ACT 4

My name is Joe Roberto. I teach at Tanapag Elementary School. I have been associated with the trio that Mr. Ambrose Bennett dubbed as ACT 3 (Letter to the Editor, Aug. 24, 2005)—Sapuro Rayphand, James Yangetmai, and Jaime Vergara. They must then be the secular trinity, Persons One, Two, and Three. In such company, hey, I am honored to be numbered! So, I am ACT 4.

Of course, the reason this letter is not being written by ACT 200 is to avoid redundancy. The Governor will soon get the signatures of the teachers who petitioned for another Teachers’ Representative election. I can guarantee Mr. Bennett that it does not stop at 40.

Mr. Bennett must be very desperate to resort back to his derisive tone. We are all just too familiar with his taunting and scornful letters in the past that earned him, even from his colleagues with the TRC panel, their displeasure.

Just when we thought he might have caught on that not too many still pays attention to him, and certainly not the members of the Board of Education whose exasperation finally led them to publicly censure him, he again unleashes his personal brand of venom.

First, in not so very vague terms, he lashes at Mr. Herman Guerrero’s last Constitutional Convention’s leadership. Talk about vendetta! Then, he taunts the Association of Commonwealth Teachers in its process of reorganizing. He whines that he is being unfairly persecuted by BoE, and now, ACT 3, on the one hand, and bragging for allegedly doing a lot of selfless wonderful things for the school system and the teachers, on the other. Wow!

First, let’s get some numbers cleared up. Mr. Bennett has claimed on several occasions that he received the signatures of 74 percent of the CNMI teachers in support of his candidacy to the Teachers Representative office. We learned that the Governor’s office and BoE members had asked for a copy of that list. So far, none has materialized. I would not mind getting a copy.

The election conducted by the Commission on Elections, out of the 500 full-time teachers eligible to vote, a total of 142 teachers cast their votes. Yangetmai garnered 62 votes while Bennett gained 78 votes, a difference of 16.

Hardly a clear mandate, though one must concede, as observed by the Saipan Tribune editor after the election, that the seeming teachers apathy was not one of the Commonwealth Teachers’ glorious moments!

Mr. Bennett predicts that Mr. Herman Guerrero may not be on the board for long. I predict that if the Governor calls for another Teachers’ Rep election, Mr. Bennett is history. But these are two foolish and irrelevant predictions, useful only for their therapeutic value in calming down childish tantrums.

By the way, if Ms. Janet Villagomez, our eminent principal of San Vicente Elementary School, whose last assessment performance made SVES this year’s poster school for PSS public relations, is to be believed, Mr. Vergara was part of a 6th grade teaching team that broke targeted student performance levels beyond expectations. He does not brag about it, but compared to Mr. Bennett’s ego requirements, he does not need to. The record on the pedagogical performances of Mr. Rayphand and Mr. Yangetmai are a matter of record. But they are focused on student learning, not accolade yearning, so I do injustice in lining up and comparing succulent mangoes with an oily avocado!

No disrespect to avocado oils. But when I saw Mr. Bennett’s raised middle finger before a portrait of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and then a letter to the Board of Education stating that this expressed sentiment mirrors his estimation of one of the members of the board, I thought that this dude is one mighty slick asphalt cowboy! But being a Madison Constitutional Fellow, I am sure Mr. Bennett was just exercising his right to free expression, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights!

Well, now I am exercising mine. Yes, I am ACT 4. And for Mr. Bennett, who ran off with his marbles when he bailed out of ACT while still a vice president, I’ll call him ACT Zero. Fair enough?

Joe Roberto
Tanapag Elementary School