The Office of the Governor is “not affected” by the rally spearheaded by Greg Cruz.
“We will continue to work,” Reyes said, adding that they have no time to have a dialogue with Cruz.
“We talked with him before and we gave him an opportunity to be heard,” Reyes said. “But he has become critical and unreasonable,” he added, when the Fitial administration did not give him a government job.
Cruz, in a separate interview, said Reyes should stop acting “as if he is the governor — he only wants a show on island.”
Reyes should prove that Taotao Tano does not represent the indigenous people of the CNMI, Cruz said.
Their call for Fitial’s resignation is reasonable, he added, and Taotao Tano will continue its protest “until something happens.”
Cruz and his group gathered outside the governor’s office on Capital Hill at 1:30 p.m. yesterday. The rally was supposed to start at 10 a.m.
Cruz was with eight children, 12 teenagers and seven other adults.
The group displayed their banner which stated: “We are all suffering. Fuel is a global issue but mismanagement, incompetence, sweetheart deals, under the table deals is not. If you guys cannot fix CUC step down.”
They chanted protest slogans from time to time.
The Reyes sisters — Tacia, 16, Estela, 19, and Angie, 18 — said their demand was reasonable “because we have suffered a lot.”
Christopher Ayuyu, 33, who has been with Taotao Tano for a year now, said people are paying CUC’s debt and the price of fuel is more than the minimum wage.
Aaron Arthur, 15, said the governor is not addressing the pressing problems of the islands.
Another local group, the CNMI Descents for Self-Government and Indigenous Rights does not support Taotao Tano’s cause.
Former Speaker Oscar C. Rasa, spokesman and adviser of the CNMI Descents, said they are only concerned about issues affecting the rights of the indigenous people.
“We are not involved in one way or another with the demand for Fitial’s resignation,” Rasa told Variety, adding that their group now has 2,300 members.
Reyes said Cruz enjoyed the support of the local people, but most of them have formed their own groups.
“He is inconsistent,” Reyes said. “He might be supporting you in one day and next week attacking you — completely unpredictable.”
Taotao Tano’s demand for a complete revamp of the cabinet members is also unreasonable because some of those officials are performing well and have nothing to do with Cruz’s problems, Reyes said.
Department of Public Safety Commissioner Clyde Norita and Department of Lands and Natural Resources Secretary Dr. Ignacio Dela Cruz are doing well, Reyes said.
CUC Executive Director Antonio Muna, he added, is trying to address a difficult situation.
Reyes believes that Cruz is being fed information by some politicians or groups that want to express their sentiments but don’t want to be identified.
“He is not a very knowledgeable person but sometime when you look at his press releases it sound like it came from somebody who is knowledgeable,” Reyes said. “I have seen his writing and he often has grammatical errors. He’s not a good writer.”
Cruz said politicians do not support their group because “they are afraid of us.”
He again challenged Reyes to prove that he applied for a job with the Fitial administration.
