Outstanding Canadians? A Rain of Gold-Plated Medals in Toronto
Volume 1, Issue No. 2
OPINION/COMMENTARY
The News UpFront: (TOP STORY) as of Monday, October 16, 2017
~ Canada's 150th year of amalgamation, informally referred as "Canada's birthday" on July 1, 1867, has inspired all kinds of celebrations across the country, including Toronto's Filipino community. An organization called the Outstanding Canadian Awards (OCA) run by three individuals has piggybacked on the festivities and handed out shoddy gold-plated medals and stale certificates to recipients selected from a list of about 204 nominees for its namesake awards. The three organizers, however, have not identified the 150 supposed awardees that attended the mass conferment last week. Was it a fundraiser disguised as awards recognition?
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OUTSTANDING CANADIAN AWARDS
A Rain of Gold-Plated Medals in Toronto
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
TORONTO - The first time, in my personal reckoning, medals practically rained on Canada was in 2012 on the occasion of the 60th year of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne on February 6, 1952, upon the death of her father, King George VI, at age 56.
The year was a big milestone. The only other time in British history that a monarch celebrated a Diamond Jubilee was in 1897, when Queen Victoria, Elizabeth II's great-great-grandmother, celebrated hers. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZewturXN70).
Of course, everybody knows that Her Majesty The Queen of the United Kingdom is also the Queen of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and is Head of the Commonwealth and Queen of 12 countries that have become independent since her accession. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWegK1-tLcc).
So the year 2012 was filled with significance as it was the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. To mark the year-long event, thousands of commemorative medals were minted and distributed to the realm. Canada had sixty-thousand (60,000) of those Diamond Jubilee medals.
These were then apportioned to the country's 10 provinces and three territories. Members of Parliament and the Senate were allocated 30 medals each that were awarded to their constituencies who "have made significant contribution x x x that brings credit to Canada".
Several days ago, medals rained down again in Toronto.
Unlike the Queen's, this one is localized within the Greater Toronto Area by a group of three individuals calling itself as the Outstanding Canadian Awards (OCA). (More info at: http://www.outcan.ca/).
According to its website, OCA is "an Ontario-registered-non-profit & volunteer entity" headed by a Ray Alix, a secondary school teacher; his co-chair Lorenzo "Jun" Villaruz, a past grand knight of the Knights of Columbus and officer of Philippine Independence Day Council; and executive officer Roy Start.
Nominees for the OCA awards totaled 204 from which, presumably, a final 150 individuals were chosen for the OCA namesake awards under 14 categories, namely, Community and Leadership, Law and Justice, Health and Medicine, Science and Technology, Citizenship and Voluntarism, Business and Finance, Public Service, Culture and Heritage, Media, Sports and Fitness, Social Work, Arts and Entertainment, and Special Citation.
How three persons were able to measure and to pick 150 people and named them "outstanding" from a pool of 204 in the three weeks preceding the awards date is not known. Neither is the vetting process, if there's one. (Nominees at: http://www.outcan.ca/nominees.html).
Interestingly, the OCA trio - Alix, Villaruz, and Start - also listed themselves as nominees and received their awards two days ahead of the program. Perhaps they're unaware of what constitutes a conflict of interest. "Awarding themselves," says an informant, "are their own decisions".
The awards consisted of a sizable gold-plated medallion, a certificate of recognition (see photo attachment) and supposedly a citation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. However, mistakes in spelling, grammar and punctuation and the kind of paper and imprecise font used to create the certificates are fueling my suspicion about OCA's intent.
"Those certificates look fake, the font is bad, the English is bad, the organization name logo is not official," says one observer.
Apparently, nominees were selected on the basis of their friendship, ties, and familiarity with the three OCA officials and not necessarily for their "outstanding service" and "excellent contribution to the community and to Canada".
I could cite a few names with questionable backgrounds who I believe should be enshrined in a Hall of Shame based on my personal encounters with them as an investigative journalist. The list is littered with fakes and wannabes. In fairness, however, there are also people who are exemplary and truly deserving.
The fear of being challenged seems to be one of the reasons OCA chair Ray Alix has not provided the names of the OCA recipients since he promised the day after the Oct. 7 awarding ceremonies at the Sheraton Parkway Hotel in Richmond Hill. His OCA colleagues, Villaruz and Start, did not respond at all to questions about the awards.
I just learn, however, that OCA also gave a "Memorial Recognition Award" to Ruben Cusipag, founder ofBalita, now Toronto's largest Filipino newspaper. Without meaning to scoff at this remembrance, OCA did not cite anything akin to journalism, or to Ruben's trademark work exposing the ills in the community and fighting against the Marcos dictatorship.
I suspect OCA lifted the generic citation, thoughtlessly, from some sources, without conducting any research about who Ruben Cusipag was.
It reads: "This posthumous award is presented in his memory and in grateful recognition for (sic) the significant impact he has made to the Filipino Canadian community as a community leader & organizer, politician, friend and mentor in order to improve the lives and well-being of his kababayans and peers, for which we will never forget".
The inscription is quite a revelation for me, for I knew then while I was a journalism student and later as a reporter in Manila, that Ruben was a journalist through and through and an editor. In some ways, his daily reportage in the Evening News had been a model in deadline reporting.
I could be wrong but I don't think he was what OCA has characterized him. Its portrayal of him as "community leader & organizer, politician" are improper because none of those, I believe, accurately define Ruben Cusipag as a person and as a journalist.
What the award does is to highlight the ignorance and lack of understanding of the people behind OCA. Which leads me to the questions: Was the OCA a fund-raising scheme or a means to enhance the image of the organizers? How is OCA able to mount such a broad search for outstanding Canadians? Did OCA actually hand its awards to 150 individuals? Who are they?
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