{"id":179055,"date":"2014-09-12T04:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T18:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=179055"},"modified":"2014-09-12T04:00:52","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T18:00:52","slug":"palau-lawmakers-vow-public-hearings-casino-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/palau-lawmakers-vow-public-hearings-casino-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Palau lawmakers vow public hearings on casino bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike the CNMI Legislature, Palau lawmakers said yesterday they will hold public hearings in all their 16 states on a bill legalizing casino operation in Palau at a time when their pension system is on the brink of collapse. Six members of Palau\u2019s House of Delegates on a casino fact-finding mission in the CNMI met yesterday with Gov. Eloy S. Inos and House members, a day after meeting with senators.<\/p>\n

\"Palau
Palau lawmakers meet with members of the CNMI House of Representatives yesterday. Six members of Palau\u2019s House of Delegates are on a casino fact-finding mission in the CNMI. The group also met yesterday with Gov. Eloy S. Inos. (Haidee V. Eugenio)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cPalau is on the right track holding public hearings on the casino bill and that will result in a committee report. That didn\u2019t happen here in the CNMI,\u201d Rep. Ray Tebuteb (Ind-Saipan), one of those who voted \u201cno\u201d to the Saipan casino bill, said upon learning of Palau lawmakers\u2019 plan.<\/p>\n

Palau Delegate Lucio Ngiraiwet told Saipan Tribune yesterday that Palau\u2019s Civil Service Pension payout is $1.4 million \u201cbut the contribution is only $6,000 to $8,000 a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ngiraiwet and the other visiting members of the Palau House of Delegates took turns stating what they believe were compelling reasons for Palau lawmakers to introduce and pass on first reading a casino bill. That included their almost broke pension system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole point of putting this forward, introducing it, is the understanding that we go through public hearings, in all states of Palau,\u201d Ngiraiwet said after meeting with House members and before proceeding to meet with Gov. Eloy S. Inos.<\/p>\n

Ngiraiwet heads the six-member Palau delegation and is chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations and State Affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on a fact-finding mission. We want to find out the pros and cons,\u201d Ngiraiwet said.<\/p>\n

CNMI House floor leader Ralph Demapan (R-Saipan), who presided over the meeting and author of the Saipan casino bill that became law, told the visiting lawmakers that the casino legislation is a \u201ccontroversial\u201d one \u201cbut it\u2019s the law now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palau Delegate Swenny Ongidobel, chairman of the Committee on Banking and Financial Matters, said Palau wants to \u201csee the result of [CNMI lawmakers\u2019] work\u201d on the casino legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t like casino before but now we\u2019re on the same boat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ongidobel said they got most parts of their own casino bill from the Saipan casino bill.<\/p>\n

Palau Delegate Lee Otobed, chairman of the Community, Planning and Development Committee, asked CNMI lawmakers how they managed to pass the bill and how they overcame church concerns, considering that the CNMI is a predominantly Catholic community.<\/p>\n

Not one of the CNMI House members mentioned that the Saipan casino bill didn\u2019t go through public hearings.<\/p>\n

Demapan, however, said \u201cto run a government, we need funds,\u201d referring to the CNMI government\u2019s mounting financial obligations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis legislation provided added money to the government,\u201d he said, adding that a big chunk of a two-year advance casino license fee of $30 million was already paid out to retirees for their deferred 25-percent pension and former members of the government\u2019s defined benefit plan.<\/p>\n

Rep. Christopher Leon Guerrero (R-Saipan) told his counterparts from Palau that in his view, the CNMI people are still \u201cdivided\u201d but as lawmakers they had to make the \u201ctough decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Richard Seman (R-Saipan), Rep. George Camacho (R-Saipan), and others pointed out that casino is only one of the components of an integrated resort, along with hotel rooms, a convention center, retail stores, and restaurants that Palau can benefit from that\u2019s outside of gaming.<\/p>\n

Ivan Blanco, acting press secretary, said the administration appreciates the Palau delegation\u2019s visit as arranged by Palau Consul to the CNMI Eileen Kintol. <\/p>\n

The Palau delegation, he said, was given a brief chronological timeline of the process of the licensing of the integrated resort and the number of additional rooms to be added to the market. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Palau delegation, in turn, shared concern that the life of Palau\u2019s retirement program has 10 years left, and they do not want to wait for the 11th hour. So, they\u2019re on a mission to find ways to mitigate the plan\u2019s unfunded liability, among other things. One industry they\u2019re looking at is an integrated resort like the CNMI\u2019s,\u201d Blanco said.<\/p>\n

Palau\u2019s business market is open to both mainland China and Taiwan, which would give them an added leverage. <\/p>\n

\u201cBoth the governor and the Palau delegation shared that, like any other major economic development activity anywhere, there will always be an opposition outcry, but that the focus on any major economic development is and will always be for the best interest of the people and the future of the Republic of Palau and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands,\u201d Blanco said when sought for comment on the governor\u2019s meeting with the Palau lawmakers.<\/p>\n

At the meeting with CNMI House members, Palau lawmakers also asked how the CNMI came up with a $15-million annual license fee.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t directly answered. Tebuteb later said there was no report backing such a $15 million a year license fee.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooks like it came out of thin air,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rep. Tony Sablan (Ind-Saipan), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, told Palau lawmakers that he, too, was among those who previously voted against initiatives to legalize casino on Saipan but he said \u201ctimes have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe no longer have the luxury to wait for miracles [to happen]. We have to make the miracles ourselves,\u201d he said, referring to the need to generate additional revenues to address the government\u2019s growing financial obligations.<\/p>\n

Just like the CNMI, Palau also saw multiple rejections of casino initiatives in past years. <\/p>\n

This year, however, the CNMI House and Senate successfully passed legislation legalizing casino on Saipan after numerous attempts by lawmakers failed in the past and after Saipan voters twice rejected casino initiatives.<\/p>\n

The latest Saipan casino bill wasn\u2019t referred to a committee for review and didn\u2019t go through public hearings.<\/p>\n

Besides Ngiraiwet, Ongidobel and Otobed, the three other Palau lawmakers on island are Judiciary and Governmental Affairs Committee chair Noah Kemesong; Tourism and Aviation Committee chair Marino Ngemaes; and Maritime, Environment and Protected Areas Committee chair Sebastian Marino. They were accompanied by staffers Tricia Wong and Stalin Stanley. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlike the CNMI Legislature, Palau lawmakers said yesterday they will hold public hearings in all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":179058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[256,26,65,319],"class_list":["post-179055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-casino","tag-cnmi","tag-house","tag-palau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179055","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\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}