Advancing to the rear!

It was Good Friday as a rendition of The Prayer played softly from my laptop. I tried to steer clear of my normal critical analysis of issues, if only to calmly focus on my meditation.

But there’s the troubling and lingering thought how we’ve messed these isles beyond recognition. Though it’s called leadership, it’s more a case of “followership” where we’ve driven everything into the filthy ditch of bankruptcy.

Over the years, every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Lia have pushed liberal inclusion of measures that led to the bankruptcy of the Retirement Fund. It further led to DB members withdrawing their contributions. Don’t know the fate or status of DC members.

Meanwhile, we engage in quick fix measures that won’t resolve strengthening the fiscal aspect of the Fund. It entails spending every penny until we all come to the “wake and funeral” and final internment slated for 2018. Is this an issue that could be fixed on a permanent basis beyond long spells snoozing at the switchboard?

As obligations skyrocket by leaps and bounds, we retreat into glorifying incompetence by chancing spouts of new investment interests in the islands. Little do we know our own inadequacies imposing policies that discourage wealth and jobs creation; indeed, the new revenue level is around $140 million. Take away $50 million for the court adjudicated settlement agreement of the Fund and you have the balance of $90 million for everything else!

It’s difficult mustering any sense of hope or optimism when everything before you dims quicker than your natural ability to blink. Definitely, a lot of the deepening mess revolves around leadership’s incompetence that heavily plasters everybody to the economic floor of misery. With a cumulative income per legislator of some $90,000 annually, no wonder their view of the folks downstairs is blurred for we pay their unearned loot too!

There’s also the obvious myopic view of the term government now redefined to mean the “we few” upstairs. It completely ignores the participation of “we the people.” You chance casual conversation with any of them and you could instantly tell they are groping for answers when forced into issues of substance. And you’re chancing policymaking as an ill-informed and ill-equipped legislator? Why are we asking these questions? Happenstance? Ignorance? Frustration? Exasperation? Hopelessness?

Even families know how to work out a plan for that rainy day and sacrifice religiously for the unexpected. Is this difficult for nimble minds on the hill? Now dystopia, meaning “where nothing works,” is the trophy you’re conveying to us in the midst of deepening familial economic misery so predicated in your obvious incompetence?

From the grapevine

Through the legislative grapevine, there are loud whispers of next of kin of politicians preparing to leave for Macau for training in security and other forms of casino jobs.

Heard the jobs pay around $8.50 an hour and handpicked government employees closely related to the boys on both sides of the street on the hill have also been meticulously selected.

This rumor confirms several things: 1). The casino investor has been ordained and selected before the casino law zipped its way through both chambers then signed into law during one fateful dark night. 2). You will be hearing, in no uncertain terms, the names of trainees who are closely associated with pro-casino policymakers. I suppose its “All In The Family” lai!

The deal stinks from the outset as we await the decomposition to invite more flies from throughout the CNMI. You may fume of the cat being let out of the bag and even attempt to issue an instinctive argument. But would your narrative be sufficient to convince the prosecution—you know, the woefully intelligent reading public?

Dumb decisions of yester-years

Nearly 20 years ago, Continental Airlines (United) sought from the local government the opportunity to establish the international airport here as a hub. We stretched our collar of political arrogance and cut them down to pieces.

It simply got up and moved to Guam and turned it into its hub. Today, we all pay $3-$5 per trip when passing through Guam. It includes tourists who must descend and wait at the Guam airport between four to six hours before connecting to Saipan. Someday soon I will reveal the name of the two culprits! It’s adolescency at the helm!

The airline industry is also a business entity that involves millions of dollars annually to move people and cargo from point A-B. Why the apparent myopic view that airlines are a part of the CNMI government? Is it?

I suppose this immaturity is honed by the simplistic notion that everything is government. Nah! This government is broke and the unintended victim of lame policy decisions since yester-years. We no longer could afford legislators who are at a loss what policymaking entails. It prompts the dire need for academic and professional competency. Such isn’t the case today! This has got to change forthwith!

Guam now relishes collecting huge revenues as United Airlines’ hub that triggered expansion of its international airport and residual economic activities. We yawn quizzing how we’ve shot ourselves in the foot nearly two decades ago, placing political arrogance over the greater economic benefit we would have reaped as the hub for a major airline.

John DelRosario Jr. is a former publisher of the Saipan Tribune and a former secretary of the Department of Public Lands.