US Presidential Debate Turns Petty

 Volume 2, Issue No. 22

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, September 30, 2020 

~ Like everyone else, I patiently waited for the debate to air on social media between presidential contenders Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And when it finally began last night (Tuesday, September 29, 2020) in Cleveland, Ohio, I was mortified to see a sitting US president quickly transformed himself into an attack dog, bullying his challenger into submission by drowning out his voice, and beclouding the life-and-death issues that are relevant to their discussion. The debate had been turned into a petty squabble, very much like that engaged in by fishwives.

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DONALD TRUMP V. JOE BIDEN

The Fishwives' Squabble in the US

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“If I associate with chickens, I will learn to scratch at the ground and squabble over crumbs. If I associate with eagles, I will learn to soar to great heights".  - Andy Andrews 

TORONTO - I didn't know, neither did I expect, that two old men, both septuagenarians, would behave like fishwives in a noisy confrontation over their egos.

Well, that's what happened in the 90-minute debate turned squabble between US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former vice president Joe Biden, on Tuesday night (September 29, 2020) in Cleveland, Ohio.

Trump, the Republican nominee, was the domineering bully who injected his ridiculous claims in a clear attempt to hush Biden over and over again to the objection of journalist Chris Wallace, the moderator.

I see it as the full personification of Trump the chief executive, Trump the smart-ass, Trump the wily businessman, Trump the entertainer, Trump the tax evader, Trump the racist SOB, Trump the arrogant white supremacist, Trump the dubious billionaire.

Trump's performance on the debate stage is worthy of an R rating if only for his verbal assaults and irreverent behaviour that sets a bad example for kids under 17 who may be watching at that moment. That's not how an adult, let alone a president, comports himself.

He drowns out the soft-spoken Biden who at times appeared fearsome by Trump's belligerence. Trump's usual tactic, amplified on television broadcasts and social media, will find good use in the war zones of Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria.

Having watched most, if not all of his press conferences, Trump merely repeated in this debate his old refrain about the coronavirus, the contradiction in his personal views with science to control the pandemic, the mail-in ballotting, the taxes he had avoided paying, the links with Russia, etc.

I thought I miss the scholarly and gentlemanly discourse Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had with their political opponents during their time. I held on to what they said about contemporaneous issues because every word stated had meanings one immediately understood.

In this Trump-Biden debate, I got off growing angry at the effrontery of Trump to lie and lie incessantly without regard to the science, to the proven facts, and to the accepted norms of conduct.

I don't blame Biden for backing off a little bit and smiling in mockery of the most powerful man on earth. He had the wisdom to let Trump destroy himself before the world.

Trump's attempts to score points against Biden is backfiring because of his recklessness and blatant disregard for the rules. He's supposed to be, as he repeatedly claimed, the "law and order" president. But what I saw live on TV was total disorder by what appears to be an outlaw.

An "outlaw" Trump may be, as evidenced by his misuse and abuse of the powers of the presidency, his continued defiance of his own regulations, his unrestrained appointments of friends and backers to sensitive positions in government, his penchant for lies, and his lame excuses for using hyperbole to mask his lapses.

As a student of politics, I think I've had enough of who should be president. I don't see the need to watch the next two episodes of the Trump-Biden debate on October 15 in Miami, Florida, and on October 22 in Nashville, Tennessee. Trump has unraveled himself. Biden appeared presidential.

Rather than waste more time listening and watching two grown-ups act like fishmongers, I'd just wait for California Senator Kamala Harris make meat of Vice President Mike Pence during their vice presidential debate on October 7 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Having lived in California for almost two decades, I understand how Sen. Harris, a woman of color I can identify with, could wear out her opponent on the strength of her experience with crimes and criminality as a former California attorney general, prosecutor, and district attorney of San Francisco. She's simply tough, California tough, eh! (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).

The Truth Must Be Told: I Was Deceived!

Volume 2, Issue No. 21

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 Tuesday, September 29, 2020 

~ I owe it to my readers to admit making a huge error of judgment in helping a person I had naively thought was worthy of my confidence. I had the perception that the person was willing to learn from my rich experience as a journalist working for a mainstream newspaper in the Philippines, as a foreign correspondent for a news agency in Hamburg, Germany, and as a reporter, editor, and publisher of community newspapers in the United States and Canada. It was wrong for me to accord that person my trust and respect. I'm taking it all away now in the hope it would help rectify this lapse in judgment.

