News Release
October 2, 2007

Reference: Rico Foz, Executive Vice President, National Alliance for Filipino Concerns, email: nafconusa @ yahoo.com

FILIPINO-AMERICANS EXPRESS OUTRAGE OVER DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE'S RACIST REMARK

The national alliance of Filipino-American groups known as the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns, or NAFCON, expressed outrage and offense over racist comments uttered by actress Teri Hatcher in the ABC primetime series "Desperate Housewives".

In a recent episode, Susan (Hatcher) exaggerates after her gynecologist suggests she is nearing menopause by saying, "Can I just check those diplomas because I just want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines." A video clip can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34_qvfh3X7c

"These type of derogatory remarks are obviously upsetting because Filipino nurses and doctors are imported to the US out of this country's grave need for quality healthcare professionals. Our community is at the backbone of the US healthcare system," states NAFCON spokeperson Rico Foz.

NAFCON have been actively spearheading for the past 6 months a heated international campaign for the Sentosa 27++ nurses, healthcare professionals from the Philippines recruited by the fraudulent Sentosa Recruitment Agency under false contracts. The nurses also suffered backwages, and other exploitative measures by the Sentosa management.

"We are proud of our Filipino nurses and other healthcare professionals. It is no secret that our country's healthcare professionals are the best in the world. Often times, it is their employers here in the US, not foreign nurses, that bring down the quality of healthcare in this country," Foz added, citing Sentosa's imposition of a steep 60:1 patient to nurse ratio in Sentosa facilities.

"We demand an apology from ABC, the producers and writers of Desperate Housewives, whom we are certain have been serviced by quality Filipino nurses and doctors," Foz ended.

Statement in Txt format

 

News Release
October 3, 2007

Reference: Rico Foz, Executive Vice President, National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON), email: nafconusa @ yahoo.com

APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED-- NAFCON
NATIONAL FILIPINO-AMERICAN ALLIANCE DEMANDS MORE FROM ABC FOR RACIST SLUR

The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON), a national network of Filipino groups spanning 23 cities, slammed the recent paragraph-sized apology issued by ABC Inc. for a racist slur delivered by actress Teri Hatcher's character Susan on the popular prime time series "Desperate Housewives" as "insufficient and pathetic." A community picket in front of Manhattan's ABC Studios on 77 West 66th Street led by NAFCON is scheduled for this Friday, October 5th at 6pm.

The remark, made by Hatcher's character in a scene with a doctor, was, "Okay, before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? Because I would just like to make sure they are not from some med school in the Philippines." A video clip can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34_qvfh3X7c

"The simplistic nature of ABC's apology only insults our community even more. It is not proportionate to the damage it has caused. It is basically just a one-paragraph response, not just to the 2nd largest immigrant group in the US, or a third world country, but ALL foreign-trained medical practitioners in this country. This country thrives on the quality skills of foreign-trained doctors and nurses, and Filipino nurses are among the cream of the crop. We all deserve a decent, sincere, and proper apology," states NAFCON spokesperson Rico Foz.

In a single email sent to Philippine Daily Inquirer reporter Nimfa Rueda, the following is the network's statement: "The producers of 'Desperate Housewives' and ABC Studios offer our sincere apologies for any offense caused by the brief reference in the season premiere. There was no intent to disparage the integrity of any aspect of the medical community in the Philippines. As leaders in broadcast diversity, we are committed to presenting sensitive and respectful images of all communities featured in our programs."

When asked by if ABC would release a lengthier statement, Charissa Gilmore, ABC Studios vice president for media relations, said this is "the only statement planned."

A recent meeting of NAFCON leaders in New York City, joined by the Sentosa 27++ nurses, Filipino healthcare professionals trafficked from Manila to the US to work under false contracts by American employer SentosaCare LLC, proved the gravity of the ongoing disappointment from Filipino healthcare professionals of all ages.

"I not only resent [the Desperate Housewives quote], but I am mad. An apology is not enough; they should acknowledge the role of foreign medical graduates particularly Filipino doctors from the early 1960s. For three decades as doctors, we have been serving America," stated Filipino Long Island cardiologist Dr. Orlando Apiado, an internal medicine doctor who came to the US in 1963, after obtaining his medical degree at the University of the Philippines in 1962.

"After 9/11, the most awarded healthcare providers were Filipinos from the Beekman Downtown Hospital near Wall Street," stated New York anesthesiologist Dr. Benjamin Ileto, a medical graduate of Far Eastern University in Manila and who has been practicing in the US since 1965.

The workplace discrimination case of the Sentosa 27++ nurses, now amidst court trials in Long Island, also found linkage to the network's discriminatory slur, which insinuated the inferior skills of Philippine-trained health workers.

"This is a clear manifestation that the claims of discrimination and prejudice is alive and present in society," stated Mark Dela Cruz of the Sentosa 27++. "Our current plight against the Sentosa Recruitment Agency is the fruit of prejudiced and biased minds as those connected with ABC Inc. and SentosaCare LLC."

The NAFCON leaders and Sentosa 27 ++ nurses also agreed to more proper terms for an official network apology that included a) at least one broadcasted apology before the show's next episode, b) a thorough investigation of the show's writers and producers to track down the origins of the line and an appropriate disciplinary action, c) cutting the scene from the episode permanently and never airing it again, including in all productions of DVD's and boxed sets of the series. The group also threatened to call for a boycott of the series if an appropriate and timely apology was not issued by the network.

