PTI-MPLA talks still off

Forty-six days after Gov. Juan N. Babauta disclosed that the Marianas Public Lands Authority has agreed to a 30-day cooling-off period with Pacific Telecom, Inc., negotiations between the government agency and the telecom company have yet to resume after renewed talks bogged down again a week after the governor’s announcement.

For both camps, talks have not resumed, as neither party has contacted the other for the resumption of negotiations.

“We’re back in court,” said MPLA legal counsel Ramon Quichocho in a telephone interview last Friday.

Quichocho said he drafted an agreement calling for the temporary suspension of proceedings at the Superior Court to allow negotiations to proceed, but his PTI counterpart never returned the draft agreement. Instead, PTI sought removal of MPLA lawsuit from the Superior Court to Saipan’s federal court.

“We haven’t heard anything from them [PTI representatives]. We’re still in litigation right now,” Quichocho said.

Quichocho reiterated that the MPLA, its board, and commissioner have always been open to the possibility of negotiations. “But we learned from the past that both sides should be more serious,” he added.

PTI general manager Tony Mosley said Friday that company board member and former CNMI Chief Justice Jose Dela Cruz, who had just arrived from an off-island trip, would contact the MPLA as soon as possible regarding the stalled talks.

“We need to get things going,” Mosley said. “As of this moment, there’s nothing going on.”

Mosley said the MPLA has not contacted PTI since renewed talks bogged down last Oct. 27. Talks between the government agency and the telecom company had earlier failed, but the governor disclosed before PTI’s employees last Oct. 20 that he had urged the MPLA to get back to the negotiating table following the workers’ clamor for his intervention.

The MPLA and its board sued PTI and Verizon’s owner, Micronesian Telecommunications Corp., at the Superior Court for alleged breach of public land leases and for alleged improper use of public lands easement in burying their cables without paying the agency some easement fees. The MPLA filed the suit in early October after the companies disputed its demand for payment of some $2.1 million related to the easement fees—less than a month after PTI purchased all of MTC’s common stocks for approximately $60 million.

The governor intervened upon the request of PTI employees, who trooped to his office and asked that political “vendetta” be stopped against their employer, fearing for the loss of their jobs. The workers also urged the governor to intervene in the MPLA-PTI dispute.

Renewed talks had just begun when they were stalled again last Oct. 27. On that day, MPLA and PTI’s negotiating teams met when the agency’s Quichocho allegedly raised his voice at Dela Cruz of PTI. In turn, Quichocho alleged that he and Dela Cruz raised their voices against each other after the former chief justice yelled at him, accusing the latter of intimidation.

Mosley again sought the governor’s intervention and asked that Quichocho be removed from the MPLA’s negotiating team. In an earlier interview, Quichocho expressed willingness to withdraw himself from the negotiations, saying that the other members of the MPLA panel—commissioner Edward DeLeon Guerrero, board member Nicolas Nekai, and deputy commissioner Vince Castro—are very able to continue with the talks.

On Nov. 2, PTI and MTC sought the transfer of the MPLA’s lawsuit against them from the CNMI court to Saipan’s federal court, alleging that the agency’s causes of action were based on claims that infringe upon the U.S. Constitution and federal law.

MTC and PTI filed with the federal court a notice of removal, saying that MTC is a duly franchised CNMI telecommunications local exchange carrier subject to the provisions of the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996. The companies also accused the MPLA of engaging in discriminatory practices, particularly in the agency’s bid to impose certain public land lease and easement requirements.

PTI and MTC want MPLA to withdraw its lawsuit and go back to the negotiating table, even though they maintain that retroactively imposing easement fees on the telecom firm for use of right-of-way on public lands to bury telecom cables underground was improper.

PTI’s Mosley expressed optimism that the incoming administration of governor-elect Benigno R. Fitial would also intervene in the company’s dispute with the MPLA. “I’m very confident that the new administration will provide us support to get this resolved.”