Editorial

Like other immigrant communities in Canada, Filipinos are far from being a homogenous group.

For those who lived through or grew up from 1972 to 1986, there are palpable parallelisms between the Philippines’ martial law era to present-day Russia. While Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war is in Ukraine and Ferdinand E. Marcos’ war was against his countrymen, the similarities are nonetheless striking.

Some Filipinos who are passionate about politics in their homeland sometimes say one thing during presidential elections.

 If the last couple of years made you feel that they were a precursor to an apocalyptic event, you are not alone. Extreme weather marked almost every part of the globe with hurricanes and typhoons unseasonably hitting areas when residents are not prepared for such and drought in areas where entire crops are destroyed.

Real friends stand up for each other.

Countries do as well. Canada is a good example.

Canada has shown that it is prepared to stand up for the Philippines in its longstanding territorial dispute in the South China Sea with Asian power China.

It was a hastily called federal election that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had hoped he could use to solidify his party’s hold on political power.

As its name signifies, the Filipino Canadian Political Association is dedicated to a singular mission.

The Toronto-based nonprofit wants to foster stronger Canadian Filipino representation in elected offices at all levels of government in the country.

The discoveries of unmarked graves first in Kamloops, BC at the Kamloops Indian Residential School of 215 graves and just recently of 751 graves near a former Saskatchewan residential school shook Canada’s core. We, as a nation, suddenly lost our moral compass.

With the ongoing vaccination against COVID-19, this coming summer may look a lot brighter than last year’s.

However, the fight against the novel coronavirus is far from over.

News and the impacts of Atlanta spa shootings in the US on March 16 reverberated quickly on Canadian shores with protest rallies happening in major cities

like Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal and Vancouver during the last weekend of March denouncing violence against Asians.

 We’re not going to rehash the minute details, as many of you have probably heard of stories about Bill Gates and the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the yarn goes, the Microsoft founder and American billionaire had a role in making the virus, which was supposedly part of a plan by global elites to depopulate the world.

The year 2020 has been called many (bad) names: dumpster fire, exhausting, year of infamy, a fresh new hell at every turn.

But it will especially be known as the year that will forever be etched in every conscious mind that lived through it.