A 39-year-old Filipino American and mother of two is gunning for her second term representing the 26th legislative district of Prince George's County in Maryland.

Kriselda “Kris” Valderrama is competing with six other Democratic challengers in the September 14 Primary. The top three vote getters will face their Republican opponents in the November general election.

In her first primary four years ago, she barely won, edging her closest rival by only 100 votes. As an incumbent, however, Valderrama is expected to have an advantage over new challengers.

Likewise, the full support of Filipino-Americans in the Maryland neighborhoods of Oxon Hill, Temple Hills, Camp Springs and Fort Washington is expected to boost her re-election bid after her campaign noted that close to a thousand registered Fil-Am voters failed to cast their ballot in the 2006 primary elections.

Valderrama, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said she plans to push for child protection laws and secure more funding for education for Prince George's County schools. (Roy Mabasa)

BoC focuses on cash collection
The Bureau of Customs (BoC) has begun to consider for the first time the non-inclusion of the tax expenditure fund (TEF), or the duties from rice imports, a move that Customs officials say could spare the agency from missing its monthly revenue goals.

Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez said he is mulling the removal of TEF collections from its programmed target after the agency failed to meet its revenue goal in previous months since he assumed office.

“I am now focusing on cash collection target since TEF is in no way revenue generating and is only meant to help us meet our tax collection burden by facilitating government importations, especially rice,” Alvarez said.

Last August, the BoC has set a collection target of P27.12 billion, but Alvarez said he is now only looking at P23.5 billion or a shortfall of P3.62 billion.

This is the second straight month that the BoC incurred a shortfall because it failed to meet its TEF collection goal. July collection figure showed that agency only collected P22.22 billion for the period, or P3.9 billion lower than its target revenue of P26.17 billion. (Raymund F. Antonio)

97 repatriated OFWs arrive home
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said that 97 overseas Filipino workers repatriated from Kuwait arrived Monday morning at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

According to the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait most of these Filipinos left their employers for a variety of reasons and sought refuge at the Filipino Workers Resource Center (FWRC) operated by the Department of Labor and Employment-Overseas Workers Welfare Administration. Philippine Ambassador Shulan Primavera said the OFWs were sheltered at the center from three to eight months.

Primavera said that Kuwaiti immigration authorities waived the usual exit/repatriation requirements through representations by the Embassy and the Philippine Overseas Labor Office.

Kuwaiti authorities also shouldered the repatriates’ plane fares.

Primavera pointed out that the usual deportation procedure is for those housed at the FWRC to first be surrendered to the local police. The police then summon their employers who will be required to hand over the worker's passport, have the workers’ visa cancelled and to submit their plane tickets. (Roy Mabasa/Mitch Arceo)