Volume 5, Issue No. 27
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
Our latest as of Thursday, March 7, 2024
~ The clock is fast ticking to the date the community's cash cow is milked dry again to the eternal satisfaction of the men and women who constantly nourish it with platitudes and dubious claims for a look-see by potential takers. It's the Taste of Manila (ToM) getting prepped, a good five months away if ever it goes on this year. Meanwhile, for months now, some vendors are demanding a refund of their deposit money kept by organizers since 2023.
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THE CASH COW THAT IS TASTE OF MANILA
Vendors Demand Refund of Deposit Money
ToM Organizers Stay Quiet on Complaints
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
"Saying nothing sometimes says the most". - Emily Dickinson
TORONTO - Exactly 15 days ago today, I asked two undertakers of Taste of Manila (ToM) to comment on several complaints by vendors who decided to end their participation in the street festival this year.
At least five of them are demanding a refund of their money that SPARC (Society of Philippine Artists, Recreation and Community) has been keeping since the 2023 ToM.
The vendors are alleging that their deposit monies, which once combined could run up to four figures, have not been reimbursed. Instead, SPARC is telling them that the amount would be used, without their permission, to guarantee their booths in the August 2024 ToM.
The usually responsive Danilo "Sani" Baluyot, SPARC executive director, has become uncharacteristically silent on the issue. And so is the forever muted Rolly "Kabise" Mangante, the self-declared founder of ToM.
Mangante, a former driver at the Philippine Consulate where ToM had been conceptualized prior to its first staging in August 2014, has contracted SPARC to mount and manage ToM beginning last year and the next two years thereafter.
That decision has kindled a lawsuit by another supposed franchise holder, the International Entertainment Company, whose official, Cecille Araneta, has claimed having secured from Mangante a valid three-year contract to run ToM even before SPARC entered the picture.
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Baluyot and Mangante have not responded to questions based on vendors' complaint. For example, I asked them: "Does it mean SPARC is not doing any refund despite repeated demands from several vendors? Why do you tie them up to the 2024 Taste of Manila if they didn't want to participate?"
Another SPARC official masquerading as Marites Tolits (real name: Rosemarie "Rose" Ami-Seaborn, a mortgage broker) claimed in a Facebook post last week that for the 2024 ToM, "booths are 50% sold". She enjoined readers to "sign up now if you want to sell and be profitable!"
Since the fictitiously-named Marites Tolits is not exactly a model of reliability, it is difficult to believe the accuracy of her posts. Unlike Mangante who could not express himself fully, she's boisterous and given to hyperbole.
Her use of the gossipy social media nickname "Marites" as in "Mare ano'ng latest?" is a dead giveaway of a tendency to exaggerate. Neither Mangante nor Baluyot answered questions of when they will be transparent about their situation.
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Again I asked them: "Are you ever coming out with any financial statement in support of SPARC's claims it didn't make money from the 2023 Taste of Manila? If you didn't make money - which could mean the festival wasn't profitable - why continue this year? How much did SPARC lose?"
SPARC has posted unverified claims of "record-breaking attendance" at the 2023 ToM totalling "over half a million people". Without proof, it said "the event . . . broke all records with an overwhelming attendance that left organizers and supporters in awe".
SPARC is apparently trying to sustain that assertion by raising fees, much to the chagrin of merchandisers and supporters.
A major complaint is the stiff price SPARC is charging for booths. For example, a 10x10 booth costs $4,830.75, an amount so high it deters vendors from participating. Similar festivals charge less, according to vendors.
Some SPARC officials have boasted that the 2023 ToM had more than 150 vendors. If that figure is accurate and not inflated and we average the cost of a booth at $4,000, then SPARC would have gained at least a tidy $600,000. This figure does not include payment by corporate sponsors.
Small wonder then that Araneta's IEC and Baluyot's SPARC had to tangle in court for the right to hold ToM. In the meantime, Mangante is very much sitting pretty thinking of a grand vacation with his family as he did some years back after receiving huge sums from a defunct broadcaster.
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Whatever the outcome of the legal wranglings, Mangante is a sure winner. He didn't even invent ToM; he stole the idea and the name from a meeting of consulate officials with Toronto city authorities years before 2014.
Full background story:
Knowledgeable sources within SPARC and IEC who wish to remain anonymous said Mangante was shopping for a buyer or buyers of the ToM franchise name for an undisclosed price. (Copyright 2024. All Rights Reserved).
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