Volume 6, Issue No. 39
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
Our latest as of Wednesday, March 19, 2025
~ They stole photos and video footages, plagiarized stories and ideas, revised historical accounts, and recently, tried to fleece money from onsite vendors - everything, demeaning or foul, to promote the Taste of Manila (ToM) festival and its alleged founder. Such dark incidents are kept from the public and from those who are lulled to patronize the fest by presenting a slew of wannabe movie stars imported from the Philippines. Talk of a dog and pony show, and this one is. Little Manila, ToM's traditional venue, is fast taking the way, shape or form of its namesake city where vice, crime, and corruption are prevalent.
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GREED FOR MONEY DRIVES STREET FEST
ToM's New Theme a Tacit Admission of Wrongdoing
Would Defiant Vendors Be Blocked Again?
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
"For a wrongdoer to be undetected is difficult; and for him to have confidence that his concealment will continue is impossible." - Epicurus
TORONTO - Two words have found their way into the linguistically-challenged officials of Taste of Manila (ToM) and SPARC and adopted as the theme for this year's festival: resiliency and diversity.
Guilt feelings for showing abuse may have contributed to choosing those words, for they at least squirt remorse for the despicable act of punishing vendors who had declined to participate in a criminal activity.
Resiliency, says the dictionary, is "an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change." Diversity, on the other hand, is "the condition of having or being composed of differing elements, especially the inclusion of people of different races, cultures, etc."
Clearly implied in its meaning ("an ability to recover from adversity") is a confession of wrongdoing (or adversity) that may be inferred from a loss of sizable patronage and respect for ToM and SPARC.
So they (ToM under its alleged founder Rolly "kabise" Mangante, and SPARC or Society of Philippine [con?] Artists, Recreation and Community) strung together the two nouns to form the catchphrase "celebrating resiliency and diversity" and put it out there as the guiding motif for ToM 2025.
Mangante and SPARC (led by Danilo "Sani" Baluyot and the weirdly Facebook troll with four names - Rose To, Marites Tolits, Rose Ami, and Rosemarie Ami-Seaborn) have perhaps realized that their ToM 2024 slogan - a festival for everyone! - was a big lie.
Well, big or small, a lie is a lie is a lie. In fact, they were so convinced with the lie that they inadvertently created a monument of steel to memorialize that lie and installed it where their greed for money got trashed.
Everyone is everybody, every person, and in the case of ToM, every business, transient or onsite, the latter being already located where they hold the festival in Little Manila.
Inclusion is the key word, and in that respect, ToM and SPARC failed. Lacking that, both ToM and SPARC made a mockery of their "a festival for everyone!" slogan.
Obviously they became greedy. And with imagined powers in their hands, they ordered the installation of a steel fence to block customers from accessing five business establishments. I thought ToM was for everyone!
Their intent, though not admitted, was clear: to intimidate and extort money from onsite vendors. One businessowner - Jonathan Mayor Pecpec - explained he was willing to pay up if he could afford it so long as public access to his storefront is not obstructed. In effect, he was calling the bluff.
Who among the top honchos of ToM and SPARC chickened out is unknown, so the steel fence went up in the middle of the night to block five establishments on the east side of Bathurst St., the main festival area, and stood there for the duration of the festival on Aug. 17-18, 2024. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btf2yoU4AaE).
Told about the extortion attempt within her federal constituency, Ya'ara Saks, Member of Parliament for York Centre, said: "Everyone should benefit when a community festival comes in the area." (Video at: MP Ya'ara Saks Speaks Out on Taste of Manila Festival).
An admission of wrongdoing followed by an apology would be hard to come by from Mangante, Baluyot, the Facebook troll (what real name does she use?), ToM and SPARC.
I say this from experience, especially with Mangante who, according to his colleagues, initiated stealing videos and photos from my The Filipino Web Channel, manipulated them, and spliced them with images of wife Nieves Mangante, close friends, and federal, provincial, and local officials.
(Related story and video:
So without any feeling of guilt or remorse, they channeled their inner sentiment into the catchphrase, perhaps hoping people would not notice how they obfuscate the truth that they had committed what amounted to an illegal act - the criminal attempt to extort money from vendors.
It escapes reasoning why ToM and SPARC would be so avaricious. From what I could gather, the festival was making money so much that Mangante has turned it into a family-owned business, not to benefit the community, but his family. That's probably the reason he has unredeemed promises. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR8XMVd5dT4).
During its early beginnings, ToM barely broke even. Its impending demise was a natural progression. Were it not for a few committed souls and a helping hand from then-Mayor John Tory (who resigned in February 2023 over an extramarital affair with a staffer), ToM would not have continued to exist.
The Covid-19 epidemic had paused its in-person show, but that did not stop the wannabe Philippine Events and Services Ontario (PESO) invented by a certain Philip Beloso to create a virtual presentation with photos and videos stolen from The Filipino Web Channel. (Related story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2022/07/mondee-names-alleged-culprits.html).
At least 13 individual and corporate entities sponsored the virtual event. In addition, PESO invited the public to choose from three categories of membership, namely, gold for $1,000.00; silver for $500.00; and bronze for $300.00. What for? For what benefit? It sounded like a scam, or was it?
In 2022, Mangante contracted a rookie - the International Entertainment Company (IEC) of Cecile Araneta and Ramon Datol - to handle the festival for three years starting that year. After fronting once, IEC was thrown under the bus, triggering a lawsuit alleging a breach of contract by Mangante.
(Background and related stories:
No matter how messy it was in 2022, ToM managed to stand up again through a succession of dubious not-for-profit organizations hired to mount ToM for the next three years.
While IEC was forced out, in came SPARC headed by newbies Danilo "Sani" Baluyot and Facebook troll Rose To alias Marites Tolits alias Rose Ami alias Rosemarie Ami-Seaborn. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGVqgszwyYA).
There's nothing much to their credit except ToM 2024, which publicly exhibited their depravity in the steel fence which, so far, is their most consequential achievement. Yet, a so-called foundation cited Mangante as a "role model for compassion, dedication, and service." Did money make it possible? (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).
Additional background story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2022/11/same-old-same-old-at-taste-of-manila.html
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