Community Roundup

Calgary, AB – The Philippine Department of Tourism (PDOT) and the Philippine Consulate General in Calgary are pleased to announce Canada’s first-ever Filipino Restaurant Month. This project will be jointly executed by the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa and the Philippine Consulates General (PCG) in Toronto and Vancouver. From April 1 …

Reposted  from May 2020 Members Clamor for an Independent Financial Audit Many people claim that FCT may well be the wealthiest non-profit Filipino community centre in Canada. Why? Because with the liquidation of its building last January 2017, its coffers swelled to a staggering $5.9 million (gross sale). While it …

Politics beckoned to him at a very young age. While 18-year-old boys spent time partying, enjoying their coming-of-age as young men, Vincent L. Soriano, at 18, was municipal councilor in his hometown of Pakil, a fifth-class municipality in Laguna province. And all the time he was municipal councilor, Soriano was …

A fixture in the Buyco family, Lola Meling to my daughters, and Lenggay to me and my siblings has journeyed to her next life. This is how I remember her. It was 67 years ago when Meling became part of our family literally fresh off the boat from Iloilo. She …

What passes as entertainment these days are largely high school dramas, those trauma plots pointing to transformation and identity.  Personally, these kinds of bildungsroman seem pretty foreign to me, as if they were disconnected petri dish specimens which seem good in the laboratory but they don’t seem to intersect with …

Consul General Orontes V. Castro (center) and Consul Rodney Jonas L. Sumague (leftmost) with Ms. Juanita Abalos Rejdik (Sanib Saya), Mr. Steve Pagao (President, Philippine Chamber of Commerce-Toronto), Ms. Mary Ann San Juan (President, Filipino Centre Toronto) and the Filipino-Canadian volunteers during the inspection of the donation on 26 January …

When the end of 2020 came, I took what I thought would be the biggest exhale of my life. Because to me, I thought there is no possible way that 2021 could be any harder. Like seriously, 2020 was a year spent in lockdown, isolated from all my friends and …

Willfredo Villanueva’s story, ‘Nightmare on Laurel Street,’ excerpt: “Leni Robredo conceded 12 hours after canvassing started, to the shock and consternation of her supporters. At the end of the balloting, Ferdinand Jr. received the highest margin of victory ever in electoral history anywhere in the world, with 94 percent of …

On January 25, 2022, the Philippine Consulate General – Toronto announced that Alex Chiu (†) was chosen as a recipient of the 2021 Presidential Awards for Filipino Individuals and Organizations Overseas (PAFIOO) and awarded the Banaag Award 2021 posthumously. Rizal Statue Unveiling Stemming from humble beginnings, Alex served his Markham …