Man of Vision

He is a political veteran, a pioneer, who has seen the ebb of tides and flow of waves crashing the shores of these islands for the past three decades. After retiring from his corporate job at the Tan Holdings Corporation, House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial came back to the political arena in 2000.

From the tight battle for the speakership, Mr. Fitial emerged a victor with the support of the majority coalition in the lower house composed of Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

Immediately after the highly-charged inaugural session of the House, he rolled his sleeves and sat down to work on various issues and problems confronting the CNMI, particularly the economic crisis that has paralyzed growth and development for the last three years.

Mr. Fitial has his share of critics and opponents. Alongside with his efforts to address the crisis as a presiding officer of one chamber of the Legislature, news that would seem to spell his downfall hogged the limelight as well.

But his job to effect change went on, unfazed by the stumbling block along the way. Although he is mum on his future political plans despite growing speculation that he has his eyes set for November 2001, Mr. Fitial has shown he has the strength, the power and the ability to lead these islands. For this, Saipan Tribune named him as one of its Persons of the Year because of his vision and his attitude to make a difference.

Staff reporter Benhur C. Saladores sat down with the man to look into the past, assess the present and weigh the future.

Saipan Tribune: When you assumed the speakership, you set your goals within the so-called 4E’s agenda — economy, education, environment and essential services — do you think you have accomplished them?

Speaker Fitial: I have accomplished some but not everything. I don’t expect to accomplish everything at this point in time because legislating is a process that involves two houses of the Legislature. The Senate has its own set of rules in which they conduct themselves accordingly in legislating bills and other measures.

But of course, I’m optimistic with this Legislature that most of the bills that we believe are covered under the 4 E’s will be entertained and eventually passed.

ST: Do you feel frustrated that the House leadership is doing all it can to fast-track government programs, and yet the Senate and the other branches of the government are not as fast ?

Frustrated is not really the right term or description of my feelings about other branches of the government coming into play with respect to legislation that we are proposing and advocating in the House. The best term to describe that scenario is that I would have hoped to see the Senate to act more expeditiously than the way they are considering our measures that we passed in the House. I have to understand, like I said, that they have their own set of rules or procedures. So we have to respect that, even though I could say that they could be more expeditious.

ST: Do you think that politics play a role in this scenario?

One of the reasons why we are able to accomplish a lot in the House is because the leadership is inclusive. We have no political agenda. This is the biggest difference we have with the upper house. Our agenda in the House does not include politics because our leadership is inclusive, meaning we have Republicans, Democrats, Independent, Tinian, Rota, Saipan, Chamorro, Carolinian, Women. Name it, we have it. But we have no political agenda.

ST: You were instrumental in coming up with two key measures — one is the Omnibus Labor and Business Reform Act and the other is the tax incentives legislation for development project. How do you see these as part of the overall economic agenda of the House leadership?

The Omnibus Labor and Business Reform Act, the version that was finally passed and signed into law, was far different from the original version which I introduced. I would have wanted to repeal those anti-business statutes that in my own opinion are deterrent or adverse laws that discourage economic development. The original version of HB 12-39 envisioned a business environment that would be readily conducive to business. The final version was a slight departure from that vision.

ST: One of your agenda is to repeal the three-year stay limit imposed on nonresident workers in the CNMI. Would you press this issue next year?

Absolutely, I intend to reintroduce the repealer of the three-year limit. I also intend to reintroduce the repealer of the labor moratorium law because I truly and strongly believe that these two statutes or public laws are anti-business.

ST: During the last year of the 12th Legislature, what will be your main focus?

My main focus will continue to be on the economy, on education, on the environment and the last E which is essential services. But I will concentrate more on the economy because I believe that we should not continue to depend on the federal government for assistance. Because the federal government, the Clinton administration, has ordered the Department of the Interior, to move to federalize the CNMI labor and immigration. We also have pending legislation at the U.S. Congress that attempted to remove the Headnote 3 (a) privilege for the Commonwealth.

These are the three basic and essential authorities that were granted to the CNMI people in exchange with their sovereignty. For me, this is a mortal sin that the United States is trying to do to take away the rights that we exchanged for our sovereignty. I truly believe that the Covenant is in itself a resource that would help develop our economy.

