Re: Official Statement from GoKaisho “NoKaisho” organizer Jomar Gutierrez Custodio

Source of statement (He apparently removed the original blog. Perhaps out of the number of hate comments.)***

Previous statement with regards to the cancellation.

I only have a few words to say before my opinion regarding the apology and explanation given by the organizer.

1. I wasn’t planning on going to GoKaisho. Treat the following comment as nothing but a piece of my mind.

2. I am not a cosplayer.

3. I am not a rich guy but I’m planning on becoming one.

4. I do not know anyone from GoKaisho.

5. I’m just a blogger looking for a few clicks.

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9 opinions from the 9th Soul.

1. The statement with regards to the cancelled event was too long and too broad for a professional apology. I mean, why bother saying crap like “I am not a rich guy”, “I walked under the heat of the sun for 500 miles”, “I am afraid of having physical contact outside my house”, or stuff like that? He just made it full of drama. Unnecessary paragraphs of his life’s day-to-day crap is nothing but words to gain sympathy from the readers. This ain’t no “WOWOWEE” or “WISH KO LANG” show. The necessity to be unnecessary has never perplexed me so.

2. He tells of having the place to hold the event be a problem and caused various and multiple painful considerations on their part. So why the heck did they hold that in PTTC? A place like a Megatrade hall or two would’ve sufficed. It’s a rotten place to hold an event but it works every damn time. Besides, did they actually expect so many people to attend an “amateur” event? Amateur compared to seasoned veterans like Toy Con or Ozine, GoKaisho is not something you can compare.

3. I have to quote this one for this made me laugh:

We are also in doubt of paying the venue due to one statement included in their Hall Rules stating that there shall be no FAKE, PIRATED or SMUGGLED items or products to be exhibited, sold and purchased inside the venue hall.

That’s what you get for teaming up with a known (and very popular) pirated DVD seller. I’m not naming anyone but I bet you already know who he is.

4. He mentions of having only a group of five. He expects many yet has only so few to do the work. Bottomline: It can only fail that way.

5. It took you half of your life to hold an event? Weren’t you supposed to have thought that out beforehand? Dude, it’s an event that expects a lot of people. Surely you considered that when you initiated the GoKaisho project. If not, then I’m afraid the fault was yours.

It took me my allowance and class schedule as student, my sleeping hours, my family time, my social life, and my physical and mental health to do everything I must do and to have the guts to make an event which soon my efforts will be deemed futile by those who do not know me or believe in me. I do not know those people or their personal link to me if it existed between but I will not waste my time on learning their worthless identities just like what they did to me.

How dare you tell them they are worthless? Who’s to say one worked harder than the other? Who’s to say someone is worthless? You’re taking it too personally. It was an event that failed those who had hoped for it. What were you expecting? Sympathy? Pity? A slap on the wrist?

6. This whole thing is just pure non sense

I don’t know if you all even walked 30 kilometers from Manila to Marikina City under the sunlight just to go home after hours of mental exhaustion for planning an event yet lacking in money to ride just once on a Jeepney and other power walking from San Juan to Manila just moments before midnight still with no money. I don’t know if you were even a victim of hold-up just before you go home on Cubao, Quezon City days before the Holy Week Vacation and the suspects were a bunch of the so-called rugby boys who were younger than you and they snatched from you your MP3 player, those cellular phones with important contacts of your sponsors and exhibitors, an ATM card which is now unusable your money and post-dated checks from you and your exhibitors who paid for the event. I don’t mind stating to the police the amount of they robbed from me as they would think I was a rich kid; however, I was on the period of shock when it happened. I don’t know if you faced yourself in front of an almost-broken PC that malfunctioned over five times from afternoon until midnight just because you were creating a floor plan on Adobe Photoshop. I may be considered lucky just because I did roam within the metro in search of these exhibitors and sponsors but I earned much exhaustion as I call it a day.

I would have to say “So what?” on the highlighted lines. You said you were a team of five and yet you seem to be the one doing all the work. Aren’t you being too nice a leader that way? You ran out of money for transportation? What kind of an organizer does not expect to lose money? For an organizer, you sure are very unorganized. Being robbed of what you have or having your machine break down on you isn’t only isolated to a few people. More people experience far worse than that every damn day. What happened to you was just dumb luck. Surely you would’ve had a back up plan but based on what you wrote, you lack what it takes to be an “organizer” for the position requires one to be organized.