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A LAPSE IN JUDGMENT

The Person I Helped Has Conned Me

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“If we’re going to want to shine a light on others, we have to be willing to shine a light on ourselves.” 

- Norman Pearlstine, LA Times

TORONTO - I was conned. An embarrassment it is to admit, but I must tell the truth. I was conned. 

I pride myself being resolute in my journalism, and here I am yielding to friends who had vouched for their friends and easily won my trust and acceptance. 

I knew my critics and adversaries would be laughing to death knowing this. Well, they can roar in laughter all they want, but I am fine, mistakes happen.

Despite knowing very little and the red flags that had been a warning to me, I embraced this husband and wife team of Roxlee Ong and Naomi Ong like old acquaintances. I opened my home to them, a gesture I rarely extended - and only to a handful - that enjoyed my full confidence. 

From California to Toronto, I stay detached. I select friends who can visit me - a cautious approach necessitated by my job as an investigative journalist. Security is a paramount concern of mine or I would be a sitting duck to those seeking my downfall.

With this couple, I let off my guard believing the faith I had placed on them would be respected. Now, everything has gone to waste and I feel unsafe. I never knew that at this juncture in my journalism career, I would sense a physical vulnerability.

I had gambled on the Ong couple even as I had not met and known them in my 10 years in Toronto on a friend's recommendation. Through those years I learned who in the local newspaper industry are the real journalists, the fakes, and the pretenders. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2019/07/writing-column-quarter-of-century-on.html).

The real working journalists in the GTA could be counted by one hand while those in the second and third categories need sets of fingers and toes to be determined accurately. They proliferate, they're intensely visible, they're loudmouths who hear nothing but their own voices. Naomi Ong belongs to this set.

I thought I had my second wind in community journalism upon my acceptance of her offer to edit a brand-new paper, Periodico, on the one condition I would be given free rein in its running, meaning I would be the sole person to decide its contents, layout, design, and editorial policies.

Having impressed my standards on her and her unidentified proponents, I thought they understood why I was very particular about the things I considered critical in having a newspaper. Though they're not journalists, I thought they had some working knowledge about newspaper publishing.

When the first issue of Periodico came out in March, I realized my conditions had not been fully met. Unedited articles by unvetted contributors, staffers I'd not met, photos I'd not seen, etcetera, appeared without my knowledge. My last name even had a typo!

That was the end of that short stint. The "second wind" I had proudly declared had lost steam. The wind that was supposed to give me renewed energy and strength had dissolved into hot air, a fart if I might say. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/03/shining-light-on-misdeeds-has-its.html).

Unbeknownst to me, Periodico was running a website. Its print edition has resumed. The latest had a wrong date - October 2019, and its counting - Issue 10, volume 12, is misleading. If we count the month (March 2020) it had started and assuming it published every month since then, this last one would be issue 7, volume 1.

Perhaps it's intentional. It must be a marketing strategy to project that it's been there for 12 years (that's why it is volume 12). It is so wrong. It hasn't even completed a year. I hope readers and advertisers would take notice. This paper and its online counterpart are not to be trusted.

All the news and opinion pieces published under my Currents & Breaking News were made available online. For six months from April to September, the website carried my copyrighted articles and photos without my knowledge and consent. 

Periodico is falsely projecting that I am part of it; I am not. My role had ended with the first issue in March.

That it still carries my articles is a plain and simple robbery, a breach of trust. I had never seen such an audacious act by the people behind Periodico. They have been stealing my intellectual property for six months running.

I discovered the robbery by chance. A friend had informed me that one of my articles had been re-published on Facebook, which was fine by me. In the email, I saw a link, copied it, pasted it on the browser, clicked, and voila! the whole Periodico website came on.

What a surprise! What I had thought had been dead had sprung to life, not on print but online. The many photographs I personally shot to accompany my articles and the stories I took time to write are all there, streaming live as if cajoling readers to while their time away reading them.

The fact, however, is that I had nothing to do with that Periodico website. My stories were pirated. 

The appearance of my byline gives legitimacy to the perception that I am one of the parties who put out that site. That is wrong. I have never given permission of any kind, tacit or spoken, to have my copyrighted articles publicized there.

The current print and online publication might also create the impression that I am conniving with Naomi Ong and her gang in pursuing their personal interests against people they believe have wronged them. Well, I am not in any way connected to that.

I had agreed to be the editor of Periodico on my terms. The moment it veered away from standards I put up, my engagement ended. 

