After the representatives murmured their agreement, the speaker acknowledged their youngest member who said she had a statement to read.
It was a short address. Not even a two-pager. More than 800 words — about the length of my weekly column. It was, however, an explosive speech and Tina read it without bombast. Her voice never wavered. Her phrasing, the rhythm was just about right. The words were chosen judiciously. She was forceful in her simplicity and sincerity. This, I told myself, seated in the gallery, like it was still 1994, this was the opposite of demagoguery. This was not a politician speaking, but a very articulate, very concerned citizen urging her lawmakers to do what must be done.
I was quite surprised by her colleagues’ reaction. I didn’t expect them to gang up on her. But there they were, one after the other, grudgingly praising her speech…before scolding her. Although, then again, I imagined how it was for them, the islands’ movers and shakers, sitting there to be lectured by a young woman who also had to be unspeakably, irritatingly right most, if not all, of the time.
I also realized that they were talking in different languages, Tina and her colleagues.
Her fellow lawmakers’ outburst was barely coherent. Their remarks, their thoughts wandered and by the time they finished speaking, their meaning was already entangled in the tangan-tangan of their point, if ever they had one.
They asked her to offer solutions, yet her speech was about solutions. She was thinking long-term, but for her colleagues, “long-term” is the next election. They prefer quick fixes and if these result in more problems, then they will “fix” those, too. They like crossing the bridge when they get there. Tina believes that there are other routes to take so they can avoid this infernal bridge that is rickety and decrepit already.
Unlike Tina, when other lawmakers say they want “solutions,” they usually mean “more ways to pander.” She is looking for a permanent way out of the government’s financial crisis while they continue to scrape the barrel so they can fund more baseball fields and new government jobs. She wants an end to the status quo. Her colleagues are clinging to it like a drunk to a lamppost. She wants real change. They’re looking for spare change.
To his credit, one of the veteran politicians in the House admitted that it is difficult for the Legislature to change.
The word itself is problematic. When Tina says “change” she means a better way of running this government. When her colleagues and most of their constituents say “change,” they usually mean a return to the “better days,” the economic booms that marked the Teno (specifically his second term) and Lang administrations, when problems could be solved by funding anything and everything. Precisely why the CNMI is now in such deep financial kimchi.
There is no question that the CNMI has to change, and to change in ways that Tina and the ever growing number of like-minded citizens are advocating. But do the people want to see that change?
It means, first of all, electing a new slate of officials — is that possible?
Whatever we want to say about the current leaders, most of them mean well, in their own way, and they are trying to solve the CNMI’s problems as they see fit. They are always helping their constituents who expect to be helped by their elected officials. They are telling the public what it wants to hear.
And so although most of the people agree with Tina’s views, they also like their government jobs, whether they’re essential or not, and they want to see a return to the old, practically subsidized, power rates, and they refuse to let go, or, what amounts to the same thing, adequately pay for the generous scholarship, homestead, retirement, medical referral programs and other government dole-outs they now consider as their entitlements.
Those who want change should remember that they are the products of the very system they want to change.
Send feedback to [email protected]
