The film will show at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas on Saturday, March 13, at 4:30 p.m. and at VIZ Cinema, 1746 Post St., on Wednesday, March 17, at 7 p.m. Order your tickets online and join our Facebook event.

And join us for our film afterparty the same night, March 17, from 9 p.m. at DOSA, 1700 Fillmore. RSVP on Facebook. Our host committee for the afterparty includes: Keesa Ocampo, Boots Chavez, Hon. Greg Chew (San Francisco Arts Commission), Glenn Fajardo, Tessie Guillermo, Marlene Mira, Alyson Megur Stamos, Dale Minami, Rich Pio Roda, Rodel Rodis (President, Ninoy Aquino Movement) and me.

The Late Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino was the boy wonder of Philippine politics until the object of his criticism, Ferdinand Marcos, declared martial law and threw Aquino into prison. A light bulb glared in his cell around the clock. When at last his frantic wife, Cory, found him, he was so thin he was holding up his undershorts with his hand.

NINOY tells the story of Aquino’s extraordinary transformation from brilliant politician of the Philippines to courageous martyr on the world stage in the tradition of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King.

During Aquino’s eight-year imprisonment at the hands of the Marcos regime, Aquino wrote, studied nonviolence, fasted 38 days and at one point ran for Congress from his cell, constantly inspiring the opposition. When he was taken before a military tribunal, he refused to dignify an unconstitutional proceeding by defending himself. He was condemned to death. Too renowned to execute, too powerful to simply release, Aquino was finally exiled to America for heart surgery.

Three years later, believing with Gandhi, “The willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful retort to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God or man,” on August 21, 1983 he returned to Manila.

In his dying moment, his bullet-ridden body fell on Philippine soil. His mother laid out his remains in the family living room. A trickle of mourners became a flood of two million people, followed by three years of massive protests that drove Marcos from the country. The Philippines became the template for the many countries that since have transitioned peacefully to electoral democracy.

The film is emotionally explosive and intellectually challenging. It was shot with two matched HD cameras in Manila, Seoul, Taipei, Honolulu, San Francisco, Boston, New York and Washington DC, by Tom Coffman, whose previous credits include “Nation Within” and “First Battle.”

Join the Facebook page at http://facebook.com/ninoyfilm.

Cross-posted on foundasian.org and bayareabenefit.org.

Kim Shinjo, Lauren Shinjo and I hosted a New Year’s Eve party there with about 40 of our friends, complete with a RockBand on the Wii, karaoke and all-you-can-eat plate lunch food. I had vowed at the end of 2008 not to spend the beginning of 2009 the victim of long bar lines at an expensive, loud party. When the clock struck midnight, we were all full, buzzed and relaxed.

A few days later, I returned to work at the Equal Justice Society, where I serve as the Director of Communications. Not only is this the best job I’ve ever had, I’m fortunate to make a living working for a civil rights organization. Our president, Eva Paterson, likes to say that all of us there have the kind of jobs where in the morning we can read something in the newspaper and then actually do something about it. And true to that sentiment, I’ve never had a dull moment in the almost five years of working there.

Barack Obama’s election as President of the United States dominated much of the forward-looking conversations in the office and in the civil rights community. We saw during the campaign the vicious racism employed against Obama and expected that his first year in office would be challenged with not only racism, but the misguided notion that the election of a Black man as President meant the end of racism in our country.

But first we celebrated. I didn’t even attempt to make it to DC for the inauguration, but we had some great parties in San Francisco — including one where I ran into Paul Hsu and our conversation that night turned into a new project called CauseConnext. I was also asked to write a guest post on the ningin.com blog about my thoughts on what the presidency of Barack Obama might mean to the Asian American community.

Locally, the year also began with the swearings-in of my friends David Chiu and Eric Mar to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Both won races against better-funded opponents and special interests. And David’s election was especially significant because he became the first Chinese American ever elected to the district that is home to Chinatown and a large population of Asian Americans. On January 8, in a turn of events that took me by surprise, the freshman Supervisor was elected President of the Board, making him arguably the second most powerful elected official in San Francisco.

This was a long way from when David and I together ran hapihour.org, a happy hour series that raised funds for local Asian American nonprofit organizations, something David started in 2000 with other young progressive leaders, including Phil Ting, who was now the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder, and Jane Kim, a member of the San Francisco school board.

My February was quickly dominated by political events and activities.

I worked closely with my friend, mentor and benefactor Dale Minami and the local Asian American bar on an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle highlighting the fact that no Asian American had ever been appointed as an “Article III” (lifetime appointment) judge to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. (President Obama ended up appointing the first Asian American, Magistrate Judge Ed Chen, in August on recommendation of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. His nomination remains bottle-necked by Senate Republicans.)

