{"id":377615,"date":"2022-10-13T06:04:03","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T20:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=377615"},"modified":"2022-10-13T06:04:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T20:04:03","slug":"house-minority-awaits-ethics-committee-meeting-on-2-complaints-against-propst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/house-minority-awaits-ethics-committee-meeting-on-2-complaints-against-propst\/","title":{"rendered":"House minority awaits Ethics Committee meeting on 2 complaints against Propst"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Edwin K. Propst<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The House of Representatives\u2019 minority members are still waiting for Rep. Donald M. Manglona (Ind-Rota), who chairs the House Official Conduct and Ethics Committee, to set a meeting regarding the two complaints filed against Rep. Edwin K. Propst (D-Saipan).<\/p>\n

House minority leader Rep. Angel A. Demapan (R-Saipan) said Tuesday that he has not heard of any schedule of the committee\u2019s meeting yet.<\/p>\n

Rep. Joseph Lee Pan T. Guerrero (R-Saipan) also said yesterday that he has not heard anything from Manglona.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez (Ind-Saipan) said Tuesday that he does not know about the meeting schedule.<\/p>\n

Manglona has yet to reply to Saipan Tribune\u2019s question as to when is he is going to set a meeting.<\/p>\n

Last Sept. 16, Manglona told the media that he is going to call a meeting only after the passage of the budget bill for the government\u2019s operations in fiscal year 2023.<\/p>\n

The Legislature passed the budget bill last Sept. 30. The following day, Oct. 1, Gov. Ralph DLG Torres signed the budget bill into law.<\/p>\n

Manglona, who also chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, was the author of the House budget bill version.<\/p>\n

A lawmaker, who requested anonymity, urged Northern Marianas Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence executive director Maisie B. Tenorio yesterday to speak up about Propst\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

The Ethics Committee held their last meeting on Feb. 17, 2022, in which the members decided to move forward with the complaints against Propst.<\/p>\n

The committee had agreed to get more information on one of the complaints against Propst and to proceed with the investigation on another complaint.<\/p>\n

Grace \u201cPitu\u201d Sablan Vaiagae filed the first complaint in November 2021 over allegations that Propst had sex with several underaged women approximately 20 years ago when he was still a teacher at Marianas High School and an employee at the Northern Marianas College.<\/p>\n

Vaiagae is a counselor and advocate for the rights of abused women.<\/p>\n

The second complaint was filed in December 2021 by Robert H. Hunter, who is the former senior policy adviser at the Office of the Governor.<\/p>\n

Hunter filed the complaint over Propst\u2019s remarks that circulated on social media where he allegedly made physical threats and used inappropriate language against Hunter and other people.<\/p>\n

Propst has denied the allegations in Vaiagae\u2019s complaint. He called Hunter a cyber bully.<\/p>\n

Propst, who chairs the House Gaming Committee and is representing Precinct 1, is seeking re-election in the upcoming Nov. 8 general elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House of Representatives\u2019 minority members are still waiting for Rep. Donald M. Manglona (Ind-Rota),…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":377616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-377615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377615","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=377615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}