
DATE: Monday, August 11, 1997               TAG: 9708110083

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW DOLAN, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  176 lines

HE SPEAKS THEIR LANGUAGE

When state Sen. Mark L. Earley utters phrases like ``Mga Kababayan . . . matagal na mula noong ako ay nasa Pilipinas . . . at saka, itong araw na ito, ang Tagalog ko hindi na malaki,'' he can deafen a room with cheers and laughter.

As long as the room is filled with Filipinos.

As a missionary in the Philippines, Earley learned how to say: ``Friends . Tagalog is no longer big.'' The mission was a young man's chance, he thought in the late 1970s, to see the world before becoming a Baptist minister.

Instead, the Republican nominee for state Attorney General said, he returned not seminary-ready, but politically energized.

Watching political strife in the Philippines made him appreciate his American civil liberties for the first time. Impassioned by the experience, Earley, now 42, said it ignited a 10-year-long political career, climaxing in a bid for the statewide office this year.

In that time, he has cultivated vocal Filipino-American support. On Sunday, he was presented with The Great Kababayan or compatriot award at a Filipino rally Sunday at Red Wing Park in Virginia Beach.

``I assumed that I would go into the full-time ministry . . . but that changed. The Philippines became a very critical time for me, and I found I needed to try to do my part in my generation to protect our democracy, our opportunities for equality and justice,'' Earley said in an interview in his Norfolk law office Friday.

On the surface, even an earnest Earley appears to have little in common with Hampton Roads' Filipino community: He's a tall, graying Anglo with a wife and six children. His campaign for attorney general largely rests on a religious right platform with visible ideological and financial support from Christian conservatives like broadcaster Pat Robertson and his $35,000 campaign donation.

But romanced by Earley's love of their country, his attendance at a plethora of community events over the last decade and his Tagalog witticisms, Filipino Americans were out in force for his primary race.

They spread the word through cultural get-togethers at Filipino restaurants like Fiesta Han or at Virginia Beach's Shops at Lake James, better known as ``Little Manila'' for its Filipino-owned businesses.

``We're pro-life; we're conservative Catholics. Being Filipino American, we come from a close family. We see that in Sen. Earley,'' said supporter Felixberto P. Pineda at Earley's election night victory party in June.

And they donated more than $7,800 - about 4 percent of all Earley's individual contributions - to a campaign that was anything but flush.

Many local politicians said a low turnout - one even lower than expected in northern Virginia - helped an Earley campaign devoid of television commercials but strengthened by a strong grassroots network of social conservatives.

In Virginia, Filipinos are the second-largest population (Koreans are first) of foreign-born residents, with sizable pockets in northern and southeastern Virginia, according to a 1997 University of Virginia report. According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures in 1990, there are 19,476 Filipinos in Hampton Roads with the majority - 12,376 - in Virginia Beach.

But Hampton Roads community leaders insist that their numbers are closer to 40,000, including a significant population of active and retired Navy families.

Local Filipinos once captured a seat on the Virginia Beach School Board and now sit on several state-appointed boards, but many still feel that their political potential - fractionalized by more than 40 ethnic associations in Hampton Roads - is still unrealized.

One Filipino joke relates that a community organization president would rather die with a gavel in hand than give up his title. His losing opponents, the saying goes, just go out and form competing groups.

Nony E. Abrajano, the past chairman of the Filipino American Community Action Group of Hampton Roads, said he is reassured by Earley's ``knowledge of our language and heritage,'' which bond every group.

``Anyone can go to him. He has adopted us, and we have adopted him,'' Abrajano said.

While some conservative, mostly Protestant, political groups such as the Christian Coalition have had trouble attracting Catholic and immigrant groups like Filipinos, Earley has folded them into his coalition.

And in doing so, the Chesapeake native may have taken the sting out of the attacks launched by his Democratic opponent William G. Dolan.

A radio ad for Dolan's campaign, released days after Earley bested three other candidates for the GOP nomination, chided Earley as the ``hand-picked candidate of the narrow right wing of the Republican party.''

``Mark Earley is (in) position as a natural heir to the Allen-Reagan legacy of small government and personal responsibility,'' said political analyst Tom R. Morris. ``I think charges that he is extreme tend to fall on deaf ears.''

