Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results –Albert Einstein

T he national executive officers (NEOs) of the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA) always tell people not to mind “Bobby Reyes, for he is a crazy troublemaker out to destroy the federation.” This was after this writer started in May 2000 a campaign for reforms in the NaFFAA. Specifically, I campaigned for the NaFFAA NEOs to observe to the letter the ATIC tenets. ATIC, as I coined, means “accountability, transparency, integrity and credibility.”

For nearly a decade now, the NaFFAA NEOs continued and still continue their strategy of hitting the person of the messenger, instead of dealing with the message that financial improprieties have been occurring in the NaFFAA since it was founded in 1997.

The NaFFAA NEOs must really be that stupid for adopting the strategy of casting their number-one critic as “crazy.” But is it better to be called “crazy” than be dubbed “stupid”?

My tocayo, Robert J. Sternberg, says that “many politicians (read, people) act in ways that are stupid despite indications of general intelligence.” He argues that “there is an inherent psychological drive causing some acts of stupidity.” (Reference: Sternberg, Robert J. “Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid,” 2003, Yale University Press.)

There is a saying in Sorsogon Province (and Samar Island, too, per Prof. Cesar Torres) about lunacy and stupidity. The local adage says, “It is better to be crazy than be stupid.” Why? “Because crazy people have lucid intervals and there are now medicines for them. But there is no cure for stupidity.”

Editor’s Note: Professor Torres used to teach at the University of the Philippines (UP).

A nd my first boss in the Filipino-American press, book author and journalist Mar G. de Vera, swears that “Bobby Reyes writes only during his ‘lucid intervals,’ that is, if you argue that he is crazy as a fox.”

Some folks in the Bay Area of Northern California laugh when you ask them about UP alumni Attys. Rodel Rodis (a former president of the San Francisco Community College) and Loida Nicolas Lewis and Superior Court Judge Ron Quidachay. Yes, the troika is “smart” but it demonstrated “stupidity” in its collective conduct as the members of the NaFFAA Committee on Election that presided over the “Ballygate Scandal” on Oct. 1, 2000. (To read details of the "Ballygate" of a scandal, please click on this link, Why Many First-generation Filipino Immigrants Are Failing Badly as American Citizens

Perhaps friends of Attys. Lewis and Rodis and the Honorable Judge Quidachay should give them a copy of Robert Sternberg’s book for Christmas.

The Poet-pundit’s Survey

T hen my literary mentor, Poet-pundit Fred Burce Bunao, also a UP alumnus, says that the NaFFAA NEOs are wrong when they called this writer a “crazy troublemaker.” Mr. Bunao says that he conducted an informal and unscientific survey among 1,000 Filipino Americans in Southern California.

The irreverent Mr. Bunao says that one-third of his survey respondents said that “Bobby Reyes is a troublemaker but he is not crazy.”

Then Mr. Bunao found out in his survey that another one-third said that “Bobby Reyes is crazy but he is not a troublemaker.”

The final one-third of the people surveyed told Mr. Bunao that “Bobby Reyes is simply ‘trouble,’ if one does not follow his ATIC slogan.” ATIC, as this writer coined, means “accountability, transparency, integrity and credibility.”

But perhaps the NaFFAA folks should rewrite Albert Einstein’s “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Perhaps it should read: “Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results.”

Yes, as records will now prove, the NaFFAA’s “Golden-Gate Gang,” (to borrow the phrase of the Philadelphia’s Filipino-American pundit Ernie Gange) or AKA the controlling clique, did the same practices over and over again since they formed the federation in 1997. And the clique members expected the same results, if not the miracle of turning the public-benefit corporation into a milking cow, if not at the same time a rice granary (“palabigasan,” in the Filipino language).

But then the “crazy troublemaker” started asking questions about the ATIC and hallelujah, now people wonder if the miracles will never cease at the NaFFAA headquarters  . . . # # #