‘What’s in it for me?’

We learned in grammar school simple arithmetic like one plus one equals two. It’s simple addition that stayed the same until recent past. Now, it’s one plus one equals three or better yet, “what’s in it for me?”

Two years ago, senators and representatives from Rota and Tinian voted to revive the casino industry on Saipan. They did so fully aware that back home their people approved of the same industry by a majority vote. Why then a vote to revive an industry that becomes a heavyweight competitor against your own? Where did you drop common sense and sense of reality?

Could senators Francisco Borja and Jude Hofschneider, and Biktot Hokog provide satisfactory answers on their lamed vision of the instant death of the local industry? You revived what Saipan has shot down twice while burying your very own industry? Where did you drop your sense of perception? You slammed the padlock against your own door of opportunities for your people.

How much revenue are your municipal governments generating annually? Are these funds appropriated via the Hokog Resolution form? Is it sufficiently funded thus your deathly action to kill the casino industry at home?

You traveled extensively under the cover of “public interest” when it’s all politics. This has firmed up your expertise on air transportation. In this connection, what have you done to bring in direct flights into Tinian to support the industry? Or do you still need more globetrotting?

Would casino survive on either island now? Did your legislators overlook the fact that Saipan is endowed with all the amenities and infrastructure needed for a successful gaming industry? Briefly, Saipan has a fully functioning international airport, and basic infrastructure though major improvements are needed up ahead and other services. This is where visitors land first before heading elsewhere.

There’s the lure of Managaha visited by more than 80 percent of all visitors who land here. Why bother visiting another island nearby? Was this information under your belt when you voted to kill your own industry? So what kind of an economy did you expect by playing a major role in its embryonic death and economic dystopia?

Appalling why open the floodgates to instant bankruptcy neglecting the future of the young folks you represent who would someday return in search of meaningful jobs at home. Is joblessness your vision of their future? Why kill the goose that is supposed to lay the golden egg?

Gee, didn’t know you guys have already introduced dyscalculia—a disorder understanding simple arithmetic—when we can’t even cure affluenza—waltzing with rich business cronies—as to trash the interest of “we the people.” Your people deserve an answer! Ready to accept the troubling question, “what’s in it for me?” Your arrogance, if not, ignorance or both are despicably appalling!

Without a mandate: Politicians turned a legal opinion into a holy grail ascending into the two top positions on the hill without a mandate. I mean how do you move into the second post (lt. governor) with only 400-plus votes like in the case of Rota’s Biktot Hokog? How do you take the first post without the consent of voters from Tinian and Rota? The missing part of the equation is exactly what I mean by the need for a mandate from “we the people.”

To accept the AG’s opinion as constitutional doesn’t resolve the issue with finality. It still raises the most important issue of the people’s “mandate.” Were you ever voted by the electorate with full understanding of instructions of their aspirations and concerns? You only relied on a legal apparatus that still doesn’t grant you the right to claim the recurring theme of a “vacuous mandate.” Why continue victimizing the people of their rights with your arrogance and political greed? Isn’t it time to humbly call for a special election?

From the outset you missed staying constitutional. Sorry, didn’t mean to hurt your brains with my persistence on this and other related issues. If I have to litigate it I will!

Difficulty at home: The NMI never had the courage to defend its fragile economy when the feds moved in to takeover control of immigration. Half-cocked officials dismissed it as an issue solely the purview of the apparel industry.

Garment manufacturing is history. U.S. Public Law 110-229 is here permanently. It has triggered panic in every sector of the NMI. So much for vision! The feds have sovereign rule on this issue, like it or not.

Be that as it may, it would be quite difficult seeking reinstatement of local immigration control. But it should have dawned on the NMI that its labor needs is an internal issue. USCIS has no business justifying our end of the stick. It’s our duty to do so. We missed the boat once again.

I’m hoping that Obama would find the time to listen to the NMI on this issue. Understood that it’s an issue that could only be disposed by a sovereign country. In this case it’s our national government or the great US of A. Nonetheless, there’s the human side to this issue that Uncle Sam should endeavor to understand. He needs to be accommodating given that immigration goes in tandem with labor.

Spouts that we are “shocked” are no longer shocking. It’s humiliating!

902 Talks: The impending economic disaster from denial of foreign workers has risen to such height it requires higher-level discussion beyond the U.S. Department of Interior.

In other words, the governor must take the issue directly to the White House and present the central issue of economic devastation or annihilation unless the president grants reasonable time to plan for our needs based on a set of plans. It’s the next step to rescuing the economy before it is too late.