‘Article 12 discriminatory and should be removed’

Article 12 is discriminatory and should therefore be removed from the CNMI Constitution, the Citizens for Change of Article 12 yesterday told Rotary Club of Saipan members and guests.

“Our goal is to remove it hopefully in 2011. It needs to be removed so people can dispose of their personal property [instead of the government dictating them what to do with it],” group president Efrain F. Camacho said during the Rotary Club of Saipan meeting at the Hyatt Regency in Garapan.

Camacho and other members of the non-profit group reiterated that abolishing Article 12 gives everyone the complete right to do whatever they want with their own property, including giving it to their loved one even if that someone is not of Northern Marianas descent as defined in the Constitution.

“I don’t want to leave this earth knowing that my kids and grandkids and their kids and so on will not be able to own the property I pass down to them,” Citizens for Change of Article 12 treasurer David Sablan reiterated.

The Citizens for Change of Article 12 has been meeting with business groups, students and other members of the community to share their findings on the discriminatory nature of Article 12 with the hope that they make an educated decision on what to do with the land alienation provision come 2011.

Last week, the group was the guest speaker at the Saipan Chamber of Commerce’s general membership meeting. A few weeks ago, the group met with some students at Northern Marianas College.

Camacho said they will also be visiting villages to conduct a similar education campaign.

Article 12 restricts the fee simple sale of CNMI real property exclusively to persons of Northern Marianas descent and other constitutionally qualified individuals based on certain political definitions.

Section 805 of the Covenant allows the CNMI to revisit its land alienation restrictions 25 years after the termination of the Trusteeship Agreement in 1986.

That 25-year period will end in 2011.

Besides Camacho and Sablan, other group members who were at the Rotary Club meeting were vice president Sen. Frica Pangelinan, secretary Vince Seman, Alex Sablan, Marian Aldan-Pierce, and Rose White.

Informational materials about Article 12, which were distributed during the meeting, stated that a child born to 100 percent Northern Marianas descent and non-NMD descent couple would be considered 50 percent NMD based on blood quantum. If this child should marry a non-NMD and they have a child, that child would be 25 percent NMD.

One more generation of marrying a non-NMD will produce a child with 12.5 percent blood quantum and that family’s ability to pass on their property would be lost under the 25 percent NMD provision of Article 12.

The group said this is an unintended consequence of Article 12 and needs to be corrected by not extending the provision in the November 2011 elections.