Balita Tabloid Settles Costs of Litigation

 Volume 2, Issue No. 55

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, January 25, 2021 

~ Getting blamed for losing chunks of money and being called a jinx are just too much to bear. But it happened last week when the person, untiring of efforts to portray herself as a victim, emailed her friends boasting of how much she paid to bring closure to litigation and then blaming others for her misery. The circumstances are different from the truth; her situation is as much a result of her false bravado and thoughtlessness. 

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BALKING AT REALITY 

Bitterness Over Losing Money, Not Over Honor 

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Boasting about wealth is an open invitation to others to divest you of it.” ― Stewart Stafford

TORONTO - A few years after the fact, the bitterness and ill will generated by lawsuits have not dissipated, not ever it would seem, all because they are entangled with huge amounts of payouts.

Any media entity is not invincible to legal challenges especially if it pursues uncovering wrongdoing, abuse, and scandalous activities. It becomes worst when the unprotected media outfit has little or no understanding of the work it sets out to do.

That was the predicament the Balita tabloid found itself in. Over the years, its main staple was entertainment, moviedom scandals, beauty pageants, and a smattering of community gossip, yellow tales, press and praise releases, advertorials, and meaningless writeups passed off as news.

I had hoped to change that culture when I joined in January 2012 upon the invitation of its editor and publisher, the late Ruben Cusipag, a notable journalist in the Philippines before he escaped the wrath of strongman Ferdinand Marcos, immigrated to Canada, and settled in Toronto. (Additional story at: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/310439).

From the mid-90s to 2010, the year I moved to Toronto, I was writing for community periodicals in California, Illinois, and Arizona, then put up my own newspapers beginning in 1998 with a particular focus on investigative journalism. As I expected, the venture attracted adversaries like a moth to a flame.

(Related stories at:https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-inevitable-conflict-between-editors.html and http://www.mabuhayradio.com/san-diego-happenings/exposing-the-scams-and-scandals-is-not-new).

I was taken to court at least two times to stop me from writing about certain personalities in San Diego. Both instances failed as the courts upheld freedom of the press. The bigger problem I thought then was the threat of physical violence than those in courts of law.

(Related stories at: http://www.mabuhayradio.com/san-diego-happenings/superior-court-rejects-edna-consing-concepcion-s-plea-for-a-restraining-order-vs-marquez and http://www.mabuhayradio.com/san-diego-happenings/edna-s-dog-and-pony-show).

I did very much the same thing in Toronto for Balita, effectively raising its profile among the local tabloids, and winning more readers and advertisers enough to crow that it has become Toronto's largest Filipino newspaper by reach, by the number of copies it prints, and by its original content. No other paper came close.

Some of my stories during the time I wrote for Balita had landed me in hot water through no fault of mine alone. A competent editor would have called my attention and flagged my articles if they were veering towards libel. I believe now and I believed then that the legal action brought against me and Balita could have a different outcome had the defense been robust.

I'm saying this now because I'm again at the receiving end of this whining by Balita publisher Teresita Cusipag, its self-declared editor, who calls me a "total jinx".

"You started them all," she screams. "Your fight became our fight . . . You caused our lives hell by just your coming". 

There's a lot of bitterness there, over money essentially, and for one journalist like myself just helping her paper as it had embarked on real journalism, the blame is too much to bear for her misfortune.

Yet through the years when Balita's reputation soared to new heights of admiration for my investigative stories, she was lapping up the recognition and the power that came with it. For, indeed, we were exposing and fighting false giants and dubious role-players in the community, not windmills as in Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote de la Mancha.

Ms. Cusipag said she had a "rude awakening" in having me at Balita, conveniently forgetting that I was invited by its founder Ruben Cusipag to join as a reporter. I knew that he wanted to inject some thinking into the paper but did not have the heart to tell her she was unequal to the task of editing a newspaper simply because she utterly lacked the bona fides.

In my early years in Toronto, I just wanted to have a print outlet for my stories and commentaries. So, Ruben's invitation was a welcome development. I did not know then that my writing stint, which lasted seven years, had constituted employment, a fact concealed from me but was uncovered by Canada Revenue Agency during an audit.

That meant Balita was my employer and as such, it was obligated to comply with certain labor requirements. Upon my dismissal in June 2019 for contravening her and her insults, I asked for a certificate of employment that the provincial labor ministry needed to process my application for insurance. That request was simply ignored.

Ms. Cusipag's latest outburst appeared to have been precipitated by the payment she and her family made to one of the complainants who had sued us for libel and won.

"that idiot (name redacted) is half a million richer today", she wrote in an email on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, and copied to me and three other individuals.

"All this time," she continued, "I thought he was rich, the way he acted so superior, PATAYGUTOM PALA LIKE (name redacted). I HOPE ROMY MARQUEZ IS VERY HAPPY NOW."

Ms. Cusipag could have just told the recipients that she had completed payment of the amount ordered by the court after losing the libel case. But no, she had to sideswipe me, and another person, along the way, suggesting that I take great pleasure in the bad luck that has befallen her. Well, I do understand the pain and I can only commiserate.

However, there's something she said that's truly repulsive by any standard of decency. Verbal insults may be endured but this one she wrote is not tolerable. So repugnant it is that I had to express my disgust in reply to her email, I wrote:

"No matter how bad or how much I lost in any fight, I never wish my enemies ill the way you did, as follows: "I hope he gets COVID fast and his diabetis (sic) to have more and more complications so he would not benefit from all those monies that he has never seen in his life . . . "  And she claims to be religious?

See, it's not all about principle and honor. The damn thing is about money! (Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved).