Filipino Web Magazine

Friday, 16 January 2026

Taste of Manila Festival in the Crosshairs

Volume 7, Issue No. 35

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . . .

Our latest as of Friday, January 16, 2026

~ After nearly four months of waiting, City authorities finally gave the go-signal to release financial information about the Taste of Manila (ToM) festival. Last year, the City withdrew from taxpayers' money and gave $34,000 to the street fest. Officials never made any announcement of the grant, and why ToM, seemingly awash in cash already and despite documented wrongdoings, was selected.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

TASTE OF MANILA IN THE CROSSHAIRS

City Authorities Okay

Release of Info About ToM

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“People have evolved into something selfish, greedy and intolerant. People are unaccepting because of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation.” ― Gerard Way

TORONTO - Did organizers of Taste of Manila (ToM), notably the former Philippine Consulate driver Rolly Mangante and his so-called "artists" of SPARC, lie to City authorities to secure funding for the street festival?

We may finally be able to get some answers to this and to many other questions surrounding the staging of ToM in August last year where one of its guests was a comedian from Manila.

Brought here to perform acts aping Taylor Swift, the guest was perhaps the best representation of what ToM has become all these years - the continued dumbing down of the Filipino community reliant on pretend artists and questionable leaders.

It's not fun to be presented with a festival that has no redeeming value except to perpetuate mediocrity in a country that values intelligence and hard work. Which leads us to another question, thus, what made ToM qualify for a $34,000 grant money from taxpayers?

This week, City authorities emailed their response to a FOI (freedom of information) inquiry I filed in September. "Access is granted in full to the requested records," the decision reads.

As a journalist, I had asked for records linked to ToM's solicitation for assistance amounting to $34,000, including information about ToM's financial status before the $34K was granted and after the festival ended in mid-August 2025.

The decision to grant access to those information reflects the results of the search conducted by staff of Economic Development & Culture Division, City authorities explained.

Pending those information, it escapes me why the City of Toronto would extend, as it did in 2025, financial aid to a festival that -

1. Steals copyrighted photos and videos from a website (that's Filipino Web Channel) to promote Rolly Mangante's wife; his business partners and political backers. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_398v7dDQhQ&t=10s and related story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2023/05/fake-congen-triggers-dispute-over-taste.html).

2. Extorts, or tried to extort from onsite vendors who refused to pay up grease money, and once rejected, blocked public access to their stores. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btf2yoU4AaE&t=15s).

3. Betrays allies and colleagues in favour of another, resulting in a lawsuit. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGVqgszwyYA&t=29s starting at the 3:24 mark).

4. Makes empty promises to the community to win public and corporate support. (Video at: The Unredeemed Promise of Taste of Manila; Is the Money Gone?).

The Unredeemed Promise of Taste of Manila; Is the Money Gone?

Perhaps the City was not fully informed of the wrongdoings ToM and its alleged founder and associates have committed with impunity. The festival might just be a cover to deflect their real intention, which is to reap huge amounts of money from unsuspecting public.

Meanwhile, City authorities have given ToM and its organizers 30 days to appeal the FOI decision granting this reporter access to all ToM's records. "If no appeal is received, then the records will be released to you after February 13, 2026," authorities said.

Festivals are supposed to be a joyous celebration of culture - art, food, music, values, people, the community, and not a mindless circus that commemorates idiocy embodied by comedians.

Monday, 12 January 2026

Filipino Media: One Fell Into Disgrace, Others Due to Attrition

Volume 7, Issue No. 34

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

Our latest as of Monday, January 12, 2026

~ The gradual loss of advertising and customer support is the bane of Filipino newspapers, an inevitable outcome in the local publishing business. A confluence of factors has spelled disaster to what once was a robust media market. From a dozen or so periodicals, the number has gone down to at least five. One Filipino tabloid that initially survived has been wracked by scandal which, three years ago this month, has not been fully addressed by the parties involved.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

FILIPINO MEDIA SCENE IN TORONTO

One Fell Into Disgrace,

Others Due to Attrition

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” ― George Washington

TORONTO - Of the dozen or so newspapers in the Filipino community that had filled the void of information from the homeland, only a few, no higher than five, have managed to survive publishing challenges.

These are the fortnightlies and monthlies which continue to come out, perhaps below self-declared, unaudited circulation figures, probably as a matter of commitment to a dwindling number of advertisers.

The internet, and with it the arrival of social media - YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram, etc. - had rendered print periodicals impracticable to operate profitably.

More so if these papers' target market is so small to sustain a dozen tabloids whose contents are boringly similar, if not a duplication of articles and photos appearing in others. Read one and you read them all.

That was what I observed when I moved here from California in 2010. Nothing of significance has changed, only the handful of stragglers trying to make it worthwhile to retain what they felt was their influence on the community.

The attrition was not entirely surprising. The few that stayed afloat relied on family and supporters, mostly from friendly advertisers who didn't care about the political leanings of the editors and owners of the paper.

