Heroes Old and New

The recently ended war in Marawi City was an unfamiliar one for the officers and soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. It was not guerrilla warfare, the strategy that the communist insurgency had long employed and on which the army is trained. It was urban warfare -- face-to-face, street-to-street fighting, with the enemy well-armed and well-motivated, its troop movements almost as organized and as massive as the republic's defenders. Thus, along with the immeasurable costs of infrastructure damage, lives and properties lost, and intense traumas among fighters and civilians, come tales of spine-tingling heroism from soldiers who had to employ every iota of courage, bravado, military knowledge and quick-thinking each of them possessed to save their lives and those of their troops, and to attain the objectives of their operations.

One such outstanding fighter was Lt. Geraldo Alvarez of the 51st Mechanized Infantry Company, who was tasked early on in the Marawi siege to rescue an officer wounded in the battlefield. What was normally a relatively easy operation transformed into a very intense four-day battle that Alvarez and his platoon never anticipated. Veteran journalist Criselda Yabes, who spent almost ten hours interviewing Alvarez, writes "Escape Through Death's Door," the very detailed narrative of a military operation that reads better than any fictional movie script.

Meanwhile, Heroes from a different war are the focus of Washington DC-based contributor Jon Melegrito, who reports on the long-overdue Congressional Gold Medal award for Filipino veterans of WWII. 

First-time contributor José Esteban Arcellana recalls the day he departed for the US and the variety of emotions it extracted from him and his family. "Departure Date 1973.August.05" is the first of our Immigrant Stories series. I hope we get yours soon. 

Here's our In the Know compilation of stories this week that will pique your interest:

How could Martial Law happen?
http://news.abs-cbn.com/blogs/opinions/10/30/17/opinion-how-could-martial-law-happen

How Scout Ranger commander won hostages’ release
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/941127/philippine-news-updates-marawi-siege-maute-group-islamic-state-terrorism

Migrant Life in Qatar
https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/qatar-migrant-life?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=newsbreak

How Daly City's Filipino Mobile DJ Scene Changed Hip-Hop Forever
https://www.facebook.com/kqedarts/videos/1696389433767166/

And for our Happy Home Cook, enjoy Beef Pot Roast, a traditional American dish with a Filipino twist, as shared by my friend, Melanie Q. Suzara.

And for Video of the Week, Catherine Ceniza Choy reads excerpts from her book “Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History” at Berkeley Writers at Work. 

We’re History—In a Good Way

Yes, it’s Filipino American History Month, and we’re happy to report that the Filipino American National Historical Society Museum in Stockton, California is one year old and doing its job of preserving and popularizing the contributions and experiences of Filipinos in this country (“Fil-Am History Museum in Stockton Turns One,” by Mariel Toni Jimenez).

And just so you know our compatriots haven’t stopped making history, we present dance artist Alleluia “Manai” Panis of Kularts, who just earned the distinction of being the first recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission’s Artistic Legacy Grant. Alleluia is a Bay Area Filipino mainstay who deserves accolades for creating art for her community (“She Who Dances Stories into Being,” by PF correspondent Lisa Suguitan Melnick).

Another history maker, of the gustatory kind, is the wife-and-husband team of Chef Adrienne Borlongan and Jon-Patrick “JP” Lopez, owners of Wanderlust Creamery in Los Angeles. They are texture and flavor pioneers in their own right (“Wanderlust Ice Creamery Knocks ‘Em Cold,” by PF correspondent Anthony Maddela).

Our ever-observant PF correspondent Rey E. de la Cruz got the names, hometowns and photos of kababayans he ran into in Lourdes, France, for Pinoyspotting (“Seeing Filipinos in a Holy Site, But of Course”).

What’s a Filipino website without food? Try this week’s recipe for Gulay Sa Gata by our PF culinary correspondent Elizabeth Ann Quirino.

For Halloween, we revisit Alex G. Paman's “The Vanishing Hitchhiker, The White Lady and Hauntings Across the Seas.”

For our Video of the Week, Mikey Bustos' fun take on Aladdin's “A Whole New World.”

On a sad note in our Global Briefs section, we picked up the news of the passing of a Filipina caregiver during the Northern California fires.

For our In The Know links this week:

Duterte’s police have killed thousands in the Philippines. But this police chief told his officers, ‘Don’t kill.’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/dutertes-police-have-killed-thousands-in-the-philippines-but-this-cop-told-his-officers-dont-kill/2017/10/08/dd96df58-9c41-11e7-8ed4-a750b67c552b_story.html?utm_term=.bd98e42b578a

A Chinese Pipe Dream for Manila
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/9e5485f5-c77e-30e9-9e90-6e4dfc723cfb/ss_a-chinese-pipe-dream-for.html?.tsrc=fauxdal

The story behind the Pinoy-made ‘tsinelas’ action figures
http://news.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/10/21/17/the-story-behind-the-pinoy-made-tsinelas-action-figures

For our Partner post, we feature abstract artist Janine Barrera-Castillo, who's holding an exhibit from October 23-27, 2017 at the Kalayaan Hall of the Philippine Center in San Francisco.

Violence and Hope

People with guns kill people. This, in the wake of the mass shooting by one man in Las Vegas that killed 58 victims and injured 546, should no longer be debatable. While gun control is a long time coming from Washington, a grieving Filipino American mother is already doing her part in preventing gun violence. Journalist Pati Navalta Poblete (“My Story of Hope”), who lost her son, Robby, to gunmen in Vallejo, California, nudged herself out of her grief by writing again and, most importantly, setting up a foundation in her son’s name that buys back unwanted guns in her city to be used by artists in their art work. The foundation also sponsors vocational skills programs for young adults and ex-offenders to steer them away from a life of violence.

Armed violence has also disrupted the lives of thousands of residents of Marawi in the Philippines when local adherents of ISIS took over the city, triggering an ongoing battle with government forces that has killed about 700 combatants and civilians and reduced nearly everything to smoking hulks. PF correspondent Criselda Yabes visits the ruined city, peeking through sniper holes at the destruction that has brought its inhabitants, now all refugees, to despair (“In the Rubble of Marawi”).

On a cheerier note, PF correspondent Rene Astudillo writes that Filipino senior citizens are receiving the respect that they deserve in their sunset years, in “A Haven for the Elderly – the Philippines.”

To mark both Filipino American History Month and Domestic Violence Prevention Month, we hope you will Read Again “The War Brides” and “Behind the Charmer May Hide an Abuser” 

And as a fitting countrapunto to the theme of this edition’s lead articles, our “Happy Home Cook” Richgail Enriquez offers bloodless—yes--Vegan Dinuguan.

For this week's [In The Know] links:

Thurgood Marshall's Interracial Love: I Don't Care What People Think, I'm Marrying You
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/thurgood-marshalls-interracial-love-i-dont-care-what-people-think-im-marrying-you/2016/08/18/84f636be-54d5-11e6-bbf5-957ad17b4385_story.html?utm_term=.6e3e0231e085

The Best Island in the World Goes To...
https://www.facebook.com/CondeNastTraveler/videos/10155910653088982/?autoplay_reason=user_settings&video_container_type=0&video_creator_product_type=2&app_id=2392950137&live_video_guests=0

Confronting Anti-Blackness and White Supremacy in the Pilipin@ Community with Acts of Decolonization
https://www.hellapinay.com/blog/2017/9/10/confronting-white-supremacy

Baguio-Sagada-Banaue Itinerary: See The Cordillera Region in 6 Days
https://philihappy.com/baguio-sagada-banaue-itinerary/

For Video of the Week, AJ+ celebrates Fil-Am History Month by featuring the 3 ways Filipinos contributed to America.