Programmatically activate tab without firing events

Hi, 

I am trying to find a way to activate a tab without having the "onTabSelected" method fire up, otherwise I'll go into a neverending-loop. 
I tried to remove the onTabSelectedListener, but it is quite a dirty move to me. Since I think that this component is very-well designed, there must be a way to simply activate a different tab's icon somehwere :) 

Pls advice 

Thx

Andrea