{"id":424107,"date":"2024-11-07T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=424107"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"PH-congressman-meets-with-Filipino-community-on-Saipan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/PH-congressman-meets-with-Filipino-community-on-Saipan\/","title":{"rendered":"PH congressman meets with Filipino community on Saipan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dozens of the Filipino community members on Saipan met with the Philippine Congressman Rodante Marcoleta last Friday evening at the Koblerville Gymnasium.<\/p>\n<p>Former United Filipino Organization president Marcelo V. Masilungan addressed his concerns regarding the absence of consular services, labor attach\u00e9, and legal means that caused hardship for Filipinos on Saipan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cActually, this is the meeting that I\u2019ve been requesting to the Philippine Consulate in Agana, Guam every time they come and visit CNMI, but the promise they told us is starting next year, because there\u2019s no budget. But I think they\u2019re going to review that because I reported that conversation. Because you know, we have so many concerns. We have so many problems. We don\u2019t have a consulate office, we don\u2019t have an honorary consul, we don\u2019t have labor attach\u00e9, we don\u2019t have legal means,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Masilungan emphasized the urgency of addressing these issues to ensure the well-being of Filipinos in the CNMI.<\/p>\n<p>Masilungan then encouraged the Filipino community to speak up and ask questions to the visiting congressman who is running for Philippine senator as well.<\/p>\n<p>Marcoleta expressed his gratitude in meeting with his <em>kababayans<\/em>\u2014or countrymen\u2014and shared that it was his first time to be on Saipan.<\/p>\n<p>The processing of papers of Filipino contract workers that have to be coursed through Washington, D.C., and to have a program for the undocumented Filipinos on the island were among the concerns raised during the meet-and-greet. Coral Coast Foundation Corp. director Eleanor Alinas, who organized the meet-and-greet explained to Marcoleta that the CNMI is composed of three main islands Saipan, Rota, and Tinian and she said that Filipinos on the other two islands are requesting for him to visit them too.<\/p>\n<p>Marcoleta concluded the meet-and-greet by saying that all the concerns gathered will be relayed as soon as possible to Arnel Ignacio, who is the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration administrator.<\/p>\n<p> <figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/3dfe38f3995aa6d42eca48d510508055.png\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Dozens of the Saipan Filipino community members meet-and-greet with Philippine Congressman Rodante Marcoleta last Friday night at the Koblerville Gymnasium.<\/p>\n<p>-RACQUEL H. FLOYD<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure> <figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/588b4cce15ef5a7f6da451a690cdd7d2.png\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>From left, former United Filipino Organization president Marcelo V. Masilungan, Edna Marcoleta, Philippine Congressman Rodante Marcoleta, Coral Coast Foundation Corp. director Eleanor Alinas, and Kalayaan Inc.\u2019s Maverick Rotap.<\/p>\n<p>-RACQUEL H. FLOYD<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure> <figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/c294e01ce1adbf9e545e8c3dee22843e.png\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Leaders from different Filipino organizations on Saipan pose with Philippine Congressman Rodante Marcaleto, fifth from the left.<\/p>\n<p>-RACQUEL H. FLOYD<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dozens of the Filipino community members on Saipan met with the Philippine Congressman Rodante Marcoleta&#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-424107","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\/424107","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=424107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}