{"id":403793,"date":"2024-01-22T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=403793"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Passing-the-torch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Passing-the-torch\/","title":{"rendered":"Passing the torch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Greetings,<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to you, the people of the Northern Mariana Islands, I have had the extraordinary opportunity and most humbling responsibility over almost 16 years to be your voice and to represent your interests in the U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n<p>My love for the Marianas remains strong. But the time has come to pass this responsibility to a new representative the people will elect this November.<\/p>\n<p>This decision comes after deep personal examination and consultation with Andrea, my loved ones and supporters.<\/p>\n<p>And it is not because I have accomplished everything I wanted for the people of our islands. The work is far from done.<\/p>\n<p>But I will leave Congress believing I have been able to establish the Northern Mariana Islands as a respected member of the American political family.<\/p>\n<p>When as a young man I stood in the U.S. Capitol in 1986 and promised myself, if the Marianas ever had a place in the institution, I would strive to be elected. I never imagined I would be our first representative or be able to serve so long.<\/p>\n<p>The people of the Marianas gave me this singular honor. I believe I have served you well. And I will be forever grateful.<\/p>\n<p>May God bless us all.<\/p>\n<p><h3>Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<p><em>Member of Congress<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>My love for the Marianas remains strong. But the time has come to pass this responsibility to a new representative the people will elect this November.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/f71f60104bb333a1bd1c7b03bdce6c83.png\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greetings, Thanks to you, the people of the Northern Mariana Islands, I have had the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-403793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403793","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}