Gala 2022 a Show of the Peacocks?

Volume 4, Issue No. 14

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 Friday, September 2, 2022 

~ Some notable members of Toronto's Filipino community appear to have difficulty accepting the reality of their lives or chosen professions, trying instead to take on the appearance of actors modeling wearing apparel. Is it a weakness being exploited, an attempt to outdo others, or just an honest desire to shine and be recognized? Is a sitting Member of Parliament - supposedly a lawmaker hailed as a "first" in her community - promoting clothes for a fashion designer articulating the collective voice of the Filipino community? Is it popular acceptance the MP yearns for but never gets?

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MABUHAY PHILIPPINES FESTIVAL GALA 2022

Do We Want Leaders or Celebrities?

The Festival Highlights the Conundrum the Community Is In

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“You have to be willing to stand up to authority. You have to be willing to lose friends.” 

- Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic

TORONTO - Do we have leaders or do we have celebrities? Put another way, do we have leaders who want to be celebrities, or do we have celebrities who want to be leaders? It's an either-or, or neither-nor, question.

I'm putting this poser forward after watching video coverage of the "Mabuhay Philippines Festival gala night 2022" on social media. I wasn't there, that's why I had to source it from others, thank you.

The cheerful and most likable "baby" around - that's well-known veteran movie scribe Baby K. Jimenez aka BKJ - had been so gracious as to invite me to the three festivities lined up by the Philippine Independence Day Council (PIDC) for summer. (About BKJ: https://www.balita.ca/?s=baby+k.+jimenez).

I actually covered the one within the city at Nathan Phillips Square since it's closer to me. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2022/08/was-mpf-filipino-or-chinese-celebration.html)

(Videos: 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YzHpCtUJXs; 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYmUWy15SEo; 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHB1KzppqSg; and 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxTNvKmsFiU ).

The other two events' venue at Premiere Ballroom & Convention Centre in Richmond Hill was quite distant from my place (29 kilometers by car). Taking public transit meant spending at least one-and-a-half hours one way sitting on a bus, train, and bus again. So I told BKJ it was unlikely for me to go there and cover it.

That trip would have been a hassle. Besides, I had very little interest in seeing people dressed like peacocks strutting around in their ostentatious best. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, officers and members of many community organizations outbid each other in pomposity. Is it a Filipino thing? I don't know.

PIDC's gala night was no exception. It mimicked splendor for both important and less-notable persons, aspiring socialites, wannabes, and social climbers who went to be part of what can be described as a post-pandemic bash that threw caution to the wind, all in the spirit of good time and conviviality. Happy days are here again?

An evening of Philippine culture could be a convenient way of calling it. For one major reason, a fashion designer, a regular at PIDC events, was presenting his latest creation of wearing apparel highlighting Philippine fabrics. For another, his models are not exactly the crème de la crème of the community, except for some.

I saw some familiar faces glowing in their flowing butterfly gowns parading on the floor before an admiring audience of friends and families. What a night, I murmured to myself, quite impressed by the luxuriant sight.

PIDC has literally risen from the throes of the pandemic. Its gala night and the fashion show two days later at Nathan Phillips Square were the strongest indications of recovery. In fact, its general theme was Rise or Bangon (bá·ngon) in Tagalog which a Filipino federal official mispronounced, accenting it on the second syllable.

The models are a dime a dozen, except for two who I thought were a bit freakish not because of their physical looks but due to the high public office they hold. Which leads me to ask: Do we want leaders or celebrities? One or the other, or both? 

I refer to the Philippine Consul General in Toronto, Orontes V. Castro, and a Member of Parliament, Rechie Valdez, the Filipino-Canadian boulangère turned lawmaker by a strange twist of fate. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW_8DFPz9pw).

Acclaimed time and again, and she herself has restated, "as the first Filipino woman elected Member of Parliament in Canada", Valdez was among the live mannequins who proudly showed off the new collection of designer Renee Salud, dubbed by a Manila-based periodical as "Philippine Ambassador of Fashion." 

The 75-year-old couturier is a mainstay of the Mabuhay Festival since several years ago. He comes and goes under the auspices of PIDC. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhbZcI5i_zQ).

Seeing Valdez as a model for Salud feels like a letdown for me as a voter, a Filipino, and a Canadian. Though she declares on her website that she "is committed to listening to the constituents of Mississauga–Streetsville so that she can represent their voices in Parliament," her official standing gives her wide latitude in being THE voice of Filipinos and Canadians of Filipino ancestry throughout Canada. 

Certainly modeling clothes is the least many of us expect of her. I suppose we want to see brains, figuratively of course, not looks. We want to see her deviate from the recent past where another Filipino lawmaker did the same thing - ramp modeling. Did our MP get an honorarium (money or clothes) for lending the prestige of her office to the designer via the Mabuhay Festival?

Despite her lack of experience in politics and lawmaking, she was plucked from nowhere by the leadership of the Liberal Party and boosted in what appears to me as a token recognition of the existence of a growing Filipino diaspora. It is the height of tokenism, I believe.

Having said that, her brief stint as a catwalk model did damage, again in my estimation, any effort to project a favorable image of Filipino Canadians in the mainstream. That we are a community viewed as keen on fiestas and all kinds of celebrations is strengthened all the more by Valdez's appearance as a model.

Yet she recognized early on that she has a burden to fulfill that comes with being a public official. "I myself have the unique opportunity of also not just representing Mississauga–Streetsville, but for the first time being able to be the voice of a larger community," she told an interviewer on CTV News.

"I realize the responsibility that lays on me to be able to speak about the issues that are very similar to others, but very unique to Filipinos . . . It's a very proud moment," she added. (Full interview at: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/i-feel-a-great-responsibility-meet-liberal-rechie-valdez-canada-s-first-filipina-mp-1.5629014).

In another interview in September last year, she stated that wanted to be a “voice for positive change in government.”

Already one year in office, what has she articulated for us in Parliament? Is her on-the-job training not over yet? (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).