Filipino Web Magazine : August 2020

Friday, 28 August 2020

Trump, Family, Allies Throw Caution to the Wind

Volume 2, Issue No. 13

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, August 28, 2020

~ Four nights of hoopla culminated on Thursday night in Washington, DC in a dizzying show of pomp and pageantry where US President Donald Trump accepted the nomination of the Republican Party as its candidate for the national election on November 3. A day earlier, Vice President Mike Pence accepted his nomination as Trump's running mate. Their Democratic challengers are former vice president Joe Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris (Videos at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9JK3Q8_gq0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYtUlxT-H84).

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REPUBLICAN PARTY NOMINATION

Trump Accepts Amidst a Pandemic of Lies

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“When one with honeyed words but evil mind

Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”
― Euripides, Orestes

TORONTO - The past four days of the Republican Party convention are notable for the number of lies espoused before the whole world, starting from the top to the inconsequential underlings who wasted no time enabling their candidate with jubilant shouts of "four more years, four more years".

The brazen defiance of laws and conventions, the open disregard for people's health and welfare, and the self-conceit for pomp and circumstance - all manifested on Thursday (August 27, 2020) evening by the master showman and reality star Donald Trump who happens to be the president of the United States.

Hours ago on the stage on the South Lawn of the White House - a setup never done before - he declared: "With a heart full of gratitude and boundless optimism, I profoundly accept this nomination for president of the United States." It was the finale to four nights of hoopla that began in North Carolina and culminated in Washington, DC.

The seeming confidence oozing from his mouth is contradicted by the unmistakable facts on the ground . . . that America is reeling under because of the coronavirus pandemic, the civil unrest sparked by police killings, the economic downturn, and the very real prospect of a Trump defeat at the November 3 polls.

Regardless of how he reinvents himself now after almost four years that saw his closest aides hailed to court and to prison for a variety of criminal offenses, Trump remains a polarizing influence, a divider than a unifier, and an unmitigated bigot.

His term has produced convicts out of accomplished men, such as George Demetrios Papadopoulos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papadopoulos), Paul Manafort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort), Rick Gates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Gates_(political_consultant)), Michael Cohen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cohen_(lawyer)), and Roger Stone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone).

Then there's Steve Bannon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon) who was just recently indicted. The case against Michael Flynn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Flynn) is on appeal.

It makes me wonder if these people had been commanded, encouraged, influenced, or tasked to do things by Trump himself. Or they were just aping him knowing his predilection for sidestepping the laws for his benefit?

Given to exaggerations and falsehoods, he distorts and concocts. (Related stories: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/08/donald-trump-gets-bashed-by-his-sister.html and https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/08/mary-l-trump-i-cant-let-donald-trump.html).

"He (Donald) has no principles. None. None," his older sister Maryanne Trump Barry has stated. "His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God. I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit." (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xsj6FCe9-I&pbjreload=101).

"The United States," the loud-mouthed Trump boasted about the COVID-19 pandemic, "has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country anywhere in the world". After fact-checking it, the Associated Press said: "It's not true. Not if you consider Russia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and India to be major countries".

According to AP, quoting data from Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, the US "sits right in the middle when it comes to COVID-10 mortality rates in the 20 nations most impacted by the pandemic".

"Of the 20, Mexico has the highest mortality rate at 10.8 deaths for every 100 confirmed COVID cases, followed by Ecuador at 5.8," AP reported. It continued: "Saudi Arabia had the lowest rate of the 20 nations at 1.2, followed by Bangladesh, the Philippines, Russia, Morocco, India, Argentina, South Africa and Chile".

Last night's event at the White House was perhaps no different from the excitement of three days prior. The Boston Globe noted that the second night "may be remembered for all of the rule-breaking, both politically, culturally - and potentially even legally".

News accounts by multiple networks have only laid bare what has been streaming online for hours - that the convention in its entirety was like an assault by another pandemic, the pandemic of lies that seems to afflict every breathing supporters of the current occupant of the White House.

What Trump, who's mocked fairly or unfairly as The Lyin' King, tirelessly conveys is repeated as many times as there were speakers. One lie, and another, and another is restated with no regard for the blunt truth. (Full story: https://apnews.com/699e0c893bfbd986cea11b6f403beb3e).

