Cyclical hardship?

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A casual ocular review of the quality of life of our people over the last 10 to 20 years prompts the question: What has leadership done to improve the buying power of families struggling for air in the sea of economic disaster?

Answer: None!

Thus, we move from prayerful “hope” to “nope,” embracing our quiet resentment of the way things have gone into subterranean abject familial poverty, metastasizing—spreading like stage four cancer—on all three islands.

This isn’t political concoction. You hear it loud and clear from the multitude. It’s bad tidings all around as we head into the polls next month. It won’t be “biba” but “biliba!”—throw the bums out.

Malcolm Forbes echoed it well: “More often than not, people and things appear to be as they are.” When folks cringe in frustration, you know all roads lead back to failure in competence!

A brave though disoriented public official related that it’s a “cyclical” phenomenon that should improve someday. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Said Magoo, “Yep! Throw him into his hollow view so he gets recycled until he understands his shallow assertion!” I couldn’t agree more. I mean why retort with an empty answer that only shows ignorance of issues of magnitude that has and continues to destroy the livelihood of families Marianas-wide?

Drowning in sea of red ink
Persistent fiscal crisis is an issue political dinosaurs won’t admit candidly. Obviously, they’ve kicked it underneath tons of coconut husks so they could conveniently suffocate it heading into the Nov. 4 general election. Nice try! But we’ve memorized your antics!

Take another cruise around the villages for you will see, in no uncertain terms, how your negligence has relegated our people to living in subterranean poverty for more than a decade. With nearly 80 percent of their income gone before payday Fridays, is there really a chance you could convince them otherwise?

Hardship is heavily embedded in the faces and hearts of our people. Common decency dictates they aren’t ready for more of the same. There would be a generational shift with finality come Nov. 4. Enough is enough!

It’s ‘We the people’
Folks have left the debate, review, and disposition of matters of state for the Legislature and administration to conduct in “deliberative” fashion. There’s trust that the interest of the people is uppermost in their daily work as “public servants.”

Sadly, public servant changed to one of “masters” of “we the people” who willfully ignored the role of citizens under a government “of the people, for the people and by the people.” It shoved casino down our throat with quick legislative approval followed by a lightning though fearful dark signature penned “in the midnight hour.”

This juvenile conduct speaks volumes of political arrogance wrapped in dictatorial agenda to overrun the will of “we the people.” This has gone on a bit too long. No, sir! We still believe in a government of laws, not of men. Reciprocity from “we the people” will be delivered powerfully this Nov. 4!

Disappearance of four girls
Two Japanese girls disappeared up north. It wasn’t a case of falling off Banzai Cliff but a beach at the end of a village. There isn’t a trace of their disappearance.

Before this, the grammar school age Luhk sisters disappeared at a bus station in Santa Lourdes. To date there’s no trace of their disappearance either.

These disappearances remind me of two brothers who also disappeared in the Talofofo area in the late ’50s. They headed to the farm after work on horseback. They never returned nor were they ever found. Gone!

I could understand it if the island were the Bermuda Triangle where UFOs and USOs has been seen by ordinary people or if in fact it’s an established fact that a certain spot here is a supernatural geographic area. Never heard of it then or in recent past.

So where are these missing folks? Were they abducted and shipped somewhere? Where would that place be? If not, then it stands to reason that the perpetrator is walking handsomely among us daily, highly equipped with ultra-rational behavior demonstrating normal attitude. Or I may be wrong in this speculation all together.

But who would want to hurt or keep two young visitors or innocent schoolgirls? What’s the motive beyond robbery and rape? Is the perpetrator the same person or different altogether? Is there a cave only he knows where he’s kept the girls all unto himself? Is the cave on land or underwater? Would the perpetrator fumble the ball at some point ahead? When he fumbles his treasured trove, would it be another abduction or murder or both? By this time it would be quite late for the next victims, right?

Troubling. Nonetheless, in the case of the Japanese girls it had to be the ultra-luster of using the merciless heart of violent death to end the smiles of joy from the faces of innocent visitors. The disappearance of the Luhk sisters revolves around greed. Just connect the dotted line for it would take you to a despicably unbelievable conclusion.

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Buddy Magoo believes there’s room to do spiritual justice for the four missing girls by praying for them. He disagrees that the same could be done with political dinosaurs. Said he, “When the neurons in their cranium fades, incapable of fiduciary immersion to do the right thing by doing it right, it’s time to extricate them from office.” I couldn’t agree more.

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Signs tell us things like the legal speed limit, warning of men at work ahead, names of places, and other timely warnings. Buddy Magoo said his favorite is “My Pay Day” sign. Said he, “It tells me two days in advance that there’s almost nothing left in my paycheck.” I told him to give da boys a chance with their so-called “solutions”. “Nah, must change a redundant tune forthwith!” Factually lucid an observation!

John S. Del Rosario Jr. | Contributing Author
John DelRosario Jr. is a former publisher of the Saipan Tribune and a former secretary of the Department of Public Lands.

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