Respect your host

Walking home after class in the late ’60s, I’d see huge buses heading north from the old airport. The three busloads piqued my curiosity. Actually, it was the beginning of the tourism industry here.

This typically depicts how investments have come to the islands, none of which was from a fully thought-out plan. It started from well-meaning friends from the Land of the Rising Sun and other Asian countries.

Troubling how we still don’t see the need for a plan of our own. It must be indigenous! Troubling? How so, sir?

Anyway, one of the buses had a group of Japanese that have returned to see the place of their birth and home before the war. Indeed, it must be one heartwarming sentimental journey home.

An embryonic economy started evolving, including other investments that gravitated to the islands, perhaps because of its proximity to Japan and Asia. The combined investments allowed the NMI to collect sufficient revenue to supplement basic public services in health, education and public safety, among others.

Sandwiched: Since birth, I’ve lived under the umbrella of indigenous culture comprised of local tradition and religion. It emphasizes respect and sharing that focuses on the whole family or community over the individual.

While the indigenous people may have adopted some impositions from colonial powers, they have held on to respect and sharing as the holy grail of cultural strength.

Colonial rulers must have been puzzled by their own foggy view of our contentment. I’m sure too that they must have come up with boatloads of condescending names for the indigenous people like “basura,” “wegwerfen”, etc.

Our life of “contentment” focuses on community that de-emphasizes the individual. It’s a natural cultural demeanor in island communities that must be rooted in the notion that we come from small islands.

Moreover, we’ve never bothered anybody nor did we invade another country for our needs. Ours are on the tiny land and vast ocean around us. We take care of today’s needs right here and now and take care of tomorrow’s at the next break of dawn. This was and still is our way of life!

So don’t be surprised by “our ways” or, better yet, put your standard in your locker until your return home. Respect the ways of your host!

Contraction: Later, though, the clothing industry was shuttered and Nippon investments headed to jet ways, leaving a huge revenue gap beyond our wildest imaginings. There’s nothing in our books that could cushion the degenerative financial effects of investment losses. Shows the ultra-fragility of an island economy hardly the beneficiary of realistic planning.

It’s a troubling shift in the entry and exit of exogenous investments that simply left behind a bankrupt NMI. It was one heavy and difficult experience. Yet the elected elite is grandly oblivious to the need for thoughtful planning. It’s ke sera in perpetuity! Really?

The troubling query is: what’s the root cause of investors walking to jet ways with their luggage? Did we offend them so egregiously?

I quietly probed it, only to find out that it is in the adolescent attitudes of shallows among the elected elite, clueless of it all. In the process they ruined the quality of life of the very people they represent in our governmental institutions. Despicably disgusting and humiliating!

Obviously, stability rides high on mature leadership. Unfortunately, it’s as scarce as good local mango. How timely the call, “Wake up, Marianas!”

Sacrifice: Many of the investments that found “home” here since the late ’60s are family-owned businesses built steadily through the years in the old country. They took the risk to see if expanding in the NMI would grant both side reciprocal benefits.

They endured both good and bad times, optimistic that something would break for the better. Difficult times came and they stuck it out.

The idea using genealogy to rob exogenous investors of their lifetime sacrifice is despicably humiliating and definitely illegal! Whatever happened to cultural values? Is this a modern business model that I didn’t find in my leisure book, Super Freakonomics?

Remember when we snubbed Nippon investments in recent past? Didn’t we lose over $7 billion in revenue that used to be recycled in the local economy? Do you wish to repeat the same dumb arrogance and ignorance against your own people?