Being candid as a virtue is sacrificed for personal and political interests of one man, the 45th president of the United States, who's grown to love power but not in its exercise to do good for the millions of Americans.

Monday, 24 August 2020

Donald Trump Gets Bashed by His Sister, Niece

Volume 2, Issue No. 12

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

Our latest as of Monday, August 24, 2020

~ Genius or simpleton? A prevaricator or straight shooter? Whatever one might believe he is, Donald Trump is a living legend of his own creation. His "false bravado" is mistaken for accomplishment, and his arrogance for strength, writes his niece. His sister says "he has no principles". As of May, the Fact Checker claims, he "had made 19,127 false or misleading claims". A journalist writing for The Atlantic says "Trump is a genius . . . "

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DONALD J. TRUMP

A Presidency Built on a Foundation of Lies

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"One lie has the power to tarnish a thousand truths.” ― Al David

TORONTO - The endless falsehoods that US President Donald Trump dispenses since assuming office in 2017 are stuff that makes one cringe.

Being the most powerful man as the leader of the world's mightiest country, anything he says or does would have an effect on friends and foes alike, let alone a historically and geographically close neighbour like Canada.

He's fair game for critics who are not necessarily voters. As a resident living just next door (straight line distance from Toronto to Washington, DC is 352 miles or 566 kilometres) to him, I am concerned. As a natural-born Filipino, I am aware of the political and emotional role the US played and continues to play in the homeland.

I feel anguished being reminded of the atrocities "our uniformed assassins" as Mark Twain had referred to invading US troops, had committed against defenseless Filipinos during the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902. (Background: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war).

In other words, American or not, a voter or not, Democrat or Republican, I, like the nearly four million Filipinos in the US, have a stake in either electing or defeating the 74-year-old Donald Trump (net worth estimated at $2.1 billion, says Forbes) in the November 3 election.

The current White House occupant does appear to have a problem with the truth or in its telling. He speaks in a convoluted style that starts with white lies and ends with egregious lies.

So it comes as no surprise when his own 83-year-old sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal judge, said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary L. Trump, that "He (Donald) has no principles. None. None . . . His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God. I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit." (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xsj6FCe9-I&pbjreload=101).

Mary Trump, the 55-year-old daughter of Fred "Freddy" Trump Jr., the oldest of the Trump siblings, wrote a bombshell of a book, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man", which sold an estimated 1.35 million copies on its first week. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/08/mary-l-trump-i-cant-let-donald-trump.html).

"For Donald," she writes, "lying was primarily a mode of self-aggrandizement meant to convince people he was better than he actually was". That was quite a revelation about Donald Trump who now appears to have built his presidency on a foundation of lies.

"Donald's displays of confidence, his belief that society's rules didn't apply to him, and his exaggerated display of self-worth drew some people to him. A large minority of people still confuse his arrogance for strength, his false bravado for accomplishment, and his superficial interest in them for charisma".

Aides to President Trump merely shrugged off Mary Trump's assertions in her book, calling her a disgruntled family member who, like her brother Fritz, had been disinherited by the Trump patriarch, Fred C. Trump, her grandfather, who died in June 1999.

The Washington Post published in June the Fact Checker's database showing that Donald Trump, as of May 29, "had made 19,127 false or misleading claims" which translate to almost 16 claims a day over the period of his presidency.

"We have also found," the Washington Post reported, that "October is a dangerous month for the truth, especially if an election is nearing. In October 2018, the president tallied 1,205 claims, and in October 2019, 1,159 claims. That's a pace of 40 claims a day".

Donald Trump's most repeated claims - 334 times - is that the US economy today is the best in history. "Nope," said the paper. (Full story at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/01/president-trump-made-19127-false-or-misleading-claims-1226-days/).

His second most-repeated claim - 261 times - is that his border wall with Mexico is being built. The daily says the project evolved into the replacement of smaller, older barriers with steel bollard fencing that could be easily breached, contrary to his claims that it's impossible to get past.

Another falsehood Donald Trump likes repeating, in fact, he has repeated 206 times, according to the paper, is that he "passed the biggest tax cut in history".

That's fiction, says the paper. As a matter of fact, it's ranked eighth-largest tax cut in 100 years at only 0.9 percent of the gross domestic product, far removed from President Ronald Regan's tax cut of 2.9 percent of GNP.