ST: What do you think are the most important steps or actions for the CNMI to take to keep its self-governing status

There are several things that the CNMI must do. Number one, we have to continue to diversify our economic and resources base. I am talking resources here simply because we can’t continue to depend on the federal government for assistance. What do I mean? We need to take control over our marine resources, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). That in itself is huge resources. We can generate a lot of revenues just from the rights that we can sell for fishermen to fish in our EEZ, from charging companies that would like to come in and mine our marine resources. There are so many things that we can do with our marine resources which are abundant as you can see around us. These are our natural resources that we have never, ever made an attempt to develop.

The other thing that I would like to see this government move aggressively is to beef up enforcement of our laws. We have been very lax, the government has been very lax in enforcing laws. As a result, our tourism industry is hurting because of lack of enforcement. Our islands, especially, are not clean the way we want them to be so that our tourists will continue to return because they love the beaches. But the beaches are beginning to be dirty. Who’s making our beaches dirty? Ourselves because we are littering and dumping oil on our beaches. We have no respect for cleanliness of our beaches. This is one area I would like to emphasize.

ST: After years of stagnant growth, are you optimistic of silver lining out there for the local economy?

As an active member of the Strategic Economic Development Council, now I can safely say that there’s light at the end of the tunnel for the economy of the Commonwealth to become better than it is today. We now have a plan and it all takes now is money, resources to make the plan work. See, even the plan, it requires resources to make it work. Yes, I am optimistic.

ST: Do you see better ties with the federal government in light of the fact that the White House is going to be under a Republican administration with President-elect George W. Bush and Congress is still under the GOP control?

Absolutely. We should expect a much better relationship between the federal government now that Mr. Bush will become the next president of the United States. Together with our friends that we have in both houses of the U.S. Congress, we should expect much improved and better relationships. I believe that we should capitalize on such relationship to help us grow economically.

ST: Does the CNMI have reason to pursue active lobbying in Washington D.C. now that Republicans are taking control of both branches?

Yes, and the reason for that is because we still have enemies. You must understand that as long as we have enemies in Washington D.C., we must continue to mount this lobbying efforts to protect our interests. This is analogous to sending soldiers to the demilitarized zone. There may not be a war, but we need soldiers to keep watch over our enemies. The purpose of lobbying in Washington D.C. is to keep watch over our enemies so that they will not come up with any surprised attack in the U.S. Congress.

ST: Some people seem not to understand the need to hire people to help the CNMI protect its interests in the nation’s capital. What do you feel about this considering that the Washington Representative’s Office is tasked with the job?

The Washington Representative’s Office is not doing any effective lobbying to prevent the anti-CNMI legislation that are pending in Congress from moving forward. Our lobbyists are the one responsible for preventing the federal takeover legislation from being passed. The problem with some of our leaders who are not totally in support of the lobbying effort is lack of education. They need to be educated in Washington politics because if they completely understand the essence of Washington politics, they would be in agreement with the House leadership’s position that we need to continue the lobbying effort simply to keep watch over our enemies from making any surprise attack on the floor of the U.S. Congress.

ST: You have you share of critics and detractors. What’s your message to them who don’t seem to see eye-to-eye on your goals for the CNMI?

I can only say this — I respect whatever position, opinion or agenda they may have, but I would like to say also that there’s only one agenda and that is the big picture — the economy of the Commonwealth. People are presently suffering from the downturn of the economy. A lot of people are being faced with court cases because they can’t afford to pay their obligations either at the banks or elsewhere. This is the big problem — we have an economic crisis. We need to be focused on how to resolve this crisis because our people are actually being affected to a very great extent. How do you resolve this crisis? What I’m doing together with the House leadership is to diversify the economy so that the resources and revenue base will be expanded so that these people who are suffering will also find relief. As simple as that.

ST: Do you find it more difficult now being the House Speaker than you were in the Third Legislature?

It was challenging then because everybody seemed to be on one single agenda — and that was to increase the revenue base. It’s similar to today’s agenda. The only difference was that during the Third Legislature, our internal resources collected from local taxes was only about $12 million per annum. So our agenda at that time was to increase the revenue base of the CNMI. And we did. We brought in the garment industry. We expanded the tourism industry by encouraging more hotel construction and development and expansion. So the revenues went from $12 million in 1982 to $260 million in 1995. I believe that we have accomplished that, but because of the Asian economic crisis, we are now experiencing depression. This is a similar focus and agenda that we are now embarking on and that is to see how we can revitalize or revive the economy that we used to have so that we can have more opportunities for our people.

ST: Looking back in the past year, are you proud, happy and satisfied with the accomplishments of the House?

I am. Absolutely, I am very happy, satisfied and proud of the accomplishments in the House. I would have been more happy, satisfied and proud if we have reciprocity from our counterpart.