Volume 4, Issue No. 34
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
Our latest as of Saturday, December 24, 2022
~ The Filipino community is not wanting in role players, actors, pretenders, and so forth, and there are willing if unseeing enablers who take delight in promoting them regardless of the wrongs being committed. A purported historical account of the Taste of Manila street festival appears to be tailored to burnish an image soiled by alleged corruption and mismanagement.
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REVISING THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
Distortions, Factual Omissions at Taste of Manila
An Enabler Glorifies the Act and the Actor
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
"What you allow is what will continue". - Unknown
TORONTO - The official website of Taste of Manila Inc. (https://www.thetasteofmanila.com/) has published a purported historical account of the street festival since it began in August 2014 in a North York hub now referred to, unofficially, as Little Manila, which is no more than a one-kilometer stretch of Bathurst St. from its junction at Wilson Ave.
The acknowledged author of that article is a certain Grace who, I surmise is Grace Pammit alias Grace Pammit-Luna, the "executive administrator" of Taste of Manila Production, the alliance that counts for its officers Rolly Mangante, Cecille Araneta, Ramon Datol, Danna Luna, among others. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdTnX700_a8).
This is the group, along with PESO (Philippine Events Services Ontario) led by the trio of Philip Beloso, Pepito Torralba, and Jerome Peralta responsible for the Taste of Manila (ToM) virtual presentations of 2020 and 2021 which stole video footage from The Filipino Web Channel. (Video art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXqjO8AWUJ4).
I have no idea who Grace is. Incidentally, what is the relation of Grace Pammit-Luna with the fake "reporter" Danna Luna, and the other two persons in ToM both surnamed Luna, and the so-called digital outfit called "Lunatronix"?
Grace is probably a newly-emerged babe in the woods still trying to find her footing in such a nefarious neighborhood as Little Manila as to lend her partial name to an article that not only lacks depth and background but also authenticity.
She wants to shine, obviously, but why is she too timid to be recognized for her work, if indeed it is hers? Why not own it? I would venture some guesses.
Unless she was physically present covering ToM from beginning to end, her account had to rely on what people with certain preconceived biases had told her. Her article is the best evidence of this.
I was there, so I knew . . . everything, the whole ToM anatomy. And because I was there from its birthing as a journalist, photographer, videographer, and what have you, I have all the reasons to challenge Grace's retelling of what went on inside and outside of ToM.
If Grace aspires to be a writer, she's starting off on the wrong foot. (Shades of Danna Luna?). Why? Because she distorts the story, manipulates the facts, and substitutes fact with fiction to accommodate her circle of friends in ToM.
This is just as worse as plagiarism. I believe she knew, that's why she shies away from fully identifying herself. She knew what she did was wrong. Her article is unacceptable and people reading it should be cautioned.
One gross distortion she knowingly made cries out for its unfairness. It's a put-down for one of the top financial backers. Perhaps, if she could only bury all the videos, photos, and stories of ToM 2017, I believe she would have done it already.
In the 2017 segment of her article, Grace fails, perhaps deliberately, to mention A&L Hammer Workforce Management owned by the husband and wife Al and Lily Hammer, as one of the major sponsors along with TELUS, Trureal Inc. Ford Canada, and TD Canada Trust.
That omission - not citing A&L Hammer Workforce Management as part of the historical record - has focused public attention on the seemingly growing corruption in ToM, and possibly in some not-for-profit organizations chosen by Mangante as his partners.
In Grace's account, Mangante quite succeeded in portraying himself as a true believer in promoting the Filipino community. But that's one side of the coin; the other side is almost incredible to be given serious thought.
Without checking the truthfulness of her "facts," she now installs herself as a willing and unseeing accessory in hiding the truth and in propping Mangante up. She doesn't know the circumstances. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/01/3-in-1-who-is-amba-congen-consul-of.html).
Before A&L was sweet-talked into a sponsorship at a cost of $40,000-plus paid personally to Mangante in the 2017 ToM, Mangante was in its employ as a driver, the same job he had held for years prior to his retirement at the Philippine Consulate.
He had applied at A&L and was taken in, partly out of pity, drawing a salary of $500 a week transporting workers to mushroom farms in Ontario. And for his personal use, a four-door Mercedes Benz sedan was made available by the company with a corresponding gas allowance, plus an iPhone.
An arrangement like that would be perfect for anyone in dire need of a job. But not for Mangante. He had something else in mind once he got an idea from workers on how they were recruited from the Philippines to work on farms.
In 2018, months after the 2017 ToM festival, Mangante was dismissed from his job at A&L. "He was an 'ingrato'," an ingrate who spied on the inner workings of the company, according to those who knew him.
Knowledgeable sources who did not wish to be identified for this story claimed Mangante had been bad-mouthing the owners and had tipped off the authorities for what he had thought, wrongly, of illegal recruitment of workers. (Full story and video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QprwiFQiLjs).
Once he was let go, he began to connive with his friends and shady characters in Little Manila to usurp A&L's contract with mushroom farm owners in the province.
At one point, he went to a farm owner, asking to be the one to supply the farm with workers recruited by his partners who had taken an interest in labor recruitment in Ontario following Mangante's clandestine information-gathering.
The owner balked at Mangante, telling him he was an "asshole" for even suggesting getting rid of A&L, his reliable partner for years, according to sources familiar with the incident.
He also tried to sabotage the gala evening A&L held in April 2018 to honor workers, friends, patrons, and guests from the Philippines. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ny66JOCaGg).
Federal, provincial, and city officials who had grown close to Mangante through the street festival had been secretly told not to attend the gala ostensibly because border agents were supposed to raid it for some perceived immigration violations, sources explained. The event went on undisturbed.
But Mangante's revenge did not end there. He continues to portray himself as a victim and surrounds himself with enablers. And in the case of Grace, perhaps unwittingly? (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).
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