The “Embezzlement” Issues in the Menorgate/NaFFAAgate Scandals of San Jose |
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Thursday, 08 May 2008 13:52 | |||||||||||||||||
Rey Villar, a reader from Chicago, sent in this query about our report posted yesterday on the plea-bargain deal entered into by Ben Menor. Mr. Villar asked: “Can you provide a specific allegation against these supposed crooked officers that you're willing to post? Did they mismanage the organization? If so, that's a board management issue. Did they embezzle funds (?), then by all means have the courage to make that claim. Besides the tangential Menor issue, the only real complaint I gathered from my review is that they refused your request to release documents.” I
answered Mr. Villar, whom I requested to read all the articles in the NaFFAAgate of
the www.mabuhayradio.com.
I asked him in turn if he did read the article, The NaFFAA Is Bankrupt Not Only Financially But Also Intellectually and the two articles that it carried as hyperlinks.
Here are two of the paragraphs in the said article, which contained specific allegations about the modus operandi akin to criminal conduct of some of the national executive officers (NEOs) of the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA): <<Snipped>> The NaFFAA used to receive donations in the hundreds of thousands of dollars from major foundations such as the Bank of America (BA) and Wells Fargo Bank (WFB) but hints of financial impropriety ended the grants. (For instance, the Wells Fargo Foundation gave the NaFFAA $300,000 in 2002. The grant was secured by Greg Macabenta, then a NaFFAA NEO, whose company, the Minority Media, was paid commissions that were not reflected in the NaFFAA financial statement for 2002.) For a breakdown of the 2002 NaFFAA financial statement – and proof of the financial scandal, as it did not include the revenues from the 2002 NaFFAA convention in San Jose, CA – please go to http://www.pinoyonboard.com/2004/0819_naffaa.html.) <<Snipped>> This writer has exposed the financial abuses in the NaFFAA, like when it paid $132,878 in consultants’ fees in 2002. To read this charge of impropriety and other "sins" of then NaFFAA national chairwoman, Loida Nicolas Lewis, please go to http://www.pinoyonboard.com/2004/0815_naffaa.html. The point of my contention was: How can a business that had gross revenue in 2002 of $445,783 spend $132,878 or 29.81% for consultants’ fees? <<Snipped>> I told also Mr. Villar that I wrote the articles in the www.pinoyonboard.com in August 2004, and they can still be read by the public. For those who cannot access the www.PinoyonBoard.com and read the articles, here are some of the specific aspects of the financial scams that happened during the now-infamous NaFFAA national convention in San Jose, California, in August 2002: QUOTE. Here are my initial findings about the NaFFAA's financial report for the year ended Dec. 31, 2002, as reported to the IRS by submitting Form 990:
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UNQUOTE. To date, the NaFFAA national headquarters in Washington, DC, and its chapters in San Francisco and San Jose (California) have refused to make public the financial statement for the NaFFAA convention in San Jose, California. The public should remember that essentially the audit made by the City Auditor of San Jose confirmed my allegations that were made as early as September 2002 (2-0-0-2) that the NaFFAA NEOs pocketed the revenues generated from their convention in San Jose in August of 2002. They did not turn over to the NaFFAA national treasury the revenues and they charged most of the convention expenses to the NorthsideCommunity Center, which did not also receive even a single cent of the convention revenues. It was quite a modus operandi that I insisted way back in September 2002 that the NaFFAA NEOs who orchestrated the convention in San Jose were indeed crooks (C-R-O-O-K-S). Since September 2002, I have dared the NaFFAA NEOs, especially the convention co-chairs Ben Menor and Rodel Rodis, to sue me for libel if they did not like my calling them as “crooks.” To date, no libel case has been filed by any of the NaFFAA NEOs. (To be continued . . .)
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