Minority bloc senator Pete P. Reyes lambasted the Commonwealth Development Authority for being \u201cextremely unfair\u201d in identifying and accusing him as one of the lawmakers who favored \u201ca special interest\u201d bill.<\/p>\n
Reyes, in an interview, said that for one, he is not aware of any lobbying efforts for the passage of the CDA credit relief bill that would benefit those with delinquent loans with the agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t meet with any person lobbying for the bill. There was no lobbying. There was no time for anyone to do that anyway because we acted on it as soon as it was referred to us,\u201d said the senator.<\/p>\n
Likewise, he said that he did not know and still does not know any relatives with delinquent loans with CDA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly don\u2019t know any one of my relatives with loans. I have absolutely no control over my relatives. If they want to borrow, that\u2019s their decision. It\u2019s just unfair to put my name accusing that I voted for it only because my \u2018first cousin\u2019 would benefit from it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
CDA earlier revealed that all nine senators, including Reyes, and 15 other members of the House of Representatives have relatives with loans in default. <\/p>\n
Reyes said that he had called CDA and asked it to identify his supposed first cousin with a bad loan. He said the CDA has declined his request, citing confidentiality, which he said had already been violated when the agency revealed that some lawmakers themselves, their mother and father have delinquent loans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them if I don\u2019t have a first cousin with a bad loan, they owe me an apology,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re accusing me of having a cousin who defaulted yet they won\u2019t tell me who. It\u2019s unfair that they have the gall to accuse me and not allow me to confirm that accusation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the real problem lies with CDA, which, he said, has failed miserably to collect from borrowers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are they trying to pass the buck to the Legislature? If you\u2019re a teacher and 80 percent of your students are flunking, who is to blame? Isn\u2019t it the teacher? In this case, 83 percent of borrowers are flunking. Who do we blame but the [CDA] management for its failure to go after them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The question, he said, is not who is lobbying but \u201cwhy the borrowers are flunking?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said he supported the bill because it would help business owners economically. \u201cCDA can explore other means than foreclosure. Why take their assets?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Among others, the credit relief bill seeks to prevent the CDA from filing foreclosure or default collection proceedings\u2014or any court proceeding\u2014on any delinquent loan without first meeting with the borrower and making \u201cgood faith attempt\u201d to resolve the outstanding indebtedness.<\/p>\n
CDA, for its part, maintained that the measure, Senate Bill 14-48, is \u201ca special interest legislation of the worst kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said that the \u201creason for the passage\u2026is because of the aggressive lobbying efforts of several high profile defaulted borrowers.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said that the bill \u201cis illegal and unconstitutional\u201d as it will impair the obligations of contracts.<\/p>\n
Further, the agency said that the measure would bankrupt the CDA, affect its relationships with federal agencies, lose its integrity, and kill upcoming economic development.<\/p>\n
CDA said that it has referred the matter to the Office of the Public Auditor, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Inspector General as such measure would impact federal funding relationships.<\/p>\n
Acting governor Diego T. Benavente has already indicated that he will veto the measure. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minority bloc senator Pete P. Reyes lambasted the Commonwealth Development Authority for being \u201cextremely unfair\u201d in identifying and accusing him as one of the lawmakers who favored \u201ca special interest\u201d bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84316","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\/84316","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=84316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}