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THE MESSAGE. BRINGING INTO FOCUS FILIPINO PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA
www.kalatas.com.au | Volume 4 Number 8 | May 2014
EDITORIAL & OPINION
‘THOUGHTS THIS MONTH’
VOX POPULI
WHAT’S THE IDEAL GIFT FOR MOT
Street inverviews by Marilie Bomediano
Ideal gift for all the mothers would be their child’s time and
appreciation! We only have one mother, show her how much
she’s appreciated by taking her to her
favourite restaurant, spend a day with
her.
I wanna go back home to the Philippines and really surprise
her. I would like to buy her a residential house in our hometown
in Baguio. A travel and tour to Sydney
would be ideal for her as she lives in the
Philippines but she has been working
really hard in Saudi Arabia for almost 25
years now.
I wish to travel with her throughout Europe, with
itineraries including England, Italy and Paris. Realistically,
I’d take over her motherly job e.g.
general stuff like washing the dishes,
house chores, looking after me and my
brother for a day. I’d take my dad to buy
her a gift from the jewellery shop …
Anne Calayag
Ian Pedro
Maria Hughes
Chippendale
LETTER
TO THE
EDITOR
Dear Editor:
This is to correct the assertion of Mr Danny Dingle’s ADOBO column in
the Ang Kalatas’ Vol IVNo7 issue that “PCC and
APCO are two peas in a
pod” as it is a gross generalisation, with no factual
basis, misleading and that
it may result to confusion
and embarrassment.
The Alliance of Philippine Community Organisations Inc’s many outstanding projects and activities are well-known and
publicised in many media
outlets, local and foreign
including in the Facebook
social media and Google
search engine. Putting
APCO in the same level
as PCC with all the attendant serious problems of
the latter is therefore, very
embarrassing and unfair to
us in APCO and even to the
general Filipino-Australian
community that we are
serving with distinction.
The many beneficial
projects and activities accomplished by APCO and
its affiliates since its formation four years ago make us
very different from the other organisations. Some of
these are:
1. As soon as super typhoon Haiyan struck,
APCO successfully
mobilised its membership in its relief appeal
and various fund raising initiatives, negotiated with Sydney Trains
to do bucket collections
in various train stations.
2. Through its Humanitarian Emergency and
Livelihood (HEAL)
Program, APCO provided immediate emergency assistance to the
victims of super typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) through direct
money remittances of
$21,800; shipped 172
Balikbayan boxes of as LETTER, Page 12
Adelaide
Wentworthville
ADOBO
(A Dose of Brown Opinion)
Unity: you and I, thank you!
A
sk a text-savvy
person to read U-N-I-T-Y,
and most probably he/she
would interpret it as ‘you and
I, thank you.’ How right, for
unity is exactly that – oneness
and harmony among individuals or groups for the pursuit of
positive outcomes.
Think of the Filipino-Australian community as a mountain range. It has a solid base, a
strong foundation anchored on
a terra firma of good intentions.
It has peaks – the organisations
- of varying heights, each towering under the sun, proclaiming to all and sundry their presence and togetherness in the
landscape.
In reality, however, there is
the sad perception that the community in New South Wales is
divided today. This disunity
has not always existed. There
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