Rep. Edmund S. Villagomez, Covenant-Saipan, who chairs the House Committee on Commerce and Tourism, said the panel is determined to work with the private sector to help revive the islands’ tourism-based economy.
The 27-year-old Villagomez holds a degree in industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Hawaii.
After earning his degree, Villagomez worked as a teacher at Tanapag Elementary School.
He later moved to the Department of Commerce where he worked for three years.
“I was a teacher for two years. I came back and had a hard time getting a job and so I thought I should start there [Tanapag Elementary School]. And then I worked for the Department of Commerce,” Villagomez told the Variety.
The freshman lawmaker said Commerce had a lot of frustrations dealing with the Legislature in the past and now that he’s part of it, he hopes to introduce legislation that will entice more investors to invest in the CNMI.
“We have so many plans to change regulations. But they never got any attention. A good example would be a proposal to amend the licensing fees and things like that. We never really saw any attention or action to our proposal no matter how hard we tried to convince the Legislature,” said Villagomez.
He said there should be standardized fees that local tour operators charge tourists to protect them from being ripped off.
The Commerce and Tourism Committee of the House was scheduled to meet yesterday.
Villagomez said their members are still familiarizing themselves with data and regulations affecting the tourism industry — the backbone of the islands’ economy.
“This meeting that I planned is to touch base first with all the members. We don’t have any bills referred to the committee yet,” he said.
The Fitial administration previously created a task force that will deal with the problem of having limited number of air seats to the CNMI from its major tourism markets of Japan and South Korea.
A representative from the committee is a member of the task force.
