Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) said it\u2019s Gov. Benigno R. Fitial that is desperate, adding that the governor\u2019s statements are a lie.<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s surprised that Fitial dragged candidate Felix Santos\u2019s name when the latter has not even been elected to office.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Manglona is running with Felix Santos, who is vying for the lone House seat representing Rota, opposite his cousin, incumbent Rep. Teresita Santos (Ind-Rota), who is pairing with Victor Hocog with the full backing of the governor. Hocog is eyeing Manglona\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
Manglona and Fitial have been feuding publicly since the governor called Rota and Tinian senators \u201cstupid\u201d for rejecting a House bill legalizing casino gaming on Saipan.<\/p>\n
The Senate president said the amended local bill giving funding to Rota patients would in fact remove politics from the selection of which patients would get funding because they would be selected by independent persons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why the delegation voted for it. It\u2019s the right thing to do, adding that the delegation is considering options to override or revive the legislation. I wish Representative Santos had not asked the governor to veto that bill. She was the only one absent during a delegation session on Rota when the bill was unanimously approved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fitial on Friday reiterated that he has no qualms with making sure dialysis patients are taken cared of but he said he was forced to veto the bill because of the inclusion of a \u201cdangerous\u201d provision that would create another layer of bureaucracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis provision aimed at politically picking which patients get funding is yet another concoction by the subsistence allowance expert. It is a pure shame that even for the well-being of dialysis patients, Senator Paul and his cohorts still look for ways to ensure that they can reap political benefits,\u201d Fitial said.<\/p>\n
The governor expressed grave disappointment regarding what he described as Manglona\u2019s \u201clatest attempt to engineer a family feud of sort by manipulating Felix Santos to run against his first cousin, incumbent Rep. Teresita Santos.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) said it\u2019s Gov. Benigno R. Fitial that is desperate, adding that the governor\u2019s statements are a lie.<\/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-160486","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\/160486","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=160486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}