Exposing hypocrisies and conflicts of interest

Kimo, your loyalty is understandable, but unfortunately, naive. You need to step back and take a second look. There’s a huge difference between the Jesse Palacios and Ben Fitial situations.

Fitial is running for governor with full disclosure of his past business experiences. The people voting for governor are fully informed in advance. He has also been a successful legislator for a number of years subsequent to his career in the business sector.

Jesse Palacios’ hiring by MPLA, on the other hand, was not done in the open. It was done without public involvement, while Palacios’ company, Azmar, is still pursuing a permit, and while Palacios’ brother Glen is still with Azmar. Jesse’s claim to have “broken ties” with Azmar is laughable and no evidence to support this claim has been provided.

Kimo, I know that Jesse Palacios is your wife’s first cousin, but the old practice of protecting relatives at the expense of the community is not a luxury we can afford to continue. Our cash-strapped government is on the brink of bankruptcy and allowing vital agencies to be hijacked and used for personal gain is not going to save us!

As to Willie Tan, I don’t know him; I’ve never met him, and he doesn’t know me. I do know Ben Fitial, though, and since you’ve made this an issue, let me tell you why I wholeheartedly support Ben Fitial’s candidacy for Governor of the CNMI.

In the battle to protect the valuable resources of the CNMI people, PaganWatch approached several politicians for help. In 2003, we personally provided Governor Babauta with documentation on the nature of the JG Sablan and Azmar deals and the potential value of Pagan’s pozzolan so that he could take steps to protect this valuable asset.

Did he take any action? Yes, he disregarded the rights and interests of the people and secretly supported Azmar! Some politicians, like Rep. Ramon Tebuteb, turned down our offer of materials to educate himself on the issue and told us he preferred to stay in the background. Fitial, on the other hand, willingly and consistently came through for us quickly and publicly. Whenever we needed him to write a letter or make a phone call, he wrote the letter and made the call. When we asked him to create a task force to oversee the Pagan mining to make sure things were done properly, he made sure legislation to create the task force was promptly introduced. But, as I remind our voters, Senate President Joaquin Adriano shelved the bill and pompously announced to the media that he “threw it away.”

When Jesse Palacios and his team brought Azmar head Ken Moore to a critical MPLA board meeting, not only did Fitial attend the same meeting at our request, but he brought down the entire leadership with him to support PaganWatch. I’d say Fitial did a lot to earn my support. That’s a heck of a lot more than I can say for any other candidate for Governor. Kimo, as Dave Apatang’s nephew, you probably support Heinz and Dave. Why don’t you ask them about that infamous bill that they tried to pass in 1998 that would have permanently barred the former residents of Pagan from ever returning home?

Many of us could still taste the bitterness every time we recall the way we were treated by our so-called leaders whom we invited to our “village meeting” that day in 1998. Heinz and the others from the Hill came to the meeting alright. But rather than giving us the help we were expecting, Heinz stood up there and publicly attacked us. He attempted to embarrass the people by blaming them for the sheer incompetence of past mayors of the Northern Islands—as if we had any control over their actions or inactions!

Thanks to Manny (Brown) Tenorio who later clued me in that it was really Heinz and Jesus Attao who rushed that bill out of subcommittee and tried to conduct a pretend public hearing with no advance notice as required by law. Who ever heard of a public hearing being announced on a Friday to be held just two days after—that Sunday? Fishy! Fishy, eh? This is a shameful example of how Heinz and Dave treated their own constituents.

Finally, Kimo, rather than accuse me of hypocrisy for supporting a politician who stood up for the people, shouldn’t you be joining the fight to clean up our government? Isn’t the job that Jesse Palacios now occupies at MPLA the very same job you were recently forced to vacate? You just might have won some sympathy if the public knew that your failed attempt to anonymously expose the Chairwoman’s hiring of her family members ended up costing you your job. After all, who wouldn’t be disgusted with the transformation of the MPLA from a public agency into a family employment agency? That’s right, “family employment agency.” We mustn’t forget the Babauta kinfolk. Talk about conflicts of interest and hypocrisy elevated to an art form!

Cinta M. Kaipat
PaganWatch