FLASHBACK – Apr. 20, 2012

SC starts $15M Hillblom hearing[/B]

Associate Justice Alexandro Castro presided yesterday the preliminary distribution of the Hillblom funds among heir claimants. With lawyers coming from the mainland and the Philippines gathered at his sala, he said it was the day that everybody looked forward to. “I will call this as the $15 million hearing,” he said.

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio canceled his trip to Majuro for the annual meeting of the Micronesian chief executives to allow him focus on taking care of illegal Chinese nationals who being sheltered temporarily on Tinian. The CNMI leader was supposed to leave for the Marshalls yesterday, but instead sent his special assistant for policy and research, Mike Malone, to represent him in the gathering of the region’s leaders. “I decided to cancel my trip because I want to attend to this pressing problem. I just want to make sure that everything is okay,” Tenorio said in an interview.

Businessman admits faking documents[/B]

A Filipino businessman yesterday pled guilty to a count of health care fraud before the U.S. District Court, two days after his wife admitted guilt for the same charge in connection with government health insurance funds. Emmanuel Silvino, manager of MegaPlus International CNMI Inc., a physical therapy service provider, told Judge Alex R. Munson that he was responsible for fraudulent records submitted to the CNMI government to collect insurance claims between June 1997 to December 1999. “As manager, I allowed my staff to submit altered documents. I didn’t have the will to bring this matter to authorities to stop this at once, ” he said.

Greenpeace has asked the U.S. government to clean up Tanapag which has been contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) as it declared the northern coastal village in Saipan a toxic hot spot. “The U.S. government owes it to the people of Tanapag to clean up the mess left from its activities in the Pacific. Since the PCB contamination was discovered 10 years ago, the remediation effort has been pitiful,” said Maureen Penjueli, Greenpeace toxic campaigner. Greenpeace, an environmental group, is highlighting Tanapag as a global hot spot in an effort to bring the issue to the world’s attention. Just like the residents of the former U.S. military bases in the Philippines, “the people of Tanapag deserve answers to their many questions about the health impacts of the contamination, the effect on their food supplies, and the best way to safeguard themselves from further problems,” she added.

CDA readies legal action against CUC[/B]

Two major government agencies in the Northern Marianas are likely to face each other in court as the Commonwealth Development Authority prepares strong legal actions against the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation. Executive Director MaryLou S. Ada disclosed yesterday that all legal avenues are now being explored by CDA’s legal counsel Vicente Salas, after CUC stubbornly insisted that it is not obliged to pay anything to the government-controlled lending agency. In fact, Mr. Salas has already established a strong court case against the power corporation regardless of its claims that the existing loan agreement is not binding. Ms. Ada said there is a loophole in the Special Representatives Agreement which CDA can use in order to collect from CUC. She added that the court battle will force CUC to pay its outstanding loan amounting to $150 million.

The House of Representatives yesterday rejected the Senate version of the repealer on the three-year stay limit law, which only grants temporary suspension of its implementation. Instead, the lower house tossed the issue to the conference committee because of the need to come up with a more concrete measure that will revive diminishing investor confidence in the Northern Marianas. House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial appointed House Committee on Commerce and Tourism Chair Florencio Guerrero to head the conference panel to deliberate on the proposal adopted by the upper house.