Let the voters decide

The rejection of SLI-17-10 by the Senate leads me to believe that they do not fully comprehend the devastating effect Article 12 is now causing the owners of private land in the CNMI. My biggest concern with Article 12 is the eventual deprivation of ownership of land by our future generations. Worse yet, the damage is affecting us now.

Section 4 of Article 12 defines “Northern Marianas Descent” or NMD.as a person who is a citizen or national of the United States and who is of “at least one-quarter Northern Marianas Chamorro or Northern Marianas Carolinian blood or a combination thereof.” This tells me that a person whose blood quantum is less than one-quarter Chamorro or Carolinian blood or a combination thereof will not have the right to own land, no matter what.

Section 4 goes on to state “.a person shall be considered to be a full-blooded Northern Marianas Chamorro or Carolinian if that person was born or domiciled in the Northern Mariana Islands by 1950 and was a citizen of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands before the termination of the Trusteeship.”

From 1950 onward until the termination of the Trusteeship in November 1986, we had the U.S. Navy administering Saipan. Tinian and Rota was administered by the TTPI. The U.S. Coast Guard was here also. Some of our own family members “intermarried” with non-NMD’s.

In 1962 when the Navy moved out of Saipan, the U.S. Trust Territory Government Headquarters was established. Many of its employees were mixed: Micronesians, Guamanians, Filipinos, Americans, etc. Some of these employees “intermarried with NMD’s.

After we became U.S. Commonwealth in January 1978, many of our young men and women left the CNMI to seek formal postsecondary education. While attending universities in the U.S. or medical school in Fiji, they found someone they love and were married to non-NMD’s.

We continue to witness intermarriages between NMD’s and non-NMD’s.

Please look around and see what is happening and what is going to happen to the NMDs that our leaders are trying to protect.

Ironically, some of our members of the current Legislature are at the verge of losing their children’s right to own the land they might be planning to pass down to them.

The constitutional definition of NMD began in 1950. Sixty-two years later, there have been a number of NMDs inter-marrying with non-NMDs. On the assumption that 21 years may be determined as one generation, 62 years would equal three generations. The CNMI being a “melting pot” with at least 20 dialects and languages spoken, there is bound to be many intermarriages taking place now. Ethnicity in the CNMI is rapidly changing and there is nothing we can do to stop it. If the Legislature earnestly and honestly wants to protect NMD’s then they should pass a law to outlaw marriages between NMDs and non-NMDs. Better yet, nullify all marriages between NMDs and non-NMD. Do we think it will work? Of course not.

Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to give back the right to own land to the respective owners and keep the government from meddling on our personal affairs? Who can better manage my affairs and my property if not myself, the owner?

Someone recently asked, “.In 75 or 99 years, how is the government going to determine who is NMD and is not NMD? Do we have to see a doctor to take our blood and see if I am an NMD? And if that won’t work, I guess we have to hire a lawyer and fight out in court?” Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler to give back the “fee simple land” to the owner and let him handle his own affairs?

There are realtors, appraisers, and title insurance companies that are licensed to help out for a fee. Make use of these firms for advice. They have ethical standards under which they operate. Go and see them.

The government has enough headaches without having to take on other people’s problems. I ask the lawmakers: Pass the initiative so that voters will exercise their fundamental right to express their views on election day.

David M. Sablan Sr.
Papago, Saipan