Good choice
ON Monday morning, just before he was sworn in, the CNMI’s 10th governor made one of his first crucial decisions as chief executive. He chose — wisely — to deliver a levelheaded and gracious inaugural address instead of an earlier version that sounded like a gloating stump speech his partisans would have surely relished. However, the election is already over, and the inauguration ceremony is not a political rally, but a solemn occasion that celebrates the Commonwealth’s democracy and the people on whose behalf their elected leaders govern. And the people included the 45% of the electorate who did not vote for the new governor.
“We must not forget,” Gov. Arnold I. Palacios said, “that we also need to listen to each other with civility [and] respect. There is a time and place for civil disobedience, and now, more than ever, civil discourse and consensus-building are necessary.”
Or as Governor Teno said in his 1982 inaugural address, “The past administration is history…. I am more concerned with the present and the future….”
Steady hands
THE CNMI’s new governor and lt. governor are the oldest men to be elected to those positions, and they are rightfully proud of that distinction. They are “seasoned politicians,” as Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang would put it in his splendid inaugural address. They are the grownups — reasonable men who know how to work together and who are aware that there is “no need to reinvent the wheel anymore….”
“Our Commonwealth ship might sail faster and might sail slower,” the lt. governor said, “but Governor Palacios and I will never take risks to sink our Commonwealth.”
We know they won’t because we know who they are: prudent, pragmatic, clear-eyed leaders.
Crunch time approaches
THE new governor and lt. governor also acknowledged what their predecessors and other political leaders in the past have repeatedly pointed out: the government is too big, and it costs too much which is a huge problem whenever the economy tanks. And the economy, as we all know, was knocked down by Yutu, and put in a coma by the pandemic. The ARPA funds that are keeping the CNMI government afloat, as the lt. governor noted, will be depleted soon.
Then what?
As in the past, the economy will improve if more tourists will visit the islands, and a new major investor comes in.
But if neither happens soon, then we’ll be where we’re at in the first 13 or 14 years of the present century — government austerity measures, reduced working hours, furloughs, layoffs, mindlessly desperate tax/fee hike proposals, people leaving the islands, and slow motion regression to the TT era.
