State of emergency ‘possible’

Acting governor Ralph DLG. Torres and Attorney General Edward Manibusan have started discussions on the possible declaration of a state of emergency for the CNMI in light of a massive communications breakdown last week that continues until today.

Torres said he is only waiting for service provider IT&E to give an update on the status of repairs on a damaged submarine fiber optic cable and updates on complete restoration of communication lines.

Torres was supposed to meet with IT&E yesterday, but the service provider asked to move the meeting to today.

The office of the acting governor early yesterday received a press release saying that IT&E was able to restore public Internet as of Sunday at 10:45pm, in addition to basic services.

“After getting an update from IT&E, the AG and I will talk again,” Torres said.

Manibusan confirmed that talks on a state of emergency were brought up as early as last week when the massive communications outage started.

He echoed Torres’ comment, saying a declaration will depend on how long the outage will last.

“Once a timetable is in, we can then decide what to do,” Manibusan said, adding that he and Torres are “looking at other alternatives,” and if necessary, “possibly declare something.”

According to the AG, a state of emergency will give the CNMI government “the ability to mobilize resources and mobilize people to go to Tinian to do their work there.”

“We can move into Guam if we have to,” he said.

Tinian and Rota communication lines are back online ahead of Saipan, where Internet access speeds are still very slow.

The submarine fiber optic cable that links Saipan to the rest of the world was damaged Thursday last week. High seas and rough undersea currents brought by Typhoon Chan-Hom were said to have caused the damage.

Repair of the submarine cable was projected to last three weeks, while repairs on a backup microwave dish was expected to be completed in a matter of days.

Payroll

Finance Secretary Larissa Larson said the department was heavily hit particularly last week.

“The impact on [the] Finance Department was very significant,” Larson said, adding that the outage caused delays on drawdowns on federal funds and severely affected the department’s reporting activities, among other things.

One immediate impact was the payroll processing for government employees, which Finance currently handles.

Larson said there was a “slow payroll on Friday because they cut us off in the middle of payroll processing.”

She said the outage compelled the department to manually process some 1,500 checks for government employees who then had to rush to the bank to have the check changed into cash.

“But they caught us in the middle of that, so we had to manually type out checks,” she said, adding that the employees would normally have gotten a direct deposit into their account.

Larson, in a TV interview, also discussed the possibility of moving to Tinian where Internet access was restored way ahead of Saipan.

Damages assessment

Finance will soon assess the damage wrought by the communication outage on the government.

Larson said there is no estimate yet—in monetary terms—of the damage caused but her department and other CNMI departments “are on top of it.”

Larson, in an emergency Cabinet meeting last week, brought up the possibility of IT&E giving back credit to government, which was severely affected by the communications outage. Larson said her department will soon formalize this request.

“We do feel that the disruptions to the Department of Commerce and to our department warrants it,” Larson said.

The call for the service provider to possibly offer compensation to the CNMI has since then gained support.

Manibusan said people “need to be compensated in one way or another.”

Manibusan said one scenario is that some people will need to make payments online that are due. “But if you’re unable to [make the payment on time], then you’ll be charged late fees,” he said.

Rep. Joseph “Lee Pan” Guerrero (R-Saipan) earlier said he is supporting the call, adding that credit should not just be given to government, but also to private business and members of the community.

Rep. Edmund S. Villagomez (Ind-Saipan) said he is sure that “everyone was affected” by the communications outage including delays in online transactions, particularly for banks. But he said he prefers to wait and see what updates the service carrier could provide.

Radio

For the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, the effect of the communications breakdown was mostly confined to its administrative processes.

DFES chief Clyde Norita said his department relied on radio to carry out their duties.

“We do have a reliable radio system in place, so thankfully, the effect [of the outage] did not affect out firefighters’ duties,” he said, adding that firefighters continuously coordinated with Tinian and Rota counterparts through radio.

Norita said he was more concerned with the recent typhoon.

Government offices

Government offices on Capital Hill, meanwhile, were caught by surprise last week by the massive communications outage, although the impact seems to be minimal.

A staff at the Legislature said the Internet outage did not have a major impact on operations. Documents had to be hand-delivered within the different offices because the email system was down, the staff said.