More empty promises from politicians, and journalists not doing their jobs

By Mabel Doge Luhan

Here comes Manabat,
Here comes Manabat,
Right on mvariety dot com!
Casinos and politicians and
Whoever bought lunch is pulling on the reins!
Spell check is ringing,
Grammarians are cringing,
And all is merry and bright!
So hang up your critical thinking,
And prepare for a bunch of lies,
Cause Manabat comes tonight!

You’d better throw a couple of Haldols in my basket when I come around your house with that jingle next Mabelmas!

On June 14th, Manabat teamed up with Si Bolis to feed us another big load of very questionable “reporting.”

“U.S. delegate candidate” — and here I thought the Variety had stopped this usage of “U.S.” that implies the U.S. is a foreign country. I swear on my copy of “The Theater and its Double” that I once saw the clerk at Quick Print firmly insist and argue that USPS mail going to the mainland US is international!

And then we find out that Bolis “favors the reinstatement of Annex VI.” That’s nice. Does he also favor the abolition of gravity? The reform of municipal morals? Three acres and a cow for all children of nature? A million dollars, a baggie of meth, and a straight-piped Hilux for anyone who votes for him? Because all of those are just about as likely, and as easy to obtain, as the reinstatement of this special one-time exemption from US law.

Hilariously, Manabat claims that “The business community has been urging Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and the Commonwealth Ports Authority to apply for the reinstatement…”

The business community? Who’s the business community? The people who called the Variety and who took you out to lunch? The Variety’s biggest advertisers? The clients of its “public relations” firm? I don’t know anyone who would claim that “the business community” (what business community? where?) agrees on anything — much less has a unified stance on something like begging the Feds for yet another exemption from federal law.

Of course: Bolis said it, so Manabat writes it, and the Variety prints it as fact.

No, you don’t “apply” for an exemption from federal law. It’s not a GED or a subscription to Grammarly. You beg and beg and use up all the political capital you have, and try to show all the extenuating circumstances, and promise this is the very last time you’ll ask for a big favor like this, and so on. That’s how you get an exemption from federal law. Amazingly, we got one last time. As a one-time thing. As a very big favor.

And now we come back asking for another one?

Bolis bizarrely says (and Manabat doesn’t question it): “The CNMI is the only jurisdiction exempted from flight frequency limitations…”

Yes, in the past. It was exempted. As it was exempted from federal immigration and minimum wage and Social Security law. That’s not a permanent thing. Getting it back would be a huge, huge ask from the feds. On the order of, oh, I don’t know, asking them to exempt us from the federal ban on cockfighting because the local gambling bosses want it that way — oh wait, we already did that, and got shot down.

Is allowing more flights from China, by means of begging for an exemption from federal law, really how we want to use our very limited political capital? Instead of asking for something that actually benefits all of us, like a sorely needed bailout for CHC or CUC, or improved immigration status for our undocumented workers? As much as the businesses pulling Manabat’s reins want us to believe otherwise, our government represents the people of the CNMI — not the “business community,” whatever the dickens that means.

And it’s all moot anyway.

Because as Governor Palacios has noted, the back-channel communications have hinted to him that even if we asked very hard, it wouldn’t be possible this time around.

Because Chinese tourists aren’t traveling much internationally anymore. Those who are traveling are primarily engaged in money laundering and other “interesting” activities — which generally don’t affect us, but don’t benefit our economy. Even those bonafide tourists who show up in the CNMI come on prepaid tours and bring their food in their suitcases or patronize only businesses defacto owned in China. (As for the fears of Chinese tourists trying to take boats to Guam? That’s true, but I can’t see any way those people harm the CNMI. On the other hand, they are not the free-spending tourists we want, although I suppose they benefit the sellers of gasoline and small watercraft.)

And because as the MVA seems to fail to understand, tourists go to destinations they want to visit. Not destinations that have “seats” or that have wined and dined some airline executives. What (aside from access to the US banking system, US birthright citizenship, and waters near Guam) can the CNMI offer a Chinese populace that doesn’t have money to spend and is pretty much being forced to keep its travels domestic?

Here’s the proof: Most of the tourists coming in on those Asiana flights from Korea were Chinese citizens who had transited in Korea. (I don’t know this for sure, but a little bird told me!) And oh look. Those flights stopped. Because there wasn’t enough demand.

Of course, that’s too many words and too much thought for Bolis’s politicking. He’s going to keep things down to some stream-of-thought phrases and promises that he’s going to fix everything and make the CNMI great again, you just watch. Never mind that it bumps up against the reality of the law, money flows, and the dynamics of actual tourism. Bolis and Manabat don’t care.

Here’s the scary thing: one of these people writes a good portion of the local news, and the other one wants to be our representative in DC. Oh, Beelzebub help us!

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Mabel Doge Luhan is a woman of loose morals. She resides in Kagman V, where she pursues her passions of crocheting, beatboxing, and falconry.