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).