John Eric Swing
John Eric Swing, 48, a respected advocate for Los Angeles’ Filipino community has died after testing positive for COVID-19. Swing was the new executive director of the Search to Involve Pilipino Americans, better known as SIPA (See Inquirer.net for story).
(From left to right): Cecilia “Ching” Francisco-Lansang, Corazon “Cora” van Campenhout-Alarcon and Avelina “Ave” Rodriguez-Baxa. (Department of Foreign Affairs)
Three Filipino women in the Netherlands received royal honors for their major contributions to the Dutch society. Koninklijke onderscheidingen (royal honors) are awarded annually with around 3,500 appointments to the Order of Orange-Nassau—one of the royal house orders that falls under the full jurisdiction of King Willem Alexander (See Philstar.com for story).
Fil-Am writers have been steadily releasing Young Adult (YA) novels for 13 -year-olds and up and Middle Grade (MG) books for 12-year-olds and younger(See story in Inquirer.net).
Judge Steve Coroza
Justice Steve Coroza has the distinction of being the first Filipino Canadian to be appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice in 2009, at age 39, and then to the Superior Court of Justice in 2013 (See Inquirer.net for story).
Melanie Perkins
Melanie Perkins, a 32-year-old Filipino-Australian, is now Australia’s youngest ever billionaire with a net worth of US$2.5 billion. This makes her Australia’s third-richest woman thanks to Canva, a graphic design company she co-founded less than a decade ago (See Esquiremag.ph for story).
Giovannie Espiritu
Giovannie Espiritu, filmmaker and acting coach for HollywoodActorsWorkshop.com, has won a prestigious Award of Merit from The Best Shorts Film Competition in three categories: Social Justice, Women Filmmakers and Script/Writer. The award was given for her satirical film, Ally 3000, which highlights micro-aggressions and bias in the contemporary office setting (See DigitalJournal.com for story).
A record-high 83% of Filipinos believe their quality of life got worse in the last 12 months, beating the previous 62% recorded in June 2008, according to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey (See GMA News for story).
Maria Ressa
“A Thousand Cuts,” a film that chronicles how Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte uses social media to spread disinformation, was named the best international feature at New Zealand’s Doc Edge International Documentary Film Festival. The conviction of Rappler editor Maria Ressa is the core subject of the film (See story in Variety.com).
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