WHEN is a donation not really a donation? A donation, in the sense that I am speaking of, is derived from “donare,” to present, and from “donum,” a gift. In short, a donation, as my Webster puts it, is the “act of making a gift, especially to a charity or public institution.” A donor is “one that gives, donates or presents” a gift. A donation, then, is not a donation when no gift is made and when there is no donor to make such a gift.
Apparently, here in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, there is an exception to the plain meaning of the words “donation” and “donor” as defined above. From time to time, we are reminded that some elected officials “donate” their salaries to the CNMI scholarship fund.
As recently as March 19, a front- page story by Haidee V. Eugenio in the Variety reports that two congressmen have not voluntarily taken a 10 percent reduction in pay but rather have “donated” their salaries to the scholarship fund. Such munificence, in our present economic state, would surely be an act of noblesse oblige. Ah, but in the light of Public Law 10-88 (Feb. 1998), such “donations” are, at best, made with many a wink and at worst with a bit of legerdemain aimed at enhancing one’s political capital. P.L. 10-88 states that elected officials who are entitled to either a salary or to retirement pay may choose to waive their salary which is then re-appropriated to the scholarship fund without further legislative action. A re-appropriation ain’t a donation and it should not be called one. In short, an elected official has no choice regarding what happens to his or her waived salary: it goes automatically to the scholarship fund. To state the obvious: to make a donation, you have to reach into your pocket and take out your own money and then give it away as you choose. An elected official, regardless of the cause, cannot “donate” public funds, period.

WILLIAM R. BARRINEAU
Puerto Rico, Saipan