Filipino Web Magazine

Sunday, 12 April 2026

'Gastrodiplomacy' or Gastrodiscrimination'?

Volume 7, Issue No. 45

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 Sunday, April 12, 2026

~ Philippine diplomatic officials call it "gastrodiplomacy" - a Canada-wide effort to promote Filipino cuisine and the people who whip it into delectable meals for local and mainstream taste buds. The Ontario segment of Filipino Restaurant Month in Canada (FRMC) was launched two weeks ago at the Philippine Consulate here in Toronto and the invitees were apparently limited to favoured friends and a non-Filipino media outlet. Why? Shall we call it "gastrodiscrimination"?

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FILIPINO RESTAURANT MONTH 2026

Is It 'Gastrodiplomacy' or

'Gastrodiscrimination'?

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Favoritism is a silent betrayal, choosing one over another without cause.” – Maya Angelou

TORONTO - The competitive nature of news coverages puts journalists on the edge every time an important event occurs. A struggle could be expected for strategic space that allows a vantage, unimpeded view of what's going on.

In press conferences, random or by invitation, that's usually the norm. In more formal Question & Answer sessions, journalists are required to add their names to a list of people wanting to ask questions. In others, one simply lines up and waits for his turn.

Two weeks ago, the Philippine Consulate conducted a "press launch" attended by about two dozen of its friends, media representatives, and influencers. From what I've seen in pictures posted to social media, the real working journalists were not there, which tempts me to say it's more like "free lunch."

I learned about the launch only this weekend after frantically searching the internet for any information about Filipino Restaurant Month in Canada (FRMC) which usually happens in April across Canada.

Almost half of the month is over and I was wondering if it was discarded this year. My suspicion was that its novelty has worn off considering that the number of restaurants has gone from a peak of 11 participants at its start in 2022 to only three last year.

Hours of scrolling finally yielded some results on YouTube, thanks to journalist Paula Saraza who reported the story for OMNI News. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElVUbARB5TQ).

From her coverage, I was in utter disbelief seeing that the "press launch" had concluded already without the working media colleagues I knew. I was not invited, the Filipino Web Channel, its allied news outlets, and other journalists were never informed. Why? What happened?

Not being told ahead of what will transpire at the Consulate on March 31 was a big insult to me as an active journalist dedicated to covering events relevant to Filipinos and Filipino Canadians.

Like the Consulate, I also have constituents - the millions of viewers and readers here in Canada among Filipinos and Filipino-Canadians, and among Filipino-Americans in the United States, and the Philippines who rely on my reporting.

At the Meet & Greet the Consulate had in October 2025 to introduce new Consul General Kristine Leilani R. Salle, the diplomat adverted to inadequate information to help address problems. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/10/new-consul-general-filipinos-in-toronto.html).

Now, six months later, spreading information through known news outlets and social media seemed to have been curtailed by limiting coverage to friends of the Consulate. I personally take issue with that.

Because of FRMC's great potential to uplift the profile of the food sector and Filipino culinary experts in the Greater Toronto Area, the event is one of the "musts" the Filipino Web Channel religiously covered since it began in April 2022.

Right now I feel so enraged writing this article. Were I and other journalists discriminated against to favour a certain group? Were we forgotten, ignored, overlooked, or disregarded? I hope it's not a case of somebody in the Consulate playing favourites for whatever reason.

My track record covering FRMC is there for everyone to watch and read. News coverages in videos and online print are easily accessible on social media, including YouTube, blogspot.com, InkedIn, and Bluesky.

That legitimate journalists were left in the dark leads me to believe that the Consulate perhaps thought we're neither media-enough nor influencer-enough, and not even a community-member enough to be asked to cover the annual function.

But how effective is FRMC in spreading "gastrodiplomacy," the flagship program of the Philippine Embassy and Consulates General in Canada and co-organized with the Philippine Departments of Tourism and Trade and Industry?

What really are these agencies promoting - Filipino cuisine, the chefs behind them, the restaurants themselves, or the people at the Consulate and their friends?

Last year, when there were only three participants, the Consulate explained the rationale in this wise: "to give special focus to young and upcoming chefs and establishments catering to the mainstream market."

So clearly stated, Filipino food or what passes as Filipino cuisine is less important than raising the profiles of chefs and their restaurants. (Related feature story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2022/05/feature-mila-nabor-cuachon-and-casa.html).

Current Congen Salle affirmed that in a recent statement, saying "She acknowledged the vital role of Filipino restaurateurs in promoting the country’s rich culinary heritage and creating bridges between the Philippines and Canada."