One tabloid, The Philippine Reporter (TPR), had lived through 35 years ending April or May 2024 immersed in left-wing politics in the Philippines. (Related story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/10/garcia-couple-jailed-for-leftist.html).

No wonder, as its owners and editors, the spouses Hermie Garcia and Mila A. Garcia, appeared to have carried over to Toronto their alleged subversive activities that had resulted in their imprisonment once the strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos had declared martial law in the Philippines in September 1972.

The Garcias disgraced themselves by what amounted to a "criminal" enterprise deceiving not only two TPR writers - artist Michelle Chermaine Ramos and an Edmonton-based intern who did not want to be identified - but also the Department of Canadian Heritage and the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC).(Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTJc42WrFRQ).

For months, the two scribes were led to believe the release of their salaries from government-funded Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) was being withheld by an unidentified official of Canadian Heritage.

It was a lie, a falsehood Ms. Ramos serendipitously discovered while seeking answers to her queries from officials of NEPMCC, the government-appointed overseer of LJI. (Related story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/09/nepmcc-official-condemns-lies-by-tpr.html).

TPR and the Garcia couple being members of NEPMCC are recipients of taxpayer money granted by Canadian Heritage and disbursed by NEPMCC through LJI solely for the salaries of LJI-accredited reporters, in this case, Ms. Ramos and the intern.

Not only was the lie perpetrated on the two writers; the Garcias went up higher in the food chain to solidify their deception. (Full story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2023/12/issues-affecting-ethnic-press-and.html).

Hermie Garcia claimed a "grant guy" at Canadian Heritage had been impeding the release of the writers' salaries for some reason he himself had concocted.

Moreover, he also maintained that NEPMCC needed some forms or reports to be filled up for salaries to be turned over to them.

None of it was true.

NEPMCC managing director and board member Maria Voutsinas informed Ms. Ramos that everything Hermie Garcia told her was a fabrication.

The truth was that the NEPMCC had already released to Hermie Garcia the LJI grant money in full lump sum even before the LJI could begin, according to Ms. Voutsinas.

That meant salaries for Ms. Ramos and the Edmonton writer had been in Garcia's hands all along. The "grant guy" so-called that Garcia had blamed was also fictitious.

It's been more than three years since the deeply disturbing complaint by Ms. Ramos against the husband-and-wife team running what now appears to be defunct TPR remains unacted, and perhaps ignored.

We shouldn't just let go of this. Filipino community leaders and the local press club must take note and act, for that tabloid had enshrined in its masthead (The Philippine Reporter) the very name of our homeland, and by extension, our people.

By inaction, should we just turn a blind eye and perpetuate the notion that Filipinos are corrupt, and that the debauchery obtaining in the homeland has found practitioners in our adopted country, specifically in the Greater Toronto Area? (Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9DER6NVdAI).

Monday, 29 December 2025

Ringing In New Year 2026 With a Bang

Volume 7, Issue No. 33

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

Our latest as of Monday, December 29, 2025

~ The world welcomes the New Year 2026 with a bang. Firecrackers, pots and pans, bells, tin cans, anything and everything that create noise are harnessed to, some cultures say, drive evil away, and at the same time, greet the incoming year with a cheery salute. Through his painting, Maestro Romi C. MananQuil takes us back to that disappearing custom of how Filipinos of a past generation meet and greet a portent of change. .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

WELCOME 2026!

Ringing in the New Year

With Filipino Firepower

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer.” ― Sir Walter Scott

TORONTO - Since ancient times, the arrival of a new year is welcomed with a bang. Any kind of noise - from pots and pans to tin cans to church and ice cream bells to anything that emits sounds over the normal decibel.

The noise is apparently intended to drive away evil spirits that had marked the old year and let in the new year with what is hoped to bring good luck.

At a young age, we never thought about the deep meanings of the celebration; we simply went about creating noise with such a frenzy as to cause annoyance in the neighbourhood.

It's actually a sweet reminder of an era when life is not so stressful. It's the time of our youth, of reckless abandon, of childlike innocence.

In the small community where I grew up, the inexpensive way to ring in the new year with a bang was through the use of bamboo cannon (kanyóng kawayan).

With kalburo (calcium carbide) as its propellant, the kanyóng kawayan produces a decent thump, loud enough to be heard amidst explosive bursts of costly firecrackers.

Toronto's well-known arts guru, the Maestro Romi C. MananQuil, has captured the New Year's revelry with his painting of Kanyóng Kawayan and the holidays in "Bisperas." (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2024/09/maestro-romi-c-mananquils-homage-to-life.html).

These two paintings alone give us a glimpse of how Christmas and New Year are celebrated in many parts of the Philippines, particularly in rural areas.

At this time of high-tech gadgetry, the bamboo cannon is probably gone already and replaced by pricey alternatives. But its unique character defined an era and many a child's growing years.

Maestro MananQuil gives new meaning to the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words" for, in kanyóng kawayan, a generation of baby boomers lives again to reclaim a part of their youth.

