{"id":278990,"date":"2018-06-28T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=278990"},"modified":"2018-06-28T06:00:28","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T20:00:28","slug":"babuta-sablan-camp-aims-to-work-with-casino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/babuta-sablan-camp-aims-to-work-with-casino\/","title":{"rendered":"Babauta-Sablan camp aims to work with casino"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_278992\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-278992\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Heinz-pix.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-278992\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former governor Juan N. Babauta, right, and ex-CNMI Public School System commissioner Dr. Rita\u00a0A. Sablan, third left, join Sen. Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota), left, after former House speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider announced his senatorial candidacy last Monday at Babauta\u2019s house in Gualo Rai. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The camp of former governor Juan N. Babauta has expressed a willingness to work with the casino-hotel if ever their ticket wins this year\u2019s general elections\u2014provided that Imperial Pacific Resort officials follow CNMI and federal laws.<\/p>\n<p>Babauta is again seeking the gubernatorial post with former Education commissioner Dr. Rita A. Sablan as his running mate for lieutenant governor. They are going up against the GOP ticket of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and Senate President Arnold I. Palacios (R-Saipan).<\/p>\n<p>Although he says he is against any form of gambling, Babauta said he is willing to live with it and make sure the investor and the entire CNMI benefit from it. \u201cTwice the people said no in a referendum, but overnight the Legislature got together after a short trip to Macau and came back with a written legislation and overnight passed it that authorized a casino industry on Saipan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow that we have bitten the forbidden fruit, we have an agreement and have to live with that. Dr. Sablan and the rest of the team, if you put us in, we\u2019re going to work with the casino and see to it that it will work [and] we\u2019re not going to let this skeleton facility be abandoned. We\u2019re going to work with the casino industry and we\u2019ll see to it that it is successful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that this is his and Sablan\u2019s commitment if they are elected to office. \u201cWe\u2019re going to work with them on a very fundamental agreement that follow CNMI and federal laws and [if] they are going to stick to their commitment, we\u2019re going to be happy to work with them and see to it they succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sablan added: \u201cThey must follow the rules and laws of the land, there must be no exemption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If the casino does succeed, Sablan said that that will open more opportunities for foreign investors. \u201cThere\u2019s that opportunity\u201d and the entire CNMI would benefit. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to make sure that, like everyone is saying, the 65 percent that are really struggling, that we address it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She added that it is the people of the CNMI who would benefit from these investors. \u201cWe must be mindful what it is that they are bringing in to benefit our children. What it is that they are bringing in so that the women here would not be shunned down but also given an opportunity to participate. That\u2019s what we are looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The camp of former governor Juan N. Babauta has expressed a willingness to work with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":278992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[256,26,14722,67],"class_list":["post-278990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-casino","tag-cnmi","tag-imperial-pacific-resort","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278990","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}