Konfitma 2023 begins next week

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the entire world in its tracks, local and visiting first responders will once again conduct the Konfitma exercise starting next week.

The CNMI Homeland Security and Emergency Management announced yesterday the resumption of what used to be an annual exercise, saying it will happen this year from Nov. 14 to 15 in several sites: at the Garapan Fishing Base, Marpi, Susupe, and As Lito.

This year’s exercises will be focused on responding to incidents involving weapons of mass destruction and Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and high yield Explosives.

Aside from local first responders, over 100 representatives from the Guam, Utah, and Texas National Guard are expected to join the exercises.

HSEM spokesperson Bernard Villagomez stated that the public should be aware of this planned event as these exercises could possibly sound alarming.

“We would like to encourage the public not to worry about the increased number of sirens going off and if they see more first responders on the roads. This is a medium-scale exercise to increase the capability of our local first responders,” he said.

Homeland Security special assistant Franklin Babauta said that HSEM will post signs to inform the community where the training exercises will be conducted.

“We want to keep the community informed so that they are aware of the exercise. We will also be putting up signs to inform the public about exercise sites,” he said.

Sean Cripps, exercise planner for the Guam National Guard, said Konfitma is a joint-training exercise designed to create conditions to exceed the capabilities and capacity of local resources.

“This allows Emergency Management to call resources outside of Saipan, in this case from the Guam National Guard, Utah National Guard, and also the Texas National Guard. These resources will be here on island, conducting exercises for the next week. We appreciate the community’s patience and making emergency response here better,” he said.

Cripps explained that this exercise has been going on since 2010 and the last one occurred in 2018.

“We can see that this emergency preparedness training has paid dividends for emergency response throughout the CNMI as Saipan has recently experienced [a need] for a lot of emergency response. So this exercise is very important to sustain and improve the capability both here and the coordination with other resources that can come and assist Saipan,” he said.