Whoever is saying that the $6,000 cash incentive that will be given to any CNMI athlete who wins a gold medal during the Pacific Mini Games 2022 is \u201ctoo much\u201d is being insulting to the athletes, coaches, the organizers of the event, and to the people of the Commonwealth, according to Gov. Ralph DLG Torres on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you put a value to say it\u2019s too much when they wave your flag during competition and compete around the Pacific,\u201d said Torres in response to a question during Friday\u2019s radio press briefing. <\/p>\n
The organizing committee of the Pacific Mini Games 2022 is putting up a $5,000 cash incentive for gold medalist from the CNMI, and Torres said will give another $1,000 cash from his office. <\/p>\n
Torres said those who criticize the incentive program are being insulting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that you realize what you have said and I hope you contribute to give these athletes just that extra push, an extra thank you for working so hard to represent the CNMI,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope that the others who are complaining, please put more money into our athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The governor said he wishes he could give more, such as $10,000 or $20,000, because there is no value when they wave the CNMI\u2019s flag and they sing the national anthem. <\/p>\n
During last week\u2019s House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee hearing for the Department of Finance\u2019s budget for fiscal year 2023, Rep. Celina R. Babauta (D-Saipan) stated that she is very concerned about this incentive program that the administration is going to implement for the Pacific Mini Games. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd while we support the athletes in any way we can, I\u2019m really concerned about the incentive awards, $5,000 for gold medalist, teams, and individual members,\u201d Babauta said.<\/p>\n
The lawmaker said for one sport alone, such as baseball, if a team received the gold medal in that particular sport, even the individual members will get a $1,000 on top of the $5,000, so it\u2019s about $10,000 a member for one team.<\/p>\n
Babauta asked where is the funding source will come from for the incentive program.<\/p>\n
In response to Babauta\u2019s question, Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig said they budgeted $4 million for the Pacific Mini Games as sports tourism.<\/p>\n
Atalig said they gave the funds to the organizing committee, so the incentive program is coming from within the committee\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n
He noted that the organizing committee is also receiving many monetary donations, as well as getting additional fees from every team that participates.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike yourself, I thought, wow, that\u2019s\u2026it\u2019s like the U.S. Olympics, I guess if you win a medal you are a millionaire,\u201d Atalig told Babauta.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Atalig said, he knows that incentive is if for every event is won by the CNMI.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I don\u2019t anticipate that every event is going to be won by the CNMI. I would love that to happen but\u2026 think that it\u2019s going to be drastically less or lesser than we think. But that will be up to the organizational committee,\u201d Atalig said.<\/p>\n
He said prior to getting the American Rescue Plan Act money, they were already setting aside local funds for the Pacific Mini Games as the administration\u2019s commitment to the event.<\/p>\n
Atalig said after getting assurance from the U.S. Treasury that doing sports tourism in the Pacific Games is qualified as part of ARPA, he gave $4 million from ARPA. He said it\u2019s an allowable cost.<\/p>\n
After the press briefing Friday, the Pacific Mini Games organizational committee disclosed that Rep. Corina L. Magofna (Ind-Saipan) donated $1,000 cash from her own pocket to the event. <\/p>\n
The Pacific Mini Games will be held on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota from June 17 to 25, 2022. Twenty countries and territories will participate in nine sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whoever is saying that the $6,000 cash incentive that will be given to any CNMI…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":370245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370243","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\/370243","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}