{"id":289124,"date":"2018-11-23T06:06:13","date_gmt":"2018-11-22T20:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=289124"},"modified":"2018-11-23T06:06:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T20:06:13","slug":"rasa-honored-as-he-is-laid-to-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/rasa-honored-as-he-is-laid-to-rest\/","title":{"rendered":"Rasa honored as he is laid to rest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Police officers escort the remains of former speaker Oscar C. Rasa to the cemetery in last Monday\u2019s funeral rites at the Mt. Carmel Cathedral. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Senate President Arnold I. Palacios (R-Saipan) remembers former House speaker Oscar C. Rasa for championing people\u2019s rights, even if not everyone agreed with him. Rasa, 71, died on Nov. 11.<\/p>\n

Rasa was laid to rest last Monday at the Chalan Kanoa Cemetery after a Mass and public viewing in the nearby Mount Carmel Cathedral.<\/p>\n

Palacios, who is the lieutenant governor-elect, said that people might have an ambivalent attitude toward Rasa but he is still a big loss to the CNMI. \u201cWe lost a very genuine individual, very intelligent person, and simple guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people might dislike or love him, but we must appreciate Mr. Rasa. He doesn\u2019t hold back what he wants to say; he tells it as is. His passing is a big loss and, at the end of the day, the CNMI lost an individual that sacrificed a lot for the Commonwealth.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that he\u2019s known Rasa while he was growing up, the former speaker being one of the prot\u00e9g\u00e9\u2019s of his father, the late Dr. Francisco T. Palacios. \u201cMy father was a politician and I\u2019ve come to respect him since he was one of my father\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very bright, thoughtful, and an intelligent individual. He was like that in his younger years and as a part of the Covenant negotiating team. Yes, he was young but he expressed a lot of his reservations on some of the provisions in the Covenant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palacios said some of Rasa\u2019s opinions became a reality. \u201cTo the large extent, a lot of those reservations came to reality. He was very passionate for advocating local rights, native rights. He was a champion and a genuine individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the opportunity, in my capacity as an elected official, to be able to spend quite a bit of time in the past few months with him. He\u2019s given me a lot of insights, a lot of advice, counseling, and encouragement to do good for the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Speaker Rafael S. Demapan (R-Saipan) said that Rasa is a known constitutionalist who helped shape the CNMI. \u201cIt is a great loss to our Commonwealth. As we all know, he had served the CNMI for a long time. He was one of the people who helped the establishment of the Commonwealth. He [was] very knowledgeable on constitutional issues. Our deepest condolences to the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero (R-Saipan), who is also a former speaker, said he learned a lot from the many conversations he had with Rasa. \u201cI\u2019m very saddened by the news. He was very knowledgeable and I learned so much from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very intelligent, not only about the CNMI\u2019s political history but also the Constitution. I offer my condolences to the family and ask all of us to pay our respects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Ivan A. Blanco (R-Saipan) also offered his condolences to the Rasa family. \u201cMy deepest condolences to Auntie Pat and the family during this time of bereavement. They are in my thoughts and prayers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres earlier directed all CNMI and U.S. flags be lowered to half-staff in honor of Rasa. The flags were raised to full staff a day after Rasa\u2019s interment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate President Arnold I. Palacios (R-Saipan) remembers former House speaker Oscar C. Rasa for championing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":289125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23225,26,9037,67],"class_list":["post-289124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-auntie-pat","tag-cnmi","tag-mount-carmel-cathedral","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289124","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=289124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}