Manglona quits from CUC board

Members of the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation Board yesterday elected a new secretary to replace board director Laura I. Manglona, who has apparently resigned following controversies surrounding her appointment.

Frank T. Flores, a board director representing Saipan, assumed her post after more than two months since Manglona was elected by the same board last July.

It was believed that Manglona had submitted her resignation to Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio, but board members were tight-lipped on the issue.

The election was held immediately before the board went into an executive session.

The departure of Manglona, who represented Rota to CUC’s policymaking body, reduced its current composition to five members. Both Tinian and Rota have no representatives to the board.

It will be recalled that Senate Vice President Thomas Villagomez pressed Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio last August to terminate her in violation of existing laws governing CUC’s appointments, which bar appointees from holding a position in another government agency.

Manglona, a teacher at Rota High School, was nominated by the governor early this year for her second five-year term, but her confirmation by the Senate stalled when her government job was discovered.

But she got the senators’ nod last June, along with Flores and another CUC director Edward Sablan, who were both new appointees, after she handed over a resignation letter addressed to Education Commissioner Rita H. Inos.

Villagomez claimed that she still continued to teach despite the resignation and the letter was meant “to deceive” the Senate Committee on Executive Appointment and Governmental Investigations to get its approval.

“Since she was appointed to the board, she has been an employee of the government.,” he said in an interview. “Our confirmation was moot.”

The board’s action was just a reaction to the Senate and governor’s position, according to the senator. Tenorio never expressed publicly his displeasure over the legal problem, although he urged the Senate in August to give her walking papers.

Under the law, CUC appointees should not be government employees and must have at least an associate degree in college. The regulation forced resignation of former Chairman Juan S. Dela Cruz and member Edwin Hofschneider from Tinian in recent months.

Manglona’s resignation has come out of the blue in what maybe an attempt to downplay the growing rift between the Senate and the administration over appointment issues.