Saipan council’s Tudela prods DPL on NI resettlement

Antonia Manibusan Tudela, who is vice chairwoman of the 17th Saipan Municipal Council, is urging Public Lands Secretary Teresita Santos to immediately release—without further delay or excuse—pending quitclaim deeds on any and all applications that have been filed for over two decades by residents of the Northern Islands of Gani, who worked the land and fished its surrounding waters, their statutory claim to village homestead deeds, including their statutory claim to agricultural waiver homestead, pursuant to Public Law 1-42 as amended and Public Law 2-13, among applicable provisions of law.

In line with this, Tudela introduced council resolution 17SNIMC05 this month at the advice and consent hearing conducted by the council at the Chalan Kanoa Leadership Kiosku Courtyard on Northern Islands Mayor Valentino Taisacan’s nomination of Kodep Ogumoro Uludong to the Public Land Advisory Board.

The municipal council is established in Article VI of the CNMI Constitution, and is expressly granted advice and consent authority by Public Land 15-2 on mayoral nominees to the board.

In its advice and consent recommendation report, the council’s Committee on Government Appointments found that Uludong possesses the requisite qualification, leadership skills and the integrity to perform his duties as a member of the Public Lands Advisory Board under the DPL secretary as a representative of the people of Gani Islands in the Third Senatorial District of the Northern Islands.

Tudela stated that it has been five decades since the existence of a homestead program in the CNMI, and the residency requirement by Gani Islands residents has long been established by families who have inhabited the chain of islands before the Japanese occupation and use of the Northern Islands.

Tudela further stated that residents of the Northern Islands have long been represented by Saipan elected officials in Election Precinct 3 and presently by Saipan elected representatives of Election Precinct 4, and that for five decades elected the mayor of the Northern Islands.

“These native residents have long been displaced and dislocated not by choice but by government edict, yet these residents have not lost their sense of place and identity and their spiritual and physical connection to their ancestral lands in the Northern Islands of Gani,” Tudela said.

Municipal Council Resolution 17SNIMC05 expresses sympathy for the plight of Gani residents and join all former and present mayors in unity by urging real action by Public Land Secretary Teresita A. Santos to once and for all put closure to the permanent resettlement of Gani residents to return back to their ancestral homeland without more delays ad infinitum, by immediately issuing quitclaim deeds to any and all applications that have been pending for over two decades. (PR)