The Confederation of Boholanos, USA and Canada (CONBUSAC) has always been involved in every Tigum Bol-anon sa Tibuok Kalibutan event, including the one happening this July—contrary to what cropped up in the media circle recently.

Conbusac president Larry Galang, issued the statement in response to last week’s editorial of The Chronicle.

Galang pointed out that it was “not the the the first time that TBTK is hosted in Bohol, minus the CONBUSAC event”.

“In July 2009, CONBUSAC, then under Carlos Cagaanan, held its convention in Seattle, WA; a week after that TBTK was held. Almost the same thing is happening this time, CONBUSAC will be held here in Newark, NJ, and in about 2 weeks, TBTK in Bohol. But, just like in the past, CONBUSAC is there to support TBTK,” according to Galang.

He, however, expressed lament though that a proposal to hold the Conbusac in Bohol this year was forgotten to be included in the “agenda during the last convention in Chicago”.

“Tigum Bol-anon is the general assembly of CONBUSAC. Neil Bonje is the immediate past president of CONBUSAC, and for reasons I have no knowledge of, he forgot to include in his agenda during the last convention in Chicago, a proposal that CONBUSAC will be held in Bohol in 2015. At that time, Neil Bonje was already the incumbent chairman of TBTK,” according to Galang.

Galang also cited a provision of the CONBUSAC Constitution stating that “The Tigum Bol-anon shall be hosted by a member organization and shall only be held within the United States of America or Canada, unless otherwise agreed by a vote of three-fourths of all members of the Council”.

The provision he cited also emphasized that “every member organization shall endeavor to host a Tigum Bol-anon”.

Galang also shared that TBTK started as just a program of Conbusac and the “brainchild of Nick Lopez, Bernardo Mag-aso and Flory Gulle”.

“CONBUSAC held its convention in Bohol only twice running under the banner Tigum Bol-anon sa Tibuok Kalibutan, a name coined by Nick Lopez,” Galang added.

It was also under Lopez that the first was held in July 1999 based on the unanimous approval during the 1997 convention in Houston, Texas, he cited.

“The second was in July 2003 under Bernardo Mag-aso, author of the TBTK Articles of Commitment, who got an overwhelming support during the 2001 convention in Las Vegas, NV,” he added.

Galang assured that Conbusac, being the initiator of TBTK, will always support the event.

“As a matter of fact, there will be many familiar faces who will be missing in this year’s CONBUSAC convention as they are going home to Bohol earlier for the TBTK, Galang said.