#janela

Early Friday morning, guamblog realized the governor’s chief of staff, Tony Babauta had been served up for lunch by a cabal of political cannibals at Adelup. Trying to respond to the evasive - and deceptive - FOIA response, sent to guamblog by Janela Carrera, Tony Babauta’s government email kept bouncing back. His government email account had been deactivated.

Babauta had been targeted for elimination by an band of Lou & Josh’s entitled hacks at Adelup, who were still smarting from a spanking the former chief of staff laid on them after the Casino Matai incident.

The matai mafia didn’t like Babauta’s stern admonishment for making their role in bringing about withering criticism for his boss, Lou Leon Guerrero, who was made to look like a weak and incompetent bafoon, unable to enforce her rules and pandemic orders with her own staff.

Others, who were actually endorsed and brought into the Administration by Babauta, were complicit in the coup through their silence, and despite knowing about the take down, never said a word of warning to him.

There is clear evidence of a selective hit job - and the compliance of island media in the Binestsu BBQ plot.

A strategically planted leak from Adelup cannibals to KUAM, first brought to public attention information about Babauta staying at the Pacific Star…the Tumon hotel, and Bank of Guam client, that is being used as a quarantine facility for GovGuam.

However, whether by choice or manipulation, KUAM framed the one night stay by the former chief of staff in such a way as to make it seem Babauta had been “staying” at the hotel in a luxury suite.

The media’s questionably narrow reporting has been forced to expand, however, with an explosive post on Facebook by community advocate Ken Leon Guerrero that exposed what the media had left our of their coverage.

According to information acquired by Ken Leon Guerrero, Pacific Star management were instructed by Rebecca Respicio, to add the presidential suite on the 19th floor of the hotel, to GovGuam’s list of secret rooms reserved for th exclusive use of INside cronies.

While the governor’s office confessed to Babauta’s one night stay on April 24, they did not mention that Rebecca, and her girlfriend Alice Taijeron, as well as airport exec John Quinata have all spent far more nights enjoying the “suite life” than Babauta did.

Quinata, also known as “JQ”, is the father of Derrick Quinata, who is involved in the notorious coronavirus test kit scam with GovGuam; and is the brotherinlaw of Annmarie Muña, another beneficiary of the test kit hookup scandal, as well as speaker Tina Muña Barnes. JQ is also one of the people who traveled to the Philippines on a golf trip in the middle of a pandemic outbreak there, but was allowed to return to Guam, and bypass quarantining. Those golfers are at the center of their very own Covid-19 infection cluster.

With the media scrambling to cover up their lack of balanced coverage, and the role in the Binetsu BBQ, Carlo Branch, policy director for the governor, has already initiated the next campaign of untruths from Adelup, to begin the cover up the abuse and exploitation of millions of dollars of pandemic aid.

Branch spins out excuses for the excessive, suite life being led by Rebecca and her lover, telling media that Rebecca, who upgraded accomadations for her and her girlfriend to a luxury suite on the 19th floor, needed to stay at the hotel because “….regular hotel staff are not permitted to have contact with quarantined individuals.”

The presidential suite at the Pacific Star can accomodate several adults, in more than 1,000 square feet of space, with panoramic views of Tumon Bay. It counts with two bathroom, a fully-stocked bar and special hotel kitchen privileges.

One of the beneficiaries of the Babauta ouster, Branch further claimed the lesbian lovers were the only “overnight staff for 140 individuals” and had to live in the hotel to handle the demands of a dwindling number of quarantine guests.

Guamblog will pick apart this absurdity in moment…but keep in mind that, between Rebecca and Alice, it’s possible that these two could pull down upwards of as much as a half million dollar in salary for their suite roles in the COVID-19 recovery efforts because of GovGuam’s differential pay policy; and depending on how long Lou chooses to extend her “public health emergency” plot.

The spin job being pushed by Branch for Adelup is not only ill-conceived, but claims that Rebecca and Alice are indispensable to the quarantine program are betrayed by numerous best practices promoted by, national and international, hotel and lodging associations.

Ample legal guidelines for the industry, with very specific regard for the use of private hotel properties for quarantine facilities by goverments, make clear the poor value GovGuam and hotel workers receive from the program established by Adelup.

The stupid political cannibals at Adelup, in their plot to burn Tony Babauta’s ass, may have succeeded in that regard, but their success comes at the expense of the governor, with further evidence emerging of potential racketeering and corruption.

Island hotels were among the first businesses left reeling by the global spread of the Wuhan virus. Bearing th brunt of that impact were thousands of hotel workers, and their families.

Rather that see the value Tumon hotels offered to the government to help ease the economic blow to hotel workers, and for the governmet to affordaby address the immediate needs of pandemic response, Lou only saw a chance to funnel millions of dollars to her campaign donors and clients of her family-owned bank.

Guam hotels were perfectly situated to offer significant value to GovGuam during the pandemic, that could have included more than housing quarantined individuals with actual or suspected COVID-19 infections.

The hotels could have been useds to house doctors, nurses, and other health care workers, including potentially allowing them to remain close to medical facilities, while avoiding transmission risks to their families and friends.

Ensuring that Guam hotels were integrated into a comprehensive, strategic pandemic management plan is the difference between millions of dollars that are maximized to support the island’s struggling hotel industry - and hundreds of workers, and funneling those millions into the bank accounts of a mere handful of people, with close ties to the Lou & Josh administration.

To begin with, rather than secretly handpick hotels for quarantine use, hotel properties could have been solicitied to put together quarantine packages that included discounted rates for stays 14 days or longer, along with included add-ons such as contactless meal delivery and weekly laundry, as well as an enhanced cleaning fee at the conclusion of each stay.

Hotel properties could have been contracted to provide food and beverage facilities for overflow meal service for patients, health care workers, and others; or used as laundry facilities for the overflow of hospital linens.

All of these options would have provided work for thousands of workers who are now sitting at home worrying about how they will feed their families in the next few weeks or pay bills.

Instead, Lou & Josh’s INsider pals, already wealthy or earning 2 or 3 times more than most households on Guam, continue to be the only ones being taken care of during this crippling pandemic crisis.

Rebecca and Alice, between the two of them, earn for their household, about $4,000 a week - without actually having to do any work, thanks to Lou closing down government offices. And that $200,000 household income is before Rebecca and Alice have their generous paychecks doubled by Lou’s differential pay policy - for spending their nights in luxury suites at Pacific Star, to attend to fewer and fewer quarantine guests each  week.

No matter how they try spin it, or how many Adelup loyalist fall on the sword, or, in the case of Tony Babauta, on the spit, for Lou and Josh, regardless how wordy the spin Carlo Branch puts on it, or how banal any dispatch from Janela, the millions going to Lou’s friends and bank customers could have been better used as a lifeline for hundreds of workers.

No wonder then, Lou’s communication director, Janela Carrera, and Civil Defense administrator Charles Esteves are trying to hide from guamblog the emails and communications involving quarantine expenses requested in two FOIAs.

Lou, and her cannibals, have been able to count on the media to work with their plots, through complicity or complacency, to get away with activities that may very well rise to the level of federal racketeering charges…and implicate the governor, the lt. governor, their chief advisors and legal counsel.

Guam has a long road to economic recovery ahead of us…how much more difficult that will be if, later, federal authorities demand that GovGuam pay back millions of dollars of misspent pandemic funds.