“Be bad, but at least don’t be a liar, a deceiver!” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
The News UpFront: (TOP STORY) as of Monday, February 10, 2014
~ From his notoriously flippant way of verbalizing his undisguised glee with expletives, Voltaire de Leon plays with words again. The phrase “the incident of theft” quite clearly conveys a fact of a thievery. That was his. That the episode “happened in the distant past” gives it a time frame. It’s also his. And the supplication to “please don’t go there” begs for relief. That’s from him too. The words and phrases flowed from his mouth. Once composed into a readable story in Balita, he says they were “improperly spinned” to justify his claim for $500,000 in damages he filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in November 2013 and served only during the weekend.
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TORONTO – Voltaire de Leon, the alleged computer thief of some years ago, intruded into a lunch reception at Max’s restaurant on Saturday, February 8, apparently on a tip from one of the invitees that I would be there to cover it.
I had confirmed my attendance three days before the actual date as I had to find time for it. The past week had been hectic days of interviews, research and investigations involving some personalities in the community.
De Leon’s name does not appear in the guest list of about 50 people yet he was among those early comers who waited inside one of the eatery’s function rooms where the LBC rebranding program would be unveiled. (Video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j35_Ckehi-g).
As soon as I walked past the sliding glass door, a frail-looking man, hunched, unshaven and looking unwashed, emerged from one of the chairs, approached me, proffered a yellow envelope and declared “you’re served”.
He was Voltaire de Leon, he said, and the mere mention of the name sparked a flood of bad memories about a guy who had attacked me with his obscene write-up in a left-leaning tabloid and had disrespected a deceased colleague to show his friends that he could write. (Related story at: http://www.balita.ca/2013/08/shamelessness-in-time-of-grief-2/).
But a string of profanities mixed with a jumble of cliches does not a writer make. At best, it’s a mark of ill-breeding. Nobody was asking him if he was a journalist, a writer or whatever, yet he was trumpeting that he used to contribute to Balita, the paper founded in 1978 by the late Ruben Cusipag. (Video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctd0G-C7i3k).
Understandably, Balita’s preeminence as Toronto’s largest Filipino newspaper must have something to do with his declaration. Many Filipinos in local organizations build up their reputations by association and by photo ops. Being identified with Balita somehow gives added renown. (Related story at: http://www.balita.ca/about/the-editor/).
De Leon gate-crashed the LBC event to deliver his “statement of claim” detailing the legal action he has resorted to against me and Balita editor Tess Cusipag. What he had done was consistent with his earlier demeanor, i.e., conducting his business with irreverence and stealth.
He was handing me a whole envelope of documents while the LBC receptionist was talking to me and asking me to sign in. “You’re served”, he repeated, and I refused to pay attention. Nor would I take the envelope, telling him on his face that I would attend to him only as soon as I finish up.
He left the envelope on the table. I then turned my back and went to another table where I completed the process and got a name tag. I glanced that he picked up the envelope and stepped back as guests were coming in and milling around the registration area.
De Leon, looking pitiful in a corner, waited. When he saw I was done, he advanced again and handed me the envelope, stating “you’re served”.
I could feel that it was a moment of triumph for him, for the mere fact of talking to him already acknowledged his existence as a person. I then decried his rudeness. I took the envelope but not without me saying a word about his conduct.
He was repulsive when he displayed insensitivity to the grief-stricken family of Ruben Cusipag. Out of respect, he could have withdrawn his article in Philippine Reporter while Cusipag was being eulogized at a funeral home in Markham. But he didn’t. The paper’s editor didn’t; instead, he inserted a note saying Cusipag had passed away.
At that point, I thought De Leon and the Reporter editor who had made the insertion had become beasts out to bring more anguish to the bereaved. (Related story at: http://www.balita.ca/2013/11/mila-a-garcia-rumormonger-par-excellence-or-piddling-reporter/).
De Leon now wants the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to issue a mandatory order to Balita and this reporter to remove all articles and videos which he perceives to be “defamatory” from the paper’s website and other online and internet sites. (Related story at: http://www.balita.ca/2013/10/voltaire-de-leon-the-original-whorenalist-seeks-apology-warns-of-a-libel-suit/).
In his 33-page “statement of claim” signed, filed and dated November 19, 2013 and November 20, 2013, he also demands payment of a total of $500,000 in general, aggravated and punitive damages, and another $2,000 for costs. He’s also acting on his own behalf.
While he asks the “defamatory” stories to be stricken out, he again hits back at this reporter, calling my articles “repetitive, unbalanced, inflammatory, ill-researched and derisive”.
De Leon claims he’s a “playwright” and a “short story writer”, yet what he wrote in his friends’ Philippine Reporter was in the nature of what Filipino editors mockingly call “salsal”. As an example, he wrote the following: “Mr. . . . Ummm . . . . damn, whasisname ? y’know that muckraker, ‘journalist’ daw siya”; ” x x x it is the right animal to characterize . . . ahhh shit, wasisname”.
I suspect De Leon and his group of whiners have been long used to “praise journalism” and never heard of investigative journalism, which originally was referred to as muckraking. (Full story at: http://www.balita.ca/2013/02/worth-fighting-for-muckraking-is-no-nonsense-journalism/).
Journalists in this genre are called muckrakers – from the word muckrake, an agricultural tool used as a metaphor to describe a journalist’s efforts to search and expose corruption, abuses, injustice and misconduct, which are essentially muck or dirt. (Background info at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker).
In one of his pleadings, De Leon claims that “he had not acknowledged, either directly or indirectly in any writing, that he had stolen a computer from his work x x x “.
My article, according to him, “improperly ‘spinned’ what plaintiff wrote, which was in fact a warning, and not an admission x x x “. Who’s spinning what? (Full story at:http://www.balita.ca/2013/10/voltaire-de-leon-the-original-whorenalist-seeks-apology-warns-of-a-libel-suit/).
In August or September 2013, De Leon tried to soften the blow by calling it “the incident of theft” and begged Ms. Cusipag to “please don’t go there” as it “happened in the distant past”. Those are his words, loud and clear.