Spotlight on Dr. Michelle Murti, Toronto's Top Doctor

Volume 7, Issue No. 23

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, October 27, 2025 

~ Nine months after the esteemed Filipino Canadian Dr. Eileen de Villa stepped down from her post as Toronto's top doctor to devote time to her family, a new Medical Officer of Health - Dr. Michelle Murti - takes over as head of Canada's largest local public health agency. 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

SPOTLIGHT ON DR. MICHELLE MURTI 

Toronto's Top Doctor Bares

Health Priorities for the City

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Great leaders don’t set out to be a leader, they set out to make a difference. It’s never about the role, it’s always about the goal.” — Lisa Haisha

TORONTO - "The greatest honour of being the Medical Officer of Health is serving the people of Toronto," says Dr. Michelle Murti, a public health and preventive medicine physician who now heads Canada's largest local public health agency.

She assumed the position on September 3, 2025, replacing Dr. Eileen de Villa who stepped down in December 2024 after leading the unit for seven years starting in March 2017. 

Related videos: 

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gicm7LdB8xI&t=31s

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUs2wjxoTSM

"I see myself as a physician for the city, with Toronto residents as my patients," Dr. Murti stresses. "To me, serving the city of Toronto means maintaining our connection with people in creative and impactful ways." 

She said "direct engagement and health promotion campaigns" are part of an initiative to "break through the noise, and provide meaningful information rooted in evidence that individuals and communities can action in their lives." 

"It means recognizing that the work of public health involves working with our partners to help us better deliver our programs and services to residents," she adds.

Through a spokesman, Dr. Murti has bared her seven priorities in response to questions sent to her by email last week. These include:

Infectious disease and emergency preparedness, health equity, promoting healthy life spans, staff wellness and well-being, child and youth health, including student health, focus on building resilience post-COVID, improving population health, and being ready for future emergencies, and recognizing major local challenges: affordability, homelessness, opioid use.

According to Dr. Murti, she's "committed to advancing the City's key priorities and ensuring we make meaningful progress on the issues that matter most to our communities." (Background: 

https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/accountability-operations-customer-service/long-term-vision-plans-and-strategies/toronto-public-health-strategic-plan/).

Toronto Public Health (TPH) is also focusing on "prebunking" which, she says, is "a way to teach people and prepare them to spot misinformation." It would hopefully end distrust among Toronto residents who questioned the efficacy of vaccines during the pandemic.

"Prebunking helps residents recognize manipulative tactics—such as emotional language, false experts, or misleading visuals before they take hold," she explains. "This proactive approach builds resistance to misinformation and strengthens public confidence in identifying credible sources."

One of the challenges faced by TPH during Dr. de Villa's term revolved around vaccines. Quite a number of residents had resisted being vaccinated. Even so, TPH had succeeded in tempering the spread of COVID-19.

Said Dr. de Villa in 2022: "I would be remiss if I did not reflect on the enormous toll that the past three years of the COVID-19 pandemic have had on Torontonians. Together, our actions protected Torontonians, particularly those at highest risk for severe COVID-19 disease, and helped preserve health system capacity."

 

Presently, TPH is in the process of a spirited drive. "Rebuilding trust also involves reminding people of what public health actually does," Dr. Murti says. 

"Initiatives such as restaurant and pool inspections, home visits for new parents (with service in 43 languages), dental programs, disease surveillance, outbreak response and more. We need to engage directly through community town halls and education campaigns," she emphasizes.

TPH has released Toronto's Population Health Profile: Insight on the Health of Our City  at a critical time in the City’s history. (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).

Virginia Roberts Giuffre's Memoir Sparks Outrage

Volume 7, Issue No. 22

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 Thursday, October 23, 2025 

~ Plain and simple: it's a horrifying ordeal. Reading Virginia Roberts Giuffre's posthumous memoir sparks anguish and outrage for the beastly acts men in high places had done on her, starting with Jeffrey Epstein and his pimp and partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell, including Prince Andrew and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

NOBODY'S GIRL BY VIRGINIA ROBERTS GIUFFRE 

Surviving the Beastly Acts

of Men in High Places

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Temper us in fire, and we grow stronger. When we suffer, we survive.” ― Cassandra Clare 

TORONTO - Reading is both a pleasurable pastime and a valuable source of information, particularly for one like me who reports the news and writes political and social commentaries.

The kind of enjoyment I get from leafing through pages upon pages of non-fiction books, memoirs, history, and poetry - all of which I have a generous collection in my small library - has been replaced by sadness and anger.

I am moved, indignant and seething with fury, after perusing some chapters in Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the teenaged girl trafficked for sex by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his cohort Ghislaine Maxwell. Virginia died by suicide on April 25, 2025.

Yesterday (Wednesday, Oct. 22), I rushed to Indigo on Bay and Bloor in downtown and bought a copy of the book before it runs out of stock. I wasn't content on reading and watching her account of the abuses on her on social media, I had to have my own copy and read for myself.

Tears welled in my eyes as I went through one of the passages in her posthumous memoir. Not only did I feel flustered, I was outraged at the thought men in high places would engage in such beastly acts on a hapless girl.

When she was 18 years old, Virginia recalled the day in 2002 in a cabana in the U.S. Virgin Islands where Epstein had brought her. She wrote:

"He repeatedly choked me until I lost consciousness and took pleasure in seeing me in fear for my life. Horrifically, the Prime Minister laughed when he hurt me and got more aroused when I begged him to stop. I emerged from the cabana bleeding from my mouth, vagina, and anus. For days it hurt to breathe and to swallow."

Quoting court filings, journalist Kim Iversen and several news outlets had identified the "Prime Minister" Virginia referred to as former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. It wasn't the first time with him, Virginia wrote, even as he pleaded with Epstein not to send her back to him. 

