‘House leaders still want cordial relations with minority’

The House leadership hopes that last Thursday’s boycott by the minority bloc would in no way be a signal of an end to the two camp’s relatively harmonious relationship.

House leadership spokesman Charles P. Reyes Jr., said he is aware that 2005 is an election year but he said, “We still want to maintain a cordial and friendly and civilized interaction and relationship.”

“As we get closer to elections and tension arises with the different camps, I still think that the leadership still wants to maintain the harmony that everybody had maintained in 2004,” he said.

No members of the opposition in the House of Representatives showed up in Thursday’s scheduled regular session.

Acting minority leader Ray Tebuteb said that he had asked the leadership to postpone the session due to the absence of other members, most of them belonging to the minority bloc. He also said his group did not know the calendared agenda for the day.

He said his group was obviously outnumbered if the leadership pushed for the passage of “unacceptable” measures.

In particular, the minority strongly objected to the passage of initiatives amending Article 11 and 12 of the CNMI Constitution as embodied in the Senate Legislative Initiative 14-3 and House Legislative Initiative 14-10.

The Senate proposal seeks to extend land leases of private land from 55 years to 75 years while the House initiative wants to extend public land leases from 25 years to 50 years.

Meantime, Reyes said there is no new scheduled session as yet. “There’s no word on that. I believe that when everybody is back, there no longer would be any reasons or any excuses for a delay. Hopefully we can then continue with the business of the people.”

Reps. Tebuteb, Heinz Hofschneider, David Apatang, and Jesus Attao were all absent in Thursday’s session. Except for Tebuteb, the lawmakers reportedly relayed to the leadership that they were sick that day.

Five members who are off-island were excused from the session: House minority leader Arnold I. Palacios, Reps. Benjamin Seman, Joseph Deleon Guerrero, Janet Maratita, and Martin Ada.

Except for Palacios, all other lawmakers are in Palau to attend a presidential inauguration.

With only eight members present on Thursday, the House achieved no quorum to hold a session.

House Speaker Benigno Fitial said important measures were up for discussion on that day. Among these were the urgent reprogramming of $3.3 million for the construction of the Agingan Ocean Outfall, passage of the proposed part-time Legislature, and introduction and approval of Martin Luther King Day in the CNMI.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given the CUC up to February to resolve the outfall problem at the Agingan Point. Prompt action on the reprogramming bill would spare the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. from paying $35,000 in penalties per day per violation.