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? 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

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).