Flashback December 6, 1999-2001

2 new high schools for Saipan okayed[/B]

A new high school will be built on a 15-hectare lot in Kagman on which the new elementary school is currently under construction as part of a new plan to help ease overcrowding at the Marianas High School.

Another high school will also be erected at a Public School System property in Koblerville under the proposal expected to be approved by the Board of Education this week, according to officials.

A study conducted by the Northern Marianas College advertising class among five private and public schools in Saipan revealed that 67 percent of the 271 students surveyed are not interested in pursuing higher education at NMC.

The students polled came from Marianas High School, Mount Carmel High School, Marianas Baptist Academy, Grace Christian Academy and NMC.

This survey was a class project of students taking up Fundamentals of Advertising under Prof. Rik Villegas. The project aims to help school officials in marketing the College to local and international students.

Pay hike for gov’t workers discussed[/B]

House representatives to bicameral discussion on the fiscal budget are mulling over a proposal to set aside money to pay mandatory increase in the salary of government employees who are considered under frozen steps as required by a 1997 law.

This plan will be presented during the meeting this week with senators in an effort to hammer out a spending measure for FY 2001 acceptable to both chambers, according to House Floor Leader Oscar M. Babauta.

Public Law 10-76, enacted in the 10th Legislature, has authorized the governor to compensate employees on frozen steps of the payscale every two years, he said.

Deeper plunge of the Philippine currency caused by political instability in the country, is driving Filipinos in the Northern Marianas to sending out more greenback to relatives back home in order to maximize their dollar’s increasing value against the peso.

Still, remittance executives believe a good number of Filipino workers here continue to hold their dollars tight in anticipation of the further decline of the peso’s value especially when clamor for President Estrada’s resignation intensifies as impeachment trial approaches.

UN officials to visit Saipan[/B]

Members of the United Nations’ High Commission on Refugees are set to visit Saipan next week to check on the asylum bid of the group of Chinese boat people who were intercepted off the seas of Tinian in 1999.

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio confirmed that some members of the UN High Commission on Refugees will be flying in on December 12 and will be staying in the CNMI until December 15.

“They are coming over for the asylum case that I believe took place several years back in Tinian. This is in connection with the Chinese boat people that we intercepted. We had to process all their immigration papers on Tinian and some of them have asked for asylum,” said Tenorio.
[B] ‘BB Administration to decide on Taliban detention plans'[/B]

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio has left it up to the next administration to make any decision or to issue any official comments about the reported plan to use Tinian as a holding area for al-Qaida terrorists.

According to the Governor, he has learned that Governor-elect Juan N. Babauta has been meeting with White House officials in Washington DC since last week and, although he does not know the topics taken up during the discussion, he expressed belief that Babauta would consider all angles before making any decision on the matter.