Writing in the March issue of The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/trump-genius/609142/), the journalist Frida Ghitis writes:

"Give the president his due: Trump is a genius. He is a master manipulator, a political alchemist capable of transmuting calamitous errors into political gold. Even as he continues to lie and deceive, the president has seized control of the narrative, taking possession of the national microphone to saturate the public with his self-serving version of events".

This week, Donald Trump and his vice president, Mike Pence, will be renominated as the official candidates of the Republican Party. Would his lies impact the election? (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).

Wednesday, 19 August 2020

Virtual or Visual for 2020 Filipino Street Fest in Toronto

Volume 2, Issue No. 11

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

Our latest as of Wednesday, August 19, 2020

~ All the years since August 2014, the Filipino community had the enviable street festival that helped define the fourth (after the Indian, Chinese, and Black communities, the 2016 census says) largest visible minority group in the Greater Toronto Area at 282,385 people of Filipino descent. It was Taste of Manila (circa 2014-2019) that had brought awareness to the larger community. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the fest is dead. However, a group consisting of the old and new is reviving it . . . virtually and/or visually, as they say.

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A SUCCESS THAT WENT BANKRUPT?

Rehabilitating Taste of Manila Festival

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"Don't mistake activity with achievement.” ― John Wooden

TORONTO - Dressed in an off-white barong, groomed, and showing a smile that seems to convey reliability and good intentions, Rolly Mangante's image appears in a photo montage like the made-over founder and chairman of a refurbished street festival now labeled as The Taste of Manila.

The addition of the article "the" in ToM is obviously calculated to denote its brand-newness from the dead-by-COVID-19 Taste of Manila (ToM), the once-flourishing fest that had lasted six years without making money, allegedly. (Related story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-lookback-at-taste-of-manila.html).

The brand and Mangante's transformation are just two of the notable changes in launching its online event this month. There's also a new organization behind it, Philippine Events and Services Ontario (PESO), and a set of officers headed by Philip Beloso as president, and Pepito Torralba as vice president.

Ten days ago, Torralba was "executive chairman," and Beloso was "board of director". The two occupied these positions since August 2, 2020, the day I got wind of the TToM website. The sudden changes could indicate a rift or disagreement. In 2014, they were on the same board of TOM.

Looking at the TToM website, one immediately notices the montage of the familiar ToM logo and Mangante's picture. On his right side are inscribed these words: "It doesn’t take a miracle to make dreams come true. It takes a clearly detailed written vision to begin with. However, a vision with a plan, will become reality".

How in the world could Mangante compose such a meaningful sentence knowing that he could murder the English language and not feel any guilt? In past meetings with his ToM staff, he would say "abonizing" to mean to advance payment of something when bills come up.

Of course, the quotation is not Mangante's as the montage makes it evident. It is in fact plagiarized from Paola Devescovi who describes herself as a "multi-passionate internet entrepreneur, personal brand expert, transformational business and prosperity coach, and Reiki healer".

Her original copy reads: "It doesn’t take a miracle to make dreams come true. It takes a clearly detailed written vision to begin with. However a vision without a plan, will never become reality. It will remain a dream, a wish".

Mangante, or whoever copied the quotation word for word without attributing it to Ms. Devescovi, rewrote the second sentence thus: "However, a vision with a plan, will become reality", and remove the third.

In journalism, plagiarism is a serious offense that has legal and ethical consequences. It could spell doom to the copycat. In the TToM rehab, it's quite apparent that it was reinventing Mangante without regard for what is right. His smile in the photo montage could be classified as a "lying smile".

A cause for worry for me is TToM's announcement that it is seeking public support through the sale of affiliate membership at a cost of $1,000 (gold membership), $500 (silver), and $300 (bronze). In return, what does one get in exchange for the $1,000, one may ask?

The value of $1,000 could be measured in terms of goods and services it can buy. For example, a monthly subscription to Crave, the Canadian subscription video on demand, costs $25.97, or $312 a year, and one gets to watch unlimited movies and HBO. One year of the illustrious The New Yorker magazine costs $99.99. Netflix's standard plan costs $13.99 a month or $168 a year. Those are valuable items worth spending for.

So, why is TToM gold membership so expensive? What's the promise behind the venture? Is it disguised fundraising, for what and for whom? As of this writing (Wednesday, August 19, 2020), TToM has not responded to questions emailed to them during the weekend.

