No, Mr. Morgan

This is in response to the statements made by the former director of Legislative and Public Affairs, Territorial and International Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior, Mr. Larry L. Morgan, on Tribune, Aug. 20 edition. It is ironic that Mr. Morgan who was with OTIA for some 12 years or more, is now coming out defending his former colleagues in the Interior Department from media articles and opinions expressed by elected leaders in the Commonwealth. While I might agree that there are some exceptional OIA career employees, I have yet to personally see one.

Although I had no direct contact with Mr. Morgan while he was at the Interior Department, I have heard from those who knew him that he cringes whenever he had to go to the CNMI. It seems that responsibility was the only compelling motive bringing him to Saipan. Mr. Morgan had absolutely no compassion or sensitivity for the people out here other than carrying out work mandated under his office. His portrayal of himself wasn’t what people that knew him remembered him to be. He was very political just like Mr. Allen Stayman, David North and a whole bunch of OTIA career employees.

I know why Mr. Morgan didn’t have anything to say about the way CNMI was being lambasted and bombarded with exaggerated innuendoes. Even though he must have known that the entire population of the CNMI were being punished by Stayman and his career employees solely because they didn’t like the former governor, he never wrote to share with us and the public how this is grossly unfair. Certainly he must have known that there are some in the CNMI that are truly dedicated to working out the problems of our infant government. Many are totally committed to providing reforms and are good, honest citizens and are not part of Stayman’s allegations. But did he rise to express those sentiments? No.

He was contented with what he read in the paper and must have been amused at the struggle that we have to go through to vindicate ourselves from the mostly fabricated accusations. Allegations such as religious persecutions, rampant abortions, and transshipments of textile products, just to mention a few. Millions of dollars were unnecessarily spent in defending all these “national politically driven motives” fabricated against the CNMI and several influential members of Congress who happen to agree with the government of the CNMI. Money that could be better spent on improving the Public School System, the matching funding for Capital Improvement
Programs, the secondary roads that subject residents to suffering during heavy rain pour, the Puerto Rico dump closure, the opening of the new sanitary landfill, scholarship funding for our students; I can go on forever. But we had to spent that to defend against Mr. Al Stayman’s politically-motivated allegations. Can you blame us for being bitter about the whole thing? Can you blame us for not trusting anyone in the Office of Territorial and Insular Affairs?

Mr. Morgan would never know what OTIA’s so-called “career employees” have caused the people of the Commonwealth both in terms of threats and expenses. I visited Mr. Stayman once in his office in Washington, DC and met with many members of his staff who tricked us into believing that they were sincere in trying to help us find matching funds for our 702 funding. Their recommendations and suggestions were quickly changed as soon as we returned home. Am I bitter for the lies? Of course I am. Do I trust them or Aranza? No, I don’t. Mr. Aranza even compared us to a “Pinto” car in one of the meetings I attended while he was here in Saipan. How can we have renewed trust with people like this? Should we relax our reaction to the new developments that are being uncovered by Chairman Don Young’s committee? It is hard to do that. There are irreparable damages that OTIA has caused us and millions of dollars wasted unnecessarily over those fabricated allegations. The CNMI has lost face internationally, nationally, and among our trusted friends. How can we repair that? Furthermore, OTIA has yet to show remorse for what they did and begin demonstrating what they were supposed to do in the first place, and that is to be an advocate for us instead of an adversary.

And what about the nagging problems with the proposed federalization of our Immigration and Labor and the imposition of the federal minimum wage law here? Should we forget the threats against our local self-government? In a radio talk show in Guam very recently, one person was very critical about the labor abuses and the indentured slavery as alleged by the Department of Interior without having the full background of the case. That person may have been relying on the integrity of the Interior’s wide media campaign against the CNMI just like many other learned individuals. Instead of threatening our self-government, OIA should be negotiating with us how we can recover all those expenses we have paid for lobbying efforts, the cost of sending our leaders for the many trips to Washington DC, defending against these fabricated allegations and many other demeaning and insulting remarks against our people.

Sen. Pete Reyes
(R-Saipan)