Politics: A problem for the CNMI

The article about Commonwealth Health Center CEO Juan Babauta that appeared in the June 27, 2012, edition of the Saipan Tribune is an example of what is wrong with the CNMI: politics. The people should be working together as teams to make progress as a community. Babauta is a Republican supported by the governor. Delegate Kilili, an independent, is supported by the people. The fact that Babauta wants to exclude Kilili from getting any credit for the Kagman Community Health Center grant is politics and that is questionable. Babauta is right to point out all the key people that he thinks made contributions to getting the grant. Everyone had a role to play and as far as I can see the roles were played very well, congratulations! Kilili played his role too. He represented the CNMI to the federal government and I am certain that helped with the award. He also made the announcement that the grant was awarded. That is his job too.

Mr. Babauta’s quote in the last paragraph of the article asserts that Kilili took the grant authors’ names off the grant proposal and put in his own. That would be plagiarism. He did not do this and he has been wrongly accused. Wikipedia says: “Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the “wrongful appropriation,” “close imitation,” or “purloining and publication” of another author’s “language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions,” and the representation of them as one’s own original work.” Kilili did not do this and I think Mr. Babauta should apologize to Kilili. It is clear that Kilili never tried to take credit for all the work done to get the grant; he was one member of the team that helped.

The politics between political parties, families, villages, religions, and segments of our society like business/politicians should be synergistic, helping to be better, and not destructive as Babauta seems. It is past the time when the people of the CNMI should be working together to solve their problems and to work in harmony.

The CNMI government is failing, that should be clear to everyone. If the people who are residents of our islands want to point fingers to place blame, point them at yourselves. You elected the government that has created our current economic and social disaster. I feel that Mr. Babauta should be celebrating a success, not “correcting the record” for political reasons.

Frank Stewart
Capital Hill, Saipan