{"id":281187,"date":"2018-07-31T06:06:16","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T22:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=281187"},"modified":"2018-07-31T06:06:16","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T22:06:16","slug":"we-must-protect-what-we-have-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/we-must-protect-what-we-have-now\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We must protect what we have now\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Former Senate floor leader Sen. Pete P. Reyes, left, and former lieutenant governor Diego T. Benavente answers questions from reporters after announcing their support of the GOP ticket of incumbent Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and his running mate for lieutenant governor, Senate President Arnold I. Palacios. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the lieutenant governor back then under former governor Juan N. Babauta, Diego T. Benavente remembers what life was like more than 10 years ago when the CNMI economy went south.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was also at fault back then. Include me [among] those who had failed,\u201d Benavente told reporters in Thursday\u2019s news briefing when he and former senator Pete P. Reyes announced their support of the GOP ticket of incumbent Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and his running mate Senate President Arnold I. Palacios (R-Saipan).<\/p>\n

Reyes is an adviser in the local Republican Party, while Benavente is a GOP national committee member.<\/p>\n

Now that the CNMI economy is recovering, Benavente said it is important to protect that recovery and to continue the progress that has been made. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things to be said that we have now that we need to protect versus what happened in the past,\u201d he said. \u201cAm I making things up? Am I lying about the things that I\u2019m saying? Of what we experienced and what we went through and the struggles of our people? Now, there\u2019s progress that has been made and we see the improvements in people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benavente said he was first elected in 1990 when the CNMI budget was only $60 million and saw it increase to $240 million in 1997 when he was the House speaker. The CNMI, however, failed to foresee the future and had no safety net when things become rough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose [1990s] were great years. The mistake that we did was we didn\u2019t save for the rainy day. When the rainy day came, we all suffered. And that to me, if I were to look back, was the biggest mistake I made,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It is, thus, important for people to remember the struggles back then, he said. \u201cI hope our people won\u2019t forget what was life like more than 10 years ago. For some reason, our people in the CNMI take things for granted and we forget easily. What we\u2019re doing is reminding the people that let\u2019s not take things for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reyes, who was in the CNMI Senate during those times, also remembers. \u201cI remember how hard life was that time. The 64-hour work, cutting down employment. Those were hard times. I don\u2019t know anyone in the Commonwealth, including the critics, that ever looked back and see those kinds of difficult times and comparing to what we have right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be blind not to see that comparison,\u201d Reyes said.<\/p>\n

The former senator pointed out that one cannot deny the achievements of the current administration. \u201cI don\u2019t think that somebody would come out and say \u2018What he has done?\u2019 He\u2019s done much that\u2019s visible and not hidden that people could question. People can see progress. He wants to prevent any hardship for our people and he has done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some critics of the administration, Reyes said, point out that a lack of employment even without presenting facts. \u201cBut what did this government do? They presented facts and here are the employment records that hire locals to the workforce. All are based on factual data.<\/p>\n

Data presented by the administration saw a 27.7-percent increase of U.S. citizens being hired in the workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they said there\u2019s a problem with employment, di they present data and facts? It was just\u2026an irresponsible statement. It tends to disrupt the progress that\u2019s being made,\u201d added Reyes.<\/p>\n

Former House speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider, who is gunning for one of the two Senate seats for Saipan, said that only 25 percent of the CNMI population felt the local economy improve, leaving 65 percent behind in the poverty line\u2014a claim that Reyes questions.<\/p>\n

Saying he respects Hofschneider but questions his allegation. \u201cHe\u2019s an intelligent guy. But when he said that, did he present facts? Did he show statistics? I don\u2019t see that and I listened to him on Facebook. I didn\u2019t see any presentation of statistics and data that backs his statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the governor comes out, many statistics were presented. These are the statistics in local employment and backed by data. Traceable, factual, and reviewable data.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admits that there are still some residents who are unemployed. \u201cYes, there are still people that are still unemployed or need jobs, but [that\u2019s their] choice. If they want a job, they can get one since there are many job opportunities now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reyes said guest workers are only temporary since the long-term goal is to train locals to enter the workforce. \u201cWhy do we need CW workers? Because jobs are not being filled. We don\u2019t need CW workers forever, because we hope that they would train our people to replace them once we have the human resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re supporting [the Northern Marianas Trades Institute] 100 percent, because they are actually producing workers and these people are getting out and getting employed. Their rate of success is very high. [The Northern Marianas College] is also producing nurses at a very high rate, nurses that pass the [licensure exams] in one take. These are measurable results.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the lieutenant governor back then under former governor Juan N. Babauta, Diego T. Benavente…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":281190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,141,21,67],"class_list":["post-281187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-gop","tag-life","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}