Kutturan Chenchule vs. kustumbren chenchule

The Mariana Islands dubiously were called Islas de Ladrones following a west-meets-east misunderstanding that brought property rights to a confrontation with ancient Chamorro culture in March, 1521. It’s been more than 500 years, and boy have we done well to excuse clear theft, rationalizing and assuaging our consciences in a flirt with culture.

Kutturan chenchule, or a culture of reciprocity, is beautiful. It is cultural for us to lend a helping hand and resources to people in need. When someone invites us to a party, we show up with a bowl of homemade potato salad. When some guy’s car is stopped in the middle of the road, we turn around and swing in front and reach for the jumper cables. A friend’s relative died? We drop an envelope of money into the chenchule box at the funeral.

In our kutturan chenchule, we know that what goes around comes around. And, if most of us stop to help others in their time of need, someone is bound to stop and help us in ours.

I want to believe, as a Chamorro, that nothing in the cultural history of the Chamorro people says it is okay to steal from people.

Yet, since the dawn of self governments in both Guam and the CNMI, a tradition of theft disguised as kutturan chenchule has pervaded, arguably growing into the monstrously corrupt political systems we suffer through today.

I think a lot of this has to do with our confusing a culture of reciprocity, with a custom of reciprocating. That custom is neither unique to the Marianas nor a practice with which we should be proud.

Andrew Jackson is believed to have said, “to the victor go the spoils,” in rationalizing his award of federal cabinet positions and jobs to people who campaigned for him to be president in the 19th Century. Look where the Spoils System got America.

We have a tendency to excuse theft from taxpayers. For decades, government employment has largely been about the reward of public jobs for footwork in the election campaign, or a promise of support for the next. This is corruption, plain and simple. It just happens so much, ironically this custom of ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,’ has become cultural in our contemporary period of self government. Here’s another pun appropriate to the context: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Thus, though we despise corruption, the system is rigged so that many times the only way to make a living on our islands is to yield to the corrupt, and paint ourselves with the same shade of unethical gray.

And it isn’t just public employment. That’s peanuts compared to the contracts cronies can get because they’re related to the governor, supported him or her, or benefit people in the inner circle.

Cronyism infects society and cripples the market. Look how obviously-good public policy fails to be implemented, while special interest legislation benefits elite interests, who donate to political campaigns on Guam. One of the single-largest contributors to our cost of living is the Jones Act, but nary a peep from senators and the governor. The enormous cost of home rentals can be dropped overnight if the government pushed the military to make one simple change to their housing policies. No one is pursuing this. It is believed more than $100 million in cigarette taxes have not been remitted to the government of Guam, but it is taking years for officials to implement a system of accountability for collections.

Shipping. Real estate. Cigarette distributors. Take a look at the people and companies who donate to political campaigns.

Corrupt politicians on Capital Hill, Saipan, weren’t even trying to hide their corruption in the BOOST scandal, and with the use of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal pandemic funds. The list of people connected to the Torres administration, who were vendors of the failed casino, was unbelievable, especially considering the amount of money the casino operator owed in taxes and fees. You’re a Chinese national with a questionable alien status in the United States? No problem, for a small fee, you can get a Real ID without following the law. 

We accept these jobs or these contracts by reasoning and judging ourselves qualified despite the absence of real competition and objective assessment of merit. We close our eyes to the clearly unrighteous offeror of the dispensations. And we see it all as a quid pro quo. I did something for you, now you’re doing something for me. It’s part of our culture, we tell ourselves.

No, it’s not. It’s a destructive custom of reciprocating one favor for the other, and it fails the test of whether it meets the mark of kutturan chenchule: Is it right? Is it mindful of the community?

And then there’s the function of it all. Taking $20 from your bank account, putting it in an envelope, and dropping it into the chenchule box, makes the chenchule a gift from you to the family of the dead. The official making the political hire, or signing off on a crony contract is taking money from taxpayers to pay for this cronyism. It would be like stealing $20 from a stranger, and dropping that off at the funeral with your name on the envelope!

It is not culture. It is cronyism and theft. And there should be a special place in jail for Chamorros – most especially – who perpetuate this bastardization of our culture in order to qualify their misdeeds as culture, when it clearly is not.