Commonwealth Casino Commission Chair Edward C. Deleon Guerrero, center, speaks as Vice Chair Ralph S. Demapan, right, and Commissioner Mario Taitano listen during CCC’s monthly regular meeting in Gualo Rai on Thursday.
ONCE the Senate confirms the nomination of Thomas A. Manglona to the Commonwealth Casino Commission, the casino regulatory body will resume the proceedings to revoke the exclusive casino license of Imperial Pacific International, CCC Chair Edward C. Deleon Guerrero said on Thursday.
A former port manager on Rota, Manglona will fill the seat vacated by Martin Mendiola, whose term ended on April 30, 2024.
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios has yet to nominate a member from Tinian, but Deleon Guerrero said three commissioners would be enough to constitute a quorum for the revocation hearing. The commission has five seats.
Deleon Guerrero has recused himself from the revocation hearing due to his advocacy for the regulatory body’s executive director, Andrew Yeom, who filed the petition for the revocation of IPI’s license.
In his report during their monthly regular meeting in Gualo Rai on Thursday, Deleon Guerrero also provided an update on IPI’s outstanding debt to the CNMI government. As of Thursday, he said, the casino operator owed the Commonwealth a total of $77.5 million in annual casino license fee beginning from August 2020; and a total of $17.6 million in annual regulatory fee beginning October 2020.
“I’m not very hopeful in terms of recovering this,” Deleon Guerrero said. Nevertheless, he added, “we’re still in the proceedings to revoke. We don’t need to go back and re-hear it. It’s already done. It is just a matter of you folks deliberating,” he said, referring to the other commissioners.
Once the new commissioner is confirmed, “the three of you [can] proceed and decide whether or not to revoke,” he added.
Deleon Guerrero earlier said that CCC would also have to ask the federal court to lift the automatic stay on the revocation hearing following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition filed by IPI earlier this year. He said the automatic stay prohibits CCC from moving ahead with the revocation proceedings.
“So once the Senate confirms Mr. Manglona, you will have three members, which constitute a quorum, and … that would be one of the first items on the agenda,” he said on Thursday, referring to the lifting of the automatic stay.