In what I consider a bid to impress, TToM posted fancy blurbs that are grammatically flawed. Its word usage is also faulty. The following two sentences are perfect examples, and I quote verbatim from its website:

"The Taste of Manila Festival hurdles every challenges there is putting up this organization, persistent and determined, they made it possible. As proud filipinos, we are happy to bond with other nationalities in achieving this Chronicle event in the history of North York, Ontario, where Bathurst Street and Wilson Avenue meet… "

For a brief while there, the word "Chronicle" attracted my attention. I thought the publishing firm, The Manila Chronicle, where my journalism career had begun before it was closed down by martial law in 1972, has risen from decades of inactivity.

Reading through, its usage of the "Chronicle" (with a capital C) was not only incorrect, but it also changed its meaning. It could be a verb. In this instance, however, it is an adjective in the sense of "significant" or "historic", which is what it was trying to convey, I believe.

At this point, TToM still can not make up its mind what to make of its activity. The billing goes: "Fresh Start: The ToM 2020 Event Visual Presentation" which is slated for August 29 on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Accessing the three social media platforms means it is a virtual event.

These days because of the COVID-19 pandemic, every event opts to go virtual, which means online, or through a system connected to computers that allow people to perform remotely either in their homes or offices and transmitted to a network.

Well, it can be argued that the upcoming TToM is both visual and virtual. I think the organizers see it that way. Somewhere on their website, they refer to TToM as virtual. The teaser says it is visual. I am quite at a loss here. Visual versus virtual. Virtual versus visual. Which one is it?

The over-enthusiastic effort to resurrect ToM is understandable because it had been a success in attracting huge crowds, but not in yielding a decent amount of cash to fund projects its organizers had set out to accomplish at the beginning?

What happened when everyone else had profited from the festival except, it is claimed, the organizers? Who made the most money but refused to report it? Why weren't there any financial statements in the last six years? (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).

Monday, 17 August 2020

Impostors, Verbal Abusers in Toronto's Filipino Community

Volume 2, Issue No. 10

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

Our latest as of Monday, August 17, 2020

~ The internecine strife online and on paper picks up amidst the coronavirus pandemic that literally held us to a standstill for several months. The alleged scammers and their enablers are back and so are the people who keep a tight watch on their nefarious activities. Investigative journalism is taking a hit, expectedly, from people who make a career of bluffing and obfuscation.

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A QUESTION OF WHO'S TELLING THE TRUTH

Watchdog Reporting in the Time of COVID-19

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"If an investigative reporter finds out that someone has been robbing the store, that may be gotcha journalism, but it's also good journalism". - Ben Bradlee

TORONTO - In March when the health situation was not as distressing as it is these days, Periodico came out with its first issue, the latest to join a market already saturated with identical tabloids catering to the Filipino community in the Greater Toronto Area.

The paper had ventured to be different in every aspect of news coverage. Content was to be its strength. Its vision was to stand out in an impartial and intelligent treatment of newsworthy articles impacting Filipinos. Its loyalty was to the public.

Periodico deliberately avoided soft news such as those about Philippine movie stars, and the usual entertainment fare that drives most, if not all, of the existing fortnightly and monthly periodicals.

Neither Kapamilya nor Kapuso in terms of adverts and social engagement, it was not dependent, as the others are, on the largesse of the competing broadcast networks, which had split the Filipino community into zealous enclaves of screaming fandoms. Unity, preached but not practiced by all, is one of the paper's goals.

I do not own Periodico; I was offered to head it as editor-in-chief, and I accepted on the one condition that I would be given free rein in the management and choice of stories and pictures to be published. And so in mid-March, the modest 24-page paper came into being, boldly as it were, but not-so-perfectly.

There and then it spoke - and will continue to speak - truth to power, which means, to borrow a precise definition, "believing deeply in what you say and fighting every day to have that heard. It may not be popular; it means taking a risk, it means standing for something".

I remember writing an article on the subject in another paper on the belief it deserved such a token of acknowledgment. As time went by it became clear to me that I was mistaken; the personal interests of friends and allies mattered more than the interests of the community it serves.

Five months have passed and the expository articles that Periodico had published are unchallenged. The substantive contents are not disputed by the individuals identified in the exposés. Not the slightest whimper could be heard from their safe havens.

