Tempers flare in Senate session

A video circulating yesterday on social media shows Sen. Paul A. Manglona (Ind-Rota) and Sen. Victor B. Hocog (R-Rota) almost coming to blows during a recess in the session. (Contributed Photo)

The Senate abruptly adjourned yesterday a special session intended to tackle the Impeachment Rules after Sen. Paul A. Manglona (Ind-Rota) and Sen. Victor B. Hocog (R-Rota) had a shouting match during the recess and almost came to blows had nobody intervened.

A video circulating yesterday on social media shows that the heated argument erupted when, during a session recess, Manglona talked with Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider (R-Tinian) outside the chamber and insisted that he be allowed to talk at the podium, not as a senator but as a member of the public.

Hofschneider said no, pointing out that the public comment portion had already been closed.

Manglona then went inside the chamber and stated in a loud voice that the Impeachment Rules are unconstitutional and that he is taking this to court. The sound of someone banging on the table could be heard on the video as well as an expletive.

It was not clear in the video who banged the table and said the expletive but it appeared to rile Hocog, who stood up from where he was seated and walk toward Manglona, with both of them having a shouting match in the vernacular. A legislative sergeant-at-arms, Hofschneider, and Sen. Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan) had to step into the fray to stop and pacify Hocog and Manglona. Hofschneider then signaled to another sergeant-at-arms, who then jumped over the chamber’s barriers and pacified Manglona.

Legislative Bureau director Perry Tenorio was seen asking people in the gallery to remain calm in their seats.

When the session resumed after a few minutes, Hocog was present but Manglona was not in his seat. Floor leader Sen. Vinnie Sablan (R-Saipan) then moved to adjourn the session and it was seconded.

Hofschneider later uploaded a video on social media where he apologized to the public for the breakdown in decorum during the session.

Prior to the shouting match, the Senate was accepting public comments from a podium that was located outside the Senate chamber but was connected inside via a microphone. One of those making a public comment was Rep. Corina L. Magofna (D-Saipan). When Hofschneider told her to wrap up her comments, Manglona stated he does not like limiting the speakers’ comments but before he could finish, the president asked him why he was talking without being recognized on the floor and therefore intervening in the proceedings. Manglona grabbed his documents from the table and walked to the podium area, after which Hofschneider called for a short recess.

After Vincent Aldan, a former Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) employee, completed his public comments, Manglona stood before the podium, at which point Hofschneider said he would call for a short recess and closed the public comment portion.

Manglona started delivering his comments, but the microphone system had already been cut and the video was turned off.

Manglona later told Saipan Tribune that he did not walk out of the session, but simply went to the podium area to speak as a member of the public.

Manglona also said he did not go back to the session because no one told him that the session had resumed.

He said the general public was prevented from providing any oral testimony pertaining to the Impeachment Rules during the one and only meeting by the Senate Joint Impeachment Committee.

He said neither one of the Senate minority members was appointed to either of the two committees responsible for these impeachment rules, despite he and Sen. DeLeon Guerrero’s urging and Hofschneider’s promise to appoint a minority member.

CNMI Rep. Christina Marie Sablan (D-Saipan), who is the Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate and a member of the committee that investigated Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, later issued a statement in response to the impeachment rules adopted by the Senate Joint Impeachment Committee.

“Tempers flared in the Senate chamber today, in part because the stakes are so high and because the rules put forth by the joint committee are so unreasonable and clearly one-sided,” she said. “Unfortunately, what the people have seen thus far is a concerted effort by the Senate leadership to shield the proposed rules from public review and comment, and to suppress voices of opposition.”

Sablan was a member of the House Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee as well as the House Special Committee on Impeachment.

“The Senate President’s apology to the people…is appreciated and necessary. But I would respectfully urge him to go several steps further,” she said.

Sablan urged Hofschneider to instruct the joint committee to go back to the drawing board to ensure fair and reasonable rules to govern the impeachment trial; make sure that the Senate and its committees comply with the spirit and letter of the Open Government Act; and allow people to speak freely even in dissent or criticism in the Senate chamber without interruption, harassment, or intimidation—including members of the public and minority members of the Senate.

“Dissent and criticism help us all do our jobs better. To have any confidence in the legitimacy of this impeachment trial, the people will be looking to the Senate to demonstrate fairness, transparency, and the highest level of respect and decorum—in the rules they adopt to govern these proceedings, and in the proceedings themselves,” she said.

In her comments, Magofna stated that it is obvious that the proposed impeachment rules are lopsided to favor Torres. She said the Senate has given very stringent, unconscionable terms and conditions that caters to one man and one man alone.

“A dictatorial-type of acts may possibly be up for debate under these conditions, if I do say so myself,” she said.

Rep. Sheila J. Babauta (D-Saipan) said it’s been 47 days since Torres was impeached in the House and although she is grateful that there are finally Impeachment Rules made public, she wants to state for the record that these rules are “clearly biased.”

Babauta said she is extremely disappointed in the process in which they were adopted, lacking transparency and sufficient notice.

Rep. Celina R. Babauta, (D-Saipan), who introduced the impeachment resolution, said it is clear that the Senate will prosecute Torres on a set of rules that are “unlawful, unconstitutional, and are slanted in his favor.”

“The fix is in. These rules basically create a theory of how Torres is not guilty and then work backwards from there, creating such arbitrary nuances—that if the House clerk doesn’t paginate the documents or request for and get the permission from the Senate president in order to submit paper evidence—can possibly terminate the entire proceeding,” Babauta said.

She said she is disappointed but not deterred.

The full Senate was expected yesterday to adopt the 28-page Rules of Impeachment that the two joint Senate committees adopted Friday for the trial Torres, who was impeached by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives for alleged commission of felonies, corruption, and neglect of duty.

During Friday’s meeting, the Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary, Government, Law and Federal Relations, chaired by Sen. Karl R. King-Nabors (R-Tinian), and Senate Standing Committee on Executive Appointments and Government Investigations, chaired by Sen. Francisco Q. Cruz (R-Tinian), unanimously voted to adopt the Impeachment Rules, with amendments.