Red light special

Have you ever felt lately like we are living inside a fish bowl here in the CNMI? Or maybe a slab of beef at a roadside market, gawked at, prodded, and kneaded like so much meat for the delectation of customers? The successive visits by ranking U.S. military officials to the islands in the last few weeks—plus the aerial surveys they’ve been doing on Saipan, Tinian and Farallon de Mendinilla—is beginning to look like somebody is feeling out the Marianas archipelago, bringing with it the smell of significant behind-the-scenes movement in terms of the military’s immediate plans for the islands.

Just a few months ago, the New York Times came out with an article about the Pentagon’s reported plan to reconfigure its deployment of overseas forces, with a view toward shutting down some of its foreign bases and creating what it described as lily pad forces in the Pacific. News coming out in the local papers the last few weeks seem to bear this out, with the top brass of the U.S. military finally deigning to spare the CNMI more than just a glance. Although they’ve been mum about their plans for the Commonwealth, as is their wont, there are indications that the islands are at least being considered for rest and recreation purposes for the nation’s soldiers.

Now that could be a good thing or a bad thing for the CNMI, depending on how the CNMI intends to develop this. Definitely, it is a shot in the arm for the local economy, which has yet to significantly feel the trickle-down effect of the upswing in the American economy. If the U.S. military does place the CNMI on the R&R map of its forces, this will bring in additional customers for local businesses, resulting in more taxes being remitted to the government and more dollars circulating within the economy. Everybody is happy, plus we get to do our part for our boys and girls who at the forefront in the war against terrorism.

If only things were as cut and dried as that. Unfortunately, reality is not as hunky dory as we would like it to be nor does it conveniently conform to what we envision it to be. As an R&R joint, the CNMI has to make a decision on what kind of entertainment it plans to provide the visiting forces. I am referring, in particular, to prostitution. Masses of soldiers on R&R attract prostitutes like bees to honey. There is no sugarcoating that fact; that is the nature of the military animal. With money to spend and raging hormones to calm down, it is mostly the young men of the armed forces that attract persons who…ahem…like doing their job lying down and naked to boot. With the government hard-selling the CNMI to the U.S. military, it has to confront the reality that, if this goes through, the islands will be faced with a potential increase in prostitution activities. Even without a consistent military presence, prostitution IS already rising, if one were to gauge the number of freelance sex purveyors plying their trade openly in the streets of Garapan.

That is not to say that there are no other options for the government in terms of how it intends to provide recreation to our troops. There are other ways, of course, that are not just limited to the run-of-the-mill night clubs, disco places, sports bars, and theme restaurants. However, prostitution activities will definitely rise and how the government intends to deal with it will have a bearing on the direction tourism activities on the island will go. The government must state in no uncertain terms whether it proscribes or sanctions prostitution activities. Do we want to become another Bangkok or do we insist on outlawing the flesh trade? Either way it has to make a decision and stick to that.

If the government adopts the stance that prostitution is a necessary evil, then it must put in place regulatory mechanisms that would ensure the health and safety of the American troops, educate people on sexually transmissible diseases, control the level of prostitution and the places where such establishments can operate, etc. etc. If, on the other hand, it persists with the idea of marketing the CNMI as a family-oriented destination, then it must clamp down now on the burgeoning flesh trade and consistently enforce its anti-prostitution laws. We cannot be prissy about the issue yet turn a blind eye to what is happening in the Garapan district. As it is, it is a measure of the contempt that sex purveyors have with the laws of the CNMI that they carry on with their activities in broad daylight, flouting the law with no more thought than when changing their panties, and a measure of the government’s incompetence that ordinary people know more of what is happening in Garapan than the people who are supposed to be keeping an eye out for these flesh traders.

(The views expressed are strictly that of the author. Vallejera is the editor of the Saipan Tribune.)