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Senate junks grandparents visitation bill
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Posted on Mar 10 2005
In a majority vote, the Senate has decided to shelve a bill that aims to grant grandparents visitation rights, saying that the measure is unnecessary in the Commonwealth.
“This bill stinks. In our culture, we don’t only allow grandparents to visit the children, but we bring our children to their grandparents,” said Senate minority leader Pete P. Reyes.
House Bill 14-189, authored by Rep. Janet Maratita, grants grandparents, great grandparents, and adoptive grandparents privileges to visit their grandchildren, great grandchildren, and adopted grandchildren.
It provides that the court may grant visitation privileges to a grandparent of a minor child in case of parent’s divorce, separation, or death.
The bill also aims to grant biological grandparents visitation rights if the grandchild has been adopted.
Reyes said that, if grandchildren visitation becomes a legal right, he said that grandparents may as well be required to pay child support.
“We’re not saying they can’t visit but we don’t need a law for it. Why do we need to come up with this stupid legislation? If this is the kind of legislation we’d be engaging ourselves in, we’d really be better off with part-time legislature,” said Reyes, referring to House Legislative Initiative 14-8, which proposes to convert the CNMI Legislature into a part-time lawmaking body to save on costs.
During the session Wednesday, Reyes moved to file—or shelve—the bill permanently.
“Let’s place that on file no. 13 which also means trash can or trash bin. Let’s bury it there with no intention to resurrect it. This is a bad bill,” said Reyes.
Of the nine members, seven of them voted “yes” to the motion; two senators—Paul Manglona and Paterno Hocog—voted “no.”
Rep. Maratita declined to comment on the Senate’s action.
