Publisher's Note:

We welcome in this issue the new developments in the Philippines even as we hope for brighter things ahead as well to our new homeland, the United States. We live parallel lives in these countries dear to our hearts and memories and souls.

The month of June, as we have noted in the editorial, is indeed, a month of rituals—the rituals of our remembering. These are rituals that salve our souls. We have gone away, true, but we have kept the roots—and this is what these rituals of our remembering are all about.

Our remembrance is rooted in our history of alliances, of relationships. Our remembrance is rooted in the stories we keep telling, again and again, to ourselves.

We declared the very act of interruption—an act of final resistance—against the Spanish colonizers in the month of June more than a hundred years ago.

We now call this our independence day—and rightfully so.

Here is where the stories of our lives come into a juxtaposition now, us Americans of Philippines descent: we watch as the new administration in the Philippines comes into a full sense of itself through one political rite de passage, another ritual in June: the swearing and oath-taking of a new president who has promised the old homeland to bring it into the light, into progress, into a pursuit of a dream that is grander and more colorful than what we have got.

We watch—and we watch with hopes in our hearts that the eternity of hoping will spring from our hearts.

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We congratulate the recipients of the Gintong Pamana Award given by the Maui Filipino Chamber of Commerce. This is a recognition that our Philippine community should be proud of: it hands out to our best the honor they deserve. To all the awardees: Mahalo for you sense of service to our community. We congratulate too the recipients of the scholarship award.

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We heard of the upcoming celebration of the Philippine Independence Day in June put together by the Philippine Consulate General in partnership with the community.

With the spirit of the Presidential inauguration looming large before us, the grand celebration in Honolulu will reflect our grand hopes, our endless hopes, and our many hopes.

We congratulate the Consul General Leoncio Cardenas and the members of the celebration committee for this historical undertaking to make our memories alive and serve as a reason for our sense of community, a community larger than what we have got.

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We know it is not official yet, that we have yet to hear that the Philippines has already a new President replacing Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who will become a legislator in the House of Representatives.

But let it be said that we mean these words: To His Excellence Benigno Aquino III, the new President, lead the people of the Philippines to the light!

Aloha and Mabuhay!
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