SENATE Vice President David M. Cing is challenging Senate Minority Leader Pete P. Reyes to a one-hour debate on the funding distribution issue.
Cing, D-Tinian, issued the challenge to Reyes, R-Saipan, after the minority leader questioned Gov. Juan N. Babauta’s move to transfer some $2 million of Compact-Impact funds to Tinian for the completion of its high school.
“I will ask permission from Senate President Paul A. Manglona to allow us to debate for one hour on this issue. Senator Reyes has all the prerogative to shout and complain about the transfer of the funds to Tinian but the governor is correct and (Reyes) cannot do anything about it,” said Cing in an interview yesterday.
Cing said when Babauta approached him last January and told him about the $2 million that would be given to Tinian, he was at first reluctant “as I expected that officials from Saipan and Rota might not welcome it.”
But he said that when Babauta showed him a document attesting that the governor “has sole discretion where to put the money,” he became “convinced that the governor only did the right thing.”
Reyes, in a separate interview, said he will accept Cing’s challenge.
“I welcome his request for a debate to be held in any place he wants—in or outside the Legislature,” he said.
Reyes said he has nothing against Tinian or Cing. He said that he was merely questioning why the Compact-Impact fund would benefit an island which do not host citizens from Freely Associated States as most of them stay on Saipan.
“The most impacted in the CNMI is Saipan as most of these citizens stay on the island. It doesn’t make sense that after fighting for the money and convincing the U.S. government to reimburse the commonwealth for its expenses in hosting them, the administration would just give it to Tinian which is not impacted,” he said.
Cing said the issue “is more than that.” He added, “it seems that Senator Reyes, everytime that Tinian and Rota need something from the central government, talks as if (the two islands) belong to the Federated States of Micronesia and not part of the CNMI. So I challenge him to a debate on three issues: One, does Tinian belong to the CNMI; two, does Tinian deserves to be treated fairly; and three, how did we become a commonwealth and U.S. citizens.”
