Who Are the Real Scammers in the Filipino Community?

Volume 2, Issue No. 17

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 Monday, September 21, 2020 

~ At some point in time, threats and intimidation are bound to happen. That's the nature of the beast. To engage in one of the five types of journalism - investigative - is practically an invitation for some mayhem. But once one has committed to a cause one firmly believes in, the amount of bullying one receives only serves to strengthen one's resolve. Toronto's Filipino community is not without a retinue of roughnecks masquerading as do-gooders.

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THE NATURE OF THE BEAST 

Intimidation by Phone Calls and Spam Emails

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“The ones who hate me the most are the ones who don't scare me.” ― Rebecca McKinsey

TORONTO - Almost every day my phone rings without a caller. Nobody at the other end of the line would answer once I lift the receiver. "Hello, helloooo, hellooooooo," I would bellow and still no response. A few moments later, the line goes dead.

The incessant calls have different numbers originating from within the Greater Toronto Area, sometimes outside of the metropolis but still within the Ontario province. The authorities I had asked to verify said the numbers are active. So it's not difficult to see the people behind the phone numbers.

I have a few selected friends who knew my number, and for sure, none of them would play tricks on me. This reminds me of those days in California where anonymous calls and spams flooded my phone and email address soon after I wrote scathing articles in my newspapers about a bunch of crooks in San Diego and Los Angeles.

Intimidation is a prelude for the worst things to come based on my experience as a journalist. It is intended to sow fear and confusion. With it comes a subliminal warning to stop whatever one is doing, and in my case, to cease reporting on individuals and organizations of doubtful backgrounds. 

What else would I speculate on as the trigger except for the series of expository articles I've written and published involving persons and organizations of interest? I see no other rationale for the spike in anonymous calls and unwanted emails designed perhaps to crash my internet.

At this point, a pattern similar to what I went through in California is already emerging. Always, and I mean always as in incessantly, the phone and the computer become the pathway to annoy me with all kinds of garbage. Over the years I've learned to accept and tolerate such attempts knowing my articles have affected some people adversely.

One email I opened titled "Catching Up!" supposedly originated from a "Mila Eustaquio-Syme (syme@rogers.com)" who wrote: "Hope this finds you well. Please let me know when you get this, I'd like to ask you for a favor. Stay safe and healthy, Mila". That was at 1:57 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020.

I responded with a "Got it!" three hours later at 5:10 p.m. after I googled who "Mila Eustaquio-Syme" was. My search showed a person with that name who's a justice of the peace in Brampton. Perhaps, I thought, there's a big story she wanted me to know.

At 9:53 p.m. this "Mila Eustaquio-Syme" answered back: "Thanks very much for your concern, i am sorry for bothering you with this mail, I need to get an GOOGLE PLAY GIFT CARDS for my Niece, Its her birthday but i can't do this now because I'm currently traveling and i tried purchasing online but unfortunately no luck with that.Can you get it from any store around you? I'll pay back as soon as i am back. Kindly let me know if you can handle this. Await your soonest response. Stay safe and healthy, Mila"  

At 10:16 p.m., I replied: "Sorry, I'm not concerned and I don't do birthdays. Find someone else you can victimize. I'm reporting you to the police." That was the end of it. Obviously, it was a scam, and whoever she was feared being unmasked, and potentially arrested. Elite scammer, eh?

Months ago concerned citizens invited me to edit a new publication which they will fund. Thus in March, we came out with Periodico basically to inform the public about the true state of things in the community. The first issue highlighted certain groups and personalities that had been targeting their personal adversaries for public shaming.

Their main enabler is Balita, the entertainment-oriented tabloid and largest photo album in Toronto's Filipino community, published by Teresita Cusipag, the accidental editor who knew little, if at all, about the fundamentals of journalism. Nothing personal there; it's a statement of facts. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/08/balitas-non-story-to-avenge-hurt.html).

For that maiden issue, Allan Hammer, a writer, poet, and painter in the United States, wrote an explosive article concerning a certain Chito Collantes who he claimed had scammed his wife, Lily Miranda Hammer, of twenty-thousand dollars ($20,000). (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKPL-W7am7Q).

Ms. Hammer had been demanding its return but some people close to Collantes said he had spent part of the money to buy uniforms for an unknown basketball team apparently as a form of community outreach by his labor recruiting business. Collantes has not refuted the charge nor any of the allegations.

"Through the years," Hammer reports, "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".

What an irony this is! Collantes fronts as the founder of a group supposedly running after scammers in the community and here he is being unmasked by a victim as "relentless scammer" himself.

His "Elite Crusaders" is neither elite nor crusader. In fact, its "crusade" so-called is in pictures only! It's an all-bark-and-no-bite gang meant to prop up Collantes' recruitment agency. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/03/bully-loose-cannon-whos-afraid-of-tess.html).

Of course, being a mindless believer, Balita publishes their pictures in the usual four familiar poses - either they're eating, drinking, or karaoke-singing at their hangout in Toronto's Little Manila, or passing rumors with Ms. Cusipag herself as some kind of a muse. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NGQX-SucJ4).

If this dubious "Elite Crusaders" is intent in doing what it purports to do, why not dig into organizations with questionable claims of serving the Filipino community? 

For example - and here I don't mean to imply or suggest in any way that scammers exist in their midst - there's Filipino Centre Toronto which has stonewalled on baring its financial situation after it grossed four million dollars from the sale of its old building. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZFXKzvQqYY). 

FCT is a big fish by any measure. With $4 million cash on hand, plus financial grants of thousands of dollars stashed somewhere in the deep bowels of its office in the Toronto neighbourhood of Scarborough, its future as a non-profit is secure. Then there are beauty pageants, a rich enclave of scam artists and crooks, which are actually cash cows. I hope there are no elite scammers in those ventures.

Balita is so obsessed with putting down a legitimate business concern but it lacks the knowledge and the necessary tools to engage in investigative journalism. Instead, it relies on ambiguous Facebook postings by trolls and on the say-so of a pretentious gang of self-declared activists who are of doubtful integrity.

So pathetic is the condition the tabloid finds itself in. For instance, its issue for September 16-30, 2020, is the best evidence to show how trashy it has become since embracing the alleged "crusaders". 

I hate to say it, but Balita has now evolved into a mouthpiece, a propaganda outlet essentially, by the most unreliable people in the GTA who, if the Hammer couple is to be believed, are "scammers" themselves.

A self-respecting publication will not cut and paste from Facebook the heated back-and-forth exchanges between disputants without explaining what, how, and why they are in a virtual shouting match. I was appalled looking at it. There's no point publishing a paper if one's just fishing for news and pictures on social media to appear relevant.

But there it is, occupying the whole page 2. The elite scammers, oops, sorry for the slip, I mean elite crusaders, scored another freebie to promote their group at Balita's expense.

And if by chance my readers in Toronto got their copies, please take a look at pages 33 and 61 and you'd be amazed at how lucky some people are. Perhaps it's a mistake that their group photos, all seven of them hugging the entire space, are on the two separate pages of the same issue. No big deal? It's been like that anyway. (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).