Fruits of the Steal Benefit ToM Organizers

Volume 4, Issue No. 13

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, August 22, 2022 

~ From conception to implementation, the stolen ideas, images, and videos helped organizers succeed in having their post-pandemic Taste of Manila 2022 (ppToM2022) roll out this past weekend. This latest version of the festival is nothing more than a copy of the historical Taste of Manila of 2014-2019 (ToM 2014-2019) which lies dead and buried in our collective consciousness. The only notable change is the purported not-for-profit organization behind it, which is peopled by impudent individuals of different personal and financial interests. 

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REVIVING THE HISTORICAL TASTE OF MANILA

Stolen Ideas and Images Propel 2022 ToM

Organizers Succeeded in Luring the Community to the Festival

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again". - B.F. Skinner

TORONTO - Not that I want to enable the thieves who stole photos and videos from my past coverage of the historical Taste of Manila (ToM 2014-2019), but I'm a bit delighted to know that I have unwittingly contributed to the actualization of that street festival this weekend.

Of course, organizers would be hard-pressed to give credit - thieves rarely admit wrongdoing even if caught in the act - but the substantive content of their promotional videos played an important role in attracting crowds who were less concerned with the behind-the-scene events than in celebrating a summer outing.

Regardless of their refusal to accept responsibility for stealing images, or even acknowledge their mistakes and apologize for them, their deed is already cast in digital stone and can be viewed anytime, anywhere through my flagship online news outlet The Filipino Web Channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/FilipinoWebChannel#g/u).

The 26 articles I've written since January for my blog (https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/) are equally set in stone, available to anyone, who might be interested in finding out why I'm raising hell against what was done by a gang so brazen it defies all manner of respect and basic courtesy.

Stealing and then deflecting the act to defend it is unacceptable, such as this moronic rant by Mondee (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd02DO503DUstarting at 2:05 mark) who is a co-partner of a Cecille Araneta in the so-called International Entertainment Company. (Related story and video  at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2022/06/whats-in-name-is-araneta-araneta.html and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdTnX700_a8).

They may choose to ignore the issues I raised and attack me with their vicious lies, fine, but I will not give up exposing their real intent, their true selves, and their agenda that may call for ripping off the community. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_398v7dDQhQ).

I may not have a direct hand in helping promote the historical ToM, but I'm certain my unremunerative coverage through countless articles and videos was the linchpin crucial to ToM's success in the six years of its pre-pandemic existence. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2022/04/international-journalist-in-taste-of.html).

Their two-day fest marking the post-pandemic Taste of Manila 2022 (ppToM 2022) is over. My fight isn't.

By now, they must be counting nickels and dimes, and sharing the loot among themselves, thanks to unsuspecting patrons who trooped to Little Manila and spent every hard-earned dollar to enjoy this new season of community gathering.

I certainly have doubts about how they will give back to the community and account for what they gain, or share, the fruits of a festival whose come-ons were stolen from my coverage. Is that blood money on their hands? There's a saying that stolen fruit is the sweetest. Is this it? (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2022/05/is-iec-legit-nfp-org.html).

A sizable crowd may have been enticed to spend their time and money in ways reminiscent of previous ToMs, that's alright. And given the political atmosphere of the moment, it was also inevitable that politicians of all colors and stripes showed up and rendered their usual blah blah blah.

In fact, the tradpols sat with officials at the head of rows of chairs on the stage, indicating the order of importance, while the less-significant role players stayed at the back and at the periphery but still up there in full view of spectators below.

The sight reprised the historical ToM like it was a reminder that it's back again from its old habit of catering to those who wield power and to those who pretend to exercise some form of influence over the community.

I wrote once that Filipinos seem to content themselves with being themselves, their presence recognize only during events that guarantee the widest public exposure for politicians. In general, Filipinos like to be pandered to; they feel taller in stature than they actually are.

