“I am not exploiting my children for the benefits they receive from the government for us to remain on the island,” Saluta, 39, said in Filipino.
He said those who want them to go home “should be the first ones to go home.”
But he admitted that he and his wife Juliet depend on their children’s food stamps and other government assistance.
The ages of their children are 7, 6, 4 and 2 years old, and 6 months old.
He said, sometimes, he goes fishing and sells some of his catch.
“They should open their minds and consider why we were forced to leave our house,” he said.
The Saluta family is now temporarily residing at the Sun Palace Hotel.
Noel Saluta said he and his family had to take shelter at the Susupe Beach Park because the owner of the apartment they were renting compelled them to leave.
They were asked to leave because the Saluta family could no longer pay rent after the housing benefits they were receiving from the Northern Marianas Protection & Advocacy Systems Inc. expired on Aug. 15, 2010.
“We don’t intend this to happen,” he said, adding that he is still waiting for the resolution of his labor case against his former employer Aqualite.
Saluta said he also filed a complaint against Saipan Ice regarding his “unpaid commission.”
However, he said this case was “being dismissed without due process.”
“The government is very discriminatory in attending to my case,” he said.
Except for an apartment, Saluta said “they have no problem” since his wife has an umbrella permit and he was able to apply for a parole-in-place.
“We are not illegal aliens. I have my parole-in-place and my wife has her umbrella permit,” he said.
When asked if he and his family are willing to go home if the community will raise funds for their plane tickets, Saluta said “my life is here on Saipan with my children.”
Asked if the Philippine Consulate General offered them repatriation tickets, he said: “They don’t even give us moral support. They only came when they learned that people started coming to give us support.”
Saluta has been unemployed since April 2007 while his wife, a former garment worker, lost her job in 2003.
