Concerns about LibDay royal court

Hopefully, the voicing of my experiences with this year’s committee can serve as an important lesson to all future CNMI Liberation Day Royal Court candidates and their parents.

Issues of concerns:

1. Time deadline: As a candidate parent, I was told that all tickets had to be submitted by 5pm Friday, the 30th of June, the due date. Late submission will disqualify a candidate from winning, but a candidate can still be a participant in the Royal Court celebration. However, this was not the case, even though the participants and parents were told this verbally by the chair.

2. Courtesy acknowledgement: Even though I pulled my daughter out of the event because of how I felt in regards to the unfair practices I perceived, she should have been acknowledged for the monetary contributions she brought in, most especially because of the hard work my family, relatives and friends did to aid in her candidacy.

I want the nonprofit organizations or charities identified by the Saipan Mayor’s Office and the committee as benefactors of the candidates’ hard work to be made aware of who their monetary donors were. If all the members of all the committee—as I was informed by the mayor—are volunteers, then I can firmly avow that my families and friends volunteered for this year’s event also!

3. Race and unfair practices: It is very sad that we are ignorant of these practices, which are still going on! I work hard to earn a living, but my ethnicity, being a Refalawasch, not having any political influences, still plays a major role in decisions made involving a celebration of our freedom and civil rights of an individual.

These issues and concerns must and need to be addressed, if candidates of this event are to be treated equally and fairly in the future.

Next year’s Liberation Day Royal Court Committee must work collectively to better inform and communicate with parents and the candidates, the rules and procedures, and misunderstandings or misinterpretations clarified fully to the participants to avoid any misunderstandings. As an indigenous person of our island, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana, I want to share this experience with the 2017 Liberation Day Royal Court Committee, the mayor, and most especially to future candidates and their parents so they are made aware that unfair practices and unequal treatments do exist.

If you plan to join next year’s event, make sure you are provided a legal document that details the rules, procedures and regulations you and the members of the committee need to abide by. Read the document, make sure you fully understand the contents before you or your parents agree to sign! Any ambiguous words like “may” should be questioned and clarified, it may be used by the committee against you should you decide to speak up or raise some questions.

The CNMI has been celebrating Liberation Day for decades. I do not understand why there is no formal written document provided by the Mayor’s Office for parents and candidates to sign if this event is celebrated annually. Obviously there were no documents stating the guidelines for the young women who participated in previous years. This “mistake” that the Mayor’s Office and the committee made this year is unacceptable to me.

Yes, we all make mistakes and as human beings we learn and should learn from them! But when racism, corruption, and favoritism are so obviously displayed and seen so clearly from others’ actions, and plays a major role in the determination of a candidate’s status, one must speak up! This kind of practice and behavior needs to be stopped! Rules verbally stated and communicated are perceived, understood, and adhered to as they are communicated. We are not all proficient in the English language and can understand or get the gist of what is being communicated. Thus, you need to be an English language major to understand what the Royal Court committee is trying to convey to you! And then to be contacted by the mayor’s office a day after the counting deadline and be told that “the candidates that were late will still be ranked after being told otherwise by the committee chair showed preferences

Sonya-Jane Olopai
ChloeAnn’s mom