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).