So, I take no responsibility for whatever is splashed on that paper. People who feel aggrieved by its unvetted stories should run after its unidentified editor and true owner. 

By the way, is the inexperienced and penniless Naomi Ong the owner or she's a puppet of somebody else? 

(Next installment: Who is Naomi Ong? Who does she represent?) (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).

Balita Shows Signs of Desperation

Volume 2, Issue No. 20

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, September 27, 2020 

~ Whenever a story displeases some people, they resort to veiled threats. They come up with ad hominems. They fabricate, they lie to feed and please the devil within them. Those are risks common in the practice of investigative journalism. At the community level, it's far worse than one would expect. People one thought to be neighbours and friends are actually the enemies.

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A BLAST FROM THE PAST? 

Toronto Tabloid Threatens Blackmail

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Freedom of speech doesn't mean threatening the freedom of others.” ― Vikrmn, Corpkshetra

TORONTO - I am truly disappointed that the publisher of the largest photo album in town - that's Balita tabloid - has threatened to publish what she calls "a whole package of info about you from San Diego". Evidently, the disagreement has now descended from professional to personal.

The way she conveys the message to me by email appears as if I had hidden something wicked before I moved to Toronto 10 years ago. The hint is obvious - "skeletons", if indeed they are, exist about me.

San Diego was my hometown for almost 20 years. My parents had planted their roots there after immigrating from their ancestral place in Cavite province. My siblings had grown their own families in that Navytown to other states in the US. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk-2dCAzGps).

My memories of America's Finest City had been both austere and casual. It was there that I began the practice of community journalism, which is a far cry from the global reporting I did as a foreign correspondent at a major international news agency based in Hamburg, Germany. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik0AXXyPXaE).

The threat by Teresita Cusipag, Balita publisher, to put out whatever dossier she has about me is really nothing new. What I resent is her attempt to leverage it to stop me from writing about her and her cohorts in their misguided crusade so-called to bring down her personal enemy.

"I have a whole package of documents here that they are requesting me to publish," she says without identifying who "they" are. But I already have an idea. From the time my own newspapers in San Diego came out in 1998, efforts to strangle me were underway.

Such attacks have rendered me immune. I know where the dossiers are coming from. I also know the people peddling them. However, I don't know much about people who unquestioningly lap them up.

It's an old trick to neutralize me personally and professionally, then and now, and the articles I've written about Ms. Cusipag since she terminated my services in June 2019 for telling her to stop passing rumors about women friends she falsely labeled as my girlfriends. 

When I chided her for doing that, which actually puts me and my work at risk, she fired me. She just couldn't zip her mouth. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-inevitable-conflict-between-editors.html).

Her current effort is undeniably a blackmail. No ifs and buts, it is clearly blackmail.

The reason I had attracted a small army of irascible community leaders in San Diego was my steadfast refusal to succumb to their pressure. Now, that same thing is happening here in Toronto. Sorry grandma, it's not within your power to rein me in.

Knowing her limited knowledge and inexperience leads me to ask: who is Teresita Cusipag to tell me what not to write when she herself does not know what to do with her paper? I feel clog up to tell her she's incompetent as an editor, but she is.

It is true I had created enemies in San Diego because of my journalism. I never deny that. It's also true in Toronto where I upset the balance between those who want to know and those who refuse to know. 

Balita serves those in the second category, they who refuse to know and let themselves be used to concealing the truth because it would damage her associates.

I've been bashed countless times. In San Diego, a woman friend, in cooperation with a fortnightly newspaper where I was an associate editor, and a mainstream television station, had instigated a trap to humiliate me while I worked as a cashier in a drugstore to support my newspaper.

I am sure film footage of that ambush coverage would be rolled out again. In fact, it has been on and off circulated whenever I publish articles offensive to some people in leadership positions in the community. I don't really care, to be candid about it.

The life I lead in Toronto may be wanting in material comfort compared to the one by the self-declared millionaire Teresita Cusipag. Well, I don't have any pretension of being taller than the fly on the back of the carabao.

I'm happy with my books. I'm happy spending hours reading and writing. I'm happy associating with real friends. I'm happy that I could eat food I like within my meager means. I'm happy that I can relate to people on the ground. I'm happy witnessing the passing of days. I'm happy that I am free to say whatever is in my heart.

Some people are jealous that I'm happy without them, to paraphrase the British singer Labrinth. That's exactly what this is about. 

