Open Letter to the Community: The issues behind the ‘illegal takeover’ at Silayan

Open Letter to the Community: The issues behind the ‘illegal takeover’ at Silayan

We the undersigned, are calling on you to help us protect Silayan Community Centre and our community’s reputation as law abiding citizens. Please help us remedy the situation at Silayan without further damage to the community.

The May 21 meeting at Silayan Community Centre called by Willie Nabus, Carmen Subibi, Constantine Cabarrios, Aurora Medrano, Ed Rodas and Ramon Lara was a violation of Silayan’s By-Laws. Members of this group walked out of a Board Meeting in March that Rose Tijam, Silayan’s President, was presiding.
This group never attempted to resolve their problems with Rose or any of us, in an amicable, non-confrontational way. In fact, Constantine Cabarrios of their group suggested mediation, which Rose agreed to, but they chose instead to have this meeting to ratify their decisions and elect themselves as the new board.

Members of our group went to the meeting to question its legality. If they wanted to replace Board Members duly elected at the last AGM, why did they skip the part where they were supposed to give the Board Members they wanted deposed, an opportunity to be heard? They violated the provision that the Special Meeting must be called upon written request of not less than 1/10th of the members entitled to vote. They registered members at this meeting. If they voted, they again violated the By-Laws stating that new members are eligible to vote only if they have applied 6 months prior to the meeting.

In spite of their attempts to shut down our questions, we tried to state our objections and reminded those present at the meeting that there were violations being committed. Rose Tijam attempted to speak but she barely finished saying a sentence over the mike when a white man, we believe to be the son-in-law of Gene Lara grabbed the mike from her. We felt it was unsafe to continue with our protests so our group left along with other people.

Our issues with Gene are not personal (some of us helped her during her candidacy) but are dictated by our concerns to do what is lawful and to adhere to Silayan’s By-Laws. We believe the following series of events led to this takeover.

• Gene Lara signed and passed a Petition Letter around in the community dated Jan 2005, (though she denies doing this). The letter made false claims and accusations and attacked members of the Board, an act ordinarily enough to have her dismissed as a worker. Instead, the Petition Letter successfully divided Silayan’s Board, the four of us on one side, and the six members named above.

• Ramon Lara sits on the Board of Silayan. Our group insist that this is a Conflict of Interest. Ramon denied his Conflict of Interest and insisted on staying at a meeting. Members of this group has been silent on this issue and has remained silent. As far as we know, not one of them has addressed this Conflict of Interest.

• We tried at Board Meetings, but were prevented from talking about concerns with Gene Lara, among these: using and paying her daughter and a Board Member as speakers in her project contrary to Conflict of Interest standards; smoking in violation of City Ordinance; allowing a disbarred lawyer to see Silayan clients at the Silayan office; allowing groups to use Silayan without prior authorization. All of these were brought to Gene’s attention in a letter from the President.

• Members of this group did not cooperate with steps we were taking to address funding conditions put to us by the City of Toronto regarding governance (Board Development Education, understanding roles and responsibilities, taking liabilities for the organization). The group was angry that we consulted with pro bono lawyers about the Petition Letter and verified our legal requirements as a Board.

• The biggest example of the division on the Board was the application for the New Horizons Project. A proposal prepared by Evelyn Laraya and Nora Angeles, signed by Rose as President (with supporting letters from Mel Catre and Pura Velasco as co-chairs of Community Alliance for Social Justice (CASJ)) was submitted and funded $25,000. Gene, Carmen, and Aurora submitted a parallel proposal signed by Willie Nabus. A letter from New Horizons stated that it was our project that got the funding. We met with New Horizons representatives at the Project’s launching, who told us that our project was at the top of the 83 proposals funded, out of 300 they received.

•  In mid April Rose asked Gene for the $25K cheque who dismissed the question. The week after, the group held the meeting where they elected themselves as new officers. At the May 21 meeting, we heard that they announced that the cheque was received.

We believe that we are still the legitimate Board Officers of Silayan since our ‘removal’ was not done in accordance with the By-Laws. We believe that the above are desperate attempts to keep Gene Lara at Silayan, whose contract as a part-time worker ends in June 2005. We want to implement the New Horizons Seniors Project, we designed with agreement from partner organizations in the community.

We will do everything we can to fight this and bring this to the attention of proper authorities. But we need your help. Please vigilantly ask questions of this group about the legalities of their action. Please ask them for proof of their allegations every time they make them. Please ask them: if they have sought legal advice and are certain their actions are in accordance with the law; why they have allowed Ramon Lara to sit on the Board when there is a clear Conflict of Interest; why they are not willing to make Gene Lara accountable for her actions? Last but not least, ask them why they did not hand over the $25,000 cheque in March when it was sent to Silayan. Why did they wait until this takeover was staged?

All the issues we have stated here, we have put forward to members of the other group. Reluctantly, we have put these issues out because we feel the community deserves to know the truth and to see the whole picture.

We implore and ask concerned members of the Filipino community and friends of Silayan to make all of us accountable to the public. Ask us your questions and when you do, do not be satisfied with our word.
Ask us for proof of claims that we make. Our group will be having a press conference at a time and place to be announced in our newspapers.

Rose Tijam
Del Palileo
Erna Opena
Doris Nabor