Congressman Miller had preconceived mission

California Congressman George Miller is known throughout these islands for his purported stance on human rights issues. That the indigenous people are predominantly conservative Catholics, they were ready to listen intently to his words as a staunch human rights advocate.

Hardly anybody knew that the California Congressman was here with a preconceived agenda, not to mention his clever use of human rights issues to shield his real motive. He hails from California, the capital of garment manufacturing, and must carry out the dictates of the textile labor unions to close down the local apparel industry here lest the garment industry he represents may relocate to Mexico. Such relocation would mean the loss of thousands of American jobs.

The trust that most local people had on Mr. Miller as a human rights advocate started receding into the Philippine Seas as the power of information revealed his real motive for being highly punitive against the NMI. In his recent visit, he asked to see the barracks for the 30-plus Bangladeshis in Kagman. These are workers rendered jobless when their employer (Francisco Ubongen) fled the island when his construction company went bankrupt. Their problems was good fodder for the California Congressman.

More information became available of federal minimum wage violations in most California apparel manufacturing companies. But it is an infraction to which the labor unions looked the other way for it may mean less profits for manufacturers. Did Congressman Miller aggressively push for the closure of his California garment industry? Or is he fearful that it would be ungrateful to bite the fingers that funneled PAC money for his re-election and political career?

The people of the NMI are the only US Citizens who aren’t beneficiaries of “equal representation” in the US Congress. They don’t even have a non-voting delegate in the US House of Representatives. If Congressman Miller is such a powerful advocate of human rights, isn’t protecting US Citizens situated outside mainstream America the most appropriate agenda as a member of Congress? Aren’t the people of these islands entitled to their economic freedom under the American Economic Community?

Finally, it became obvious in the Senator Murkowski Committee hearing last March that the investigation tactics employed by the US Department of Interior can’t be used for any purpose because they were “unverifiable”. For local leadership, it feels that Interior and Miller have gone past common decency in the manner that they’ve demonized the NMI all under the guise of human rights issues when in fact it was done all in the interest of a special group of moneyed people in the textile labor unions. The trust and confidence that the people of these islands once had on both Miller and bureaucrats in the US Department of Interior are at its lowest and have receded into an ocean of distrust.