{"id":264287,"date":"2017-11-13T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2017-11-12T20:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=264287"},"modified":"2017-11-13T06:00:52","modified_gmt":"2017-11-12T20:00:52","slug":"benavente-nomination-head-dol-draws-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/benavente-nomination-head-dol-draws-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Benavente nomination to head DOL draws support"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
Benavente<\/figcaption><\/figure>Staff and management of the Department of Labor as well as several other members of the public have expressed support for Gov. Ralph DLG Torres\u2019 bet for his new Labor secretary during the Senate\u2019s public hearing last week.<\/p>\n

Torres appointed Julia Victoria Benavente as secretary of Labor in mid-September 2017.<\/p>\n

Several key management employees of DOL expressed their support for Benavente during the public hearing held by the Senate Committee on Executive Appointments and Governmental Investigations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn behalf of the staff and management of [DOL], we come before [the Senate] to speak with one voice,\u201d said Gil M. San Nicolas, DOL director for labor enforcement and compliance. \u201cIn the very short time that [Benavente] has been appointed acting secretary of Labor, she has proven her leadership to all the staff and management and the department, inclusive of Rota and Tinian. Our message\u2026is very simple: we ask that you appoint [Benavente] to be our next secretary of labor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Benavente\u2019s appointment also garnered the support of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, the Northern Marianas Business Alliance Corp., and the Governor\u2019s Strategic Economic Development Council through Alex Sablan, who chairs several of these organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has complete understanding of the issues related to creating jobs and putting U.S. citizens in the workplace first,\u201d said Sablan.<\/p>\n

Rep. Angel A. Demapan (R-Saipan), who also supported Benavente, referred to her appointment as a \u201cvery sound and wise decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026It is important that we have leadership in our department that is in charge of overseeing [our workforce and labor needs]. The leadership of the Commonwealth [government] is focusing its energy on labor needs. My heart is comforted and consoled knowing that DOL has this wonderful opportunity to be led by a very capable, intellectual, and hardworking dedicated public servant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Teresita Santos (R-Rota) wishes that if confirmed, Benavente will have an \u201cinitiative to address\u201d the unemployment rate in the CNMI to \u201cavoid an exodus of our people leaving the islands for the lack of work opportunities here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santos applauded Benavente\u2019s plans to \u201cestablish an alliance\u201d with the Northern Marianas College, the Northern Marianas Technical Institute, the Public School System, the Latte Training Academy, and the private sector in building the CNMI workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201c[I wish that Benavente] would work closely with our Tinian and Rota counterparts to improve our labor departments and workforce in those senatorial districts,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to committee chair Sen. Francisco Cruz (R-Tinian), both Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang, and Rep. John Paul Sablan (R-Saipan) have supported and testified for Benavente in written testimonies.<\/p>\n

The committee will now come up with a standing committee report to present to the Senate body at their next session before Benavente is officially confirmed as labor secretary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Staff and management of the Department of Labor as well as several other members of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":264319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[26,573,2430,7911],"class_list":["post-264287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-cnmi","tag-dol","tag-latte-training-academy","tag-saipan-chamber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264287","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}