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.
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://
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://
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).
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