Acting governor Victor B. Hocog signed emergency measures into law late afternoon yesterday to absolve any dispute that the Settlement Fund might raise in preventing the disbursement of 25 percent pension checks to CNMI retirees.<\/p>\n
Hocog signed into law Public Law 19-35, PL 19-36, and Saipan Local Law 19-12. <\/p>\n
This is what CNMI government leaders aimed for in introducing, amending, and signing into effect the three public laws this week that, among others, provides $1.8 million to the Department of Finance to pay these pensioners, removes any doubt that the CNMI governor has the authority to reprogram Executive Branch funds for these pension payments, and allows taxes earmarked to the NMI Retirement Fund to be also used for these pension payments, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Settlement Fund dispute has, for the most part, unified Capitol Hill officials in a rush to cure the delay in payments to pensioners.<\/p>\n
The Fund\u2019s returned check last Friday left over 3,000 retirees bereft of their 25 percent pension payments. The Fund disputed Gov. Ralph DLG Torres\u2019 reprogramming of funds as \u201cnot appropriate,\u201d said the funds serve no \u201cpublic purpose,\u201d and asked for an \u201cauthorized appropriation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hocog, speaking to House lawmakers during an emergency session yesterday, said the administration held a conference with Trustee Joyce Tang on Wednesday afternoon and after asked the Senate to postpone its session to work on amendments on the bills that the House passed earlier, in another emergency session, that day.<\/p>\n
Hocog said he hoped to sign the bills and that these action would resolve the issue so that the Fund would \u201chopefully discharge the 25 percent benefits to our pensioners.\u201d<\/p>\n
The House passed the bills yesterday; in the third emergency session it had held this week.<\/p>\n
The House passed amendments that senators had tacked on during their emergency session held nighttime Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Senators, Ways and Means committee chair Rep. Antonio Sablan (Ind-Saipan), a representative from the Attorney\u2019s General\u2019s Office, and Finance Secretary Larissa Larson hammered out the amendments in the Senate president\u2019s room throughout the afternoon Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of questions and we wanted to make sure we get further clarification,\u201d said Sen. Sixto Igisomar (R-Saipan) last night. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe were concerned on how and why we got here, what\u2014if any, present, and future services will be affected on the usage of NMI Retirement funds, 25 percent pension responsibility, budget act concerns, and so on,\u201d Igisomar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough we may have agreed to a policy on a supplemental source of funds and authorization processes, this will only alleviate the immediate future, he said, adding they must be more \u201cvigilant\u201d in their commitment in the future with increased or additional payments toward all retirees\u2014covered under the settlement agreement or not.<\/p>\n
Igisomar, a former chair of the Fund, added they must also commit to the 75 percent pension payment \u201cto avoid or suppress\u201d an \u201cinevitable corpus avalanche. \u201c <\/p>\n
Igisomar said he understands the position of the Trustee Ad Litem, Joyce Tang.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wellbeing of the retirees and our social economic prosperity are inseparable,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be working and monitoring closely with the Secretary of Finance on all revenue source and allocation of payments for the retirees to project and plan accordingly.<\/p>\n
\u2018Disappointed\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n After passing the emergency measures yesterday morning, Rep. Angel Demapan (R-Saipan) said the pension issue \u201csheds light\u201d on the \u201clegal role and standing of the\u201d NMI Settlement Fund \u201cas the rightful agency to disburse\u201d in its disbursement of the 25 percent benefits.<\/p>\n He said 25 percent benefit payment \u201cshould not be comingled with the issue of the settlement agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n This would pave the way for retirees\u2019 25 percent benefits to be \u201cheld hostage questionably.\u201d<\/p>\n Demapan wants to \u201cclarify the role\u201d of the NMI Retirement Fund \u201cas it is separate form the Settlement Fund\u201d and sought his colleagues\u2019 support to take a look at this.<\/p>\n Vice speaker Joseph Deleon Guerreo (Ind-Saipan), for his part, expressed disappointment with the trustee ad litem.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are jumping through hoops\u2026holding back-to-back sessions\u201d in order to \u201cclarify what I feel is [Tang\u2019s] misunderstanding of our laws,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Deleon Guerrero said \u201cpensions were hostaged.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf she feels there is any ambiguity,\u201d Deleon Guerrero encouraged Tang to \u201cplease check with our authorities, before she hostages our retirees\u2019 pensions.\u201d<\/p>\n Deleon Guerrero pointed to the matter of hours the government was informed that the checks were not going to be released \u201cwith no advance notice to the pensioners themselves\u201d last Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is not acceptable,\u201d Deleon Guerrero said. \u201cThey don\u2019t deserve that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe will jump through hoops, bend over backwards\u201d but \u201cI ask her to please communicate with our government before taking such drastic actions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sole dissent<\/strong><\/p>\n While he supported the bills in their final forms, Rep. Ralph Yumul (Ind-Saipan) was the sole \u201cno\u201d to one of the House bills that passed and headed to the Senate Wednesday.<\/p>\n He drew concern to \u201cfor other purposes\u201d language of the bill and urged that the funds \u201cnot be used for other purposes other\u201d than retirees.<\/p>\n Yumul complained that it takes about a year for lawmakers to receive reports from Finance to find out how the government actually spends it.<\/p>\n Yumul told Saipan Tribune on Wednesday that his concern and the reason why he voted no was because the measures cause a \u201ccomingling\u201d or \u201cmisspending\u201d of funds.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we follow budget acts, we use it, we don\u2019t use it for other\u201d things, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to tap\u2026any fund that we can\u201d just so \u201cwe can address retirement and that is not the whole intention why we passed [the casino law].\u201d <\/p>\n The law was meant to set aside funds \u201caway from the general fund\u201d so they would \u201cnot have to worry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe administration is showing us that they are short, meaning they are comingling the funds with the general fund,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026What we are doing is, is allowing the governor to pay for the retirees. So now you are touching other agencies\u2019 funds.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Acting governor Victor B. Hocog signed emergency measures into law late afternoon yesterday to absolve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[20,26,152,65],"class_list":["post-221307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-budget","tag-cnmi","tag-deleon-guerrero","tag-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221307","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}