Volume 2, Issue No. 11
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 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.” ―
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).
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