Arnold I. Palacios
GOVERNOR Arnold I. Palacios on Friday, May 30, issued an executive order disbanding the Commonwealth Casino Commission.
In his Executive Order No. 2025-002, the governor stated that “to achieve effective and efficient government administration so as to better serve the interests of the Commonwealth and its people,” he orders the following:
1) The duties and responsibilities of the CCC to supervise casino gaming in the CNMI are transferred to the Commonwealth Lottery Commission.
2) To the greatest extent possible under applicable law, the authority for enforcement of the existing casino license agreement between CNMI and the exclusive licensee, including to negotiate cure amounts for any encumbrances on said license, is likewise transferred to the Lottery Commission.
3) Because the CCC is divested by this order of any statutory duties or responsibilities, the Commissioners no longer owe duties within the meaning of NMI Constitution, Article III, Section 21 and their terms are accordingly terminated for cause.
The Lottery Commission is composed of the secretaries of the Department of Finance and the Department of Commerce and the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety.
The governor’s EO further states that “trying economic times necessitates consolidation of duplicative government instrumentalities to ensure that the Commonwealth’s limited fiscal resources are allocated to provision of essential public services.”
He said the casino licensee, referring to Imperial Pacific International, ceased operations in 2020 and has never reopened, rendering CCC’s regulatory function inactive for more than five years and into the foreseeable future, “even as it continues to accumulate operational expenses.”
Asked for comment, Casino Commissioner Mario Taitano said he will reach out to his fellow commissioners — Edward C. Deleon Guerrero, Ralph S. Demapan and Thomas A. Manglona — so they can convene and provide a unified opinion on the governor’s executive order.
Except for Manglona, the rest of the commissioners are appointees of former Gov. Ralph DLG Torres.
According to Palacios, his executive order “shall be submitted to the legislature and shall become effective sixty days after submission, unless specifically modified or disapproved by a majority of the members of each house of the legislature.”
An attorney, who declined to be identified, told Variety that lawmakers have 60 days to either disapprove, approve or modify the E.O.
Under P.L. 18-56, the CCC is supposed to be funded by the annual regulatory fee collected from the lone license holder, Imperial Pacific International. Since it shut down its casino due to pandemic restrictions in March 2020, IPI has failed to meet its obligations to the CNMI government and is currently undergoing bankruptcy proceedings in federal court.
The CCC shut down its office in Jan. 2023, and its commissioners have not been paid since 2021.
The revised version of the fiscal year 2025 budget allotted $250,000 for the commissioners’ back pay, but the Office of the Attorney General stopped the Department of Finance from remitting the money, saying it “is contrary to the law and cannot be allocated or processed.”
