Volume 2, Issue No. 42
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, December 4, 2020
~ What had started as a noble venture to expose the ills in the community had been turned into a weapon for personal vendetta by people behind the ill-fated Periodico tabloid. Over the course of several months, it could not sustain its yellow journalism and its printing, and consequently, its blistering word war with another tabloid. Its financial and advertising lifeline took a beating soon after its true motives came into view. No decent writer would want to be associated with it. Despite the avowed claims, no proof existed to say it's trustworthy, or that its publishers possess the knowledge and integrity to be an advocate for good because they themselves are wrapped in questionable undertakings.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AN END TO PERSONAL VENDETTA?
Filipino Tabloid in Toronto Shuts Down
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
TORONTO - The demise finally came, inevitably, without a whimper, and when it occurred this week, it signaled the end of the indiscriminate deception perpetrated on the community by a sneaky husband-and-wife team and their acolytes.
They almost succeeded in their false pretenses by foisting a public image through media of caring advocates for truth and transparency. Yet what looms in their circumstances is the exact opposite. There are some good, mostly bad, and truly ugly things about them.
Periodico, the tabloid whose first print issue I had helped put out, had to be stopped, if not totally eliminated, for unsound and illicit practices it committed right after it had a taste of what it wrongly perceived as a power to demonize, harass, pressure, and bully people its publishers had identified as enemies.
In fact, one cowardly wannabe writer, in an act that could only be construed as bootlicking, launched his unfounded tirades against persons he hardly knew and clothed himself in a pseudonym in the belief it would shield him from counter-attacks. His "facts" and plain stupidity outed him in no time. He failed miserably.
(Related story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/10/periodico-rogue-tabloid-in-torontos.html. Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7JWqL2AUDc).
As those people habitually did, they stole content from unknowing publications in much the same manner its secretive publishers allegedly victimized gullible individuals in the Philippines and Canada with their money and savings on the pretext of helping them.
The tabloid had only two print issues - the first one in March that I was conned into joining as editor-in-chief, a decision I regret to this day, and which I severed after, and the second six months later in September where it carried all my articles without my knowledge and consent.
Not content with that piracy, Periodico was also running an online edition that also published stories and photos purloined from my web-based Currents & Breaking News, and the Filipino Web Magazine. It was only by chance that I learned about it. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/).
From what I had been led to believe when they invited me in January, Naomi Ong and her husband Roxlee Ong, are the owners and publishers of the print and online edition of Periodico. However, nowhere is this circumstance publicly admitted, and the emerging reason is that the couple is in hiding from furious creditors.
Naomi and Roxlee Ong bear a grudge against Balita, the photo album tabloid, and its publisher Teresita Cusipag, for spreading alleged scandals involving certain individuals the couple had reportedly swindled. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/01/who-in-toronto-is-real-swindler.html).
The allegations, apparently sourced from a dubious "Dr." so-called, and a paralegal once suspended for professional misconduct by the Law Society Tribunal, an independent adjudicative body within the Law Society of Ontario, are published in Balita with photos stolen by Balita from my online postings.
The story about the Ongs as published in Balita is largely based on supposedly personal accounts of quarreling individuals collected from Facebook postings and storified by ghostwriters hired by Balita. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/10/online-and-in-print-periodico-shows-web.html).
Neither Periodico and Ong nor Balita, Cusipag, and her "news" sources are blameless. Each portrays the other as wicked, with the accuser feeling virtuous in the smear attempt. Both take the moral high ground in their dispute.
And so, the enmity had its roots from the angry back and forth on Facebook. As the protagonists traded vitriol after vitriol, their respective supporters and friends also fought on their own. Soon the social media platform has turned into a battleground for half-truths and wild accusations.
But the highlight of this episode is not so much the mudslinging as the last gasp of Periodico. It's the endgame for this still-born tabloid.
Periodico's latest online edition published what might as well be its obituary, as follows: "We will resume in 2021 after the lockdown. Periodico halted newsprint circulation after the announcement of lockdown in Toronto and Peel Region in the wake of coronavirus outbreak in Ontario."
For the first and last time, it spoke the truth. The end. Good riddance! (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).
No comments:
Post a Comment