STILL THE ONE!

By Troy Torres with contributions from Johnnie Rosario

I messaged Carl Gutierrez on an early evening jog through Tumon in 2021 to tell him that the pavement on Pleasure Island was slippery. Before 7 a.m. the following morning, he messaged back a picture of a guy waterblasting the area. Say what you want about the former governor and head of Guam Visitors Bureau; but, the guy got things done faster and more efficiently than anyone I’ve ever seen.

Mr. Gutierrez’s years as governor were when I began to pay attention to government and to form opinions. He was ubiquitous. Check that. He IS. ubiquitous. That man was fearless, braving the devastation of the several super typhoons during his tenure to direct relief efforts while typhoon-strength winds still were battering the island. And it was always, always, always the neighborhoods of the poor he visited first. He fought the Republicans’ early-out proposal. Only in hindsight did the rest of us see how stupid that program was; Gutierrez was among the few who could foretell the destruction of services it would cause. When Korean Airlines Flight 801 crashed into Nimitz Hill on August 6, 1997, there was Gutierrez with the rescue workers trying to find survivors.

People love that man, because on the days he wasn’t out in front, hands on some of the biggest problems to ever face our modern government, he was hands on solving the problems of the poorest of the poor, the rejected, the judged, the vulnerable, and the forgotten. Thousands of our people will attest to this. They got a chance with Gutierrez, when no one else with power or money would give them a second look.

Governor Gutierrez built a persona and reputation as the scrapper who would stand up to the bullies in the playground who made the weaker kids cry, stole their lunch, and laughed at others. Eventually, those fights he had with the bullies – the people with power and money who have always ruled this island – met up with all the questions that began to form around how he managed to wield extraordinary executive power in order to “solve” people’s problems efficiently.

The Republicans, many of the rich, some in the media, and others called his style corrupt. Many more called it leadership.

In the lead up to the 1998 reelection of Mr. Gutierrez and his lieutenant governor, Madeleine Bordallo, Republican and Guam business operatives allegedly hired disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff to run black operations against the Democrat incumbents. Gutierrez-Bordallo won by a landslide, but would spend the next four years battling super typhoons, the Asian Economic Crisis, the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Republican legislature, and the public threats of prosecution made by the U.S. Attorney at the time.

While the former governor began to lose popularity because of these events, it was the everyday Guamanian – those who asked for help from Carl Gutierrez and never went home empty handed – whose love and loyalty for him palpitates to this day. And while former U.S. Attorney Fred Black lamented his perception of rampant corruption in the Gutierrez administration, no federal corruption charges were ever handed down. In fact, a 2006 report by the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General confirmed that – despite Mr. Black’s allegations to the contrary – the U.S. Attorney’s Office had not been remiss in failing to prosecute Gutierrez in the years immediately following his exit from public office.

Some time after that 2021 exchange of messages between Mr. Gutierrez and I had about the slippery Tumon pavement, I told him that I made a mistake in 2014 by supporting Eddie Calvo instead of him in the gubernatorial election. I think about how many of our people have left, how many are stuck and impoverished. All the kids struggling in homes that don’t have power and running water. All the families who go hungry toward the end of the month. I look at every walk of life at friends’ barbeques and how happy hosts are to see people in need piling plates of food and taking some home.

I think of all our people in need and wonder just how much better their lives might be if Carl Gutierrez was our leader. He may have his quirks. He may be a strong cup of coffee. He may even have sidestepped some laws to get things done. But boy, did that man get things done for us. He stood up for us where everyone else joined the oligarchy he was intent on destroying.

In a crude way, Carl Gutierrez might be looked at as Guam’s Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Not perfectly justified, of course, but still better than what we’ve got now. I’ll take Robin Hood any day above what we have now, where one of our two top elected officials (we soon will learn) has been acting more like Hoodie Robin – taking from the poor to make themselves rich. That, friends, is disgusting. But, we digress.

He has been and always will be known as the poor man’s governor. He made people feel they weren’t forgotten any longer. He made you feel good to be around him. He stood up for the underdog wherever he went. And he never shied away from raising his fists against anyone who wanted to step on the everyday Guamanian.

He was the poor man’s governor. He was the people’s governor. No matter where he is or what he does, Carl Gutierrez is beloved.

Governor Gutierrez, we are proud to say, YOU’RE STILL THE ONE.