Charting the fate of these isles

There seems to be the prevailing though suspect norm that any idea from within is bad for these isles. I quite don’t understand the adolescent, if not, arrogant attitude that suppresses local participation.

For those who have been granted superficial mandate to forge a plan for these isles, never for a moment forget that your agenda may be a complete replication of the place you hailed from. It will definitely deny these isles and its people its unique identity!

Be that as it may, it doesn’t grant you the right to push ideas in, i.e., tourism development that effectively excludes local sentiments. Your plan must receive legislative sanctioning in order for that package to be THE BLUE PRINT of development here.

I see this as arrogance forcibly though quietly being shoved down the throats of your host: the people of these isles. If this attitude continues, then do not be surprised if your hosts go up in arms to protest their continued exclusion on policy matters that eliminate their sentiment. What do you make of us, anyway?

It needs to be understood that while this plan may be well intended, the outright exclusion of local sentiment is a perfect recipe to light up the fire of discontentment among the local populous. Your ideas may be good, but such ideas fluid without inclusion of local sentiment.

Too, I raise this issue as a forewarning about how locals here perceive plans that are exclusionary at best, a perpetuation of arrogance at worse. There’s a dire need to tread this issue carefully in that there’s brewing an impatient local people for having been excluded in the formulation of policies and plans that deal with their future here as your permanent hosts.

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Decisions that never had the benefit of realistic and reasoned analysis are at best shallow, at worse, a pot shot at issues subscribing to quick-fixes.

We toy with our fate convinced it’s just another political game at the provincial level. We have no inkling of the realities of Washington, D.C. where heavyweight fights take place among real heavyweight professionals.

Friends, to subscribe to the oompah attitude of a fictional King Kong is to dive into the sea of ignorance chancing an issue that merits full guard all the way around.

Are you worried about cost? Why do you wish to save $2 million to chance losing over $200 million in locally generated revenue? It’s not that difficult understanding the ramifications of a federal takeover, is it?

For purposes of disucussion, let’s assume that as a result of our ignorance the very essence of the Covenant Agreement is compromised via a federal talkeover. Ah, someone would have to answer for sinking the economic welfare of our people, right?

Mind you, how soon can you substitute opportunities that we will have lost because of your apparent ignorance so riddled with shallowness? Is common sense too difficult to employ when mapping out the fate of our people when we turn over the rights of governance to be ruled by whimsical mediocrity by assorted Tom, Dick and Harry across the Pacific?

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Someone quizzed that if she were to follow the argument I have presented, then what happens to all the money that now defrays the cost of the CNMI Washington Office?

Answer: Shut it down and let’s put our money where it counts the most! I am not prepared to consistently perpetuate failure in representation. Where has the expenditure of over $12 million for our alleged Washington Office taken us? Frankly, it’s an office as useful as dirt! Shut it down in that it is no better than a liaison office.

Strictly a personal view. John S. DelRosario Jr. is publisher of Saipan Tribune.