Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, right, swears in Dwayne Lizama Maratita as Marianas Visitors Authority’s board member representing Rota on Friday at the governor’s office.
DWAYNE Lizama Maratita was sworn in on Friday by Gov. Arnold I. Palacios as the Marianas Visitors Authority board member representing Rota.
“I’m so glad to be here, and I’m honored. I will do everything in my power and my best ability to serve the community and serve the people,” Maratita told reporters in an interview at the MVA office.
He said he is happy to use his experience to help bring more tourists to his home island of Rota and the rest of the CNMI.
Despite the CNMI’s economic crisis, Maratita is very optimistic about the future of the tourism industry.
“I’m sure that alongside the Office of Governor, like I said, with the Marianas Visitors Authority, we will achieve what is necessary just to maintain it. We’re not looking at a million tourists coming in in the next couple of years or so, but gradually, it’s a process. And what it takes is just coming together and really devising a plan and sticking to the plan, and eventually everything will work. I always have been a believer in sustainability. As a grant writer, it’s important that at any time that you submit a proposal, you emphasize it, you reiterate it’s a sustainable plan. So that’s important to me. All CNMI residents should be grateful for having an awesome team here at MVA. Like I said, I’m grateful that I was given this opportunity.”
Maratita mentioned the acquisition of several statues that can help improve Rota as a tourist destination.
“We already have the sculptures on Saipan and so we’re … shipping them over to Rota. We’re looking at [installing them] by mid-December or early January. That’s something new for our tourist sites back home. There are six wildlife [statues] and one 14-foot Chamorro chief statue that we’re going to [install on Rota]. We’re going to be placing the statues at the ancient latte quarry. That’s a new attraction for Rota and I’m absolutely guaranteeing that it is going to enhance our tourism activities on Rota.”
He added, “Tourism has just been hard on Rota lately, but I am optimistic that one step at a time I hope to see it thriving once again.”
He said when he was “growing up you couldn’t even enter mom and pop stores on Rota because there were so much tourists. That’s what I want to bring back. Slowly but surely, maybe not at that volume, but of course, with all the concerted effort, like I said, with the assistance of the Office of the Governor. We’re so grateful from the beginning, and the governor has always been assisting us as well as the lieutenant governor. That’s one thing … to put a plan in place, a strategic plan, so that we can be able to sustain the tourism industry on Rota and the entire region.”
Born and raised on Rota, Maratita served as an officer of the Transportation Security Administration. He also worked for Bank of Guam and Bank of Saipan before getting into government service in 2003 as a student support services coordinator at the Rota campus of Northern Marianas College.
Maratita later became a resident department head for the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, and was a public relations officer for former Rota Mayor Efraim Atalig.
He also served as a grant writer for the Office of Grants Management under the Office of the Governor.
Agita T. Quitugua, the previous MVA board member representing Rota, resigned early this year.
In a separate interview, MVA Managing Director Chris Concepcion said, “We’re very excited. Rota is going to be represented on our board, finally. It’s been vacant since … earlier this year. So, we’re excited to have [Maratita] on board. He will bring his experiences with him and he’s going to be able to work with us to bring in more tourists to Rota.”
MVA Board Chair Gloria Cavanagh, for her part, said: “It’s been a while, I think since March, when Rota was represented on the board of directors. We’re very happy that Director Maratita was finally confirmed and then comes on board. I mean, just from today alone, he seems to be very eager to help his community on Rota through MVA. We’re very excited about him being part of it and we’re hoping that he’ll be able to immerse himself into what we do and what we’re all about.”
