SENATORIAL CANDIDATES

MARIA FRICA TUDELA PANGELINAN
Democratic Party

Personal Background
Spouse: Joseph Ito Pangelinan
Children: Frank, Lynn, Geraldine and Joey, David

Educational Background
Elementary: Mount Carmel School, Saipan
High School: Mount Carmel School, Saipan
College: BBA, Management, University of Guam
Master’s Certificate, Public Health, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Professional/Employment Background

Maria has been an entrepreneur for over 15 years. She has owned and been managing businesses that she has formed in the area of real estate, retail, and services. She has held a variety of positions that have enabled her to gain experience in multiple disciplines of business operations and government services. In government, she has experience in commerce, public health, finance, and legislative processes. In private business, she has been primarily involved in marketing agricultural and fishing products and local food.

She is also a volunteer for PARA HITA GHIISCH, a local women’s group, supporting the Youth Learning Center in Garapan and women’s program. She developed and re-wrote the Board Policy and Regulation for the Public School System as part of her free contribution service to the government. She is currently a member of the Saipan Zoning Board and Advisory Council for the Saipan CREES Program, Northern Marianas College.

Served as Special Representatives to the Governor in the Covenant Section 902 Negotiation

Elected Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention

Served as Advisory Panel Member for the Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress, to provide input and guidance in preparing the OTAs Report, Integrated Renewable Resource Management for U.S. Insular Areas.

Prepared an Assessment Report for the Pacific Basin Development Council on farming activities in American Samoa

Civic Involvement

– Organized the First World Food Day Awareness here in the CNMI

– Campaigned in Japan and London against Nuclear Waste Dumping in the Pacific. Attended the London Dumping Convention under the Friends of the Earth Organization

– Organized and participated in the leadership of the following non-profit organizations: Girl Scout, Boy Scouts, Northern Marianas Women’s Association, Indigenous Group, Northern Marianas Catholic Social Services, Saipan Chamber of Commerce, Pacific Educational Conferences

Q. What would you consider the top three issues or concerns facing the CNMI that demand immediate action from our government?

A. The top three issues are the deficit, including the unfunded pension liability, balancing the budget and the current economic climate.

Eliminating the deficit is one of the fundamental issues in reviving our economy. It restricts investment in economic growth, damages our ability to make infrastructure improvements and provide basic services. It lowers the standard of living of our people; it makes us more financially dependent on unpredictable outside sources. It requires that a growing proportion of government revenues be devoted to servicing that deficit, and the interest. It will impose an enormous burden on future generations, forcing our children to deal with an even greater set of problems than we face today.

The unfunded pension liability has a profoundly adverse effect on our economy and those beneficiaries that have made their investment in our Retirement Fund. Both Government employees and Retirees are already experiencing difficulties directly resulting from this situation. Equally troubling is the way all people of the CNMI are being affected. Time, attention and funding that should be directed to our future are being spent on this problem. The sooner we free ourselves of this, the better.

When a budget is out of balance because of spending more money than is available, the only possible solutions are to increase revenues or decrease expenditures, or a combination of both.

Reviving the Economy is in great part an outcome of the CNMI getting its financial and regulatory affairs in order, creating a stable economic climate that welcomes business investment.

Q. What ideas can you bring to the table to revive the CNMI economy?

A. We need to encourage businesses to stay and expand, by our actions as well as our words. Before enacting legislation, we need to carefully assess the long-term and short-term consequences. This will greatly reduce the number and frequency of amendments and reversals in legislation that has plagued the CNMI. Successful businesses assess risk factors and plan long range. They can and will avoid investing where constantly changing laws create an unstable or unpredictable business environment.

We compete with the world when inviting businesses to come to the CNMI. They must and will weigh all factors when deciding when and where to invest. Our laws regarding taxation, permitting, building, and land use must be competitive with other locations. They must be advantageous, uncomplicated, stable, transparent and coordinate seamlessly in order to bring and keep business investment in the CNMI.

