Santos, Ind.-Rota, did not vote with the House majority during the deliberations on the fiscal year 2011 budget bill.
Speaker Froilan C. Tenorio, Covenant-Saipan, said he wanted to replace Santos.
Variety learned that Tenorio offered Santos’s post to Saipan Republican Reps. Eliceo D. Cabrera and Joseph M. Palacios, but both were reluctant to accept it.
Cabrera said he wanted to remain on Ways and Means and help the Legislature come up with a better budget analysis for the next fiscal year.
Palacios said he wants to remain on the Commerce and Tourism committee.
Senate President Paul A. Manglona, Ind.-Rota, thanked Santos for “doing what is right.”
Senate Floor Leader Pete P. Reyes, R-Saipan, said Santos’s willingness to sacrifice her chairmanship for the interest of the Rota people was commendable.
Santos said it was God’s Divine intervention that ended the budget impasse on Friday evening.
“Individualism,” she said, proved “unproductive” and caused dissensions.
The budget deadlock, she added, created a “state of anxiety” not only for the residents of the CNMI but also those on Guam, Hawaii, and the mainland U.S.
“They were just as affected and concerned and have made their sentiments known via telephones calls and even on Facebook to families, relatives and friends. They. too, like all of us, were hoping that there would be an immediate resolution by the Legislature so the budget issue could be put to closure,” she said.
