{"id":294575,"date":"2019-02-27T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T20:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=294575"},"modified":"2019-02-27T06:00:18","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T20:00:18","slug":"political-status-panel-calls-for-amendment-to-law-that-created-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/political-status-panel-calls-for-amendment-to-law-that-created-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Political status panel calls for amendment to law that created it"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Marianas Political Status Commission met yesterday at the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office conference room. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Marianas Political Status Commission will be asking the Legislature to amend the law that created the group, Public Law 19-63, in order to get the public\u2019s pulse if there is still the desire to continue the CNMI\u2019s political union with the United States, as stated in the mutually-negotiated Covenant, which was approved by U.S. Congress in 1976.<\/p>\n

The MPSC, chaired by former senator Pete Reyes, met yesterday at the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office conference room to begin their work to determine if the current political status is still in the best interest of the Commonwealth or if it would be better to change that relationship.<\/p>\n

A section of the new law, Section 103 (i), requires the panel to submit to the Legislature within 18 months or no later than 21 months a final report on their findings and recommendations on political status options.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur operations starts today, because the first meeting that we had was organizational, where we selected the chair, vice chair, and the other officers,\u201d Reyes said after their almost two-hour-long meeting.<\/p>\n

He said the Legislature already knows of their request to have P.L. 19-63 amended. \u201cThe Legislature is aware of this [extension request], so it won\u2019t be difficult to convince them that they need to amend the law. We need to ask for an extension so that we can actually work within the original plan of the minimum 18 months or 21 months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The measure was originally introduced by former representative Felicidad T. Ogumoro as House Bill 19-2 ; it was signed into law by Gov. Ralph DLG Torres in August 2016.<\/p>\n

Reyes said some provisions of the law need some clarity. \u201cThere are some provisions\u2026that are ambiguous and may not jive with what we\u2019re thinking. The timing, we need to amend that, to make sure the commission works without any legal problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re drafting a letter to both presiding officers of the Legislature\u2014House Speaker Blas Jonathan T. Attao (R-Saipan) and Senate President Victor B. Hocog (R-Rota)\u2014we\u2019re going to ask them to amend the law and we\u2019re going to justify it by explaining the chronology of events that have taken place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reyes said that certain factors\u2014like Super Typhoon Yutu and the election being postponed for one week\u2014caused the delay in having themselves organized and begin operations. \u201cWe want to have that timing, barring any possibility of a future typhoon that\u2026may have to delay this further.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commission already talked about how to move forward with their education and information campaign; Reyes recommended to the group that they hold public hearings in each of the CNMI\u2019s seven precincts instead of an earlier suggestion of going to every village.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of going to every village, we will have one for each precinct to save money. To expand the education process for the political status, we\u2019re going to use the media\u2014newspaper, radio, and television\u2014to educate people on what [MPSC] is doing. Also, to tap into the different resources that are available in the government, which is authorized by the statute.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Marianas Political Status Commission will be asking the Legislature to amend the law that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":294576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294575","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=294575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}