Aboard Epstein's private plane called the Lolita Express, the second encounter took place in a cabin. That second interaction, Virginia wrote, "was the beginning of the end for me." Barak has repeatedly denied Virginia's claims, according to published reports.

Virginia also detailed her ordeal with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who was 41 years old at that time, at Epstein's house in the central London district of Belgravia in March 2001. She wrote:

"He was particularly attentive to my feet, caressing my toes and licking my arches. That was a first for me, and it tickled x x x He seemed in a rush to have intercourse. Afterward, he said thank you in his clipped British accent. In my memory, the whole thing lasted less than half an hour."

A month later, she had her second encounter with Prince Andrew in Epstein's townhouse in New York. From there, they flew to the French Riviera in southeast France. There, Epstein introduced her to his 50-year-old friend - she called him Billionaire Number Two, "old enough to be my grandpa".

She wrote: "After we had intercourse, the man offered to pay me triple what Epstein paid if I'd come 'work' for him. I politely said no and said my goodbyes . . . "

Later, Virginia wrote: "I don't know exactly when I had sex with Prince Andrew for the third time, but I know the location: Little Saint Jeff's. I also know that it was not just the two of us this time; it was an orgy.

"I was around eighteen . . . Epstein, Andy and approximately eight other young girls, and I had sex together. The other girls all seemed and appeared to be under the age of eighteen and didn't really speak English . . . "

Based on Virginia's accounts, it seems only proper for the British monarchy to strip Prince Andrew of his royal titles. Not only is he an embarrassment, he is weakening the moral fabric of the whole nation and the Commonwealth of which Canada is a member. (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).

The U.K.'s Prince Andrew: Ruined and Disgraced

Volume 7, Issue No. 21

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 Tuesday, October 21, 2025 

~ The erstwhile Duke of York - that's (ex) Prince Andrew - younger brother of King Charles, and uncle of Prince William, heir apparent to the throne, has been divested of his royal duties for his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who died by suicide in 2019, and his cohort, the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving 20 years in prison in the United States. The developments in London are interesting for Canadians, especially because Canada is tethered to the United Kingdom though its monarch. 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

THE BRITISH MONARCHY

The Saga of Prince Andrew:

Disgraced and Stripped of Royal Duties

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Around thrones the thunder rolls.” ― C.J. Sansom

TORONTO - Current news developments in the British capital involve the disgraced 65-year-old Prince Andrew, erstwhile Duke of York and brother of reigning King Charles. Andrew Albert Christian Edward is no longer "His Royal Highness."

His fall is intensely reported in world media, much of it owing to his association with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his convicted cohort Ghislaine Maxwell, the former British socialite now serving a 20-year jail sentence in the United States.

From a journalism standpoint, Andrew's still-unfolding story is great fodder for news reporting. It's quite rare for a royal to be sucked into a news cycle as demeaning as this where the once second heir to the throne is a major actor.

For Canadians, it feels extremely pernicious to see the second son of Queen Elizabeth II tumble into disrepute. The relevance is in witnessing in real time how a person of wealth, power and influence could be so abusive.

Multiple news reports from London say Prince William, 43, Prince of Wales and heir to King Charles, 76, will ban Andrew, his uncle, from all royal duties when he becomes king. (Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZewturXN70).

The evolving drama should be of interest to us, especially to Canadians and Filipino-Canadians, particularly because we're politically tethered to the United Kingdom by virtue of Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations.

As a former British colony, Canada is one of the 15 realms in the Commonwealth whose head of state is King Charles, father of Prince William. As Canadians, we pledge allegiance to the King.

The Oath of Citizenship that we recite and sign to become citizen of Canada is a "declaration of fealty to Canada in the name of the Canadian monarch (presently King Charles) and a promise to abide by Canada's laws and customs."

That kind of impersonal relationship with the British monarchy through King Charles may create some concern for some of us who may have some affinity in the UK through marriage or other means.

The saga of Andrew, though far removed from us, is indeed intriguing. It's a real life drama many Filipino Canadians find watching in their favourite soap opera on television.

But that is not to diminish its significance. After all, Canada, as a constitutional monarchy, has for its head of state King Charles. That ties us up with the United Kingdom of which we are a part. (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).

Millions Attend Biggest Protest Rally Against Donald Trump

Volume 7, Issue No. 20

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 Sunday, October 19, 2025 

~ Millions of protesters turned up across the United States in a historic show of unity against President Donald Trump's increasing extreme right-wing inclination befitting a king. Yesterday's (Saturday, Oct. 18) "No Kings" protests dramatized his growing unpopularity highlighted by his deployment of National Guards in Democrat-controlled cities. 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

"THE BIGGEST IN U.S. HISTORY"

The Seething Cauldron of Protests in the U.S.

Against the Convicted Felon Donald Trump

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

TORONTO - Hundreds of thousands of people from every major city came together on Saturday, October 18, to form at least seven million protesters, and braved threats in the biggest show of defiance in the history of the United States against the sitting president, Donald Trump, a convicted felon.

Live accounts from multiple news outlets brought to life the many lies of the administration, in particular the allegations of his Republican MAGA movement that the mass action was instigated by so-called antifa (or anti-fascists) opposing Trump's extreme right inclinations.

American-Canadians and their families mounted a similar "No Kings" protests in Toronto in mid-June, gathering at a small park fronting the U.S. consulate on University Ave. and marching around the city. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDjuEmU-B7k&t=9s).

Trump has been condemned for his increasing use of military tactics and his deployment of National Guards in Democrat-controlled states and cities to enforce immigration laws leading to the arrest and deportation of hundreds of undocumented.

Though he has lost several cases in courts of law, Trump continues to impose his will, emboldened by an earlier Supreme Court ruling clothing him with immunity for official acts. (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).