As for Earley's multicultural support, Fairfax lawyer Dolan believes the focus is on the man, rather than his views. ``The more people know of Mark Earley's positions on the issues, the more his support will shrink,'' Dolan said in an interview Friday.

Earley's attachment to the Philippines, he said, was hardly expected.

At age 23, he finished studying campus ministry at Westchester State Teachers College outside Philadelphia in 1977 and spent the next two years assigned to the Philippines.

``It was some of the best years of my life; it was great,'' he said. ``I was there working with students at the University of the Philippines in Manila.''

Earley ministered for an interdenominational Christian group called the Navigators to ``help students with the spiritual walk with God and to grow,'' he said.

But his thoughts soon turned to his unfamiliar surroundings and political conflicts during Ferdinand Marcos' reign as president-dictator.

``It was a time where I really got interested in American politics and in American government,'' Earley said. ``Especially in a place like the Philippines, for me at least, you see that America is one nation among many.

He began to see from Manila's shores ``the tremendous historical beacon of hope that America had been for the rest of the world,'' he said. ``In America you think we're the beginning and end of it. When you live abroad, you see that we're a very small slice of the pie.''

He turned to ``try to embark on a course of public service,'' he said.

``Unless each generation of Americans gets time for a passionate recommitment to the core principles . . . we would lose what made us so important to people struggling around the world.''

He remembered watching a nation dejected after Marcos ``stole'' an election from a jailed opponent, Philippines senator Benigno S. Aquino.

``I was driving my motorcycle . . . and there were armed soldiers on some of the major street corners in Manila,'' Earley said. ``I thought there had been some unrest the night before, but when I started asking around, I found out it was election day.''

Nothing, he said, like his halcyon youth in which his mother registered Washington Borough voters in their Chesapeake home.

When he returned stateside, Earley's political interests continued.

After entering law school at the College of William and Mary in the fall of 1979, he met a Filipino anthropology professor who had invited Aquino to visit during his American tour.

``When the speech was over and we went (to) the airport and I was sitting with him, I remember asking him about whether or not he would return to the Philippines. That was the great speculation.

``I asked him, `Do you think you will go back to the Philippines?'

``He said . . . `I think I have to go back.'

``What do you think will happen if you go back?

``He said, `I think I'll become president or I think I'll be killed.' ''

Years later in 1983, Earley, by then a lawyer and married, woke to see on the morning news that Aquino had been slain.

``In my generation,'' he said, ``we never had to fight, never had to claw our way back for democracy.''

By 1987, Earley first assembled supporters as different as Chesapeake Forward, an African-American civic group and the Virginia AFL-CIO and unseated mainstay state Sen. William T. Parker. He has served in Richmond ever since.

For most local Filipinos, Mark Earley's inspirations from their history and culture go unheard. Instead he recalls his Manila memories and recites rusty Tagalog - both keys to unlock their admiration.

And there is the song.

Pura O. Molina, editor of the Virginia Beach-based Filipino Chronicle newspaper, said Earley's a regular Tagalog crooner. The seniors swoon when he launches into a rendition of the romantic Dahil Sa Iyo.

Joey Villanueva of Virginia Beach, executive vice president of the Council of United Filipino Organizations of Tidewater, said he too has heard his friend Earley belt out that informal ``national anthem.''

``Oh, yes, he sings. He memorizes all the words, then he captures all their hearts.''

Earley's Sinatra-style singing was heard again Sunday under the pine trees at Red Wing Park, as he warbled through the Tagalog love song.

And the anthem's translated title could sum up Earley's relationship with the Philippines and his immigrants-as-constituents waxing nostalgic for the sounds of their homeland:

``Because of You.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

D KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot

Nony E. Abrajano spoke to Sen. Mark Earley at a Filipino rally at

Red Wing Park on Sunday where the senator received a compatriot

award.

THE FILIPINO IMPACT

In Virginia, Filipinos are the second-largest population (Koreans

are first) of foreign-born residents.

In Hampton Roads, there are 19,476 Filipinos. The majority -

12,376 - are in Virginia Beach. Area community leaders insist that

their numbers are more like 40,000, including active and retired

Navy.