For Pete’s sake

Yvette was co-teacher to 6th graders at San Vicente Elementary School a few years back and Yvonne, her sister, was at Garapan ES. Yvonne later moved to SVES as the principal. Her daughter was at SVES when I was there.

Pleasantness of the sisters is not what merits their mention in this column. It’s their father, the retiring Sen. Pete Reyes, that brings our mind to the political community in the CNMI of which Sen. Reyes was an early “acquaintance,” though I suspect not a few of our views are probably diametrically opposite each other.

We join many in thanking the senator’s years of government service and we trust he will continue his civic mindedness even when he is out of elected office.

I really did not make it as a CNMI resident until Thanksgiving Day of 1998 when I took the assignment from the United Methodist Church to pastor Immanuel UMC at Koblerville, though I lived in the Marshall Islands and Guam in the early ‘80s and made a weeklong visit to Saipan one late December before the ‘90s.

I attended my first public function wearing a clerical collar at the Susupe Multi-Purpose Center and found myself seated between Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio and Washington Rep. Juan I. Babauta who would later become governor. Being a newbie on island, I was very friendly and Gov. Pete was equally bubbly before and after he delivered his SOCA. When I met first lady Sophia, I immediately liked and respected the couple.

My church predecessor, Barbara, who “recruited” me to Saipan, commented after one of the local papers’ front page showed a picture of the governor and I conferring at the capitol that I managed to move swiftly into the island’s power circle in a short time. Not quite, but the island deferred to members of the clergy of any persuasion in my experience, so it was easy to move around, especially if one stuck to playing the traditional part of the parson’s role of being everyone’s Mr. Nice Guy.

Rep. Babauta was a bit stiff on the collar that SOCA day; in my estimation, he ignored the pipsqueak of a Pinoy bagong salta “parochial protestant pastor,» probably Pentecostal, who may have just come from the Philippines. I was, in fact, recently a resident inside Washington, D.C.›s beltway at Falls Church, not unfamiliar with Georgetown and the southeast quadrant where the Capitol dome dominated but he was in no mood for chitchat, and I was well mannered enough not to intrude into his meditative space.

When he was already governor and jogged the lagoon pathway on the tail end of dusk, at about the time I did my evening walks, we did exchange greetings. I did vote for him in the 2001 election. I also brought a lady California-Pacific church leader of Korean descent married to a Japanese for a courtesy call at his office, and he was all-charms in his noted ladies› man ways. If there were outsiders watching, they easily would have been mistaken for ardent lovebirds!

He was Juan and she was Jo Ann; I might have uttered under my breath: «for Pete›s sake!»

Later, I voted for Heinz who won at first round, but when the second round was tallied, Ben Fitial who is my age, was ahead by 2 percent points. Though I write for the paper owned by Tan Holdings he was associated with, I never really got to know him personally in spite of being liked by the Pinoy community, not only for a Pinay spouse but also for being a paternalistic politico like a Filipino. 

Between him on a wheelchair and I on another when I came from a Honolulu gall bladder surgery, we were transit airport handicapped buddies! In similar fashion, Gov. Eloy was fellow airport terminal habitué in transit in Tokyo or Seoul. 

I feel close to the current governor, him being a relation to one of our favorite island people, the late PSS Commissioner Rita Inos. She graced a women›s forum I once helped organize at a Methodist Resource Center at Oleai and stayed for the whole duration, making a spirited drumming of women›s issues on island.

I was not on island in the last election so I did not vote, though Heinz was not my preference this time. I once attended a forum on our general treatment of those with different abilities (aka disabled) where our legislator Heinz attended from the Legislature, and he acted aloof to our proceedings to the point of being rudely arrogant. For no reason but gut ease, I would have voted for Eloy!

It was Gov. Eloy›s inauguration that got us thinking of CNMI politics, which led us to the plethora of kudos on the retirement of Sen. Pete Reyes. Now, with Hillary Clinton likely heading for the Supreme Court where her talents could be well utilized, and Elizabeth Warren suddenly heads for the White House, women might finally crash the glass ceiling of American politics and claim what Chinese sages say: nu ren neng ding ban bian tian (women hold half of the sky). 

This led us to wander what the SVES principal is up to these days. Well, I would support a political trek up Capital Hill now that Papa is retired. What say mo, Aling Yvonne?