SAIPAN — Congressional candidate Galvin Deleon Guerrero said the generation receiving CNMI retirement benefits built the Commonwealth and deserves support, responding Wednesday on Good Morning Marianas to a Settlement Fund notice that the government will stop funding the 25 percent benefit payment after July.
“We call them retirees, but they’re far from retired,” Deleon Guerrero said. “Many of them are taking care of grandkids. Many of them are volunteering for churches. So they’ve supported us. They continue to support us. So I think it is incumbent upon us to find a way to support them.”
Deleon Guerrero said the benefit question is a local rather than federal issue and that he does not envy the position of local leaders facing an economic downturn compounded by Super Typhoon Sinlaku. He said he decided to run for Congress nearly a year ago after watching cuts to programs that benefit the community.
The candidate, who said he has spent three decades in education, called education the solution to the CNMI’s economic challenges and pointed to the islands’ diaspora as an untapped resource. “We fight so hard to bring investors here,” he said. “We should fight just as hard to bring our people back.”
He said tens of thousands of people from the Marianas are working in highly skilled jobs abroad, and that a combination of local and federal incentives along with quality of life could draw them home. Responding to a caller from Tinian who said the island has lost 30 police officers and raised concerns about attention beyond Saipan, Deleon Guerrero said the CNMI cannot compete with stateside salaries but can compete on quality of life, citing low crime and a family-friendly culture across Tinian, Rota and the Northern Islands.
On tourism, Deleon Guerrero praised the Marianas Visitors Authority’s Far From Ordinary branding and said the CNMI’s competitive advantages over other destinations include its beaches and its people. He also pointed to the community’s conduct after the typhoon. “We’re helping each other out,” he said. “It’s not how we roll. It’s how we row.”
Deleon Guerrero said the recovery requires taking the long view. “The word that we often use is resilience. A word I prefer to use is tenacity because resilience is almost passive,” he said, adding that tenacity means getting back up and back in the fight.