The Filipino thing to do

The Filipino thing to do

(Speech delivered at the Philippine Press Club-Ontario Induction Ball on Aug. 21, 2004 at Crowne Plaza Hotel, Toronto)

By Paul F. de la Cruz
President
Philippine Press Club – Ontario

I was warned to make my speech short as some people are now itching to dance. Don’t worry we will do just that in a few minutes.

I know this is induction night.

The word induction by the way in case you don’t know yet originated from the Filipino word indak, meaning to sway in rhythm, as in napapa-iindak po ako sa dagundong ng tugtug. And that’s what we are going to do in just a little while.

Ambassador Francisco Benedicto, Consul General Alejandro Mosquera, guests, my colleagues, friends, ladies and gentlemen good evening.

I am humbled by the trust and confidence given me by my co-members in the Philippine Press Club-Ontario. It is a great honor to be your president, now for the second term. And with your collective enthusiasm and support PPC-O shall prevail.

It may be a co-incidence that the committee headed by our vice president Jess Cabrias chose this date to hold our induction ball. It was on this date, August 21, when Benigno Aquino Jr. was gunned down at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport, his death, as we all know now, became the powder keg that set the whole nation afire with the desire to bring down martial rule in the Philippines. And it did.

The committee’s choice of date may be coincidence but it is a relevant and significant coincidence because Ninoy is not only a martyr and hero of August 21, he too was a journalist. At 17 years old, with Chino Roces, another journalist, as mentor, Ninoy wrote from the trenches of Korea covering the Korean war. Ninoy the communicator has always been a journalist at heart.

Filipino Canadian journalism has been around in this part of Canada for over three decades now. Some of those who started journalism in this part of Canada are with us in this room tonight, those who are not here have left this world of ours and now covering the affairs of the greatest journalist of all, the Supreme Being. They had done, have done, and still are doing their craft for more than 3 decades now but it is only today that Filipino Canadian media practitioners have come together and form themselves into one group, now known as the Philippine Press Club-Ontario.

For over three decades these men and women, some still with us, some have passed away, with new ones trying to fill their shoes, but just the same, season after season they jump from one event to another, most of the time after finishing their daytime jobs, tired and battered, to cover community events, be it a celebration at the park, in a home, in a community hall, in the ballroom of a hotel, your community journalists are there; sometimes reduced as your photographer, at times fed from a different plate with a different dish in the dressing room while the main banquet and the dancing go on, at times treated as your propaganda crew to trumpet around your activities; expected only to write about the good and the beautiful and not what is true for truth most of the time is ugly.

This is not a sigh of complaint as these things are perils of the profession and here in Toronto, we are lucky for we don’t get killed for the things we say and write about unlike in the Philippines where the number of journalists murdered has already risen to 54 since 1986. If you come to think of it there are more murdered journalists after martial law than during martial law.

When I came to Canada in July 1990 I couldn’t believe how free community journalism in Canada was and is: why? journalists work for free, newspapers are distributed free, and sometimes advertising is free – that is when some advertisers do not pay. In that sense it was and maybe still is the freest press in the world.

One of the reasons why PPC-O was born is so that collectively we could help each other professionally mature and be better media practitioners. There are wayward media people and there will always be as there are in other professions. But in the PPC-O we will always try to remind each other when such happens. That’s the benefit of having an organization like the PPC-O. We are not being presumptuous here because there are always others who are better than we are but recognizing our inadequacies is in itself a sign of maturity. We invite you, my friends, to join us in fulfilling this aim.

It is from this frame of mind that we in the PPC-O for the second term now, since the day of our founding in December 17, 2001, have adopted as our working slogan: Suporta Filipino: kababayan mo itaguyod mo. A slogan that should not stop in the lips but must be internalized in our daily lives.
Spend your money in a kababayan’s business, when this business flourishes, the Filipino who owns this business will be in a better position to share his wealth in support of enabling community projects.
When these community projects are successful, community members become more confident, more dignified, more proud and become stronger part of the Canadian family.

This support, however, is a principled support. It is a support to Filipino businesses that endeavor to professionalize their conduct of business. It is a support to Filipino initiatives, which empower the community as a whole. It is a support to individual Filipinos who are honest, hardworking, and are helping other Filipinos. It is not a blind support. It is not a support for businesses which do not try to uphold good business practices, it is not support to initiatives and organizations whose only aim is to line the pockets of its officers, it is not a support to individual Filipinos, who whether in business or as private citizens take advantage of their own people, cheat, swindle, and defraud, their own kababayan. This is not a support for embezzlers, scalawags and con artists.

It is a support to the inherent goodness of the Filipino people and we invite each of you to join us. It is not difficult to imagine a robust, vibrant, and empowered Filipino community strengthening the social and political fabric of Canada. Suporta Filipino: kababayan mo, itaguyod mo for it is the right thing to do, it is the noble thing to do, it is the Filipino thing to do.

So, in behalf of PPC-O, I invite you all my friends to ponder this. Let this invitation accompany your dreams when you go home tonight. For the time being, however, let us leave it at that for it is now time to celebrate each other’s company, it is now time for fun, it is now time for dancing.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.