If this definition of truth to power reflects the paper's guiding principle, then it was courageously upholding every fiber of these words: "Speak truth to power means to confront those who hold important positions, whether in government, business or religious institutions. To speak truth to power means to demand a moral response to a problem, rather than an expedient, easy or selfish response".

Boasting aside, that March 2020 issue of Periodico was a model for watchdog reporting. The paper had become welcome nourishment for the other news outlets mainly because the contents are as controversial as they are unassailable.

None of the existing periodicals would dare touch those kinds of stories in Periodico for whatever reason. But for a paper to stand true to its role as the public entity to account for - the fourth estate, as it is called - it must report the reality and the falsehood at the same time and hold people responsible.

This core function has long been abandoned by what passes for as the Filipino media in Toronto, the reason people we thought we knew publicly are not what they really are, thrive and prosper. They ply their illicit trade in an atmosphere of indifference and open disregard for authority.

As much as we could get before publishing, we attempted to reach out to the individuals concerned. For others, such a process was irrelevant as their declarations are posted on social media for everyone to see and comment on. (Related story: https:// filwebchannelmagazine. blogspot.com/2020/08/balitas- non-story-to-avenge-hurt.html) .

"Who's Afraid of Tess Cusipag?" was Periodico's top story that ran on two pages. The second major story headlined "Hall of Shame" occupied two pages also. The third - "A Red Flag for 'Elite Crusaders' " took a full page, as did "The Stolen Idea of Taste of Manila".

Other stories were equally important, namely: "Eyes on the Lies", "Dismissed Cases Expose the Liars", "Writer Snaps at Balita", "Where Does the Truth End and the Lies Begin", "The Copycat with Multiple Personalities", "Elite Scammers or Elite Crusaders?", and other less contentious articles.

The headlines are mere snapshots of the depth and breadth of the whole narrative about the individual personalities and their activities in the community. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0NGQX-SucJ4).

An example is Tess Cusipag, publisher and self-appointed editor of Balita tabloid. Her positions dictate an objective, careful and wise handling of issues. Ideally, she shouldn't be siding with protagonists. Her outlook must be independent of either side. However, it didn't happen before, it isn't happening now.

As I said in an earlier story, Ms. Cusipag is like a loose cannon. She has no compunction labeling people "stupid," "scammers," "magnanakaw" or "thieves" and the like. She landed a 21-day jail sentence and spent 13 days caged for casting aspersions on a judge who had decided in favor of the complainant in a libel case.

She belittles people like she's way richer than Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg. She always has a word for them, "patay gutom" or dirt poor, which happens to be the epithet she hurled on a plaintiff in another lawsuit. (Full story at: https:// filwebchannelmagazine. blogspot.com/2020/03/bully- loose-cannon-whos-afraid-of- tess.html).

She calls a writer, supposedly, who also distributes her paper "that stupid edwin mercurio" (sic) who, as we now know, had copied a press release and passed it as his own, and got a byline in Balita where it was published. As soon as I discovered the plagiarized article, I called him a copycat. The last time I heard, she fired him.

Then there's the uncontroverted article by Allen Hammer featuring Toronto labor recruiter Chito Collantes, who, to improve his standing, has been affixing the abbreviation "Dr." to his name, unmindful of the probing inquiries on how the title came about, if legitimately.

"Through the years," writes Mr. Hammer, a writer, poet, and painter in the United States, "Collantes desperately needed a star on his shoulder to establish his credibility". He calls him a "freeloader" whose "alleged tales of relentless scams in the community were well known, though largely unreported by the meek and scared press".

His wife, Ms. Lily Hammer, who claims to have been gypped of $20,000 by Collantes, was not as generous with her words. "Chito Collantes is just as much of a crook as others are, ripping people off," she says. "People like him are no better than a common cockroach".

My article about the Taste of Manila (ToM) festival was also an eye-opener for those who didn't know. As conceived and carried out, ToM did not come from the fertile mind of Rolly Mangante as some people might have believed. He did not invent it.

The thought of having a ToM street fest had been crystallized during a meeting between city officials, notably then police chief Bill Blair (now a Member of Parliament), and Ambassador Pedro Chan, then the Philippine consul general in Toronto. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=7BqjP4DWUpg).

