‘There is room for compromise’

“There is absolutely room for compromise.”

This was Gov. Arnold I. Palacios’ statement after meeting with a group of marine operators concerned about the Department of Public Land’s proposed amendments to the rules and regulations governing the use of Mañagaha Island.

The group appeared before Palacios and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang yesterday to voice their concerns to which Palacios agreed to serve as a mediator between the parties in the ongoing dispute.

According to Palacios, the group of marine operators reached out to his office asking for a chance to tell the administration their side of the issue that has been making headlines for over a week; DPL’s proposed amendments to the existing rule and regulations on the use of Mañagaha. (The operators believe that the proposed rules would essentially prohibit them from doing business at Mañagaha.)

“There are a lot of issues that need to be clarified and resolved. The issue stems from the newly proposed rules and regulations that DPL is trying to adopt and they certainly have concerns about it. Since last week, the lieutenant governor and I have been talking about this and we have our concerns. We will be talking to DPL about it,” he said.

Palacios expressed that one of his concerns is that with all the CNMI’s efforts to boost tourism, Mañagaha has been one of the CNMI’s most popular attractions.

“We want to make sure that Mañagaha continues to be an attraction. It’s not only a marine sanctuary, it’s also a very attractive destination of our Commonwealth and we want to make sure we protect it and continue to protect it for our culture and traditions. We also want to make sure we make it work for everybody, for the concessionaire and for the marine sports operators, as well as visitors and the general public,” he said.

Palacios adds that there are issues right now, but he and Apatang intend to fix them.

“There is absolutely room for compromise and that’s what we need to [identify]. We will be meeting with DPL Secretary Teresita Santos [today] and her staff in charge of overseeing Mañagaha to make sure that [the regulations] work for everybody. It can’t just work for one party and everybody else is in anyway restricted,” he said.

“In our constitution, Mañagaha is reserved for recreational and cultural purposes. We’ve kind of started to veer away from that and started making its use commercial, and that’s OK to the extent that we don’t compromise the true intent of our constitution,” Palacios added.

Apatang, for his part, said he has been concerned about this issue and aims to address it sooner rather than later.

“I know this dispute has been going on for almost two weeks. It’s been on the papers and social media and we are concerned. All these operators that are out there doing their daily business, trying to make a living and are paying their taxes on time, we want to hear them and give them this opportunity and see what we can do to help them continue the service they are providing our tourists who want to visit Mañagaha. We will look [into this] and address issues that we need to take care of in the long run. As for fees, we have to talk to Department of Lands and Natural Resources about landing fees and see if we can get everything in uniform. We have to really work on this,” he said.