What a real leader would have done

Here is what a true leader would have done but we don’t have any leaders on the hill since not one of them spoke out against this overt, blatant, in-your-face re-election ploy by all of them involved. Your greed, and the governor’s feeding you an all-you-can-eat buffet, at the expense of all of us, is sickening. That $30 million isn’t yours, it belongs to all the people of the CNMI, not just to you whiners.

You are so selfish that you are dooming people that desperately need medical treatment, and that includes babies and kids, from receiving the necessary treatment. A 3-year-old girl from Rota suffers from Scleroderma and her grandfather doesn’t have the money to take her to California. I met an old lady at the library whose husband had a stroke and he should have left almost two years ago for his follow-up visit but there is no referral money to send him. There are many more people in need.

If Inos was a true leader he would have explained to you retirees that the government can only restore 10 or 15 percent right now because the CNMI has some other real pressing needs and asked for your understanding. But no, he wants to be re-elected so bad he will doom his own people, people that might die if they don’t get needed medical care, just because he is counting on your greed to get him re-elected.

You know, I am led think that most of you retirees are just a bunch of small-minded, small-town, ill-informed, un- or under-educated folks, because you keep letting the 50 or so people in charge use you as pawns. Most of you are old enough to remember typhoons Jean in ’68 and Kim in ’86. I didn’t see you groveling then, crying to the government or wringing your hands in despair. I saw you stand up, dig out, and get busy. Busy rebuilding, helping your neighbors, some who you didn’t even really know but you helped anyway. You had a spirit of community then. Now, it’s just every man and woman for themselves and screw everyone else.

You seem to have forgotten you are part of the whole CNMI, not just 3,800 of you, apart and separate from the rest of us. You should be ashamed of yourselves. And you Inos, it is going to take more than 3,800 lapdogs to win you another term. You really, really blew your golden chance, your chance to show the other 50,000 people living here, under your administration, what kind of man, what kind of leader, you really are.

Power and greed: What it does to people
One consequence power of and greed is that it breeds arrogance and contempt for others. Every single person on Earth can be corrupted; some by as little as a bowl of soup but most succumb to money. Politicians are particularly susceptible to it. Once people have a little of it, they won’t give it up willingly. Some will kill to keep it, as I have witnessed twice in the Philippines.

Scholars say the Chamorros originally came from Indonesia 3,000 years ago. Another wave of Indonesians arrived 1,000 years ago. We don’t know what happened between these two groups—did the first welcome the second? Or kill them? No one knows for sure, but, if other island traditions are any indication, someone set themselves up as a chief and ruled the others. We do know that 500 years later, the Spanish came and from then on, until Jan. 1, 1978, the islands were controlled and ruled by outsiders.

I can empathize with the leaders that have been elected since but their actions show they were just as unprepared to govern as the present “ruler.” At the end of the war, few of the population had been outside the Commonwealth at all so there really wasn’t a pool of worldly, educated, smart people to fill the positions, and, unfortunately, administration after administration hired and appointed unqualified and untested personnel to jobs they had no business in. In an inane desire to keep absolute control of every facet of government, governor after governor neglected to follow the first rule of good business, hire the right help, even outsiders if you have to, and have them train others. This is one corrupt practice that continues to this day with a few exceptions. Our leaders are so afraid of losing control of things, i.e. the government, they are willing to bumble, bungle and bamboozle every one of us to achieve those ends.

If you haven’t been around corruption you just don’t realize what it does to people, it gets inside them and rubs off on everyone they come into contact with. Corruption is passed from fathers to sons, usually by osmosis. People don’t realize it is even happening until it is too late. If you are corrupted you can’t say anything at all about others because it will implicate everyone you know, everyone you work with, your family and friends and all of you will be found out. So no one says anything. It turns into a huge secret that must be kept in a very dark place.

But hope is coming. Qualified people are popping up here and there, and will force change whether those old fossils like it or not. It will be a slow change but we can be hopeful, as most of these professionals are under 35. Only one I can think of is over that but he is a rare person. So, to all the young, energetic, non-corruptible, intelligent, tech-savvy people I’ve talked to over the past couple months, please stay around and make a difference. You know you are going to have to organize into some kind of group if you are to accomplish anything. I hope one of you will take the lead.

Gary DuBrall
Chalan Piao, Saipan