Stanfa wasn't a NY guy, he was a straight Sicilian who had ties to Carlo & his family that way. He migrated straight to Philadelphia and was plugged into Bruno's mob, through his friendship with Carlo, and Bruno actually being in a sense, Carlo's "puppet boss", if thats the term you'd like to use. Stanfa was Philly, but he was also Old School LCN, and to him, that came first. The only time he wasn't in Philadelphia or a close vicinity, like South Jersey, was when he was in prison for lying about the Bruno murder, which he was involved in. After that whole Scarfo thing fell apart, The Commission placed him in his position, not just the Gambino's. In fact, the Gambino's weren't even the power of the Commission at the time, Castellano had been murdered, Gotti was indicted, Chin was the power, he had to give his blessing for Stanfa to even be the boss. Those business dealings I was talking about, little of them benefitted the Gambino's. It was the Columbo's, Genovese, and remnants of the Bufalino crime group that Stanfa was mostly in contact with during his time at the top.

I don't find it likely Genovese supported the Merlino/Natale shit, because Natale wasn't even made, and the common thought at the time was "Merlino is just a soldier, himself, who the hell he to make anyone, let alone install that person as boss immediately after he's made". NY specifically looked at that whole situation as a clusterfuck of epic proportion.