She also "highlighted the significance of the FRMC as a platform for celebrating Filipino cuisine, culture, and hospitality across Canada."

In 2022, according to officials, 40 restaurants across seven provinces and 18 cities in Canada joined the month-long event that resulted in 1,000 orders of prize fixe meals.

Isn't that lackluster? If 1,000 orders were distributed equally to 40 restaurants over a month, that's just 25 orders per, or less than one order a day during the period.

There's no available metrics for FRMC's performance in Ontario, particularly in the provincial capital of Toronto, in the succeeding years. And neither was there any mention of the number of orders or their equivalent in dollar terms.

The novelty of FRMC is wearing off. That much could be said in Ontario, specifically in the Greater Toronto Area where a number of restaurants/bar/eateries has permanently closed due to rising overhead costs.

Perhaps the Consulate should rethink its approach of inviting only what it calls "media representatives, food influencers, and some members of the Filipino community in Toronto."

Monday, 6 April 2026

Media Officials, Tabloid Editors Muted by Money Scandal

Volume 7, Issue No. 44

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

Our latest as of Monday, April 6, 2026

~ A federal agency, a non-profit media organization, and the owners of a disappeared Filipino tabloid are apparently in the grip of a deafening silence nearly three years after a Toronto-based journalist unraveled the editors' duplicity in implementing the government's journalism initiative for underserved communities.

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THE MONEY SCANDAL THAT WON'T DIE

Canadian Heritage, NEPMCC,

TPR in Grip of Silence

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second time." ― Thomas Jefferson

TORONTO - Exactly two months ago today, April 6, the Department of Canadian Heritage (aka Canadian Heritage) reacted quickly to a list of queries about its information project aimed at underserved communities in the Greater Toronto Area.

"We will respond to your enquiry as promptly as possible," its Media Relations unit wrote back within minutes of receiving seven questions seeking clarity to funding the federal government's Local Journalism Initiative (LJI).

That was all, swift but shallow and unsubstantial. Of course, the reply was auto-generated, but the acknowledgement guarantees the questions would reach responsible officials in Canadian Heritage, if not the higher echelons of leadership. After all, the questions involved public money.

LJI is being implemented by the non-profit National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC) through at least four dozen of its members, among them The Philippine Reporter (TPR), the fortnightly left-leaning tabloid that seemed to have bowed out of existence as of July 2024.

Public interest in LJI and TPR's role in carrying out the mandate of Canadian Heritage has been stoked by misrepresentations foisted by TPR editors Hermie Garcia and Mila A. Garcia on two of their writers.

For months, the husband and wife duo had declared that Canadian Heritage had been freezing salaries of LJI-accredited reporters Michelle Chermaine Ramos, a TPR staff writer, and a TPR intern based in Edmonton, Alberta, for reasons the editors themselves had concocted. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTJc42WrFRQ).

Both writers have resigned from TPR once the editors' lies and deceptions were uncovered in early 2023. Their LJI slots were instantly filled with three writers, two of whom are apparently newbies recruited from a local university, or TPR's grant money would be compromised.

Funds for LJI are taxpayers' money disbursed by Canadian Heritage to outlets like NEPMCC, its implementing arm. In turn, NEPMCC allocates the money to participating media, and in this particular case, TPR, which then pays Ms. Ramos and the intern for their LJI reporting.

Outside of her usual coverage for TPR, Ms. Ramos continued writing stories for LJI. In fact, for an eight-month period in 2022, she had produced a total of 37 articles published in TPR.

Everything went well for sometime until Ms. Ramos, already fed up for inordinate delays in receiving compensation for her work, asked NEPMCC why TPR was not paying her on time.

That's when the whole facade of propriety erected by the Garcias crumbled. It was not that Canadian Heritage was delinquent, and neither was NEPMCC. The fault was in the couple.

The truth - unbeknownst at that time to Ms. Ramos and the intern - was that the full amount for LJI reporters' salaries had been released by NEPMCC ahead of time to Hermie Garcia.

Lies, Deceptions by The Philippine Reporter Exposed

Volume 4, Issue No. 63 OPINION/COMMENTARY / News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobod y / . . . . . A communi...

It became obvious then that Hermie Garcia and Mila A. Garcia had been lying all along. Were they intent on scamming Ms. Ramos and the intern? Or did they use the money for other purposes, personal or otherwise, and hid it?

Their barefaced lies, the obfuscation, the passing of blame to Canadian Heritage and NEPMCC to shield themselves from accountability had prompted a top NEPMCC official to describe the Garcias' conduct as "technically criminal."

