TORONTO - "I understand your frustration," says an official in response to efforts to bring to public attention the financial status of the family-owned Taste of Manila (ToM) festival and why and how it received so much public money from the City of Toronto.
Nearly a month after its 2025 staging, nothing has been heard of again from ToM nor from its purported founder Rolly "kabise" Mangante and its garrulous, four-dimensional propagandist belonging to a dubious three-member "artists" group.
". . . (The) information you are seeking will need to be submitted through the City's Freedom of Information process," the official explained. There's a caveat, however, and it says: "we cannot guarantee the records would be released through this process as per usual."
That was what disappointed me as a taxpayer. As a journalist, I do understand, having gone through the same procedure in attempting to shine the light on the many secrets organizations like ToM resort to to conceal their standing.
"How do we even know if Taste of Manila (ToM) deserved such monetary grant from the City without understanding their financial situation?" I wrote back. Well, the answer would come in a month's time, hopefully.
My belief is that the moment the people behind ToM accepted taxpayers' money in the form of a grant from the City of Toronto, they open themselves up to public scrutiny. Their privacy is no longer private.
Thirty-four thousand dollars is the amount of money allocated to ToM this year. Divide that by 12 months and one gets $2,883, a pretty sizable sum of an income for a struggling family.
But the City, I believe, is not subsidizing the family of Mangante, a former driver and the self-declared ToM founder, so he, his wife Nieves, and daughter Jacqueline - all ToM directors - could throw themselves a party and enjoy the fruits of our labour (emphasis on the pronoun our).
The grant, drawn from people's money entrusted to our elected officials, was intended to help the festival so the Filipino community and other revelers could have a micro taste of what Manila, the Philippine capital, is - pickpockets, scam artists, bullies and all.
But how do we know the festival needed assistance when its financial situation is kept secret from us, the taxpayers who, through their political leaders, doled out such a huge sum for an event with no redeeming value?
City authorities said in response to inquiries by The Filipino Web Channel that recipients of funds from the Special Events Stabilization Initiative (SESI) "are required to submit a final report that includes invoices and receipts for all purchases made using SESI funds."
We may finally see how ToM and SPARC operate, assuming they would not dillydally in complying with the requirement. We may also see how Mangante's family and their partners SPARC are compensated from ToM revenues.
We may also see how the community, and broadly the North York district where ToM is held, benefitted from two days of entertainment dished out by imported and domestic talents and non-talents.
With $34,000 given to them for the August 2025 festival, why did they pressure some vendors to "donate" in-kind items such as food for this year's ToM?
Remember that in August 2024, ToM had erected a 13-foot high steel fence to punish onsite establishments that refused pay grease money.
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2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLl_ud3-Xew
To have qualified for the grant, ToM must have convinced City authorities that it needed help. The condition was that ToM and its organizers are compelled "to submit a full budget, including all revenue sources, for both the current and most recent complete year’s festival."
On the premise that Taste of Manila received taxpayers' dollars, aren't we supposed to know how our taxes are allocated to community events? ToM is family-owned and so why would the City subsidize it? I thought we're all for transparency, especially in the management of public funds.
ToM lives off the support of the community. It exists only because of this support. Is this "privacy requirements" a convenient excuse to dodge accountability? (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).
