Periodico, the Rogue Tabloid in Toronto's Filipino Community

Volume 2, Issue No. 34

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 Friday, October 30, 2020 

~ On its death throes, Periodico, or what passes for a tabloid, solicits readers and advertisers like it would a lady of pleasure in the dark corners of its haunts in Toronto's Little Manila. Yet it would not disclose anything about itself nor about the people orchestrating its campaign of lies and distortions. There may be individuals who'll read it for curiosity's sake, or some stores to use it as a wrapper or head protection from the rain. But advertisers? What establishment would risk its name to advertise in a rogue periodical run by rogues in hiding? Don't be victimized. Run a check even before considering this tabloid as a means to reach out.

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PERIODICO: A GOOD-FOR-KUPIT PUBLICATION?

Tabloid Cheats, Lies, Steals, and Gossips 

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.” - Plato

TORONTO - One thing I'd like to share in this space is this sense of delight in knowing the worst of my adversaries do read my articles and find them, well, offensive, humiliating, enlightening, amusing, and energizing to such extent they raise their arms in exasperation.

That's a soothing LOL moment for me, something I never imagine would come from a bunch of pseudo newspaper persons, not necessarily journalists, but who nonetheless seek public recognition as such. In reality, they're just the neighborhood's smart-alecks.

While I savor that instant pride, their enmity has grown proportionately. So what they did was to rob me of my money and at the same time smear me with sewage from their nauseating resto-bar base in Toronto's Little Manila.

They, namely Naomi Ong and her partners in crime in Periodico tabloid, have the temerity to steal my hard cash and try to sully my reputation I built over decades as a journalist. Thus my LOL moment quickly turned into a "sonofagun" or "PI" moment. 

I can't believe it. I just can't believe that they would go that far and ripped me off. 

One scurrilous hack under the pseudonym "laong laan," who I believe is a hybrid, if not a clone of someone sinister, and who I will call, fittingly, as "bulaan" (meaning liar in the vernacular in the Philippines' southern Tagalog region), makes the preposterous claim that I ''was paid $4,320 by a not-for-profit publication" (referring to Periodico) for my services as its editor-in-chief for its one and only legitimate issue in March 2020.

Well, I don't think it's a "not-for-profit publication". It's more likely a "good-for-kupit publication". And I truly mean that, because I never received that much. Where's the money? Either Bulaan was fed the wrong info, or didn't know how to count, or he simply sneaked it off to fatten his purse.

C'mon Naomi Ong, give me my money! Don't say this is another one of your heists. You conned me the first time, and now I learn my lesson. Show up, don't hide, and pay me for everything you and Periodico owe. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7JWqL2AUDc).

Bulaan I believe teamed up with the bi-gendered Marimacho who says "This man (alluding to me, ahem) has no moral scruples. No shame. Walang hiya!". Looks who's talking. Look yourself in the mirror boys, girls, and in-between! Better yet, look at the cowardly gang you surround yourself with. Naomi Ong, Bulaan, Marimacho - aren't they the incorrigible hypocrites of the community?

There's no shame in asking to be paid for superior work. I get compensated handsomely for contributing articles, photos, and videos to mainstream newspapers and online publications in and outside Canada. 

For example, the video of my trip from London, UK to Barcelona, Spain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GZ4TL0DGfE&lc=UgyWSi4jOV5ltNbQYFd4AaABAg) got the interest of London-based ITV, asked for a raw copy and paid for it. The video has total views of 770,329 as of this writing.

If Periodico wanted quality journalism, it must pay the price instead of purloining my stories. It wants to look good but doesn't have the capacity. Its latest issue without my articles is a ridiculous showcase of mental deficiency! If you got a copy, just browse quickly and toss it. Not worth a while.

Once that I had stumbled upon the thievery and demanded payment, the inept Bulaan calls my articles "pretentious fecal musings". Yet they published them, surreptitiously, from April to September without telling me. And he complains when his own musings emit the stench he complains against. 

I've been called names because of my reportage - an inevitability I have to face in being adversarial. I realized early on that I would be stepping on people's toes. I expected to be branded from the time I went into investigative journalism in my former hometown of San Diego, California more than two decades ago. (Full story at: https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2001/jun/14/cover-sinister-hero/?page=1&).

