FLASHBACK – June 21, 2011

Filipino workers are investing in real estate[/B]

Despite the uncertainty of their employment contracts in the CNMI, Filipino workers here are investing on real estate in the hope to fulfill their dream to own a house back in the Philippines. Visiting loan program manager Vincent N. Nery said following its first housing fair held on Saipan last year, the number of borrowers from the CNMI has more than doubled. “From 17 borrowers before the fair, we have 210 as of today,” he said. Nery is representing the Home Development Mutual Fund or Pag-IBIG, a Philippine government corporation based in Makati, which offers housing loans to its members including overseas contract workers.

The Board of Education decided against the proposal to build two new high schools on Saipan and favored the original plan to construct a junior high school and a new high school. In a special meeting called last Friday, board members carried the motion to develop a junior high school in Kagman III, near the site where the elementary school is being constructed. For the new high school, the Board favored the location near the Governor’s Office up at Capitol Hill. However, the site is not one of the lot properties assigned to the Public School System. The Board will seek permission from the Department of Land and Natural Resources to build the new high school on Capitol Hill.

OPA faults DOF computation of lottery revenues[/B]

The Office of the Public Auditor faulted the computation of government revenues generated from the lottery operations during the first quarter of Fiscal Year 1999 when earnings were reportedly understated. According to an audit report released yesterday, government revenues were understated by as much as $25,232 in the first three months of the last fiscal year. Government revenue from lottery operations was reported to have reached only $157,830, and should be increased to $183,062 following the audit report’s findings that it was understated. Lottery operators failed to compute lottery revenues based on the terms of agreement of the Memorandum of Understanding reached with the CNMI government in 1994, 1997 and 1998.

The Northern Marianas College is currently intensifying efforts to lure more foreign students into studying at CNMI’s lone higher learning institution following a decrease in its nonresident student enrollment in the last two academic years. In academic year 1996-97, 483 foreign enrollees registered at NMC out of the 1,721 total student population. The following year, the figure dropped to 373 which further dipped to a 225 nonresident students AY 1998-99. NMC Director for Developmental and Alumni Relations Tony V. Deleon Guerrero said this is one of the many challenges the Board of Regents is looking into also as a way of giving boost to the Commonwealth’s ailing tourism industry.

Wider PCB contamination feared[/B]

Impending opening of the refuse transfer station may cause wider polychlorinated biphenyl contamination because the project’s identified site in Lower Base remains untested for PCB. Tanapag Action Group Chair Juan I. Tenorio said the area, which is also a subject to a legal dispute, was part of the US Military Fuel Farm. This raises concerns on the area being possibly tainted with PCB. Tenorio added the project site was never submitted to any soil and water laboratory test, which doubles the probability of contaminating other Saipan villages with PCB. He said the movement of collected garbage from the Tanapag Village to the transfer station and to the Marpi Sanitary Landfill poses greater health risks among Saipan residents.

Tanapag residents vehemently opposed on-site treatment of PCB-contaminated soil and demanded that this be done in the mainland United States. The position was raised by the Tanapag Action Group in a letter to acting director Tony Guerrero of the Division of Environmental Quality. “TAG, on behalf of residents of Tanapag Village, strongly opposed the ’On-Site Treatment’ of the PCB contaminated soil. We strongly recommend that all the stock piled of PCB contaminated soil be shipped off-island for treatment,” the group said. The group requested Guerrero that DEQ, as the lead local agency concerning the treatment, forward this position to the federal government.