Must Review NMI Funds

When local funds are hidden in the marshland of uncertainty it would seem prudent that we keep critical ocular review of our revenue collection versus obligations. This is to keep up to the minute information how much is in the coffers.

For instance, it’s vital that it is understood how voluntary funds from the casino industry is disposed. While current practice is assumed legal leaving expenditure authority with the governor such funds fall under NMI resources. Therefore, it stands to reason that it’s turned over to the legislature for disposition. The authority to appropriate rests with the legislature not the executive branch. It’s constitutional!

Furthermore, it’s time to revisit the law so there’s established what’s known as “backroom counting” and taxation. It means certain taxes are assessed the casino daily. In other words, at day’s end, BSI accountants, Public Auditor’s accountant and Division of Revenue and Taxation meet to count the day’s income. It is here that the NMI subtracts its share of taxes. It should prove a stronger source of income than what’s being volunteered today. Isn’t it revenue we’re after?

Scholarship and medical referral funds are spread out where each inhabited island disposes of its own program. This must be broad under a single umbrella so all scholars and patients receive the same amount, including monetary help for escorts.

Some sense of organization is in order at a time when our financial posture is dangling or swinging like seesaw 24/7. Either these measures are taken forthwith or we’d be lining up between San Jose and American Memorial Park with paper bags in hand seeking for donation!

Dangers of disconnection

It’s healthy retreating to the quiet corners of our mind while keeping our ears to the ground listening intently to a myriad of conversations from all over.

In family gatherings, novena parties, rosaries, hospital visits, and grocery stores are places you hear the voices of moms. There’s no holding back and their expressions are straightforward in every sense of the word. How do you question the daily challenges they face?

For all the hardship families had to endure how do they pull through it all? Fortunately, our culture of communal sharing has helped ease the bouts of siblings at the lower end of the income bracket. This is complimented with federal assistance like food stamps. Imagine their day without this form of help from Uncle Sam.

What’s their future over the long-term? Will it be more of the same, worse, or better? What happens upon retirement under the Defined Contribution program? Would there be sufficient funds in family pocketbooks or would this future income turn them quickly into instant poverty?

Then there are families who had to deal with aging parents who need filial piety. I still find comfort in the generosity among siblings to pitch-in as a matter of cultural obligation.

The battered faces of moms who have spoken with decency still leaves behind a trail of hardship at home from stagnant salaries of over 20 years. Reciprocity among siblings has its own limit after which each had to weather the storm living paycheck to paycheck or paycheck advances of about two pay periods. It’s hard believing it but it’s happening!

I also hear the voices of folks dealing with emotional bouts of loved-ones hospitalized for long-term illnesses whose health consistently deteriorate. I can understand and appreciate this experience having dealt with it for seven-nine long years in and out of hospitals. It turned out to be a spiritual journey where in my naked and dark hours alone there’s nothing left but my faith.

As we speak of hardship, in some significant ways we the voters are also our own worse enemies. This is what we voted for thus the messy menu on the table while taking a quick review of the net result of our decision. Do you still wish to repeat failure?

Troubling how apathy, indifference and inconsequence rule the day. The elected elite simply ignores fiduciary duty. Isn’t there any sense of perception to understand the wellbeing of their people? Why is there such adolescent behavior? Would you still brave empty “biba?”

Fabrication of culture

The commercialization of culture has encouraged its exploitation and prostitution in despicably humiliating fashion. For instance, a so-called master said he’s been to most Pacific islands and found that the chant is part of the CHamoru culture. Really? The latest addition is blacksmithing.

Marching toward my 70s, I grew up in Lali Fo` where I heard chants as part and whole of the Carolinian culture used in solemn and festive occasion. I’ve never heard Chamorro chant or I would have learned it then. But it didn’t then so why has its exploitation in fabrication become the so-called “contemporary” culture?

We learned of the strength of our male ancestors who plucked nails from Magellan’s boat. That was their first experience with metal. But blacksmithing is now seen as cultural. Really? Did we ever mine ore in ancestral times for metal farming equipment or wasn’t this something we picked from the Spanish?

Sure, Euro-writers have written of the hula dance in Hawaii to promote the islands and the iconic coconut tree stripped of its seeds. Not one explained the spiritual aspect of the hula. It’s featured with a young girl half naked to boost tourism. It’s a dance a famous Polynesian activist called the prostitution of a culture that plays into the minds of single men from Europe and the military. The diatribe fits the targeted audience!

As island professors and writers—standing as the social conscience of their people—begin explaining culture “From the Inside Out” the greater the clarity what land and culture represents in Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. Their views fit the claim that “Our Sea of Islands” belongs to the indigenous people. It derails the European belief that they could own islands across the Pacific.