Rozita Lee Should Defer Acceptance

of President Obama’s Appointment

If She Has an Ounce of “Delicadeza” Left in Her

Part Seven of the “Butanding Brouhaha” Series

September is a meaningful, significant and a very emotional month for Filipinos, Americans and at least 75 other nationalities worldwide.—Atty. Ben G. Maynigo

T hus, Ben Maynigo, the Washington, DC-based Filipino-American lawyer, continued with his column on September. “The 911 Commission Report has this to say: At 8:46 on the morning of September 11, 2001, the United States became a nation transformed . . .”

To read Attorney Maynigo’s column, please click on this link,

September Is the Month Not Only of the 9/11 Tragedy But Also Other Tragic As Well As Historical Events

A September Shocker for Two Presidents

T he appointment of Ms. Rozita Lee by President Barack H. Obama to his Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as announced by The White House last Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010, brings into focus the NaFFAAgate. Ms. Rozita is the national vice chairperson of the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA), which this writer has described as a “corrupt organization.” To view the numerous articles and exposés in the NaFFAAgate section, please click on this link, http://www.mabuhayradio.com/naffaagate/

Now the fight to liberate the NaFFAA from the control of a corrupt clique has reached The White House. It has reached also Malacañang, the presidential palace of the Philippines.

Philippine President Noynoy Aquino will be in San Jose, California, this weekend. And we have already advised some of the Philippine presidential staff members and Filipino diplomats of the NaFFAAgate and the fact that some of the NaFFAA NEOs raised funds for Mr. Aquino's presidential campaign but they have not presented a true-and-factual accounting of the money raised and how it was all spent. And of course, the Philippine President and his party will be reminded that the City of San Jose is where the Menorgate part of the NaFFAAgate happened. Yes, Filipino Americans should know their way to San Jose.

September of 2010 is the start of the pay-back time for the NaFFAA crooks. They will have to pay back to the federation the money that they stole. They will have to pay more fines to the American government and possibly suffer incarceration for all the criminal-fraudulent acts they have committed since 1997, when they founded the NaFFAA.

Some of the Sins of Rozita Lee and Her Fellow NEOs

T he “war” to liberate the NaFFAA from the control of the corrupt and crooked clique all started in Las Vegas, Nevada, during the Third National Convention of the federation at the Bally’s Hotel and Casino. Ms. Rozita Lee was the convention chairperson. The convention was held on Sept. 29-30 to Oct. 1, 2000. The NaFFAA ruling clique engineered what is now known as the “Ballygate” and used all the dirty tricks to cheat in the Oct. 1, 2000, election for the chairmanship of the NaFFAA Region IX, which then consisted of Southern California and Southern Nevada. The “Ballygate” would not have happened without the connivance and approval of Ms. Rozita Lee. To learn more about the electoral scandal, please click on this link: Why Many First-generation Filipino Immigrants Are Failing Badly as American Citizens

When the NaFFAA Committee on Elections (COMELEC) “amended” the NaFFAA bylaws and permitted voters who were unregistered delegates and duly-registered ones to vote without paying the $25 “voter’s registration fee,” Rozita Lee did not act on our protest that her Host Committee presented a fabricated list of those who were eligible to vote. Even the members of Ms. Lee’s Host Committee did not bother to pay the $25 voter’s registration fee and yet they were allowed to vote. The COMELEC for that “Ballygate” of an election scandal was composed of San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ron Quidachay, Atty. Loida Nicolas-Lewis and Atty. Rodel Rodis.

When the Convention Host Committee refunded the $25 voter’s registration fee paid by all our 35 registered delegates (per the order of the NaFFAA COMELEC), Rozita Lee issued us a NaFFAA check with her sole signature. The NaFFAA bylaws requires that all checks be signed by two signatories. When we brought the matter to the NaFFAA national executive officers (NEOs), they informed us that even then National Chairman Alex Esclamado and Region I Chairperson Loida Nicolas-Lewis were signing NaFFAA checks with their signature – without the signature of the required countersignatory. Because they said, more-often than not, the countersignatory was not available.

For almost a decade, we provided Rozita Lee with copies of our complaints as posted also in several e-newsgroups. She periodically received e-mails from our group that proved the corruption being done by some of the NEOs. Yet, Rozita Lee did nothing and her silence was awarded by the other members of the ruling clique when she was “elected” as the national vice-chairperson at the NaFFAA convention in Honolulu, Hawaii, in September 2006.

Encounter in Los Angeles

On

Oct. 7, 2007, Rozita Lee attended the “Bayanihan Sa Amerika,” as sponsored by the Philippine Consulate General and the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) at the then-New Otani Hotel in Los Angeles, California. I was also an invited guest to the said event. Details of the event are in this article, Report on the First-ever “Bayanihan Sa Amerika” In Los Angeles

In the presence of Philippine Consul General Mary Jo Bernardo-Aragon, I congratulated Ms. Lee on her election as the NaFFAA national vice chairperson. This writer said that perhaps we could use her name as a rallying cry for unity in the federation. I said that “Leeconciliation” can be the rallying slogan. But I said further that the NEOs must also produce the documents and order a forensic audit of all financial reports, including the financial statements for all past national conventions and global conferences. Ms. Rozita did not react at all to my suggested conditions for peace and harmony in the federation.

Rozita Lee is part and parcel of a corrupt organization, which fact our coalition is bringing to the attention of the United States Department of Justice for prosecution under the “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.” We are also submitting a complaint for tax evasion on the incomes pocketed illegally by some of the NaFFAA NEOs with the Criminal Prosecution Division of the Internal Revenue Service.

Yes, Ms. Rozita Lee and the other NaFFAA NEOs who are members of the ruling clique can claim the presumption of innocence. Yes, until proven guilty in a court of law, they are presumed to be law-abiding citizens and not crooks. But there is preponderance of evidence, as one of the NaFFAA NEOs, Ben Menor, pleaded “no contest” to the felony charge of criminal fraud filed by the District Attorney of Santa Clara County and to a civil case for fraudulent misuse of city funds by the City of San Jose, California, partly to fund the NaFFAA’s national convention in San Jose in August 2002, as chaired by Ben Menor. Then Mr. Menor accepted a plea-bargain deal with the prosecutors and the City of San Jose.

“Delicadeza” and Not “Delihensiya”

If Rozita Lee and her fellow NEOs in the NaFFAA have an ounce of “delicadeza” (the time-honored sense of propriety) left in them, the NEOs should advise her to defer acceptance of her appointment by President Obama to his Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. It will be more embarrassing on her part to be asked to resign later by The White House once our complaint is duly acted upon by the Department of Justice and the IRS’s Criminal Prosecution Division.

But then as Columnist Jesse Jose said, the NaFFAA NEOs are a bunch of “Kapalmuks” (thick-skinned people) that has no shame at all. Instead of “delicadeza,” many of the NaFFAA NEOs practice the way of the “delihensiya,” which means loosely in Filipino as “the practice of pocketing ill-gotten wealth or income.” Please read Jesse Jose’s commentary in this satire, Jesse Jose Laughs Off “Overseas-Filipino KAPALMUKS Confab on Good Governance” in Manila on July 1-2

(To be continued . . .)