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FilCan mom files discrimination lawsuit in fork and spoon case


CHICAGO – “This is about me, my son, and the entire Filipino community. We are proud of the way we eat, and we have to stand up for ourselves and our civil rights." With these words, Maria Theresa Gallardo Cagadoc announced Monday that she had filed her lawsuit with the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal in Montreal, Canada against the school board and its officials for racial and ethnic discrimination she alleged were perpetrated against her and her son, Luc Cagadoc. Luc Cagadoc was reprimanded at the school, Ecole Lalande in Montreal, for eating in the Filipino customary manner, with fork and spoon, during a lunch break in 2006. Luc was born in the Philippines but came to Canada at the age of eight months. In the controversy that followed, the school principal, Normand Bergeron, was quoted by a newspaper article telling Gallardo Cagadoc, a Filipino-Canadian, discriminatory comments that “you are here in Canada … you should eat the way Canadians eat." Last September, the Commission issued a mixed ruling. In the case of her son, the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission found the comments of the educator, Martine Bertrand, discriminatory and violated her son’s rights. However, the Commission did not address Cagadoc’s complaint against Bergeron. Instead of filing the case before the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal, the Commission suggested mediation for both parties. The Commission also exercised its discretion not to represent Cagadoc before the Tribunal, leaving her the option to elevate the case to the Tribunal at her own expense. This prompted Cagadoc to launch a fund-raising drive to pay for her lawyer and other expenses that come with filing of the case. With the help of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (Crarr), Cagadoc enlisted the help of Me Rene Saint-Leger in her lawsuit before the Tribunal, according to Crarr Executive Director Fo Niemi. In her lawsuit, Cagadoc seeks $24,000 in moral and punitive damages from the educator, the school principal and the school board. The Cagadoc family is soliciting donations and contributions from anyone in Canada and the United States to defray the costs of the litigation. Moral support Leila M. de Lima, the chairperson of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights, added her voice in supporting the Filipino-Canadian family to file a civil rights lawsuit against the school board and the educators, “if indeed there was bias in the conduct of the investigation."
 In an e-mail to this reporter, De Lima said, “Canada, being a State Party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, should at all times observe the spirit and express provisions of the Convention under the principle of pacta sunt servanda.
Pacta sunt servanda (Latin for "pacts must be respected"), is a basic principle of civil law and of international law.
 De Lima, or her representative, was invited by the family of Luc Cagadoc to grace one of the fund-raising events in Canada early last December but the invitation came too late to the attention of the Philippine Human Rights Commission. - GMANews.TV
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