Malite family ‘misled’ about meeting with the governor

Members of the Malite family rushed to the Governor’s Office early Friday morning thinking that they would be meeting with Gov. Juan N. Babauta about their pending $3.4 million land compensation case, yet the expected time passed without them seeing even a shadow of the official.

“We’re here for a 9am meeting but the governor did not show up,” said a member of the family.

Feeling extremely bad, the family asked around to demand an explanation and, to their dismay, found out that they went up to Capitol Hill for nothing.

Governor legal counsel Steve Newman, who spoke with the family about noon that day, said they were “misled” to believe that there was a meeting with the governor.

According to Newman, a person not connected with the Governor’s Office had allegedly told the family that Special Assistant for Administration Tom Tebuteb had arranged the meeting with the governor.

Tebuteb, was on sick-leave Friday.

“Tom is extremely angry that someone has misrepresented that there was a meeting. It was very unfortunate. It was a deception meant to discredit the administration [with the family],” Newman said in an interview.

He declined to name the person whom he said had called Tebuteb for a meeting and had informed the family about the supposed meeting with Tebuteb and the governor.

He said that Babauta himself was very disappointed when he learned about the incident.

“The governor was very disappointed that someone had misled the family members into believing that there was a meeting. He felt badly for the family that they came all the way up here,” said Newman.

The legal counsel further indicated that the governor could not possibly intervene in the matter since it is pending litigation.

“It’s in the court,” he said.

The Attorney General’s Office, which earlier objected to the payment on the belief that the claim was spurious, filed a case after the Marianas Public Lands Authority announced that it would go ahead with the release of the land compensation to the Malite estate on Dec. 6.

The MPLA board approved the land compensation claim, saying that the matter was already decided by the Trust Territory court in 1978. That court had determined the compensation for condemnation of a parcel of land, which now forms part of Saipan’s Marianas High School, at $3,682.

The Commonwealth government obtained title to the land as a result of the condemnation. The Malite heirs, however, claimed that they did not receive any payment from the government for this.

Other defendants in the suit include the MPLA, its board members, commissioner Edward DeLeon Guerrero, and the estate’s administrator.

The Malite family is represented by former associate justice and former MPLA board member Pedro M. Atalig.

Atalig also represents former Senate President Juan S. Demapan, who filed a separate lawsuit against attorney general Pamela Brown for holding her position “unlawfully.”

Atalig said Brown has no standing to file the lawsuit because she is “not a duly appointed and confirmed attorney general.”