People Event on July 23-24 in Toronto's Little Manila

Volume 4, Issue No. 5

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, July 19, 2022 

~ There's no holding back the jubilation everyone feels as soon as official word comes out that the pandemic is somewhat abating. Community events here and there speak for themselves. Filipinos are in a celebratory mood and nowhere else would we find that explode except in this hub they call Little Manila. FUN Philippines Toronto Street Festival is on this weekend of July 23 and 24. Meanwhile, the community tries to hurdle a test, the Test of Manila, as it inches its way to reality. 

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A PEOPLE EVENT, A PEOPLE CELEBRATION

FUN Philippines Rolls Out This Weekend

Meanwhile, a Test of Manila Is Underway

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"I wish for the superfluous, for the useless, for the extravagant, for the too much, for that which is not good for anything". - Jean Valjean, Les Miserables

TORONTO - The Filipino community is facing a test, yes, a big test I might as well call it the Test of Manila, next month in a last-gasp effort by archfiends in Little Manila to feel the pulse on whether their proposal would find acceptance and consequently lead to the loosening of purses in support of their questionable venture.

At this late stage, the dream of having a Taste of Manila (ToM) is nowhere near reality. It's an illusion dwelling in the minds of ambitious individuals driven by the thought of making it big monetarily if and when ToM materializes.

Their promos on Facebook hardly register apart from the few misguided souls who look up to ToM as some kind of happy relief from their miserable condition leading a hand-to-mouth existence that many among us deny, understandably so because no Filipino would ever admit failure.

Rather than suffer the fate, they resort to fakery and bluster, the kind of attitude that finds a home among high-profile ToM organizers. They also steal and cover it up with moronic declarations like one half-wit talking head has unashamedly stated to the applause of his nonthinking collaborators.

I try to fathom the meaning of the slogan "tuloy ang saya" which literally translates to English as "continue the happiness" or "resume the fun". Evidently, it's their sense of jubilation that's overpowering them to claim ToM should take off the way its predecessor did prior to mismanagement, bankruptcy, and the pandemic.

So what ToM is to its proponents, is Test of Manila to cynics. It shouldn't be a test were a bunch of incompetents and pretenders are candid enough to know they're selling a stolen idea to people already immuned to scams, rip-offs, and the like.

For a moment the community might be able to indulge them in their "saya" or fun, but there is no telling they would acquiesce to the red-handed ways ToM is being marketed and propagated by idiots who can't distinguish between a goose and a gander. Ever heard of the saying "What's good for the goose is good for the gander"?.

So Test of Manila it is until, and if, ToM fully happens. Meanwhile, let's all brace for a real community event, and I'm referring to FUN Philippines Toronto Street Festival.

From what I could gather from social media postings, this festival takes place this weekend of July 23 and 24 at the junction of Bathurst St. and Wilson Ave., the core of what's now known as Little Manila in the city's North York district.

It shouldn't be mistaken for ToM even as the organization behind it, the Philippine Legacy & Cultural Alliance (PLACA), is the same not-for-profit responsible for ToM's last staging in August 2019.

PLACA makes a particularly boastful assertion of what FUN Philippines would be - "the biggest Filipino street party" in Toronto. That we would find out this weekend.

Its "Eat. Engage, Experience. Enjoy!" mantra is an interesting come-on. Lodged in those four words is the very essence of the Filipino psyche.

My perspective is that FUN Philippines is a people event. A people celebration. A people of diversity rising again from months of solitude. A people set to reclaim joviality. 

Overall, it's a people story . . . of their culture, food, music, and everything in between. It's time to be sociable again come July 23 and 24 in Little Manila. (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).