One example is the self-declared founder of ToM, Rolly Mangante, alias "Kabise", the former driver at the Philippine Consulate. He almost felt like a saint, zooming to high heavens, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called him "Tito Rolly" at one of the early episodes of ToM. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcs34cnA2bs).

I had to take down that video when I found out that he had been capitalizing on it even in Manila where he was trying to enlist financial support from corporations and politicians, including then-President Rodrigo Duterte and Senator Manny Pacquiao.

The "Tito Rolly" reference opened doors for "Kabise" as it gave him reason to project a sense of proximity to power, enough to convince unknowing institutions and politicians to endorse and help ToM. 

It's the same gambit employed in ppToM 2022. And they, meaning "Kabise" and his partners, were quite successful! (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).

Was MPF Filipino or Chinese Celebration?

Volume 4, Issue No. 12

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, August 16, 2022 

~ The celebration was a long time coming. Mabuhay Philippines Festival managed to pull its two-day event this past weekend to live up to its declared theme: "Bangon" or Rise. Indeed, the festivity literally buoyed up the spirit and away from the gloom of the coronavirus pandemic. One misnomer happened though. What should have been an all-Filipino occasion had crossed a controversial political line with the inclusion of an overwhelming number of Falun Dafa or Falun Gong practitioners in a parade that was supposed to showcase a Filipino religious-historical tradition personified by local beauty queens. A santacruzan with a Chinese marching band? Yes, it was. And it's not a joke either.

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FALUN DAFA OUTNUMBERS FILIPINOS IN THEIR OWN FIESTA

Mabuhay Philippines Festival Goes Chinese

Complete with a Marching Band, They Dominated the Parade

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgement, generally gives as much pain as pleasure.” ― Frances Burney

TORONTO - On Sunday, August 14, I thought I stumbled into the wrong event. 

But the site was perfectly alright, Nathan Phillips Square, where I covered the day before the opening ceremonies of the Mabuhay Philippines Festival (MPF), reputed to be "the longest running and the largest Philippine culture and heritage event in Toronto Canada".

Could my eyes be failing me? No, not really. What was going on was the continuation of the two-day festivity, an annual (save for two years at the height of the pandemic) undertaking by the Philippine Independence Day Council (PIDC), the umbrella of about 50 small organizations.

It looked strange that the sight that greeted me while lingering in the sweltering summer heat was two waves of men and women clad in blue and white vests, pants, and matching headdresses; and the others, in bright yellow pantsuits, and yellow headgear.

They are actually Chinese, or, to be politically correct, Taiwanese, the practitioners of Falun Dafa or Falun Gong which is "an ancient spiritual practice in the Buddhist tradition". (Full background of what Falun Gong is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong).

Shortly before 3 p.m., the blue-and-white attired band marched into the square like soldiers prepping for a review. On the other side, the yellow-clad members with their distinctive banner quietly ambled in the shadows of Toronto City Hall.

PIDC had scheduled an afternoon parade, a santacruzan familiar to most Filipinos, around the block showcasing its bevy of beauty queens and backstopped by other celebrities from Edgar Sulit's IPEN (International Professional Entertainment Network). (More info at: https://www.facebook.com/ipencanada).

Wow, I said to myself, it's good to know that PIDC is very much committed to propagating a part of Philippine culture through the santacruzan, a religious-historical parade traditionally held in May in the homeland. (Background at: https://primer.com.ph/tips-guides/2016/03/30/understanding-the-santacruzan/).

I have nothing against the Chinese in the mainland and the Chinese in Taiwan but why include Falun Dafa in what ought to be a celebration of Philippine culture and heritage? Nobody was there to give an official answer.

A former PIDC official, however, ventured an opinion. The inclusion of Falun Dafa was an exercise in multiculturalism, it was explained. Toronto is a multicultural city. Besides, judging by the poor turnout, the MPF seemed uneventful and unexciting for many Filipinos to participate.

I might have been too early for the climactic moment, which was the performance by music artist Joey Albert in the early evening. Well, I did not have the time to wait that long, from 10:30 a.m. when the program began and broke nearly an hour later for lunch, and on again at 6 p.m. when it resumed.

