{"id":411862,"date":"2024-08-01T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=411862"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"There-is-room-for-compromise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/There-is-room-for-compromise\/","title":{"rendered":"‘There is room for compromise’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere is absolutely room for compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was Gov. Arnold I. Palacios\u2019 statement after meeting with a group of marine operators concerned about the Department of Public Land\u2019s proposed amendments to the rules and regulations governing the use of Ma\u00f1agaha Island.<\/p>\n

The group appeared before Palacios and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang yesterday to voice their concerns to which Palacios agreed to serve as a mediator between the parties in the ongoing dispute.<\/p>\n

According to Palacios, the group of marine operators reached out to his office asking for a chance to tell the administration their side of the issue that has been making headlines for over a week; DPL\u2019s proposed amendments to the existing rule and regulations on the use of Ma\u00f1agaha. (The operators believe that the proposed rules would essentially prohibit them from doing business at Ma\u00f1agaha.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of issues that need to be clarified and resolved. The issue stems from the newly proposed rules and regulations that DPL is trying to adopt and they certainly have concerns about it. Since last week, the lieutenant governor and I have been talking about this and we have our concerns. We will be talking to DPL about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Palacios expressed that one of his concerns is that with all the CNMI\u2019s efforts to boost tourism, Ma\u00f1agaha has been one of the CNMI\u2019s most popular attractions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that Ma\u00f1agaha continues to be an attraction. It\u2019s not only a marine sanctuary, it\u2019s also a very attractive destination of our Commonwealth and we want to make sure we protect it and continue to protect it for our culture and traditions. We also want to make sure we make it work for everybody, for the concessionaire and for the marine sports operators, as well as visitors and the general public,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Palacios adds that there are issues right now, but he and Apatang intend to fix them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is absolutely room for compromise and that\u2019s what we need to [identify]. We will be meeting with DPL Secretary Teresita Santos [today] and her staff in charge of overseeing Ma\u00f1agaha to make sure that [the regulations] work for everybody. It can\u2019t just work for one party and everybody else is in anyway restricted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our constitution, Ma\u00f1agaha is reserved for recreational and cultural purposes. We\u2019ve kind of started to veer away from that and started making its use commercial, and that\u2019s OK to the extent that we don\u2019t compromise the true intent of our constitution,\u201d Palacios added.<\/p>\n

Apatang, for his part, said he has been concerned about this issue and aims to address it sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know this dispute has been going on for almost two weeks. It\u2019s been on the papers and social media and we are concerned. All these operators that are out there doing their daily business, trying to make a living and are paying their taxes on time, we want to hear them and give them this opportunity and see what we can do to help them continue the service they are providing our tourists who want to visit Ma\u00f1agaha. We will look [into this] and address issues that we need to take care of in the long run. As for fees, we have to talk to Department of Lands and Natural Resources about landing fees and see if we can get everything in uniform. We have to really work on this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, left, and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang speak to the media following a meeting with local marine operators concerned about the Department of Public Land\u2019s proposed amendments to the rules and regulations on the use of Ma\u00f1agaha island.<\/p>\n

-KIMBERLY B. ESMORES
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

Local marine operators meet with Gov. Arnold I. Apatang yesterday to discuss their concerns about Department of Public Land\u2019s proposed amendments to the rules and regulations governing the use of Ma\u00f1agaha.<\/p>\n

-KIMBERLY B. ESMORES
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\u201cThere is absolutely room for compromise.\u201d This was Gov. Arnold I. Palacios\u2019 statement after meeting…<\/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-411862","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\/411862","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=411862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}