Faye Nicole San Juan

The story of Faye Nicole San Juan has received quite a bit of coverage in the Philippine press, but almost none here in America. Word of Faye Nicole began spreading through the Filipino community around the end of October, via an email titled "Misplaced priorities can mislead a nation." It was all about how the Philippines had supposedly let down 12-year-old Faye Nicole.

Faye was a young girl hoping to represent her country in the International Science Quiz in Brisbane, Australia. Her essay on "The Effect of Ionized Radiation on the Philippine Fruit Fly" had won her a place at the competition, but she couldn't afford the airfare, and the Philippine government wouldn't provide it for her. But luckily her church, Bread of Life Ministries, offered to help her go. She made it to Australia, but no sooner had she got off the plane, accompanied by her mother, than they were robbed by a fellow Filipino. Undaunted, they pawned some of their clothes and walked 2 kilometres to the competition. Faye proceeded to win first place (though there were no Filipinos there to cheer for her), but now had no money to get back home. A kindly Japanese stranger who was at the competition luckily helped arrange for them to get a flight back home.


The Philippine press, when it learned of this story, gnashed its teeth about how little their society supports bright kids like Faye. But they needn't have bothered. The entire story has turned out to be a hoax, invented by Faye's mother. The immigration departments in both the Philippines and Australia have no record of their travel. This science quiz doesn't seem to exist. And Faye's church has denied involvement. It's not known why the mother invented the story.

Email Hoaxes

Posted on Fri Nov 19, 2004



Comments

Well, it seems that father left them for another woman. And she thought that if the guy found out that her daughter is famous, he'd come back.
You could check out http://cathcath.com/ for the background of the story. Some of it is in filipino but the apology of the news reporter who started it all is there as well as the reason for the act itself...
Posted by jobert  on  Fri Nov 19, 2004  at  12:34 PM
Do not give importance to Cathcath's blog. A more informative blog (with discussions) would be http://flyingroc.org. Cathcath's blog blindly defends Patricia Evangelista, the stupid young bitch who calls herself a journalist. Pat Evangelista is the one that propagated the info in her column at one of the briadsheets in the Philippines, without first verifying the facts.
Posted by Cathcath's blog sucks  on  Sun Nov 21, 2004  at  11:29 PM
The last post on faye in flyingroc's blog:

http://flyingroc.org/comment.php?id=90
Posted by information  on  Mon Nov 22, 2004  at  12:49 AM
How DARE Patricia Evangelista act like Dan Rather!!!
Posted by Critic-at-Arms  on  Sun Dec 05, 2004  at  01:33 AM
Was it entirely a journalist's fault?
Posted by Jordan Dioquino  on  Tue Jul 18, 2006  at  12:55 AM
hey you, critic-at-arms and cathcath's blog sucks, will you please shut up in expressing your anti-filipino propaganda??? you americans are more stupid than us filipinos...
Posted by che guevarra  on  Thu Aug 10, 2006  at  07:49 AM
i agree, che guevarra. americans are stupid.

but i'd rather you used your native tongue, because your faulty english exposes your own stupidity as well.

jac

and yes, patricia evangelista's shallow ramblings are a sorry waste of newsprint.
Posted by jac  on  Thu Oct 26, 2006  at  09:20 AM
"and yes, patricia evangelista's shallow ramblings are a sorry waste of newsprint."

WTF?

Patricia is one of the few people in the papers that actually has something intelligent to say.

Comments like that are better targeted towards people like Isagani Cruz.
Posted by zordon  on  Thu Nov 09, 2006  at  01:12 PM
If you take a look at the wikipedia entry of Bread of life International. It appears that the church is exagerating facts again. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bread_of_Life_Ministries_International
Posted by Gordon  on  Sat Mar 28, 2009  at  11:56 AM
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