I was looking for events to report on and stories to write, not entertainment to watch. That basically was the reason for the coverage. I accomplished the first one when Toronto Mayor John Tory gave in to a long-standing challenge to eat "balut", the duck egg embryo the Filipino menfolk believe is an aphrodisiac. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YzHpCtUJXs).

For non-Filipinos like the mayor, "balut" is a turnoff very much like the malodorous "bagoong," a condiment made of fermented fish or shrimp paste usually used as a salting ingredient in vegetable preparations like pinakbet or dinengdeng. So, it's quite a big deal once he had agreed to eat it, and did with so much gusto at MPF.

I've seen Falun Dafa in some past coverages but not this big. They dominated the quadrangle and their presence easily outnumbered visitors and guests to the MPF. And much to my further disappointment, they took prominence in the parade.

A viewer could not make up whether MPF was a Filipino or a Chinese event. For chrissakes, it was supposed to be a Filipino celebration that ended the hiatus from the pandemic.

For political reasons, Falun Dafa is banned in mainland China. Considering the conflict, it's not farfetched to think its presence in the parade was an expression of support by the MPF and PIDC to Falun Dafa versus mainland Chinese. (Full story at: https://thebl.com/china/falun-dafa-inspires-young-and-old-as-falun-dafa-day-is-celebrated-across-the-world.html).

Falun Dafa's inclusion in the MPF is a huge propaganda victory that tended to demonize the Chinese. Currently, Beijing and Taipei are saber-rattling over the recent visit to Taiwan of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Three other House members followed suit, aggravating the situation.

The Taiwan-based Falun Dafa did not have to say anything in that MPF parade. The visuals of them marching in the city's main streets were priceless advertising, thanks to PIDC. (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).

When Hyping Taste of Manila Is An Overkill

Volume 4, Issue No. 11

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, August 15, 2022 

~ They would go to such lengths as to engage in overkill to attract money and people to support a post-pandemic Taste of Manila festival proposed this month. Utterly lacking in imagination, the current organizers resort to means both foul and questionable in promoting an in-person revival of a festival that had, for once, rendered itself as some kind of unifying force. Except that the former organizers had fumbled over money and ego. 

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SO FULL OF STOLEN IDEAS, IMAGES, AND VIDEOS

Overhyping Taste of Manila 2022-?

Difference Between Historic ToM and Post-Pandemic ToM

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“There is very little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude.” ― W. Clement Stone

TORONTO - In its third year in 2017, I coined the phrase "the undisputed king of Filipino festivals in North America". A variation I also coined was "the largest Filipino festival in North America". I meant both to describe the Taste of Manila street festival which came into existence in August 2014.

The claims I staked at that time remain undisputed. Of course, no other festivity of that sort in and out of Canada matched that. It was not a wild claim. In fact, I reached that conclusion only after doing a bit of sleuthing. I knew that when challenged, I had to prove it was true.

North America is half the continent. And for many Filipinos, the two out of three countries in that region attractive to them are the United States and Canada. Mexico is not much of a magnet unless one finds it a convenient escape route by crossing the southern border with California.

My research therefore brought me to American communities where a significant number of Filipinos live, work, and raise families. And these are in California, Hawaii, Nevada, Virginia, New York, Illinois, Texas, Washington, and Arizona, among others. California tops them all with a Filipino population of 1.65 million as of 2017.

Where there are Filipinos, it's a certainty community events like a fiesta are present; it's a way of life, a part of the social fabric that enables them to cope and survive. And yet, nothing in those US states and in Canadian provinces approximates the size Taste of Manila had mustered in the six years of its existence.

An upstart group consisting of both old and new faces in community organizing is marketing a new Taste of Manila to be held sometime this month. Its slogan "tuloy ang saya" (roughly, continue with the fun) indirectly admits to its recent birth.

