Can Their Lawyers Answer Simple Questions? by Cress Vasquez The Filipino Centre Toronto (FCT) has demonstrated a dislike for conventions such as the accounting principle of listing payables as a liability in financial records like balance sheets and financial statements. Instead, what FCT President and CEO Mary Ann San Juan has done was use a special resolution to… Read More »
Can San Juan, Lumanlan Point Out What is False Here by Cress Vasquez Good deeds should not go unnoticed, especially with a community organization like the Filipino Centre Toronto (FCT), which is supposedly run by volunteers. But if FCT’s general membership is not fully aware of the process of granting reward and recognition, who should stand to blame?… Read More »
Turnabout on AGM On September 28, 2021, Mary Ann San Juan, President & CEO of FCT, issued an Annual General Meeting (AGM) Letter postponing the AGM for October 2021 until further notice. Thus, 2021 would have been the second year of no AGM for its members. She stated Covid as the reason and that “a virtual meeting may… Read More »
by Cress Vasquez Working for the same organization for several years has its rewards, but wait until you see how the Filipino Centre Toronto (FCT) board of directors passed a special resolution that put some $500,000 into the pockets of a husband and wife. The payment, according to lawyers from two different law firms, was likely a violation… Read More »
“And what is this writing, anyway, as a human activity or as a vocation, or as a profession, or as a hack job, or perhaps even as an art, and why do so many people feel compelled to do it?” Margaret Atwood, Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (2002). Unless you are being paid to… Read More »
By Hermione Cabie Santos On August 23, 2021, the Food and Drug Administration finally granted its first approval of a COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer-BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine, under the proprietary name COMIRNATY, reached a significant milestone in the pandemic’s history. Less than a year after the issuance of emergency use authorization (EUA) to COVID-19 vaccines from pharmaceutical giants, approximately 33… Read More »
by Cress Vasquez When Toronto Mayor John Tory spoke at the inauguration of the Filipino Centre Toronto’s (FCT) new office in Scarborough, August 2019, little did he suspect that he was in the company of individuals behind the omission of large liabilities, payables, and taxable salaries in FCT’s financial statements, and the hiring of lawyers for reasons unknown. … Read More »
“This place was part of him, and would always be. A rough place, a stern place, where it was monumental task just to survive. And it had given him some of its strength.” Max Braithwaite, All the Way Home (1986). By Rey Moreno “Don’t judge me until you learn the facts and circumstances of my life. Don’t take… Read More »
“When the plane was taking off…I will start everything again elsewhere…I was simply looking for a haven.” Ying Chen, “On the Verge of Disappearance”. The plane took off on schedule. I was at the window seat and looked out one last time, reflecting on the glaring but fading lights of the Philippine International Airport and its surrounding areas.… Read More »
“When you do something best in life, you don’t really want to give that up – and for me it’s tennis.” – Roger Federer The literal translation of the French words in the above title is “game of the palm.” The game of tennis then started as a handball game, and whenever the French would serve, they would… Read More »