Leaders' Digest
THE Buena Park City Council has appointed FilAm Felix Lopez as Traffic and Transportation Commissioner of the City of Buena Park.
The City Council appointed Lopez during a meeting on December 9.
As Traffic and Transportation Commissioner, Lopez will act in an advisory capacity to the City Council in the review and development of systems, facilities, plans, policies and programs concerning rail, bus, truck and automobile transportation within the City and/or affecting the City.
Kymberly Marcos Pine (R-HI) knows the value of hard work.Pine, who represents the 43rd district of Ewa Beach, Iroquois Point, Pu’uloa, is the Assistant Republican Leader in the House of Representatives for Hawaii. She told the Asian Journal during the National Convention in Minnesota that her grandmother, who worked in the sugarcane plantations in Hawaii during the early 1900s, influenced her in many ways.
"Work with honor," is what her grandmother always told her.
Eduardo Malapit - 1st Filipino-American Mayor
THE first man of Filipino descent who holds the distinction of being the first Filipino-American mayor of any United States municipality is Eduardo Enabore Malapit. Born April 6, 1933 in Kauai, Mala was an American Democratic politician who served as Mayor of Kauai, Hawaii. He was elected for four consecutive two-year terms as mayor of Kauai beginning in 1974. Affectionately called "Mala" by friends, he was widely respected in Kauai and throughout Hawaii for his belief in community service.
First elected to the Hercules City Council for a four-year term in November 2000, Ed Balico was also appointed Vice Mayor in December 2001 and became Mayor in 2002. Balico was reelected in 2004, garnering the highest votes ever in the history of Hercules City. Because of that, in December 2006, he was appointed to serve a one-year term as Mayor.
Prior to being elected to the City Council, Balico served as a Planning Commissioner for six years and has served both as Vice Chair and Chair of the Commission during his tenure.
AN engaging conversation with Prosy de la Cruz last Monday afternoon opened up a Pandora’s box (sans the negative connotation) of ideas and ideals. The one-on-one interview made this writer blurt the obvious—that Prosy is indeed, a woman who’s in constant motion, unstoppable and unrelenting in enacting her philosophies in life.
A graduate of the University of the Philippines with a BS Degree in Food Technology, Prosy was the quintessential activist against martial law during the Marcos regime. She was a tireless advocate for democracy and a member of Makibaka, a women’s organization in the Philippines—a fact that prompted her parents to bring her to America in the hopes that she would channel her energies less invasively. But the move made her even more fastidious and painstaking, both in her professional and personal endeavors. And while in the United States, she became an active member of the National Committee for the Restoration of Civil Liberties in the Philippines, and later a founding member and a regional officer for the Alliance for Philippine Concerns in Los Angeles.
