Deployed Fund member OK’d to terminate membership

NMI Settlement Fund trustee Joyce C. H. Tang has agreed with the request of a former member of the NMI Retirement Fund that, although he was late in submitting his application to terminate his Fund membership, he should still be allowed to do so as he was then preparing for deployment to Afghanistan with the Guam Army National Guard in 2013.

Tang informed U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge Frances M. Tydingco-Gatewood Wednesday about her position regarding Ivan Igitol’s request to terminate his Defined Benefit membership in the Fund.

Last month, Tydingco-Gatewood ordered Tang to examine Igitol’s request and directed her to determine whether there is any basis for it.

The judge ordered Tang to update the court of Igitol’s status by Wednesday.

In her report, Tang said in her consultation with the CNMI government, it has become apparent that she and the Commonwealth agree that Igitol, given the time frame of his military service, should be allowed to withdraw from the Defined Benefit Plan.

“We also agreed that this is a matter for the NMI Retirement Fund to resolve,” Tang said.

The trustee said she believes that Igitol should be afforded relief under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, to which the NMI government has agreed.

It is her view, Tang said, that the time in which Igitol had to withdraw from the Defined Benefits Plan under Public Law 17-82, as amended by Public Law 18-02, and under the settlement agreement in Betty Johnson’s class action, was tolled under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act during the period of his military service and that his letter to Fund administrator Lillian Pangelinan should be considered a timely request to withdraw from the Defined Benefit Plan.

In her order directing Tang to investigate, Tydingco-Gatewood said that, when originally given the opportunity to terminate, Igitol was preparing for deployment to Afghanistan with the Guam Army National Guard.

“Needless to say, he had more important things to do,” Tydingco-Gatewood had said.

In his letter to the judge, Igitol said that, on May 23, 2014, after returning from deployment and completing the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Programs, he wrote a letter to Fund administrator Pangelinan, seeking the same assistance.

Igitol said that, on July 1, 2014, Pangelinan, responded with regrets.

He said that, according to Pangelinan, a fairness hearing was held on Sept. 30, 2013, at the U.S. District Court for the NMI in which pleadings from other Defined Benefit members were heard.

Igitol said he was not present to be heard because he was on deployment “defending our country.”