Advocate for a first-world Philippines

Advocacy started early for Loida Nicolas Lewis. “When I was in grade six, I organized my friends and classmates to lobby with the Sorsogon Municipal Council to revoke the permit to set up a topless bar restaurant in Sorsogon,” she shares.

“My parents raised us up that we can achieve whatever we put our mind and heart to do, and that when we are united with one mind and one purpose, we can effect change,” she adds.

From then, Lewis went on to become a lawyer, businesswoman, philanthropist, and advocate.

Earning a law degree from the University of the Philippines in 1960, Lewis is the first Filipino to pass the New York bar without attending law school in the United States.

As an immigration lawyer, one defining moment in her career was when she sued the US Immigration and Naturalization Service for hiring discrimination.

“When I passed the New York Bar in 1974, I applied for the General Attorney with the US Immigration but after waiting for a whole year, I was notified that 11 lawyers were chosen but not me. I was intrigued that I was not included when I know my qualifications are good,” she explains.

“The only way to find out is to sue the Immigration and Naturalization Service for discrimination due to race, national origin and gender. After three years, the hearing was held and the Administrative Judge agreed with me – that my qualifications are as good if not better than the 11 chosen. That was how I got the job with Immigration.”

Lewis then served as general attorney of the INS for ten years.

As a leader in the Filipino-American community, Lewis was chair of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations from 2002 to 2006, one of the organizations that she co-founded. It is the largest advocacy group for Filipino Americans.

She has also co-founded the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and is the co-founder and current chair of the US Pinoys for Good Governance and  the Global Filipino Diaspora Council.

Lewis was a speaker at the recently concluded Global Summit of Filipinos in the Diaspora, organized by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas.

 â€œNow, our numbers of Filipinos in the diaspora is more than 10 million. We have foreign remittances to the Philippines of $20 billion!” Lewis says. “Attention then has to be paid to our group of Global Filipinos, this time more than ever,” she adds on why diaspora is still an important and persistent issue today.

While diaspora is often discussed in light of its negative aspects like brain drain, Lewis highlights some of the positive points: “Positive effects are less unemployment in the Philippines for those who go abroad. There are not enough jobs to accommodate the educated, capable talented Filipinos who graduate every year,” she says.  “Plus, these Global Filipinos send money back home for their families, adding to the dollar reserves of the Philippines.”

Lewis reiterates that Filipinos working abroad contribute greatly to the dollar reserve of the country. “When Marcos was overthrown and Cory Aquino assumed office as president, our dollar reserve was zero, non-existent. Because of the Filipinos in the diaspora since then, the Philippines now has more than $80 billion in reserve so that we even loaned $1.25 billion to our colonial master Spain via the IMF/World Bank.”

Aside from her work in immigration, Lewis is also a successful businesswoman. In 1994, she took over leadership of her late husband Reginald Lewis’ multinational food company, TLC Beatrice International, which she served as chair and CEO until 2000.

“Inheriting my husband’s company TLC Beatrice International and running it for seven years, liquidating it by selling each company separately and distributing to our shareholders 35 percent internal rate of return,” Lewis says, is one of her most important achievements.

Another personal achievement that she considers most important is raising her daughters Leslie and Christina. “My two daughters graduated from Harvard cum laude, they are both married and my three grandchildren are healthy, well mannered, and happy,” she shares.

Lewis is now retired, but continues to be actively involved in her various advocacies. “I have retired from business but have founded a school in Sorsogon, The Lewis College, which has the lowest tuition in the province, and 25 percent of our college students have full tuition scholarship,” she says.

She had previously funded the People’s Alternative Livelihood Foundation of Sorsogon Inc., which has since helped some 20,000 families through microfinance.

She also supports the Innocence Project founded recently by Cora Ungria of the University of the Philippines. In line with this, she says, “I am working on ‘Give Up Tomorrow’ Paco Larranaga who is innocent of the crime he has been convicted of, and so with the six other Cebuanos convicted of murder-rape in Cebu in 1998.”

As Lewis continues her advocacy work, she hopes “that the Philippines assumes its position among the first world countries without losing our faith, our sense of compassion and our uniqueness as Filipinos.”

“When you try to align your will with God’s will, you will arrive at the place where you should be,” she says. “Develop a life of prayer because with God, everything is possible.”