Shouting match stalls MPLA-Verizon talks

New negotiations between the Marianas Public Lands Authority and Micronesian Telecommunications Corp. bogged down again yesterday after the agency’s attorney allegedly got irate over discussions regarding public lands easement for the telecom firm’s underground cables.

“The talks have broken down between us and the MPLA primarily due to the legal counsel and his emotional outburst and pounding on the table and screaming at people,” said PTI general manager Tony Mosley.

MPLA attorney Ramon K. Quichocho allegedly got mad and pounded his fist on the table, which prompted MTC’s negotiating panel to walk out from the MPLA’s conference room, where the negotiations were being held.

Former CNMI Chief Justice Jose Dela Cruz, a board member of MTC’s new owner, Pacific Telecom, Inc., and negotiating panel member for the company, said Quichocho “lost his cool” and got irritated when he disputed the lawyer’s allegation that the company is a “trespasser” on public lands.

“I was trying to talk to him that some of his statements that he was making such as calling [PTI] a trespasser of public lands—that’s not true. As far as we see it, we disagree on that and we are not a trespasser, and our position was and always has been that the franchise agreement, which was given to MTC back then, basically includes the cable lines. That’s part of the whole system. The telephone utility system is that as well,” Dela Cruz said.

“The reference to us being trespassers is really something that we completely dispute and disagree with,” Dela Cruz said. “He [Quichocho] shouted at me and he said something to the effect that, ‘Just because you are the former Chief Justice doesn’t give you any right to make that statement.’ I said I have every right to make that statement because it is something that we feel is the correct statement.”

Yesterday’s talks were the second day of new negotiations after Gov. Juan N. Babauta persuaded MPLA’s board members to return to the negotiating table in the hope of resolving the agency’s dispute with the telecom firm. The MPLA has sued a civil action against MTC and PTI before the Superior Court after negotiations regarding public land issues first bogged down.

Among other causes of action, such as alleged breach of public land leases by MTC, the MPLA suit seeks compensation from the company for its use of public lands right-of-way to bury some 800 miles of telephone cables. The MPLA had earlier demanded some $2.1 million representing easement fees for the past several years.

But Dela Cruz remained firm in his position that the public lands easement was part of the telecom franchise that was given to MTC by the CNMI government.

Had the CNMI government told MTC years back that there would be some charges for public lands easement, then there should have been negotiations in the past to impose fees prospectively. “The government cannot, through the MPLA, come back 30 years after the fact and say you owe us this much,” he said.

But while Dela Cruz asserted that MTC does not owe the government any penny regarding the public lands easement issue, he said the company is wiling to listen to a reasonable assessment from the MPLA. The company has offered the MPLA some $500,000 to resolve the issue. The MPLA reportedly made a counter offer for a settlement amount of $1.5 million.

The MPLA demand comes in the heels of PTI’s takeover of MTC, which has been operating Verizon in the CNMI for over two decades. PTI purchased all of MTC’s common stocks last Sept. 20 for approximately $60 million.
Dela Cruz pointed out that, as part of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Commission’s approval of the telecom deal, PTI could not raise its rates for the next two years. But yielding to MPLA’s initial demand for payment of some $2.1 million would not be feasible unless the cost is passed on to consumers, Dela Cruz said. “That’s the last thing we want to do—to raise the rates for our consumers.”

Mosley said he would inform the governor about what transpired in yesterday’s negotiations.

He said the initial resumption of talks between MTC and PTI were going well, with both camps agreeing in principle to raise the lease rate for the telecom firm’s main Susupe facility by five times the current rate. However, yesterday’s developments made the negotiations’ fate uncertain.

“We’re going to ask MPLA to have him [Quichocho] removed from the negotiating team,” Mosley said. “We want to get this settled…that’s what the governor has indicated to us as well when he met with our employees.”

Mosley said litigation would just make the dispute costly for both MPLA and MTC, saying that the lawyers are the ones who stand to benefit from prolonged legal dispute.

Besides Quichocho, members of the MPLA’s negotiating team include board member Nicolas Nekai, commissioner Edward DeLeon Guerrero and deputy commissioner Vince Castro.