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| A new team with the passion to serve the FilAm community through NaFFAA |
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The National Federation of Filipino AmericanAssociations (NaFFAA) has struggled, fought, and forged a mission to achieve empowerment for FilAms in the past 11 years. Last September 24 to 26, the 8th NaFFAA Empowerment Conference was held in Seattle, calling in hundreds of FilAm community leaders and organizers from all over the US.
But what stands behind NaFFAA’s success and survival aside from its members are its leaders—those who pushed the limits, in the desire to unite all the FilAm organizations all over the country.
The then Philippine News Publisher Alex A. Esclamado, TLC Beatrice CEO & President Loida Nicolas Lewis, nationally-acclaimed Guitarist Michael Dadap, and San Francisco State College Board President Rodel Rodis were talking over dinner in New York about how to unite the 3,000 Filipino American organizations all over the country. This was when the seeds for what is now known as the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) were sown.
Greg Macabenta, NaFFAA’s new National Chair
Publisher, editor, advertising veteran and community activist Greg Macabenta is the newly elected National Chair of NaFFAA, replacing Alma Quintas Kern. Macabenta, a charter member and National Vice-Chair Emeritus, believes that NaFFAA still needs to achieve its original directions, instead of forging new ones, namely, the socio-economic and political empowerment of the Filipino community in America.
“When the need for NaFFAA was discussed at the planning meeting in Salinas that resulted in the first National Filipino American Empowerment Conference in Washington, DC in August 1997, we all agreed that important events were happening in America that our community had no hand in shaping; that we were mere bleacher viewers rather than participants; reactors rather than pro-actors,” he said.
Macabenta also would like to focus on making NaFFAA more sustainable and self-reliant, and provide services that its members can utilize. He believes that by strengthening NaFFAA’s image, implementing key programs and providing meaningful services, generating operating funds and program funding, the organization will survive beyond the lifetime of its founders.
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