FCT row not over yet

FCT row not over yet

TORONTO–The controversy that dragged the Filipino Centre-Toronto to court three years ago and made it spend more than $300,000 in legal and related fees seems not over yet.

At least to the leaders of the Save the FCT Movement who led the campaign that raised issues like improper financial practices and violations of its own constitution.

Dr. Francisco Portugal, Frank Aquino and Camilla Jones held a press conference on Saturday, March 22, 2008 with the Filipino community media and distributed a press statement that denounced the FCT’s Jan. 27, 2008 Special General Members meeting as “a mockery,” “a mob rule” and “a kangaroo court.”

That particular meeting, held at FCT building on Parliament St. in Toronto voted down the four resolutions submitted by Portugal’s group at the Feb. 5, 2007 FCT Annual General Meeting.

Those resolutions mainly called for the creation of an investigating committee that would determine whether some members of the board violated the FCT constitution.

The statement said that the Jan. 2008 meeting was attended by less than 80 members out of the more than 700 members when elections were held in 2007. It also said that the FCT board “waited for most memberships to expire before it called the meeting.”

In a report published in another community newspaper, an official of the FCT wrote that during the meeting referred to, Portugal and Aquino were allowed to speak about their resolutions.

In the same meeting, FCT President Linda Javier presented images of cancelled cheques, promissory notes and donors’ lists that indicated that her husband, Felino Javier, loaned the FCT $9,820 toward the down payment for the purchase of the building on Parliament St. that now houses the FCT offices.

Portugal is disputing that Felino Javier loaned FCT the money. When asked if it was true that he admitted during the meeting that he signed promissory notes without reading them, he replied that he could have been “surreptitiously” presented documents to sign. But he did not recall seeing Felino Javier in those documents.

He claimed that he was made to believe by Linda Javier early on that FCT used Felino’s account as a depository for funds that were raised and that he has “the feeling” Felino could have issued a cheque to FCT from that same account. And he wanted an investigation to find out whether this was true.

Portugal said during the press conference that presenting images of documents was not sufficient to prove their authenticity. He said, however, that he would not say that they were bogus documents.
Precisely, he said, a special investigating committee could conduct a credible probe that could satisfy all parties.

The press statement said that it was not right to have those being questioned to participate in a meeting and “literally judge themselves innocent by participating in the vote.”

The January 27, 2008 meeting, however, decided to reject the resolutions, some of which called for the creation of an investigating committee. In a report in another newspaper about that meeting, nothing was decided on the innocence of any person.

Still, Portugal, Jones and Aquino argued that since a lot of questions still remain not satisfactorily resolved, the creation of an independent investigating committee and allowing it to perform a credible probe is the only way to find out the truth. And to have the resolutions thrown out by a meeting convened and dominated by those being questioned is not a fair way to handle the controversy.