7. More BS

I do not get the point of the reason why we always disregard and completely forget the good deeds done by one person but we do have our eyes on those who made mistakes on any degree. We are not afraid of making bad comments and offensive judgments on people who committed any wrongdoings against their good intentions like we never even made one mistake during our lives.

It’s called REALITY. Live with it or die trying to change it. Again, it’s not only you who suffers from this.

8. Here’s an interesting quote:

I worked as an organizer of this event from the start and I must continue to work as an organizer until the new day of the event.

Isn’t this promising? Many people wonder if the event is still worth going to despite the amount of money they spent on tickets and the excuses they probably made up to join the event. They wonder if this will push through by the end of this year. Also, I heard rumors of GoKaisho going up against Toy Con by having it on the same month. If so, then the number of people attending your event would decrease. Why? People can only have so much time and money. Much effort is needed to maintain and carry a shit load of props and cosplay paraphernalia.

9. The point of the matter (of their rage) was the fact that you didn’t inform anyone of the inevitable cancellation until the last moment. Heck, as an organizer, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE EVERYTHING IRONED OUT a few weeks or at least days before. A team of five? Five as in five people or five as in your five personalities? I have nothing against you PERSONALLY but my friends who were supposed to go there and have a good time deserve some form of retribution even though it’s such a trivial matter full of trifles to begin with. I’m not angry; I’m just stating all the wrong things you did and making you think twice before blaming it on things that weren’t their (the would be event goers) fault to begin with.

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The organizer’s facebook profile.

***UPDATE as of May 9 2010 10:35 PM: Thanks to Google cache, I found the original post deleted by the organizer.

I, the organizer of GO KAISHO, must give a statement regarding the postponed event.

This is a statement sincerely written by yours truly and the outcome of this message has not been influenced by anyone. I am in doubt of releasing this statement and to speak personally for fear of not believing in my words.

It is very depressing that I myself was never given a chance to speak for my own sake of protecting my name and my position. It is more than terrible enough that I was indeed called at “suspect” of a scam — a bad credit I never expect to gain.

It’s sad that I am unable to go to our home or roam everywhere for fear of someone’s intention of hurting my in any way — physically, emotionally and mentally. It’s sad that I am unable to open my phone and get some comfort from my friends and relatives. Terribly sad that everyone judged me before my presence. I never intend to do a crime or to make a big joke at everyone but I am really afraid of not successfully reaching my word to everyone and false words from anonymous people would rule in the minds of other people. Please continue reading if you want and you are to believe in my words.

It is true that all of the sponsors and exhibitors mentioned in the event website are our event partners. I sincerely wanted to say that the sponsors on the highest level are not paying sponsors; it simply means that they did not give any amount of money to us as a sponsor but they gave only products, services and other materials that would help our event aside from any monetary sponsorship.

I am afraid to say this but this is true. I have done my very best to deeply talk to present and supposed-to-be sponsors and sincerely advise them that we are a non-profit group and a monetary sponsorship will greatly help us in making the event a blast but alas we have no choice but to understand their situation and wholeheartedly accept their offers which are indeed reasonable.

Another option was to have food and beverage companies as our sponsors but we were warned by the official caterer of the PTTC that only their products were the ones that must be sold inside the venue and no other food and beverage firms shall enter inside the venue. We were lucky indeed that we successfully pushed through a beverage company to our event. We even regretfully did pull the plug on the KAISHO Cafe because of the warning from the caterer. If we would want to push through the KAISHO Cafe inside the exhibition hall, it must be their catering staff that must hold and serve at that cafeteria and not our recruited cafe staff dressed as maids.

Even combining the payments from our exhibitors because we were lacking of paying sponsors was not enough for our event expenses including the venue hall. It’s not we don’t have money. If we paid the venue hall in full in the first place, we don’t have anything left for other event needs.

We are also in doubt of paying the venue due to one statement included in their Hall Rules stating that there shall be no FAKE, PIRATED or SMUGGLED items or products to be exhibited, sold and purchased inside the venue hall. We cannot monitor the items there if the event was pushed through. I don’t intend to say this to offend any individual or entity but we were advised that we were responsible if they found that our event violated such rule even if we are not the ones who owned the items.

