Issues that matter

Major policy decision: It was pleasant to hear the vision of Sen. Victor Hocog who had a joint measure adopted last week to privatize the utility agency. A successful effort toward alternative energy should ease the pain of both sectors of the CNMI amidst a myriad of increases, from health insurance to the impending spike in the cost of goods. What’s my point?

Elected officials simply must leave their political narratives at the door and focus on easing the deluge of increases in the cost of living here. It’s taking the lead to return the economic freedom of “we the people” permanently.

The number of unsolicited increases has sent most families to the abyss of hopelessness and destitution. It need not be this way!

You as elected officials are agents of change. We definitely rely upon your wisdom to see the deepening hardship through our lenses. The perennial neglect hasn’t worked and it never will. It’s time to join hands. Let’s park political narratives at the door in favor of rebuilding the livelihood of our people.

Leadership: The quality of life of any country is dependent upon the quality of its leadership. Are we talking about educated leadership who are percipient and conversant on substantive issues? Or is it the usual bunch that gropes for words when slammed with issues of importance? How do you assess this issue? Is it time to begin a major shift to leadership with decent credentials?

Deluge of hardship: Everybody is cringing, wrapped in despair at the consistent and persistent loss of familial purchasing power since recent past. The deluge of helpless pining is everywhere. Interesting that the lights are on but nobody’s home. Or need I change the prescription on my glasses? When could they see hardship through our lenses?

Now, what’s the prevailing unemployment rate here? Guam has 35 percent unemployment and its returning troops without jobs would have to do search and rescue to secure meaningful employment. It’s the net result of a protracted economic growth, though our southern neighbor has done a lot better than the CNMI. Answers, anybody?

Landownership: Pro-NMDs bravely spout limiting landownership to the indigenous people. Let’s get one thing straight: Covenant Section 805 was intended to prevent land exploitation. It didn’t say anything else. Nor is it fertile ground to use as a license to spout issues beyond its intent. Stick to what it says, not what you thought it said. It’s day and night!

If this provision is the granddaddy of Article 12, then it should be understood that it isn’t a license either to provide for an unconstitutional provision. Eh, the last I checked, one plus one is two, not three. Intellectual integrity is a must tool of discussion on this issue. The loose tweaking of Section 805 is but dishonesty in a lawlessness land!

Ethnicity: I grew up with mixed blood in my system, from Chamorro, Carolinian, and Spanish. In 1523 Juan Desal (DelRosario) came to the new world with others. I chuckle at the notion that all along I’ve been one haole kid rooted on my ancestry.

I grew up in the ’60s among my Chamolinian brothers and sisters, and other ethnic groups. I never had issues navigating our differences but settled peacefully and harmoniously in the land of unity for they are people too. Am I supposed to be superior as a result of my ethnicity?

Out in the real world, the need, pain, sorrow and joy is the same for everybody, regardless of your pigmentation or ethnicity. It’s your credentials and sense of mindfulness that matters. Why are we so engrossed on a least important issue?

Can the immature acronym NMD be opened to genealogy rather than racist ethnicity? It only feeds the ego but trashes your spiritual essence, di ba?

Navigating: I usually get goose bumps each time I take a trip to a certain beach. I’d quiz if our tethered ancestors were still fishing, disrupted by my presence. This trip, though, was special. No goose bumps, but there at a misty distance was an island.

Just as I started meandering thoughts of the future of the islands, I heard a song by Lucinda Williams, “I wanna watch the ocean bend the edges of the sun; I wanna get swallowed up in an ocean of love.” But given the mess at home, I’d rather be “swallowed up in an ocean of peace” just for the sake of some purposeful and prayerful moments alone. Yes, together we’ve pined for some conscious leadership caught swimming in the filthy sea of “do-nothings.”

At dawn: As dawn was breaking, we inched out way out of some rough sleep the night before. A couple of issues were dripping from our ears like casino, taxes, deficit, debts, zero economic growth, high power bills and more coming; cost of goods spiking in the near-term, including gasoline.

Every time we turn our heads, the Grinch and Scrooge of Christmas would pass by winking that filthy sly smile saying, “You’re paying more for far less!” You take your calculator and burn your fingers in an exercise Einstein calls insanity: juggling the same figures hoping for different results.

At dusk: You quietly assess what else is coming down the pike that could bleed the family purse altogether. You now defer to divine providence for help, any help. You also resort to silent prayer that nothing catastrophic hits close to home that would derail your plans for Christmas.

You recall people that you love and their whereabouts, quizzing if they’re doing fine or what would they be doing on Christmas Eve so far away from home. Days of yore and the memorable happy times begin parading vividly into mind as you try to fall asleep wrapped in Silent Night.