Volume 6, Issue No. 14
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
Our latest as of Friday, October 11, 2024
~ Our mooring as honest, respectful, and hard-working people is apparently letting loose by inordinate ambition, greed, and lust for power. Craven yes-people we are not despite acts of a few to lure us to believe in what they're doing. Our community is littered with leaders so-called, but none apparently believes in servant leadership where service to the community is paramount than service to self.
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TORONTO'S FILIPINO COMMUNITY
Are We Wanting in Servant Leaders?
So Many Captains But Very Few Work for Us
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
TORONTO - What's happening in our Filipino community here in the Greater Toronto Area? Have we lost our moral compass?
Are we lacking in quality, honest, and principled people in our organizations, in media, in celebrations, in fiestas, and even in the manner we interact with each other?
Perplexing questions they are, sure, but not without answers. Notable in those questions are the seeming decline in our values manifested in ways unseen before.
We have individuals fronting as leaders, to what extent we don't know, but some are outright scammers, con artists, and impersonators.
They're there shamelessly for everyone to see, doing selfies with powerful people, squeezing themselves within kissing distance like they're flouting their newfound importance.
A smorgasboard of self-indulgent photos could be found on Facebook and other social media, and the thrill of being spotted with such and such people is amplified many times by "likes" and "share" by friends.
Examples abound of festivals in Brampton, Markham, Vaughan, Little Manila, Earl Bales Park, Albert Campbell Square, David Pecaut Square, Nathan Phillips Square, Mel Lastman Square, and other parks frequented by Filipinos.
I've taken notice since I started a decade and a half ago covering events in the community and beyond that's accessible and affordable to me personally.
The first few years were educational; they're learning experiences that opened doors to who's who and what's what, and got me acquainted with real and purported role players in the Filipino community.
Fourteen years later, the people I met and knew from the beginning are the same people occupying the top echelons of non-profit orgs, charitable foundations, social clubs, mutual-benefit associations, etcetera.
Such proliferation inevitably leads to overlapping functions, duplication, and a waste of time and resources.
But Filipinos are good organizers, or they seem to be. Many of the existing associations are by-products of resentment, jealousy, envy, and hunger for recognition of people behind them.
So it's not surprising that, for example, an individual officer who aspires for a leadership role would form his own organization and make himself president or chair.
And to make his move gratifying to himself and followers, he would initiate a festival that's exactly the same as the festival from where he came from. And the cycle goes on and on.
In my nearly 15 years in Toronto, I'm still looking for servant leaders, and I mean those who put real service to others above service to himself. It's not self-service as in some restaurants.
And that brings me to my point. Have we lost our mooring?
We're a proud people shaped by our heritage, and proud of our upbringing that encompasses character building based on honor, respect, and trust inculcated from birth.
However, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, everything is not fine and dandy in the community.
It's disconcerting, revolting even, to see some covetous publishers and editors victimizing their own writers of their hard-earned money.
Worst of all, they covered up their deception with lies so big and so extensive they reached high government officials.
It's so demeaning to know festival organizers extorting money from humble vendors trying to make a living. No one in any organization has come forward to condemn them. The silence is demoralizing.
A crook being honoured by a dubious foundation is as disgusting as the people who organized it, even topping it with an award that practically makes lawbreakers epitome of virtue.
Why? For a couple of dollars? Had they fact-checked, they would have learned that a barking dog in the neighbourhood would have qualified too. That's because fact-checking is non-existent; organizers rely on social media posts by known rumor-mongers.
Then there's the pesky little guy who makes a living projecting himself as someone big on everything, particularly his traveling extravaganza that puts the spectacular Cirque de Soleil or the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus ill at ease.
Name the cities, big and small, across Canada and he would claim success in staging each show with close-up photos to boot, ostensibly to hide the negligible crowd. It's frustrating.
For as long as I can remember, one umbrella organization excels in promoting a designer year in and year out to the extent its pageantry, which is quite unrelated to Philippine independence, becomes a bore. Is there a dearth of talent in Toronto?
Now, the inevitable question comes up. Why do organizations import entertainers from Manila, and perpetuate the notion we're so shallow and dumb and too obsessed with movie stars? (Copyright 2024. All Rights Reserved).
