Year in Review

The Issue: The most troubling year for these isles since fifty years ago has got to be the Year 1999.

Our View: We hope the crisis has reached bottom so we can begin rebuilding the bridge of prosperity.

Perhaps the most troubling year since the end of World War II in these isles is the Year 1999. The plunge of the local economy has resulted in the forced closure of more than 2,000 tourist related businesses. This incident translated into job scarcity in both sectors. The number of applicants–between 70 to 200–for every job opening highlights the severity of the slide in the local economy.

This slide in revenue generation has made the delivery of essential public services an uphill battle amidst simultaneous increase in demands for more funds by leaps and bounds. It puts through critical test and challenge the skills of local leadership in the management of our scarce financial resources. It’s a good lesson to learning the basics of living in both good and bad times.

We’re very fortunate that we have as titular head Governor Pete P. Tenorio who’s an experienced business executive who firmly guided our ship safely through the rough seas of major revenue decline. But we shouldn’t feel alone. Even Japan and tiger countries around the Asia Pacific Region weren’t ready for the consequence of the crisis that started slowly but surely since nine years ago.

Too, the NMI again survived the frivolous agenda of a federal takeover which started in 1993. Truth has helped our cause in our rights to maintain self-government. We will soon be able to review what the lead federal agency has undertaken to compromise the democratic process on both sides of the Pacific. The irony of such an agenda under the lame duck Clinton administration is the trumpeting of an apparent vacuous commitment to ensure that the “economic good times” doesn’t “leave anybody behind”. What of the people of these islands?

Our most profound sense of “Si Yuus Maase`” to the most powerful member of the US Congress, Congressman Tom DeLay, for rescuing the only group of US Citizens who are not represented in the most powerful chambers on earth whose rights and hopes would have been dashed by special interest groups such as the US Textile Labor Unions.
We owe the same word of gratitude to Congressman Don Young for putting this controversy into perspective. These gentlemen deserve all the accolades for protecting our rights against the frivolous economic interests of labor unions.

Indeed, it has been a very bad year for everybody! But let us hope too that we’ve learned our lessons in the receding history of the current crisis. Let us also regroup and seek proactive measures in the new millennium that would bring greater hope and prosperity to these isles. Happy New Year!