Yet it promotes the proposed Taste of Manila like the pre-pandemic Taste of Manila that everybody knew in the years 2014 to its social demise in 2019. Current organizers under the banner of a so-called not-for-profit have adopted an idea stolen, again, from me and from my published articles. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcs34cnA2bs).

The catchphrase "The BIggest Filipino Street Festival in North America" is an overhype. It has no basis in fact simply because it has no track record to speak of. While the title Taste of Manila (2014-2019) harks back to the old, the newly-surfaced Taste of Manila (2022-?) has no life story, to begin with.

As in the recent past, organizers have the habit of stealing ideas, images, and videos - a profound indication of its utter lack of substantive materials to promote the festival and gain support from unknowing corporate backers. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_398v7dDQhQ).

As of this writing, the people behind ToM 2022-? have not admitted to the stealing of photos and videos from my YouTube channel despite overwhelming evidence. The short and stocky "the tall (order)" called Mondee defended the act in his usual moronic rants during a press conference in April (see video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd02DO503DU).

I guess that with nothing to rely on, ToM 2022-? had to engage in shady undertakings. Another slogan, "The Biggest Filipino Street Festival Outside of the Philippines," also found its way into the early versions of its website.

That's not from ToM 2022-?. And neither is it from the newly-surfaced not-for-profit. It's actually an original from Teresa Torralba, the silent but hard-working brains behind the rapid successes of the pre-pandemic Taste of Manila festival.

Well, ToM 2022-? is a bad copycat. It apes without thought to what it is doing. One example, and please take note of the glaring mistakes, and I quote verbatim: "We're BAAACCCCKKKK! The TASTE OF MANILA STREET FESTIVAL, one of Canada's largest street festival and the most attended Filipino festival outside of the Philippines is back. Taste of Manila is returning on the streets after eight years and two pandemic years! . . . "

OMG! Their limited creative faculties, if such even existed, made them try to be authentic. Look, they combined mine and Torralba's ideas and fused them into something unimaginable, resulting in profuse soundbites. Can't they KISS, meaning keep it simple, stupid?

And then there's the math problem so simple any first-grader knows. When one adds up "after eight years and two pandemic years", that means 10 years. The pre-pandemic ToM lasted only six years, from 2014 to 2019. Eight plus two equals ten. Where did they get the eight? And the two?

They must be counting nickel and dimes, lots of them, should ToM 2022-? materialize this year and the years after. But then, they should not forget that most if not all of the substantive content of their website and videos were either stolen or appropriated without the knowledge and consent of their owners.

That's just a reminder that ToM 2022-? is not an original. It's a poor copy of the historic ToM of 2014-2019. (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).

No Way to Treat a Diplomat Like What Balita Had Done

Volume 4, Issue No. 10

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, August 2, 2022 

~ WTF? Eighty pages of photos, ads, and irrelevant articles and not even a decent space to inform the Filipino community of the shocking death of Philippine Ambassador Pedro O. Chan who was Consul General in Toronto for a short period in April 2012. He who opened the doors of the consulate to his constituents without so much as an appointment. The man ought to be treated with deference especially since he passed in a vehicular accident. Meanwhile, two entertainers who also died got much better exposure with their obituaries and photos. (See collage). Where's common decency here? 

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THE TRAGIC DEATH OF AMBASSADOR PEDRO CHAN

A Perverted Sense of News Coverage

 A Toronto Tabloid Treated His Passing Like a Social Event

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"The insult dishonors the one who infers it, not the one who receives it."

― Diogenes of Sinope

TORONTO - Like many of us affected by Ambassador Pedro O. Chan during his tenure as Philippine consul general in Toronto, I mourn his loss. He was a friend and an aspiring media colleague who unfortunately had not had the time to practice the art of the written word, as he had wished, in favor of serving the people through diplomacy.

That his death was tragic - "due to a vehicular accident in Butuan, Agusan del Norte," according to Francisco Noel R. Fernandez III, Charge d'Affaires, ad interim, of the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa - makes it all the more distressing.

