Troubling signs of the time
I took a cruise around the island last weekend to see if anything new has come up by way of major construction projects. The answer, troubling as it may seem, is ZERO! It’s a tale of the NMI’s (keeping my fingers crossed now) last economic slide to the bottom of the pits.
Hotel projects that took off some four years ago have remained but skeletal structures meeting the break of dawn and dusk hopelessly, naked. Nothing much has happened. Buildings that have sprung up during the boom years have remained quietly eery with “For Rent” signs still pasted on glass windows for several years now.
This phenomenon hasn’t changed since then. I find it awfully troubling for it means the worst has yet to come. This condition would eventually turn ugly and nasty. Governance will be hard pressed to search for realistic answers from all political trade horses vying for the most coveted seat here: Leadership! And each must be ready to justify his plans.
Six to eight years of nothing but destructive protectionist measures, coupled with the picnic attitude, is sufficient to have forced people at the village level to endure 12 years of near abject poverty. It’s troubling in that it seems that our trusted public servants have no inkling of what’s in store for these isles when passivity effectively supplants proactivity.
A lot of these setbacks were triggered by ignorance, arrogance and an inability to conceptualize the fatal effects of passivity or grand mañana. Is there really a future for our children under the circumstance? This should be the battle cry of young people whose future is at stake. They should ask prospective leaders for some realistic answers.
For now, I am troubled by what’s coming down the pike as we head towards the end of this year. More businesses would shut their doors and leave together with the Luggage Squad. Yes, there may be more investments coming in, but it will take a minimum of at least three years before they go into operations. The void–revenue loss–won’t be filled for quite some time too.
How unfortunate that as revenue generation slides further south, the need for more nickels and dimes pile up by leaps and bounds. It means that somehow city hall must buckle down and institute an attrition program from A-Z in order to stay solvent. I’m hoping too that we will not be headed to that dreadful PAYLESS FRIDAY any time soon. If perchance it happens, then it should be expected given our grand mañana of “business as usual”.
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Lighter Side: A national survey found that some people won’t have enough to eat last Holiday Season. But then, it was the obese who said this and not those stuck with abject poverty. Strange tidings, huh?
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For many years I refused to acknowledge the existence of Chamorro-English. But then, I was at a family party when one of the kids was complaining of being forced to take food for her friends. Said she: “This guys `nai keep ‘taguing’ me to bring them plates of food.”. It must be the evolution of lingo, eh?
Strictly a personal view. John S. DelRosario Jr. is publisher of Saipan Tribune.
