“Noel you are the doom and gloom guy. Just disappear please.”
Wait, you may miss the nuggets of ideas that flooded my inbox from different places across the globe. Only give me a minute or two and I’ll relay to you the responses I got from concerned citizens that read my two letters to the editor. Who knows, we might learn something.
I received emails from as far as Thailand and the Dominican Republic. I also received emails from the U.S., the CNMI, the Philippines and Japan.
Based on a brief analysis of these emails, 98 percent of the senders hate me to death, 1 percent kind of sympathize and the last 1 percent are friends. This is what I expected and I’m glad, at least, they sent me those hate mails after reading my two letters. If the tally was the other way around, I’d be very sad.
Now, why is it that despite the hate I seem to be joyful and feel that I have accomplished my goal? You may stop reading this if you don’t like me to continue. At least you have given me your time to reach this stage and I thank you for that. Otherwise, please proceed.
What I’ve learned: the chance of meeting, winning and making new friends is high because I know that if I submit another letter in the future it will be read again especially by those who hate me. They will again find ways to pull me down and knock me off next time.
But I will not disappoint them because this time they will not see any good or constructive ideas in this, my final, letter to the editor.
Here is one of the hate mails:
You shut up; where did you come from and tell us all this crap? Who are you? I hear the other guy shouting from the top of his lungs saying, “Noel you are nothing and a stranger here. Can you leave us alone moth @@@@ #### %%%%% xxxx.
That is censored by the way. It is off the chart hate.
Here is my reply: I love you because you found time to read my two letters. Unfortunately, you do not like the way I presented my approach and you thought and feel that I’m your enemy. I am not. You may not know me now but I tell you I cherished every bit of my 24 years in the CNMI.
People are lovely, caring and friendly and accepted me as a guest from a foreign country. By the way, I’m from Porac near Angeles City, Pampanga province in the Philippines. To my friends, colleagues and to those that considered me as their adopted son, how can I forget that? Tell me. How can I not care? Why do I bother to write a letter to the CNMI while I am here in Virginia? Figure it out.
I am once your guest whom you welcomed from a faraway land. We were together at parties, we laughed, met on the beach, perhaps at some government functions and in the church. I didn’t talk too much because English was my second language but I still managed to stay the course and met more friends, colleagues and those I called my parents-away-from home. By the way, I lost both my parents at an early age and I assumed the responsibility of being both dad and mom to my six younger siblings.
I do care, as simple as that may sound. When I read the news, I was deeply saddened. When I left the Retirement Fund the stock market was beginning its freefall in Dec. 2008. The following year, in March 2009, the stock market recorded its deepest drop since the Great Depression. Why am I saying this? Because 76 percent of the amount of the unfunded pension liability depends on the performance of the stock market.
I was already in Virginia when the CNMI Superior Court awarded the Retirement Fund $230 million but the problem is that the CNMI government has no revenue to pay for it.
I sent billings to the central government to collect employer contributions. The Fund administrator will show you how thick those piles of billings have become.
Ask the board legal counsel how we worked day and night to get an accurate account for everything that was due to the Retirement Fund.
Folks, it was not easy and that was just the Retirement Fund. I was also tasked as the financial caretaker for the Group Health and Life Insurance Program and the Workers Compensation Commission.
Did my job performance meet the expectations of the board? Again, I have a short answer for you. Ask the Office of the Public Auditor how the three agencies performed during my watch. Did you know that the three agencies received commendations from the Office of the Public Auditor during my term? Find the proof out there and Google what the audit results were.
Why did the Fund need to go to court to collect what we knew belonged to it and why did we pay so much in legal fees? Well, how else can we defend the Fund? Think for a moment. Was it worth obtaining a $230 million award from the court?
For the haters, go ahead, shout at the Fund management and staff at the top of your lungs. I can’t blame you for doing that because you don’t know the ins and outs of what we’re doing. We are not just sitting there comfortably in an air-conditioned office. I traveled back and forth to the private offices of the board legal counsel and the former chairman in addition to planning and thinking about what we had to do on the following day.
It is not fun to work at the Fund. I envy those that just time-in, wait for their breaktime then time-out. We don’t have that luxury at the three agencies.
I don’t like this silence. Where are the haters? We cannot hear them anymore.
Now that you know, I promise this will be my last letter to the editor. However, I have some unanswered questions I mentioned in my second letter. If you are interested to know my take on all that, I’ll try to discuss them next time, if you want.
Lastly, I will no longer use my former title because I know you don’t like me saying it anymore. All I ask is that we continue to be friends and colleagues. CNMI, I am still your adopted son. That’s it. I’m done for today. Thank you for reading our side of the story.
Si Yu’us ma’ase.
NOEL M. SORIA
Virginia Beach, Virginia
