Fighting for Our Right to Know By Tess Cusipag
In the last 14 months or so Balita has been seeking answers to many questions about how some individuals and organizations seduce the Filipino community with sweet-talk and appeal to our sense of compassion.
On the issues of accountability and transparency that Balita has been raising, in particular directed to specific people and organizations, as though an invisible wall has been erected to insulate themselves from being scrutinized.
In this special circle, from the top Filipino diplomats in Canada, to the top Canadian authorities tasked to speak for the interest of Filipinos here, their tight-lipped is quite deafening to us.
We dare to demand that they come clean with their fund-raising schemes, naturally if there is something amiss that should be concealed, why should you listen? Because the schemers are friends or associates, and you stand to benefit from it too, why should you bother? Right?
There is also the notion of wanting to be photographed with leaders, and have your smiling faces be in pages of community papers, certainly means a lot to some people, totally disregarding that someday, on payback time, that they will be incriminated.
From within, a few have summoned the courage to express themselves but only in whispered tones. We know that these brave souls will soon be pressured and be silenced with screams, personal attacks and threats by community wolves.
We are lucky however that self-righteous kababayans are all behind us. It seems the proverbial monkey that does not see or hear or talk is at work here, but it will not be for long. Soon this people will have to answer to all of us. Dividing our community for your personal goal is a no no and did we hear that some people are beginning to wake up and realizing that they are just being used?
The annual spectacle of cultural celebrations has started in the Greater Toronto Area with the recent Philippine independence events. Grandiose festivals, trade shows, beauty pageants, picnics, golf tournaments, musical and stage presentations- all to be carried out in the name of service to the community.
The understated goal expectedly is to raise money for charity- for the poor, for the sick, for this cause, for that foundation, money for this and that project. But who really gets the benefits of the community’s kindness and willingness to help? Or how much of the revenues go to the recipients, and how much goes for the pockets of a few? Yes, that is what the community is asking!
Kababayans are not endless wellsprings of wealth. Every dollar that is contributed to such money-raising schemes is a dollar taken away from savings that could be allocated to loved ones here or in the Philippines, or from other legitimate or more deserving causes. It is an unnecessary drain on our unsuspecting community.
Yet after all these, the community is conveniently left unrecognized because acknowledgements and rewards are credited to the fundraisers, the individuals and organizations that make a career out of defrauding our vulnerable kababayans.
We in Balita have taken the bold steps to put an end to these by declaring it as fraudulent. We have challenged our kababayans to join us in our advocacy. We encourage the community to take a moral stand, to speak up.
We continue to ask you to report to us any suspected wrongdoing, criminal activity, scam, abuse, threat or intimidation against our kababayans. Rest assured we will do our best to bring the story out as we have done throughout our history, and let the authorities do the rest.
Let not fear anyone and not let them get the better of us. Let us not allow fraudsters and liars- and there are many in our midst. It is time that we resent those who hide and expose those with false identities robbing us of our hard earned money and our dignity.
At Balita, we have earned to be Toronto’s largest Filipino community newspaper for over 35 years of exposing truth and fairness in our news reporting. With our guaranty of confidentiality to all our sources, there is no need to fear in having honest and truthful conversations with us.
Freedom of expression is a liberty that is held sacred in Canada. You see it practiced everyday as you follow the national or local news.. As full-fledged Canadians we are now empowered to speak up and exercise that right to its fullest.
And as we avail of these freedoms, we as a community must insist on our right to know where the money solicited from us goes and how it is spent. The caveat should be that if you fund-raise from the community then it follows that out of simple courtesy you should tell them the outcome. Anything short of this, the clear accounting of every dollar, the disclosure of every recipient, is fraud and should be reported to the authorities.
Let us stop the deception. You know who we are talking about, those people that consistently put their dirty hands in our pockets. Together, we will be more empowered to make them accountable to us. ****