BB Gandanghari is just plain BB, beautiful, smart, vibrant and at peace with herself. BB’s name is derived from her motto, “Be all that you can be.” It is also short for Binibining Gandanghari, a Tagalog phrase which literally translates into “maiden with the beauty of a king.” I am truly amazed at her courage, the courage to be her real self. Now she finds peace with her God and herself. She is proud to carry the name “Filipina” whenever she is in another country.

Here is BB Gandanghari, formerly Rustom Padilla, feeling like a female, feeling filipina. Is the filipino society ready to embrace BB as filipina?
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I’m a guest of Rodel and Edna Rodis this week at their San Francisco home and at Rodel’s law offices. We’re busy preparing for the biennial gathering of Overseas Filipinos on October 9 to 11, 2009 in Cebu: the 6th Global Filipino Networking Convention. And yes, there will be a Filipina Women’s forum. All very exciting! Rodel is the founder of the Global Filipino Networking Convention (starting 2002). For the 6th Global, he is also the Organizing Committee’s chair.

Rodel Rodis was so disturbed by this CBS coverage that he decided to write about it for his “Telltale Signs” column, which appears at the Philippine News and is syndicated in several Filipino American publications.

Here is Rodel’s Telltale Signs column for this week.

When ABC presented a demeaning image of Philippine-trained doctors in a “Desperate Housewives” episode (September 30, 2007), the Filipino community erupted in outrage and demanded an apology. Because Filipinos rarely appear on national TV, it was feared that the offending episode would cause Americans to view their Philippine-educated physicians in a negative light. That ABC episode is peanuts in terms of image and consequence compared to the depiction of Filipinos that CBS presented on January 31, 2009 in its CBS 48 Hours Mystery episode of “Conspiracy to Kill”.

Continue reading at Telltale Signs.