Towards the end of his 10-month term in Toronto in April 2012, Congen Pete to many friends and Brod Pete to a selected few was celebrated by practically all community organizations and private individuals, without a doubt a recognition of his competence in pursuing programs benefitting Filipinos.

I call attention again to the fate that has befallen him if only to decry the profane treatment his death got from a tabloid that claims, without proof, that it is "the largest and the most read in the Filipino community". 

The second part of that marketing slogan, and I quote, "the most read in the Filipino community" is concerning to me as a journalist. To be sure, it is not a statement of fact; rather, it's a say-so to soothe frayed nerves.

If indeed true, Brod Pete was a victim of misrepresentation. Given his stature as a diplomat, his passing would have warranted a front-page story; if not, even a headline that leads the reader to another page where Chargé Fernandez's announcement would have appeared.

There was none of these. Instead, his demise was regarded, essentially, as a social event, posted among pictures of merrymakers marking the success of a recently-ended street festival. 

His two pictures - one, with artist Mogi Mogado handing him his caricature; and two, with the late journalist Ruben Cusipag being congratulated at an event - were buried at the bottom of a page titled In & Around Town (page 39) of Balita.

The only indication that Congen Pete had died was in the two captions that stated: "Rest in peace our good friend Amba Pedro Chan . . . " and in the second photo "Rest in peace now Amba Pedro Chan". Since when did an obituary of a prominent Philippine official who met a shocking death sound like the two captions?

Insensitive, insulting, depraved - that's how I view this Balita coverage of Congen Pete. He had made his mark in the Greater Toronto Area, particularly, and in other areas of Canada under his jurisdiction that I am not aware of, yet there's no mention of him ever serving the community.

I feel so demeaned for him. It's an indignity for a respected diplomat to be treated the way Balita had done it.

The tabloid, one of the oldest in Toronto, has been publishing 80 pages ever since I wrote for it in January 2012 and ended in June 2019. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2019/07/writing-column-quarter-of-century-on.html).

Not that those 80 pages carried relevant content, but a large number is devoted to photos of people and the events they attended. Year in and year out, the same faces are splashed generously on pages after pages of the paper.

Dominating the last few pages are the columns and writeups of about anything, such as rumors of movie stars getting impregnated, of blind items involving certain personalities, and all the chitchat anyone with a big mouth likes to hear.

In that sense, the paper may be justified in saying it's "the most read in the Filipino community". And look what people read. Nothing to edify them. Nothing to improve their sad plight. Nothing, but to perpetuate the false sense of belonging to a class of pleasure-oriented, entertainment-driven party animals.

If Balita could not sacrifice a half-page or a full-page article and photos of Congen Pete, it could have repositioned his images with Mogi and Ruben on top of any page just to give importance to the man who had opened the doors of the consulate to the people of Toronto.

To see him at the bottom of the middle page is truly bizarre. At its most basic, it's disrespectful. Burying him deep among smiling people celebrating their happy event is the height of impertinence.

As I have said before, publishing a newspaper is not merely filling spaces with pictures and whatnot and then going to the printer and distributing copies to ethnic stores. A huge responsibility rests on the shoulder of whoever is the publisher and editor.

The case of Congen Pete is symptomatic of what ails the community newspaper sector. The local media is saturated with incompetent role players with fraudulent credentials. Journalism as a noble profession is reduced to an embellishment by individuals wanting to enhance their status and boost their sagging public image.

Apropos, the sex kitten so-called who brazenly posted on Facebook a press card with a photo of herself to indicate she was an "international reporter", which was not true, of course. Well, she unraveled herself by writing a "report" any elementary school grader would disown for grammatical lapses. 

There's also the sex maniac who hides behind a camera, passing himself off as "media" to victimize women and terrorize his enemies by threatening them with his purported exposé.

Anyway, the point of all this is to highlight the sad state of community media. Congen Pete was a very consequential person to be relegated to a "space filler". Nobody, not a tabloid, would rob him of the dignity he deserved, even in death. (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).