Volume 7, Issue No. 8
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 Monday, August 11, 2025
~ Years before the money scandal broke out, editors at a local tabloid professed their adherence to the truth. Fast forward to 2023, that so-called fidelity would crumble by their own doing. They were talking with a forked tongue; saying one thing and doing another. It's incredible how members of the local press association, which is actually a club for social climbers, got lectured on the truth by the person who supposedly despised telling lies, but who, in fact, did lie and deceive.
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A NON-FICTITIOUS HERMIE GARCIA SPEAKS
A Forked Tongue Shows in How He Acts
He Says One Thing And Does Another
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“Truth is not afraid of scrutiny; only deception fears the light.” ― Aloo Denish Obiero
TORONTO - For want of something relaxing to do indoors this past weekend amidst the heat warnings, I decided to devote some time reading the published views of Hermie Garcia from what remains of The Philippine Reporter (TPR), the defunct fortnightly tabloid he co-edited with his wife Mila A. Garcia, which appears to have its last digital issue a year ago.
The paper's print edition shut down without notice in 2023 on the heels of revelations the Garcia couple had engaged in fraud victimizing two of its reporters - artist and journalist Michelle Chermaine Ramos and a writer based in Edmonton, Alberta who, except for being a member of Anakbayan, did not want to be identified in this story.
Ms. Ramos' exposé was a crushing blow to journalism integrity and to journalists whose allegiance is to the truth. As there's only a few uncompromising Filipino journalists in Toronto, the punch is not so much felt.
But the heavier blow is to the federal government, which allocates money for ethnic journalists not knowing it's being lied to, and its implementor in the local level, the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC), self-described as "Canada's other voices."
In a talk with members of the Philippine Press Club Ontario (PPCO) on December 8, 2016, Hermie Garcia asked how and what role the local media should have in the Filipino community. Well, he supplied an answer to how, thus: "By being faithful and loyal only to the truth." OMG, what an incredibly fine guy he was just by being candid!
He further expanded that, saying "the very purpose of journalism (which) is to expose the truth and shed light on problems that affect public interest." How true, and it's commendable he knew what he was talking about. (Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
So as not to cast doubt on where he stood at that time, Hermie Garcia explained more succinctly: "Our role is to inform the public with the truth and hold accountable those in power and in positions of power in business and other private interests. To educate the public on important issues of the day. And also to advance views on what is good for the public, by providing context for the issues that affect our daily lives."
Nice words. Quite inspiring to hear, especially for the mostly non-journalists inhabiting PPCO. But then, fast forward to 2023, and one doesn't hear anything either from him or from NEPMCC where he and his wife are officers.
Hermie Garcia and Mila A. Garcia were caught red-handed spinning a web of lies, exploiting the naïveté of Ms. Ramos and the Edmonton writer, and made their deception believable by inventing a fictional "grant guy" in Canadian Heritage who supposedly oversaw payments of their salaries.
The hoax went undetected for months until Ms. Ramos, unsure of when to get her salary for working as reporter for the government-funded Local Journalism Initiative (LJI), took it upon herself to investigate.
That's when the fraudulent activities of the Garcia couple unraveled. Their masks fell off and their dubious story came apart. (Full story: Lies, Deceptions by The Philippine Reporter Exposed).
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Before LJI started, Canadian Heritage released its budget for LJI through NEPMCC a full year ahead, so there's no reason salaries were not being paid on time.
The LJI money had been in the possession of the Garcia couple but why were the two LJI reporters not compensated? What did they do with government funds intended for salaries?
These two basic questions remained unanswered for the last two years now. The NEPMCC and its top officials had nothing to say even as the wrongdoing by the Garcias was happening under their noses.
In another article posted on October 26, 2018, Hermie Garcia borrowed from the dictionary to reinforce his arguments against a competing tabloid. He wrote:
"How much idle speculation, foolish hunches or malicious innuendo can you inject in an article to prevent the reader from focusing on the claim (of the plaintiff) that the transfer of properties was 'fraudulent'? To use the same term he (the writer) used, this is subterfuge! The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines subterfuge as 'deception by artifice or stratagem in order to conceal, escape or evade.' Oxford Dictionaries define the term as 'deceit used in order to achieve one’s goal.' "
What a shock! The years between 2018 and 2023 might have caused him to forget that he and his wife had engaged in a charade they knowingly despised, that is, "deception by artifice or stratagem in order to conceal, escape or evade."
That's exactly what they did to their staff - Ms. Ramos and the Edmonton writer - and by extension, to the federal Canadian Heritage and NEPMCC. To borrow the words he had borrowed, they undertook "deceit used in order to achieve one’s goal."
On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day in May 2023 which I managed to cover at Toronto City Hall, NEPMCC president Thomas Saras cited the Garcia couple, stating that: "Hermie Garcia spent 12 years in jail under Marcos for criticizing the Marcos dictatorship and his wife Mila also for a number of years for criticizing the dictatorship of Marcos." (Full story: Hermie and Mila Garcia: Freedom Fighters or Traitors?).
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Nothing could be farther from the truth. If Hermie Garcia and Mila A. Garcia honestly subscribed to what they espoused in their paper, they should have corrected Mr. Saras who appeared overzealous in recognizing them for what he said was "for criticizing the Marcos dictatorship."
Mr. Saras' statement was factually wrong. It is a false narrative. The Garcias were incarcerated for their subversive activities, not for writing critically against Marcos' one-man rule. I should know because I lived and worked as a foreign correspondent during those days.
Hermie Garcia himself confirmed this. He wrote in October 2018: " . . . myself and my wife were charged by the Marcos military with rebellion but nothing was proven in a court, whether civilian or military."
If truth be told, it was the late Ruben Cusipag (God bless his soul) who had fought the (Ferdinand Edralin) Marcos administration with his scathing attacks and stinging rebuke of the dictatorship beginning on September 21, 1972. His writings were more solid than "criticizing," which had earned the Garcias false acclaim by NEPMCC.
Is lying, creating fictitious narratives, exploiting unsuspecting victims, pretending to be conscientious writers second-nature to Hermie Garcia and Mila A. Garcia?
The ready answer is in what they did to Ms. Ramos and the Edmonton writer. (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).
Editor's note:
ReplyDeleteOur attention is called that the last print edition of The Philippine Reporter was actually last year, in July 2024, and not in 2023 as it appeared. This should correct the typographical error in the story.