Jocelyn Kapileo files her candidacy for NI mayor

Jocelyn Kaipat Aldan Kapileo submits her petition for nomination and candidacy documents before Commonwealth Election Commission executive director Kayla S. Igitol inside CEC office in Susupe yesterday. Also in the photo are Kapileo’s husband, Kevin Taitano Kapileo, and their children. (Ferdie De La Torre)

Jocelyn Kaipat Aldan Kapileo, a sister of the late Northern Islands Mayor Francisco Jerome Aldan, filed yesterday her candidacy for Northern Islands mayor as an independent candidate.

Kapileo, 41, submitted her petition for nomination and candidacy documents to Commonwealth Election Commission executive director Kayla S. Igitol at the CEC office in Susupe yesterday afternoon. She was accompanied by her husband, Kevin Taitano Kapileo, their two children, and a few relatives and supporters.

Igitol said that, as of yesterday, there were 168 registered voters for the Northern Islands.

The Republican Party’s candidate for Northern Islands mayor is Valentino N. Taisacan Jr. Current Northern Islands Mayor Vicente Santos is not running for re-election. Santos became mayor after Mayor Francisco Jerome Aldan passed away on Feb. 18, 2017.

Jocelyn Kapileo said the only reason why she is running for this office is that they had a summit during the time of her late father, Tobias Dela Cruz Aldan, who was also the then- Northern Islands mayor. Kapileo said she wants everything that was agreed upon in that summit to happen.

“We want the homestead to happen so they can issue all these homesteads to our people. Everybody is already dying and they are not getting their homestead,” she said.

She said she was really helping his brother, then- Northern Islands Mayor Francisco Jerome Aldan, to get $1 million funding so they could help the people of the north.

“Some of us want to go back home but so many things prohibit us from going back home. We don’t have reliable transportation. They need to fix the airstrip so that we can travel by air, by sea,” she said.

Kapileo was born on Saipan after her parents were forced to leave Pagan because of the active volcano on the island. Her parents raised her three older siblings on Pagan.

Kapileo said the last time she was on Pagan was in 2006.

She said her father wanted to see how life was in the Northern Islands so she and her husband went there where they learned how to catch animals and fish and learned how to dry fish and meat. Kapileo said they stayed there for nine months.

She said she and her husband and about seven relatives were the only ones on the island. As others had to leave for various reasons, they went down to four or six on the island.

Kapileo said she did not want to come back to Saipan, but her father picked them up.

Kapileo graduated at Marianas High School in 1999.

For seven years, she worked with the Department of Public Lands Mining Division. She also worked as a zoning officer with the Saipan Zoning Office for five years. Currently, she is a housewife.

Kapileo said she is running as an independent but is supporting the Republican Party.