Saving the Northern Marianas

The issue is about saving the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas from the relentless assaults of its detractors to impose a federal takeover that would trigger a complete economic meltdown of our fragile island economy. It isn’t about saving tourism and other industries here.

We recall the efforts we’ve taken to fund promotional campaigns on tourism in Japan. We’ve even retained the services of a high powered advertising agency and paid top dollar for its services given the importance of saving what was then our primary industry. The tourism industry continues to go further south despite our best efforts.

Local leadership must sift through the maze of confusion and come to grips with the far reaching destructive effects of federalization being pushed by our detractors. Federalization alone has proven to be the most unstabling factor in luring lasting investments into the Northern Marianas. It has portrayed instability as an investment venue from proposed policies being sought from without, including policies from within that have at best, re-echoed or reinforced instability, discouraging lasting investments at worse.

Indeed, most policy-makers and average citizen can’t readily see the powerful undercurrents of instability such shifts in federal policy has brought against the NMI nor have we been able to take a true glimpse of the consequence of shortsighted internal policies that have strangled current and future investments here. And it all came at a time when our fragile island economy started contracting as a direct result of the Asian crisis. If you will, the effects of this crisis has yet to bottom out.

Local leadership must not allow federalization to set-in because it failed to see the bigger picture. This negligence would wreak havoc or complete meltdown of the local economy as a result of self-inflicted negligence. It would be a bigger crisis originating from our propensity to see the trees over the forest. Such negligence would force the closure of more businesses, the very sector that coughs out money to defray the cost of public services in, i.e., education, health and others.

In short, if the NMI can pay several million dollars for tourism promotion in Japan, it stands to reason that it can also find the money to retain a high powered public relations firm in Washington to guard against any further campaign to compromise our rights to “attain a progressively higher standard of living” as a member of the American Economic Community. It’s now or never and we hope that we focus on this vitally important issue, now! Si Yuus Maase`!