Page 10 - LM Confidential Issue February 2015

FILIPINO NEWS WORLDWIDE
Filam in The Fosters
HOLLYWOOD – 2015 promises to be a good year for Asian-American faces on TV as several shows continue to feature diverse talents.
One of them is Filipino American actress-singer Ashley Argota.
Mongolia convicts 2 Filipino mining execs of tax evasion
OUT ON BAIL. Deniece Cornejo and Cedric Lee, both accused of the January 2014 maul- ing of comedian-host Vhong Navarro.
Suspect in Vhong Na-
varro mauling arrested
MANILA, Philippines – More than a year since the mauling of comedian-host Vhong Navarro, one of the suspects accused of the attack has been arrested late Sunday, January 25. Busi- nessman Ferdinand Guerrero was arrested by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) inside the penthouse of Ritz condominium in Makati City around 10:30 pm. Guerrero, who has a standing arrest warrant over the January 2014 beating of Navarro, had tried to disguise himself and used different cars and condominium units to evade arrest, NBI Anti Illegal Drugs Unit chief Eric Isidro said.
“He tried to disguise himself by growing facial hair. Before the warrant of arrest was issued against him, he was sporting a clean look,” Isidro added. For two months, NBI agents followed Guerrero’s movements until he was arrested at the Ritz condominium, where he was temporarily staying. “[Guerrero] was rich, he could stay in different condominium units in Metro Manila. He doesn’t drive the same car and keeps on changing it,” Isidro said.
The arrest comes 9 months after Guerrero, businessman Cedric Lee, Lee’s sister Bernice, model Deniece Cornejo, Zimmer Raz, JP Calma, and Jed Fernandez were charged with grave coercion over the attack on the television host. The Taguig City Regional Trial Court issued the warrants of arrest against the accused on April 11. The NBI arrested Lee and Raz on April 26 in a resort in Eastern Samar, while Cornejo sur- rendered in May after weeks of evading arrest. Meanwhile, Guerrero attempted to leave the Philippines two days after the charges were filed against him. Immigration authorities inter- cepted Guerrero and barred him from leaving for Hong Kong. Cornejo, Lee, and Raz are cur- rently out on bail. Guerrero is now held inside the NBI detention facility.
The mauling of Navarro occurred on January 22 last year at a unit in Forbeswood Heights Condominium in Taguig City.
In 2014, Argota introduced in the ABC Family ‘The Fosters’. character is “Lou”, the feisty lead singer and bandmate of “Brandon” played by David Lambert.
“It’s been a lot
of fun... some crazy drama, intense, intense things happening in the first part of Season 2,” she said.
w a s Her
prosecutors’ statement said.
SouthGobi Re- sources has denied wrongdoing.
Kapla, a former president and ex- ecutive director of SouthGobi Sands, Cajucom, and David had been forbidden from leaving Mongo- lia for more than two years amid suspicions
the company had failed to pay sufficient taxes.
In November, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights registered a claim against the Mon- golian state on Kapla’s behalf.
Communication issues
The US Embassy in Ulan Bator swiftly issued a statement after the trial, saying it was marred by communication issues.
“Several embassy officials attended the trial, including Ambassador Piper Camp- bell, and noted that there were inter- pretation problems during the trial,” the statement said.
“Because of these problems, the de- fendants stated during the trial that they could not understand the interpretation, nor could they express themselves clearly.” The statement said the length of the case and the exit ban had led to “enormous hardship” for Kapla and that the embassy “will continue to monitor the situation closely.”
The Great Hural, Mongolia’s parlia- ment, voted in November to dismiss the previous prime minister after he was accused of cronyism and failing to address growing economic problems. A new gov- ernment has been formed.
The landlocked country wedged be- tween giants China and Russia enjoyed world-beating economic growth in recent years, peaking at 17.5 percent in 2011 on the back of a boom in exports of resources, mainly coal, copper and iron ore.
But a new foreign investment law put off investors and economic expansion slowed to 5.3 percent in the first half of last year, while the country faces rising inflation and a falling currency.
The Fil-Am star, who turned 22 last month, said she is happy to be a part of a show that celebrates and promotes diversity.
“My character is a high school dropout who is the lead singer of the band; who is really stubborn and sassy, has a mind of her own and doesn’t let anybody push her around. It’s so rare that you get to see an Asian girl get to play that because usually we’re the super smart girl or the sidekick and things like that. So I’m very grateful for the show for giving me the opportunity to play such a great character,” she said.
Argota got her big break in 2008 as a regular cast member of the Nickelodeon series “True Jackson, VP”. Last year, her childhood dream of being in a Disney TV movie was realized when she was cast in “How to Build a Better Boy”.
She also has a recurring television show “Lab Rats”.
With more new episodes of The Fosters set to air this year, Argota is looking forward to revealing more about her character.
The show, which is about a family of foster biological siblings being raised by a lesbian couple, has won a critical acclaim for its realistic depiction of a modern American family.
ULAN BATOR—A Mongolian court on Friday found three former executives of
a foreign-owned mining company—who included two Filipinos—guilty of tax eva- sion and sentenced them to more than five years each in prison, prosecutors said.
The court in this Mongolian capital de- livered the guilty verdicts and prison terms on Philippine nationals Hilarion Cajucom and Cristobal David and Justin Kapla, a US citizen, according to a statement from the Capital City’s Attorney’s Office.
Kapla and David received sentences
of five years and 10 months each, while Cajucom got five years and six months, it said. There was no immediate word of an appeal.
The verdict is likely to send a chilling message to foreign investors in Mongolia, where the once high-flying economy has been badly hit by a collapse in foreign investment and in commodity prices.
Mongolia, for decades a tightly-con- trolled Soviet satellite, shook off com- munism a quarter century ago but has struggled to cash in on its rich natural bounty amid political disputes and re- source nationalism.
The three were all former executives
of mining company SouthGobi Sands,
a Mongolia-registered but foreign-con- trolled business that operates the Ovoot Tolgoi coal mine, which extracts and sells the resource to customers in China.
SouthGobi Sands is 100-percent owned by Toronto- and Hong Kong-listed SouthGobi Resources, according to the SouthGobi Resources website.
Canada’s Turquoise Hill Resources, ma- jority owned by British-Australian multi- national Rio Tinto, owns a major stake in SouthGobi Resources, the website said.
SouthGobi Sands was fined 35.3 billion tugriks ($18.2 million, P800 million) “to compensate for loss from the state,” the
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FEBRUARY 2015
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