In whatever mode my adversaries categorize me, I don't hold against them. I know they're short on intelligence and candor. I feel they deserve compassion, which I give unconditionally, and a sympathetic ear because their brains are too small to matter, let alone understand. 

Quite obviously what I've been blessed with - the mind to make a career in journalism - is utterly scarce in these people who foist Periodico on the community, people like Naomi Ong, Roxlee Ong, Bulaan, Marinel Lozano, Marimacho, and their idiotic supporters. The best that can be said about them is in the courts and the police.

Journalism requires talent, grit, knowledge, a keen perception, a nose for news, etc., none of which Naomi Ong,  Bulaan, Marimacho, and Periodico have. I recognize, however, that they have a talent for swindling people. They cheat, they lie, they steal, they gossip, they disguise - that's the sum total of who they are.

Bulaan's comprehension is regrettably inadequate. He endeavors to write, and write he did, in the language and fashion of a spurned marimacho wanting to gain acceptance by a society larger than his and Naomi Ong's equally stealthy associates in that seedy resto-bar.

Bulaan faultily claims that I have "no professional courtesy towards his fellow journalists" at the Philippine Press Club of Ontario (PPCO). Excuse me, they're out of my league! I wish he knew better than rating me with this group. My credentials as a journalist, meaning foreign correspondent, editor, reporter, and videojournalist speak for me. There's just no comparison. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik0AXXyPXaE).

With his substandard reasoning attuned to PPCO, journalism is doomed. He is doomed, Periodico is doomed. Small wonder that Periodico relies on gossips and rumor mills. It can't even upgrade itself, perhaps believing that PPCO embodies good journalism. 

Both Bulaan and Marimacho are ill-informed; PPCO is a social club pretending to be a real press club. The comedians similarly situated as dumb and dumber are all there. "Dumbest" - that's dumb in the superlative degree exemplified by Naomi Ong, Bulaan, Marinel Lozano, and Marimacho - could boost its membership.

The tittle-tattle about me that Bulaan is spreading is the kind of stuff that could clear out his pocket and land him in jail along with his cohorts. Don't be a peeping Tom. My personal matters are my private business. He dwells on old personal attacks he plucked from the mud pit and tries to resurrect them. I am not inclined to dignify any of them. Recycling all the cow dung should stop already.

I've come and gone to the US several times to visit my folks and I'm still here. Bulaan could have looked closer . . .  at Naomi Ong, whose love life is more productive and colorful than mine, and Marimacho's. One truth is Marimacho is overly affectionate and macho in looks, and that means she can go both ways. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JHHCnYhjfM).

Bulaan repeats the lie that "Periodico finally did the right thing and let him go". That's not true. I freed myself from the clutches of disreputable and untrustworthy persons right after my job as editor-in-chief ended with the print issue of March 2020. 

I can not continue working with Naomi Ong, her husband Roxlee Ong, Marinel Lozano, and others who are in constant hiding. I realize now that being associated with them even for a brief while has uplifted their reputation and soiled mine. It's beneficial for them and detrimental to me. I won't let it happen again.

When Naomi Ong begged me again to help, I declined until I got paid in advance. I feared she would run away and disappear after the paper is published. I don't want to be duped like her other victims in Toronto, London, Ontario, and California. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/10/tabloid-brags-about-being-sensation.html).

As I have warned before, I am alerting the community to this publication. Don't fall into their trap. Don't be deceived. Bulaan's message that "Periodico Pilipino began as a response to the lies and slander of the Balita newspaper" is an absolute falsehood.

Periodico sweet-talks like Naomi Ong: "Stay with us, watch us grow, get your friends and businesses to advertise with us, and together we can make the Filipino community a better place, a community of love and understanding . . . "  Really? Are you serious? A "better place" for swindling?

Periodico can not, would not, even identify its writers; has no office address, has no phone or email, and no means to reach them. What it's saying is all bullshit, chicken manure, and cow dung. Yeah, and please pardon my French. (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).