We created a Free Trade Zone in anticipation of the expiration of the Multi Fibre Trade Agreement, and the WTO regulations taking effect in 2005. We need to market the availability of this zone, taking advantage of its full potential.

We need to encourage businesses that diversify into areas such as:

– Trading
– Becoming or welcoming “middleman” businesses that “push paper” but where products don‚t necessarily physically pass through the CNMI
– High-tech manufacturing
– Value-added manufacturing
– Intellectual or “cerebral” products
– Computer programming
– Software development
– Shipping brokerages
– Exports and imports on transshipment of materials through CNMI.
– Exploiting our exemption to certain provisions of the Jones Act
– Eco-tourism
– Revenues from economic growth are one factor that can greatly reduce the deficit, if we team it with fiscal responsibility.

Q. What is your vision for the Commonwealth? And what are the steps that must be taken to achieve that vision?

A. My vision is to have a high quality of life for our people, a world that our children can and want to live in as adults, a clean and safe environment, a positive relationship with the United States Government, economic self-sufficiency for our families and our government, and a growing tax base.

We must work to create an environment that allows and welcomes our young adults to raise their families and invest their hard earned educational and vocational expertise in the CNMI. Those who pursue higher education abroad bring back with them new and unique perspectives that are a valuable long-term asset for all. The young people who live and work their entire lives in the CNMI are the cornerstones of continuity for our families and community. We need both to build a better future for the CNMI.

We need to educate ourselves and incorporate into our lifestyle, information about the causes of pollution. We need to engender unified action, both public and private, to protect and save our island resources, not just for the tourism industry, but also for the long-term health of our people.

We need to continue to have the U.S. Government assist us build our island economy and infrastructure, and we must have something tangible to show for that investment. Clear examples of this need are; improvements in water delivery and quality, power generation and delivery, and roads and inter-island transportation.

As a people, it is time for us to decide what we want the CNMI to look like in 50 years. We need to develop a comprehensive, long range plan. We would not be the first region to create a long-range plan for the future. This planning is common in local and regional governments, and is also widely used in business. Virtually every successful business has a long-range plan, and most failed businesses do not. Comprehensive plans outline goals, and the incremental paths each governmental sector must take, and when. Implementing such a plan would help coordinate various agencies as they allocate their budgets, and serve to measure final decisions. This plan is part of the governmental and regulatory stability that investors need, and they will look at it.

Our leaders must address economic development issues. We cannot have quality of life without economic development. The two are inseparable.

We have western laws, western culture, we are representatives of the U.S. lifestyle. We are the U.S. gateway to Asia. Making use of this unique status is a large part of the key to the future economic success and self-sufficiency of the CNMI.

Q. What needs to be changed in people’s ways of thinking and doing things as a means to achieve your vision?

A. We must make fundamental changes in our perception of the purpose of our government. Our government exists only for the benefit of the CNMI and its people. The CNMI and its people do not exist for the benefit of the government. This is an essential premise and we must not lose sight of it at any time.

Many of our people with wonderful entrepreneurial skills have entered government service because it was ultimately more safe and lucrative than trying to navigate the CNMI‚s difficult and confusing business and permitting regulations. We have discouraged entrepreneurship by our citizens and outside investors with these uncoordinated and ambiguous laws. This must be addressed and corrected.

Legislation generated by the CMNI must be for the greater good, and in keeping with comprehensive and coordinated long term planning.

The work necessary to turn our economy around will not always be easy or comfortable. It took the CNMI several years to get into this crisis; it will take some time to get us out. We often listen to the issues and say that we support change. When that change starts to affect us personally, it can be disturbing and unpleasant. By rolling up our sleeves and getting involved, we can have some control over how the changes affect us.

One of the few things I can absolutely promise, is that things will and do change. We are one piece of a large world. Economic, political and natural events that occur elsewhere affect us on a daily basis. We must continue to educate ourselves to work with these forces.