Let the records speak!

All public lands in the CNMI belong to the indigenous people. Also, it does not belong to the governor as an individual, the Senate or the House of Representative as collective groups, Cinta Kaipat, Pete Perez or PaganWatch.

MPLA is the only agency with the vested authority to negotiate for the indigenous people land leases and, for that matter, mining proposals and other appropriate land usages. As indigenous persons, it is our duty to seek, resolve, protect, and promote our interests in our own investments.

MPLA’s board members—Ana Demapan-Castro, Benita Manglona, Nick Nekai, Manny Pangelinan and Felix Sasamoto—are far from being irresponsible or derelict, as implied by Azmar’s Don Farrell. The board members stated many reasons as a matter of public record that they are not against development or anti-business but simply could not support Azmar’s proposal to mine Pagan because of Azmar’s continued and overwhelming failures time and time again to comply with necessary permit-related requirements. These requirements pertain to Azmar’s financial, personal, police and business history necessary for the board to review and make an informed and appropriate decision. Besides Azmar’s repeated failures to comply with MPLA’s requests for permitting purposes, Azmar took the liberty to delete and/or alter official MPLA requests for records, statement and documents including conditions. We have witnessed in the last MPLA board meeting the arrogance and irrational behavior demonstrated by Azmar. A person would have to be a complete moron or severely corrupted to agree to grant Azmar any type of permit. To the surprise of many present at the last MPLA meeting, including several board members, Azmar also failed to pay a regular permit fee for pozzolan research and development on Pagan—an R&D permit granted to Azmar last year. One wonders if Farrell and Arkle have not been paid yet for their hard work. According to Deputy Commissioner Frankie Eliptico, Azmar surrendered their R&D permit. The records show that Azmar attempted but failed to convince MPLA to alter or remove a particular clause in the R&D permit prohibiting Azmar from extracting pozzolan and selling it. MPLA stood its ground and made it clear that it would be inappropriate to alter or remove that particular condition in the R&D permit. We commend MPLA’s management for looking after the people’s interests. Tons of pozzolan would have been removed and sold as samples under the auspices of research and development.

It is the duty of the indigenous people of CNMI to beat the drums, come together and show resolve when there is clear and convincing evidence that our interests are being betrayed or compromised. We are weary of persons disguised as friends of the indigenous people, self-made scientists and education experts who insist on what is good for our future generations. We clearly discern that our foremost critics wear the “sheep skin” of culture and matrimonial ties as disguises for personal gains and enrichment at the expense of our children. We share our critics’ dream of “reclining at sunset on the black sands of Pagan” but not until you mend your ways and remove all injurious intents from your entrepreneurial practices.

Ray Mafnas
Matansa, Saipan