This was among the concerns that the Citizens for Changing Article 12 Inc. raised during the discussions hosted by the Saipan Rotary Club at the Hyatt Regency Saipan’s Giovanni Restaurant yesterday.
Efrain F. Camacho, a member of the Citizens for Changing Article 12, said those who are mostly 25 or 50 percent Northern Marianas descent, or NMD, will have their own children stripped of the properties for which their great grandparents shed blood and sweat.
Article 12 of the CNMI Constitution has created some unintended consequences for certain NMD and non-NMD citizens, he said.
Article 12 states that only persons of Northern Marianas descent may buy or own land in the CNMI.
If a child born to 100 percent NMD and a non-NMD marries a non-NMD citizen, that child will be considered 25 percent NMD who will then bear 12.5 percent NMD children who will no longer have the ability to pass on their property under the 25 percent provision of Article 12, Camacho said.
He said this needs to be corrected through voting against the extension of Article 12 in 2011.
Section 805 of the Covenant allows the CNMI to revisit its land alienation restrictions 25 years after the termination of the Trusteeship agreement in 1986.
That 25-year period ends in 2011.
Article 12 prevents NMD or 50 percent NMD citizens or their children from marrying non-NMDs, Camacho said.
Mary Aldan-Pierce asked, “Where is the equity if these citizens cannot inherit properties while others can?”
Vince Seman, for his part, said it is unfair to tell a child who to marry just because the family worries about losing the property in a long run.
He does not think it makes sense to bar a non-NMD spouse from inheriting his or her NMD spouse’s property.
Many members of the present generation, Camacho said, are married to non NMDs.
“If you take a look at 50 percent NMD now, in one more generation, the rights of many of our children to own property will be lost,” he said.
“What the CNMI people need to do as a community is take a closer look at what the Article 12 is all about. So they may see its inequality and unfairness,” he added.
He said he knows at least three families whose children are 25 percent NMDs.
“Those kids are probably going to marry non-NMDs. So their children will not be able to own property in the CNMI,” he said.
The CNMI, he added, is going to suffer if future generations will be deprived of their families’ properties.