(Related story: NEPMCC Official Condemns Lies by TPR Editors).

I asked Canadian Heritage if it has chosen to ignore Ms. Ramos' complaint against the Garcia couple, and to this day, two months later, our inquiries were met with silence.

It's not clear if Canadian Heritage and/or NEPMCC attempted to investigate them inasmuch as taxpayers' money, the people's money, was endowed to a venture that smacks of a scandal in high places.

Though TPR has apparently vanished, the names of the Garcia couple and a coterie of alleged writers are very much in the list of NEPMCC members representing TPR.

To me, it suggests that the Garcias are still in the good graces of NEPMCC notwithstanding the seeming indictment that what they did to Ms. Ramos and the intern were "technically criminal." (Copyright 2026. All Rights Reserved).

Friday, 13 March 2026

Poem Sets Off Memories of Years Ago

Volume 7, Issue No. 43

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

Our latest as of Friday, March 13, 2026

~ Reading is a delightfully rewarding experience passing time especially when one encounters passages that one feels speak out for himself. While immersed in the 2022 poetry book "the tears that taught me" by Morgan Richard Olivier, I came across verses I believe described an unpleasant situation of years ago.

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'THE TEARS THAT TAUGHT ME'

Poem Sets Off Memories

of Hostility and Mockery

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Everyone laughs in the beginning.

They mock your efforts,

discredit your development,

and aim to distract you.

Let's see who keeps that energy in the end."

― Morgan Richard Olivier,

from her 2022 poetry book "the tears that taught me"

TORONTO - Writing this commentary does not mean reviving depraved instances in the early days of a journalism journey in Canada that began in January 2010.

I was engrossed in Morgan Richard Olivier's 2022 book of poems this week when a flood of memories crept back. One particular passage set me off, the one I quote here at the top.

Certainly it was there for our reading pleasure. But the vividness of her verses mirrors my situation at the time I was trying to resume a public service journalism I had begun in California in the mid-1990s.

I am struck by this poem for its simplicity in speaking about challenges anyone could face in pursuit of an idea. As a journalist, my goal is public-interest reporting, which includes ferreting out wrongdoing.

Pursuing that self-imposed mission is not without difficulty. In my experience, for example, I had to endure the scorn, the endless mockery, the physical and legal threats hurled at me for doing what I believe would benefit the community. It's a passion for service writ large.

"FOB (fresh off the boat)" I was called, not as an endearment but to ridicule me as an inexperienced wannabe in Toronto. That put-down came from a lawyer who, aside from having the morals of a dog in heat, passed himself off as "retired" but is actually disbarred for his financial and adulterous misadventures.

Then followed snide remarks such as "whorenalist" and "churnalist" from cohorts that consisted of fake journalists and a petty thief disguised as a "playwright."

All these invectives were lumped one after another and saw print in a left-leaning rag sheet whose corrupt publishers are reputed in some uninformed quarters as folk heroes. No, no, no, they're not! In truth, they're faux heroes.

When I settled in Toronto, only one dear friend knew my background as a foreign correspondent. That person was the late Tenny Soriano who himself had stints with the foreign press corps in Manila. (Related videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN7EkMlNLgQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5Wuqttvm9Y).

At that time I noticed that most of the people in local newspaper publishing, except perhaps the departed Ruben Cusipag, were not familiar with such newspapers as the Asahi Shimbun in Japan and wire agencies like dpa (Deutsche Presse-Agentur), the German news agency headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

I mention the two news organizations because I worked with them for a stretch of time. Before I joined Asahi and dpa, I struggled for stability even as I worked as a stringer for other foreign news agencies.

When I moved to the United States after an exhausting coverage of the Philippines from the tail end of Ferdinand E. Marcos' term to his overthrow in February 1986, to Corazon C. Aquino's assumption of the presidency (1986-1992) through people power revolution, to the first year of her successor General Fidel V, Ramos in 1993, I believed I'm sufficiently knowledgeable to engage in all aspects of journalism and its genre.

Filipino community newspapers in San Diego, California, and their owners and writers were not quite knowledgeable about news agencies except for the Associated Press and United Press International.

That same situation was palpable in Toronto's Filipino community. The dozen or so tabloids I familiarized myself with from 2010 to when the COVID pandemic struck in 2019, were eerily striking. It only meant the local tabloids had not gone outside their geographic scope.

I don't blame anybody. As the proverb says: "ignorance is bliss," meaning not knowing is better than knowing and worrying.

So those people who threw their offensive epithets at me for no reason could be disregarded, not forgiven, even if they are manifestly ignorant.