3 CNMI issues

Three things come in my mind whenever I think about the problems that Saipan is going through: Housing, vandalism, and littering. People need to pay attention to these problems because these problems could really ruin our island.

According to the data collected in the beginning of the year, there are 138 homeless individuals on Saipan alone, 99 are adults and 39 children. There is a homeless man around San Antonio village, I often see him at Afetna Market across the San Antonio basketball court. I feel really bad for him because he is always alone and people would walk by him as if he is a stray dog. I wonder where these people go when Mother Nature calls. I live in my parents’ house but I still get so scared of typhoons. Just imagine the situation of those homeless people. This problem bothers me. I don’t want any of my loved ones to go through this.

Vandalism is also one of the problems on Saipan. We need to pay attention to this problem because this is going to cost us a lot of money. I hate seeing nice pavilions with profanities, names, and gang names written all over them. Imagine going to the beach with your younger siblings. It would not be nice if they start reading those bad words written all over the pavilions. Bus shelters are also being vandalized by people, betel nut stains all over the floor, and some people would even piss there. If we do not pay attention to this, we are letting our youth know that it is okay to do this. They will think vandalizing is okay and we don’t want that to happen. I went to the beach last summer with my friends. One of my friends brought his little brother with him. We decided to hang out at the nearby pavilion. My friend’s younger brother started reading out the words written on the walls. Later that day, I heard him using that bad word while playing with my little sister and some other kids. It saddens me to know that kids are learning bad stuff because of vandalism.

Littering is another issue we have on Saipan. I am a member of the 670 Sonics Basketball Club. We used to do beach cleanups on the weekends. We need to do something about littering, considering that Saipan depends on tourists. I have seen beer cans, plastics, cigarette butts, spit bottles, and dead animals on our beaches. It is really disappointing to see how much trash our beaches contain. However, it was satisfying being able to help our community by beautifying our beaches. I challenge each and every one of you to do the same. 

I believe that together we can solve these problems. We could do fundraising events so that we could gather money to support the homeless people on Saipan. The government could help us provide housing for them as well. The best thing we could do to prevent vandalism is to have a guard watch over our pavilions. We could also have cameras installed on the electrical posts so that we could see who vandalizes our bus shelters and pavilions. A cheap chemical that will make it a lot easier to erase writings on walls would be very helpful as well. We could prevent littering by having beach cleanups every weekends. I believe that there is a solution to every problem.

Rafael Ordona
San Antonio, Saipan