TWENTY-FIVE years ago, the CNMI was struggling to make sense of the sudden economic downturn caused by the Asian currency crisis. The financial contagion was global in scope and had weakened the CNMI’s two major tourism markets, Japan and South Korea.
There was also a newly elected CNMI administration in 1998, and among its first pronouncements was the phrase, “Taya Salape!”
The Department of Finance, however, assured taxpayers that their refunds would be out by July. At the legislative building, a newly elected House member said the previous governor should be investigated “for his role in the missing…rebate funds.” The House member said his “phone has been ringing off the hook,” and “concerned and angry constituents [were] upset….” Another lawmaker said the House and the Senate should form a joint special committee to investigate the “possible liability” of the previous governor over the “missing rebate funds,” and his approval of “sole-sourced” contracts. Asked for comment, the previous governor said the new administration “should look for revenues instead of blaming him for the government’s cash-strapped condition.”
Meanwhile, CUC was struggling to fix a 13-megawatt engine that “conked out,” and was “requesting” garment factories and hotels to use their generators, and the public to “conserve energy.” CUC’s former executive director said the government should have repaired CUC’s generators when they broke down two years ago. Asked for comment, CUC’s public information officer said they would have fixed the broken generators earlier if their former executive director “had not left CUC with so much debt.”
As for the new governor, he and business community leaders headed to Japan to find ways to revive the local tourism industry’s largest market. “We just can’t sit here and do nothing,” the governor said. “We have to talk with tour agencies and find ways of helping them bring in the tourists.”
The Marianas Visitors Bureau — MVA’s predecessor — was also “doing something.” It donated $250,000 (worth about $466,000 today) to the Northern Marianas College Foundation for the construction of a business and tourism training facility on the NMC campus. The facility “will give students…[pursuing] a degree in hotel and management…hands-on training.” MVB’s outgoing board chair said there was also a need to “diversify” and “tap other markets” such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. The Fish and Wildlife director said transforming the Northern Islands into a “commercial hunting ground for feral animals that abound there” could bring in more tourists.
But according to an airline executive, visitor arrivals “may not be able to normalize in three years” due to the economic difficulties bedeviling Japan and South Korea. “Our number two market has pretty much evaporated,” he said, referring to South Korea. As for Japan, he said the devaluation of the yen against the dollar “is causing a lot of problems for tourists that come to dollar-based [destinations such as the CNMI]. They can’t afford it as much as they used to.”
The CNMI’s economic crisis, however, did not prevent lawmakers from proposing “popular” measures that the government could not afford. These included a resolution calling for the “construction of medical clinics in each of the island’s public schools.” And a bill to extend (generous) CNMI retirement benefits to Trust Territory government retirees. The NMI Retirement Fund said providing benefits to retirees who did not pay any contribution to the Fund “is not financially sound. With the dwindling and uncertain financial future of the government, it is not the right time to be enacting legislation of this kind.” The bill, which was introduced in an election year, was “political” and an attempt “to make the Fund into a political tool.” Shocking indeed.
In his delightful weekly column titled “Brewed,” then-MV reporter Jojo Dass wrote about “what it’s like to be” in Variety’s newsroom in those pre-social media/smartphone days. “It’s not an exciting place in the morning,” Jojo said. “There’s nothing much there but rows of computers and piles of paper — usually faxed statements and press releases. Of course there are editorial assistants and the editor himself browsing the wires [from] international news agencies…. But other than these, there’s really nothing. Life in the newsroom begins shortly before lunch when reporters start coming in, telling the editor what they’ve got so far…. [T]he rush begins….”
In the newsroom, Jojo said, “[you’ll] see reporters walking aimlessly, talking to themselves while trying to figure out what the official they have just interviewed was really trying to say. Or reporters who wear shades in front of the computer monitor. Or reporters with wild mood swings: lonely [one] moment, agitated the next…. There’s Raffy ‘What-do-you-call-that?’ Arroyo who can always be found pulling his own hair. And there’s Zaldy ‘The poet-boy-suka [vinegar]’ Dandan who would talk about the Twelve Emperors of ancient Rome and the intricate politics [of] Washington. And then there’s Mar-Vic C. Munar in her fashion-defying ‘I’m-an-artist’ outfits who jostles for the CD player to play her bizarre music….”
Fun times.
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