Another way of earning for the event is to have pre-event tickets. I don’t have an army of anime fans who will do the work but only a small group of five. We went as far as the Southernmost portion of the metro to personally deliver the tickets to them. We don’t mind the extreme heat of the sun or traffic jams as long as we believe we were doing a good thing. We even decided to sell tickets during an anime event but although sales was low we knew it would help a lot even just for other event needs.

To all who were able to purchased the tickets before the event, please do keep them for those are still valid tickets. Please be strongly reminded that the event is postponed to a new date and place and not completely canceled.

We never expect for this hardship for the sake of getting sponsors. We do expect that not all sponsors would be paying in cash but we rather some would like to have half-cash and half-in-kind sponsorships. I never reached my expectations for our event based on the situation. The offers were so great that I dare not to miss it. Above all, I would really want to thank our event partners who gladly supported us and completely understand the situation I was having this time.

Some people stuck in their minds for so long that having more sponsors mean making more money. Just like what I have said: NOT ALL SPONSORS WOULD PAY MONEY I am not afraid to tell this because it is true and I am determined to say these things not because I am mad at our valued event partners. This statement is my way of expressing myself to everyone. I am human being and I deserve to express by disappointment, anger and sadness. I must expel the negative thoughts running through my mind with this statement I wrote.

It took me my allowance and class schedule as student, my sleeping hours, my family time, my social life, and my physical and mental health to do everything I must do and to have the guts to make an event which soon my efforts will be deemed futile by those who do not know me or believe in me. I do not know those people or their personal link to me if it existed between but I will not waste my time on learning their worthless identities just like what they did to me.

I don’t know if you all even walked 30 kilometers from Manila to Marikina City under the sunlight just to go home after hours of mental exhaustion for planning an event yet lacking in money to ride just once on a Jeepney and other power walking from San Juan to Manila just moments before midnight still with no money. I don’t know if you were even a victim of hold-up just before you go home on Cubao, Quezon City days before the Holy Week Vacation and the suspects were a bunch of the so-called rugby boys who were younger than you and they snatched from you your MP3 player, those cellular phones with important contacts of your sponsors and exhibitors, an ATM card which is now unusable your money and post-dated checks from you and your exhibitors who paid for the event. I don’t mind stating to the police the amount of they robbed from me as they would think I was a rich kid; however, I was on the period of shock when it happened. I don’t know if you faced yourself in front of an almost-broken PC that malfunctioned over five times from afternoon until midnight just because you were creating a floor plan on Adobe Photoshop. I may be considered lucky just because I did roam within the metro in search of these exhibitors and sponsors but I earned much exhaustion as I call it a day.

I do not get the point of the reason why we always disregard and completely forget the good deeds done by one person but we do have our eyes on those who made mistakes on any degree. We are not afraid of making bad comments and offensive judgments on people who committed any wrongdoings against their good intentions like we never even made one mistake during our lives.

I would proudly and wholeheartedly proclaim to everyone that I am not pulling the plug on this event. We have earned enough agony to remind us that we are still alive and we must act together to fix the problem. I am not afraid to show myself to everyone because I do not intend to do any wrong deeds although I am not ready to be there before your presence and I hope for your understanding. Please consider this as an proof that I am not leaving this mess behind even if I do not intend to make one. I worked as an organizer of this event from the start and I must continue to work as an organizer until the new day of the event. I have designated a friend of mine as one of the organizers of the event and I know that he can do well if not better. I believe in his capability because he believes in me. I believe that this statement of more than 1500 words would be enough to clarify things to everyone. I don’t enforce everyone to read and believe in it if your minds are closed while bearing the details.

Above all things that I have said, I would like to tell everyone that I am still a human being and I would like to apologize as an organizer, as an individual and as an otaku whose intention is to have a new and great event. The outcome is against my expectations for this event and I know I did not make the cut this time. I am really, really sorry if this incident caused enough stir, confusion, disappointment and anger.

If you believe in these words, I say thank you very much. May God bless us all.

Jomar Gutierrez Custodio