Vol. IV No. 9
Nov.-Dec. 2000
News Bulletins
afernan@techie.com
Last Updated:
December 23, 2000
A New Year's Message From InterPinoy
The Staff of InterPinoy would like to take the opportunity to send our Season’s Greetings to our readers, clients and to everybody who happens to log on our Montreal-based website which in the last four years since it was launched into cyberspace has brought the news and commentaries relating to Filipinos in general. This is also the time of the year when we all look back and review what the past years has been for us at InterPinoy and it is obvious that it is living up to its modest objectives: to bind together Filipino-Canadians and keep them informed on issues and concerns that affect their lives. And thanks to this happy relationship InterPinoy is making progress by having readers from all over the world including prominent leaders in the Philippines who find it important to have links with Filipino websites based in Canada.
Filipino Montrealers to Mark Rizal’s Martyrdom
MONTREAL - Inspite of the Christmas holidays, the Order of the Knights of Rizal (Quebec Chapter) and member’s of the Filipino community will gather for a floral and candlelight ceremony at the Filipino Center on Dec. 30, 2000, to mark the 104rd anniversary of the martyrdom of Philippine national hero Dr. Jose Rizal.
The simple ceremony, will start at 7.00 p.m. with the singing of the national anthems of Canada and the Philippines.
Master of ceremony of the event will be Sir Freddy Espinosa, who will deliver a short inspirational talk citing Dr.Rizal’s teachings and martyrdom as a source of inspiration not only for Filipinos but also for people around the world.
Online Banking Catching on in Canada
The Montreal Gazette
Thursday 14 December 2000
While most Canadians continue to use bank branches, 20 per cent have signed up for Internet banking, double the number a year ago, a survey suggests. And those who registered for Internet service use it frequently. About 59 per cent reported clicking on their account at least once a week while 77 per cent said they usually bank online at least once a month. Those are some of the findings in the annual report on banking services conducted by Canadian Facts, a division of marketing research firm CF Group Inc.
OSC Cracks Down on Four Financial-services Web sites
The Montreal Gazette
Thursday 14 December 2000
Ontario’s securities regulator capped months of investigations yesterday with a crackdown on four financial-services Web sites operated by people who the agency alleges aren’t registered to sell investments.
As part of its continuing sweep, the Ontario Securities Commission issued cease-trading orders against four Ontario Web-site operators, who the OSC claims were acting in violation of securities law. All four are accused of promoting the “unauthorized distribution of securities.” “Our goal is to focus on intervening with potentially fraudulent sites at the earliest opportunity,” Colin McCann, an investigator with the OSC’s enforcement branch, said yesterday. “We have taken this action in order to reduce the likelihood of persons falling victim to scams and also to educate the public that investing with unknown Internet entities should not be undertaken without thoroughly researching the person and the company making the offer.”
Adieu, Pierre, Merci
(A Tribute to Pierre Elliot Trudeau)
By Tony P. Fernandez
MONTREAL - There was a long line of people queuing up on the stairway leading up to city hall to pay their last respects to the Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau, an extraordinary and brilliant man who perhaps more than anyone else confirmed Canada to be a bi-lingual and multicultural nation. When he died at age 80 on Sept. 28, 2000, Filipinos joined the nation to mourn his death.
My wife Lina and I were among the people who went up the stairway in the early evening to express our personal sadness and to pay tribute to his legacy, which is, in the words of Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada “to confirm us in our understanding of what our nation is, and must be, to fulfill its original destiny. For this, we will forever be grateful to him.”
Of Visible Minority Groups
By Tony P. Fernandez
MONTREAL - According to the 1996 census, Canada was home to 3.2 million persons who are members of visible minority groups, representing 11.2% of the total population of Canada. And one in three persons who are members of visible minority groups were born in Canada, according to the census taken by Statistics Canada.
The census also says that the Chinese was the largest visible minority group with a total of 860,000 individuals, accounting for 27% of all visible minorities and 3.0 % of Canada’s total population.
Apart from this it said: Together, Chinese, South Asians (2.4% of Canada’s population) and Blacks (2.0% of Canada’s population) represented two-thirds of the visible minority population in Canada in 1996. The remaining one-third of the visible minority population, about 1.1 million people, included Filipinos, Southeast Asians, Latin Americans, Japanese, Koreans, Arabs and West Asians.
Felicitaciones!
Vice-President Gloria Macapagal became a new member of the Academia Filipina on Jan, 16, 2000. Photo shows the Vice-President receiving her diploma from Cardinal Sin along with some members of the Academia during a simple ceremony at the Archibishop’s Villa San Miguel Palace, in Mandaluyong.
Alumni Speech by Sen. Nene Pimentel
Senate President Nene Pimentel
“With God as our guide and you by our side, we cannot go wrong!”
(Speech of Senate President Nene Pimentel at the Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan Alumni Homecoming, December 1, 2000)
Fellow alumni:
May I thank Councilor Roy Raagas, our alumni president, and our alumni association for inviting me to speak before our gathering today.
Your kind invitation gives me an opportunity to publicly reiterate and express my gratitude to the Lord and Mary, his mother, and our alma mater, Xavier university, the Ateneo de Cagayan, for having exposed me early on in my teen-age life to the ineluctable need of man and woman to adhere to certain eternal verities like love of God, country and people for life in this world to have any meaning at all. In sum, the years I have spent as a student of the Ateneo instilled in me the Ateneo spirit which in my view sums up the philosophy of being a man or woman for others.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FILIPINO WORLD:
Part 4
By Guillermo Gómez Rivera
(Editor’s note: The following piece ‘The Destruction of the Filipino World’ is the fourth and 5th of a seven series of articles on the subject of Spanish in the Philippines and other related issues. Professor Guillermo Gomez Rivera, a staunch advocate of preserving Spanish and the Hispanic culture in the Philippines, is the president of the Corporación Nacional de Profesores Filipinos de Español (CONAPE) Incorporada. Gomez Rivera has acquired a reputation as a prolific writer and poet in Spanish. Many regard him as the leader to restore Spanish as one of the official languages of the Philippines and advocates its teaching in all levels of education because of the deep influence of Spanish on the Filipinos.)
Contents:
- New Quebecers are key to growth of French
- Celine Dion is Pregnant!
- Montréal the Technocity
- Letters to Editor