A special Senate committee is now looking into Guam restrictions on CNMI youth holding CNMI driver\u2019s license for fewer than five years. These drivers are not being allowed to obtain a Guam driver\u2019s license unless they complete a Guam driver\u2019s education program first.<\/p>\n
Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) created a special committee to look into the matter and report to the Senate leadership. <\/p>\n
Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan\u2019s (Ind-MP) brought the matter to the attention of the Senate president and House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan) early this month, saying this Guam restriction negatively impacts many of the CNMI\u2019s youth moving to Guam for schooling or for work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been informed that youth holding valid Northern Mariana Islands drivers\u2019 licenses for fewer than five years may not obtain a Guam driver\u2019s license unless they complete a Guam driver\u2019s education program, which entails 32 hours of classroom instruction and eight hours of road instruction,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n
He also said Guam law provides that the holder of a valid license issued by another territory, commonwealth, or state of the United States may operate a vehicle on the roads of Guam for a period not exceeding 30 days after the date of that person\u2019s arrival in Guam.<\/p>\n
But Sablan said the driver\u2019s education program requirement does not apply to applicants from the 50 states and the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n
He said this disparity exists because Guam adopted a \u201cgraduated driver licensing system\u201d in 2000, but the CNMI does not employ such a system.<\/p>\n
The Senate president named Senate floor leader Pete Reyes (R-Saipan) as head of the special committee to look into this matter.<\/p>\n
Reyes appointed as committee members Sen. Juan Ayuyu (Ind-Rota) and Sen. Henry San Nicolas (Cov-Saipan), along with legal counsel Antonette Villagomez, who will help the panel.<\/p>\n
The delegate said there appears to be some logistical inconsistencies with respect to the Guam position on this matter.<\/p>\n
He said one thing is certain\u2014that this situation is logistically and financially detrimental to the CNMI youth living in Guam. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A special Senate committee is now looking into Guam restrictions on CNMI youth holding CNMI driver\u2019s license for fewer than five years. These drivers are not being allowed to obtain a Guam driver\u2019s license unless they complete a Guam driver\u2019s education program first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}