Nothing immoral

I invited a close friend and his wife to the house about a week ago and after dinner we all sat in the veranda just enjoying the evening breeze and the solemn beautiful sunset. We had a good cordial time and our conversation switched and volleys from subjects and topics of interest about our NMI. Before we ended our evening we started asking each other: If there is a message that we can send to our elected leaders about an important matter, what will that be? I think as you may agree, this will result in a truckload. Imagine if a few hundred of our voting citizens could put together no more than three points of interest or messages to all elected officials in the CNMI government, that will be something insightful as fruit for thoughts and something for them to consider. Don’t you think so? My friend went home as we ended our evening together, but for some reason we did not finish this part of our conversation. Nonetheless, this is what I want to say, and I ask him also to follow as well as a way to start the momentum of discourse, and appeal to others to follow on with the flow.

So following are my three messages to our elected leaders for their information.

The NMI islands is not the United States. The land mass of the three inhabited islands is a given and by rough estimate may not be more than 100 square miles of habitable open spaces good enough to sustain an finite number of people within a given acceptable and livable density capacity. There is no way that these islands would welcome some 5.6 billion people of the world with open arms to settle and thrive in these islands, and certainly that will be impossible. Neither would these islands be able to welcome the some 350 million U.S. citizens in the United States. And the list would include the millions of Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos, Indians, and the nations of the world altogether. These islands can only sustain its own indigenous population. If any of our elected leaders could not figure this out, governing in the NMI is perpetually problematic and on that note our elected leaders are seriously out of touch with the present day reality.

On second point, no one would deny or object to the fact that 80 percent of all gross receipt taxes paid to the CNMI government come from 20 percent of the businesses on these islands. Again, this is a given and all records and information should be captured and administered by the government’s revenue collection office. The wisdom and principle here suggest that it would be more productive to spend more time and energy governing on the matter that has a larger effect. In other words, if we spend more time focusing on trivial many matters, we waste time and resources and would realize less productive outcome. But, zeroing in on the vital few would produce more beneficial outcome and returns. If one can figure out what these 20 percent of the total business enterprises are, we should be able to figure out the total number of people being fully employed in these enterprises. The summation of the workforce and gross revenue data, would tell what the formula or economic modeling that would be applicable and useful. Of course, this would take more imagination and forward thinking, but someone in government is responsible for this issue. Let those with jurisdiction for this type of work do their work. If our elected leaders are able to know where the revenue concentration is flowing from, then all public policy focus should be directed where the larger impact are derived and sustained. This will also tell that the issue of overpopulation must take center stage in public policy formulation. The social costs of PSS, CHC, DPS, CUC, and DPW all are driven by the size of the population. If any of our leaders think that the CNMI is not burdened by over population, it is our duty as voters to educate all those that formulates our laws, and we pray that they actually listen and carry on for the good of the CNMI. But, then again we can only do just as much until the next election cycle.

Mr. Richard Pierce recently coined a doctrine in that the regulating effect of the CNMI economy and social climate is no longer tolerable as his place of abode and the basis for his cause to move out. This is important in that our leaders should learn from and by this revelation that the NMI economy does have a regulating effect. For good or bad, there is nothing that straps anyone whether a person is an expatriate or a non-citizen to stick around in these islands, hence, all are free to leave the sanctuary of these islands on their own free will. No one is more permanent in these islands than the people that are rooted in permanent sanction as the indigenous Chamorro and Carolinian people. Our problem is ours to keep, we survived more turbulent moments in our history than the materialistic nature of the present time. There is nothing immoral that these islands are known as the islands of the Chamorro and Carolinian. And, public policy should be carved out to ensure that these islands are known for the indigenous flavor of the Chamorro and Carolinian people. Indeed, nothing is immoral about that because it is the only fact the history of these islands had told.