Getting the facts straight

About John Del Rosario’s foolish attack, it’s important to correct him because he has gone way too far from reality.

Firstly, public land is owned by the government and Department of Public Land through its predecessor Marianas Public Land Corp. mistakenly acquired private land without thorough research of existing land documents even with the knowledge of land claims and complaints made by private landowners. Department of Public Land then leased the land to businesses to earn income for its operations. Sweet deal! This is government corruption at its best.

Secondly, DPL is mandated by law to administer the land compensation program for private land takings by the government. Therefore, DPL is responsible to seek funds to comply with the law. That is the DPL Secretary’s responsibilities, not writing egotistical letters to the editors and deferring to the Legislature to do his job.

Thirdly, DelRosario needs to refresh his memory about Antonio S. Camacho’s case with the federal court. In Mr. Camacho’s case, Judge Alex R. Munson stated in his order, and I quote, “The failure of the Legislature to fulfill its constitutional mandate does not, cannot, and will not prevent the court from taking all necessary steps to ensure that its judgments are enforceable.”

Even though DPL urged the federal court to defer to Commonwealth law and agree with them that Camacho has no means to enforce the judgment without an appropriation by the Legislature, the judge concluded, and I quote: “overwhelmingly in favor of protecting the independence of the federal judiciary and of providing federal litigants in the Commonwealth a meaningful, timely avenue to collect judgments.”

In other words, your time is up, Mr. Secretary, from making excuses and start figuring out how to make payments DPL owes the heirs of Rita Rogolifoi, because your job mandates that you do what the court tells you to do.

As far as Rosario’s redundancy theory is concerned, let it be known that MPLA took the case to court, not the other way around, even after I tried to negotiate a settlement with them. And let me make this clear to Rosario: that no judge will ignore the other parties’ request to halt the case when a settlement is agreed upon, before, during, and after the case is heard. It is just absurd to think that a judge will continue hearing the case even after one or both parties inform the court of a settlement.

In passing, get your facts straight, Mr. Secretary, because all the big words you use clouds your poor memory and distorts the facts of this important matter. Please use simple words instead.