Hello! Everbody home?

My uncle has his own version of conversational English. He’d come to the house and begins with, “Hello! Everbody home?” I know the voice and that I’d be stuck listening to his outmoded ideas for four hours a pop.

He addresses the economy and asserts that tons of bananas could be shipped to Japan and Asia. I’d explain that it has to be Chequita banana or something close to it, if not better. Otherwise, even the wild boars in Japan would skip it in favor of home grown pelletized feed.

But do I expect him to understand that the issue deals with applied technology and marketing. His understanding of bananas is the local variety grown here since our ancestral days. Families consume some while the rest is boiled for pig food. Hell, even snorting hoofs would protest if fed such feed two days in a row!

He has no conception about applied technology and its relationship with product improvement. His marketing view is limited to the defunct Saipan Farmers Market and the ongoing Sabalu Market. He’s convinced his arcane views could work!

I’m not knocking his views given that it’s tethered to his experience before the war. But it requires a lot of legwork that must begin with a set of plans resolving what type of bananas are in fact marketable nearby. Upon securing such information, is it something that is feasible and could we in fact meet demand?

The Philippines exports a certain banana to a given region in Japan. It’s a successful venture where it even researches, through a survey, if it meets customer taste. It has since reduced its sweetness and aroma. It continues to be a successful trade to this day. You see, the Philippines is fully equipped with applied technology dealing with both farm and sea produce.

Its coconut industry is a $9-billion sector, though it may have slowed down after a major storm-related destruction to its plantation. But it shows the good that could be reaped seeking help how it has successfully established a globally thriving coconut industry. Interesting that the most expensive coconut oil marketed in Japan is the one boiled the old-fashioned way. Doesn’t this stir your imagination as a possibility and opportunity?

My uncle would wrap our discussion echoing how times have changed and the new culture of mañana that has choked families in these isles into despair.

Illness: Governmenitis!
In church, a voice asked a troubling question about an historic illness that persists to this day Marianas-wide. Tried to ignore it. But it kept creeping back into mind.

Another voice asserted, “It’s governmenitis!” It’s newly coined word, though it has been around for nearly a century. Conceptually, it’s about “everything is government.” Our reliance on government was born after the war. It remains the largest employer, if not employment industry, to date.

Imagine if we could employ ingenuity to manufacture government models. A lot of our products would be highly suspect and unreliable for obvious reasons. I’m not sure our prospective clientele would be enamored looking into the history of the CNMI’s bankruptcy of recent past. On this score alone we would be forced to recall our government model and even be fined for peddling a faulty product.

Not everything in our so-called government model would be negative. It should present a lesson to draw from, e.g., how to steer clear of bankruptcy! The more critical issue on policy formulation would equally suffer negative review. Take a quick glimpse of the local economy to assess what policies do we have to navigate the ship of bankruptcy out of the harbor of persistent lack of buoyancy.

Even more egregious is our special ability promoting policy instability and lack of credibility. Obviously, the inadequacies lead right back to the caliber of policymakers we place to guide growth in these isles. What growth? And so this chapter ought to offer some pleasant reading, if only because it’s good fodder for comedy! Where in hell do you find a unique ability “advancing to the rear”?

We’d probably contract migraine headaches if perchance we devote a chapter explaining, in plain English, why the NMI needs an integrated and comprehensive socio-economic plan. If policymakers find such material way above their heads, please excuse their abecedarian level. Then you the voter should re-examine why nepotism in elections doesn’t help the CNMI by any stretch of the imagination. We need to outgrow this corrosive and regressive attitude! A lot remains to be changed in the malignancy of governmenitis. And it begins with exercising a sense of responsibility when you next go to the polls this November.

Did someone say impact?
The usual “advance to the rear” syndrome reveals itself, time and again, in the recent approval of a casino industry here. Casino proponents are now spouting (a day late and dollar short) of the impact of this monstrosity in the near term. Ignoring due diligence is now habitual!

Well, if the industry were built up north (Marpi) then there would be three huge projects that would require huge sums of federal dollars for the emplacement of basic infrastructure, e.g., water, power, sewer, and roads. Interesting the warp and latent view that we now must be cautious of its impact to the immediate community like As Matuis, San Roque, and Tanapag. We’ve missed our ship called “planning” time and again, huh?

With $60 million available for CIP, is there a chance the entire amount would be earmarked for basic infrastructure up north? Would Tinian and Rota surrender their share? After all, its delegations were proponents of Saipan casino. No rocket science either! When would we ever “plan for” our future over the newly honed method of “plan by” eventualities?