The controversial slur utter during last Sunday's episode has launched an online indignation petition that garnered more than 45,000 signatures in matter of 55 hours, been the topic of dozens of online discussion groups, as well as been the target of condemnation statements from the Philippine Medical Association and other Filipino, medical, and immigrant groups. ###
 

Statement inTXT format
 

VANTAGE POINT
OUTSIDERS
By Luis V. Teodoro

"Before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? I'd just like to make sure they're not from some med school in the Philippines."

Thousands of Filipinos all over the world are reacting
angrily to that remark in an episode of "Desperate Housewives, " one of the most watched TV shows in the world. The remark has provoked prolonged discussions over many e-groups, especially among Filipinos abroad. And there's an online petition over a hundred thousand have signed, demanding that ABC network, a Disney company which produces the show, issue an apology "more sincere" than the three sentence version it released last week. Various groups have also thrown pickets at ABC's US headquarters.

Among them is the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns
(Nafcon), an alliance of Filipino organizations and individuals in
the United States organized in 2003. Nafcon is demanding that ABC--

"1) broadcast a sincere, proper, and satisfactory apology before
the show's next three episodes; such apology is to be addressed to the Filipino people and signed by its top management;

"2) Together with its parent company, Disney, to conduct a
thorough investigation of the show's writers, editors, and producers and take appropriate action;

"3) show proof of its decision to cut the scene from the episode
permanently and never to air it again, including in all productions
of DVDs and boxed sets of the series;

"4) hold cultural-sensitivity programs for all management and employees;

"5) commit concrete support for groups advocating positive images and constructive coverages in the media especially of the often nameless and marginalized communities; and,

"6) acknowledge publicly the decades-long contribution of
Filipino medical practitioners and health care providers to the U.S. medical community."

These demands are as likely to be met as Disney's dismantling
its global lock on entertainment. (Disney is one of only seven
Western monopolies that blanket the planet with TV shows, movies, CDs, etc.) But good luck to Nafcon, anyway, whose president happens to be activist priest Benjamin Alforque.

Meanwhile, here in the country of our sorrows, the usual
politicians have weighed in with their reactions, among them Miriam Defensor Santiago, who wants Filipinos to boycott the show, and Bienvenido Abante, Chair of the House of Representatives committee on public information, who wants an outright ban of the series-and who doesn't seem to know, despite his exalted position, that doing that would constitute censorship.

It's as if this were the first time that a US minority group-this time the minority within a minority of health care professionals of Filipino origin or ancestry-had ever been insulted by US pop culture.

It isn't. One of the ironies of media globalization is that
the western, particularly US TV shows and movies millions of
Filipinos and other people of color watch, are not especially
sensitive to the sentiments of their audiences. Drivers, cooks and domestic have been referred to as "my Filipino", for example, and their accents made fun of in Hollywood movies as well as TV sitcoms.

Other minorities do much worse, especially those groups
regarded as less docile than Filipinos. US popular culture has been insulting Arabs even before 9/11, although, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Vietnamese used to have that distinction. The idiotic movies of Chuck Norris-whose crew denuded Batangas' Maculot Mountain and left a ton of trash on its summit while making one of its silly potboilers in the 1990s-have been depicting Vietnamese as brutal "gooks" and Arabs as wild-eyed "towel head" fanatics for years.

Who's going to be targeted usually depends on who's the US'
perceived enemy of the hour, and while the latter may currently
include North Koreans, the current disfavor of the month are Arabs, particularly Iranians.

US pop culture is not pro-actively sensitive. Most of the
time it reflects the attitudes, biases, fears and beliefs of the
majority. And why not? Its writers, directors, and producers are
themselves children of the same majority culture.

Right now the majority is not so much concerned with
Filipinos as with "the enemy within"-meaning the Muslims and Arabs living in the homeland. As for Filipinos, well, they're certainly not the enemy, being from a country that's been so supportive of US policies and so ingratiating in its mendicancy it's way past embarrassing.

That's what made the remark about Philippine med schools
particularly painful. Like the government they thought they've left
behind, Filipinos in the US work hard to be accepted. They keep
their mouths shut when other minority groups are insulted and
injured. They vote Republican in US elections to dispel any
suggestion no matter how faint of "radical" views. They work at
their long A's and O's and try to speak with a twang. They prohibit their children from speaking Filipino.

It's a shock to discover that despite it all, despite the
effort at deculturizing themselves, and despite the smiles and the
patronizing, seeming acceptance of the white majority, they remain outsiders in a culture that, regarding itself as superior, disdains  others. --###

■   Sign the online petition

■   Boycott ABC-Disney unless a real apology is issued

■   Malacanang's Quick Acceptance of ABC Apology Proves How Detached GMA is from Filipino People

■   National Fil-Am Leaders Reach Impasse with Network Executive Over Desperate Housewives Racial Slur

Letter to the producers of Desperate Housewives and ABC:

"My name is Gladys Guevarra. I am a well-known singer/actress entertainer in the Philippines and I am writing regarding the infamous 09/30/07 episode that has recently received much attention. I do not write this letter alone, but rather I represent the sentiment of many of the Philippine actors and the Philippine entertainment industry of the Republic of the Philippines...."

Read more

■  Boycott ABC-Disney  call still alive in light of no "sincere apology"

■   Our dignity is not for sale; justice and redemption are what we seek

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