~ The benchmark for critical writing and news analysis has just been unwittingly and grudgingly highlighted in two million-dollar lawsuits against Balita, Toronto’s largest Filipino newspaper, and its publisher and a reporter. With the complaints, the publication has solidified its standing as a reliable and trusted confidant, an independent watcher beholden to no one but the truth. A milestone has been reached, affirmed no less by people who find the paper strangely difficult to handle for their comfort.
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“The first reaction to truth is hatred”. – Tertullian
TORONTO – Without trying to sound and look condescending, I’d like to make a point in the life of Balita, the largest Filipino newspaper in Greater Toronto Area, reaching far greater heights than was imaginable for a community publication.
In the last 24 months at least, the paper founded in 1978 by the late journalist Ruben Cusipag and now published and edited by his widow, Tess Cusipag, has reestablished itself as a reliable and trusted confidant, an independent watcher that keeps tab of the goings-on in our neighbourhood.
It isn’t just a passive spectator or a distant bystander. Rather, the paper is fully engaged either as a chronicler of events and the passage of time, and as a neutral stakeholder in the community. In many instances, it has embraced the full meaning of what a newspaper ought to be.
The coverage is unmatched – in content and range at least – just as its advocacy threads on a very simple platform, i.e., in finding the truth in all its shapes and forms. Truth hurts. Truth frees. And there’s a huge cost in searching for it, personal, financial, professional.
While other community periodicals litter their pages with meaningless stories about the sexual lives of movie stars and entertainment personalities, for example, the provisionally-celibate Kris Aquino, thus propagating false adulation, Balita stands solely apart by digging into local issues and concerns impacting the Filipino diaspora and beyond it.
A newspaper, in addition to providing information, is also expected to give enlightenment. And that’s where Balita excels. Rather than simply report a story, the paper crystallizes it, giving context and background, particularly about the role-players and extent of their involvement.
The mission of Balita is also its ideology – to get to the bottom of things irrespective of gender, ethnic background, political affiliation, color, creed or religious orientation. It’s neither blue nor red nor orange, not left nor right, because the search for truth carries with it an apolitical, colorless mandate from the people.
To elucidate necessitates antagonizing people, for the process counts in not just what is being bandied about as the truth but also looks into what the opposite claims as its version of the truth. The search engenders hostility, and not surprisingly, from people who stand affected by the procedure.
The year 2013 was a milestone for Balita, not in terms of longevity but in measuring its purposeful journey in serving the community. The new year, 2014, reenforces that mark.
In the year just passed, the paper proved itself as a medium worthy of respect and admiration. In the current year, the paper emerges from the shadow of doubt to occupy the exalted position as the unflinching fighter for the community’s right to know, and for press freedom in general.
Because community members make a gift of their time and money to various organizations, they have the right to seek accountability and transparency from people who exploit them to boost their political and personal agendas.
A fundraising couple, working both sides of the street, succeeded in making the community believed he and his wife are the bleeding hearts for the downtrodden and won recognition to the detriment of those who truly deserves it. Now he’s firmly entrenched, thanks to his unabashed ass-licking.
Two lawsuits seeking damages totalling one million dollars each manifest the dangers of pursuing the truth. I know – I feel it – that deep in the hearts of the instigators, they want to clobber Balita financially both for personal and professional gain, and cripple the men and women who breathe life to it.
The lawsuits are without merit – that’s my personal opinion as a journalist. But there are times that one has to go through the motions of having to stand up to end the bullying and intimidation so that those who attempt to silence the press and their practitioners are put in their proper places.
Balita did not – does not – invite trouble. In the exercise of its functions, however, it gives no quarters to sacred cows. Nor is it beholden to titles and ranks, nor age, nor stature. But that is not to say we have no respect for individuals and institutions.
As a consequence of these lawsuits, the Filipino community should feel fortunate to have free access to Balita online and in print and see the million-dollar stories that should now be the benchmark for critical news writing and commentary for Filipino newspapers in Toronto.
Reading is a pastime for some. In immersing in the written word, however, we find joy and edification as we relate the articles in Balita with people we know and interact with. There, one will find the truth about these individuals and the organizations they represent.
As John F. Kennedy said: “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”