By Nestor Licanto
For Variety
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero delivered her final State of the Island Address Wednesday at a packed session hall of the Guam Congress Building.
Early on, she referred back to her first speech as the newly elected first female governor of Guam. “In January of 2019, I stood in this hall for the first time and made a promise that was simple to articulate and difficult to deliver: We would put our government’s financial house in order.”
In doing so, Leon Guerrero referred to a series of challenges, including the global pandemic and powerful typhoons, that her administration was able to overcome.
She said unemployment is near a record low of 3.2% and turned an $83 million deficit into a cumulative $297 million surplus.
Leon Guerrero also touted the series of pay raises for teachers, nurses, law enforcement officers, and other public employees.
“We do not claim perfection. Nor do we pretend the long, hard march of progress is finished. But without question, Mr. Speaker, I am proud to report Guam is stronger today than it was seven years ago,” Leon Guerrero said to rousing applause.
She noted that tourism, one of Guam’s two economic pillars along with federal-military spending, has been evolving.
“We, like so many of our competitors, are rebuilding our visitor economy in the face of forces we do not control: federal decisions on immigration and visa policy; tariffs that shape consumer confidence oceans away; and global shifts that have left visitor currencies far weaker than the U.S. dollar,” Leon Guerrero said.
But she maintains that Guam’s visitor economy is now gaining momentum, as visitor arrivals have risen sharply over the past year, with December as the strongest month since the pandemic.
She acknowledged that “tourism has always been fragile … and must be paired with diversification.”
She mentioned the second pillar: federal investment, which Guam is experiencing “at a scale few communities in America will ever see.”
She said billions of dollars in military construction, infrastructure, and housing have been committed, with more still to come as a federal Economic Adjustment Committee will work with local leaders on a plan to match defense growth with civilian investment.
Leon Guerrero then pivoted to the highly contentious rollback of the business privilege tax from 5% to 4.5%, which the Republican-led Legislature pushed through after heavy lobbying by the Guam Chamber of Commerce.
But in her recent fiscal year 2027 budget submittal, she has defied senators’ plan to reduce it to 4.0%.
“The budget I submitted asks you to keep the BPT at 4.5%. That decision reflects my legal and moral responsibility to submit a budget I believe is in the best interest of the people of Guam. One that protects essential services and preserves our ability to respond when circumstances change,” Leon Guerrero said.
She scolded lawmakers and said the primary beneficiaries of the BPT reduction will be large corporations, “many of them off-island, that already built the cost of the 5% BPT into long-term contracts years ago.”
Leon Guerrero said the tax break did little to nothing for working families.
Midway through her speech, she raised what has been a key issue for her throughout her time in office, “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a new hospital for the people of Guam.”
Once again she raised concern over the potential loss of $104 million in American Rescue Plan funding by the end of the year if proposed infrastructure projects that have been delayed by court challenges cannot start.
“The attorney general has chosen obstruction and denial — denying with every passing day the opportunity to begin the work of building a new hospital,” she said.
She said the Legislature has also passed on the opportunity, “But what do you win by being on the wrong side of history? No new hospital for our people…. Nothing except a question that will last generations: Why?”
“I fight for this so hard because I see it clearly. I see the modern, state-of-the-art hospital our people deserve,” Leon Guerrero said.
She also addressed another growing concern, the lack of affordable housing.
She said they are addressing it by “accelerating the rehabilitation of existing public housing, bringing long-idle units back online faster than building from scratch. We are investing in first-time homeownership assistance so families who can afford a mortgage are not blocked by closing costs alone. And we are prioritizing multi-family and mixed-use housing.”
Leon Guerrero said they also plan to lower the cost of building by aligning land use, permitting, and infrastructure, and coordinating utilities early so housing does not stall.
Near the end of her speech, the governor took the opportunity to thank her lieutenant governor, who is running to succeed her in the 2026 election. “Before I continue, I want to slow this moment down, just for a bit, and speak from a quieter place.”
She talked about the weight of public life and the challenges of governing. “I have stood in those moments with our lieutenant governor. And I have never wondered what guided him. It was judgment, shaped over time. It was character, steady under pressure. And it was a deep, abiding sense of responsibility to the people of Guam.”
She also thanked her cabinet members, who were all in the crowd, for their service. “At a time when public life too often lifts the self above the common good, they chose the discipline of service — accepting scrutiny, enduring criticism, and making decisions with real families, real workers, and real lives at the center of every choice,” Leon Guerrero said.
The governor closed by thanking the people for their faith and trust in her, “especially when the work was hard and the choices were not easy.”
She said the work is not finished: “As long as the people of Guam keep choosing each other, the work will go on, and Guam will endure — safe, strong, prosperous, and free.”
“Serving you has been the greatest honor of my life,” Leon Guerrero said in ending her more than hour-long speech.
“God bless you. God bless Guam,” she said to a standing ovation.
