HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency has chosen to conduct a new callout for delegates for the upcoming 2024 Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture, or FestPac, amid calls to ensure that one person is not chosen to represent the island.
An ongoing campaign is urging CAHA not to support Frank “Ko” San Nicolas, reviving prior sexual assault allegations made against him. San Nicolas, who is a local suruhånu, or spiritual healer, did face criminal sexual conduct charges in two cases, one in 2021 and another in 2022, but was acquitted of charges in both cases.
The campaign, which has manifested through numerous emails to media and CAHA board members, as well as a Change.org petition, states that regardless of acquittal, several survivors still maintain that San Nicolas allegedly violated them.
CAHA sought advice from the Office of the Attorney General regarding its ability to remove a FestPac delegate and what rights an individual may have as a delegate. The OAG stated that individuals do not have a vested right to be part of the FestPac delegation and that selection and participation in the event is at the discretion of the CAHA board and its members.
The board met Tuesday, partly to discuss the presentation of Guam’s delegation. Two options were before the board: to approve or disapprove – in whole or part – a delegation list from 2020 or conduct a new callout for delegates as recommended by an assistant attorney general.
CAHA Chair Monica Guzman said delegate applications would be available March 15 and will be due March 29. Delegate recommendations will be presented to the board April 9, Guzman said, adding that the schedule was achievable despite being aggressive and will present an opportunity for the members of the community who may not have had a chance to apply initially in 2019.
The board ultimately chose to conduct a new callout for Guam’s delegation.
Several members of the public attended the CAHA meeting, mostly women, as well as San Nicolas and one of his accusers.
The board’s decision was met with some thanks from those in attendance but also criticism, with one member of the public asking why the board was choosing to prolong a decision to take San Nicolas off the delegate list.
“What we’ve agreed to do is … a new callout. And the reason why … is because everybody is talking about this 2020 delegate list that we automatically approved to be the 2024 delegation, and there was no automatic approval,” Chalan Pago-Ordot Mayor Jessy Gogue, a CAHA board member, stated at Tuesday’s meeting.
“When there was some questions about an individual and their being on the list. … There required an effort to get a legal opinion regarding our role as a board. The recommendation to start over, … scrub the list, give everybody a fair opportunity to apply, and build a 2024 list … that has a definitive written set of guidelines on the selection process of delegates is what we elected to do,” Gogue added.
Discussions quickly became heated near the end of the meeting as the board vice chair made some remarks regarding what seemed to be his experience and observations regarding the San Nicolas situation. People spoke over each other and the meeting lost order at some points. The board voted to adjourn in the middle of the discourse.
San Nicolas did comment earlier in the meeting, stating that he didn’t appreciate people coming to the meeting and mocking him.
In a brief interaction outside the meeting room, San Nicolas was seen telling one woman that he’ll come after her “legally.” As he walked away, the woman repeated what San Nicolas said and thanked him sarcastically, before expressing her disappointment with the judicial system.
A. Stephen, wearing a black mask, points to Frank “Ko” San Nicolas, wearing a woven hat, discussing her disapproval of sending him to the upcoming Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture during a Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency board meeting in Hagåtña on Tuesday, March 12, 2024.
