Concepcion lies low after retracting statement

Why did former Marianas Public Lands Corp. executive director William R. Concepcion retract his earlier statement that the agency never intended to assess fees on Verizon over public lands easement for the underground cables?

That is the question that former CNMI Chief Justice Jose Dela Cruz, a board member of Pacific Telecom, Inc., wants answered, making several attempts yesterday to contact Concepcion. The effort proved futile as of press time.

Dela Cruz’s puzzlement over Concepcion’s latest action stems from what he said was the former executive director’s voluntary act of sending him the Sept. 30, 2005 statement that he is now retracting.

“I’m extremely disappointed with the [Concepcion’s retraction] letter. I don’t know the reason or motivation behind the retraction,” Dela Cruz said.

As this developed, Verizon’s employees remain eager to find out how Gov. Juan N. Babauta will respond to their request that he put a stop to what they described as a “political vendetta” against their company. The employees have also urged the governor to appeal to the Marianas Public Lands Authority for it to withdraw its lawsuit against the telecom firm’s owners, Micronesian Telecommunications Corp. and PTI. Verizon’s spokesperson Carlene Reyes-Tenorio said that Babauta would meet with the employees at the telecom firm’s main Susupe offices around 11am today.

‘Unsolicited statement’

Dela Cruz, who had also served as the MPLC’s general counsel from 1979 to 1981 when Concepcion joined the agency initially as chief planner, said PTI never solicited the former executive director’s statement. “It was unsolicited. He [Concepcion] faxed that statement to me,” Dela Cruz said.

He said, though, that Concepcion made the statement before the MPLA, the defunct MPLC’s successor, filed the lawsuit against MTC and PTI at the Superior Court. Dela Cruz said he even used Concepcion’s statement when he met with the MPLA’s attorneys as part of the settlement negotiations that later resulted in a deadlock. The MPLA filed the suit on Oct. 3.

In the MPLA’s suit against MTC and its new owner, PTI, the agency is seeking to evict Verizon from public lands, accusing the telecom firm of breaching five land leases, including the one for the Susupe lot that houses the company’s main offices. The MPLA also wants Verizon to pay for public lands easement for buried cables, from which no payment has allegedly been made by the telecom firm to the public corporation since the 1980s. It also accused Verizon of violating the Fiber Optic Cable by charging interisland tolls from 1997 to Sept. 19, 2005.

Concepcion rose from the ranks and became the MPLC’s executive director from October 1989 to May 1994. He was the MPLC’s executive director when the agency entered into four lease agreements with MTC, which are among the subjects of the current MPLA suit.

In his Sept. 30 statement, Concepcion said there was an understanding between MTC and the Trust Territory government that the company has the right to use the public right-of-way for its buried cables and telephone boxes. He said none of the MPLC’s board members or staff raised an issue about charging MTC rent for the use of the public right-of-way, adding that the improvement of the telephone system was viewed by the agency not as a purely commercial venture but as a quasi-public capital improvement project.

Last Tuesday, though, Concepcion sent Dela Cruz a letter retracting and rescinding his earlier statement. The letter indicated that MPLA had been furnished a copy. In that letter, Concepcion did not directly deny the truthfulness of his previous statement, but he simply stated that he could not fully recollect all the details regarding the right-of-way issue.

“I do not fully recollect all the details regarding this issue. Because of the public controversy that this issue has generated, I believe that this issue should be resolved by MPLA and MTC,” Concepcion said. “I do not recall if I produced any memorandums or correspondences to prove any of my Sept. 30, 2005 statement. Therefore, my statement should not have been used by MTC in a paid advertisement without further verification.”

Sometime last week, over 50 Verizon employees trooped to the Governor’s Office after they and many others signed a petition asking the governor to intervene in the dispute between the company and the MPLA.

The employees said the government’s alleged vendetta against their employer not only hurts the economy, but also puts their jobs at risk. They said the company is likely to relocate its facilities to Guam if evicted.