On behalf of EJS, I coordinated an event at Mercury Lounge in honor of Mike Lux, a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Team and liaison to the progressive community, and celebrating the release of his first book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee also came to town in February and I was lucky to participate in a roundtable with him and representatives of the legal and civil rights community.

The highlight of the month though was the marriage of my BFF (yes, guys can have BFFs) Angela Tseng to Ted Szeto in the rotunda of City Hall. Our friendship is especially meaningful in light of the fact that when she first met me (via Steve Owyang), she hated my guts. We don’t have to go into why; it’s something we still debate over. This moment was bittersweet for me because it meant that she would move to San Antonio, where Ted is stationed as a military doc.

March for me had less politics, but most memorable for a ski trip for some of the staff and volunteers of David Chiu’s and Jane Kim’s campaigns. The only thing I can report about this excursion is that Jane and I battled each other in a snowman building contest. And I won.

Earlier that month, Steve Chin and I started a national campaign to seek the release of our friend Roxana Saberi, an American journalist of Iranian and Japanese descent who was arrested in February and held in Iran on charges of espionage. For more than two months, we worked with about a half-dozen folks around the country and the Asian American Journalists Association through Facebook, Twitter and our blog to highlight Roxana’s plight. We’re thankful that she was eventually freed on May 11.

April started with a San Francisco fundraiser I coordinated with Dale Minami for Mark Keam, who was running for the Virginia state house. Mark would eventually win the general election, becoming the first Asian American to serve in Virgnia’s Legislature.

The month ended with the annual dinner of the Asian Law Caucus, which I had recently joined as a board member. The event was also the launch of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education, which will advance the cause of Asian American civil rights and human rights through pan-Asian American alliances and programs that focus on education, activism and leadership. I was responsible for guiding the marketing efforts of the Institute’s launch and I was fortunate to have worked with Stephanie Ong Stillman and Johanna Silva Waki of Hope Road Consulting, a firm the Caucus hired to execute the media relations campaign.

On May 1, I coordinated an APA for Progress reception honoring Glen Fukushima at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. Glen made a very generous donation to APAP for a campaign fellowship, which we named after him and applied towards to Judy Chu’s historic campaign for Congress. My service on the APAP board of directors ends on Dec. 31.

I was able to take some time off in mid-May to spend nine days back home in Hawai’i, in part so I could attend the wedding of my college friend Mike Miller to Lisa Menor. Mike and I spent many years together in student government at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and someone I continue to look up after all of these years. I got to spend time with my family, during what turned out to be my only trip back home this year.

I visited the Angel Island Immigration Station for the first time in June, taking some folks from the Asian American Googler Network on a service project field trip there as part of CauseConnext.

August was full of speaking engagements with the Young Filipino Professional Association, at the national convention of the Organization of Chinese Americans and at Netroots Nation 2009 in Pittsburgh. Also took a side trip to DC to celebrate Christine Chen’s birthday.

Sept. 9 was my birthday, which I celebrated with several hundred people because the 40th anniversary dinner of Chinese for Affirmative Action was that night and I serve on the board. That night also featured the showing of an anniversary video that I worked on with fellow board members Stephanie Ong Stillman and Jeff Chang. I’m starting my seventh year on the CAA board and have been privileged to work with executive director Vincent Pan and board chair Germaine Wong, among many others in the organization.

I won something big this year at the Chinatown Community Development Center’s annual dinner: round-trip JetBlue tickets to anywhere the airline flies. I had just joined the CCDC board of directors and feel a little embarrassed about winning such a big ticket prize, but I’m sure I’ll put it to good use. I’m definitely looking forward to working with Gordon, Norman, Malcolm, Cindy, Dave and Kat in supporting CCDC’s outstanding work.

The end of September marked the culmination of a nearly two-year effort for EJS when we co-presented a panel on unconscious bias at the Writers Guild of America West in partnership with the Screen Actors Guild, Americans for American Values and the Kirwan Institute. The panel represented our first foray into developing entertainment industry connections that could result in changes in the way that race is portrayed in popular culture.

In response to the Sept. 26 disaster inflicted on the Philippines and other countries by Typhoon Ondoy, I joined a committee led by Keesa Ocampo that organized a relief event on Oct. 9, which led to other fundraisers throughout the month that ended up raising nearly $15,000 for flood victims.

Sept. 30 marked the close of the Nichi Bei Times, Northern California’s oldest Japanese American newspaper, after 63 years of business. Kyle Tatsumoto and I for many years wrote a Hawai’i column in the newspaper and it would have been a severe loss for the community if the newspaper slipped away. But thankfully due to the vision and drive of editor Kenji Taguma and other staff, the newspaper continues on published by a new nonprofit, the Nichi Bei Foundation. I was honored to be asked to serve on the board of this pioneering media nonprofit.

