Commerce chief under investigation

Mark Rabauliman

Department of Commerce Secretary Mark Rabauliman is under investigation by the Office of Personnel Management over personnel grievances filed by an enforcement officer under his department regarding statements Rabauliman allegedly made during the Tinian Pika Festival last month.

Mariano Salas, an enforcement officer under Commerce’s Alcohol Beverage and Tobacco Control Division, alleges harassment, bullying, racial discrimination, and abuse of authority, in an incident report written last month.

The report essentially claims that Rabauliman demanded that Salas and other Commerce staff volunteering on Tinian use their per diem to buy cases of beer, using expletives, and allegedly making racial remarks against Salas, who is Chamorro.

“This is an ongoing matter and we know that an incident report has been filed at the Office of Personnel Management regarding this subject grievance,” said Office of the Governor spokesman Ivan Blanco yesterday.

Rabauliman is a member of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres’ Cabinet.

“The administration will allow the lawful process in place to do its work and make a determination of whether further action is warranted,” Blanco added. “We cannot provide further comment at this time.”

Rabauliman, for his part, said he does not have any comment since the matter is still under review.“…We’ll just let the process go through, and I will be awaiting what’s the outcome,” he said, when contacted over the phone yesterday.

According to the report, on Feb. 12, Commerce ABTC director David Maratita, asked for volunteers for the Tinian Pika Fesitaval and that Salas, along with several others, volunteered.

Upon their arrival on Tinian that night, the report states that the group were greeted by Commerce resident director Mary Susan Cruz, who informed the group that they would be hosted for dinner that evening at the residence of a Ms. Charlene Lizama and that a Mr. Steven King would arrive and transport them to the residence.

Salas said King arrived to bring them to Lizama’s residence for dinner, and that after dinner, the group asked if they could be taken to Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino to secure their living quarters, to which King agreed to drive them to the hotel.

Salas said as they waited for King in the parking lot, Rabauliman approached the four of them and demanded that each of them buy two cases of beer with their per diem.

Salas’ report goes on allege that Rabauliman used expletives to get the four to buy the cases of beer to “show your appreciation to our host here on Tinian.”

The report alleges that Rabauliman asked Salas for $10 on top of the two cases of beer that Rabauliman purportedly demanded them to buy.

“Guys don’t make me look bad here now,” Salas writes, quoting Rabauliman.

King drove the group to a store to buy the beer, when Rabauliman allegedly called Salas on his personal phone to again demand that they buy two cases of beer each with their per diem, according to the report.

King advised the volunteers to buy a 12-pack of beer each since “you guys don’t have much per diem and anyways there is a lot of beers in the cooler already,” to which the staff agreed.

According to the report, the staff bought the beer and were driven to Tinian Dynasty to change their attire and were picked up by King half an hour later and brought back to the host’s residence, where Salas said Rabauliman continued the alleged harassment.

“At this point it was clear that the Secretary was quite intoxicated. He challenged me to down a can of beer so that I may be welcomed to the gang. At the first, I thought the gang meant the Dept. of Commerce gang being I am fairly new to the agency going 6 months into the job. But the gang he was referring to was the Carolinian Gang,” Salas writes.

Salas goes on to claim that Rabauliman repeatedly told him that he was going to fire him.

Rabauliman, Salas also said, told him seven times, using expletives, to “listen to me ‘cause I’m the boss.”

Salas said this incident was a continuous abuse of authority within the office that needed to be stopped. “I have experienced in the workplace whenever I’m around Mark Rabauliman, he would on numerous occasions use racial comments demoralizing Chamorros, like ‘Lanyhamzuna Chamorro.’”

“To demand your staff to use their per diem to purchase beer is clearly unethical and clearly an abuse of authority,” Salas said in his report, where he asked for “corrective action” and said his rights and protection as a civil service employee had been violated.

“I was harassed, threatened, bullied and racially discriminated by [being] spoken to with profanity throughout the night, I was threatened to be fired repeatedly, racially discriminated as a Chamorro and forced to use my per diem to purchase beer by my superior the Secretary of Commerce, Mark Rabauliman,” said Salas.