After its neighboring Latino countries like Mexico, the Philippines has the highest number of undocumented immigrants in the US, at over a quarter of a million according to Homeland Security Department estimates.
But while the Latinos are in a panic over Donald Trump winning the US presidency on November 8, and have been organizing to get the Hispanic votes tip the scale to stop it, Filipinos comprise the highest support for Trump among Asian voters, according to a New America Media poll.
This time, we are Number One for the wrong reasons. Why?
Prejudiced
In my dealings with our kabayan in America, I am a witness to the fact that some of the Filipino immigrants here, especially among the old folks who still call their homeland the pejorative P.I. – until Duterte translated these initials into swear words – are whiter than white. And not only because they bleach their skin with glutathione and blonde their hair with hydrogen peroxide.
They carry the same hatred held dear by Trump supporters of keeping the illegal aliens out. Though to most white evangelical Christian Conservatives, especially among the old folks, their hatred is borne of economic survival because, to them, the "illegals" are stealing their jobs. But to some Filipinos, usually Republicans, it's more of their crab mentality at full play; of refusing to give a struggling fellow countryman a helping hand. These are the "Turo Ng Turo" (TNT) Filipino US citizens who get paid by the INS for fingering an undocumented Filipino immigrant. As one Republican lawmaker would call it: "kill them before they breed."
For all their misgivings as a Filipino who is a Republican, at least, the Pinoy Republicans are not as unreasonable as the Duterte supporters, whose blind faith in Duterte makes them always frothing at the mouth for any perceived slight, or, the far right-wing racist White supporting Donald Trump to restore white supremacy in the US.
Pinoy Republicans may pester you with misinformation to trash talk Hillary and pay paeans to Trump, but they won't go the distance of trolling those who dislike their candidate. (READ: Fil-Ams cross party lines, make hard choices)
It's not too late for our kababayang mga Republicans to have a change of heart come Election Day, given how Donald Trump has trampled upon the principles that made them move here in the first place – that is, equality for all men and respect for women.
C'mon, man! We don't want another Duterte. Let's vote Hillary!
No brown in a Trump White House
It's myopic for Pinoy Republicans to believe there is a place for them in a Trump White House. This 2016 US presidential election is turning out to be a racial war. According to Bill Maher, this is a slow-moving right-wing coup to take over the White House with Trump installed as their Grand Imperial Wizard: No Colored Allowed.
After the Mexicans, the Muslims and the Jews, don't you think the next on their list to get rid off are Asians? Remember, this country has a history of putting Japanese Americans in an internment cap. Just by being true to his German lineage, with some of that blood running in his vein could be that of Hitler, an internment camp should be the least we should worry about as immigrants under a Trump administration.
We have to rally the troops!
The Democrats are known for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And with this race so tight two days before Election Day, it's beginning to look a lot like the 2000 US presidential election when the Democrats turned a win into a loss; when, even by winning the popular vote, Al Gore still lost to George W. Bush.
It was just two Friday nights ago when Hillary had this 2016 US presidential election in the bag, with Donald Trump already conceding defeat and claiming the election is rigged as he wiggled his tiny perverted hands away from his groping scandal.
Now it seems that a #DickPic could ruin it all for the Democrats. – Rappler.com
Oscar Quiambao is a businessman and former business journalist from Manila who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.