HAFA Adai Madam Secretary Santos!
On behalf of the Matua Council for Native Chamorro Advancement, we hereby submit our OPPOSITION regarding the proposed lease by the officers of Suwaso Corporation, dba Coral Ocean Resort: Hosik (Brian) Shin, president, Eungpyung (Calvin) Park, vice president, and Ji Eun Lee, secretary-treasurer, and its principal shareholder, Micronesia Resort Inc.
Accordingly, the exploitative and abusive public policy in the management of our indigenous lands provided this lease agreement with an additional 15 years, which was 40 years and now an additional 15 years to a cumulative of 55 upon approval of this lease proposal by Coral Ocean Resort.
The following are the reasons for our OPPOSITION of this proposed lease:
a) The proposed appraised value of the land, and policy pertaining to the standard and method of calculation of the land value.
b) The decision of DPL to negotiate this proposed lease at this time given the economic conditions in the Northern Marianas, our neighboring countries, and the U.S., that are nearing economic recession.
c) The proposed lessee, COR has failed their promise and agreement to maintain the adjacent coastal areas of the current Suwaso-COR Golf Course. This site for many years been left littered, the coastal areas are infested with rodents and stray animals because of unattended garbage and lack of maintenance of the sites, overgrown grass, trees and shrubs leaving this sensitive cultural and historical site vulnerable to brush fires; the pavilions are in a state of disrepair; the bathroom is never available to the public since after the ribbon-cutting of the pavilion over a decade ago.
Unai Dangkulu, Sengsong Agingan coastal site has consistently been neglected compromising our critical cultural and historical resources at risk of destruction of our irreplaceable and invaluable heritage of the ancestral Taotao Tano of i Sengsong Agingan, the Rebellion of 1660s or the Chamorro-Spanish War of 1668-1690s; and the United States Army and Marines World War 2 site and artifacts.
More importantly, we OPPOSE this land lease due to the fact that the Department of Public Lands FAILED to provide public hearings in Sa’ipan, Tini’an and Luta for the beneficiaries of these lands to receive their comments because public notice via the newspaper is insufficient and an injustice to the beneficiaries to have access to the decision making process on the management and disposition of their heritage and resources, land is one.
In closing, we urge Secretary Santos to take our OPPOSITION to this lease and seek an open dialogue with us and the rest of the beneficiaries both here in the NMI and those abroad because we are the owners of the Land at Unai Dangkulu, Sengsong Agingan for over 3,500 years.
Again, on behalf of the Matua Council we humbly seek your utmost attention to this important matter. And we thank you in advance for your consideration of our request. We look forward to hearing from you. Should you need additional information, clarification or have any questions please email us at chamorrocouncil@gmail.com/.
Si Yu’us Ma’asi,
LIANA M.S. HOFSCHNEIDER
Matua Council President
