Local Filipino Community Gears Up for Ramos’ Visit : Politics: The president will discuss economic issues during his 36-hour stay in the Southland. A stop in Carson is possible but not likely.

Filipino residents in Carson and other communities are anxiously awaiting Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos’ scheduled visit next month to Los Angeles in which he plans to seek American investment in his country and persuade well-educated Filipinos to return.

A visit to Carson and Long Beach has not been ruled out, although officials say it is unlikely because neither city has a venue secure enough to satisfy the Secret Service. Ramos is scheduled to speak at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Nov. 21.

“The president has an open invitation to come to Carson, but we are not sure if we can provide the type of facility the Secret Service requires,” said Mayor Pro Tem Peter D. Fajardo of Carson, where about 14,000 Filipinos reside, according to the U.S Census Bureau.

The city has the third-largest Filipino population in the county behind Los Angeles, which has 88,000 Filipinos and Long Beach with 17,000.

Carson’s Civic Center, which holds 2,000 people, is too small, and the open-air stadium at Cal State Dominguez Hills was nixed by the Secret Service, said Gilroy Gorre, a spokesman for the Philippines Consulate in Los Angeles. The Long Beach Convention Center is not available, he said.

No Filipino president has ever visited Carson or Long Beach, Gorre said. The last Filipino president to visit Los Angeles was Corazon Aquino, who in November, 1989, spent five hours in the city for a simple reception at the airport and to attend Mass. It will be the first time a Filipino president has visited the United States since U.S. military troops withdrew from Filipino land in December, 1991.

Ramos will spend 36 hours in Los Angeles en route to San Francisco.

The president is expected to address the Philippines’ profound economic problems and will try to boost support from the Filipino community in Southern California.

Ramos probably will try to persuade wealthy Filipino-Americans to invest in the Philippines and to attract well-educated Filipinos back to the country where skilled workers are needed, Gorre said.

“There is a curiosity and anticipation about Ramos’ visit,” Gorre said. “We are out of the transition period--from Ferdinand Marcos to Corazon Aquino. People look forward to the new stage the Philippines has entered.”

During the Aquino presidency, the Philippines suffered several coup attempts; the last one was in December, 1989. In the past decade, the country also has experienced severe economic decline.

Ramos will meet with several business people and attend a breakfast with a group of top corporate executives hosted by Unocal and Bechtel.

Filipino-Americans generally support Ramos’ attempts to maintain political stability in the Philippines and curb military and police corruption, said Alex Esclamado, president of the Filipino-American Political Assn. and publisher of the Philippines News, the largest Filipino newspaper in California.

“Filipino-Americans hope to find out how sincere are Ramos’ efforts to eradicate corruption in the Filipino government,” Esclamado said.

Philippine citizenship policies also are a top concern. Filipino-Americans want Ramos to press for reforms in the country’s law so that those who leave the Philippines do not lose their citizenship. A bill pending in the Philippine legislature proposes to do just that.

“A lot of Filipino-Americans want to retire or even invest money in the Philippines. However, because they have lost their citizenship, they are treated as any other foreigner, which makes things very difficult,” Esclamado said.

The nearly 1 million Filipinos in Southern California--the largest Filipino community outside the Pacific Ocean archipelago--are vital to the Philippines because they contribute greatly to the Filipino economy, Gorre said.

Thousands of Filipinos in the United States send financial support to relatives back home daily, he said.

Ramos’ tour will include business meetings in Chicago, New York, Houston and San Francisco.

“The president will be seeking new economic developments and hoping to sign some contracts with American firms; he will be looking for trade and not aid,” Gorre said.

Ramos will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Seattle with several other heads of states including Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell.