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A land of our own
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Posted on Mar 21 2012
We NMDs only have these small islands to call home. It’s the only place we’ve called home for several hundred years. In fact, Spanish, Germans, Japanese, and others have all tried to push us off this soil, but this is the only soil we know. If Article 12 is abolished, allowing non-NMDs to buy our land, where will we NMDs go? Will we be reduced to a wandering people, without land, and without a home?
These little rocks are all we have. The world is very big for non-NMD investors. I’m sure many other places would love to have their money and would love to sell their land to them. As for us, we are happy where we are. Please let us live out our lives on these little specks in the ocean that we call home.
Our wise past leaders designed the Covenant with this in mind. They didn’t want our home taken over by outsiders. The U.S. Constitution applies in the CNMI only to the extent that the Covenant allows it. And the Covenant allows most of the U.S. Constitution, but specifically exempts the CNMI from equal protection of landownership.
Maybe for some people, a quick profit is more important than having a place to live. I know that those people support repealing Article 12. But the sound and wise decision for us NMDs is to have a place to live, even if it means giving up short-term windfalls, instead of becoming homeless in our own islands.
Let us have Article 12 to let us NMDs keep the only home we’ve ever known.
[B]Diego C. Blanco[/B] [I]As Lito, Saipan[/I]
