Do not be fooled

Public lands belong to the indigenous people of the CNMI but have been leveraged over the years by each succeeding leadership with an eye toward improving the lot of the Chamorro and Carolinian people, and rightfully so. Improving the lot of the rightful owners of public lands—the Chamorros and Carolinians—however, hasn’t always scored top priority with and among the leaseholders of public lands, particularly those holding vast tracts of this scarce resource, such as golf course operators. And more often than not, the intent and scope of the lease are rarely followed through the years and, on final analysis, the leases are so radically changed and altered so as to render them indistinguishable from the original documents. The COP lease comes to mind; so does the lease that enabled the golf course on the northern end of Saipan. How many times were those leases altered and changed? And to suit whom?

Before granting lease extensions or giving a new lease because the original 40-year leases have been consumed or otherwise used up (or soon to be), the Chamorros and Carolinians would be well advised to begin asking serious questions: What have these leaseholders, who, incidentally, profited hugely from the inexpensive leases granted earlier, done for the whole of the CNMI especially with regards to the indigenous people? Did they demonstrate willingness and a commitment to hire locally, especially during better times? To train and hire Chamorros and Carolinians into the higher echelons of their companies as a way to return something to the community? To make work more meaningful for the people? To provide upward mobility in terms of granting pay increases and raises commensurate with educational attainment and experience? To provide for retirement, bonuses, and other employment perks? Sadly, the answer to the above is a resounding NO.

What they did do was to simply hire more foreign workers who were ever so willing to work for as little as they could pay them (and would have paid them less if not for federal intervention which finally raised the minimum wage for all workers).

What have the owners of these golf courses done to benefit the CNMI, outside of tax payments and paying minimum wage which, incidentally, all businesses do as a matter of course? These golf courses, COP, Mariana Country Club, and others that are situated on public lands enjoyed huge success during better times yet one never heard of them making any real contributions to the community.

In the few shorts years since opening Northern Marianas Trades Institute, Mr. Tony Pellegrino has demonstrated the essence of “giving back to the community” more eloquently and loudly than the owners/operators of the golf courses who have been on Saipan for three decades or more will ever be able to do. It seems what the owners of golf courses did best was to rake in the profit and take it somewhere else. And now they want another 25 years.

Should the CNMI allow extensions of the leases of golf courses or grant them a new one? It is up to each Chamorro and Carolinian to decide that. As the lease extensions come up for renewals in a few years hence, we will finally begin to witness “attempts” at philanthropy—work or endeavor, as charitable aid or endowments, intended to increase the well-being of community—but we should not be led astray by these feeble attempts for we surely are going to be able to see right through their cloak of insincerity and greed.
Do not be fooled.