Santos says rejection was politically motivated

Former Marianas Public Land Trust board chair Alvaro Santos broke his silence yesterday and branded as “unfair” and “politically motivated” the Senate committee’s action to reject his re-appointment to the board.

He said the Senate Committee on Executive Appointments and Government Investigations should have done a fact-finding investigation first on the issue being thrown against him relating to a land purchase some four years ago before rejecting his re-appointment.

Santos believes there are only two reasons why the committee, chaired by Sen. Frank Cruz, “sentenced” him to his fate prior to getting all its facts straight. First was the testimony indicating MPLT’s strong opposition to Senate legislative initiatives 17-13 and 17-14, which seek to redirect the transfer of annual income distribution from the general fund to the NMI Retirement Fund. Investment-wise, he said both initiatives will do more harm than good to the trust, which remits about $2 million or more to the government a year. These bills were defeated at the House.

“Those bills were defeated in the House so therefore, that is not a good news for the Senate President [Paul Manglona] and, since the president and Sen. Cruz are buddies, they targeted me,” he said.

Santos said the other reason is the endorsement of a candidate on Rota who will run against Manglona—an independent—this November. Santos is a committee chair in the Republican Party, which recently endorsed the candidacy of former representative Victor Hocog.

Santos said he was disappointed with how the EAGI committee and its chairman handled his appointment and the investigation against him. “I personally, I am questioning the integrity, maturity, and the intelligence of Sen. Cruz. They have nothing against me except to make an issue about the land purchase,” said Santos.

He expressed confidence that the facts will vindicate him once the investigation is completed but he doubts if the result will be fairly presented to the public.

Cruz earlier told the media that Santos’ re-appointment was rejected due to a questionable land purchase that MPLT entered into. Cruz filed an Open Government Act request with MPLT to gather the information for its probe. Prior to this investigation, the committee already voted to reject Santos’ re-appointment.

Belying claims that the MPLT land purchase in April 2008 was done without a quorum, Santos said the meeting minutes and records will show that five trustees voted to buy the 4,000 square meter lot on Capitol Hill from Vicente and Martha Camacho for $272,000. MPLT had planned to build its own building on the lot.

Santos said this board decision was ratified in Resolution 09-05 and that a final decision was reached after a cost analysis by MPLT consultant Bruce McMillan, who determined that buying the land will benefit MPLT. The property, Santos said, was appraised by experts who valued it at $78 per square meter; it was bought by MPLT for $68 per square meter.

According to him, the board was only prompted to hold off on this project because of the financial crisis. “Had we developed our place and use part of our capital of about $600,000 at that time, it will decrease our remittance to the central government, which is crying for help. So the decision to hold back is for a noble reason that was misconstrued by pundits to mean something else and it’s very ironic,” said Santos.

He said that lawmakers are supposed to focus on making sound and good bills. The issue of finding space for an agency like MPLT, he said, is far from this scope.

Santos was on the MPLT board for six years, its chairman for four years, and its vice chair for two years.