Part 8 of the "FilVets’ Lobby" Series

The day of reckoning is come. July 13, 2007, Friday, is the deadline given to the National Alliance for Veterans’ Equity (NAFVE) to do something equally historic. The alliance is coordinating the Filipino Veterans’ (FilVets’) Lobby in Washington, DC. This writer has asked the NAFVE officers to ask the resignation of three NaFFAA representatives to the alliance. The targeted trio represents the ruling clique in the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA).

Here is the e-mail sent to the NAFVE today: QUOTE.

Moment of Truth

This is the moment of truth. This is the moment that my supporters and I have been waiting for since the Ballygate of an election scandal was done by the NaFFAA ruling clique on Oct. 1, 2000, at the Bally Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The clique did all the dirty tricks in the books and more – like the Committee on Elections (COMELEC) amending the NaFFAA bylaws then and there – to steal the election and deny this writer the chairmanship of the NaFFAA’s Region IX (Southern California and Southern Nevada). I told two members of the NaFFAA COMELEC, Atty. Rodel Rodis and San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ron Quidachay, at the Bally’s valet-parking station that someday justice would be done. Later that afternoon, I told the same message to Atty. Loida Nicolas-Lewis, the third COMELEC member, whom our party met by chance at the Pinoy-Pinay Restaurant. I told Ms. Loida, my childhood friend and fellow Sorsoganon, to just wait for Judgment Day.

Well, on July 13, 2007, Judgment Day will begin. It will be a long day. In fact, it may as well stretch into months, as we fight the NaFFAA clique members in the civil and criminal courts from sea to shining sea. That is, from San Jose, California, to New York City, and all the pertinent jurisdictions in between them.

After the NaFFAAgate and Menorgate Scandals happened in San Jose, CA, in August 2002, this writer told in a heated online debate the NaFFAA national treasurer, Ludy Corrales of New Jersey, to expect someday a final showdown. I told Ms. Ludy that there would be a proverbial version of the "Gunfight at the OK Corrales (sic)" and that we expected to win the shootout.

Yes, it is like the movie, "High Noon." The showdown has begun. It is almost a quarter before 12:00 noon.

Payback Time

It is payback time. The NaFFAA ruling clique will pay for all the moneys its members diverted from a senior-citizens’ center in San Jose to pay for the now-infamous NaFFAA convention in August 2002. And the convention co-chairs, Ben Menor and Rodel Rodis, (again of all people) refused to present a financial statement despite continuous demands by community advocates and this writer’s group of activists. The NaFFAA clique members will now be forced to account for the grants given to them by entities like the Ford Foundation, which they used in 2002 almost entirely (90%) to pay for consultants’ fees.

It is payback time for all the insults and below-the-belt tactics that the NaFFAA clique members hurled at this writer and the persons of his spouse and children. Instead of attending to the message and providing the public with the financial records being asked, all the NaFFAA clique did was to invent lies and more lies about the messenger and his kin. They loved to call this writer "a crazy troublemaker out to destroy the NaFFAA." They called me lots of names from "as_hole" (as posted online by Mr. Rodis) to "rat, parasite and worm" (as dished out by Greg Macabenta) to "illegal alien, gay, immoral person," etceteras, etc. (by the bigot Perry Diaz) and repeated by the clique members all those years. Why, Diaz and Company liked to post online that this writer’s spouse is an adulteress, if not a slut, as we are not married to each other although we have been domestic companions for more-than 37 years and counting.

This fight for reforms in the NaFFAA is just more than a fight for principles. It is the fight to prove to the world, especially American decision makers, that Filipinos did not invent sleaze and much more bring with them to the United States a culture of corruption. It is also a crusade for the NaFFAA and other Filipino-American associations to comply with the ATIC slogan. ATIC, as I coined, means accountability, transparency, integrity and credibility.

The Filipino expatriate community and even the Philippine Government, as represented by the Philippine Embassy, can no longer ignore this Almageddon. It is the fight for the soul (alma), heart and mind of the Filipino Americans. It is being now fought in the ultimate corridor of influence in the world’s only superpower.

We will see what happens next Friday, the thirteenth day of July, in the Beltway. Perhaps, the whole Overseas-Filipino World (OFW) would just see how the NaFFAA clique members use their own belts to hang themselves in public and incriminate each other for all the financial scams that they have done in, and to, the federation. Perhaps the NaFFAA NEOs will just abandon their headquarters in Washington and flee like rats with their proverbial tails in between them. Then there would be no need to turn the NaFFAA headquarters into a Filipino-American version of the Bastille. For all we know, the NaFFAA NEOs know that this is the end, as they are like now fried rice or the very least, French fries. All cooked and ready for the take out.

This writer began the fight for reforms in the NaFFAA in March 2000 during the NaFFAA regional convention in Little Rock, AR. Full hostilities erupted online in May 2000. All those years, I told myself and my supporters to remember a line in the "High Noon" theme song. The lyrics go this way, "I do not know what fate awaits me, I only know I must be brave . . ." For the NaFFAA clique members, their fate is predictable: Crooks go to jail in the United States and jurors tell the guilty to pay lots of actual and punitive damages to the victims of the scams. # # #