My October included serving on the search committee for the Asian American Journalists Association national executive director, traveling to Atlanta to participate in a convening on race and race issues and to Los Angeles to speak with Jen Wang of Disgrasian.com and Phil Yu aka Angry Asian Man on a panel at the first-ever Advancing Justice Conference.

Hawai’i Congressman Neil Abercrombie visited the Bay Area in November and I was fortunate to host a lunch reception for him at Roy’s so he could meet kama’aina expats and local Asian Americans and talk with them about his campaign for governor of the Aloha State. That same week, Carole Hayashino and I hosted a fundraiser for Calif. Assemblymember Warren Furutani.

I also accepted a last-minute invitation to deliver a social media workshop in mid-November at the Asian Pacific Leadership Conference for AA and PI college students in Santa Barbara.

November was also one of my friend’s Thanksgiving gathering, where he single-handedly whips up a Thanksgiving meal for us orphans. It’s one of the year’s traditions that I always look forward to.

Winding down the year always begins after the EJS annual gala and this year Miguel and Ginger in our office did another incredible job of creating an event that sends us out in style and with celebration.

So I guess I didn’t do much in 2009. But I hope I made a difference. I remind myself how lucky I am to have a job, a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food on the table. Any year that ends with that is a good one.

Chen would be the first Asian American district judge on the bench in the 150-year history of that district. He was also the first Asian American magistrate judge when he was appointed to that position on April 23, 2001.

Under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, federal judges require confirmation by the U.S. Senate and serve with lifetime tenure. Magistrate Judges have limited terms and serve as judicial officers of the district courts and exercise the jurisdiction delegated to them by law and assigned by federal district judges.

“I’ve known and worked with Judge Chen for more than 37 years and seen him become a great attorney and an outstanding jurist,” said attorney Dale Minami of Minami Tamaki LLP, who worked with Chen on the successful case to overturn the wartime conviction of Fred Korematsu for defying President Roosevelt’s internment order.

Garner Weng, President of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA) noted that while there were a number of excellent Asian American candidates, “Judge Chen earned this nomination for his record of public service and his experience as a federal magistrate. We are extremely proud of his nomination and of his participation in AABA over the years.”

“Judge Chen will be a tremendous addition to the bench and has a wide range of support from diverse groups, including the public interest, law enforcement, legal, and minority communities,” said Edwin Prather, President of the Asian Pacific Bar of California and a former clerk for Chen. Prather also said that Chen received the 2007 Barristers Choice Award, an honor voted on by the membership of BASF’s Barristers Club and awarded to a jurist who has made extraordinary efforts to educate and encourage lawyers new to the courtroom.

Russell Roeca, President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, echoed Prather’s comments and praised Senator Feinstein for the nomination. “The Bar Association of San Francisco has long valued and advocated for a diverse judiciary and noted the complete lack of Latino and Asian American judges on the district court. In recommending Judge Chen to the President, Senator Feinstein has initiated a historical appointment.” Roeca also said that Chen received an “Exceptionally Well Qualified” rating from BASF’s Judiciary Committee.

“Judge Chen enjoys a solid reputation as an intelligent, reasonable, even-handed and diligent judge,” said San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. Chen “is a balanced and impartial judge whose temperament is well suited to the bench.”

“Judge Chen combines compassion and fairness with toughness and intellect in tacking difficult issues,” said attorney Ismail J. Ramsey, who has appeared numerous times before Chen. “He has always brought a practical approach to the issues, while ensuring that the rights of all those appearing before him were honored and making certain that the community was protected.”

“Judge Chen has earned a reputation as an evenhanded jurist who is constantly mindful of the role that judges fulfill in society as keepers of the rule of law and the public trust in our system of justice,” said David Wong, president of the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association.

Chen graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law where he earned membership in the Order of the Coif, the highest honor society at the school, and served on the California Law Review. He clerked for U.S. District Judge Charles B. Renfrew and U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge James R. Browning.

After his clerkships, Chen practiced as a litigation associate with the law firm of Coblentz, Cahen, McCabe & Breyer (now Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass). While with the Coblentz firm and then as a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, Chen joined the legal team representing Fred Korematsu.

The Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA) was founded in 1976 to provide Asian American attorneys with a vehicle for the unified expression of opinions and positions on matters of concern to all Asian American attorneys. The largest local Asian American bar association in the country, AABA is also one of the largest minority bar associations in California. For more information, visit http://aaba-bay.com.