1998: A year of dreadful anxiety

The Year 1998 started out on the wrong foot: The newly sworn chief executive had to focus his attention instantly on the oversight hearing in Washington on plans for a federal takeover of the NMI.

Winner: NMI and thanks to Governor Pete P. Tenorio and the Marianas Team for its untiring and dedicated efforts to protect the integrity of self-government guaranteed the NMI under the Covenant Agreement.

Loser:The US Department of Interior’s OIA for a failed attempt to pursue an agenda even against the consent of the indigenous people who sacrified and layed their lives on the spirit and letter of the agreement.

Hopefully, we ought to see the result of the Inspector General’s report on OIA’s activities using US mainland taxpayers money to lobby against this group of US Citizens. This event turns the focus of attention to the next level of discussion: Do we continue this whimsical relationship or opt for an arrangement that truly respects our inalienable rights to self-government?

It was also a year when policy formulation came under critical review by the private sector. There’s the obvious inconsistency in defining lasting economic policies when mirrored against actual policies that are protectionist at best. It isn’t a very conducive approach to helping current investors muddle through these difficult times, nor will it really help our desired image to making these isles a truly investors’ paradise.

Winners:The Luggage Brigade who packed up and said “adios” before the deepening crisis took the better portion of their investments here.

Losers:The indigenous people who were short changed by the apparent warped sense of leadership on policy formulation.

Looking Ahead:We all learn (keeping my fingers crossed now) from our misgivings and how some politicians have placed self-preservation and platitudes above the interest of the people they purport to represent. Let’s hope something would turn for the better in 1999.

It’s still a beautiful world

Never mind our misgivings this year. Let’s join hands and look ahead with renewed commitment to do what is right to stem the tide of a deepening economic crisis.
1999 must begin with both sectors coming together under a single roof to trump out how the public sector can aid businesses muddle through this crisis. If it means tax breaks, so let it be a temporary sacrifice until they’ve recovered, financially. We can only tax healthy businesses that are bustling, not those who have slipped into busting every penny they have scrounged up.

We may even have to entertain the idea of reducing personal income tax to enable consumers to spend a little with the goal to patronizing businesses hanging on the thin thread of survival. It may be a bitter pill, but a pill that we must swallow in order to extend a helping hand to all sectors of the NMI Community.

If 1999 turns out to be a year where revenue generation contracts even further, then the issue of personal sacrifice becomes a matter of necessity and not an option as we know it. Either everybody rallies behind the governor to pitch-in by way of a reduction in work hours or we shall see a reduction in manpower all over.

Finally, let’s “Hang Loose”. It’s New Year’s Eve. Ring the bell of the Year 1999. Albeit all the hardship that we had to endure this year, it still is a beautiful world in which you too play a key role to turning the tide of events in our favor. Have a good one and Happy New Year!