People could not believe that having very little or none at all could still make one content. My parents always told us: "Matuto kang mamaluktot kapag maigsi ang kumot" which translates to "learn to curl up when the blanket is short".

The lesson behind that proverb has not left us to this day. It has actually become our guiding principle in our lives. While it is nice to have some wealth, it is not the be-all and end-all for me and my siblings. We can live without it. (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).

Filipino Newspaper Offers Money to Rat on People

Volume 2, Issue No. 19

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 Thursday, September 24, 2020 

~ Something I did not expect happened yesterday as a result of an earlier article I wrote about two warring women in the Filipino community. Unable to get any information that would pin down her enemies, one of the antagonists, the publisher of a Filipino tabloid, has offered money in exchange for their address and personal identities. The offer is a bribe, a real attempt to corrupt.

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SHE WANTS PERSONAL INFORMATION 

Tabloid Publisher Offers a Bribe

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“To curb corruption one must be courageous to confront and complain against the corrupt.” ― Amit Kalantri

TORONTO - She really knew how to throw an insult, this publisher of Balita, the largest photo album tabloid in the Filipino community. Not surprisingly, it's an intimidation tactic she usually employs when caught in a bind.

Hapless and helpless, Teresita Cusipag, also the paper's accidental "editor," offers to pay me to undertake an investigation into one of her vociferous enemies on behalf of her and her supporters. In other words, she wants me to be her rat!

"I can also afford to pay you if you want to give us info," she writes in bold and capital letters, perhaps unaware that that manner of writing is the equivalent of shouting in normal conversations. I doubt if she knew the etiquette.

Dangling her money, Ms. Cusipag adds: "instead of giving it to the private investigator" to make it appear she's being generous. The loose cannon that she is, she probably did not realize she was trying to humiliate me like I would promptly suck it up. It is so demeaning.

I've stayed long in journalism because I honor my word. It's the key to earning the trust of news sources. If I promised my sources to keep their identity and personal information secret, I will, and fight tooth and nail to observe and respect it. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrIFXOV-7mU).

No amount of money, not Ms. Cusipag's pittance, would change that honor code. To journalists, and I mean not the kind that inhabits the Philippine Press Club of Ontario, that unwritten code is sacred. (Related story: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/310439).

I've rejected bribes offered to me as early as when I started doing investigative journalism. That coming from Ms. Cusipag is essentially a bribe. She's buying me, that's what it is. Well, I might as well remind her that my currency is not money, it's integrity!

I wonder why she chose me instead of her gang, the selfie-loving elite scammers, oops, so sorry, I mean elite crusaders whose "crusade" so-called is in pictures only. Why not them, huh grandma?

Ms. Cusipag has sent me copy of her email exchanges with her favourite whipping girl, Lily Hammer, the local entrepreneur she's obsessed putting down. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QprwiFQiLjs).

Unlike their juvenile Facebook postings days earlier, this latest one is less abrasive. And funny, if I may add. Here, Ms. Cusipag shows her incompetence. While trying to get the information she wanted, she invokes her being a citizen, a publisher, and an advocate (of what?). (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/09/toronto-catfight-erupts-on-social-media.html).

To her repeated demands, she gets this response: "You are asking me as an insane, fuck up, crazy person," another individual, not Ms. Hammer, tells her in the conversation.

Repeating the same line, Ms. Cusipage answers: "if you think that my question is insane, fuck up, crazy, what is normal for somebody like you and Lily". She adds: " . . . am asking you as a publisher of a newspaper, so be honest with me, whatever you say will come out".

She didn't get any answer. Of course. I would have done the same. Ignore her completely. 

And if I were the one involved, I would've smacked her with these questions: "what right have you to ask?", "you consider yourself a publisher . . . of a photo album?" Gimme a break. (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).

Toronto Catfight Erupts on Social Media

 Volume 2, Issue No. 18

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, September 23, 2020 

~ Two adult women, one a septuagenarian, and the other two decades her junior, are locked in a fierce verbal scrimmage over personal matters on Facebook. Their back-and-forth exchanges and behaviour are so heated one would think they're juveniles fighting over spilled milk. They trade barbs and profanities too degrading to even mention in polite society.

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CUSIPAG V. HAMMER

The Spectacle of a Virtual Fight on Facebook

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"Profanity is for the feeble-minded".  - William Brent Bell

TORONTO - The live spectacle had taken place on Facebook days ago and is off now, perhaps temporarily.  

