(Number of Anniversary is 19th, as updated on Jan. 1, 2016.) 

First of a Series on “Combating Corruption in the Community”

It was on Jan. 1, 1997, that the Philippine Department of Tourism (PDOT) fielded two floats at the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade (PTRP). The PDOT fielded two more floats on Jan. 1, 1998, at the same parade, which was Part II of the scandal. This writer was the first to call the PDOT officials and the officers of the United States-Philippines Tourism Advisory Council (USPTAC) as “crooks” for raising donations from the public supposedly to pay for the floats and refusing to make an accounting of the proceeds.

At that time, Ms. Mina Gabor was the Secretary of the PDOT while Atty. Orestes “Rusty” Ricaforte was the director of the Philippine Tourism Office in Los Angeles, California. Mrs. Lourdes A. Ongkeko chaired the Los Angeles chapter of the USPTAC and at the same time, she was a cofounder of National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA), which was organized also in 1997. She became the first chairperson of the Southern California-Southern Nevada chapter of the NaFFAA that year. She involved the NaFFAA in raising more funds for the Filipino floats at the 1998 Pasadena Tournament of Roses and in fact, she hired the firm of Greg Macabenta to do more fundraising schemes and public-relations campaigns.

The exposé about the turning of the Filipino floats at Pasadena into “milking cows” eventually demonstrated the Filipino “power of the pen”, if not the “power of the keyboard” in America. It proved that a solitary writer determined to expose anomalies in the community could prevail and earn the respect of his peers and the public at large at the end.

Poet-pundit Fred Burce Bunao wrote allegedly new lyrics to a song that Elton John popularized and dedicated to the "Rose of England." Mr. Bunao called the Philippine floats at the PTRP as “Scandle in the Wind” and dedicated his song to the "Filipino Rose of Pasadena." Readers may read Mr. Bunao’s humorous comments about the Philippine Scandal at the Pasadena Tournament of Roses and the other advocacies spearheaded by Bobby Reyes in these articles:

Acrimonious Acronyms Display Filipino-American Wit and Humor

“Dietzcoveries:” Sex, Lies and NaFFAAgate

This writer and Mrs. Ongkeko had been adversaries since 1991 at the now-moribund “Filipino-American Press Club of Los Angeles” (FAPCLA), details of which can be read at this link,

The "War of the Proses (sic)" – Its Beginning

This writer’s allegation against the corruption being committed by some of the PDOT and USPTAC officers was not the first time that he ran after a scam that supposedly involved Lourdes Ongkeko, et all. In 1991, he exposed the efforts of the so-called “Southern California Devotees of Santo Niño” to build a two-million dollar shrine in a mountain of Tehachapi, California, which Lourdes Ongkeko, et al, spearheaded. The same group was building also a resort and retirement site in an adjacent area in Tehachapi at the same time. The resort project managed to entice more than 600 Filipino-American buyers to plunk in deposits for membership shares at the resort valued at $7,500 each. Eventually both the Santo Niño shrine and the resort were not built. The projects were abandoned and no refund was made to the donors and the buyers of the resort’s proprietary shares. The corporation that was building the resort sought the protection of the bankruptcy court.

W ebmaster’s Note: Bobby M. Reyes denies vehemently that Mrs. Ongkeko is the lady described in his article,

A Parable of the Filipino Ph.D. in Beverly Hills

Lourdes Ongkeko eventually accepted the dare of this writer for her and the USPTAC officers and the PDOT officials to sue him for libel. However, only the husband of Mrs. Ongkeko joined her in suing this writer for libel in September 2000, some details of the trial could be found in this article,

Filipino Fun Facts (Part 8): Monkey Tails, oops, Tales

The “War of the Proses” between the feuding writers’ camps of Reyes and Ongkeko escalated not only from the press-club meetings but also it reached the Superior Court of Los Angeles, California, for the jury trial of the libel case that ended in August 2002 and the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA), which Mrs. Ongkeko cofounded. This writer had been hounding the NaFFAA national executive officers (NEOs) and the USPTAC for their failure to comply with his ATIC slogan. ATIC, as in accountability, transparency, integrity and credibility. The exposés about the NaFFAA scams are documented in this section,

http://www.mabuhayradio.com/sections/naffaagate.html

All the four Filipino floats fielded in 1997 and 1998 at the Pasadena parade were actually paid by the Philippine government and, therefore, it was not necessary to raise donations from the Filipino-American communities and American friends of the Philippines. – Lolo Bobby M. Reyes

V ery few members of the Filipino-American press covered the Ongkeko vs. Reyes libel case and the NaFFAA exposés, as many of the Filipino-American publishers either did not have the guts to print stories about the case or they feared the wrath of the plaintiff and/or they could not risk losing the ads of the PDOT, the Philippine Airlines, the Philippine National Bank and government agencies such as the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR).

If ever there was any coverage, it was slanted in favor of Mrs. Ongkeko and the NaFFAA NEOs. Bobby Reyes later wrote about the bias of the Philippine News, where the plaintiff wrote a column. Eventually, this writer mocked the firing of its editor in these articles:

Firing of Philippine News' Editor Is Poetic Justice

Latest Developments in the Philippine-News Brouhaha

Fielding the Philippine Floats at the Tournament of Roses Was Indeed a Big Scandal

S uing Bobby Reyes was actually a big blunder on the part of Mrs. Ongkeko. It enabled him to subpoena the financial documents that Mrs. Ongkeko and her USPTAC refused to release to the public.

The subpoenaed USPTAC financial documents confirmed the reports that some Deep Throats fed Bobby Reyes about the Philippine “Scandle in the Wind” at Pasadena. Among them were:

1.     All the four floats were actually paid by the Philippine government and, therefore, it was not necessary to raise donations from the Filipino-American communities and American friends of the Philippines.

2.     Mrs. Ongkeko testified during the jury trial that the USPTAC accepted only check donations and there was only one twenty-dollar bill that was received from the public. She denied that collection boxes were placed at Filipino-American stores, offices and associations, where Overseas Filipinos dropped paper money and coins.

3.     When Bobby Reyes, who defended himself in Propria Persona during the 18 pre-trial hearings and the one-week jury trial, cross-examined Mrs. Ongkeko, she admitted having raised funds in San Diego County. However, she insisted that after almost one year of fundraising, she and the USPTAC received in checks only less-than five-hundred ($500) dollars in donations. And San Diego County had more-than 100,000 Filipino-American residents at that time (and more in the past decade).

4.     The USPTAC and Mrs. Ongkeko did not have any financial report on the proceeds from the sale of the Filipino floats’ memorabilia such as T-shirts, sweat shirts, caps and jackets. Despite being shown a photo of a USPTAC booth selling the said memorabilia items, where she and her husband posed with the booth volunteers, she said she did not know if any item was sold.

5.     Mrs. Ongkeko admitted having gone to the Philippines to raise money for the Filipino floats at the PTRP. She admitted only receiving donations from then Manila Bulletin publisher Emilio Yap and from a Col. Rex Reyes. And she denied the report that during her fundraising trips to the Philippines, she bought in cash a condominium unit in Manila.

B ut there is poetic justice in this world. Tourism Director Ricaforte and his wife, Yolanda, fled the Philippines and became fugitives from justice in the United States – after he became an Undersecretary of  the PDOT and his wife the “bag lady” of then President Joseph Ejercito Estrada. The Ongkekos moved from Beverly Hills to Nevada to escape supposedly their being ostracized by Filipino Americans in Southern California. The Philippine News editor was fired. More on these angles and developments will be discussed in Part II of this series.

(To be continued . . .)