continues. Locals are moving to Guam or the states. Businesses are shutting down. Guest workers are going home. The number of empty buildings along Beach and Middle Roads are now too many to count.
Continental’s decision to end its direct flights to Manila and the reaction of CNMI leaders are further indications of how bad things have become in the commonwealth. The first time Continental canceled its Manila flights was in 1998, at the height of the Asian currency crisis, and some CNMI officials went ballistic when the airline made the announcement. Now it is as if everyone here is already resigned to the inevitability of bad news and the end of the Saipan-Manila flights is just one of them. On Capital Hill, a collective shrug of shoulders while we ordinary folks tsk-tsk and brace ourselves for the next round of gasoline and power rate increases and the resulting cost-cutting measures that businesses will have to impose, again, on their weary workforce.
Some officials say they may ask other airlines to continue the Manila flight service, but airlines, unlike the CNMI government, cannot waste its money on unprofitable ventures. If the route makes money other airlines should be knocking on the CNMI’s door by now. But apparently, the route is a losing proposition in this era of high aviation fuel prices. Otherwise, Continental would not have abandoned it.
CHC has to make adjustments to its medical referral program. Nonresidents who do not have U.S. visas that will allow them to transit through Guam will now have the chance to fully appreciate the interiors of the airports in Narita, Nagoya or Seoul, where they will have to stay for up to seven hours just to get to Manila.
The local economy began its downward spiral 10 years ago and, since then, we have all watched helplessly as things fall apart. By now everyone knows that there is no quick fix. What is compounding the problem, however, is the CNMI government’s pigheaded failure to adjust to its worsening financial realities. Businesses and people continue to make adjustments, but not this government. Its judicial branch won’t even consider a measly 10 percent pay cut that won’t be implemented during the current term of justices and judges. (A justice serves an eight-year term. A judge, six years.) During budget hearings, all government agencies, which are basically employers of voters and nothing more, will point out how really, really vital they are and why they need more money.
Instead of imposing real and significant spending cuts and creating a better investment climate, the government has increased the cost of doing business here by raising power rates, fees and creating more red tape. Then, once in a while, you read about an elected official expressing concern about the number of people and businesses fleeing the islands.
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The ruling party, which cannot even run a power plant, at least still knows how to appeal to local voters. Through demagoguery.
In a media release last week, the Covenant Party — a.k.a. the RepubliTan wing of the local GOP — announced that it remains “the only political party upholding the rights and interests of the people of the CNMI.” It says some Republicans support the Pew monument proposal and the federalization of local immigration. But it doesn’t mention that Republican lawmakers pushed the adoption of anti-monument and anti-federalization resolutions. It says the Covenant Party “is the only political party to consistently oppose federalization of the CNMI’s immigration and minimum wage laws.” But it didn’t point out that under this Covenant administration, the CNMI government lost control over local minimum wage and immigration policies. The Covenant Party says “maximum local employment must be our first priority.” But it also opposes a wage hike, which can help make private sector employment more attractive to locals. Moreover, it increased power rates and government fees, which made life harder for the struggling business community — you know, the sector that pays the taxes that fund government jobs.
In any case, once the governor’s political career goes gently into the good night in Nov. 2009, the party that gave the CNMI this disastrous administration will be gone, too, its members returning to their old parties like migratory birds in search of warmer climes.
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