESS THAN‑FULL‑FLEDGED CITIZENS IN "ANY PlACE" SUBJECT TO AMERI­CAN JURISDICTION.

 

             If this is true, then ‑ since the Court has ruled that the Filipinos were "not aliens" in the United States, they could only have been full­fledged American citizens under the 13th Amend­ment.

 

           4. THE CASE OF AFROYIM V. RUSK WHICH RULED THAT CONGRESS CAN­NOT TERMINATE THE PERMANENT AL­LEGIANCE OF ANY PERSON TO THE UNITED STATES.

 

            The Filipinos were statutorily compelled to render supreme allegiance to the United States for 48 years. Congress did not have the power to terminate that allegiance under Sec. 14 of Tydings-McDuffie Law. Therefore, they are still citizens of the United States.

 

Note: US. Circuit Judge Harry Pregerson and Con­gressman Ben Gilman, who is the Chairman ot the U.S. Lower House of International Relations Committee, believe that you are still American citi­zens. Are their opinions not enough to make you support the Crusade for the Recognition of Ameri­can Citizenship (CRAC)?

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Let Us End The Discrimination Against Our Filipino AlIies!   By President Roosevelt. Nov. 16, 1942

 

        That is sound American doctrine which gives voice to the principles we have always sought to uphold. It con­forms also with the pattern of the fu­ture world civilization: which we have envisaged, "which recognizes no limi­tations of religion, of creed or of race."

 

   It is patent that our innate im­pulses of generosity and fair dealing must inevitably motivate us to eliminate the anomaly of racial exclusion in our naturalization laws and to eradicate any injustice which may have been caused. But we have even a greater stake in this problem. Marching shoulder to shoul­der with us on the far‑flung fields of battle in this war are our gallant allies, and behind the battle lines are uncounted millions of men and women, of every color and race whose aid we urgently need in ending the war and winning the peace.

 

            As our partners in war and our potential friends in peace, they have a right to demand from us justice and equality of treatment.

 

Let us, by all means, end the unjustifiable discriminatons in our natu­ralization laws against our Filipino allies.

 

But, in revising this "historic mistake," let us be "big enough to ac­knowledge,"  that our entire policy of racial exclu­sion in the naturalization laws is wrong.

 

     Let us demonstrate decisively to embattled people of the world, by the simple expedient of correcting this larger mistake, 'our militant leadership in advancing the principles of freedom and fair dealing for which this war is being waged .

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[photo captions]     

 

      "Kill every one over ten," this was the order of General Jacob Smith. General Smith believed they were criminals because they were born 10 years before the Americans came to the Islands .

 

        Shown above are some of the more or less half of the popuplation in the Philippines who were exterminated by the American forces.

 

      American soldiers laying in ambush against Filipinos. More or less one half of the inhabitants were killed by the American forces.

 

         Above photo shows Filipinos massacred by the American forces at Mt. Dajoin 1906! No one survived this genocide!

 

      Shown above are sketches of American soldiers in the frenzy of killing Filipinos. Below photo shows more Filipinos killed pursuant to General Shafter's plan to disarm the Filipinos even if he had to kill half of them!

 

 

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MY FELLOW FILIPINOS: YOU HAVE THE  RIGHT TO  BE HERE IN AMERICA!

 

           Today, we have come to this capital city of America to assert once again our right to he in this part of the world. Above all else, we have come to ask whether our unparalleled loyalty and devotion to the very precepts upon which this country was ‑ and, hopefully, still is ‑ founded deserve a gesture of gratitude from the American people!

 

Before God, I believe that you ‑ my countrymen ‑ have a right  to be here because we have been historically a part of this country. We fought for America in the forbidding jungles of Viet­nam.  We  fought for America in the cold and wintry lands of Korea.  We fought for Amcrica in the battlefields of Europe.  And many of us are still willing to fight for the democratic ideals that Amcrica stands and Iives for.

 

lf America is great today, if America is free today, a part of that greatness and a part of that freedom has been paid for by the lives, blood, sweat, and tears of the Filipino people .

 

       Indeed, not a single state of America, nor any country in the world, can match the number of Filipinos who died for America. But what have we gotten in return for our supreme allegiance and loyalty?

 

We have been excluded from all INS lottery programs; excluded from the Amerasian Law of 1982; excluded from the automatic visa waiver program which is available to the Japanese, Germans and Italians; and ‑ recently ‑ excluded from the amnesty program granted to the Cubans, Nicaraguans, and the people of Haiti.

 

The Japanese, Italians, and Germans ‑ who killed tens of thousands of freedom ‑ loving Americans ‑ are given automatic visas.   Whereas , the Filipinos ‑ who died by the tens of thousands to defend, protect, and preserve American lives ‑ are not.  Why reward former enemies for their treachery, and punish the Filipinos for their unalloyed loyalty?  This President Clinton and leaders of America ought to answer.

 

Has treachery become a virtue in this country?  Has loyalty ceased to be a basis for reward in the American system of justice?

 

Why are the widows of those who fought and perished in the nights of battle for America not allowed to see the very country for which their spouses offered their lives?   Why are the orphans of those who died for America not being allowed to see the very country for which their parents died?

 

The answer is partly our fault: Through the years we have been befraid to assert our rights as human beings before the bar of history!

 

Today, we have come to claim what rightfully belongs to us in this land of the free.  We have come to fight for the freedom to be treated with honor and dignity!  With God's help, we will prevail!

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ELLY VELEZ PAMATONG , ESQ Founder and President, Committee on Filipino Amnesty and Immigration Reforms (FAIR)

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ELLY VELEZ PAMATONG LAW OFFICES

1-800-686-7556 --- (212) 285 -9577

198 Broadway, Suite 500

New York, New York 10038

Handles Civil Rights and Immigration Cases from the lowest court to the Supreme Court ligitation!  Other Cases: Bankruptcy - Divorce - Etc.

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