Back then, we're happy with luces, rebentador, bawang, kwitis, trianggulo, kanyóng kawayan, whistle bomb, tin cans, radio music and vigorous pealing of church bells to mighty shouts of "Happy New Year!".

I doubt if some of these items still exist. The vintage pyrotechnics of our time are no match to the spectacularly synchronized fireworks that we witness local governments put up for public enjoyment.

Toronto will ring in 2026 with a free, 10-minute, high-altitude fireworks show launched from the inner harbour at midnight, synchronized to music and accompanied by live performances and festive programming along the waterfront, city officials announced.

Tuesday, 23 December 2025

Merry 2025 Christmas and Happy 2026 to All

We take this opportunity to wish one and all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2026. May all the blessings be yours! - Romy Marquez, Editor

Monday, 22 December 2025

15 Years of Hard Work Gets Recognized by YouTube

Volume 7, Issue No. 32

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

Our latest as of Monday, December 22, 2025

~ In the world of multimedia, the Filipino Web Channel is a modest outfit. Small and localized it may be, but it's a cog that helps turn a giant wheel in investigative journalism. This month, its work gets recognized no less by YouTube. "Your channel has been a vibrant part of YouTube's 20-year history," it says in an email reviewing FWC performance in the past 15 years.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

YOUTUBE'S E-MAIL AS 2025 COMES TO A CLOSE

A Recognition of FWC's

Work Through 15 Years

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard." – Aristotle

TORONTO - Two weeks ago, YouTube emailed its "2025 YouTube year in review" by taking note of the length of time the Filipino Web Channel (FWC) has availed of its online video sharing platform.

It was an update on how my flagship news outlet performed from the day of its founding in November 2010 when, for want of a medium to disseminate personal commentaries, I thought about creating my own.

My mode of communications had always been print - daily newspapers, newsweeklies, monthly magazines. But that changed when I moved to Toronto in 2010 and saw a proliferation of all kinds of community journals, none of which, in my professional opinion, hewed close to my idea of a creditable periodical.

Four months prior, I published news accounts on blogspot.com (https://timecircumstance.blogspot.com/), my very first attempt at online news reporting. It wasn't getting much traction. People preferred to watch interactive events, leading me to develop FWC which debuted with an introductory video highlighting my years-long experience as a journalist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT74cbxq6ak

YouTube has taken note of that, thus the email update. And with it came an unexpected accolade - brief, simple, but so meaningful. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8HQgMnTvVY).

After all, FWC is no giant; its news coverage is confined to the Filipino community, its main target area, and on what it can keep an eye on beyond that limit.

In keeping with multiculturalism, Canada's diverse communities find a spot in the FWC video stream for as long as access and finances allow. That's because FWC is purely voluntary, a service to the community.

That same service goes to other outlets under the banner of Romar Media Canada, including Filipino Web Magazine on blogspot.com; on YouTube - Currents & Breaking News (aka The Gotcha Journalist), Filipino Web Entertainment, Eats & Restos, Little Manila News & Views, and Journo Travels.

"Your channel has been a vibrant part of YouTube's 20-year history," said the online platform in an email thanking us for what we have contributed in the past 15 years of uninterrupted coverage.

For a comparatively small media outlet such as FWC, that message is so encouraging. It validates our work and recognizes our efforts to help inform the community about issues and concerns that's both good and bad in the neighbourhood.

In those 15 years, we're able to distill the Filipino community's troupe of actors which could be grouped into, to borrow the title of Sergio Leone's film "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

I remember the early days. My stories were met with contempt, the hostility coming mostly from an ignorant cabal of leftist sympathizers. The resentment and mockery extended to my person and to my status as a former foreign correspondent. (Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik0AXXyPXaE).

I learned later that these people fit well into the category of "the bad and the ugly" as they consisted of a so-called playwright who is actually a computer thief, a disbarred lawyer who absconded with somebody else's money and a woman not his wife, a greedy prevaricator who victimized colleagues, fake media persons, dubious community leaders, faux doctor, among many others.

Adversarial to a large extent, but also deferential when situations call for it, is how we conduct our journalism. Despite the brickbats, threats and indignities thrown at us, our adverse approach must be the reason we stay afloat all these years.

"You started your channel on November 15, 2010, which means you've been a creator for at least 5,501 days!," said YouTube, noting the time we ventured into what was then an unknown.

November 2010 was only my eleventh month in Canada, having moved here from California where I lived and worked for 16 years as a community journalist, and before that, as a foreign correspondent for two international news agencies.

Toronto is a lively metropolis, a melting pot of cultures where differences are predominant than similarities among its more than three million population. Its news value extends broadly from Filipinos to a bigger community that makes it North America's fourth largest city.

That element alone poses huge challenges to journalists. For my news outlets under Romar Media Canada, including FWC, a single stream is not an option; one had to diversify in covering events.

Now that YouTube has regarded FWC in positive terms, I, as its main writer and editor, am more than invigorated to continue on with FWC's stated objective: investigative journalism at the community level. (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).