Editors Note: The opinion stated reflects the opinion of the author and is not necessarily that of PinoyOnBoard.
Manay Loida is my townmate and family-and-childhood friend. I know her better than many of you do.
The name of Manay Loida is not being dragged into this mess because she happens to be the national chairperson of the NaFFAA. The buck stops at her desk. To date she has done nothing, nada, zip, zero to address the issues.
She can easily order the release of the names of the consultants that the NaFFAA paid $132,878 in 2002 alone. How about the consultants' fees paid from 1997 to 2001 and from 2003 to the present?
We do not know who Manay Loida is protecting but she would rather suffer in silence all the embarrassment brought about by my exposé than confront the truth and the issues.
On Oct. 1, 2000, the NaFFAA held the first-ever election for the chairmanship of Region IX (then composed of Southern CA and Southern Nevada) at the Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas. The election became known as the Ballygate Scandal. I was one of two candidates. My group fielded 35 delegates that all paid $200 each, including the $25 voter's registration fee that was mandated by the NaFFAA bylaws, which also laid the rule that only delegates could vote.
My opponents' supporters (all belonging to the Esclamado Clique) totaled less than 20 (fully paid delegates that paid also the $25 registration fee). So I was poised to win the election.
Then the Committee on Election (COMELEC) ruled to waive the $25 voter's fee plus allow even high-school students who were just observers to vote. The COMELEC also refused to address our complaint that the NaFFAA Secretariat failed to give us or anybody else a voter's list that was supposed to be finalized on Sept. 29, 2000. Manay Loida Nicolas-Lewis was a member of that COMELEC.
There were eight fellow Sorsoganons in my delegation and all of them appealed to Manay Loida for justice. She refused to even utter a whimper of a protest to the unconstitutional process that her committee was doing. That led many Sorsoganons to say that while Manay Loida might have all the money in the world, she could not buy the quality of delicadeza, which is not for sale in the first place.
Then in less than a year, my opponent, Mark Pullido (that Manay Loida's COMELEC ruled as the duly-elected chairman) resigned in January 2001. The NaFFAA bylaws said that the runner-up in any regional election was automatically the vice chairman. So, I announced that pursuant to the bylaws, I was then taking over the chairmanship.
The NaFFAA National Board refused to recognize me, in spite of the fact that the NaFFAA Region I (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the New England States) recognized my chairmanship. Manay Loida used to be chairperson of Region I and the vote to recognize me was obviously an insult to her.
Then in April 2002, Manay Loida was present when the NaFFAA Board voted to expel me and my coalition as NaFFAA members. The expulsion was done without a formal notice and a hearing, in violation again of the NaFFAA bylaws. There were 20 members of the NaFFAA national Board then present. The vote was 11 in favor of expulsion, eight against and one abstained.
The following day I e-mailed Manay Loida and I pointed to her, she being a lawyer, that the expulsion did not comply with the NaFFAA bylaws that stated that a two-thirds vote was necessary to expel any member. I said that 11 votes out of 20 voters fell short of the two-thirds' requirement. I told Manay Loida that two-thirds of 20 was at least 13 votes (65%), since 2/3 is 66.66%.
We cannot comprehend why Manay Loida seems to have dual personalities. She appears to be a role model for many Filipinos in the Philippines. And whenever she is in Sorsogon, she praises me to high heavens for being a very proactive Sorsoganon community leader in America. But many Filipino Americans now know that in the NaFFAA circles, she walks like a duck, talks like a duck and acts like a duck, and, ergo, she belongs to the group of ugly ducks and ducklings that is otherwise known as the Esclamado Clique.
As I have been saying, once the Feds approve my complaint for the Esclamado Clique to be charged with violations of the RICO Act, my favorite manay might be tagged by the New York mainstream press as the Filipino version of Martha Stewart. The New York reporters may cover her like sharks circle a wounded swimmer. She may just deserve the fate for disregarding fairness, justice and equality.
Many Bicolnons are at a loss why Manay Loida likes to tell people proudly that she is an alumna of the University of the Philippines' College of Law. Many of us think that not too many UP law graduates would act like what Manay Loida is doing at the NaFFAA. Sayang ba yong UP diploma?
And BTW my manay and I talked on the phone for more than hour in October 2002, just after she became the NaFFAA chairperson. I offered to help her do the Reform Agenda in the NaFFAA and volunteered to serve as her consultant before I would go back to Sorsogon to run for the governorship. She said that she would consult her Board. She never got back to me.
I met her face to face in Detroit during the NaFFAA regional conference in August 2003. Ed Navarra, the NaFFAA regional chairman in the Midwest, invited me and he ignored the demand of Mrs. Lewis and Company to cancel the invitation. Manay Loida and I had a five-minute chat at the corridor. I warned her in Sorsoganon that there "are so many financial improprieties" in the NaFFAA and that she might be dragged into the mess. She just smiled.
Last March 2004, Chicago-based Sorsoganon journalist Joseph Lariosa used his cell phone in contacting me. When I was on the line, Joseph told Manay Loida (who was then in Chicago) that she could speak to me and discuss the NaFFAA controversies. Manay Loida refused. When Joseph asked her why "she did not want to talk to Bobby Reyes," she said that "Bobby Reyes did not have any credibility."
Now, readers, please judge who -- between Manay Loida and me -- has the credibility?
I may be one of the poorest Sorsoganons (out of the more than 1,000 Sorsogon natives) in the United States but casting modesty aside, many more of our kahimanwa respect me more than they do Manay Loida. I do not know why but it seems money is not the sole criterion of Sorsoganons insofar as determining who their friends are. As one Sorsoganon in San Diego said, "Loida is our acquaintance but you, Bobby Reyes, are our friend."
And finally, if Manay Loida thinks that this article is libelous and that my criticisms against her and her fellow NaFFAA national officers are libelous too, then they could file a libel suit or suits against me. I have been daring them to do so for almost four years and three months now, so that I could subpoena all their financial records, including their personal income-tax returns. But so far, they just suffer in silence. Yes, Sir, often silence is golden, especially when amounts involved in the NaFFAA could buy gold bullion.
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