Mangante, a chauffeur of the Philippine Consulate who drove diplomatic officials to their appointments, was an unwanted bystander sitting in at a meeting he wasn't supposed to attend. That's where he got - or stole - the ToM idea he now claims as his. (Related story: https:// filwebchannelmagazine. blogspot.com/2020/08/a- lookback-at-taste-of-manila. html).

How ToM lasted for six years is a tribute, not to the amateurish Mangante who had fronted for it, but to the unsung volunteers who had conceptualized the festival from beginning to end, year after year, and had the decency to stay in the sidelines, not wanting to call attention to themselves.

The stories and events I mention here are just the tips of the iceberg, so to speak. There are many more waiting to be unraveled. (Related story: https:// filwebchannelmagazine. blogspot.com/2020/07/ community-journalists-as- watchdogs.html).

Wednesday, 12 August 2020

Senator from California in Historic US Election

Volume 2, Issue No. 9

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

Our latest as of Wednesday, August 12, 2020

~ With a president more adept at lying, and an administration that demonizes peoples of color, the time has come for change, for a transformation of the political landscape. It's taking place right now in the United States. Yesterday (Tuesday, August 11, 2020), a woman of remarkable competence - US Senator Kamala Harris of California - has been selected to be the running mate of presumptive presidential candidate Joe Biden in the November 3 election. Harris embodies the hitherto unrecognized peoples of color that Donald Trump so meanly demonizes.

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2020 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Kamala Harris Breaks Through the Racial Barrier

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.” ― Carlos Fuentes

TORONTO - Every person of color, every community of color, every visible minority, every Californian - all of us who believe in diversity - should feel proud and happy that United States Senator Kamala Harris has been chosen by US presidential candidate Joe Biden to be his running mate in the November 3 US election.

The choice injects a new dimension in the contest to replace the racist incumbent President Donald Trump, mocked as The Lyin' King, and Vice President Mike Pence, who, together, have marginalized people of color throughout their term. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/08/mary-l-trump-i-cant-let-donald-trump.html).

Of a Jamaican economics professor father and an Indian scientist mother, Harris is a native Californian, born 55 years ago in Oakland, the largest city in Alameda County, and the third-largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Having worked and lived in Southern California for 16 years, I can identify more with her than the Hawaii-born first African American president, Barack Obama, number 44, and the former US and State senator from Illinois.

Obama won over John McCain in the election of November 2008 and assumed the presidency in January 2009. Both events were celebrated nationwide. In San Diego, my former hometown, Obama was widely commemorated for what he symbolized and stood for.

If elected, Harris could potentially be president, which could mean a big boost to persons and communities of color, especially in California, the most populous US state with nearly 40 million residents. If it were a country, California would be the fifth-largest economy in the world with a gross state product of $3.0 trillion.

Harris as attorney general of California was the state's top law-enforcement official, and prior to that, as the district attorney of San Francisco. Those experiences make her a tough cookie in areas where Trump's enforcement of laws is selective and favorable to friends.

It should be a cause for concern for Trump, a reason to worry, for the very real possibility that he would be prosecuted for a number of alleged violations of law, among them, his dealings that benefitted the Trump organization.

Harris' mixed African and Asian heritage - she's essentially black and brown at the same time - evokes this feeling of affinity with her as any black or brown person like myself can have. Our vibes are attuned, our cultural identity is almost similar.

My own community exposure in California had been substantially larger with Latinos and African Americans than with Filipinos. Perhaps, it's the affliction called "crab mentality" prevalent among Filipino Americans that was responsible for that personal attitude.

To this day, I find Blacks passionate, aggressive, and articulate in fighting for their rights. Same thing with Latinos. Not to disparage my racial origin, but Filipinos are unassertive, too meek and submissive to the point of being abused and impotent.

It came as no surprise then that in San Diego, I had volunteered to help in the election campaigns of Black and Latino candidates. In fact, I had more friends and neighbors in those demographics than in my own kind. It's hard to admit, but it's true.

At this early and just before she could be elected in November, Harris is already inspirational. Her fearlessness is admirable. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bkUWZH4Wo8).

Though I am in Canada and have no participation in the US election process, I personally feel uplifted knowing somebody of my skin color, and perhaps thought, is standing up for what is right. She understands what it is to be a minority.

To me, Harris embodies the hitherto unrecognized peoples of color that Trump so meanly demonizes. Accomplished, highly-educated, competent, and with parents equally gifted, Harris deserves universal backing. (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).