NOTEBOOK: Great Initiatives to Undertake

NOTEBOOK: Great Initiatives to Undertake

PPC-O After 10 years:

Following is a piece I wrote for the souvenir program of the 10th anniversary gala of the Philippine Press Club – Ontario held last Dec. 2 in Toronto

* * *

 It’s a milestone, to use a cliché. The Philippine Press Club-Ontario marks its 10th anniversary this year, 2011.

What it has done, in broad strokes: It organized a major part of the Filipino-Canadian media in Toronto. It fostered some degree of cooperation among members of the Filipino community media. It held various and many press conferences and forums about timely and important issues. It provided a more organized media hub for the community to relate to. But I will allow others to chronicle the specific PPCO achievements tonight.

Having been in the PPCO Board for almost eight years, serving a fourth term, and having seen from the frontline how the organization has grown and how it conducted itself in a sea of issues and relationships with many community groups, I see the following as great initiatives to undertake:

1. Help raise the standards of journalism in the community. We have more than a dozen publications, a few broadcast programs, a few online news and opinion sites, and we have a few online editions of the newspapers. But until now, after about four decades of publishing, our papers have only a handful of journalists who report news on a consistent basis. Opinion writers we have plenty, but like most of the original news stories we publish, opinion pieces need to be improved in terms of coverage and maturity of writing. And, needless to say, we seem to not mind publishing mindless showbiz stories and endless trivia. A big portion of our editorial content is devoted to reprints from Philippine-based sources.

2. Assist young and aspiring journalists, be they students or graduates, to enter and succeed in the mainstream media. We have a number of Filipino-Canadians who have made their mark in the mainstream media and we can ask their help in helping our young but serious journalists. We can also help this new generation of journalists by orienting them to value and be proud of their Filipino cultural heritage and be familiar with current Philippine developments.

3.  Encourage and urge the community media to cover the more important issues that affect the community’s unique interests in Canada. Our readers belong to an immigrant community. Therefore the issues that affect their lives most are those on immigration, more civic involvement like elections, temporary foreign workers and caregivers, and labor since a large segment of the community are industrial, service and health workers, and youth and student and deprofessionalization issues. Some glaring issues are human rights and corruption in the home country.

4. Encourage and help the editors and opinion writers, broadcasters and online writers to take editorial stands on these important issues and be a voice in advancing the interests of the community. While Canada’s immigration system is being overhauled to serve purely or mainly economic considerations over nation-building, there is a great need for the immigrant press to take up the cudgels, with other civil society groups, to provide the real immigrant perspectives to public policies.

5. Facilitate strong links between our media people with other sectors of the ethnic media. Toronto is home to dozens or even hundreds of ethnic publications and broadcast stations. There is a big world out there peopled by journalists coming from other countries. They have very rich journalistic experiences to share and strong skills we can learn from. We too have a lot to share with them. Given our common colonial histories and Third World-style home country governments, we have a natural affinity with their media experiences on press freedom, human rights and corruption. Given the underfunded state of the ethnic media and the lack of government support, we have the same challenges as theirs.

6. Help develop an independent stance on the part of many of our journalists in relation to government officials, whether Philippine or Canadian, and business and interest groups. Journalists and publications cannot perform their roles as independent voices if they are identified closely, or worse, seen as sucking up to public officials or interest groups. Some of us still believe that our access to media outlets is a convenient tool to use to get what we want from these sectors. We are responsible only to the readers and to no one else. Independence, integrity and their competence in reporting the truth should be the utmost concerns of journalists to perform their role and to gain respect and credibility, without which they cannot be real journalists.

* * *

Filipino community activist Carmencita “Ging” Hernandez passed away this week, on Dec. 6. She suffered from a stroke last weekend and was on comatose for a few days.

Old timers in the community were shocked and deeply saddened by the news. They all knew her as an energetic advocate for many causes.

I remember Ging was one of the first few Filipino activists I met in Toronto when my family arrived from Manila in 1984-85. With her, I met the late Fely Villasin, Martha Ocampo, Voltaire de Leon, the late Mercy, and of course, Ruben Cusipag. I knew then that her group CAMDI was involved in the overseas campaign for the release of Filipino political prisoners that included me, in the late 70s.

Aside from her political activities, she was deeply involved in community work and advocacy. I recall her being involved with us in the early 90s in the mobilization to protest the racial discrimination against Filipino, Asian and Black youth in the Scarborough Town Centre. We achieved limited victories after the rallies and pickets and generated a lot of media exposure that put the management on the spot and led to some changes. One of these is the hiring of Asian security personnel.

We will never know how much our community owes leaders and activists like Ging until a full account is made in history records. In the meantime, each of us has a memory of how we saw and benefited from their contributions. And Ging was one of those energetic activists who contributed much. May her spirit rest in peace.