The bitter and sometimes vulgar face-off was between two women, one a septuagenarian and the other, a 50-year-old, which suggests a generational divide. Jealousy, envy, professional differences, you name it, and it figures.

"She is very obsessed with me. And for whatever reasons, I don't know," says the younger antagonist.

Much to both the delight and embarrassment of their supporters and other social media users, the verbal tussle had lighted up another depressing day of the coronavirus pandemic where, nationwide, Canada has 146,663 confirmed cases and 9, 234 deaths compared to our neighbour to the south, the United States, which registered a grim milestone: 6.92 million cases, and 201,000 deaths as of September 22, 2020.

It's probably safe to say that were it not for physical distancing and other health precautions, the protagonists - Teresita Cusipag, publisher of Balita tabloid; and Lily Hammer, a local entrepreneur - would have been pulling each other's hair or trying to disrobe the other while yelling profanities at the top of their voices. (Video and full story at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QprwiFQiLjs).

Such a scenario is a common sight in public markets in the Philippines, thus the term "palengkera" to mean loudmouth, boorish. Women fight, they swear, they trade blows, they rough and tumble over the flimsiest of gossips. Some of my neighbours in Manila do it as if it's their pastime. It's funny, and in rare cases, bloody.

Ms. Cusipag and Ms. Hammer are, by age, more than two decades apart. The latter calls the former "grandma", which, in the context of their brawl, is not exactly an endearment. It's a tease, but it is true, the 70-plus-years-old Ms. Cusipag is a grandmother in real life. 

As a response, Ms. Cusipag tags Ms. Hammer a "palengkera," and "patay gutom". This last-mentioned is her favorite cuss word meaning dirt poor. Worse than that, however, she hits her literally below the belt with an innuendo ascribing a sex act in Tagalog that's too offensive to mention.

Based on my own personal experience working as a reporter and associate editor at Balita for seven years, it is my opinion that Ms. Cusipag is - and I repeat now what I had written in another article - a loose cannon and fires like a shotgun without so much caring she might inflict collateral damage on the innocents.

I've seen and heard it before. Her lexicon is full of expletives and most of them, probably because she considers herself well off by inheritance, are rooted in money or lack of it. Being poor makes one susceptible to her verbal attacks. I should know, I had been an indirect recipient a few times.

Ms. Hammer is not the first to be labeled as "patay gutom". Ms. Cusipag has also branded a litigant in our libel case (which we lost, unfortunately) the same demeaning swearword just to spite him for demanding payment of monetary damages awarded by the court.

The furious war of words is predictably going to court. One accuses the other of defamation, and so it's a big win again for the lawyers who stand to gain in this fight.

Yesterday, September 22, 2020, the heated verbal skirmish flared up again on Facebook. The barbs are remarkable in their decadence. Ms. Hammer refers to Ms. Cusipag as a "defamation queen". In turn, she calls her again by a crude sexual innuendo. 

For the record, Ms. Cusipag and I had been the defendants in four libel cases and lost in two. For a community newspaper like Balita, the costs and amount of damages (close to half-a-million dollars each) awarded by the courts to the plaintiffs may be considered one of the highest, if not the highest, in Canada.

In one of the cases, Ms. Cusipag was so upset by the decision that she complained against the judge and alluded to his race on a Facebook post. That prompted another suit that found her guilty of contempt. Another judge sentenced her to 21 days in jail. After serving 13 days, she was released. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NGQX-SucJ4).

I remember another case where she was named a defendant by an aging beauty queen, again because of her Facebook post. It seems she has the impulse to comment, react, and express a contrary opinion on anything that comes her way, regardless of its relevance to her paper, or whether supported by hard evidence. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/08/balitas-non-story-to-avenge-hurt.html).

Her prison experience should have taught her a lesson on how to use Facebook. Not all postings on that platform are true. Not all posters there are real people. A big number of users are impostors who fake their names and other personal information. Facebook is a paradise for scammers and crooks.

The people she's trying to defend, allegedly in keeping with Balita's mandate, are those propped up by a self-centered labor recruiter of dubious credentials. At her age, she should know better but she doesn't. She continues to inflict damage to herself and to the paper by fighting on behalf of ghosts and windmills.

Ms. Cusipag writes in one of her Facebook posts: "She (meaning Ms. Hammer) can laugh and laugh but why they are after us when we are publishing truths and helping victims"?

"Truths" - what are those? "Victims" - who are they?  Are they worth the time, money, and headache? (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).