Teno: No to 5-year stay limit

The proponent of the controversial initiative seeking a five-year stay limit on alien workers on the island is insistent, vowing to lobby support from voters if members of the Legislature reject its inclusion in the ballots during the November midterm elections.

But Senate Vice President Thomas P. Villagomez is facing tough opposition from the Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio and House Speaker Diego T. Benavente, who yesterday finally spoke against his proposal.

Tenorio said the Commonwealth still needs labor pool from Asian countries to fill in jobs in the private sector, citing the limited availability of local manpower to address the employment needs of companies on the island.

He also cautioned legislators against passing the initiative, saying it would be difficult for future administrations to amend the Constitution when the time comes that CNMI does see the need for more foreign workers.

“The five-year limit has been proposed for many years. I won’t deny that it was approved during my terms of office. We supported that because we encouraged the people who were here to work and send some money for their family,” Tenorio told reporters in an interview.

“However, there are times also that if we don’t have the availability of human resources over here and as long as we don’t have the resources we still have to depend upon the nonresident workers,” he added.

According to the governor, the present three-year restriction imposed by the Commonwealth last year is sufficient to curb dependency of the island on foreign manpower.

The law, which he signed last March, requires guest workers to exit the CNMI after three years of continuous employment here and must remain outside the island for six months before re-entering.

This measure, Tenorio said, will be part of a comprehensive labor and immigration reforms which his administration plans to undertake in efforts to persuade Washington against stripping local authority over these functions.

Legislation like the three-year limitation is enough for now, but an initiative amending the laws of the land would be too much, Tenorio pointed out. “It’s very difficult to change the Constitution,” he added.

Initial proposal eased: Villagomez’ proposal under the Senate Legislative Initiative 11-5 originally sought to apply the restriction to all guest workers in the Commonwealth, but the senator has agreed to ease the provision to make it effective only for those who have been hired on or after March 5, 1999 when the three-year stay limit became law.

He has been prodding the House to pass the initiative which has been sitting there since the Senate approved it early this year. The proposal has to get two-thirds of the votes of all representatives before it can be included in the November balloting.

A House session scheduled today may tackle the initiative, but Speaker Diego T. Benavente said he would vote against it.

“We have not discussed it yet in the leadership meeting although my recommendation certainly is not to pass it,” he told in a separate interview.

Benavente believed the proposal should be legislated instead of making it a constitutional provision. He said the CNMI might face problems in the future if it decides to change the restriction again.

“There are some issues that rightly should be under the Constitution,” he explained, “and there are other issues that should be legislated. This is one of those issues.”

Like the three-year limit, Benavente maintained this proposal would have a better chance of passing the House if it is in the form of a bill, rather than an initiative.

“One of the reasons why it is important that it be placed as a statute is because we are going to find ourselves needing to make changes and if you were to include those in the Constitution, it might create problems in the future for the Commonwealth,” he added.